Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer and therefore I do not own Twilight or the wonderful characters I screw with.

WCCW

January 12th, 2028

Alice bolted upright, waking in a cold sweat after the sound of the gavel coming down. It had been more than six years, and the day – the memory which was now a recurring nightmare – still haunted her.

She jerked out of bed and ran to the bathroom, barely managing to slam the lid up before she tossed her cookies.

Jasper was suddenly just there behind her, holding her hair out of the way.

"Sorry," she muttered as she flushed the toilet before getting up and pulling away to wash her face and hands.

"You really need to talk to someone about this," he murmured.

She'd stopped seeing a psychologist shortly after their youngest adopted daughter had gone off to college a little over four years ago... Not that he'd really helped her all that much to begin with.

"There's nothing that a shrink can tell me that I don't already know."

He sighed. "Then explain it to me, because this –" he waved his hand vaguely at the toilet and then her "– isn't healthy."

She turned to look at her husband, leaning back against the bathroom counter. "It should have been me. Or Edward. Or, hell... Bella. It should have been anyone but my daughter. I'd gotten her out. I'd made sure she was safe from my dad. But it was her that blew his brains out. And now she's spending life in prison without the chance of parole. The only reason she didn't get the death penalty is because this state doesn't have that option.

"I can't change what happened. No one can. It doesn't change my guilt, though. There's no cure-all for it, no way to go back in time. But god, I wish there was."

What she didn't say, couldn't possibly explain to her husband, was how badly she felt she failed Didyme.

Because she'd allowed herself to be happy. She'd allowed herself to lose control, to become complacent in her own world. And the cost for her truly sinking into the life she had with Jasper, Athenodora, Maysun, and Kebi had been that she hadn't been keeping tabs frequently enough to find out about her daughter in time to prevent what happened.

But to admit that, to even think it, meant that in some way she didn't value Athenodora, Maysun, and Kebi in the same way as she did Didyme.

At least that was how her mind equated it.

It wasn't true. She loved her adopted daughters.

But if that was how her mind logicked it out, then how could she expect anyone else to see it differently.

Thoughts of her daughters reminded her of – "Aren't Kebi and Maysun flying in from Haiti in a few hours?"

Their two youngest had spent the last six months in Haiti on a community service project; building structures, piping in running water, offering free meals to the locals, and more.

"Yes. You probably should get ready to go pick them up in Seattle."

"You're not going?" She couldn't hide her shock.

Though Maysun had initially been afraid of Jasper, she'd grown extremely attached to him. In all honesty, Maysun was more his than hers.

"I've got an appointment with my psychiatrist in the morning."

She frowned. It wasn't his normal day for an appointment.

He grinned. "Besides, you'll want to take them shopping and shit. That's so not my scene."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

…

If his wife had known where he was really going, she would have been pissed.

It was why he hadn't told her.

Jasper sat at the table across from Didyme in the Washington Correction Center for Women – WCCW for short.

"How are you doing?"

The young woman with long golden-brown hair and bright green eyes – closer in looks to her father than her mother – glared at him, though he knew not to take it personally. He'd realized from his first meeting with her, years prior, that she was simply that angry.

"I'm fine, Jasper."

"Are you?" He looked at the pink jumpsuit conspicuously.

It was never a good color to be wearing in a prison – especially a prison where most of the prisoners wore orange or khaki suits.

She shrugged slightly. "It's been a long month already."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing that matters."

He sighed. "You make it hard to convince a new lawyer to try to appeal your case."

"No lawyer is going to be able to get my sentence reduced. Every single thing that could have helped get me a reduced sentence was suppressed or otherwise considered inadmissible. As far as the court is concerned – and is going to continue being concerned – I made my way across the country for no reason whatsoever and killed the man in cold blood. That's not going to change."

"You don't know that for sure. Just because your first lawyer was a louse and couldn't get your biology allowed in court doesn't mean that a new one couldn't."

"And if he does? What's that going to mean for my mother? My uncle? There was a reason Mr. Virtuoso let it go in the first place. And that was because I wanted him to."

"I think Alice would rather have her past dragged out in the open then leave you to rot here, Dee-Dee. And it doesn't help that you refuse to see her."

"She doesn't understand, Jasper. Everything that happened needs to end with me. I want it to end with me."

"This wasn't the life she wanted for you."

"I know." Didyme looked down at her hands for a moment. "But this was my decision."

"And I still don't get that. You had a life in Florida."

"I'm not sure how to explain it. My childhood was great. I was happy. At least until my mom died of cancer. The instant she was gone, I wanted to know why I'd been given up for adoption. I became obsessed, digging hard enough to find out the truth. Once I found out I couldn't not know... and then my dad died.

"But the thing is, in another life, Phil and Samantha would never have been my adopted parents because Alice probably never would have given me up. But because she knew what might happen to me if he'd found out I existed..." She shrugged slightly. "What can I say? He had to pay. He had to."

"She had you when you were fourteen, she'd still probably have given you up for adoption. Even if the situation surrounding who your father was had been different."

"Maybe, but it probably wouldn't have been done with so much cloak and dagger crap."

To that, he had no valid response.

…

Alice drove Kebi and Maysun to the mall where Athenodora met them.

Athenodora, who was almost a foot taller than her, lifted her up for a few seconds like she weighed nothing as she hugged her. "MOM!"

"There is something seriously wrong with one of my daughters picking me up," Alice grumbled as she was set back on her feet.

Athenodora chuckled.

"It's not our fault you're just this little thing," Kebi, who was even taller than Athenodora, said.

Of the three, only Maysun was a reasonable height... and even she was six inches taller than Alice.

"I am not little." Okay, even she knew that was a lie.

"Yeah, right. You aren't even five foot tall."

Alice crossed her arms over her chest as she pouted.

"So, how was Haiti?" Athenodora asked, looking at Kebi.

"Hot. Very fucking hot."

Alice opened her mouth to chastise Kebi for swearing.

"The work was hard but satisfying," Maysun said quietly.

Alice glanced at the quietest of her daughters in surprise as she shut her mouth. It was almost unheard of for her to volunteer information.

"There's a shoe sale at Clementines, isn't there?" Kebi asked, changing the subject.

Alice nodded, still looking suspiciously at Maysun.

After a moment, Alice shook it off and led them into the store.

…

Jasper probably should have offered to help bring in the bags of clothes. He wasn't touching the bags with a ten-foot pole though... they might bite or something.

It took them four trips to bring everything in the house.

"Athenodora?" He was surprised to see their oldest amongst them.

"I decided I wanted a family night."

"Why?" It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see her, but... Some might say suspicion was his middle name.

"I'm pregnant."

"WHAT!"

"WHEN?"

"HUH?"

The surprised and shocked voices of Alice, Kebi, and Maysun blended together.

"Aren't you a little young?" he managed to ask, voice half-choked.

"I'm twenty-five, dad."

"Like I said."

She shook her head. "I didn't find out until yesterday. Sancar doesn't know."

"He'll call as soon as he's settled. You can tell him then."

She looked at him, fear evident in her eyes.

He understood then and stepped towards her, reaching out and pulling her in for a hug.

"Nothing's going to happen to him, Athenodora. We're not at war currently," he murmured as Alice, Kebi, and Maysun surrounded them, making a giant group hug.

They weren't a family of blood. But love bound them together tighter than that.