Disclaimer: Jasper: LILLIAN DOESN'T OWN TWILIGHT! Although, in response to her last disclaimer, she does have the email ready… the one she'll send to Stephanie Meyer if enough people review with the word 'Manor' …. she wants me to tell you that she want's it spelt like that. Capital 'M', lower case 'anor'.
I'm right here. I could have said it you know.
Jasper: Yes, but you're about to fall asleep.
I AM NOT!
Jasper: You've now spent the last two days up past 3 am in an attempt to finish more than one chapter.
… Yeah, and? By the time I upload them, I might have 8, or 20. Y'never know.
Jasper: -sigh- Here's the next chapter.
Esme looked across at me and the smile from her laugh had vanished. She looked serious.
"You told me to ask him. He was angry, but not at the question. He said if she had to die, he wanted me to kill her." I looked downcast. That comment had cut into me deeper than I'd let on. I was good at it. I'd killed all of my family except Alice, Jasper and Bella. I sighed and turned away. Esme shifted her chair closer and pulled me into a hug. I didn't resist. I breathed in the scent of her uniqueness wrapped my own arms around her. It would have been an awkward, uncomfortable position for a human, but we couldn't be more comfortable. She started running her fingers slowly through my hair and I closed my eyes, enjoying the peace that settled over us. The night went by without much change. Lillian's lungs raised and lowered with the even breaths from the machine, her heart rate fluctuated a little but otherwise remained low.
When the sun rose the next day, the four of us pretended to be asleep while her heat packs were changed. She was slowly starting to shiver again, which was good, but as soon as the heat went back on, the shivering stopped. Jacob came back in around 10am. We were still pretending to be asleep, although I could hear Bella and Edward talking. They stood up, stretched and left. Seth and Leah were with Jacob and they lounged against the window. They were there for an hour until I "woke up" and slipped out of Esme's arms.
"Is she going to be alright? What are all these machines for?"
I yawned and walked over to Jacob. "Breathing machine, heart-rate monitor, feeding machine. The needle in her arm is putting a heating liquid into her. There are also heat packs covering 85% of her body"
"And that's going to help?"
I looked at Jacob for a moment, He must me extremely stressed. I moved closer. "They swapped the heat packs before and she started shivering, it's a good sign Jacob. I really don't think she's going to die."
"So how much better is she?"
I picked up Lillian's hand and stretched out her fingers so Jacob could see. "She's still blue, which means she's still got a long time to go because the blood is pumping through her major organs right now. When they're working perfectly again, it'll spread out and she'll lose the blue tinge in her fingers, lips and ears. If they turn purple, it means she got worse… and I'll change her."
Jacob's fingers gripped the edge of the bed and I put Lillian's hand back down under the blanket. Her head twitched and Jacob was over her face in seconds.
"What was that? What was that?" He turned and grabbed the front of my shirt, pulling me closer to Lillian's face as well. I slowly pried his fingers away and looked at Lillian. Her head didn't move any more, but I pulled out my pen-light.
"Open her eye."
"What?"
"Open her eye. I can't, my skin is too cold. I'll most likely make her worse."
Jacob nodded and opened her right eye. Seth and Leah crowded around her head. I turned on the light, leant over and flicked it across her eye. The pupil constricted a little bit. A little bit was good.
"Other eye."
Seth opened it this time. I looked up at him and he smiled at me. I returned it and flicked the light across her left eye. Constriction. I stepped away, sighed, and smiled. She certainly was a little fighter.
"What is it? What's so funny?"
"She's fighting. She's fighting hypothermia."
"What's so funny?"
"People fight diseases like cancer with will power, hope and wishing. She's fighting it actively, because the hypothermia is an effect from physiological trauma. Edward and Jasper both said she was beyond terrified in her dreams. It adds up with what you said."
"In English?"
"She's so terrified her whole body was shutting down."
"Again, English."
"She's afraid of the ocean."
The wolves looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing. Jacob almost pulled out some of the cords as he tripped over, but I grabbed him and held him up. He took to leaning on me and when he could finally breath again he moved over and sat on one of the spare beds.
"Hoe, wow! She's actually scared of something?"
"Yes. We're all scared of something."
"Yeah, but the ocean!"
"I think if we mention it she's going to go into an ocean just to spite us."
Jacob laughed again and fell backwards on the bed. "Yeah, but she won't go in far."
We all laughed. I was about to turn and ask Esme if she wanted to go home, but I remembered it was about 12. There was no way we could go outside. I told someone to leave the windows shut, so we'd been in darkness the whole day. We couldn't even leave the ward. I sighed again, it seemed like I was doing this a lot more over the past two weeks… two weeks? It felt like two months.
"Esme, did you know Lillian's been here two weeks?"
Esme looked shocked as I sat down next to her again.
"Two weeks?"
"About, maybe a little over."
"It feels like forever." Jacob said from across the room.
Esme chortled and leant her head against my shoulder. Her arm wound around my waist. I put mine over her shoulder and the other over her hand. This was a little more comfortable.
"Have you thought of any new ways to get her back?"
"No. Aro said something about a couch. I'll talk to him about it tonight."
"What if she ends up not wanting to go back?"
Jacob, Seth and Leah all yelled their disapproval.
"What?"
"If she stays here, you'll just give her to us when she annoys you, and then she'll run back to you when she's sick of us."
"What about if we send her to school? And tire her out. Then she'll just want to sleep."
"That's a wonderful idea Carlisle." I smiled at Esme and stroked her hair.
"Yeah, wonderful. Except we know nothing of her past, nothing about who she is, and we don't have access to any of her records."
"Jacob, we've learnt a few things over the years. As soon as we know her last name, we can have her records in a matter of minutes." I turned to Esme. "Or we could get Jasper to pay Jason a visit."
"That's if she stays here, right?" Jacob asked cautiously.
"Hmmm, what about when she's fine enough to walk? Get her busy as quickly as possible so she doesn't have time to dwell on new ways to annoy us?"
Jacob looked at his packmates. They all shrugged and nodded a few times and then turned back to me and Esme. "Sounds like an awesome plan."
We chatted for a few hours until the wolves had to leave, and nursing staff walked in to check on Lillian and the other two patients in the room. As soon as it was dark enough for us to leave, I checked Lillian one last time. Prolonged touching would make her worse, but I was quick. Mostly because I really wanted to get back home and go for a hunt with Esme. Her fingers had lost some of the blue color, but it was still quite bad. I leant close to her ear. "Come on Lillian, I know you're a fighter."
Esme took my hand and we left.
Alice was quick to greet us as we pulled into the garage and she almost pulled me out of the car when I turned it off.
"Alice, calm down. She's fine… well, she's doing a little better."
Alice sighed, relieved, and ran back into the house. Aro stood at the door behind Rosalie and Emmett.
"What happened?"
"She's hypothermic Rosalie. But she's slowly getting better. She's not going to be hiding your hairbrushes for a while."
Rosalie smiled a little. "Is she going back to the dogs when she's better?"
"Actually,-"
"CARLISLE!" She looked shocked. I smiled.
"I was thinking of sending her to school."
Rosalie narrowed her eyes for a moment, but Emmett started laughing. He whispered something in Rosalie's ear and she smiled broadly and nodded. "Nice one."
"Yeah Carlisle, that's an awesome plan."
"Jacob thought so too."
Rosalie's face scrunched slightly but she grabbed Emmett's hand and the two walked away. I picked up Esme's hand as we walked toward the door. Aro was still standing there.
"Jane and Alec?"
"Hunting a state over. I tried some of your local deer that Jasper showed me. I applaud your ability to stay satiated on that."
"Are you going to try it for longer?"
Aro laughed. "Heaven's no, Carlisle. That was one of the most unsatisfying meals I've ever had."
"Well, we're about to go out hunting. I need to talk to you later about something you saw in her memories."
"May I accompany you? I think I may need another of your… local delicacies, to get my appetite more even."
I turned to Esme, of whom he'd actually asked the question to. She smiled and nodded.
"Of course you can, Aro."
"Thank you."
The three of us headed out the back door and into the woods. Esme let go of my hand and took off at a run before she gave me a look that said she didn't want to hear what we wanted to talk about. I kissed her thankfully and waited until she was out of earshot.
"You said something about a couch."
"Yes. She's from an alternate future. It was August 2009. I couldn't read anything before that, it was strange. But she'd come home, everything had been normal, and then she'd gone into her room."
A couch in a room was nothing odd for me. Alice had helped Esme decorate the houses we'd lived in and there was always some sort of couch.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Inside her room was you… well, your children. And the shape shifter… Jacob?"
"What were-"
"Paintings. I'm not sure if they were hand painted or not, she didn't want to look at them."
"That still doesn't-"
"If you'd let me finish, Carlisle…." I said nothing. "She got quite angry and slept on her couch. Something about resolving never to sleep in that room again. And then she woke up on your couch."
I stayed silent as I tried to sift through this information. It was very, very strange. "Did you get any information about her? Anything of merit?"
"Like her last name?"
"That would be fantastic!"
"Her last name is Muggiewumples."
I burst into laughter. Aro didn't.
"Are you serious?"
"Quite."
"How do you know?"
"She was looking at her mail. Anything addressed to her was marked 'Lillian Muggiewumples'."
"That's just odd."
"I laughed about it when she left."
"Come on, let's catch up to Esme."
Half an hour later we were walking back. Discussing Lillian, getting her into a school, and the high possibility of getting Jasper to talk to Jason. Aro suggested sending Jane and Alec as well. 1, to keep an eye on Lillian, and 2, because he thought they might 'like' the experience. He laughed a little too sadistically at that, but we didn't dismiss it entirely. When we got back, Esme split off to tell Edward and Bella and to spend some time with Renesmee. Aro went to talk to Alec and Jane, who'd come back, and I went in search of Jasper. I found him with Alice. She was trying on clothes.
"I'm so happy you decided on that Carlisle! What do you think of this for her first day?" Apparently she hadn't told Jasper the whole story, but I got the feeling he was clueing in.
"It looks good Alice. Jasper? I need to talk to you about Jason." Jasper dragged me out of the room quickly and down the stairs.
"What is it?"
"I need you to see him to get some documents."
"Bella took over that account."
"I need you to do this. Esme is telling them now. For this task, I need your… particular way of persuasion."
"You need him to be afraid?"
"Sworn to secrecy in any and every way possible, by any means necessary."
Jasper nodded and his professionalism seeped in. "What do you need?"
"I need documents for Lillian."
"You sending her to work?" He seemed hopeful.
"No," Downcast. "I'm sending her to school." His face lit up like the South had won and Alice was pregnant.
"Alice is pregnant?" Edward was with us shortly.
"I'M WHAT?!" Alice shouted from the top of the stairs. "Oh god, I'll need new clothes…"
"You're not pregnant Alice!" I slapped my hand to my face.
"Phew."
"I need you to get Jason to forge a passport, birth certificate, academic trail, and an adoption certificate."
"YOU CAN'T ADOPT HER CARLISLE! SHE'S A LUNATIC!"
"WHAT?!" Alice was at the stairs again. "Edward, don't be stupid, you aren't going to jump off a cliff."
"I might."
"Take Bella with you. She's all about extreme sports."
"ALICE! Don't mention that again!"
"Why is everyone shouting?"
"Your daddy misunderstood what I was asking." I turned to Renesmee and smiled reassuringly. Everyone else looked the same, reassured.
"Carlisle, you've got two new recruits."
We moved the conversation into the living room where Jane and Alec were glaring daggers at Aro.
"Ok, three of everything. Make them… fifteen. They can all just pass that off. Australian details for Lillian, Italian for Jane and Alec."
"You can't DO this to us Aro! It's… it's…" Aro waited patiently, smiling softly with his hand folded across his knees. "It's barbaric!"
"No it's not. I order you to go, to keep an eye on Lillian, and to understand what the younger prey are like."
"We'll end up killing them!"
"No you won't. Because I also order you not to kill any of the locals."
Jane looked like she wanted to send Aro into eternal torture. He knew she wouldn't. Alec was resigning to his new problem.
"We aren't going to have to eat the wildlife are we?"
"No."
"What if there's a cantante at the school?"
No-one had thought of that.
"Don't breath." Edward cut in. "Don't think. Don't breath. Get out as quickly as you can. Make any excuse you have to."
Silence for a minute.
"Do we have a picture of Lillian?"
We all looked at each other until every pair of eyes found Jasper, who was looking at the ground.
"Jasper?"
"I don't know how, I don't know when, but she found my camera. I put all the photos on the computer for future blackmail purposes."
"Jasper you're a genius!"
"Thank you Esme."
"What's your password?"
"I'LL PUT IT IN!" He looked away shiftily and we all stifled laughs as he glared at us and walked out of the room.
"Now we just need a photo of Alec and Jane."
There we gooooo. Another day, another two chapters. I wonder how many I'll have spat out by the time I get back home. Hopefully these have been put up before then.
Thank you DAD for reviewing. I'll give you a chicken today. Now read the next chapter!!!
