Hello Hello

As always, thank you all for your reviews. It makes my day.

The biggest THANK YOU to Jennifer L. Cullen for all her help with this story.

A different point of view this time :)

Enjoy!

Edward's POV

"Maybe something is wrong?" Rosalie shifted restlessly at Emmett's side.

It'd been a week since Jasper and Alice came back. A week since I seriously fell apart with my children. And for the same seven days I didn't see them at school. Yesterday I couldn't take it anymore and even went to their house, but their scents were scarce as if they hadn't been there for at least a few days.

"Nothing is wrong. If they were sick, Charlie would have brought them to hospital or they would have come here." Esme tried soothing her.

'It's my fault. I shouldn't have come back.' As always Jasper blamed himself.

"Oh, stop it." I snapped getting their attention. I turned to my oldest brother. "I had never seen Adrian so unhappy and depressed like in these two weeks that you two were gone." I looked at my beautiful sister. "If you worry so much, then why don't you call her?"

"As if you are not worried." Rosalie glared at me. There was a short pause. "Besides, I don't have her number." She mumbled quietly.

"In all this time you didn't manage to get her phone number?" I asked incredulously. Wasn't my daughter her favorite niece?

She shook her head. "I never thought she would disappear and I wanted for her to trust me enough to give it herself..."

"What about Gediminas'?" Emmett glanced between our family members. He wanted to help.

"Oh, yeah, right. I have it on my speed dial. He gave it to me on our first meeting." Alice chirped in sarcastically. "Please. Like he trusts any of us."

"You cannot blame him." How could Esme be so calm... "He doesn't know us well. And he is just being protective about his sister. She is all that he has."

That moment Carlisle came home from work.

"Any word about the kids?" Rosalie looked at him hopefully.

"Well, they are not in hospital and nobody has seen them in the last week. It's a little difficult to ask about them without getting suspicious glances." He seemed thoughtful. Our faces fell. "Why don't you call them?" He asked as if it was the most obvious thing we should have done days ago.

"We don't have their numbers." Emmett was the only one to answer him.

My father nodded slowly. "You have Charlie's." He stated looking at me.

"Yes. I do." I stated hesitantly. I still had the number from my last stay in Forks. But there was no way in hell was I going to speak to Charlie. Somehow I didn't think he had forgiven me for what I had done to his daughter and the love of my life.

We all looked at Rosalie. Charlie had never talked to her.

"What?" Her eyes widened.

"I give you his number. You call." I smiled mischievously.

"Why?" She frowned. I rolled my eyes, but Alice was faster to answer.

"Because if Charlie answers, he hasn't ever talked to you thus he won't recognize your voice and you can pretend being someone from school. And if Adrian picks up, she will be glad to talk to you now that we are back and everything is the way it is supposed to be." She blurted out.

"My niece will be even happier to talk to Jasper." Rosalie tilted her head towards our brother.

Now Alice rolled her eyes. "If Gediminas answers, he can snap at Jasper for leaving in the first place." Her lover dropped his eyes to the floor. He was more embarrassed and sad about his almost-slip than ever before. "And he can stand you better than any of us." She smiled.

Rosalie sighed and looked at me. I took out my mobile phone and dialed the long missed number. When the gadget started ringing, I threw it to my sister.

"Hello." A rough voice answered.

"Good afternoon, sir. I would like to talk to Adrian if she is not busy." Rosalie put on her best voice.

"Who is calling?" He got suspicious.

"I'm her classmate." Well done, sis. There was no need for him to know who was actually calling.

"She is not home and won't be for another week." He sounded bored.

"Oh, then maybe I could talk to Gediminas?" Talking to my son was better than nothing.

"They are both visiting some friends in Europe or somewhere like that." He was going to end the conversation soon.

"Oh, I didn't know that." Rosalie was surprised and hurt. Neither of them had mentioned it to her.

"Yeah. Well, this is irresponsible in my opinion, leaving school for a week like this. But they said it was urgent. If you want I can tell them you called." He wanted to finish.

"No, thank you, sir. Good day." He murmured something else and hung up. My sister threw me the gadget.

"They left without saying a word to us?" Emmett wasn't happy and neither was I. On the other hand, I couldn't expect their explanations after our last conversation.

"They probably have other responsibilities." Esme shrugged with a tiny smile at our concern.

"What kind of responsibilities could they have?" Alice turned her incomprehensible eyes to our mother.

"Sweetheart, they did have a life before we met them." Mom's lips stretched further. Entire twelve years that I had almost no idea about. None of us had.

"They could have mentioned that they were leaving." Rosalie whispered sadly. She thought they had been getting along quite well, but this proved how wrong she was.

"Charlie said it was urgent. They probably left at once after they heard whatever news they got from their friends." Esme shrugged.

"I don't want to lose them like we lost Bella. We should go look for them." Emmett stated firmly.

"And where would you start? An entire Europe? Charlie has no idea where they are and I don't think anybody does. For all we know, they could have gone to visit several friends in different countries. It will be much more difficult to find them than it was in Bella's case all those years ago. Then at least we knew where her mother used to live and could have looked for her. Now we know none of their friends." Rosalie felt hopeless.

"All we can do is hope that they come back." Carlisle put his arms around his wife. All couples were curled up together and I was alone again. I knew it was my own fault. And the dreadful feeling of déjà vu crept up my stone heart. This was exactly how my love left all those years ago. I didn't want to lose my children as well. Not that we were close or together, but still...

"They will. I am sure of that." Esme was certain and we all looked at her curiously. "This time Charlie is waiting for them." She shrugged with a smile.

Rosalie sighed and left the couch. She went upstairs.

"I am going for a hunt." Jasper whispered and Alice sprang up to go with him. "Sorry, love. But I need time to think." Her face fell. "Don't worry. I'll be back soon." He forced a smile. "You should help Rosalie to design something beautiful for our niece."

Alice bit her lip for a moment. We all looked at her. My favorite sister kissed her mate and ran upstairs. Jasper watched her go, sighed and left the house. I could see he wasn't planning to go far, so there was no need to worry about him.

I went to my piano and touched its keys. I hadn't done that for ages. Since the love of my life left, to be precise. I played Esme's favorite and then though I wanted to play Bella's lullaby, I moved on to Debussy's Clair de Lune.

"You can do it, honey." Esme gently whispered in her mind. It was obvious what I craved, but it was still too hard for me. The mere thought about my love seemed to tear my shattered heart into tiny pieces. I wasn't ready and I didn't think I ever will. I went upstairs to my room.

Hours later Alice's vision turned blank and she almost shrieked. We were at her side instantly.

"What happened?" Carlisle's voice was serious.

"I can't see Jasper." Her eyes were wide with fear.

"What do you mean, you can't see him?" Rosalie demanded.

"It's like when Gediminas or Adrian are nearby." She muttered.

"What was the last thing you saw?" I was anxious and reading her mind was a lost cause.

"He was running in the forest not far from here and suddenly it went blank." She was starting to shake and Esme hugged her.

"Take a deep breath and try again." Carlisle ordered softly.

After a minute of silence she whispered "nothing."

"Maybe it means the kids are back?" Rosalie was hopeful. Yeah, maybe this was the cause. But for some reason I couldn't stop being worried.

"Show me the last glimpse of him." I whispered to Alice. She looked at me a little surprised, but did as I had asked.

"I know the place." I turned to my father. "We should go and check it in case something wrong happened." He nodded. Emmett got up to go with us. "You should stay here. I have a bad feeling about this." I shook my head. He didn't want to stay behind, but then again he didn't want to leave his mate unprotected. My big brother huffed and sat down.

"Let's go." Carlisle whispered in his thoughts and we darted through the doors.

It took me almost ten excruciatingly long minutes to hear Jasper's mental voice. And when I did, I didn't like it at all. He was screaming from agonizing pain.

I sped up and left Carlisle far behind me. In a few more moments I saw my brother lying on the forest floor. He turned his eyes to me. They were filled with pain. I knelt at his side.

"What happened?" I glanced over his body. His hands, legs, even some of his ribs were clearly broken and looking in the wrong direction. Whatever had occurred in here, he should have already healed.

"I don't really know." I couldn't see why, but his thoughts turned embarrassed. It was something about what he had done. Jasper looked away from me and towards Carlisle who had just appeared at his side.

Our father knelt down and carefully caressed Jasper's body. He frowned the moment he touched it. My brother's screams from pain were deafening. At least he was shouting in his mind and not loudly.

"Can you move? Or at least speak?" Carlisle's voice was serious and concerned.

"No." My brother almost pleaded in his thoughts. So terrible the pain was. I had never seen him so close to tears from physical contact.

Our father shook his head displeased. "We will have to carry him." He whispered.

Jasper's mind became alert. Any kind of movement was sure to cause him even more agony. But we couldn't leave him like this either.

"I will carry him." I whispered and looked at my father. "I'm faster." He nodded and got up. "Don't worry. This will be over soon." I looked at my brother and carefully lifted him in my arms. His screams became even worse if that was possible and I darted to our home. Carlisle followed us.

When we approached the house, I saw the rest of my family outside looking at us. Alice and Esme gasped. They would have been crying of they were humans.

I ran inside and gently put Jasper on a couch in the living room. He relaxed a little when movement stopped. Only now I noticed he wasn't breathing. The pain of moving his chest must have been too much.

Alice dashed and knelt down by his side. She looked frantic. Nobody knew what to do.

Carlisle took his bag from the studio and came to his oldest son. "This is going to hurt." He whispered. Jasper closed his eyes and opened them again instead of nodding. Our father put his hands on my brother's rib and gently pushed it until it clicked in its place. It wasn't difficult to tell from my father's thoughts that this was far from end. The rib had been not only forced out of joint, but also broken.

"What happened?" Emmett wanted to draw our attention away from our brother who obviously didn't like to be seen in this way.

"We don't know." I shook my head grimly. We were vampires! He should have healed already! What was happening here? My children couldn't have possibly done this. They weren't strong enough. Somebody else was involved.

"The dogs?" Rosalie scrunched her nose.

"No. He would have been torn to peaces and not left to live with broken bones." I shook my head. Alice whimpered softly. Jasper didn't want for her to see him like this, but he couldn't tell her himself. I, on the other hand, could but didn't have the heart to do it.

Hours later Carlisle finally stood up. We all looked hopefully at him.

"This is all I can do." He sighed. "I put all bones in their places, but almost all of them are broken to pieces." He should have already healed! I don't understand this! He felt hopeless just like the rest of us.

I had another feeling of déjà vu. Wasn't it only weeks ago that we were in a very similar situation? Just then one of my children was lying on the couch and another one was kneeling at its side. Today, just like then, I felt completely useless.

"Why isn't he healing?" I didn't remember Rosalie being so scared before.

"I don't know." Carlisle shook his head. "I have never seen or even heard about anything similar to this."

We were standing like this for some time when Alice had another vision. This one was even worse than Jasper disappearing.

"What is it?" Rosalie tensed up.

"The Volturi. They are coming." My sister and I whispered as one.

"What? Why?!" Emmett boomed.

Esme took a deep breath. "How many?" Her voice was hardly audible.

I chose my mother's question to answer. "Aro, Marcus and Caius, the entire guard and some I have never seen before." I turned to my father. "Neither have you." Those vampires were unknown to us. Their abilities and possible talents as well.

"All of them? But why?" Carlisle knew his old friends would never come so prepared for a friendly visit.

"They want Edward." Alice stated quietly and I winced.

"You will not meet them alone. We will all go when the time comes." Esme's voice was firm.

"I am not putting you in danger. You know what they will do if I refuse and there is no reason to endanger the entire town of Forks." I pleaded with my eyes.

"If you let Aro touch your hand, and you will have to do it once you join them, you will put Adrian and Gediminas, your children, in mortal danger." Rosalie always hit to the sorest point.

"When?" Carlisle was even more worried.

"Five days from now, in the morning." Alice mumbled. My family tensed up. It was nowhere near enough time to prepare if that was possible to do at all.

"Maybe we should leave?" Emmett's voice was hesitant.

"We can't." Alice whispered. Of course we couldn't. Not with Jasper in such a bad shape.

"What we should do is call our friends and ask them to witness. Maybe it will be enough to stop Aro." I couldn't help but be amazed at my mother's calmness and strength.

Carlisle nodded. "Call Tanya. I'll call the others." He looked at me. I hung my head.

It was decided. We were staying and fighting. Even if the battle was impossible to win.

Thank you for reading. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't.