-MAISIE-
What were my plans for my death? Nothing, Aro. Not a damn thing. I froze, going statue-still beside Jasper. The ancient vampire before me hadn't missed anything while he picked through my memories—there was nothing to miss. My mouth felt woolly, overtaken with cotton that strangled out my words.
"Life with Jett has been an adjustment, I'm sure you understand," Jasper said evenly. "We haven't had time, yet, to plan the intricacies of such a thing. It will occur in late spring, after our wedding."
I managed to tear my terrified eyes away from Aro's expectant face long enough to send Jasper a thankful look. He ran his thumb in slow, comforting circles along my palm, easing me with his touch if not his empathy.
"I, um, don't really know where to begin," I admitted. "I've never exactly faked my death before."
Across the table from me, Aro gave me a smile that I think was supposed to be sympathetic. He extended a hand and waited for me to rest my own in his. This time, he didn't invite himself into my mind. He only gave my fingers a gentle squeeze before releasing them.
"We understand you are in a unique position, young Maisie." If Marcus and Caius were meant to echo Aro's sentiment, their respective glare and blank stare didn't hit the mark. "A time frame is a starting point, at least. We would all love to hear your more… developed thoughts in the spring. May I inquire when your institution will hold their next academic break?"
"Third week of March," I told Aro. "But, um, we had planned to use it to track down Nahuel."
"Excellent!" Aro's glee was so loud it made me jump. "That was our next concern, but I am pleased to see your mindfulness. Now, we don't want to take time away from your efforts nor do we want to detract time from Jett's opportunity to meet his blood relatives. I trust that your plans for Nahuel are more concrete?"
I glanced at Jasper, taking quick inventory of the rigid set of his jaw. Though I was quickly learning about the Volturi and their manipulative ways, Jasper was the expert here. Biting his words, Jasper relayed the information for our upcoming trip, including the hotel arrangement for Jett and I. As soon as it was concluded, Aro sent Jane off to find her brother and relay the information to him.
"We will have Jane and Alec check in with you during your trip." Clearly pleased with himself, Aro pushed away from the desk. "Don't fret; we will send a reminder when the time draws near. Now, I would like to try something new, if the two of you wouldn't mind. Sulpicia, my dear, bring our little joy forward."
My instincts told me no, not to let Jett get within arm's reach of the Volturi. I swallowed, tamping that feeling down, forcing myself to rationalize. They cared for Jett before we did, I reminded myself. We've followed all their rules, fulfilled all their requests. There's no reason to harm Jett.
But glancing back, it was Caius who caught my eye, not Aro. His hard, red gaze bore into me, as if he, too, could see right into my thoughts. Not yet, his little smirk taunted. There's no reason to harm Jett yet. I went cold under Caius' gaze. Turning back to Aro, I found him cooing at Jett much the same way he cooed at Jane, trying to coax him into giving Aro his hand.
Jett looked back, though, over Aro's shoulder, seeking confirmation. It wasn't until Jasper nodded at him that Jett did what Aro asked and laid his hand palm open atop the Volturi leader's. I wondered if my own face had looked like Jett's the first time Aro had racked my mind. His little brow crumpled in confusion, hazel eyes widening in surprise. Or was it fear? God, I hoped it wasn't fear.
Then… Jett smiled. And laughed. I couldn't see Aro's expression any more, his back to me as it was, but I could see the happiness lighting up Jett's face. Watching back his memories made him happy.
I probably would have fell to the floor, had I not been sitting in that overstuffed chair. Something halfway between a sob and a relieved laugh slipped from my lips. Jasper squeezed my hand, breaking his careful watch over Jett just long enough to press a reassuring kiss on my lips.
Due to his being a baby, Jett's turn was very short. He was still pink-cheeked and pleased at the end of it, but he had also tired of Sulpicia and Athenodora. Jett leaned out of Sulpicia's arms, reaching for me. I was all too happy to settle his warm, reassuring weight back into my lap. He snuggled up to me, throwing his little arms around my neck in a hug.
"I missed you, too," I whispered to him.
"Well?" Caius asked, impatient as always. "What did you see in the child's mind, brother?"
"He is happy," Aro replied simply. "We made a grand choice in placing the child in the care of our dear friends Maisie and Jasper, brothers."
"Nothing incriminating?" Marcus droned as Caius settled into a pout.
"His thoughts are still abstract, but coherent and well-formed. He thinks mostly of his parents, gentle Esme, and lovely Rosalie." That definitely tracked for Jett. He was tapping his fingers against my lips. This was his way of telling us he was hungry. I shuddered a little to think he likely smelled the blood on my breath, but knew that was likely what he was getting at.
Ever observant, Aro caught on before I could even ask. He waved a hand at Felix, sending him on this new task. "For the babe this time, Felix."
"Of course, sir." He dipped away through the hidden door, leaving us in an awkward, waiting silence. With Jett no longer interested in the wives, Aro sent Sulpicia and Athenodora back to their tower with Chelsea trailing behind them. Jane and Alec returned as the trio were leaving, the disconcerting pair of twins stopping just short of Aro and tilting their heads back in tandem. He caressed each on the cheek, but it smacked of someone stroking a coveted possession rather than a loving gesture.
"We are all settled, then, yes? Good, little dears. Alec, I can see you have already had your meal, but I have kept Jane from Heidi's delicacies. I trust you saved something for her."
"Of course, Master." That was all the prompting the twins needed. Alec took his sister's hand just before they blurred from sight in a flash of their cloaks. No sooner were the twins gone that Felix returned, offering an old-timey glass bottle filled to the brim with dark, dark blood to me. Jett reached for it just as I did, greedily taking the bottle in his hands below mine did and tugging it to his mouth.
Jett drank heartily, cheeks blooming with red as they always did when he had his blood feedings. Aro moved behind my chair, trailing his hand along the back of it. While Jett ate, Aro retrieved a blank journal-type book before returning to his seat before us.
"We like records here, young Maisie, as I'm sure you can see by our amply filled bookcases. As we have come to the end of our progress check, I would like to detail it while it is still fresh in the mind."
As if Aro or any of the others would forget this day, I thought sourly. Still, we had to sit through 'helping' Aro, Marcus, and Caius write up an account of our meeting. It was nearly dawn by the time we were released to return to the hotel, the horizon lightening to gray with the coming dawn. Jett was fully asleep by the time we reached our room, having been lulled to his dreams on the walk back.
I was equally spent, feeling weary down to my bones as I laid Jett in his bed. Immediately, he flipped himself onto his stomach and tucked his legs beneath himself. "Little stinkbug," I muttered, watching him.
Behind me, Jasper ran his hands up the lengths of my arms and kissed the top of my head. I leaned back into him, welcoming the solid support of his body. Turning into his embrace, I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest.
"The Volturi are really fucking tiring." Jasper held me where we were for a moment before leading me over to the giant bed. He pulled my feet into his lap and unlaced my shoes for me before slipping them off. "Why did you tense up like that over that Felix guy?"
Peeking up at me from beneath his lashes, Jasper gave me a boyish smile. "You noticed that, huh?"
"It was hard not to," I confessed. With my feet free, Jasper removed his own shoes before laying back on the bed. I slipped away to the bathroom to thoroughly brushing my teeth to remove any remaining traces of blood. For good measure—because it had been fresh, human blood—I swished mouth wash around three times before climbing into bed with Jasper. He fitted me into the sanctuary of his arms, breath tickling across my hair as I laid my head on his chest.
"Emmett is the strongest vampire I know, mi amor, but Felix would be a very close second. Very close. Under his cloak, you would see he is just as scarred as I am, and that is because he is the Volturi's primary executioner. Not all those sentenced to die are given the grace of Alec sedating them beforehand."
Thinking back on Felix, I shuddered. He was sizeable, yes, but also unremarkable. I wouldn't have known to consider him such a threat had Jasper not reacted the way he had. "I have seen him in his element, when he was sent to 'clean up' some of the other armies in the Southern Wars."
Jasper ran his fingers through my hair, the comfort of the gesture juxtaposed against his next words. "He was present today as a reminder for me."
I hated that he was right. Regardless of what I thought of Jasper, it was true that the Volturi still viewed him as a valid threat. His time in Maria's army still loomed over his head, and the further crimes of revealing vampirekind to me only made that cloud heavier. I played with the buttons on Jasper's shirt, mulling it all over. "God, they suck."
"Maisie Lynn." The scolding didn't stop me in the least bit. I put a hand on his chest, pushing myself up so that the curtain of my hair fell over his cheek. Jasper batted it away, looking up at me.
"No, Aro will like the praise when he sees it next time. They suck because, I mean… fuck!" I swept my hands out in an all-encompassing gesture. "I can't even put it into words how well they've trapped us. Carlisle's right, this is surveillance monitoring for the rest of our lives!"
Gently, Jasper tugged me back to him so that I fell onto the pillow beside him. "You're going to wake Jett."
"A nuclear bomb could go off without waking Jett," I countered, pouting. "His days and nights are going to be all confused again, anyway."
Jasper kissed my still-pouting lips and smoothed the hair back from my face. "It's the hand we've been dealt, mi amor. There's nothing that can be done but making the best of it."
"Stop being reasonable when I'm in a mood." Chuckling, he kissed me again. This time he didn't stop until I relaxed into it and even then, he only pulled away to give me a gloating smile.
"Are there rules against this, too?"
"Absolutely not," I told him, pulling him back down by his shirt collar. "It's entirely within the rules to make out with me while I'm in a mood."
He tried to make a quip about me always being in a mood, I think, but I stopped that nonsense by kissing him again.
"Did you have a good Christmas break, dear?" Mrs. Wortham joined me in the basement on the first day of the semester. I worked in the soft, dim light while she kept me company and nursed a thermos of earl gray tea.
"Oh, yeah," if you ignore the part where I had to go to Italy for an ongoing interrogation from vampire overlords. "My brother and his girlfriend came and stayed with us for half of it."
That, of course, led to a distraction from my work so I could show Mrs. Wortham the pictures I had from the holidays on my phone. She gushed over Jett sitting in Jasper's lap as they opened his obscene amount of presents and all the selfies Gunner, Leah, and I had taken on our snowshoeing hike.
"That little boy is such a doll, Maisie," she told me, eyes raking over a picture of Jett after Alice had dressed him in his new outfits for a Christmas baby fashion show. He was laughing, eyes crinkled and cheeks flushed. Emmett was off-camera, making faces at him to get him to smile for the pictures. Then she held up my phone next to my cheek, studying mine and Gunner's faces side-by-side.
"Don't worry, I won't be offended if you think me and Gunner don't look alike. People never believe we're siblings."
"No, no," Mrs. Wortham argued, "it's there, dear. In your smiles. They take the same shape. He and his girlfriend make a striking couple."
"They're strikingly obsessed with each other," I joked. I told Mrs. Wortham of their plans to move to Seattle fulltime, of the apartment they were 'working on getting', and Leah's enrolling in spring semester classes. She was impressed with their 'gumption' to start out so young together. Of course, she didn't know that Jasper was all but gifting them the perfect apartment.
I worked in quiet for a bit while Mrs. Wortham read through old articles before handing them to me for scanning. Gently, softly, she asked, "Did you get to see your other family at all over the holidays?"
"Um, no," I admitted. "Just Gunner and Leah."
She laid a hand on my arm, age-soft and warm, giving me a little, reassuring squeeze. The thing I loved most about Mrs. Wortham was that she knew when there were no words that could be given. I wished there was no words needed at all, for any of the mess I was in. But there were discussions—not with Mrs. Wortham—that needed to be had.
Namely, how I would 'die'.
Jasper hadn't broached the subject, and I was sure that was because he was waiting for me to do it myself. I had no idea where to begin, though. Carlisle came from the 1600s; there were no records that needed to be faked, no identity to transfer or manipulate. Jasper Whitlock was surely cataloged in the Confederate death toll, but around a century passed before he became Jasper Hale. Edward 'died' in the Spanish Influenza pandemic; Esme 'died' of suicide. There were records of Alice, yes, under her birth name Mary Alice Brandon, but considering her disappearance from an asylum… it wasn't surprising that Alice's 'death' went unnoticed.
Rose was missed, I was certain. How could she not be? A gorgeous, young bride-to-be suddenly gone missing. But the keyword here was sudden. Not to mention that history was on her side, here—again, records and identifiers were not so meticulous. The same with Emmett McCarty becoming Emmett Cullen. There was only one person I could even fathom having a relevant perspective.
"Jasmine." We still ran together, though they were getting shorter as more snow accumulated throughout the winter. It was the first day of February before I could muster the courage to broach the subject. "Could I, um, ask you something? I won't be offended if you don't want to answer."
"Shoot." I took a sidelong glance at her, taking in her braids peeking streaming out from the pastel yellow beanie she wore.
"Well…" My hear pounded in my chest, but not at all from our run. I knew Jasmine could hear it, but she kindly didn't comment. "Um, I just…"
"Spit it out, Maise." She smirked at me and I felt my face flush. My steps stuttered out until I stopped, facing her in a forest of frost-encased pines.
"If you could have planned your fake death, how would you have done it?" The words tumbled out on top of each other, so that it left my mouth sounding like one long word instead. "I mean," I started to ramble, because Jasmine was standing wide-eyed in front of me, "you're kind of the only one who might have perspective. Like, Jasper? He 'died' in the middle of the Civil—oh shit, Jasmine, I'm sorry. Shit."
To my surprise, Jasmine laughed. "Don't apologize. Me and Jasper have talked about it. I wouldn't still be here if I wasn't on good terms with him."
They have? "Oh, okay. Um, good, I'm glad." She was still smirking at my discomfort and I didn't blame her. I was sure I looked like an idiot, but that was fine. "So… how would you have planned it?"
Jasmine cocked her head to the side, braids streaming over her shoulder like a waterfall. "It's cold out here for you," she said. "I can see you shivering, and the sun's almost set. Let's talk about this at home."
She turned on her heel, leading me back down our running path. I followed her all the way into my house, only stopping when she did to take off her snowy running shoes. The house was empty; Jasper and Jett were next door with Edward for the afternoon. 'Man Time', Emmett called it, even though now he had to be video called in since he was in New York. I hated to admit it, but Jasmine was right about me being cold. She lounged on the couch, surfing through channels on the TV, while I lit a fire. Jasmine's channel surfing was purely for background noise, because she turned the volume way down when I came to sit beside her.
"The hardest thing, I think, and from what I've seen going back to my old neighborhood, is that there wasn't any closure. I just… vanished. Sure, I was legally proclaimed dead after a year of being missing, but… that doesn't really mean anything to a grieving family. My face is all over the neighborhood, because no one has taken down my missing posters, Maisie."
I swallowed, thinking about her words, but Jasmine was pushing on ahead. "If I had been able to plan it, I would have made sure that there was no doubt I was 'dead'. So that it wouldn't forever be an open possibility that maybe, some day, through some cosmic stroke of luck or miracle or whatever, that I would come back. I think this is worse, my case, because the wounds will never heal. They'll be open for my mom, dad, and brother's whole lives and they'll always wonder if, maybe, I'm out there somewhere."
The irony is that Jasmine was out there somewhere, but I understood her sentiment. "Like dangling a carrot in front of a horse but never letting them have it," I grumbled, to which Jasmine nodded.
"Exactly. But you're lucky. You don't have to let that happen."
"Yeah," I nodded absently, mind already running through the possibilities. "Maybe… like… a honeymoon accident, or something. So none of y'all have to be directly involved, you know?" I was mostly thinking out loud, but Jasmine nodded her agreement. "This all sucks so bad."
Here, Jasmine gave something halfway between a snort and a laugh. "Yeah, it does. But it could be worse, you know? I think me and Jasper can both attest that serving under Maria sucked worse."
"Touché," I laughed, despite myself. "You haven't met the Volturi, though. They're, like, what Maria wishes her army could've been."
"Edward told me that one of them is telepathic, like him, but that he can see all your thoughts and memories. Like, that you've ever had. Is that true?"
"Yeah, his name's Aro. It's really weird—not what he can do, but how it happens, because you can see them too. Like watching a film strip of all these memories and thoughts you forgot you had, just pulled right out of your brain." Jasmine shivered at that, shoulders and braids shaking in tandem.
"Does that bother you? That he can see everything?"
I shrugged. "It did the first time, but this last time I realized he has to always start at the beginning and sift through everything until he gets to the part he wants. It still sucks, but I feel a little bit better about having my privacy intruded on knowing that I've seen Salad Fingers and Aro has to see it every time, too." Jasmine lost it at that, doubling over in her laughter. I was laughing, too. Sometimes I forgot Jasmine and I were well and truly around the same age, from the same era. Had I said something about Salad Fingers to anyone else, save maybe Gunner or Leah, I would have been met with blank stares.
"We have to show Emmett," Jasmine gasped out between her laughs.
"Oh, God, yes. How the hell did I never think of that?" We never recovered from that topic point, forgetting to round back to our original discussion. But still, I came away from my afternoon with Jasmine feeling better about what I knew I had to do.
The burgeoning plan became pillow talk for Jasper and I, something that we discussed each night before I went to sleep. Kind of like a macabre bedtime story, I guess. Still, it was nice to be able to work out the kinks. And nicer still that we had Jenks at our disposal, so that we would all have proper—if false—documentation when we put the plan in action.
"Do you think Jenks could fake documents for citizenship in another country?" I asked one night, laying under the weight of Jasper's head on my chest, tracing the lines of scars on his bare back.
"He's very money motivated," Jasper replied, voice sounding sleepy. Not for the first time I thought how cruel it was that vampires could seem tired but could not sleep. "For the right price, he would figure it out. Don't tell him I have such faith in him, though."
"You're incorrigible," I told him, dipping my head down to kiss the top of his. "What will I ever do with you?"
"Marry me, as we were just discussing." Smart ass. "But… We need a name to use. Publicly, we will be married as Jasper and Maisie Hale, but we need a different name for the documents Jenks will craft us."
"Whitlock?" I asked, laughing. "Did you forget you have another name?"
He shifted, resting his chin on my chest so he could look up at me. "I wasn't certain you would want to use it."
"You thought I would marry you but not take your name?" I reached for him, drawing him up and planting a kiss on his mouth. "Incorrigible and unreasonable."
"I'm not sure I like this smear campaign." He tucked me fully beneath him, kissing me again. As I was dressed for bed, it was all too easy for him to slip his hand under the over-sized shirt—his—that I wore. He lowered his mouth to my neck, leaving me breathless.
"Is this a gag order?" Jasper chuckled at that and I let him relieve me of my sleep shirt. He pulled back long enough to pull me into his lap, his mouth trailing lower. My fingers wove into his hair, gripping at the golden strands. "You're so lucky our kid never wakes up in the night."
"Very kind of him," Jasper agreed, voice muffled on my skin. He trailed his way back up from my stomach to my mouth, kissing me again as that slow, burning ember of shared desire spread through me. "Maisie Whitlock does sound nice. Shame the wedding is so far away."
"We have the consummating part down pretty well." He laid me down again, only proving me right. "That would have made use married to some, with or without the ceremony."
"Mmm," he hummed his agreement, one hand gripping my thigh to leverage us together. Sometimes I wondered if all the time we spent in bed was successive, but then I remembered Emmett's salacious, shameless stories of his and Rose's early marriage. Or Jasper did something like keep hold of my leg as he pressed forward, making me shudder and bury my face in his shoulder at the deep connection.
Considering we spent two years very much wanting—but unable—to do this very thing, I figured we were just making up for lost time.
On my twentieth birthday, Jasper gave me the best gift to date. At my request, it was to be a quiet birthday. My nineteenth had been spent with family all around, but for my twentieth, I wanted nothing more than a small reprieve from the hectic tempo my life had taken on. It fell on a Saturday, so I didn't have to worry about going to class. Instead, I slept in and then lounged in bed answering my birthday texts. Dad sent me a video of Ava singing happy birthday for me. His text said 'we' in his birthday wishes, but the fact that Mom didn't reach out herself stung more than I wanted to admit.
I could hear Jasper and Jett playing downstairs, little peals of laughter drifting up to me. Focusing on that instead of the pain in my chest, I was able to keep back the tears threatening to fall.
When I pulled myself from bed, it was to go immediately into the shower, where I spent an obnoxious amount of time letting the hot water stream over me. After, I dressed in one of Jasper's sweaters and a pair of soft shorts. I wandered downstairs, finding the living room empty. It wasn't until I walked into the kitchen that I found Jasper and Jett.
"There y'all are." Jasper bent to greet me with a kiss. He had Jett in his little chair, sitting on top of the counter, while he put candles in a pan of brownies. "Did you make those?"
"Esme," he admitted. "She couldn't help herself."
I pulled Jett from his chair, hugging him tight when he threw his little arms around me. He laughed, entertaining himself with playing with the damp strands of my hair. "You're not going to sing by yourself, are you? I'm older than you now, so you have to listen to me when I say don't."
Laughing, Jasper shook his head. "No, but Esme wanted a picture of you blowing out your candles. You still have to answer to her for a few more years, mi amor."
Jasper lit the candles and I played my part, blowing them out while holding Jett's hand lest his curiosity get the best of him. Esme's baking was as delicious as ever, even with a long-haul trip through the mail to get to me. They were still soft, filled with chocolate chips so that they were saccharine sweet. I gave Jett the tiniest of pieces to taste, to which he clapped his hands in exuberant approval. He babbled some almost-words to me, further expressing his love of the brownie crumb I had given him.
"Do you want to see Jett's newest trick? We've been working on it while you're in class."
"Oh?" I asked, letting Jasper take Jett from my arms. "Y'all are keeping secrets now?"
"More like surprises," Jasper countered. He situated Jett so that he was facing me. "Go ahead, Jetty. Tell her the word we've been learning."
Jett kicked his legs in excitement, little splayed hands covering his mouth as he laughed. Then he reached a hand out, legs still kicking, waiting for me to take hold of his tiny fingers. I smiled back at his glee, waiting for this word—his first word—that he had learned. Yet despite the air of anticipation hanging over us, I wasn't prepared for the moment that he spoke it.
Smiling wide, hazel eyes all lit up, Jett got a hold on his giggles long enough to say—or scream, rather—"Mama!"
That one word froze me for a moment. Yes, we were raising Jett, and yes, I often referred to him as 'our' or 'my' baby, and yes, Jasper had often made comments to Rose about me being Jett's mother, and yet… none of it really clicked until he called me Mama. I didn't know if I wanted to laugh or cry, but laughter just barely won out.
I held my arms out to Jett, folding him into another hug. Jasper joined this one, enveloping us both in his arms and kissing us each on the tops of our heads.
It was the most emotional and best birthday I ever had to date.
A/N: Hey, y'all! I just wanted to say welcome to any new readers who came here from Preciosa. The Twilight Revival still going on all over social media has made an uptick in the OG story of Maisie and Jasper. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well! I'll see y'all next time!
