Disclaimer: If you don't know by now then you never will. Stephenie Meyer owns it all. I'm just having fun.

Chapter 13: RUNNING

Jasper POV

"Jasper can we talk?" The nervousness coming off Edward was unbelievable. I didn't know what he wanted to say but whatever it was had him on edge which in turn had me on edge.

"Only if you calm down." I closed my eyes hoping to calm him so that I could get a better hold on my own emotions.

"Sorry, I guess I'm still not use to living with an empath." He moved to sit in the only real chair left in this room.

Alice had done a number in here. Everything that wasn't nailed down was pink or some form of pink. I hadn't known that there were different shades of colors until I met her. Three years ago I simply thought there was pink, red, blue and the normal others. Now I know that there are cinnamon and ocean foam and blush. Why you need new names for the same old thing is beyond me.

"It certainly looks different in here." Edward was looking around with something between disgust and amusement etched on his face.

"Alice loves her pink." I told him.

"I can see" His eyes kept darting around. "Did you get to chose anything in here?"

I pointed to a desk that housed my civil war books and a few old mementos from both my human and beginning vampire lives. "That was about it."

"Wow" He smiled. "I wonder will it be the same when Be…" He trailed off still not facing me.

I let him continue to look trying not to push him. I could tell that he wanted to talk about Bella but I didn't know what exactly he wanted to discuss. He could have wanted to talk about their relationship or the threat to her or just general Bella knowledge. In that way I envied him. I loved Alice. She was everything to me but there were times when it would have been nice to have someone that I could go to for advice. Someone that knew her as I did and could give me advice or explain things that might be over my head. Things like her compulsive shopping or why I was living in a pink room.

I knew I couldn't read his mind but his emotions were so all over the place that I found myself worrying. What if something more than I knew was going on? Had something happened with Bella that I didn't know about? I knew that they had gone hunting yesterday, what if they had ran into something or someone.

"Edward" I needed to know. "Is everything alright?"

"Um" He stammered. "Not really"

My breathing sped up. "Why? What happen? Is Bella okay?" I asked in rapid succession.

"I don't know" He finally looked at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Well everything had been going great." He started. "That was until Alice's surprise party. Since then Bella has seemed so distant. Like she is pulling away from me and I was wondering if she has been that way with you too."

I stopped and thought back over the last three months since that failed party. Had Bella been acting different? We hadn't talked as much but I had assumed that was because she was talking to Edward. I missed our walks but I had assumed she was with Edward. Matter of fact, I hadn't seen her randomly around the house a lot either but once again I had assumed it was because of Edward. But now that I think about it a lot of the time that I had thought she was with Edward he had been there. In the room somewhere or right outside. I could remember one time when she had walked outside and I had thought she was meeting Edward but I could hear him playing in his music room.

This could not be good. I knew Bella and if she was being solitary there was only one reason why. I stood up ready to track her down. "Do you know where she is now?"

Edward stood too. "No, why?"

"Because she's planning to run." I told him.

"What?" His eyes hung out of his head.

How did you explain a lifetime of knowledge in a few minutes? "It's classic Bella." I started. "She is impatient as hell and she has a tendency to think everything is her fault. If I know her she is thinking how she has put us all in danger but if she leaves then we can go on with our lives without worrying about Maria."

"But that's stupid." He cried. "Doesn't she know that I love her? That my life was nothing before she came or that it wouldn't be worth anything if she was gone?"

"Probably" I felt for him. I could feel his frustration and sadness and I echoed it. I wouldn't be the same if something happened to Bella. Not because of the guilt I had once felt or even the commitment that I had made to protect her but because she was part of me. She really was family.

I thought about all the other Cullens and Alice, who would be beside herself. She and Bella had finally started to really bond and she would be heartbroken if she lost her. Hell so would I; so would Edward. Didn't she see that? I knew she was trying to protect us and if the situation was reversed I would more than likely do the same thing. But Maria hated us both. She wouldn't just stop at destroying Bella. She would come for me too.

"When was the last time you saw her?" I asked him. Maybe if he told me what he knew then we could find her and talk some sense into her before she ran off and got herself killed. "What did she say?"

"It was this morning" He told me. "We went for a walk around Esme's garden and she was talking like normal."

"What did she say?"

"That she loved me no matter what." He shrugged and I knew that the casual move was just to hide the fact that he was dying inside at the thought of losing Bella. "She mentioned you and Alice and how important you two were and how glad she was that you had someone. She told me how glad she was to have met the family and that she loved every one of them."

He hadn't seen it but it was as clear to me as if she had come in with her coat on and her bag under her arm. "She had been saying goodbye." I shook my head. Bella would have dropped all those things into the conversation just like she was mentioning the weather. Of course Edward wouldn't have noticed. She would look up at him and all he would see was her opening up and miss that she what she was planning.

I ran out the room to hers with Edward on my heels and threw open the door. I walked over to her closet and looked inside. "Alice" I called. If anything was missing she would know with a quick glance. I looked around the room as I waited and stopped at the stand by her bed.

"What's up Jasper?" Alice asked walking into the room. I wanted to tell her but it was too late. I didn't need her confirmation. I walked over to the nightstand and ran my hand over the vacate area. Bella had already gone.

"She's left" I whispered.

"What?" I could hear Alice walk further into the room as she spoke but I couldn't turn around. How could she have done this? How could she leave me? "Who's left?"

"Bella" I felt the pain rock through Edward at that one word but I could help. My own pain was over shadowing his. I knelt before the empty spot willing her house to be there but it wasn't.

"No" Alice moved closer to me. "She wouldn't do that. Not with Maria after her. Not with Edward here. There has to be some mistake."

I ran my hand across the top again remembering when we had broken into her old house. It had been five years since I had turned her and we were finally back in Texas. She had wanted to just see the house and I felt I owned it to her. We had snuck away from camp and made our way back. I had been hit with grief and guilt as soon as the field had come into sight but Bella had kept her cool. She was surprised to see that it looked like the farm was still own by her family. She reasoned that one of her brothers must have taken over after her disappearance. I don't remember how she had talked me into breaking in so she could see her old room but when next I looked up we were there.

It was strange how it looked as though she had never left it. Like she had lived in it those five years she had been with me. We had hid in the closet when someone, I believe she had said it was her sister-in-law, had walked by and had both been impressed that we hadn't given in to the bloodlust and taken her. We were about to leave before pushing our luck when her eyes feel on this small, hand-carved, wooden house. She picked it up with such reverence and held it close. She told me her father had made it for her. That had been the first and only time she had talked about him until that night a number of months ago. She said that he gave it to her so that she would always know home. There was another noise and we had slipped back out the window running all the way back to camp. Bella had clutched that house to her heart as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Ever since then that miniature had stayed beside her bed or at least someplace close no matter where we went.

I leapt up. If she was crazy enough to run then I was crazy enough to follow her. She couldn't have gotten far if Edward had been with her this morning. I ran down the stairs hoping that everyone was there and was rewarded.

"Everyone I need to know the last time anyone saw Bella." I told the room at large. If I could pinpoint when exactly she left then maybe I could get a better idea of where to look.

"I saw her sitting on the swing outside about an hour ago" Rosalie shrugged.

"Why?" Emmett asked looking tense. I didn't know if he was picking up on my emotions or if the look on my face was giving away my concern. "What's going on?"

"Bella ran away" I shared.

"What?" I heard Esme's hurt voice behind me. "Why?"

"She's trying to protect us." Alice guessed. "It's what I would do." She smiled at me. "Don't worry we will find her."

"Are you sure she's gone?" Esme asked.

"Yes" I looked around. "She took her wooden house."

"Her what?" Rosalie questioned.

"She has a wooden house that she keeps with her that her father made for her years before I met her." I explained. "She doesn't go anywhere without it."

"I see" Edward spoke for the first time since we had gone into Bella's room. "That was how you knew."

"Maybe it's in Edward's room." Rosalie tried.

"No" Edward told her. "I've never seen it."

"So she really left" Esme sounded as if she was about to cry. "We have to get her back."

"Absolutely" Emmett stood pulling Rosalie up with him. "Where should we look?"

I looked around. Everyone standing there was looking like they were ready to take on the devil himself if it would bring Bella back. The concern I was feeling had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the love they felt for Bella. This was so much more than an army of soldiers about to sacrifice themselves for the advancement of one. This was a band of hearts giving everything they were to help; to bring back one of their own. I was so lucky and so was Bella.

"She couldn't have gotten far." I put myself in Bella's shoes. She wouldn't have left without planning and Edward had mentioned that she hadn't seemed right for awhile so that had to mean that she had a roadmap. If Rosalie saw her on the swing and then she left that meant that she didn't take any clothes.

"Alice I need you to go upstairs and see if any of Bella's clothes are missing?" No sooner had I finished Alice was gone. She came back moments later.

"A few things but not enough that anyone glancing at it would notice." She informed.

"Okay so she had to have had them stashed somewhere." I reasoned out loud. "If that were the case then she would have to pick up her things before heading out. If she was running vampire speed and she had them close then she could already be on her way to town."

"Town?" Emmett interrupted. "If the goal was for no one to find her wouldn't the woods be a better place to hide. I mean Carlisle works in town."

"True but it's the best place to blend in." Rosalie answered for me. "In the woods we could track her smell but in town there are so many humans that she could get muddled. It would be the equivalent of a needle in a haystack."

"Exactly" I was impressed by the way she had grasped what Bella was thinking. She was good. "We should call Carlisle as ask him to keep a look out but I doubt she would go anywhere that she thought he would be." I thought long and hard trying to remember if there was another town near here that Bella might run for.

"About an hour from here." Edward answered my thoughts.

"We need to cover that too." I looked over at him. "Maybe send Rosalie and Emmett there since she drives the fastest other than you and I'm going to need you in the woods."

"I agree" Edward came to stand beside me.

"What are you two talking about?" Emmett questioned sounding frustrated. He hated when we had conversations in Edward's head.

"I wondered if there was another town nearby and Edward answered." I let him in on the plan. "You and Rosalie need to cover that one and we'll have Carlisle look in his since he's already there. That way both areas are covered. Alice and Esme can stay here in case she comes back and Edward and I will comb through the woods trying to pick up her scent to track which way she went. Maybe we can catch her before she's gone too far and gotten herself in trouble."

"Why do you two get to hunt in the forest?" Emmett looked between Edward and me.

"Because her scent is strongest to us." I told him.

"And why are Esme and I stuck at the house?" Alice whined. "She's my best friend and I should be out there looking for her."

"Alice we need someone here in case she comes home." I rubbed her shoulders. "Besides we need to stay in groups of two in case there is trouble." I kissed her forehead.

"Fine" She hugged me. "But be careful and remember I'll be watching."

"I will" I hugged her closer pulling hope from the feelings that she inspired in me. I then turned to Edward and noticed how lost he looked. I pushed my new found hope out toward him. "Ready to find her?"

The lost look vanished from his eyes and a look of complete determination filled them. "Without a doubt."

We walked toward the back door but I stopped quickly and looked back. "I meant it too. No one go anywhere alone. I don't think Maria is out there but if she is then she isn't alone and none of you are ready for her. I'm sorry about that but this isn't a woman this a demon and she won't think twice about killing all of us."

"Bring it on" Emmett punched his two hands together. "About time I got a real fight in."

He thought he was so ready to go into battle. If he only knew the things I had seen; the things I had done, he wouldn't be so anxious. "Just be careful" I turned to leave again but stopped. "And thank you. All of you." I looked at each of them; my new family. "You didn't have to accept us and you certainly don't have to risk yourselves and all you have here to help me find Bella but you are and for that I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."

"We're family Jasper" Esme smiled at me.

"That means we kick anyone's ass that tries to destroy that." Emmett pumped his fist in the air.

"Or at the very least we go out looking for the stupid one that's lost." Rosalie said while pulling Emmett's arm back down.

"And we bring her back and kick her ass for being that retarded." Alice finished up.

I laughed. "Well at any rate I just wanted you to know how much this means to me."

"That we already know." Rosalie rolled her eyes. "One of these days you are really going to have to learn how to stop sending out those emotions."

I had forgotten about that that quickly. Of course they knew how I felt. I was sharing it with them right now. I winked at Rosalie and sent out a wave of happiness and hope. We would find Bella. We would find her and bring her back and then I would tie her to her bed if I had to. I would lock her in the basement if it would keep her safe. There would be no more of this sacrificing herself for the greater good crap. She would finally understand what she meant to me, to this family, if I had to browbeat her with it every day. I was going to make sure that she never did anything this crazy again.

"Yes we will" He agreed with my thoughts. "Whatever it takes."

I looked at Edward and saw my thoughts reflected in him. He really loved her and for that I was glad. Now all we had to do was get her back so that she could see that too.

"Ready?" I asked.

"More than ready" He answered and with one final look back we ran out to find the love of both our hearts.

AN: Happy Wednesday everyone. I almost forgot what today was after the Thanksgiving post. If someone hadn't mentioned late last night that it was Tuesday I might have been a day late posting. Anyway I made it and this won't be very long as I am getting a cold and also very hungry. So enjoy and I will see you next week.

Don't make me blue; please review :)