Enjoy an extra chapter this week!

Chapter 15

Jasper and Edward came back from the meeting with the pack feeling something neither of them had felt in decades - exhausted. For starters, there had been far more wolves than they'd originally thought. Apparently, the day they'd gotten gas, all the Quileute youths who "had the werewolf gene" (as Carlisle put it) were present at the gas station. Edward remembered the evil looks he'd gotten from the two actual werewolves, and the staring from the rest of them. And that had been enough to trigger the change. The boys were now being homeschooled, and the only girl was Sam's lover. None of them trusted them, and not even Jasper's projected calm helped that.

At least it was done now - they'd both signed the treaty, never to bite a human, and delineating borders to each group. They didn't exactly like Carlisle, but the old man who had once been a werewolf, Quil Ateara, had met him over seventy years ago, and remembered his shock at meeting the "pale gold-eyes" himself. That helped, that they knew what golden eyes on a vampire meant. Good thing they didn't know how easy it was to eat enough animals to cover up red eyes in two weeks. Not that Edward was ever thinking of eating people again - especially not after his conversation with Bella - but he was slightly concerned about Jasper.

There was a knock on their door. They glanced at each other, as it was after midnight. "It's not a human," said Edward slowly. He could read her thoughts, of course, but they were trickier than any other vampire - most thought just as linearly as they had at humans, but not this one. "She's not thinking of her name, though. She has a strange power that makes her thoughts difficult. She seems friendly, at least."

Jasper nodded, then opened the door. A small smiling vampire female stood there, orange eyes focused fully on Jasper, and her thoughts were all of Jasper, memories of him, things that Edward remembered that no one else had been present for. "How are you -"

"Precognitive," she replied before he finished his sentence. "You're the telepath, right? God, watching you answer Jasper without him talking was a huge pain." Her eyes never strayed from Jasper. "You know, you've kept me waiting a long time," she said in a far sweeter tone.

Jasper answered, "Well shucks, I'm quite sorry about that, ma'am," and held out his hand to her. And then Edward saw something happened he hadn't seen since Carmen meant Eleazar: two mates knowing each other in their soul, touching to become one. Reading two minds like that was extremely shattering, and it knocked him down to his knees. "Should we go someplace more private?"

"The Cullens might be more appreciative," she replied.

Edward sighed. "You can stay here; I was going to make sure Bella didn't suffocate in her sleep."

"Oh, is that what you're calling it?" mocked Jasper. Edward sniffed and walked out the door.

To see Emmett. "Oh, hey, you are still wigging out about Bella. You uh, still didn't eat her, right?"

"Of course not," he snapped. "Come on, then."

There was a tree that overlooked Bella's bedroom. He didn't watch her change - he wasn't trying to rob her privacy - but could hear her breathing when it finally slowed down, and then turned to watch her sleep.

"So Edward, wanna hear a joke?"

"No."

"Well, it's not a very funny joke. What's the difference between you and a stalker?"

"Shut up, Emmett," he suggested.

"Bella would never fit in the back of your trunk."

"You're right, that wasn't funny at all," he sneered. "Why do you think I'm going to kill her? I was perfectly fine having a conversation with her earlier today."

"I know, Jasper and I picked you up before you could kill her."

"You picked me up right after I had ended our conversation, and I ended it when I couldn't take her scent anymore."

"And you weren't even downwind," he said, slow clapping.

He wanted to rip Emmett's tongue out, but the problem was, Emmett would be just as loud thinking as he was talking. Louder, even, as he was keeping his voice low enough so that no humans would possibly hear him, as he sat at the bottom of Edward's tree. Still, he asked, "Has anyone ever torn your tongue out?"

"Holy crap, you Volturi really are violent. We vegetarians are way peaceful, man. Besides, who would do that but Rose?" And she likes my tongue.

"Oh God, please think of something else," moaned Edward.

"OK, OK, but you are going to kill her, right?"

"I'm going to turn her into a vampire! That's not the same thing!"

Rose would beg to differ.

"Because she can't have children?" he asked incredulously. "Bella's eighteen, she probably can't imagine being married with children, especially since her parents divorced when she was what, three?"

"But it's not your place to take that choice away from her," Emmett replied.

"What does that mean?"

"Uh, just what I said."

"You'd rather Demitri do it? Or Aro?"

"I don't know those dudes, man. But you need to fully explain everything to her before she chooses."

"That's not how it works, Emmett," he chuckled. "If I explain everything to her, she has to become a vampire. You know the law."

"The law punishes vampires for breaking the secret instead of killing people," he growled. "I don't actually have a high opinion of the law."

Edward blinked. "How would the Volturi possibly survive if they did that? They all kill people, or have, every vampire ever, except Carlisle, has killed people. You have. Rose has."

"Well, case-by-case, then."

"You want to be punished for killing two singers? I'm proving right now that it's possible to resist," he teased.

"Almost no one else does that! I haven't killed anyone since 1937, who else can you say that about?"

"You, the rest of your coven, the whole Denali coven? Do you know how many men they killed before the twentieth century? I got to hear all about it. They thought I'd understand because I'd killed people too. But I only killed the kind of people Rosalie killed, Emmett. I had no sympathy for them."

"You don't have much sympathy for anyone," he spat.

"No, just Jasper and Carlisle," Edward agreed.

"And Bella Swan."

"I just don't want her to die. Humans are very fragile, you know."

"Tanya and Kate and Irina know it better than I do."

Edward gritted his teeth while he asked, "Just what the hell are you implying?"

"I'm implying your interest in Bella Swan isn't professional, duh."

"What else would it be?"

Emmett sighed. Idiot. "So why isn't Jasper with you now?"

"Oh! My God, you won't believe it, but he met this woman, Alice, she's trying to be a vegetarian too, she's actually able to see the future. So she'd been watching Jasper for years. I don't know why she didn't just come to meet him, but they're probably having lots of sex at your house as we speak."

"No kidding? Go Jasper! Good for him." And his thoughts turned again to Rose. Naked.

"Could you go away if you're going to do that," Edward begged.

"Oh, sorry. It just kinda happens every five or ten minutes."

"I noticed that."

Emmett grinned. Just wait till it happens to you.

Edward sniffed. "I will, thank you very much. I'll wait, and wait, and wait."

"Hey, so, I think Bella's going to wake up just fine, like she has every night of her life. You wanna go eat something?"

Edward considered. He had a point, and being so near her house, saturated in her scent, definitely made him hungry. "All right. Let's go."

They ran together to the Olympic Forest, where Emmett chased down a bear, and Edward a mountain lion. Emmett was deathly quiet while hunting, didn't even think of Rose at all, only the prey. It was quite relaxing, really, as Edward's thoughts were equally focused. It was nearly as good as being alone.

After they had both finished - and Edward, still a little bit of a messy eater, jumped in a river to wash himself off - Emmett came up to him. "Feeling better?"

"Much. Will you join me back at the Swan's?"

He sighed. "Yeah, someone has to make sure you don't break into her house."

"Excuse me, I would never."

"So you won't be oiling her window while she's at school?"

Edward thought for a second, then replied, "No, it's not like I could resuscitate her if she did stop breathing. I'd just call up Carlisle to bring a portable ventilator. Actually, maybe he'd let me borrow it. Wait, no, she'd be more startled to see me than him."

"Uh, Edward? That was a joke.

"Oh! Oh, yes, very funny Emmett."

They resumed their posts up and at the tree.

And Bella inhaled and exhaled all the night long, dreaming about missing a test at her old school, and unable to find the book she needed to study for it.