Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just playing with her characters.

A/N: The first couple chapters of this story are in third person but for the most part it will be in first person JPOV or BPOV. Thank you to the betas from Project Team Beta, BelleDuJour and bigblueboat, my awesome beta and pre-reader Laurie Whitlock, my pre-readers AlwaysJASPERsLOVE and Shadman, and my beloved sister Shelljayz who also happens to pre-read for me. :)

Thank you to Ellie Wolf for the beautiful banner she made for Longing and Laurie for surprising me with it. I will be setting up a link in my bio so you can view it.

Thank you so much to everyone who favorited, put this story on their alerts, or took the time to review! You are all awesome! :)

oOo

Late July 2080

The girl was sitting at the kitchen table now dressed in a pair of Esme's thick, plaid flannel pajamas, her hair still wet from her bath but smelling like honeysuckle instead of mud and pine needles; she was tearing into the frozen pizza Carlisle had bought at Forks' only all-night convenience store. He would have liked to have bought her something more nutritious, but it was nearing one o'clock in the morning, and the grocery store closed at ten.

Esme and Carlisle were seated across from her, trying to hide their frowns. It wasn't the smell of the human food that had them uncomfortable but the way the girl hardly chewed before she swallowed, like she was trying to breathe the food in before it disappeared, even though it wasn't going anywhere.

"Have you decided, dear?" Esme asked, giving her a small smile. Carlisle smiled at her too, his expression encouraging.

Having finished her dinner, the girl pushed her plate aside and sighed. "I suppose I could stay here."

Esme's smile turned brilliant as she looked at her, and Carlisle knew that Esme was already feeling like she'd found a new daughter though she'd not met this girl an hour ago, and would not know her for more than twenty-four. The simultaneous love and heartbreak that swept over Carlisle as he witnessed this was so overwhelming he reached out without thought to brush his thumb tenderly across Esme's cheek. She leaned into his touch, her eyes meeting his with a softness in them that was reserved for him alone, and he bent forward to press a kiss to her forehead. She sighed happily. He wanted to pull her into him then and shake her, to tell her, "We can't keep her." He wanted to pull her into him, and never let her go, but that would have to wait. They still had an errant teenager to deal with after all, and he truly wanted to help the girl.

Thinking of the girl made him realize that his heartbreak wasn't solely for Esme. For some reason, he felt very protective of the girl, a feeling that went beyond his great caring for people in general.

When Esme and Carlisle returned their attention to the girl, they found her watching them closely, like they were a puzzle she couldn't piece together.

"You must be exhausted," Carlisle said to her. He'd noticed the dark circles under her eyes the first time he'd gotten a good look at her face, and now that she'd eaten, the doctor in him was demanding that she get some rest. So far her lungs sounded clear, but there was still the possibility she could contract pneumonia, and sleep would help limit that possibility. "Perhaps you should go to bed."

"Is this the part where you tuck me in and read me a bedtime story?" the girl asked, her tone flip.

"I reserve the reading of bedtime stories for children under age ten," Carlisle said mildly, the ghost of a grin letting the girl know he was onto her mission to rile him and that she wasn't going to succeed easily. The girl just stared at him, but he thought he saw her lips flicker up at the corners a little. Then again, that's what he wanted to see, so that could very well have been his mind playing tricks on him. That didn't generally happen to vampires, but hope was a powerful emotion that was capable of extraordinary things.

"Come on then, dear," Esme said, getting up from her seat at the kitchen table and moving to take the girl's plate so she could place it by the sink on her way to showing the girl to one of the guest bedrooms.

The girl snatched the plate away and met Esme's eyes with a glare.

"I'll do that," she said, her voice tight. She took the plate to the sink, washed it, and dried it with a paper towel. Then she started opening and shutting cabinets until she found the right one and put the plate back in its proper place.

From their respective spots, Carlisle and Esme watched this curiously. Their dishwasher was in pristine condition, having only ever been used once when first purchased to ensure it worked properly and never touched since. The girl easily could have just placed it inside or let either one of them take care of it. Why hadn't she?

When she was done, she returned to Esme's side, all traces of her earlier plate-related hostility gone. "I think I'm ready to go to bed now."

Carlisle got to his feet and cleared his throat. Both women turned toward him.

"Goodnight," he said, smiling at his guest warmly. "I hope you sleep well."

The girl nodded, and then Esme led her out of the room. Carlisle stood there listening to the sound of their footsteps as they ascended the stairs and headed toward one of the guest bedrooms, looking up at the ceiling for a long time and wondering what they'd gotten themselves into.

oOo

"Here you are, dear," Esme said, pushing the door to the third-floor guest bedroom open smoothly. They had a guest room on each floor, but she'd chosen this one because she figured it would discourage any attempts on the girl's part to try to slip out when she thought that Esme and Carlisle would be asleep. They wouldn't be, of course, but the girl didn't know that.

The room had a queen-sized bed with a naturally-finished oak frame and headboard, lilac sheets with a crisp, white comforter and several fluffy pillows. The dresser and end tables matched the bed frame and headboard. The walls were a light blue, and the carpet was a stark white. The artwork was beautiful and dreamy, done in pastels, with a splash of bold color here and there. It was a room Esme was particularly proud of and was made even more so when she noticed that the girl seemed to like it, if the way she was taking in her surroundings with a sort of innocent longing was any indication of how she reacted to things she liked, that is. The girl was very difficult to read, but in this Esme felt rather confident in her assessment.

"Do you like it?" She couldn't resist asking.

The girl looked at her for a long moment. "It's fine," she answered blandly.

Esme felt a stab of hurt and disappointment flash through her, but what could she do? She had no clue what to do or say to make this girl understand that she cared and wanted to help her, that she didn't have to be so guarded. The last time she'd had this much difficulty trying to connect with someone was when Jasper had come to live with them so many decades ago. Even now, she still felt like she was grasping at straws with him at times. She didn't want it to be that way with this girl, but then she remembered—this girl wasn't her daughter. She would only be staying for a day, no longer than two, and Esme couldn't think this way. She couldn't get attached. If she did it would feel like losing her human baby all over again, and she could never feel that way again. She wouldn't survive it. She had to find some way to distance herself from this girl. Esme wasn't sure how she would do it, but she had to.

Pulling herself from her musings, Esme refocused on the girl standing in her line of sight. She was still taking in her surroundings, studying them the same way she'd studied Esme and Carlisle when they'd first stood face-to-face.

"I'll just let you settle in, then," Esme said, sounding a bit awkward even to her own ears.

The girl glanced back at her, gave her a brief nod and made her way toward the bed. Esme stood in the doorway for a moment, not able to resist watching her for just a little longer. It had been a long time since something or someone had so thoroughly piqued her curiosity and Esme, more than anything, wanted to understand her.

The girl stood before the bed, staring down at it warily, almost as though she was afraid to touch it. This went on for several seconds before Esme decided she had invaded the girl's privacy long enough and began to make her way down the hall. She'd nearly gotten to the stairs, intent on joining Carlisle in his study, when an idea popped into her head.

Even though the girl could neither hear nor see her, Esme still moved at a human pace. She and Carlisle could take no risks with either the girl's life or the family's, though the likelihood of the Volturi discovering the fact that they were temporarily harboring a human was just as slim as the girl figuring out that they were vampires. Because of her slower pace, it took several minutes for Esme to find what she'd been looking for.

When Esme returned to the guest room, she tapped lightly on the door. The girl had closed it and turned off the lights in the time she had been gone. There was no response but Esme knew from the rhythm of her heart that the girl was still awake. After a moment, the soft light of the bedside lamp flooded underneath the door, so the older woman opened it and made her way toward the bed.

Esme held out her hand, offering the square metallic object to her guest: an iPod.

The girl looked at her questioningly. Esme just moved her hand closer to her, hoping it would spur the girl to take it.

"Um ..." the girl trailed off, still not taking it, clearly wondering what Esme was doing trying to give her the expensive mp3 player.

"It belongs to my son, Edward," Esme explained. "He listens to everything, so it'll be virtually impossible for you not to find something you like," she said, smiling in encouragement and moving her hand closer once again. "It's not a bedtime story, but it might help you sleep if you have trouble."

The girl studied Esme for a moment, a pattern Esme was picking up on, before reaching out slowly, hesitantly, and closing her hand around the iPod.

"Thanks."

oOo

Jasper lay on his back on a flat rock in the middle of the river, arms folded behind his head, and listening to the water rush by. He was looking up at the sky, admiring the stars and moon, luxuriating in the breeze that caressed his skin, and feeling carefree … peaceful … content. Out here, alone, he didn't have to contend with anyone's emotions but his own, and it was the closest to happiness he'd felt in a long time.

It wasn't that Jasper didn't feel happiness. He always had in one way or another. He was an empath living with at least one mated couple at all times. That made it impossible for him not to have felt that particular emotion; he just didn't know what it felt like to feel happiness that was his own. Feeling everyone else's was an empty, meaningless sort of happiness, but it was better than nothing, he supposed.

Jasper wasn't looking forward to returning to the hustle and bustle of living in the Cullen home with six other vampires when he felt like this, knowing this peace would evaporate the second he was under the same roof with them all. It didn't mean he didn't love his family but this was nice, and he wasn't yet ready for it to end. It seemed as though that thought, in and of itself, had somehow managed to do just that when the silence was shattered by the ring of his satellite phone.

With a weary sigh, Jasper pulled the phone to his ear and drawled, "Hello?"

"Hello, son," Carlisle greeted.

Jasper noticed that his father figure sounded a little hesitant and was instantly on high alert. "What's on your mind, Carlisle?"

"Well ..." Carlisle trailed off, trying to figure out exactly how to explain what was going on.

Jasper's brows furrowed. It wasn't like Carlisle to beat around the bush.

"There's a bit of a delicate situation at home, and I thought everyone should be apprised of it before they arrive here," he said finally.

"Don't you usually go to Edward with all the delicate situations?" Jasper asked, his curiosity temporarily getting the better of his wariness. "He is the one with the pianist's hands, after all."

Carlisle let out the breath of a laugh before he admitted sheepishly, "Edward and Alice … I didn't want to …"

"Oh, right," Jasper said in comprehension, half-amused, half-annoyed. "You called me because you knew you wouldn't be interruptin' anything."

Only he was. Jasper couldn't even begin to explain how irritating it was for everyone to assume they could bother him like this just because he didn't have a mate to "hunt" with.

Carlisle paused, apparently having only heard the annoyance in his voice, which, he had to admit, gave him some satisfaction, and Jasper didn't try to mollify him.

"What's goin' on?" he asked, checking his watch. It was just past one o'clock in the morning. "The five of us have plans to meet back up in about twenty minutes so we can hike back up the trail head. I'll brief everyone on the situation in the car."

Emmett, Rosalie, Edward, Alice, and he had driven part of the way and then run for the remainder of the trip to the destination they'd chosen to go hunting because, as fast as they could run, driving part of the way still made things quicker; especially since they had wanted to go farther out to hunt than usual. Since they were on summer vacation from school, they could go clear to Antarctica to hunt if they wanted to. The planning of the trip had been left up to Emmett, though Jasper still wasn't sure why, so they'd only ended up in Idaho's Ponderosa State Park due to the goofy idiot's unending love of Bonanza.

"We have a guest staying with us."

"Anyone we know?" Jasper inquired, his curiosity piqued again. He was still wary, but Carlisle didn't sound concerned, just hesitant. Besides, their friends stopped by to visit on occasion and that idea was quickly dismissed. Alice would have seen that and let them all know, and even if she hadn't, if that was the case, Carlisle wouldn't be dawdling.

"No," Carlisle said, confirming Jasper's suspicions.

"A nomad?" Sometimes they housed nomads that passed through, though it was an incredibly rare occurrence, but only if they agreed to observe the limitations of the treaty with the Quileutes. That possibility sent his mind back into Major mode, but again, Carlisle didn't sound alarmed, so Jasper reined himself in.

"No."

"Please tell me you don't mean ..." Jasper groaned, smacking his hand to his forehead with a thud.

"I do," Carlisle confirmed.

"You realize that I'm the one who'll have to break this to Rosalie and then be confined in a very small space with her for two hours, don't you?" Jasper asked, incredulously.

"I do, unfortunately, realize this," Carlisle said, and his voice did contain genuine remorse and sympathy.

"Now I know why you didn't call Edward," Jasper said, his tone only partially teasing.

"Jasper ..." Carlisle chided.

"I love you like a father, Carlisle," Jasper interrupted seriously. "But if anything below my belt comes home the worse for wear because of this, I'm takin' it out of your ass."