Chapter 14

Ducks in a Row

Willow woke just past lunch, the five hours she had gotten the previous night after the party more use than she had originally thought. She showered the sleep off her and then the two of them were back at the Cullen house.

There was a weird atmosphere in the house. Like the seconds before you jumped off the high board into a pool for the first time, or on a rollercoaster before the big drop. It felt like everyone was balancing on the edge of a knife, and yet pretending like they weren't all chomping at the bit. The only one able to be normal, or at least act like it, was Jasper. And that wasn't just Willow flaunting, Jasper had this calm confidence in everything he did over the past few days, especially since he had started to train everyone, like for once he didn't have to tuck the 'darker' parts of himself away.

It was pretty attractive if Willow was honest.

Esme had food waiting for her in the kitchen and Willow smiled before she tugged out the maps. Jasper spread them out on the island, leaning beside her as she ate. Willow also slid her phone to him, and he glanced at the messages from Peter. 'He's right, the bays won't slow them too much, it's gettin' them outta the city that'll be the hardest part. You're right in choosing Sol Duc, its flat, lot of trees but—'

'Too close to humans? I figured that's why I put it in orange, like a maybe.' She shrugged and an idea sparked. 'Wait.'

Willow snagged her phone and texted Scott. That clearing we used to camp in, big fucking boulder thing in the middle, where's that again?

It took a second, but the text came through. Pride rock? Bout like ten klicks from the base of Mount Olympus. On Seattle's side.

She dropped her sandwich, tugged the map over and found it, 'Here. It's not unlike your baseball field. More trees surrounding it but originally the loggers thought that they'd start there, older trees and shit, but the Quileute council said no, then they kept digging up big rocks and the ground became too unstable for machinery and then Olympia was granted park status. So, the clearing is man-made, except there's this big boulder in the middle of it. They couldn't get machinery in that was strong enough to shift it.'

Jasper prodded her plate back to her. 'Eat. Then show me.'

Pride Rock was exactly as it sounded. The big boulder was a caricature of the one from The Lion King, and the four kids had dubbed it that because what else were they supposed to call it? Willow sat atop of it, hiking boots hitting the lip as her feet kicked, as Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie surveyed the clearing – Alice was out on Bella stuff and Edward was still with her, the girl still asleep from the twenty-four hours she'd been awake.

Jasper put his hands on his hips as he looked around. 'This could work.'

'I feel a little stupid that this didn't immediately come to mind if I'm honest.' Willow mused and surveyed the area. 'We used to go camping here, after the divorce. Some summers the Forresters and Kennedys would come and the four of us would run about here. Don't know why it took me so long to remember it though...'

A memory came to mind, and she sniggered. 'What?' Jasper asked as he sat beside her.

Willow pointed to an area to the west of them. 'On our last day, I think we were like twelve or something, Scott and I were mucking about with sticks, and I whacked him in the face by accident. He got a bloody nose, I felt so bad that I was crying, but he just laughed. It wasn't broken or anything, just the shock of the impact caused it to bleed.'

'I'm surprised,' Rosalie mused, 'that you lot didn't jump off that.'

That being the twelve-foot-high boulder she sat on. Willow blinked at her. 'We did.' Emmett barked a laugh, and threw his hands in the air in celebration, 'But we started from lower down. You learn to follow it into a roll pretty quick after you eat shit the first time. It's why Scott has that cut to his bottom lip. His teeth when straight through on impact. Though,' she peered over the edge as Jasper grasped the back of her short overalls absently, 'I have a feeling if I was to jump this, the pole would pop right out so I'mma go with a 'nah, I'm good' this time around.'

'Wimp!' Emmett crowed from the other side of the clearing.

Jasper loated to him, after he pulled Willow back away from the edge of the rock and slid a lazy arm around her neck. 'Who's not dead right now?'

Willow jerked her thumb in Jasper's direction as she stared at the brunet. 'Who can, and probably will, kick your ass tonight?'

Rosalie laughed as Emmett registered what they both had said, and his face dropped. 'What? No!'

As the blonde walked over to comfort her man, Willow turned her head to take in the complicated expression on Jasper's face. 'What is it?'

He sighed and pressed their foreheads together as she tangled their fingers. 'I haven't had anyone to lose the last time I did this. Feels different.' Willow coaxed comfort down that little link and Jasper pulled back, eyes caramel soft. 'You're getting better at that.'

'Thank you.' She chirped and gave him a gentle kiss before she got up. Jasper followed her and that hair caught in the summer rays. 'So, what's the plan for tonight then?'

He shrugged and Willow wandered back down Pride Rock before she swung off the last few feet. She was hit with a wave of nostalgia then and remembered when she'd donexact same thing every trip with Richard, could hear his voice calling her name from the edge of the trees, could imagine him standing there, her bag in his hand, big rucksack with the tent on, and blinked.

'Willow?' she snapped back, ignored the pang of pain in her chest and found Jasper offering a hand. 'Where'd you go?'

'Memories just…took me by surprise, that's all.' She gave a tight smile and Jasper smoothed the furrow to her brow away with a kiss. Willow grasped at the calm and tranquillity and let it smooth the pain away.

He tucked a fallen bit of hair away again, 'We don't have to use here.'

Willow looked up at him, took in the faint divots of the scars that littered his jaw and neck and shook her head. 'I wouldn't have thrown the idea out if I wasn't aof ware the memories that could be stirred up, hon. You know what to expect best, do you think here's useful? Honest opinion.'

Jasper nodded and gave one last glance. 'Yes.'

'Then this is where you'll funnel them. Simple.' Willow leant and kissed a particularly thick patch of scars and wandered over to where Rosalie and Emmett stood, murmuring between them. Jasper caught her fingers, and his hand enveloped her own. 'Was I the only one that wanted to slam my head against a tree having to bear witness to the drama that is Bella, Edward and Jacob?'

Rosalie leant her head back. 'Oh, thank God someone brought that shit up. Jesus, fuck.'

'Has Bella even forgiven Black for what happened?' Emmett frowned and Willow shrugged.

'I dunno, but I think the panic of what's about to happen has clouded everything.'

Jasper slid the arm that held her hand around her shoulders again. 'Edward wasn't exactly happy with the charm Black gave her at the party.'

Willow rolled her eyes. 'I am so surprised. Not. For someone with a century under his belt, fuck does he act like a toddler.'

'You reckon things would be different if he wasn't so set on waiting till marriage?' Emmett cocked his head and Jasper made a face.

'Yeah. I've seen males act like he does, who settle when, as primitive as this sounds, they claim their Mate. He's got his hackles up 'cause Black ain't subtle about his want for Bella and I don't doubt that his thoughts are quiet about it at all.'

'Oh,' the remembered fact came out of nowhere, and Leah had given her permission if the information could help Jasper to tell, 'Leah told me that the Pack have like a Jedi Mind-Link thing. As in, whenever they're Shifted, everyone can hear everyone's thoughts. So, everyone is hearing his distaste for Edward. According to her, Paul is about to crack.'

'I mean,' Rosalie grimaced, 'So would I if I was in his place. And we just have to physically witness that shit.'

'You're both terrible.' Emmett grinned and Rosalie shrugged, unashamedly. He kissed her on the side of the head and soon, they found themselves in the house once more. 'So, what's the plan with you?'

'I was assuming wherever Bella ends up, I'll be there too.' Willow mused as she tucked her feet up beside Jasper on the sofa. 'Will Victoria be the thing to be worried about? Don't know.'

The door opened then, and Alice skipped in with Edward and Bella. Bella looked to Willow. 'Did you know that Leah was a wolf?'

'She Shifted the day they found out about Mr Clearwater. She and Seth both did. They didn't expect it, why?' Willow cocked her head and shifted on the sofa. 'You didn't?'

'No. Edward told me.'

Willow glared at the telepath, clambered off the sofa and snagged the water sprayer off the little side table she used for the plants and got him in the face. 'Willow!'

'Stop telling Tribe secrets, dumbass!' He snagged the spray bottle out of her grip before she could throw it in his face, the front of his shirt speckled with water, and she nearly managed to kick him before Jasper had her a foot off the ground. 'They aren't yours to tell, so stop being a nosy fuck and using their drama as a source of entertainment. Because next time I'll take a bat to your knees and use your trachea as a fucking pan pipe!'

'Okay.' Jasper's voice came in her ear, over the roaring in her ears and Willow didn't realise she was shaking down to her bones with the rage. 'Settle.'

She didn't want to. Because all she could hear in her head was Genevieve and Mother ripping everything she hadn't learnt to hide to shreds as a child. The high-pitched laughter as Genevieve found a diary, as Mother overheard a conversation with her friends, with Richard. Leah had it hard enough – regardless of the pain of having to mentally witness her cousin become the centre of her ex-fiancée's universe, she also had become the first She-Wolf in Pack history and now he felt the need to air that for what? To get a leg up on a sixteen-year-old?

Edward flinched back as if she had struck him, and Willow wanted him to truly think of the impact he had. Leah hadn't told Bella what had happened so what gave him the fucking right to? That same feral anger that she had encountered when Georgie had brought up the fate of the house struck deep. 'What if someone aired out everything about you? How would you feel?'

Angry tears burnt in her eyes and Jasper had her in their room in less than a second. She didn't know what to do. Willow wanted to scream, could feel it clawing at the back of her throat, feel it wanting to wretch her teeth apart and she shook with it.

Willow hated how rocky her emotions were lately. One second, she was giggling and laughing and then what felt like the next, she was wanting to tear the world apart, and spit on the ashes. Dr Florence, who she had had a few sessions with after the funeral, after the disownment, had said to expect this. That grief, mourning, and healing from the death of a loved one, from letting go of toxic people in your life, took time and it would be a while before she could cycle through these things without goipolar opposites.

Jasper's hands cradled the back of her neck, the small of her back, and held her through the worst of the tremors. Shushed her as tears escaped and soaked through his shirt like acid drops. He held her by the seams as more cracks in her armour glistened in the sunlight. They sat there, on the bed, Willow straddling his lap, as the anger finally was released from her grasp, leaving her winded and aching.

Willow let her head fall to Jasper's shoulder and hid away. 'I hate this.'

'I know you do.' Jasper murmured and wiped her tears with a gentle hand after he coaxed her head out from his neck.

'Can't be fun for you.'

'Doesn't matter, sweetheart,' he shook his head, 'whether or not it's fun for me. You're still healing, and things will be rocky for a while.'

Willow gave him a soft kiss then, one that tasted of salt and the soldering embers of her anger before she left the bed to wash her face. He followed after her at a sedate pace and she focused on the washcloth in her hands as she stuck it under the tap. 'For so long, I've had to keep things in boxes and now it just feels like everything is slipping away and…'

'You just want to turn it off.' Jasper leant in the doorway and watched as Willow cleaned her face. He knew where she was coming from, maybe not from the grief standpoint, his human family were mere faceless figures, but he remembered how out of control things felt when he left Maria and got out of the Wars. You got used to the routine – as little as there was one – over the years of bloodshed. Go to the nearest untouched towns, survey the occupants, Turn the ones that passed muster, train them in their first year, make sure they didn't summon the Volturi, and clean out the expired ones.

To have that gone and then have all these possibilities in front of you, it could send you reeling.

Willow was doing better than he had.

'Yeah.' She uttered.

Jasper pushed off the doorway and slid his hands over her shoulders slowly, sometimes Willow could be prickly after 'loud' bursts of emotion. They made eye contact in the mirror, gold on moss-tinged earth. 'Should I apologise?'

'No.' Jasper frowned at her, where the fuck had that come from? 'You spritzed him with water, yelled at him – said what we all thought probably – and then chucked the spritzer at him. If anythin', darlin', he should be the one saying sorry.'

They wouldn't be overheard, every one of the bedrooms in the Cullen house had soundproofing. For everyone's sake, the bedrooms were a place of solace, so Esme had designed them to have insulation and soundproofing built into the walls and floors. Meant that no one could hear each other fuck. Or at least, not over music or a tv show or movie being played.

'If someone overheard his shitty secrets and aired them, he'd throw a fit.' Willow grumbled, rung out and frustrated, and leant back into Jasper. 'And yet there is no line for him not to do that to others. Yeah, he does use his telepathy occasionally for good, but from what I've seen the good doesn't outweigh the negatives. Not anymore.'

And they didn't. They used to. Edward used to be one of her closest friends – they had bonded over their love for musicals, and were Biology Buddies, especially after Willow came to know about the Secret. Now, it was like Edward had been given a personality transplant, maybe it was the lasting effects of his self-imposed exile from Bella, but Willow had grown to dislike the boy since he began to fixate on Bella Swan.

It was like all sense had left him, all logic a phantom concept and now he was holding the Bite from Bella until after they married like they truly had a choice in the matter.

Willow released a slow breath as her eyes shut and her head fell back onto Jasper's shoulder. 'I can put him through his paces tonight.'

The teasingly hopeful tone in Jasper's voice had a ghost of a smile pull across her mouth, especially as he dusted a kiss behind her ear. 'No. He needs to learn as much as he can. Regardless, of whether he's fighting or not. And as delightful as it is to watch you do said discipline, all you would do is make Bella fall into a spiral and I do not want to deal with that. After the fight, go for it, hon.'

Her phone pinged in the bedroom, and they wandered out. It was Scott – Skype meeeeee. I'm boooored.

Jasper snuck a kiss, his pointer finger petal soft as it crooked her chin up. 'Go, catch him up on things, tell him I say hi.'

'I will.' Willow murmured and went up on her toes for one more kiss. 'I love you.'

Jasper took her face in his hands, pressed their foreheads together lightly and Willow cradled the warm and fuzzy emotions – love, comfort, adoration – to her sternum as he echoed it back. 'I love you too. I'll be downstairs.'

'Okay.'

'Wow, you look awful.'

'I'm hanging up.' Willow deadpanned as she chucked her glasses down on the desk in Jasper's office and tugged both the blanket over her lap and then the keyboard in case she needed to send something in the chat.

Scott gave her a perusal. 'Everything okay?'

Willow brought up the chat. Get your boy for this bit. Demetri was summoned after Willow was sent a look from Scott and she shrugged, 'As good as things can get with a fight on the horizon, I guess. Tensions are a bit high, s'all.' E is getting on my nerves. 'Alice has the time and place. Two days from now, just after dawn, they'll come from the west, and numbers are at around eighteen to twenty right now. Whether the numbers will fall, we don't know yet, but Jasper says they're unpredictable so it could happen.'

Demetri nodded. 'And things are well?'

'Yes.' Willow smiled. 'Not everyone is as skilled as Jasper, for obvious reasons, but he has been giving Rosalie consistent training over the past few decades and he and Emmett 'spar' like children anyway. Would you like me to tell the others we could potentially have a debrief with yourselves in person or would you prefer to do it yourselves?'

Demetri quirked a brow. Scott grinned up at him. 'Wills does this.'

'It makes sense, Scotty.' She threw it at him. 'You did it before, didn't you? Jasper told me about the South, you'd check in after some rather…contemptuous battles.'

Demetri rested his hands on Scott's shoulders lightly. 'I will run this by the Kings.'

'We'll probably still be here.' Willow quipped and gave a smile as she tugged over a doodle pad and waved when he left. 'How's that going by the way?'

'Oh my god.' Scott mouthed and sank back against his chair, hands in his hair. Willow grinned as he sighed. 'Your plan worked, first off. Utter genius that you are.'

'Well, I very much doubted it wouldn't.' Willow drawled, random doodles beginning to spread across the pad with a ballpoint. 'But continue to give me praise.'

Scott tucked a knee up, his jeans slightly torn at the knee. 'He was waiting to let me settle into being a Newborn and shit before he did anything…didn't want to scare me off.'

'It's like they have a decade or something under their belts and logic goes out the window.'

'But those years really do have some use to them.'

Willow pointed at him with the pen. 'Yes. Yes, they do. Continue.'

Scott shrugged as he ran a hand through his hair before he scooped it up into a bun on the back of his hair. 'Not much else to it, really. He took me to the Colosseum one night and fuck, Wills, it's so cool.'

'Did you have a moment?'

'Like a moment or a Moment?'

'Both, I guess.'

He tipped his head and his hands dipped out of frame to the keyboard. 'It just felt so much different, seeing it, and standing there in person than reading about it or watching it on TV. There are still flecks of blood on some of the stonework and in the chains below, too small for the human eye.' The chat popped up with his message.

HE FUCKING KISSED ME UNDER THE DAMN STARS AND IT WAS THE FUCKING BEST KISS I HAVE EVER HAD. HE'S BUILT LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING TREE; HIS ABS ARE GIFTED BY THE GODS AND HE'S SO FUCKING FUNNY. LIKE A QUIET FUNNY, THAT YOU DON'T SEE COMING THEN BAM, HE THROWS OUT THESE ONE-LINERS AND I'M IN STITCHES.

He treats you well?

Scott sent her a warm look over the camera as he continued to speak. 'It's funny, you know. Like we dipped to Florence last week, don't roll your eyes at me,' he ended in a squawk and Willow cackled, and relished in the joy of talking to her best friend, 'and he raced me to the top of the Duomo. Willow, that view, and the lights of the city, I want you to paint it. When you Change, I want you to come here, and I want you to see what I've seen and immortalise it because you'd actually appreciate it. Felix got bored ten minutes in and fucked off.'

Willow snorted. 'Got bored of the city or the company?'

'Fuck. Off.'

The chat went again.

We're taking things slow. It's only been a recent development, within the last two weeks or so. The trips have two vibes to them – see what I'm like around humans and see Italy. Being around humans is harder than I'd thought it would be but as I said, when Alec isn't needed by the Kings, he comes with us and helps out. Like Pavlov-style shit. So Felix is in charge of my training, rather than D bc the last time I tried to coax him into a spar, he shut that shit down real fast. And when I do spar, Marcus always makes sure than D isn't there, in case things go bad and someone gets hurt.

'What aren't you telling me?'

Willow blinked at him, twice, three times and her hands stilled on the keys. 'What'cha mean?'

'There's something you're not telling me. What is it?'

Willow stared at him, took in the orange eyes, the deep shades of his shiny curls, the concerned furrow to his brow as his arms crossed over his knee. 'Gi's just being Gi, that's all.'

Scott's face tightened. 'Last email I got from her, she had gone on a date with Paul Lahote and things are good. She did mention the house though.'

The feral rage licked at her feet and Willow scowled out the window where a particularly strong summer wind had trees rustling. 'I don't know what I'm gonna do with the house but it's mine. And after everything, I'm keeping it.'

'She told me about what happened after the funeral.' Willow fell silent once more and the two stared at each other through the screen. 'You doing okay?'

She shrugged and spun the pen for something to do. 'I'm a roller coaster, Scotty. One minute, things are fine and then the next I'm throwing a spritzer at Edward because he's being a dick again. Dr F says these things are normal, but it sends me into a tailspin every damn time.'

'I'm sorry, your feelings are valid, and I love you, but can we just do a little circle back to that second point? You threw a what at who?'

Willow narrowed her gaze. 'Bitch, you heard what I said.'

'AND I MISSED IT!' Scott screeched just as Demetri waltzed back in again and Willow tugged on the little link again. 'You threw a spritzer at Edward, and I missed it.'

'He was being a dick and I'm still emotionally unstable so, in my defence, he deserved it. Besides, it isn't like it hurt him or anything.' She shrugged again and Jasper slid in. 'It was water, not acid. I did threaten to take a baseball bat to his knees next time. Which will probably be sooner rather than later.'

Scott threw his hands up before he slid into a pout. 'First, you let rip on the Bitch and then I miss out on you going all Valkyrie on Edward? S'not fair.'

'Build a bridge and get it over it, Scotty.' Willow drawled, 'You were stargazing at the fucking Duomo. I am inches from a menty-bee so priorities.'

He waved that last part off. 'You're always inches from one of those.' He tipped his face up to Demetri, 'What did they say?'

Jasper leant on the top of the chair and the two older vampires did a guy-nod. Demetri fixed his button-up cuffs that were rolled mid-forearm. 'As you said, Miss Crawford, we will be meeting with your coven after the fight. I'm sure Scott can give you details.'

Scott and she perked up and excitement began to bubble in her stomach. 'I can go?'

'Marcus believes that as long as we take either or both of the twins and Felix with us, you will do well. It will act as another trial for you, luchik,' Willow scrawled that down phonetically as Scott and he were distracted. Had to Google that later. Jasper fixed the spelling and then did a little dash with Russian for sunray. Demetri had a nickname for Scott. That was adorably disgusting. 'Though it will only be quick. Check-in on how the fight fared and how the other half of the Bargain is being upheld as well as the damages down in the main city.'

'Bella just recently graduated,' Willow gave, but kept details scarce, 'and with the way Seattle is right now, if she were to disappear, things would not line up well enough for eyes to not turn this way. But the date is within its final stages.'

It wasn't but they couldn't tell if she was lying through a screen here.

Willow had no idea when that would be, but it would probably be around the new school year. Bella would be able to 'go to the University of Alaska' and wean the Chief and Mrs Dwyer of the contact before she Turned. Who would do the Turning, she had no idea, but the sand was falling through the hourglass and the girl needed to get her ducks in a row and soon.

Demetri nodded. 'We gathered. Scott has let us in on how exactly Miss Swan fits within the cogs of your coven over the past few months. Jane is not happy, and Caius is…frustrated but things have hardly been calm on your side of the water.'

Jasper snorted. 'You can say that again. Immortality suits you, Forrester.'

And it did. Scott seemed to glow with a confidence he had only begun to come into as a human. Not only that but the physical changes that she could see through the screen were different. A good different, if a little strange. The weird orange shade of his eyes, instead of that warm, sun-soaked earth brown that had flecks of sunlight yellow-gold in them, was strange the first time she'd seen them as they talked with him sitting on a balcony mid-afternoon.

But those attributes didn't take away the fact that Scott was still her best friend, and she'd destroy Demetri if he hurt him. Scott grinned, dimples and all, as he propped his head on a knee. 'Thanks, I think so too. Wills, you're gonna have a time with the braking and strength.'

Willow shrugged. 'Maybe so but hey, at least you'll be there to laugh at me.'

There was noise in the room behind Demetri and Scott and Felix burst in, 'Forrester, Santi wants to—oh, I forgot you were talking to your friend. Hello, Major Whitlock. Miss Crawford.'

Scott's face scrunched up. 'That's still weird. The whole…rank and official shit, I'm not gonna lie.'

Willow rolled her eyes. 'Just because I've watched you get high off a glue stick and then try and nearly eat a daffodil head, Scotty, doesn't mean that everyone else has. And that lot has survival instincts.'

Jasper leant on the back of the chair. 'I have watched you lot…debate over Kenobi's mullet. And then wake up drooling whilst—'

'Okay, okay, okay,' Scott cut in, much to the amusement of the Volturi Guard members behind him, 'I get it. I was a disaster human, we know this.'

Willow pointed absently up to Jasper. 'And he puts the fear of the Gods into people, it happens.' There was a fuck ton else to that sentence but it about summed it up. 'I'll email you with everything going on further, don't worry, Skywalker. Go, before Felix actually breaks the sound barrier.'

The Italian behemoth, so different, yet so similar to Emmett, was seemingly a statue in the archway but she could see he wanted Scott to hurry up and get off. 'Be careful. See you soon, you two.'

Jasper nodded and Willow gave a wiggle of the fingers before they hung up. It took a second before a message popped up. I mean it, don't do anything stupid. And maybe save some for Felix if we miss the fight, I think he's chomping at the bit for something.

Not entirely comforting that thought, dude, but he can go pout for all I care

Fair enough, fair enough. Email me what you meant earlier.

Probably about what had frustrated her, Will do. Go try beat up Felix for me.

Not gonna happen. He'll make me eat sandstone.

Enjoy.

His new Skype address thing went offline then, and Willow pushed the keyboard away and Jasper settled under her. 'What'd he mean?'

She settled sideways on Jasper's lap then, 'Just what happened at the house and then earlier, that's all, hon. That's all. Have you a plan for tonight?'

He lifted his hips up and took out a notebook. A small, brown Moleskine thing and inside had each member of the coven's names and things they had to work on. Also, a list of things they had to work out with location crossed off, direction and size too, Bella's name next, and then Edward fighting?

Jasper's arms slid around her once more and Willow nestled deep, 'I'm going to be focusing on the major points tonight and tomorrow.' She followed his finger as he flipped to Carlisle – his hesitation. Esme's constant stopping and starting. Alice focusing more on her visions rather than the present. Rose needed to go for the pressure points rather than the actual joints. Emmett needed to fine-tune his direction more. And, then his finger double-tapped Edward fighting? 'Then we'll see where we're at come tomorrow. Preferably I'd been doin' this for months. Or earlier.'

'Or Victoria had been dealt with just after Phoenix.'

Jasper dropped his mouth to her shoulder, where it was exposed from her tank top. A kiss lingered there as a breath caused goosebumps to skitter across the skin. 'Or that. I shouldn't have let him change my mind.'

'Hey,' Willow turned, straddled his lap and took Jasper's face in her hands. 'No, we don't do that. You can't change the past, so there's no point in stressing over it. We deal with her now and then let it go. What happened with Dad, it isn't your fault and I need you to realise that, Jasper. It isn't. I know you,' she thumbed under a darkening eye, 'and you think all this is because you let her go that first time, but it isn't. She chose this path because of what James did. If anything, had James not decided to hunt Bella, then Phoenix never would have happened. Maybe Dad would have survived Seattle to be, I don't know, hit by a car or something, or maybe he'd have lived to a-hundred-and-two in a nursing home. I wish he had never gone the way he did,' Willow admitted, and focused on one of the smoother divots on his jaw, 'but maybe it's better he went now rather than after I Turned. I don't know. At least I don't have to say goodbye to him again or lie to him.'

Jasper turned his head into one of them and kissed the heel of a hand. 'You're right,' he admitted, and pulled her hands away and began to fiddle with her digits, 'and I will let it go. When Victoria is dead and you can finally begin truly healing.'

He was right of course. As the bodies continued to drop in Seattle, now seen to be part of a pack according to the Feds, rather than a singular, Willow hadn't even been able to stay in the room for each segment of daily news cycles. Anger warred with everything else in her every time it was mentioned and maybe, with Victoria, and in connection, Riley, dead, she could finally let it all go.

Willow had been torn over the last few weeks too. She'd seen the way Bella treated Chief Swan and wanted to shake the girl, get her to realise that not every day is guaranteed, that she would eventually have to say goodbye to her father, get her to stop just throwing the man to the wayside. And maybe, had Willow not been struck with how endless that cycle seemed to be, she would have. But she was tired of having to point things out that should never have had to be, and maybe it was time to let Bella learn from her mistakes without aid.

Perhaps it was cruel, and maybe the girl that Bella Swan had met all those years ago would have done something different, but this Willow, this one who had disowned her family on the day of her father's funeral, who had grown weary of having to fix other's problems, this one knew different.

Some people only learnt from their mistakes through the spilling of blood.

And unfortunately, maybe that would be the only way Bella would change and do better.

Nearly there...

MY DUDES, my comment in the last chapter about reviews was just that, a comment. I did not expect an onslaught of them and I cherish each and every one. Though I will give a little spoiler. Wisper Babies are a no-go here. They will not be happening because that just isn't the people they are. And I wanted to create a story where just because babies aren't a thing at the end, doesn't mean that they aren't happy and fulfilled. Do you get me? I'm all for the other fanfics where they have babies and all that, but that just isn't for Willow. However, that doesn't mean that those with endometriosis and other internal shit can't have them, Willow just doesn't want them. She will be the kick-ass 'here I'll read you Percy Jackson and let you read actual kids books, you weird gremlin-esque thing?' aunt.

We got Wilcott, my babies. I love them. I love them. Also, I got the nickname thing from a website on the internet. Because I'm having Demetri be Eastern-European and it makes me smile when the big scary ones have adorable nicknames for their s/os. But let me know if that isn't right and I can change it.

Another thing, lemme know which layout for BD you'd prefer. The way I did NM, where I alternated between Willow and Scott, or do you want it to be like the book where it's alternate but for chunks at a time?

Anyway, hope you all enjoy and I will see you all next Fine Life Friday,

Enjoy,

K x