Wow, sorry, everyone! A close family member getting married+finals+not knowing exactly where I wanted this chapter to go=a long wait, unfortunately. But I'm back now with a nice long (by my standards) update for you.

Song: The Cave-by Mumford and Sons

BPOV

I expected things to be awkward the next morning as the Cullen and Denali covens gathered in the downstairs area, but they weren't. Everyone was making eye contact with everyone else, making small talk... I imagined they'd all been desensitized after spending the past...however long they'd all been together with each other. Or maybe they'd just been distracted by their own partners. Whatever the case, the sun brought a return to normalcy, and I welcomed it.

I was sticking with Edward, and Esme was gushing to him about how nice it was to hear him playing piano again-"Keyboard, Esme. It's not the same," he good-naturedly interjected-when Alice came bouncing down the stairs, Jasper's hand in hers. Edward gestured for them to join us.

"Thank you for getting that keyboard for him, Alice," Esme said, giving her daughter a hug. "You know how happy it makes me to hear him play."

"You're welcome, Esme," Alice said. She turned to Edward as Esme smiled and moved back in Carlisle, Kate, and Garrett's direction. "What, no thanks from you, Edward?" Alice asked with an impish grin.

"You know what I was about to say," Edward said, returning her smile.

"Yeah, I do," she said. "But Bella and Jasper don't know what you want to say next, so you might as well say it out loud."

"Well, I guess there's no easing into it now," Edward muttered.

"What?" I asked.

"Bella, considering it looks like there's a newborn army stalking us-I wanted to ask Jasper to teach you how to fight. Do you want to learn?"

"Fight? Me?" I asked.

"You said you didn't want to leave the compound alone anyway, so hopefully you'll never have to use what you learn. But I know I'll feel a lot better if you know how to defend yourself, and I think you would, too."

It was hard to imagine myself as a fighter. But I probably wouldn't have lost my arms, even temporarily, if I'd been prepared and known how to defend myself. I still didn't like to think about what might have happened if Garrett hadn't been close by. I didn't want anything like that to ever happen again.

"Okay," I said. "You wouldn't mind teaching me, Jasper?"

"Of course not," he said. "It'll be good for you to learn."

Jasper and I went outside and started immediately.

"If we have to go up against the newborns, you'll have to rely on your wit," he told me before we got started. "Newborns rarely plan their attacks. They rely on their strength. They'll be stronger than you, so you'll have to be smarter and faster."

I considered myself a quick learner, but it still took me a while to get the hang of what he was trying to teach me. I ended up flat on my back several times, his teeth poised over my neck. The first time that happened, I let a panicked snarl out, but he quickly calmed me. "Sorry, I forgot to warn you," he said. "This is just how we've always signaled the end of a fight. I win, obviously. But I would never actually hurt you, Bella." He offered his hand to help me up, and I accepted it.

As I started to catch onto things, I ventured to ask a question as we sparred. "When you all came here for the first time, you said you weren't a threat to me anymore," I said as I spun away from him. "What did you mean by that?"

He sighed. "Why don't we take a break?" he said.

I agreed, even though we didn't really need it, and we found a couple of stumps nearby to sit on.

"I understand you've kept north and mostly isolated in this life," Jasper began. "Have you ever heard anything about the wars in the south?"

I shook my head.

"I spent eighty years fighting in them, as a lieutenant to a monster named Maria." He closed his eyes briefly. "It would take a considerable amount of time to tell you all the atrocities I committed. I doubt you want to know, anyway. But for those eighty years, I drank human blood. I didn't know any other way. But I felt everything all my victims felt.

"My only friend, Peter, had previously escaped with his mate, Charlotte. He returned for me, and told me it was possible to live freely. They still drank from humans, but still, freedom was almost more than I'd dared to hope for. But I continued to feel what my human victims felt in their final moments.

"It wasn't until I met Alice that I found there was a different way." A smile lit up his face as he thought about his mate. "She told me about the Cullens, and her visions. I started the animal diet in 1948. I struggled a lot. I continue to struggle. Edward said for a long time that I had the wrong mindset. It's hard to get the right mindset when you never knew there was one to begin with.

"But you...you helped a lot, when you were human. Meeting you, and seeing the love between you and Edward...it helped me see humans as more than just prey, which is what I had told myself for eighty years to help me cope. I made myself believe it. But you helped me at least begin to unlearn it.

"But even so, you were in danger around me, more so than the others. On your eighteenth birthday, everyone saw that. You came over to our house for a party-Alice's idea. She didn't see anything happening. It was an accident. You got a papercut opening a present, and...I lost control. Carlisle and Emmett managed to hold me back, but...that's when Edward realized that as a human, you weren't safe around us."

Jasper released a deep sigh before looking me in the eyes. "I'm so sorry, Bella. This whole thing wasn't Edward's fault...it was mine."

I reached out my hand and placed it over Jasper's. He looked surprised. "It's nobody's fault, Jasper," I said. "It's all right. I don't blame anyone. Thank you for telling me about your past. I'm glad I could help you...unlearn what you were taught."

"Always so gracious," he said with a smile. "Now, where were we?" He rose. "You were just getting the hang of things, I think..."

After I got a firmer grasp on things, Jasper called Emmett out, and I started sparring against him as Jasper supervised. He said that Emmett was most like a newborn in his strength and fighting style. I struggled at the start of the matches, but I started getting the hang of things again. As the sun began to set, Jasper let us go for the day.

"You did really well, Bella," he told me as we headed back inside.

"For a beginner," Emmett said with his ever-present grin. I gave him a playful shove.

Both of my-well, my brothers-quickly disappeared into the compound. I could hear Edward playing his keyboard upstairs. I smelled something strange and slightly nauseating coming from the kitchen. I decided to investigate the smell first.

Esme was the only one in the large room. She was standing in front of the cold oven, assembling things out of pinecones, peanut butter, dried fruit, and birdseed.

"What are you doing?" I asked, genuinely curious.

She turned and smiled at me. "Making all-natural birdfeeders," she said.

"Why?"

"I like to watch them," she said, turning back to her craft. "The birdwatching is incredible here. But they won't come near this compound unless they have a very good reason to. I'm trying to make these as tempting as I possibly can."

I went over to stand by the window. I closed my eyes as I let the sound of Edward at his keyboard wash over me, letting the setting sun warm my skin. I looked down and watched in wonder as the light illuminated me. I never got tired of it. I allowed myself to smile slightly. I could pretend, right now, that everything was perfect. Except...

"Esme?" I asked, keeping my back to her. I heard her turn from the oven, towards me. She didn't say anything, but I knew she was listening intently. She was always ready to listen.

I felt the venom prick my eyelids, and I knew that if I could, I would be crying. I wasn't sure if I missed crying or not.

"Do you think I'll ever get my human memories back?"

I didn't hear her move, but I felt her hand, gentle on my arm.

"I don't know, Bella," she said sadly. She paused a moment. "But can I tell you something?"

I turned to her and nodded. Esme could tell me anything.

"Bella, I don't know if you know this, but our lives ended in a very similar manner." She smiled sadly. "We both jumped to our deaths over lost love."

My eyes widened. There had been someone for Esme before Carlisle?

She saw the look on my face and guessed what I was thinking. "Yes, Bella," she said, nodding. "There was someone before Carlisle. But it wasn't him I jumped for. He was-well, maybe that's a story for another day."

I was curious, but I nodded. There would be another time for that. We had plenty of time.

"It was a different kind of love, Bella." A look of pain came over Esme's face, and she brought her arms around herself, as if she was trying to hold herself together. The gesture was familiar to me. "I tried to kill myself because I lost my baby boy."

Before I knew what I was doing, I had my arms around Esme. If I was honest with myself, I was still grappling with the knowledge that I would never be able to have children. Never. Eternity was a long time. What if I changed my mind? I knew I hadn't yet grasped what I had missed out on.

But for Esme, who was the most motherly person I knew, who it seemed had been born to be a mother, who would have been the best mother anyone could ever ask for, who had surely wanted that baby boy more than anything...I could not imagine the pain she must have gone through when she lost him.

Esme was trembling slightly, but she hugged me back fiercely.

"He was only two days old," she whispered. I could hear the pain in her voice. I hugged her harder, and she responded in kind. After a long time, we pulled back from each other.

"Bella," she said, looking me in the eye, "I don't remember him. Not at all." She paused to let that sink in. Then she went on, "I don't remember anything about him. I don't remember his face, or his eye color, or any little things he might have done. Granted, he was only two days old and spent most of that time ill, but..." She shook her head. "I don't remember holding him for the first time. I don't even know if the doctors let me hold him. I don't even know what I named him, or what I wanted to name him." She paused again. "You know who I remember? My husband. Who-well, to put it plainly for now, I don't want to remember." She snarled suddenly. "He doesn't deserve to be remembered." I stepped back in surprise-I'd never seen Esme look like that before.

She took a breath and calmed down. "My baby, though...my baby deserves to be remembered. But he isn't."

Esme gently took my hand. "I know what it's like, to have been through such pain that you wanted to end your life...and barely remember. Sometimes I think it's a blessing, sometimes I think it's a curse. Some days I want to remember. Most days I don't. But I understand why you do want to remember. By all accounts, your life was very happy, Bella. You were happy. And I will always treasure the memories I have of you from before your change. I'll treasure them for you." We smiled at each other as she moved back towards the oven.

"We can't change what is past, Bella," she said, turning her back to me and rolling the pinecones in the birdseed. "Alice will be the first to tell you that we can change the future. But only when we decide to."

Edward and I talked through that night. He told me what he knew about my life, about my family-Charlie and Renée. I felt terrible for not remembering them, but nothing Edward shared with me jogged any clear memories.

He told me about our time together. He told me about running into James, Victoria, and Laurent. He told me how James had lured me away from Alice and Jasper, and had ultimately ended up as a pile of ash. He said that they knew Victoria had pledged a vendetta against the Cullens for destroying her mate.

By the time the sun came up, I felt all caught up on the important events. On whom Victoria was and why she tried to kill me.

"She's dead, though, Bella," Edward reminded me gently. "The wolves killed her."

"Yeah," I said.

We went downstairs to meet the rest of the coven members.

"It's overcast today," Carlisle said. "I think a group of us should go into a town today to get some supplies."

"Matches and lighters, mostly," Edward whispered so only I could hear.

Garrett wanted to go, but Kate quickly nixed the idea. She said that he'd just started the animal diet, and his self-control wasn't good enough to be around humans yet. I wondered if my self-control was good enough, but I didn't want to chance it.

Esme and Emmett volunteered to go with Carlisle. They decided it would be better with a smaller group, anyway. Meanwhile, the Denalis all decided to go hunting together. Both groups departed after some quick goodbyes.

"Ready to practice some more, Bella?" Jasper asked.

"Actually..." I said, touching my hand to my throat.

"You're thirsty?" Edward asked.

I nodded. It had been slowly building for the past few days, but it was only then I was suddenly totally aware of just how thirsty I was.

"Carlisle asked me to stay here with Alice," Edward said, looking regretful. "He wants us to stay at 'headquarters,' as it were. I don't know if you could catch up with the other group. Jasper, do you want to go with her?"

"I think I'm good," Jasper said, his eyes on Alice.

"Rose? Do you mind?" Alice asked.

Rosalie sighed. "Okay," she agreed.

"I don't like the idea of just you two going out alone..." Edward said.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Edward," Alice said pointedly from the sofa, where she was flipping through a fashion magazine.

"I don't plan on going far," Rosalie promised.

"...All right," Edward finally agreed.

Rosalie and I decided to go in the opposite direction the Denalis had gone. Apparently, she didn't think I needed a babysitter. I think she thought I was cramping her hunting style. She liked brown bears. I, strangely, preferred the caribou. Like Garrett, our different diets meant that we had to split up if we were both going to get what we wanted. Alice was probably watching us, and Edward would know Rosalie had been slacking off on guard duty the second we returned home, but I was enjoying myself while I could. Conveniently, there was spotty cell phone reception within the park at best, so neither Alice nor Edward could call and chastise her for ditching me.

I soon had my fill, and was trying to pick up her scent, so we could meet up and return home. I had just found it and turned to track her, when the wind changed direction, and I picked up an unfamiliar scent. It was definitely vampire, and it was close by.

I was still trying to decide whether I should make a run for it when the stranger made himself known. There was a rustling sound, and then he appeared at the edge of the clearing.

He was tall and imposing, yet probably not much older than me. He had dark blond hair.

His eyes were red.

He smiled at me, but this was no crooked grin. This smile made alarm bells go off in my head.

I needed to run. I should run, I thought, but the wind changed again, and the scents of at least three others hit me in the face. They were close, too, but for the moment, they were choosing to remain hidden.

One thing was clear, though: I was surrounded.

The young stranger opened his arms as he drew closer to me, as if he was greeting an old friend.

We weren't old friends. I was very sure I'd never seen him before. And yet, he knew my name.

"Bella," he said, almost happily. "Bella Swan." He stopped several feet in front of me, still smiling. "I've found you at last."