-MAISIE-


If Jasper hadn't been with me to think logically, I would have left the Volturi castle with Jennifer's baby and not looked back. He was more rational, though, asking to return to the study we had been in earlier to discuss the ramifications of my agreement.

All five of us were in agreement that Nahuel and his vampire aunt Huilen would be permitted to continue their peaceful, remote life in the South American jungle…should Nahuel conform to the impression the Volturi had of him. I had no doubts they would be pleased to find Nahuel disgusted by Joham's ideologies. Jasper petitioned for us to be the ones to break the news of his sisters' deaths to Nahuel and introduce him to his nephew.

"But you will not leave the child with Nahuel." Surprisingly, this firm but quiet reminder came from Marcus. "It is our intention that the child be raised by the two of you, as we have a hypothesis his vampire-human lineage will lead to vast similarities between Maisie and the child."

"I agreed to take him. I'm not just going to give him away."

Though Sulpicia and Athenodora had been caring for the baby for the entire month of his life—I had been right in my estimation of his age—both were adamant they did not want him back. Together, they taught me how to care for him, but insisted Aro was right in placing the baby in our care.

In case you were wondering: three-fourth human, one-fourth vampire hybrid babies drink mostly formula. Unlike his mother, the baby did not have teeth at birth. Like a human newborn baby, he spent a lot of time sleeping, but was remarkably alert when awake. I had yet to see that, as he apparently was an excellent sleeper and always made it through the night, but Sulpicia and Athenodora had both gushed over his coos and smiles.

"We'll raise the child," Jasper said, leaning over the desk, marking something out with an ancient feather quill, "but no harm will come to any Quileute wolf pack member or their imprints."

Caius didn't agree with this, emitting a low-yet-loud growl that startled the baby still sleeping in my arms. I ran a finger down his cheek to soothe him, lulling him back into his dreams. "Maisie agreed to saving the three known knowledgeable humans, not others."

But Jasper was shaking his head even before Caius finished speaking. "Aro, would you be so kind as to tell your brothers what you've observed of the Quileute from mine and Maisie's memories?"

Aro sighed, long-suffering. "They have come to Maisie's aid in the past. Formidable beasts, capable of dismembering vampires when attacking as a pack. These shifters value human life above all else."

"If I were you, I would hedge my bets where the Quileute are involved. I am personally indebted to them for the times they have protected my Maisie in the past, and you know how indiscriminately supportive my family is of one another."

Jasper did not say outright that he and his family would fight alongside the Quileute, but his meaning certainly held heavy in the air.

"Not to mention," Jasper continued smoothly, ignoring the irritation playing across Aro and Caius' features, "that the shape shifter abilities are passed down genetically. Eliminating the Quileute shifters would take generations of genocide to ensure a total erasure, and so many deaths on a singular Native American reservation would undoubtedly draw the attention of other humans."

They continued this way for some time, Jasper using honeyed words and logic to argue until a settlement was reached.

We, meaning Jasper and myself, would notify Sam that the Volturi were aware of them, but would not interfere so long as they caused no trouble. Sam would also be instructed that informing imprints of the existence of vampires should be prohibited in the future. Jasper and I would raise the baby, with regular check-ins with the Volturi to monitor his growth and development. We were left to our own devices when it came to creating a story for how the baby came to be in our care…among other things.

"I assume you realize you will eventually be leaving your human life and most of your family behind?" Aro asked, not unkindly, as the three Volturi leaders saw us out of the castle. We had become important enough, throughout the night, for a personal escort, I suppose. "Carlisle is exceptionally skilled at faking one's death."

"Yes, I know." I pulled the blankets tighter around the baby, worried about any chill he might have to endure underground in the catacombs. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me, one that I was shocked I hadn't considered before. "Does he have a name?"

Aro smiled in the near-dark of the hallway we were in, teeth glinting in the candlelight. "I've been waiting for you to ask. Dear Jennifer did name him, yes. She was aware of our plans to place the child with the two of you and named him accordingly."

I wasn't sure what he was getting at with 'named him accordingly', and my confusion must have shown on my face. "Jasper, as I'm sure you know, is also the name of a gemstone. Our human assistant, Giselle, fetched a baby name book for Jennifer to peruse. She learned that your name, sweet Maisie, has the meaning 'pearl'. So, with two adoptive parents named after gemstones already, Jennifer thought it best to name the child in kind. She had been calling him Jett up until tonight."

Jett. Jennifer had named her child so that he would be in theme with mine and Jasper's names, knowing she had no choice but to trust that he truly would be given to us and spared her own fate.

"She gave him a second name, Nathaniel, after Nahuel. Those names appear on the passport in your hotel room, though I should chance to say you might call him anything you like from here on. There is no one to stop you, after all."

Aro's quip didn't sit right with me, leaving me glaring as I firmly told him that Jett Nathaniel was going to be his name all his life.

"Yes, well, I suppose it will do. Jasper, do you recall the route back?" Jasper ran a hand first over my head and then over Jett's.

"We'll manage. Oh, Aro, one small thing." He looked over his shoulder as we turned away. "I know the admiration and affection you hold for Alice. I love her dearly as well, and I doubt she will take kindly to hearing how her visions were exploited and used against her. I would advise you not to do so again."

Aro scowled at that, though Jasper gave him to time to retort. His hand was pressing into the small of my back, leading me forward. Entering the catacomb took some logistical modifications. Jasper went down first again, reaching up for me to pass Jett to him. Somehow, he managed to catch me one-armed when I let myself fall through the opening.

"Hopefully Caterina will open the other end at the hotel and let us out." I was guided by Jasper's hand curled around my elbow, careful not to jostle Jett as we walked.

"She's had excellent customer service thus far."

It was still pitch-dark night when we left the castle. I had no idea what time it was, how close we were to dawn. Unlike when we travelled with Jane, we talked through the backtracked voyage through the catacombs.

"I'll bet they're all freaking out," I told Jasper, settling Jett's weight more comfortably in my arms. "Think Alice can see him in her visions?"

"Not likely, if the trend continues. She can't see shapeshifters because she has never been one, just as she can't see Nahuel because she's never been a hybrid."

"She can see me, though." I countered. My toes skimmed something cold and hard. I tried not to shiver, remembering that Jane had confirmed my fear that there were skeletal remains littered throughout the catacombs.

"You were changed through venom, mi amor, just as Alice was. That appears to be the conditions of her visions, so far as supernatural beings go."

I did shiver then when he grouped me in with Alice. So much time spent trying to reconcile my mind with becoming a vampire, and I was still unable to accept it. Whether I like it or not, that's what I was.

Perhaps not a 'traditional' vampire, as those I had met up until then. I guess, really, Nahuel, Jett, and I belonged in a category together. Vampire-like immortals, not up to snuff to the Volturi's purist standards.

"I couldn't even manage to become a vampire the right way, huh?" Jasper didn't answer me that time. Not with words, anyway. I felt his lips press a kiss to the top of my head instead.


Caterina was kind enough not only to assist us in climbing out of the catacombs, but she led us back to our room, chattering all the while about the 'additional amenities'. That meant a bassinette for Jett, the fridge being stocked with formula for him—and a surreptitiously dark pre-made bottle toward the back. The passport Aro had promised was sitting on the coffee table in the little living room.

I looked through the fabricated passport while Jasper disappeared into the bedroom for a moment. Jett Nathaniel Hale, the name read. His birthdate was listed as September 15th. He was nearly exactly a month old. I was musing over how we could construct a story to explain Jett's existence to my family when Jasper came quietly back into the room.

He took Jett from my arms, laying him on his back in the bassinette. I opened my mouth to argue, but Jasper beat me to it. "We'll hear him should he wake up, though rumor has it he sleeps through the night, remember?"

Jasper took my hand and led me into the bathroom. I was throwing glances back over my shoulder the whole time, but Jett didn't move an inch. He slept with his hands thrown up above his head, legs splayed, looking for all the world like he was falling through open sky.

Inside the bathroom, Jasper left the lights off. There was enough moonlight streaming in through the skylight that I could still make out his features, gleaned silver. He lifted me to sit on the bathroom counter before running water from the sink faucet over a washcloth. Carefully, with a heartbreaking gentleness, he took my wrist and flipped it to expose the now-scabbed remnants of his bite mark.

Only now that we were alone was I able to take a deep breath, and once I did, I began to shake. The moonlight had turned even his eyes a dark, silvery shade, erasing the red hue I knew they held in the aftermath of his drinking my blood. He was washing the remnants of that same blood from my arm, drying my skin with one of the luxuriously fluffy towels when it was all gone.

"I am so sorry." He took my wrist, pressing it against his cheek. I could feel his frown beneath. "I imagine it will scar."

"I'll just match Gunner," I pointed out, trying to laugh to lighten the heaviness. But instead, my laugh turned just a touch hysterical and not just a little watery. Hot tears were running down my face within seconds, that laugh turning into a sob that I stifled with my free hand. "Jasper."

His name was all I needed to say. Jasper pulled me from the counter, tucking me into his lap. I clung to his shirt, twisting it in my fist, burying my face in his shoulder. He rubbed my back. Pressed against him as I was, I could feel how shaky his own breaths were, though I knew vampires could not cry actual tears. After some length, I pulled away ever so slightly, cupping his face in my hands. Jasper tipped his head forward so that our foreheads were touching, the two of us all tangled up on the bathroom floor under the moonlight.

"I'm so, so stupid, huh?" I asked, my laugh more solid this time. Jasper laughed, too, running his fingers through my hair.

"No, the Volturi are excellent manipulators. Though I must say, dangling anything in front of you that needs saving is a surefire way to trick you, mi amor."

"I've upgraded from turtles and birds and squirrels to actual babies. I'm so stupid," I said again. "We're going to have to deal with the Volturi for years."

His thumb ran over my mouth, silencing any other self-deprecating talk I might have spewed next. "Maisie, I don't want you to regret saving a child's life for one second, no matter what ramifications come with it, do you hear me? It's entirely likely they would have killed Jett had we not agreed to take him. I will not have you being remorseful over such a thing."

I nodded, hands dropping to his chest, worrying over the buttons on his shirt. Idly, I pushed one of the buttons in and out of its buttonhole while I collected my thoughts. I nearly didn't voice them, but Aro would see them regardless, next time we must meet.

"They are terrifying, aren't they?"

"They've had uncountable years to hone their rule, yes. And the Volturi does so love their absolute rule. But you," he tipped my face upward, so that I met his eyes, "have done something so few have done before. You have been summoned by the Volturi and are walking away with your life, and that is no small matter, Maisie."

"Hey, now," I told him. "You did the same thing."

"Yes, I suppose so."

I sighed, laying my head on his shoulder, breathing in the scent of him. Jasper's fingers traced patterns along the bare skin of my back, both of us just taking a moment to be. Exhaustion ebbed over me, now, making my limbs feel fuzzy. "You should sleep."

But I shook my head against the murmured suggestion, pulling back again, this time only enough to press a kiss to his mouth. "I don't want to sleep. Not yet."

I kissed him again, weaving my fingers into his hair to press myself closer. He responded in kind, assisting me in rearranging my legs so he was framed between them, hands sliding up the hem of my skirt and up over my hips. He stood in a singular fluid motion so smooth that I wasn't even jostled before carrying me back into the bedroom.

He laid me down gently on the bed, brushing my hair back from my face. Jasper's eyes flickered to the door, cracked open ever-so-slightly so I could hear Jett, too, should he wake. Just enough light came in from the living room that I could see Jasper's face clearly again.

"Rumor is that he'll sleep through the night, remember?" I echoed back to him. "Seems to me we have a few hours of the night left to us."

We had come close to crossing this line before, of course. How could we not? There was no hesitancy, now. Not as I undid the buttons fully on his shirt; not when he sat me up, undoing the zipper down the back of my dress. We both needed this, after the night we had survived, I think. To feel the solidness of each other under our hands.

Jasper kissed the bitemark on my wrist again, before trailing kisses all the way up my arm, making me giggle. He was stalling, I realized. "You're putting a lot of faith in my self-control tonight, Maisie."

"Do you want to drink my blood?" I asked, running my fingers along his neck. His scars were so thick there, a topographic map of his past under my touch. Jasper inhaled sharply, eyelids fluttering.

"No." He chuckled. "Your blood tasted mostly of venom, but it was still the first human—or human-like—blood I've had in decades. The affect was…not subtle."

Yet, he must have had some faith in himself because he made no efforts to stop himself. In fact, his mouth moved back to mine, kissing me so deeply I mused perhaps he was trying to drink me up. He was actually just buying himself a few more seconds of preparation.

I gasped against his mouth, making him draw back. There was mock concern on his face, and he made no efforts to truly pull away from me as one eyebrow drew itself up. "Self-control, I told you—"

He didn't get to finish that thought. If he could be a brat, so could I, and I gained the upper hand on him by wrapping a leg around his waist. He seemed not to have much faculty for speaking above breathy whispers from that point forward.


A/N: A much shorter chapter, I know, but I wanted to give some time to Jasper and Maisie before everything else comes about with revealing things to the families, Gunner, Sam and the pack... believe me, the next chapter will be much longer.

Thank you to everyone that reviewed! I loved reading reactions to something I have had in my mind for so very long! I hope you all continue to enjoy as we move forward.