A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm only making her characters do my bidding for a little while. The plot and original characters of Longing do belong to me, however. Jasper as the God of War and Peter "just knowing shit" are ideas that belong to Idreamofeddy.

Sorry for the lateness again. I haven't been feeling well. Plus, a friend of mine from Tennessee was visiting and my birthday was this last weekend.

Thank you to my beta/prereader/sister, Shelljayz. I love you bunches. Thank you also to juliangelus and deebelle1, my prereaders. I love you guys too. :)

Thank you to everyone that has read, followed, favorited and reviewed. I adore you all. I also apologize for not responding to everyone's reviews. My reasons are the same as the lateness of my update. I will do my best to get caught up in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you also for all of your condolences.

And now for Christmas Day!

oOo

Friday, December 25th, 2080 … Christmas Day

BPOV

I startled awake at three minutes after eight in the morning, fortunate to have found sleep at all. It wasn't a pleasant awakening but a rude one, the coppery taste of blood sliding down my throat in a choking stream that made me gag and cough, decorating my pillowcase with splatters of red. It also painted my lips and chin and drenched sections of my hair, and I rushed to the bathroom to expel it in the sink rather than continue to stain more of my bedding.

I rarely dreamed, but when I did, they weren't of the sugarplum and puppy variety. They were flashbacks of the life I had left behind five years ago and some from the years since that escaped the confines of the rooms I had locked them away in, determined to haunt me when I was off my guard while in the arms of slumber; when I was weak. Then there were those like the one I'd had of Jasper. Granted ever since I met him, I'd had dreams that started out slightly dirty only to end in some variation of nightmare, even way back before he'd found me in Louisville in September.

This particular dream was vague and indistinct. It lacked horrific memories or the presence of the man who constantly drove me mad. Instead it was nothing but color—vivid and bold ones, pale pastels, neons, the basic of primary, the monotony of black and white and shades of gray. Why this odd occurrence that took place in my subconscious during one of my few respites from the waking world had triggered one of my intermittent, inexplicable minor hemorrhages, I had no damn clue … until I looked up and caught sight of my reflection several minutes later. What I saw made me blanch but it also made a certain sort of sense.

"Son of a bitch!" I cursed, not giving a fuck how loud my voice echoed off the walls of my bathroom. Odds were in my favor at the moment. None of the Cullens were home, which was a curious coincidence, but one I was grateful for nonetheless. They had all gone to the treaty line to meet with the Quileutes now that they all knew about Jasper's troubles with feeding. It was another human blood day, and even though it was Christmas, he couldn't miss the opportunity to be able to feed again, especially since his attempt at drinking animal blood the day before had been a bust. Now that Rosalie had come to terms with the color of his eyes, she'd decided to be supportive and wanted to show it by being at his side, or as close to his side as he would let anyone get. She loved Jasper. I had never doubted that. Esme and Alice had wanted to do the same.

Other than the strands beginning to crust with dried blood, my hair was no longer brown but streaked with every color that had passed through my brain in my dream.

"Son of a bitch!" I yelled again, even louder this time, still not quite able to process what I was seeing. Once it finally did sink in, I wasn't sure what I felt more—pissed off or scared shitless. Only two months ago, I had discovered another ability I hadn't known I had, one that had appeared out of nowhere and one that continued to progress as time had passed, my fingerprints not only disappearing but the grooves of my palms as well. A person could be just as easily identified by even a partial palm print if they were stupid enough to leave one behind. I wasn't that stupid, but it was no longer an option. Now my hair had changed colors without my fucking permission and not just the normal ones like blond or black or brown or red or gray, not just without my permission but while I wasn't even fucking conscious. It was just another thing to add to the long list of shit about myself I hated. I had no idea what it meant or if my creators had known it would happen at some point. Had they been prepared for this? They certainly hadn't prepared me for it, but then again, they hadn't really prepared me for the true power of all my abilities, had they? Would new abilities continually pop up to take me by surprise for the rest of my life, making it even more glaringly obvious just how much of a freak I was when I never thought it could get any worse? Was I evolving somehow?

All those possibilities scared the hell out of me, and if the Cullens ever found out about my origins and the things I could do, what would they think? Just how much more would the way they looked at me change? How much more disgust would they regard me with as more of these abilities made themselves known? How would Jasper look at me? I could picture it, and what I envisioned twisted my stomach into painful knots.

A thought occurred to me then. Could I have chameleon DNA? How else would I be able to do this? And how much farther would this go? Was it an extension of what I could already do—the ability I already had to mimic the retinas of others and duplicate fingerprints? Maybe it wasn't such a new ability after all, but it certainly was an evolution of it. What would come next? Would I wake up one day with a different skin color? Would I be able to alter the shape of my eyes, nose and mouth to pass myself off as a different ethnicity? It seemed very farfetched, but if I could do this, couldn't that be possible? No, no, it couldn't be. I wouldn't let it be possible! How could they do this to me?

The knots in my stomach twisted tighter and more painfully and I rushed to the toilet, making it just in time for me to empty the contents of my stomach along with more blood from whatever bullshit this was. I heaved until there was nothing left and continued to heave until I hurt—my abdomen, my sides, my back, my throat, my head. When I was finally finished, I made my way back to the mirror and stared, transfixed. I had to admit, the abundance of different colors was fascinating, and it certainly would come in handy for future missions and aid in continuing to evade hunters from Project Apotheosis, especially if they had no idea I could do this. Blending in would no longer be even remotely an issue. Despite the potential benefits, I couldn't restrain the bitter snort that escaped me.

"Merry fucking Christmas to you too, you bastards!" I shouted to the ceiling, wishing they could hear me and the venom in my voice, the fury. I wanted to tear them all apart. In a moment of pure misery and rage, I lost control and struck out, shattering the mirror with my fist and leaving a dent in the wall behind it. The glass left nothing more than red welts on my skin, its kevlar-like quality making the shards unable to penetrate it.

I let myself wallow in the rage and panic for a few moments before I took a deep breath and had to let it go. It was time to pull myself together. Even in the stress of what had happened since I'd awoken, I was still acutely aware that forty-one minutes had passed and the Cullens could be home at any moment. I had work to do. I prayed I could get it done before they did.

Jasper was clearly affected by the scent of my blood. He'd lost his shit yesterday and it hadn't even been free-flowing. If he smelled it outside the vein, how much worse would his reaction be? I still didn't believe he would hurt me—I had that much faith in him—but he would react and it would be more intense. He would feel guilty about it and who knew if I'd be able to pull him out of it this time? I had to eradicate the evidence of the scent of my blood before anyone got back because not only would things with Jasper be a disaster, but everyone would have questions; questions I didn't want to answer, questions I wasn't willing to answer.

First thing's first: I set myself on high alert. One could pretty much say I was always on high alert, but I didn't truly have a choice in that. In this instance, I chose to kick it up another notch, to block nothing out. The filter I applied to keep my hearing manageable—gone, which worked since the bathroom was not soundproofed. The one exception I made was for my keen sense of smell. It was set to home in on any one of the Cullens' scents the second they approached home, even with the fumes I was about to subject myself to.

I sponged the blood from my skin and swabbed it with rubbing alcohol, rinsed the blood from my hair and used cotton balls to sanitize it with alcohol as well, pulled it up into a high bun and stuffed it under a beanie as an extra safety precaution, which wasn't entirely suspicious given how cold it was in the house at the moment—I allowed myself to feel it for this specific purpose—changed into a clean pair of pajamas, and threw open my bedroom windows to help the place air out. Then I snuck downstairs, stole the largest ceramic bowl Esme had from the kitchen and bleach from the laundry room. I already had matches in my bedroom.

When I returned to my own space, I locked my door behind me and lit my scented candles to help mask the scent of the burning, tossed my soiled pillow case in the bowl and doused it with the rubbing alcohol before I added a match to the mix. It was swallowed by flames, and once it was sufficiently burned to ash, I added my ruined pajamas one article at a time and more alcohol, watching as they were eaten up by the fire. Once that was done, I deposited what remained of the physical evidence of my rude awakening in the fireplace, washed the bowl and dried it, and then returned it to its place in the cupboards. Then I dabbed my stained pillow with a copious amount of bleach. I would have preferred just to dispose of the damn thing with the other stuff, but I didn't have time, so the bleach would have to do. It killed just about any scent anyway.

After that, I blockaded myself in my bathroom and sanitized my sink, counter and toilet with the bleach as well before I situated myself back in front of my mirror. Only three shards had survived my assault, wedged in the frame of it. Perching myself on my sink to get a better view in the largest one, I stared at my reflection again, removed the beanie and released my hair from its bun. I couldn't tear my eyes from the different colors, but that was okay. I needed to focus on them. If I didn't, I couldn't fix this before the Cullens got back. I needed to fix this before they got back, and I was operating on borrowed time.

When my fingerprints had disappeared for the first time, I had hypothesized that if I concentrated hard enough I could get them to reappear. I hoped that would be the case with this too, so I let the world fall away and saw nothing but what I needed to see.

Brown, brown, brown, brown …, I chanted. I kept this up for several minutes, and after the tenth one, I began to notice the shift. Slowly but surely the colors faded, first to an odd shade of blonde and then darkening until my natural shade of brown had returned fully. I let out a shaky breath, one of relief but also of resignation, and then propped my elbows on my knees and buried my face in my hands. I wanted nothing more than to cry in that moment.

I just sat there for a while, gradually coming back to full awareness and noticing that the Cullens had finally returned home. I had no idea how long it had been, but I didn't care. I had accomplished all I needed to before they did, and that was all that mattered. I knew that they would soon come to fetch me for the opening of presents—Emmett, Peter and Alice just seemed the impatient type—so I stripped off my clothes and turned on the hot water in my shower, letting it heat to scalding before I stepped in.

As I let the spray sluice down my body, I hoped the stench of burning fabric and alcohol as well as that of bleach had dissipated enough that they wouldn't question it, and that the scent of my candles had helped.

I only stood there for a few moments before the trembling started, so intense I couldn't hold my body aloft, collapsing to my knees and then falling on my ass with a quiet thud. I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapped my arms around them and rested my cheek against their uneven surface.

I was a freak. I knew I was. Even though I hadn't always known, in a way I had always been aware of it to a certain degree … in the back of my mind, I just knew. I just didn't acknowledge it until it was unavoidable. I had lived with that knowledge, would live with it, for the rest of my life. It was a hard burden to bear even if I had come to accept it as much as I could, but knowing I was even more of a freak? That was a bitter pill to swallow, and I knew it would take a little while before I could come to terms with it.

The overwhelming urge to cry again reared its ugly head, and this time I succumbed.

So much for a normal Christmas.

oOo

I allowed myself precisely ten minutes to cry in the shower as quietly as I could manage, though a few errant tears did slide down my cheeks during the following fifteen I devoted to actually bathing myself. Luckily for me, all traces that I had lost my shit in any form would be gone by the time I went downstairs. The pink cheeks and puffy eyes of a crying jag were no match for my ability to heal in a snap and the welts on my knuckles from breaking my mirror were a thing of the past and had been for nearly an hour. The only evidence the Cullens would have would be the sound of my sobbing … if they'd heard.

I towelled myself dry carefully, scrubbing my scalp and hair with vigor—had I awoken in a different manner, I would have been more inclined to blow dry it, but as it was, I was simply not in the mood. That wasn't going to be allowed anyway, since a booming knock was heard, forceful enough to rattle my still-locked door in its frame, making the wood groan and threatening to split it apart.

"Emmett! Peter!" I scolded sharply from my bathroom. "Cool your jets. I'm still butt-ass naked. I could answer the door now if you really want me to though."

And I really was.

"No thanks," they chorused.

Though they couldn't see it, I smirked. "Then unless you want an eyeful, I'll meet you downstairs."

I pulled on a pair of purple, polka dot fleece pajama pants and a long-sleeved shirt so soft it could have been made from a cloud—different from the pajamas I'd donned after my I'd shed my bloody ones—slowly, stalling. I wasn't really ready to face the Cullens. I was sure that if they suspected something was amiss they wouldn't merely have knocked on my door but broken it down and demanded I tell them what had happened, but they hadn't. I doubted they weren't suspicious about the smell that still lingered faintly in my room despite the fresh air and the scent wafting from my the candles I hadn't yet snuffed out. It was possible they would ask about it, but that suspicion was far less worrisome; one I could handle, one I was prepared for.

I had composed myself as much as I could under the circumstances, but as good as I was at playing like all was well when it wasn't—hell, I had perfected the art—and for as long as I had been doing it, this was not the normal-ish Christmas I was hoping for. This was not the happy-ish Christmas, the only one I would ever get with the Cullens, I was hoping for and there was little that could be done to make it that way. I doubted I could fake super cheery at the moment. Passing myself off as tired would have to do. I would perk up later. I had to.

I threw my hair up in another messy bun and finally trudged downstairs, noticing for the first time the heavenly smell emanating from the kitchen—banana bread French toast, homemade caramel, fresh bananas and other fruit, sausage links, orange juice, hot chocolate and coffee. Knowing I would get to eat my favorite breakfast perked me up a bit.

As soon as my feet hit the landing, Emmett, Peter and Alice skidded to a halt in front of me.

"Merry Christmas, Punk-Little Bird-Bella!" they shouted, beaming, their different names for me clashing against each other. It was funny.

"Merry Christmas, guys," I replied with a small smile. I could tell Emmett and Alice wanted to hug me and were only just able to hold themselves back from it. Peter did too but had a lot more self-restraint. As I passed through the living room to get to the kitchen, I wished Rosalie and Charlotte "Merry Christmas" as well, not taking the time to stop and admire the tree. It was obviously different this morning, the underneath overflowing with gorgeously wrapped presents. There would be time for that later.

Carlisle, Edward and Jasper sat at the table, trading sections of the newspaper the way they did every morning. I always found it fascinating to watch, how seamlessly they did it. I knew they were capable of reading at least as fast as I was—20,000 words per minute—but they never did in the mornings, finishing each section at a human speed at precisely the same time and handing them off to each other clockwise without even glancing up.

"Good morning, dear," Esme greeted me with a warm smile, standing at the counter next to a plate piled high with my steaming breakfast. "Merry Christmas."

I returned her smile with just as much warmth, though not as widely, and said it back before sliding my plate in front of one of the barstools situated at the counter and hopping on to it. Peter beat Emmett to the stool to my left, so Emmett took the one next to him while Alice settled next to Edward at the kitchen table.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Carlisle echoed his wife. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," I replied.

Edward followed suit and I again gave the appropriate response.

Jasper said nothing for a whole minute before quietly uttering, "Merry Christmas, pretty girl."

I met his gaze, which was more intense than I'd been expecting. Truthfully, I hadn't been expecting anything when I looked at him, but when did I ever get what I expected when it came to him? "You too, Texas."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one side of his mouth tilt up.

It took me fifteen minutes to finish my food, and I only managed to eat half of what I normally did, still haunted by what had awoken me. Esme noticed, her features contorting with concern, but didn't comment, and I was grateful to her for it. "Thanks for the awesomeness that was that breakfast, Esme. You didn't have to make my favorite."

"Of course I did," she responded with mock-offense, bumping her shoulder against mine with affection and giving me a wry smile. "It's Christmas morning and I love you. What better time is there for me to spoil you rotten?"

That brought a reflexive smile to my face. "You always spoil me rotten."

"Yes, well," Esme said, a wistful quality to her tone, "I know I'm not quite your mother, but it's still my right."

I didn't have anything to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut. Then on impulse, Carlisle's voice as he told me about Esme's past weaving through my consciousness, I hugged her. It was brief, so brief she didn't even have time to embrace me back before I released her. I felt a bit awkward about my stab at trying to be affectionate but the smile that stretched across her lips, lighting up her eyes, the smile I pretended not to see by turning away, made the gesture worth it. I might pay for it later, but I could always wordlessly ask Jasper to fix it. He would because he knew, because he understood. He would fix it and not say a word about it after.

"Are you finally done now?" Emmett queried impatiently, tapping his fingers on the tiles of the kitchen counter. He wore a red T-shirt with white lettering that claimed he was "Easy to Use and Operate." I never wanted to know if that was true.

"Are you five or one hundred sixty-five, Emmett McCarty?" I asked, amused. "Yes, I'm done. Why?"

He huffed and rolled his eyes before another child-like grin split his face practically in two.

"Because it's time to open presents!" he and Peter bellowed with genuine, infectious excitement.

Their attitude penetrated my melancholy and lifted my mood a bit more but I kept my face entirely straight. Since they were acting like little kids, I might as well torture them accordingly. "Well, that's going to have to wait for a bit," I stalled remorsefully. "I need to brush my teeth, you know, 'cause I'm human and I actually have to worry about cavities—" I didn't actually but I gestured to my mouth anyway and then to the spotless kitchen— "and Esme needs help cleaning this filthy kitchen—"

I found myself swept up and thrown over Peter's shoulder in a heartbeat, a resounding but painless smack to my ass echoing against the walls as he marched us into the living room and to the Christmas tree. The swift movement and playfulness of it elicited an unexpected giggle from me. Still, I didn't like the contact between us, and out of respect, Peter wasn't holding me very tightly. I thought about bracing my hands against his back and using it as leverage to twist out of his grip all fancy-like, and while that would have been fun, I thought better of it and decided to go with option two.

"Will you please put me down, Peter?" I requested politely.

"As you wish, Miss Punk," he drawled, gripping my knees and giving a little downward jerk.

I slid back down his shoulder the way I'd been tossed over it in the first place with his hands guiding me to make sure I didn't fall and graced his ass with a parting whack of my own to even the score before it got out of reach. My feet hit the floor a second later, and I didn't bother to try to mute the thud they made when the balls of them touched the wood. I was only in socks, so it could have been worse, and I wasn't in stealth-mode at the moment. A soft thump was no big deal. When I met Peter's eyes, I winced.

"My God, you're bony," I complained, rubbing at my ribcage in faux-discomfort since it was the largest part of me to come into contact with the "boniest" part of him. Peter wasn't actually bony per se. He had nearly the same build as Jasper's—lean but muscular—but his collarbone and the top of his shoulder blade had dug into me. It was only right that I give him shit for it. "It's gross, Sundance. You need to eat a sandwich or a dozen … or maybe a few tacos," I teased, meeting Jasper's eyes for a split-second as I said the last bit before turning to an amused Charlotte. "How do you stand it?"

She smirked. "I make do."

Peter came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle, smiling and pressing a kiss to her neck as everyone else looked on. "You make do, darlin'? You make do? Is that what you're callin' it now? Makin' do? And Sundance, Punk? What the hell is that?"

And then he pounced on his mate, his hands shooting to her sides and tickling fiercely for just a moment. Charlotte gasped loudly before she placed her hands over his, forced their fingers to interlock and then returned them to their former cuddling position. She craned her neck and met his eyes, smiling. "Last I checked, you like how I 'make do,' sugar."

"You are mistaken," he denied, a sweet quality to his tone that simultaneously made my heart clench and my just eaten breakfast creep back up my throat. "I happen to love how you 'make do.'"

Charlotte nodded knowingly, and I didn't need to be her to know that right now, the only person in the world that existed to her was Peter. "And for the record, I will gladly make do with your bony ass every minute for the rest of eternity."

"Ditto, darlin'," he replied smoothly before returning his attention to me. "And?"

"You know exactly what I mean by Sundance, Peter. Don't pretend you don't," I admonished, because there really was no way he didn't know. He just grinned, proving me correct, so I shrugged. "You're not the only one allowed to make vague pop culture references," I finally clarified why I had made my "Sundance" crack while also bringing up his decision to christen me Punk because of that Clint Eastwood movie Dirty Harry. It was a direct play on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. "The difference is, mine has historical undertones, which means mine kicks yours' ass."

"How so?" he challenged, both with curiosity and light-hearted defiance. It was only a shadow of his brother's but still similar enough to make my heart twist in my chest. Sometimes, when I looked at Peter, he and Jasper were so alike that it pained me to be around him.

He didn't doubt the historical reference. He just didn't see why it meant my nickname trumped his.

"Well, the origins are all wrong, what with Butch Cassidy being a Mormon boy from Utah instead of a Major in the Confederate Army from Texas," I said, gesturing to Jasper, "and the Sundance Kid being from rural Pennsylvania while your accent places you as a guy from rural Mississippi, and the two of you are vampires and not train and bank robbers, but the principle is still the same. While you are clearly a bad ass in your own right, you are also clearly Jasper's bitch."

Peter and the rest of the family, save Jasper, laughed at my assessment. "That is true," Peter conceded good-naturedly. "But only because I allow myself to be and only on the days that end in 'y.'"

Now it was my turn to chuckle.

"And Jasper doesn't particularly appreciate that," he finished.

That was another thing I knew was true. Peter was his own man, more than capable of living his own life and commanding his own destiny. He followed Jasper's lead because he wanted to, because he respected and loved him, but Jasper didn't like it. I was positive Peter had also been a soldier in his human life and he knew Jasper had been one as well. He knew Jasper's rank, that he had been an officer, but Peter's willingness to follow Jasper led me to believe that Peter hadn't been so high up. Edward and several of the others had told me how disorienting and overwhelming the transition was. Maybe, after Peter had woken to his vampire life, he'd needed the structure of military life to help him adjust and had just never gotten out of the habit of it over the years, even if Jasper had tried to break him of it. I had no clue, and I had no intention of trying to figure it out. As much as I cared about Peter, I didn't see the point. I wasn't sticking around, and even if I was, if Jasper couldn't snap him out of soldier-mode, I certainly couldn't. Then again, Jasper couldn't snap himself out of soldier-mode, which wouldn't have been a great help in getting his brother to do it. Considering I hadn't been able to do that for myself either, I didn't see how I would make a difference. It didn't really matter. Peter seemed a hell of a lot more well-adjusted than Jasper and I both, so maybe he should be the one trying to snap his brother out of it.

"How on earth do you know I'm from Mississippi?" Peter asked with raised brows once the topic of Jasper and his distaste for his brother following his command had been laid to rest.

"Monroe County, right?" I guessed, not actually needing him to confirm it. I already knew. Peter was one of the few who hadn't told me his history, but from the looks of him, I'd wager he'd been turned between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one. That meant he'd been born between 1902 and 1904, and while the modern accent had evolved some in the near two centuries since, it was close enough to be a dead give away. I had lived in Aberdeen for three weeks eighteen months ago—more than long enough to memorize the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of their accent versus that of any other in the various Southern states.

Peter's eyes bulged out of his head. If he was anything other than a vampire, it would have been unattractive. "How—"

I shrugged again. "I know accents," I said simply, just the same as I'd told Jasper in the alley in Louisville when he'd asked me the same thing.

"Can we open presents now?" Emmett whined again, his demeanor theatrical as he stood beside Rosalie. Her own demeanor was just as loving and patient as it always was with him, unless he had done something like he'd done on Halloween—squirt her with fake jizz and ruin her costume.

"Yes, dear," Esme responded with affection and we all took our usual seats on the couch. It disturbed me to notice that when we were all together, my usual seat happened to be right smack dab next to Jasper. I was not, in any way happy about that. This morning had been shitty enough, though I did have to admit that it was looking decidedly sunnier.

The presents part of the morning wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Emmett decided to play Santa Claus, sorting and handing out presents to whomever each gift tag proclaimed they were meant for and even going so far as to grace us with full-bellied "ho, ho, ho's" as he did it. I had feared the Cullens would go overboard, but by the end of the process, my pile wasn't excessively large considering I lived in a house with nine other people. Each of them had still gotten me presents—which I still wasn't thrilled with—except for one person … Jasper. He hadn't gotten me anything at all, and as much as I hated to admit it, it hurt … just a little.

Leah and Jacob had managed to slip a present under the tree for me, most likely having given it to a Cullen during one of their morning meetings to observe as Jasper fed from the blood bags or check in before he went on a hunt to bag an animal. There was also a gift from Angela, I assumed due to a similar scenario but involving school before winter break.

From Alice, I had predictably received clothes, only these weren't ones she'd made herself. "Leather pants, Alice? Really?"

"What?" she queried innocently. "Every badass needs a pair of leather pants. It is a wardrobe must. Besides, they're not the cliché kind."

She was right about that. They were tight but I could tell even without putting them on that they wouldn't look as though they had been painted on. I would be able to maneuver in them, fight in them, and they weren't black but an olive green with straps that started just above the hem and were joined by silver buckles at the seams. I did like them, and I liked the soft cream sweater she'd paired with them.

"But there is a time and a place for the cliché kind," she insisted. Rosalie, Emmett, Peter, Charlotte, Edward, and even Esme echoed their agreement. "For the right occasion, they're awesome!"

I chose to roll my eyes instead of acknowledging that she was right or admitting that I had rocked a pair of skin-tight leather pants on several occasions. They certainly helped do the trick when I lied my way into a bar or casino to play a high-stakes poker game. If you gave a bouncer more reason to focus on your legs, ass and cleavage—if they thought more with their dick than their brain, which was about ninety percent of the time—they tended to overlook whether or not your face matched the age your driver's license claimed you to be.

I got some pretty nice things, I had to admit … most of which I would not be able to take with me when I left.

Esme and Carlisle had worked their way through most of their gifts before they reached mine. Carlisle handed the package to his wife with reverence, as though he hadn't expected to receive a gift from me at all. She raised her eyebrows at him in question, as if to ask if he wanted to open it together. He gave a minute shake of his head and a slight smile, placing a kiss on her cheek and sitting back, watching patiently as he waited for her to reveal the hidden treasure Esme held in her dainty hands.

Unlike Emmett, Esme was deliberate as she tore at the paper, savoring the sound of each rip and the slow discovery of her prize as it was exposed piece by piece. When enough of it had been unearthed, she gasped and abandoned her sluggish pace, whipping the remainder of the wrapping off at vampire speed.

"Oh, Bella!" she exclaimed, awestruck, venom tears gathering in her eyes. When she spoke next, her voice was hardly more than a whisper, "It's gorgeous."

Sure they hadn't figured out they were drawings but her praise still embarrassed me, made me apprehensive—receiving accolades for anything outside of combat-related skill was that foreign to me—and blood began to rush to my cheeks in a blush. I refused to let it. Instead, I remained perfectly stoic. "It's just a picture. That's all."

I had spent more time on my gifts for the Cullens than I would have for anyone else, taking the extra care just because they were special to me and these would be the only gifts I would ever get to give them. I had made the frame as well, purchasing the oak and other types—each a different wood for every individual one I crafted—from the hardware store in Port Angeles, shaping it and carving the vines and other patterns myself before I glued the thing together with industrial strength glue. The frames had been done at my storage space in Port Angeles in a four hour block of time the day after all my girly bonding with Leah and the other Quileutes. The pictures—one for each of the couples, Jasper, and one for Jasper, Peter and Charlotte, one for Edward, Alice, Emmett and Rosalie and one of the whole family minus me—had been completed during my nights when I pretended to be asleep.

Carlisle and Esme's was from a month ago. Esme had decided to make me chocolate chip cookies. Carlisle, who'd had the afternoon off that day, had been intent on helping. They had both been in a playful, flirty mood, and the first batch of dough had become ammunition in a food fight between them. By the end, the two of them were covered in it along with a whole canister of flour and the kitchen was such a mess it looked like some sort of culinary warzone. The moment I captured on that paper was them with their arms around each other but a foot apart, laughing, gazing into each other's eyes as if no one else existed, the picture of joy and love even in their sticky, doughy state.

Emmett and Rosalie's was from twenty days ago. The two of them had been working on his Jeep and had just rolled out from underneath it when I walked into the garage. Their fingers were laced together, faces, arms and clothing smudged with grease, looking into each other's eyes much the same as Esme and Carlisle had in their portrait, their love for each other the most arresting, beautiful emotion.

Edward and Alice's was from eleven days ago. Edward had been at his piano, fingers flying furiously across its keys but still producing smooth, melodic music despite the frenzied movement. Alice sat next to him on the bench, straddling it, her arms stretched to prop on his shoulder, but she simply wasn't tall enough to rest her chin atop her folded hands. She watched his profile intently, with fascination and pride, with adoration and awe, waiting, anticipating—not quite knowing when he would throw in that dramatic crescendo or ritardando; and when he had, she just beamed. She looked like the sun parting the clouds on a gloomy Forks day. Edward, who had been utterly lost in his music before then, noticed it, and his profile showed a dazzling, tender and winsome smile had graced his face. He took one hand off the piano keys, playing one-handed flawlessly, and reached up to squeeze her joined hands on his shoulder and meeting her eyes. I couldn't see his face but I didn't have to because I saw Alice's. Her eyes said, "I love you." I knew with certainty that his said the same. Their portrait captured Alice's awed expression and beaming smile and Edward's beatific one as he played the piano with one hand and squeezed hers with the other.

Peter and Charlotte's was from nine days ago. Charlotte had been at the window wall in the living room, dancing without music. Her body moved sinuously, gracefully, sensually, but without vulgarity. Her rhythm wasn't without flaw, as though she was feeling out the beat she was making up in her head, testing it, trying to get it just right. The imperfection of it made it all the more beautiful in my mind. Peter had come up behind her, gripping her waist and whirling her around. Her expression bore no surprise at his antics, only delight and serenity, as though she had been waiting for him to join her. Perhaps she had been all along. She made no more mistakes after that. Peter had been the missing piece, the key to figuring out the mysterious beat pulsing through her body. I had chosen to commemorate Charlotte mid-twirl, just as her face was revealed to Peter, the serenity and love, the happiness, her features bore in that moment as she swung around, and the look of reverence on Peter's.

Jasper's came from just three days ago, a moment from our time with Chaos. It was just after we'd succeeded in desensitizing our horse to his scent. His hand was held out to Chaos, the gelding sniffing it carefully with widely flared nostrils. I had drawn the moment true to life—Chaos looked just as uneasy as he had that day—but Jasper's face was practically split in two with the smile he'd worn then. It was the smile that made my heart flutter, the smile that made my chest ache, the smile that was beauty personified and made it a little hard for me to breathe even now when I only pictured it in my head and wasn't face to face with it. It was the first time I had ever seen him happy.

Edward, Alice, Emmett and Rosalie's was from fourteen days ago. I had come home from school and walked into the living room from the garage to find the four of them sprawled out on the couches, laughing over a joke I would never know. I had heard it from miles away, and when I entered the living room, Emmett and Edward were doubled over in their mirth. Alice was draped over Edward's lap as her whole body shook with giggles, venom tears gathered in her eyes. Rosalie held her sides and had practically laughed herself out of her chair, her face open and free with joy. It was the only time I'd ever seen her truly happy in a moment that didn't solely involve Emmett. That moment was now memorialized on paper, their faces frozen in carefree delight one could only achieve with people you'd lived decades with, grown with and gone through many of life's obstacles. Their love for each was so clear and so potent.

Peter, Jasper and Charlotte's was from twenty-one days ago. They had been stretched out on the couch in Jasper's study, Jasper seated at one end, Peter at the other. Charlotte lay on her back, inhabiting the space between them, her head perched comfortably on her husband's lap and feet propped on Jasper's. All of them were reading, each of their books a genre so opposite the others, to anyone that didn't know them, it might have seemed like they didn't have anything in common at all. Their faces were all perfectly peaceful, so contradictory from the expressions they usually wore and absorbed in the words they read, truly cherishing each one as they took them in. They were so attuned to each other that they read at the same pace, turning each page at the exact moment as their companions just as Carlisle, Edward and Jasper did with the paper in the morning, and yet, it was wholly different—more; they weren't just in sync but extensions of each other. My likeness of them showed them all in the midst of turning pages simultaneously, their identical expressions almost comical but infinitely touching, displaying just how deeply their affection for each other ran and how profoundly they were bonded.

The portrait of the family, which they had yet to open, wasn't really a portrait at all. It wasn't a specific moment in time I'd chosen to capture of them all together. I'd designated a spot for each of them on the 18"x24" sheet of sketch paper and drawn what I'd come to think of as their quintessential expressions. Carlisle and Esme were at the center of it, the heart and soul of the family. Carlisle's face was immortalized in his infinite patience and wisdom, and Esme's with her legacy of motherly tenderness and her forever kind eyes.

Edward was to the left and just above Carlisle, his expression pensive and brooding but with a certain lightness in his eyes that contradicted the seriousness that so often decorated it. Alice was placed just below him but to the side so they were nearly on an even keel the way I thought mates should be. Her smile was wide, sunny and indestructible but with the loneliness and sadness I sometimes saw in her eyes. It was slight but there because that was Alice and it was honest and it had to be.

Rosalie was toward the bottom left beneath Alice. The corners of her mouth were turned up demurely, and her gaze hard yet soft. It was my way of paying her the respect she was due for all she'd been through and the strength she'd had to cultivate to overcome it. Emmett was to the right and slightly below her, the two of them grouped together the same as Edward and Alice, his grin mischievous but still good-natured and kind, his eyes a little haunted from all the loss he'd suffered in his human life.

Jasper was beside Emmett though not directly adjacent, and he had, by far, been the most difficult to put to paper. He was a complicated man that had no one expression that defined him. His face was so often unreadable, and when it did show rare flashes of emotion, they were more often than not, confusing and mysterious to me. When I could read them, they were clear and intense and hit me with savage force. What stumped me about him were his eyes. When he let his guard down they were so very complex and varied. Recreating that had taken a delicate but artful hand and I gave it my best shot. In the end, I had tried for the defiance, determination, strength, ferocity and shrewdness those eyes of his exuded. I fought to capture that haunted, tormented look he could never quite shake and the certainty that he had gone to hell and clawed his way back from it that I saw there, but also that streak of compassion that couldn't be quelled despite it all. I did my best to bring to life that sense I got that he felt lost. I didn't know if I'd done it right, but I did know I'd at least done a fair job of it.

Peter was to the right and above Jasper, grouped with Charlotte the way the other mated couples were. They were a little easier to draw than Jasper but still more difficult than the others. Peter's grin was impish like Emmett's but on the cusp of a smirk, his gaze hard and worldly in the way his younger brother's was not—that despite all the hardship Emmett had known, Peter had known far more and managed to survive. His eyes had the same intelligence, strength, intractability and resolution as Jasper's. The same look that said he'd been thrown into hell and fought his way back. He always looked like he knew something everyone else didn't, as though he had a secret too good to share. Charlotte was hardened in a way her adopted family wasn't, as though she'd seen horrors beyond imagining and lived to tell the tale the same as her mate and Jasper, but she had an undeniable spark of hope she couldn't hide beneath her tough exterior; and that was how I'd rendered her.

This family portrait of sorts was the most important thing I had ever drawn.

"But this isn't just a picture, Bella," Carlisle, who was now sitting next to his mate and gazing intently at my gift, argued fervently. "It's so much more than just a picture."

The rest of the Cullens, all of whom had noticed that their gifts from me had the same shape, decided to open theirs too.

"It's … it's breathtaking," Carlisle murmured, wide-eyed.

"Bella," Edward joined in. "These aren't pictures at all. They look like photographs, but they're not. They're drawings, aren't they?"

"Yeah?" It came out more as a question than a statement of fact. In all honestly, I didn't really want to admit that they weren't digital photographs because I didn't want to have to explain how I'd done it, but it was a risk I'd taken, a risk I knew would most likely result in being caught. They were vampires with memories just as good as mine. They would know I hadn't been there to capture the moments on that paper with a camera. Or maybe I had just hoped they wouldn't ask me about it. Dumb but hope wasn't a rational emotion.

"How did you do it?" Alice asked. All eyes were on me now that several moments had passed and they'd had a chance to study their gifts, keen eyes able to discern the differences between my drawings and actual photographs when a normal human wouldn't have been.

Not wanting to show my irritation at having to offer up the details—I couldn't lie in this instance—I swallowed back my sigh and bucked up.

"I see things differently than most people," I began.

"Understatement of the fuckin' century," Jasper muttered under his breath.

I ignored him. "The short version? I can take a picture and break it down until it's nothing more than dots, pixels like those of digital photographs in essence, and transfer them to paper, which then come together to recreate that picture. It's my version of Pointilism."

"But how?" It was Rosalie who piped up now.

"With crayons," I answered simply.

"Crayons?" Emmett echoed, astonished. "You did this—" he gestured to the frame in his hand— "with crayons?"

"Well, not Crayolas or anything," I replied patiently. "The oil-based pastels actual artists use. They produce the best end result."

"Well, I'll be damned," Peter uttered, slightly dumbfounded.

"If I can do it, you can," I pointed out. "You're vampires with big ol' brains, after all. You just never thought of it before."

The Cullens looked thoughtful as they contemplated this, but I didn't want to give them too much time to think on it.

"Everyone still has presents to open," I reminded them, needing to take the attention off me.

Emmett's eyes lost their distracted sheen and returned to their overabundant enthusiasm as he carefully handed my gift to Rosalie, and ripped into another one of his.

Carlisle handed me my next gift—one from him and Esme. It was a silver ring, the head of which was composed of a lion at the center—the symbol for strength and ferocity. A hand hovered above the regal feline—the symbol for faith and sincerity, loyalty. Three trefoils lie below—the symbol for perpetuality. It was the Cullen crest. Each of them wore some form of it, even Peter and Charlotte. With the exception of Carlisle, who wore a more masculine ring than the one he and Esme had just given me, the guys had leather cuffs, Rosalie wore a silver amulet, Alice had chosen a choker, Esme adorned her wrist with a green and gold bracelet and Charlotte wore a turquoise cabochon bracelet.

"You don't have to accept this, Bella," Carlisle said quietly. "As we have always said, we aren't trying to replace your parents, but we love you. We always have, and we know you aren't crazy about accepting us all as your family, but we long ago accepted you as such. If you choose to accept this, if you choose us, then you can also choose this."

He handed me an A4 envelope that wasn't the usual marigold but made of fancy cream cardstock, sealed with wax and another Cullen crest. Whatever was in it was substantial and the way he passed it to me, hesitantly and with care, made me nervous. I kept myself in check though.

I set aside the ring box and accepted the curious envelope with just as much hesitance and care as Carlisle had placed it in my hands with, opening it slowly, stalling, pulling the stack of papers out at a snail's pace. I didn't bother to read it as though I was a normal human, racing through the words at my twenty thousand per minute processing speed. It turned out I didn't need my super-human speed. All I had to read was the title to understand what I held. Adoption papers.

"You can keep us, Bella," Carlisle murmured softly, his eyes and expression matching his tone. "If you want. We want to keep you."

I would not meet any of their eyes. Instead, I carefully returned the paperwork to its envelope, laid it on the arm of the sofa, got to my feet, padded back up the stairs to my bedroom and locked the door behind me.

oOo

The Cullens wanted to keep me. No, they wanted to adopt me. That was keeping me with all the legally binding ramifications attached, or as legal as it could be when it was a contract drawn up between the state of Washington and vampires living under aliases over a girl who, for all intents and purposes, did not exist.

Opening the ring with the Cullen crest had been hard enough, but the adoption papers? I shouldn't have been surprised by either gift, I suppose. Most of the family had either hinted at or outright told me I was one of them now and that they loved me. Talk about a punch to the gut. I still couldn't accept that anyone could care about me, could love me and want me. But they did. They did love me. They did want me.

Only that was the thing—the girl they wanted was Bella Crawfield, and for the past two months, that was who I had been playing at being. That was just it though. I was only playing, pretending. I wasn't Bella Crawfield; I was Soldier Omega. Bella Crawfield might have been able to carve out a place for herself here. Soldier Omega would never have one. She would never belong. Not here, not anywhere. I would continue to drift from place to place, jumping from identity to identity to cover my tracks, but Soldier Omega was who I would always be.

The adoption papers helped, ironically enough. They were meant to make me feel welcome and accepted, to make me feel stability and permanence. In reality, they were a reminder, a reinforcement of what was never meant to be. They made things easier. I was more clear-headed now, and while it would still hurt like a bitch when I left, they minimized any regret I would suffer. That didn't mean I wasn't still sad about my impending departure.

Now I had a choice to make. I could wallow in the melancholy of today's events—from the moment I'd woken up to only minutes ago—or I could push all that aside and make the most of the rest of the day. I gripped my phoenix pendant, flipping it back and forth as I deliberated, but it wasn't as though it was a difficult decision. I wasn't generally the type to wallow, and I wanted to make good memories with the Cullens while I had the chance. Making the most of things it was.

I smiled.

oOo

The Cullens had all been tense when I returned to the living room, wary, not knowing what to expect or how to prepare for it. I couldn't say I felt guilty about it. Maybe they weren't sure how to handle the situation at the moment, but they did know I might not react well. They had made that clear when Carlisle had presented me with his and Esme's gift.

While I may not have felt sorry for their apprehension, I was going to put them out of their misery. Clearing the air—or in this case, pretending there was no air to clear at all—was essential if I was going to salvage this normal-ish Christmas.

So, I smiled. I returned to my seat next to Jasper, pointedly ignoring the box that contained the Cullen crest ring and the envelope with the adoption papers, and continued opening the presents I hadn't gotten to before I'd retreated to my room half an hour before. I was cheery. I gave my faux brothers and sisters shit. I laughed.

This eased all their minds but I could tell their misgivings over the elephant in the room hadn't totally dissipated. That was not my problem.

Once all gifts had been opened, it was time for Esme to continue preparing Christmas dinner. She had started while I was in the shower as she simultaneously made my breakfast. Carlisle, the kids and I all joined her, pitching in as she delegated tasks to us.

Peter and Charlotte were given the job of making fresh dough for homemade rolls. Rosalie and Emmett were in charge of dicing potatoes to boil for mashing. Edward and Alice were on yam duty. Carlisle was relegated to the vegetable dishes for the meal, and Jasper and I were assigned desserts. Esme was taking care of the prime rib and ham. It was craziness.

The kitchen was filled with the clamor of pots and pans, the buzz of the electric mixer, the bubbling of boiling water and the sizzling of ingredients on the stove; the air was filled with steam and the pleasant aromas that came with it all, but more than anything, laughter was the most prevalent. We joked and played little pranks and just generally had a great time. This was the happiness I'd been hoping for.

oOo

At three o'clock, I excused myself from dinner prep so I could get ready for the rest of the day. It was time to change out of my pajamas and into the dress Alice had so thoughtfully made for me. I really did like it. Everything about it was beautiful: the color, the fabric, the design, how well made it was; and while it wasn't precisely me, at the same time, it utterly was. I just wasn't comfortable with how it would undoubtedly conform to my body like a second skin. From the waist down, it was not the least bit conducive to combat. That was something I considered a design flaw, for me and me alone of course, and though I was not irritated with Alice over a detail she couldn't have known about, I was irritated with the element itself.

I had contemplated ripping apart the side seams to add slits up my legs for the purpose of allowing for more free-flowing movement and lining them with Alice's spare pyramid studs to preserve the design as much as I could, but decided against it. I didn't want to risk the potential disappointment and hurt walking downstairs in an altered dress might cause the girl who could have been my sister if things were different. How could I risk it when my time here was so limited? I couldn't, so I was going to suck it up and suffer the edginess of being restricted by a piece of clothing for a few hours because it wouldn't kill me, even if it would be uncomfortable as fuck.

Before I donned the dress though, I had to do my hair and makeup because a dress like the one Alice had made could not be worn with ho-hum hair and a plain face, even when it was worn by a genetically-engineered bombshell like myself.

Insert eyeroll here.

I had the sudden mocking inspiration to turn my hair the same shade of purple as the dress.

By the time I was done getting ready, my hair was not purple but its typical, glossy brown and fell pin-straight around my shoulders to accentuate the edginess of the dress. I'd done a smokey eye, going heavier on the black eyeliner than I normally would have—but not too heavy—also to match the edgy feel of the dress, applied a light blush to the apples of my cheeks and slicked plum-colored gloss on my lips in lieu of my typical cherry Chapstick. The silver hoop earrings I wore were mine but the various bangles adorning my right wrist were Rosalie's, and the black mesh booties with silver accents were Charlotte's. All in all, I believed the end result did Alice's design justice. I was still uncomfortable as all hell, but that couldn't be helped.

After grabbing a black cardigan to wear as a cover if it got too cold in the house, though the heater had been on full blast since this morning and every room was nice and toasty, I headed downstairs. Everyone, aside from Carlisle and Esme who were still in the kitchen fussing with last minute dinner details, had migrated to the living room, so that's where I went, catcalls and wolf whistles reverberated loudly throughout the large space upon my entrance as all the "kids" took me in. I twirled theatrically, mostly for Alice, before I shrugged on my cardigan.

"Damn, Little Bird," Emmett crowed. "You look hot!"

"Smokin'," Peter agreed with an approving nod.

"Gorgeous," Edward chipped in, smiling first at me and then at his wife.

The girls echoed their agreement, the only person in the room noticeably silent being Jasper. That didn't hurt. It didn't.

"Hey, this is all Alice," I said immediately, gesturing to the girl in question.

Everyone's gazes shot to her, aside from Edward and Jasper, who were smirking. Various forms of "Alice, that dress is amazing!" pinged through the air, which had her beaming uncontrollably, Edward at her side and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. She was glowing, and seeing that was incredibly gratifying. Plus, it got the majority of the attention off me.

Jasper got to his feet and ambled in my direction while everyone else continued to rave over Alice's dress, even if I had half-covered up and retreated to the corner of the room. He leaned against the wall perpendicular to me and was about to speak when Alice squealed and Emmett let out a bark of excitement simultaneously.

Not knowing what had caused their spastic outbursts, I frowned, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Jasper was as well, and turned to see what their deal was only to find them grinning like loons and pointing above Jasper's and my head. I looked up and my stomach turned.

Mistletoe.

Why in the fuck would someone hang mistletoe in the corner of the damn room? A quick survey of the room at large revealed several bunches of mistletoe had been hung all over the ceiling and no one had bothered to point them out before now. It was clearly a set-up. Why didn't I notice them myself? Damn it!

"You guys have to kiss!" Alice exclaimed ecstatically. I didn't know why she was so goddamn happy about it. Why did she give a shit? Why did any of them? And they all seemed to if the smirks on their faces were any indication. Even Carlisle and Esme, who had meandered in from the kitchen to see me in Alice's dress and praise her handiwork, looked pleased and were making no attempt to mask it.

"And none of that on the cheek bullshit!" Emmett interjected like an asshole. He had to have been the one that hung the mistletoe. After accusing me of flirting with Jasper yesterday, it made the most sense. He would have gotten Peter to be his partner in crime. "It has to be on the lips."

I had yet to see what Jasper's reaction to all this was, but that didn't really matter.

"No," I protested heatedly. "No way! No way in hell!"

It wasn't that I didn't want to kiss Jasper. It was just that it was a fantastically foolish, bad idea. Once upon a time, kissing him wouldn't have been such a horrible thing, back in Louisville for instance. Back then he was just Jasper and I was just Bella, the girl he thought was actually Paige Donnelly, and he wanted nothing from me but a quick fuck and all I wanted from him was the same. Now he was Jasper, and I was Bella, not Paige Donnelly, and we wanted nothing from each other … except now everything was different because now I wanted nothing and everything from him. Now I had feelings for him; now I was invested. I wanted him to be just Jasper, but I also wanted to be Jasper and Bella. I couldn't have that. I knew I couldn't, which is why I couldn't kiss him. Kissing him would further cement things. Everything would change … again.

"But," Alice whined in protest of her own, pouting, "but it's tradition."

"I don't care," I informed the room at large.

"It's just a kiss, Bella," Emmett said, as though I was being the most unreasonable person he had ever met, which was was ridiculous. I mean, I liked his wife now, but had he met her?

"No," I argued with mild petulance and anger. "It is not just a kiss. It is the kiss, my first kiss, and I refuse to waste it on a guy who has only ever thought of kissing me because of some stupid, cliché holiday plant!"

And then there was that. If I ever kissed someone—because it would happen eventually—this was not how it would go down. It would also probably not be with a guy that thought about much more beyond kissing me and vice versa, but still. There might also have been the tiny little possibility that the idea of kissing Jasper terrified me.

"Wait a second," Rosalie spoke up. "You mean to say that you, you, have never been kissed?"

"I'm pretty sure that's what I said," I retorted with sarcasm.

"But that doesn't make any sense!" she exclaimed.

"Why does it have to make sense?" I asked. "And why do you care?"

"I just do," she replied, not answering either question in the least. "Wait," she said thoughtfully, "does that mean you've never had an orgasm either?"

Emmett's noise of indignation would have been funny if I wasn't so perturbed myself. If she hadn't brought it up in front of everyone—the guys, Jasper, specifically—I wouldn't care, but damn it, Rosalie!

"Did you really just ask me that?" I questioned incredulously.

Before she could answer, Esme intervened. "Dinner!"

I beamed at her in relief and felt the urge to hug her for the second time today. Thank God for you, Esme Cullen.

oOo

Saturday, December 26th, 2080

JPOV

I had done a lot of thinking since yesterday. Thinking was all I seemed to do lately. I wished I could take a break from it, but in light of everything that had been going on, that was pretty much impossible. It wasn't necessarily good for me, but lately, what was? Aside from the time I'd spent with Chaos a few days ago, not much. Bella certainly wasn't good for me.

But she was what I couldn't stop thinking about. I swear Alice had made that dress for Bella just to torture me, but that wasn't what I couldn't get my mind off of. It was her adamant refusal to kiss me that wouldn't leave me the fuck alone. It stung, but what bothered me more than anything was how much I had wanted to kiss her and how I had been willing to use any excuse, including a cliché plant, to do it. It was such a one-eighty from the view I'd held on the matter for more than a century. How I'd never believed in giving the promises kisses held—the promises of things I couldn't give, wasn't capable of giving—to the women I fucked; and yet, I found myself wanting to offer those things to Bella, to try to be capable of them, to be good enough. I just wasn't, and that wasn't going to change, but God did I love her, and God did I ever ache to kiss her.

And that was what brought me here at six minutes after eight in the morning, hovering at her bedroom door with one hand shoved in the front pocket of my jeans, fingers clasped uncertainly around the drawstring pouch made of weathered brown leather in it, the other poised to knock. I was just as undecided about my intentions for being here as I had been yesterday as I sat beside the Christmas tree, and I still wasn't certain if I would follow through.

Despite my indecisiveness, my knock was cocksure and resolute, if only because doing this now gave me a solid reason to be late to check in with the wolves before I attempted to hunt down an animal, not that I actually needed one. I still received a satisfying sense of pleasure in keeping them and the family waiting for me, and that was reason enough.

Bella answered seconds later, a bemused yet sly look on her face. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

I grinned, passing through her doorway when she beckoned me to. "I do, but being fashionably late makes me happy and the wolves not. It's a win-win."

She snorted. "And how 'fashionably late' do you plan on being?"

"Oh, you know," I replied, shrugging. "Until Carlisle calls to ream me for it."

"You're a mischievous bastard, you know," she stated matter-of-factly, no longer bemused but amused.

My grin turned lopsided. "I can be."

"Is there any particular reason you've chosen to darken my doorstep while you're procrastinating, Texas?" Bella inquired with a quirked brow. Why did I have to find even that sexy as hell? It was annoying.

And this was the moment of truth.

Do I or don't I pull this shit out of my pocket and give it to her?

I got nothin', the Major butted in.

I wasn't askin' you, I snapped.

Do I ever care whether or not you are? he asked.

"That is one fierce scowl, Whitlock," Bella observed.

I schooled my features immediately, tightened my grip around the drawstring bag and brought my hand into view but kept my fist closed enough that she wouldn't see what it contained, which was what I hadn't been able to bring myself to give her the day before.

She probably thought I hadn't bothered to buy her a Christmas present, but that wasn't true. I had agonized over it, whether or not to actually get her one. I mean, what did you get the girl you loved for Christmas? I didn't fuckin' know. I had never been in love before after all. I was even more clueless when it came to figuring out what to get the girl I loved that wouldn't tip her off as to how I felt. I didn't want to get her something too impersonal but I didn't want to get her something cliché or cheesy, and cliché and cheesy wouldn't exactly help me keep that I was in love with her underwraps.

The whole thing was irritating because shit like this wasn't supposed to bother me, but it did. Fuckin' Bella.

What to get her had come to me four days ago, after our field trip to visit Chaos. It was like a lightning bolt of inspiration too perfect to pass up, even if I wasn't all that crazy about the idea itself. It wasn't something that was uncommon but the one I wanted to get for her was. I'd had to have it custom made; therefore, I'd had to bust my ass to get it made in time which basically meant I'd had to throw a shitload of cash at the craftsman from Seattle who made it. That wasn't the part I wasn't crazy about. My bank account wasn't lacking in funds and what else was I going to spend it on? What bothered me was that the gift was sort of … well, boyfriendy. That wasn't the impression I wanted to give off, but since I really had no clue what else to get her … well, if it didn't freak her the fuck out, it would make her smile.

The boyfriend vibe of the gift was the root of my reluctance to give it to her. I hadn't been able to put it anywhere near the Christmas tree and kept finding excuses to procrastinate. Her reaction to the adoption papers had been a godsend in that respect, and I had wanted to kiss Carlisle and Esme for it. I hadn't known about them, not that I would have protested. Yes, using Bella's obvious displeasure over us wanting to keep her as an excuse made me a dick, but whatever. It was just in that moment.

As Bella stood there watching me with curiosity, I made an impulse decision, holding my palm out to her and offering up the drawstring leather pouch perched atop it, which really was just as much a gift as what was inside of it. It was as old as I was, a remnant of my human life. I didn't know how I'd managed to keep it through all the years I'd spent at war nor what its significance was, but I was oddly attached to it. I also didn't know why I'd chosen it as the wrapping for her gift, but in my desperation to lessen the boyfriendish implications, I'd taken it out of the little box it came in and stuffed it in here.

Bella frowned but took it, the tips of her fingers brushing my skin and sending sparks shooting up my arm.

"I didn't get the chance to give this to you yesterday," I explained, scratching the back of my neck in a clear display of discomfort. "I kind of suck at gifts, but Merry Christmas."

She made no comment, just widened the mouth of the pouch and upended it. Its contents landed in her own palm with a soft clink. Her frown deepened as she studied it, her eyes shooting to mine, but her face remained otherwise unreadable.

Son of a bitch! the Major and I cursed, sure we'd fucked up.

It was a name necklace made of platinum—which was probably an even dumber decision on my part, but like I said, what else did I have to spend my money on, and would she really be able to tell it wasn't silver? Then again, it was Bella. Of course she would be able to tell because she was eerily like Peter sometimes—she just knew shit. The chain was seventeen inches, so the name would fall just above the phoenix pendant she never took off, and delicate but not flimsy. That name, which stretched just over an inch long in its cursive script, was Wildfire.

I gave her a preemptive shrug. "The other day, when you were talking about him, you looked wistful and happy," I offered, trying not to sound as lame as I felt. Why did she have to make me so fuckin' nervous? "Happier than I've ever seen you. I just wanted you to have something to remind you of him, something a little more tangible than your memories, even though I know they're probably incredibly vivid and that you cherish them deeply, but humans still forget. Memories lose their sharpness over time and I thought maybe this might help you preserve them."

It was slow in coming but a small smile curved her lips, and if my heart still beat, it would have stuttered to a stop at the sight. She was just so goddamn beautiful.

Bella still remained silent though, and in a burst of insecurity, I asked, "Do you like it?"

Smooth, asshole, the Major admonished, voice on the edge of disgust.

And what would you have said if you were in control? I challenged.

Silence.

That's what I thought, I couldn't help but mock.

Her eyes softened in a way I'd never seen before, and then she said, "You don't suck at gifts, Jasper." She took a tentative step forward and extended the hand with her necklace in it. "Will you?"

Okay, so she wanted to wear it. That was good.

Did we actually do something right, Jasper? the Major asked quizzically.

Yes, I think we did, I concluded, just as miffed. When did I, when did we, ever do anything right when it came to Bella?

Well, I'll be damned, he whistled lowly, still in disbelief. Isn't that the miracle of fuckin' miracles?

Could you shut your mouth for once, you relentless pain in my ass? I snapped. There's still time for us to fuck this up, and I am more likely to do that if you don't quit it with the unneeded and very useless commentary.

His response was an unintelligible grumble and then silence, both of which shocked the hell out of me. The Major was probably more against all this love shit than I was, but he wasn't exactly chaining himself to historic condemned buildings in protest or anything …

Bella made it to me, handing me the necklace and turning her back before I could finish that thought. Her scent, closer now and more overwhelming, invaded my senses and made it difficult to concentrate. I gathered her silky hair in my fist and pushed it over her shoulder. Looping the chain around her neck and underneath the curtain of stands, I brought each end of the clasp together, unable to resist trailing my fingertips over the satiny flesh peeking out of the collar of her top, and connected them. The contact set my body alight. I wanted to press my lips to that flesh.

Bella sucked in a sharp breath I pretended meant something it didn't. "All done."

"Thanks," she murmured. She walked away from me and peeked over her shoulder, patting the edge of her bed. "Sit?"

One of my brows quirked up of its own accord.

"I have something for you too," she explained.

"But you already gave me something," I said, frowning. I really loved the drawing she'd done of me and Chaos as well as the one of me, Peter and Charlotte, and the family portrait she did for everyone was every bit as incredible. Each of Bella's drawings was like seeing our world through her eyes, and there were pieces of us there that no human ever should have been able to comprehend. What I saw when I looked at her renderings of me made me feel all sorts of things: uncertainty, disbelief, wariness, wonder, reverence, warmth … love. It felt like she'd reached inside me and laid me bare, like some of my secrets were no longer just mine anymore. I hated it. I loved it. It was mind-boggling. She was mind-boggling.

Her gift was another reason I'd been hesitant to give her mine.

"Will you just sit?" It wasn't really something she asked but it wasn't something just said either. It was spoken with wholehearted exasperation though. Even though I loved her, her exasperation always amused me.

I sat without further protest.

She walked into her closet and returned with a rather large wrapped package in her arms, taking a seat next to me, balancing it on her lap but making no move to hand it over. Bella met my eyes, a serious expression overtaking her face.

"This isn't a conventional gift," Bella began carefully. "I can almost guarantee you won't like it when you first open it, so before you chuck it across the room on sight, give me a chance to explain."

"Okay," I responded slowly. Then I tore the paper off the box. It was a shipping box taped together with packaging tape. I used my fingernail to split it open and parted the tissue paper, revealing four very old leather-bound books. None of them bore titles to indicate what they were, so I flipped the cover of one of them open. My eyes widened as I took in the yellowed pages and aged ink, but that wasn't what took me by surprise. It was the name embossed in gold-leaf in the bottom lefthand corner of the cover—John B. Magruder.

"Bella, how?" I questioned in incredulity. "Aren't they housed in the National Archives?"

"The only genuine copies, yes," she confirmed. "And you haven't lost your shit yet, so that's good."

"I'm too confused to lose my shit yet," I admitted.

Bella smiled a little sheepishly and pointed to herself. "Juvenile delinquent with loose, questionable morals, remember? I happen to excel at forgery. It isn't a skill I make use of often, but I made an exception in this case. The leather and parchment of the journals are aged with absolute accuracy for how much time has passed as is the degradation of the ink, and the handwriting has been duplicated with precision. Every word is exact and written with an era-appropriate quill, every splotch of ink, smear of dirt, every blood stain, every scribble and mistake and misspelled word, every doodle and makeshift map and strategic brainstorm, and every thought he felt the need to put to paper. It's all there, and it's all perfect. Put my creations in front of an historian, someone capable of determining genuine from counterfeit, and they wouldn't be able to peg them as fakes."

I was overwhelmingly curious as to how she knew how to properly age leather and paper and degrade ink, but part of me didn't want to know.

"But how?" I asked again, unable to stop myself even if I wasn't sure whether I wanted to know because I just didn't understand, and I wanted that more than I was uncertain.

"Uh," she hesitated, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and biting down. Unlike most of the time, I was only partially aware of my desire to bite it myself. "My memory is like yours."

"Eidetic?" I had to say it, to make sure I heard her correctly. It was obvious she didn't plan to elaborate on the rest.

"Yes."

So much for the necklace helping her preserve her memories of Wildfire.

Eh, she still likes it, the Major pointed out. That didn't really make me feel any better.

"You've never said anything about that," I said.

Bella shrugged noncommittally. "It's not something I talk about. It's not anyone's business." She gave me a pointed look. "Even if I happen to share the ability with certain people."

"I suppose," I conceded, not knowing what else to say. I couldn't say her reasoning wasn't valid but her keeping it from me was yet another thing that hurt.

"Anyway," she continued, and even though she hadn't said more than that one word, I knew she was changing the subject. "I know you don't like that I know about your human military career, and that's fine, but I chose to give you these for a reason."

"Which is?"

"Magruder didn't just write about the happenings of the war," Bella stated, her expression beseeching, willing me to listen and let her words sink in. Hadn't I kept my mouth shut so far? Did she really think I was that hostile and stubborn?

Um, yes, the Major piped up. Because we are, and I fail to see how that is a character flaw.

"They were more his journals than anything else, his personal thoughts, frustrations and hopes of his everyday life which, of course, were all colored by the war. I just mean that they weren't step-by-step military how-to's. You already know he wrote about you ..."

I nodded unnecessarily, feeling like I needed to do something with myself, no matter how small.

"He was your commanding officer for six months, Jasper. Do you even have any idea what a profound impression you made on him in such a short time? And that impression wasn't wrong," she said, her gaze still intent on mine. "I know I already told you some of what he wrote, but I think it's worth repeating for the simple fact that you don't believe most of it," she mused. "You draw people in both with and without words, and your presence is palpable. You just … you radiate strength and ferocity and what it means to sacrifice. Magruder believed that. I believe that. He didn't just mention you in passing. There are so many pages in those journals devoted to anecdotes and witticisms about you, stories of how brave and selfless you were in battle. Other than his superiors, whom he wrote about to log his frustrations and opinions and proposals for strategy, the higher-ups in his command and his family, you were the one that appeared in those journals most often.

"He loved that you were so smart and compassionate and loyal. It's true he believed you were the closest thing he'd ever seen to a perfect soldier, but, Jasper, that isn't why you made it into those journals. He valued your talents as a soldier, but he valued you more as a man. You were his favorite, he thought of you as a son but he could never tell you because he couldn't play favorites for the sake of morale and because he had to ensure that he didn't encourage the idea of preferential treatment. When you went missing, he sent out search parties for weeks when it was possible, and when it became obvious that you were most likely dead, he mourned you the way a father would mourn the loss of the son he considered you to be to him.

"He thought you were a good man," she told me solemnly but unequivocally. "Everyone in this house does, but you don't always believe that, if you even believe it at all. I wanted you to have these journals so you could read his words for yourself and understand exactly how he felt about you, so that when your doubt becomes so great it bogs you down, you have one more thing to remind you exactly how wrong you are. Knowing you have that makes all the time and effort I spent on these worth it."

My chest tightened up in that uncomfortable way at her words, at her gaze, still so sincere and soft, locked with mine. That look, that ache, made me lose all sense of rationality, words of my own I'd never intended to speak spilling forth without my permission, "I've thought about it."

Once I'd said them, I didn't regret them, not as my eyes dropped down to the plump Cupid's bow of her lips tinted pink with the cherry Chapstick she usually wore, those lips I couldn't stop thinking about kissing. I wondered suddenly if the Chapstick tasted bad. I didn't care.

Bella's brows furrowed. "Thought about what?"

"Kissing you," I clarified, watching her closely.

Her features hardened, and when she spoke, her voice contained a sharp edge. "Louisville doesn't count, Jasper."

"I'm not talkin' about Louisville," I informed her carefully but with confidence. "I've just … I've thought about it, I think about it, no stupid, cliché holiday plant required. I thought you should know."

"Oh." Her voice had lost the sharp edge and sounded almost lost, like she had no idea what to do with that information. I didn't really know what to do with it, and it was yet another time when I wished I knew what the hell was going through her head. Luck or divine providence was apparently on my side today because, suddenly, her eyes drifted down to my mouth and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. It occurred to me then that she might want to kiss me just as much as I wanted to kiss her, despite how ardently she proclaimed otherwise.

To test this tentative theory of mine, I ran my tongue slowly, deliberately over my own bottom lip. She followed the movement with rapt attention, seemingly mesmerized, and I knew—she wanted it. Bella wanted me to kiss her.

Inching forward until our knees touched, I placed my hand by her thigh. Her gaze fell to where our bodies were in contact before she looked up at me from underneath her lashes. It was a shy look, a hesitant one, one that made the breath I'd just sucked in catch in my throat. God, but she was beautiful.

I reached out to her gingerly, my fingertips finding the lush, creamy skin of her cheek and gliding down beneath her chin to angle her face toward mine. Brown, doe eyes met red and the world stopped. It was as if the only thing I had ever been created to do was lean forward and capture her lips with my own.

Her heartbeat, now galloping in her chest like her Wildfire running the Kentucky Derby, thundered in my ears as I bent to her, the air thick with tension and electricity, my lips just millimeters from hers …

And then my phone rang.

Bella scrambled back fast, putting two feet of bunched up comforter between us. Needing to do something to mask just how frustrated and pissed off I was at being interrupted, I fumbled at my back pocket for the fuckin' bane of my existence.

Millimeters. I had been millimeters from getting what I wanted for the first time in … ever, and Carlisle had to go and call me now of all the goddamn times? Seriously?

Fuckin' cockblocker! the Major growled, just as pissed off as I was.

"What?" I snapped when I finally got the infernal device out of my pocket and answered the damn thing.

Carlisle didn't answer, momentarily taken aback by my hostility.

"What?" I snapped again, more impatiently.

Carlisle cleared his throat delicately but his voice was steady and strong when he answered, "It's ten after nine, Jasper."

"And I'm supposed to care why?" I bit out with venom. I was in no mood to play nice at the moment, not with the wolves or with him.

"You were supposed to be here over an hour ago," he replied patiently.

"I'm aware," I said.

"The wolves are losing their patience," he explained.

"And I'm supposed to care why?" I repeated more emphatically, knowing the Quileutes would be able to hear me.

"Jasper—"

Before he could continue, Bella tugged my phone out of my hand and pressed a button on the touch screen, causing a beep to sound.

"You need to go," Bella admonished sternly. I opened my mouth to argue but she cut me off. "Not for them, for you. The only person that can fix your feeding problem is you, and it can't be fixed unless you actually attempt to feed. You've obviously pissed the wolves off, so you've met that goal for the day. Now it's time to meet your Bambi-is-my-breakfast goal. Suck it up."

I glared at her. She pressed another button, causing another beep, and thrust the phone at me. I took it grudgingly.

"I'm on my way," I grumbled sullenly, getting to my feet.

Bella had turned her back on me and was standing stiffly at her window, staring out into the woods surrounding the house. The trees were covered in the most recent snowfall and were the essence of a picture one might see on a Happy Holidays post card.

"I'll see you later," I said, not expecting her to turn around. She didn't.

"Yeah," she mumbled distantly, but despite that distance, it was a clear dismissal. "Later."

oOo

I was still not in a great mood, which was why I stood alone at the northeast edge of Olympic National Park, as far away from the fuckin' Quileutes as I could get without crossing its border. Peter, Charlotte and Edward weren't more than ten miles away. In the shape I was in and because of the deal in place—despite their hatred for the wolves—they wouldn't extend the leash any farther than that. It annoyed me, but the illusion of isolation was better than nothing.

With a deep inhale, I let the scents of spruce, hemlock, cedar, fir, alder, cottonwood and maple overpower everything else. Yes, I was supposed to be hunting and there was a nice little den with a small skulk of foxes huddled within it half a mile south of the clearing I was in, but the last thing I wanted to do was feed at the moment. I was putting on a show as though hunting was precisely what I was doing, like the good little boy I was, but my effort was not even half-assed. It wasn't even quarter-assed. Oh right, I wasn't a good little boy at all.

I was still stuck on the events of earlier. Bella and I had almost kissed. Bella had almost let me kiss her, but the moment had been wrecked and I wouldn't get another one. She would make sure of that. I could see it in the tense set of her shoulders as she stood at her window and refused to face me before I left, hear it in her voice when she dismissed me after she'd reprimanded me for being a dick to Carlisle for interrupting us.

He deserved it, the Major said.

I didn't bother responding because he already knew I agreed.

I didn't want to think about any of it anymore, so I focused on the scents of the trees. It was that determination to lose myself in them alone that I didn't pick up on it as immediately as I would have under normal circumstances.

As soon as I caught the scent, I should have turned tail and run for the pure purpose of self-preservation, but like a stubborn, hard-headed dumbass, I stood my ground; running really wouldn't have made a difference anyway. This would most likely be my downfall, and I would come to regret this decision more than anything when all was said and done.

I didn't have long to wait before my own personal nightmare stepped out of the tree line and into the sunlight.

"Hello, Jasper."

oOo

A/N: Well, Christmas was semi-merry at least.

Just so you know, Bella will not be able to alter her appearance so drastically that she will be able to pass herself off as a different ethnicity. In her panic, it's not unreasonable that she would wonder about that though.

Lots of stuff happened in this chapter! Some good and some not so much. There were presents, mistletoe and a near-kiss! I imagine you guys aren't thrilled with the interruption, lol!

I haven't done a cliffhanger in awhile. Thoughts? Theories?

Until next time, take care ... :)