Esme POV

Where is my baby? It's been over a week since he vanished, and there hasn't been so much as a peep from him. Is he cold? Hungry? Remembering to take his medication on time?

I knew that he was alive, because he spoke to Rosalie every day. She wouldn't tell us anything, except he said he was ok, and he didn't want to speak to the rest of the family.

The rest of the family included Alice, who cried for three days straight at the desertion. By day four, she had gone quiet, and now she seemed to have taken refuge in denial. She insisted that Jasper would be coming home, and sooner rather then later. I didn't believe it, but I didn't want to break my baby girl's heart all over again.

Carlisle and I had gone over and over every one of our interactions with Jasper since January, trying to figure out where it had all gone wrong. His leaving hadn't been a split second decision. Getting an apartment, utilities, a bus pass…all of that had taken time. It had also taken an accomplice.

That accomplice had outed herself the morning after Jasper's birthday, when we woke up to find that we were again a family of six instead of seven. We had just assumed that Jasper was sleeping in after a late night and the excitement of his party. Emmett hadn't said anything about him not being upstairs. By the time Carlisle had gotten concerned and peeked inside, only to find the room empty, it was close to noon.

His shouts drew the rest of the family, who all looked stunned and worried. All except for Rosalie, who was guilty and unable to make eye contact. I left Carlisle to sort out the rest of the family and drew her aside. "Rosalie, do you know where your brother is?"

It spoke to how far we had come since she arrived that she made no attempt to lie to me. She just nodded. "He's at his apartment."

Relief flooded my body. At least he wasn't lost, and he had someone to go. "I'm assuming that you've seen this apartment?"

My voice wasn't harsh, but tears filled her eyes. "Are you mad at me? He said that he would tell you he was leaving."

I reached to hold her. "Of course I'm not mad. You were taking care of him, just like a good sister. It's not your fault that he didn't tell us he was leaving."

"Mom!" Edward bounded into the room, something clutched in one hand. Jasper's keychain, the house keys still dangling from it. "These were on the floor by the mail slot."

It was those keys, more then him being missing, that drove home the seriousness of this situation. Jasper frequently got overwhelmed with out family and needed some time to center himself. Usually he managed that by taking a walk alone in the woods or hiding out downstairs in Rosalie's garage. But leaving the keys was a clear message. This house was no longer his home, if it had ever been. If he came back to see us, it would be as a guest instead of a family member.

I clutched the keys to my heart, as if that would tell Jasper how much we loved him and wanted him back. Without him, our family felt incomplete.

The worst part was, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't report Jasper as a runaway because he wasn't one. Legally, he was an 18 year old man who had chosen to leave home. I couldn't report him missing, because he wasn't. The police could easily find him, but they wouldn't tell me where he was, either.

His location is something that Rosalie is guarding with her life. I've tried to talk to her about it, Carlisle has tried, even Alice has begged in tears, but all my oldest daughter does is shake her head. She has told us that it's a safe place, and he'll be able to easily get to the stores he needs to buy groceries and medication, but refused to give any further details, not even the city.

I do know that he's not still in Forks. In a town this small, there are no secrets. One of the Cullen kids moving out and getting his own place right after turning 18 would have had the gossip mill spinning. I would have had Jasper's address and a detailed record of his comings and goings within 24 hours.

Even though I already knew that he wasn't here, I did sweet talk Charlie Swan into double checking for me. Nope, no sign of our Jasper anywhere in the city of Forks.

A part of me felt poorly about chasing after Jasper when he so clearly wanted to be left alone, but I loved him. I couldn't just turn off all of the maternal feelings I had spent the past few months cultivating for him. I would be respectful of his feelings and not bother him if he didn't want it, but I had to know where he was in case there was an emergency If he were to have a seizure or be injured, no one would know to contact us.

I had avoided pumping Rosalie for more information, even though it was all that I could do to prevent myself from demanding that she get in the car and take us to Jasper, so we could bring him home. He needed to be here with us, his family.

But forcing things would do more harm then good. Right now Jasper was trying to prove that he was an adult and chasing after him like he was a child would only further alienate him. I did ask that she speak to him about talking to Carlisle and I, just so we could rest easier, but he was being very resistant to the idea. I had originally thought that he might be worried about being lectured and dragged home, but Rose thought that he might be too ashamed to face us after bolting the way he had.

She did agree to pass on that everyone missed him and loved him, and that Carlisle and I weren't angry at him, but would do no more then that. Keeping her word meant more to Rose then just about everything else.

So now we waited, and tried to pick up the pieces. I was missing my boy, and I would do anything to get him back, but he wasn't my only concern. I had four other children who needed me, and I had to be strong for them, too. Outwardly, Alice was the most affected, but my baby girl has a curious strength about her, and had actually been more of a comfort to me then I've been to her. Her small hand held mine, reminding me that I had a loving family, even if part of it was gone. "It's ok, Mama. Jasper's exactly where he needs to be for right now. Soon he'll need to be back here, and then he'll be home."

I didn't exactly share her confidence, but I appreciated the gesture. "I love, you, Alice."

Emmett had taken it harder then I thought he would. Though I knew that he and Jasper were close, he was such an easy-going guy that I would have guessed he would shrug and move on.

That wasn't the reality. In reality, Emmett spend a lot of time pacing and looking out the windows, as if he thought Jasper might just appear for no reason. His already shaky grades dipped further, causing him to be in danger of failing another year. I tried to talk to him, and remind him that we all missed Jasper, but he didn't want to hear it. He expressed no anger towards his former foster brother, thought he did admit to being sad and thinking Jasper was being foolish. But he, too, was convinced that Jasper would be back. After all, our family was super-cool, and Jasper would figure that out sooner or later.

Edward didn't know whether Jasper was coming back or not, though he had rudely informed all of us that he hoped not. He doesn't suffer betrayal lightly, and, in his mind, Jasper had committed the ultimate one. Not only had he gone against Edward himself, but the family as a whole. My son is a very black and white thinker, and he was incapable of (or simply refusing to) take Jasper's mental state into consideration.

I had reminded him that Jasper wasn't here to defend himself, and to be civil. His feelings about Jasper were his own, and it was ok for him to feel angry and let down. But when he said hateful things, it hurt the rest of the family, especially Alice. Since Edward thinks that the sun rises and sets on her happiness, it was enough to quell the worst of his comments.

Deep down, I know that he's hurting as badly as the rest of us. He's not an easy boy to get to know, and most people don't bother making the effort. But Jasper had. Jasper didn't mind being ignored, nor did his ask for anything of anyone, except that nobody hurt him. A quiet place to sleep and enough food were bonuses, but not even required. He was content to sit and watch the rest of us go about our days, which endeared him to Edward. The fact that my first son had sat there, day after day, long enough to teach Jasper to play his song on the piano, told me that the bond was deeper then it first appeared. That Jasper had confided in Rosalie, Edwards least favorite person in the house, had to hurt as well.

Rose felt guilty, even though we had assured her over and over that none of this was her fault. Holding Jasper here against his will might keep him safe, but it wasn't going to do anything he help him bond to us, or see us as different from Maria. We just had to be patient, and hope that our lost child could find his way home in time.

At least that was what I told the kids. In reality, I had started shopping out of town, just so I could study the faces of young men that might be him. My phone was always at full charge, and always available, just in case he tried to call at any time during the day or night. So far, there had been nothing, but I couldn't help but hope.

Still, it hurt to have four expectant faces come home from school each day and immediately look for him. Or I would be doing laundry and find one of his T-shirts mixed in with Emmett's stuff. I sobbed for hours when I had to call and cancel with his tutor and other services he had been receiving.

Carlisle hadn't said much, even though I knew he was as upset as I was. He was willing to drop everything for me or the kids, but he didn't say much about his own feelings. I knew that every time we lost a child, it hurt him. Even when we knew that they were going to family that would love them, or to parent who had learned their lesson and would do better the next time, it still hurt to know that when those kids left, we wouldn't see them again. We would just have to hope that things had really changed for the better.

The worst part was that not hearing anything was exactly what you hoped for. No foster parent wanted to hear through the grapevine that their kids were back in foster care, or that their families are falling apart yet again. Usually they would try and put the kids back with the same foster parents, but that wasn't always possible. Since our license had been closed for several years, and Jasper had been taken on a special case basis, there was no way they would give us any of our former children back. I just had to trust that someone out there was watching over them, and that they were getting the best chance in the world.

But even Carlisle felt differently for Jasper then I did. Most of our foster children, including all of the ones we had adopted, preferred him to me. It's normal with foster children to love the father figure and hate the mother one, even if their abuse or neglect has been at the hands of man. The bond between a mother and child is the most primitive there is. It doesn't care if the mother is abuse, or neglectful, or uncaring.

Removal from mom disrupts that bond, though it doesn't sever it, the same way none of my children would stop loving me if they spent a year being cared for by relatives. But this bond is sacred, and suddenly having it damaged results in fear and confusion for the child. Any new mother figure is viewed with suspicion and hatred. It's evil stepmother syndrome taken to the extreme. In some ways it's worse, because everyone involved, including the children themselves, know that it's a temporary situation. The point is for them to go home eventually.

Edward pushed me away for over a month, crying 'mama, mama' and looking desperately for a woman who wasn't me. Eventually he understood that I was mama now, and started to bond with me, but he still loves Elizabeth Masan in a way that will never fade. He has her picture right up on the wall and tells visitors who she is.

Even Rosalie, who had suffered such abuse at the hands of first her parents then her foster father bonded to Carlisle before she did to me. Its just an ugly reality of doing what we do.

There's a part of me that's jealous, but mostly it makes me sad. In a perfect world, none of this would be happening, because none of them would be without their original families. The mental illnesses, and additions, and poor choices would disappear, and the children would be able to be raised in the happy and secure families that they deserved.

But things aren't that way. The birth parents of my children couldn't keep them safe or healthy, so it fell to someone else to do it. In the cases of both Edward and Jasper, both parents were deceased, and there was no one else to step in.

But Jasper was different from the others. At first, he was bonded to neither Carlisle or I, though it was easy not to notice. Polite, calm, and distant, that was our Jasper. When he began showing the first signs of bonding with us, there was no preference at all.

Then Carlisle made the mistake of scaring him the day of the trial, and Jasper raced to me for comfort. Suddenly I was the preferred one, and I would be lying if I didn't say that it made me feel good. For once I was the special one, and the favorite. Jasper followed me like a puppy when it was just the two of us, and sought only me on Carlisle's day off. He was still polite to Carlisle, and interacted appropriately with him, but we had a definite mamas boy on our hands.

At least we had. Now I had no one to help me run errands, or eagerly show me the new song he had learned, or just to sit close and do homework while I made dinner. It's been years since I've had children young enough to stay home during the day and, before Jasper, I never once felt lonely. I had the house, and my designing work, and the garden in the summer. That had always been enough. Now, though, the house felt incredibly empty. There was one less plate at the table, one less person battling for the bathroom in the morning, and one less voice telling me goodnight.

How can one single person, one who hadn't even been here that long, create such a gaping hole in our family? He was so quiet and unassuming, never making trouble, and sometimes barely seeming to be present in the house. Since he spent so much time silent and in hiding, you would think that him being gone wouldn't be much of a change.

But I think that was the reason that it was such a big deal. The quiet didn't feel out of the ordinary, so it was hard to accept that he was gone. It was just like he could pop out of his or Emmett's room at any second, ready to tell me about his day. Instead we got silence.

Gravel crunched in the driveway, and I knew that the rest of the kids were home. Alice raced inside and peeked around me. "Is Jasper home yet?"

She asked that every day, and every day I had to disappoint her. "No, Sweetheart, he isn't."

"Oh. Maybe tomorrow." She visibly picked herself up and went to the fridge. "It will be soon."

I didn't know if this denial was healthy or not. She was so insistent on waiting for someone who might never be coming back that it was painful to watch. On the other hand, she seemed to be the calmest and least traumatized of any of them. She asked about him once each day, and occasionally wondered what he might be doing, but she wasn't moping around like others. So I let it go and discreetly made her an appointment to see Felix. "But just in case it isn't…" I trailed off because I didn't now what to say. "I just want you to be ready for him not to come home, or to come back and visit on his terms only."

"He'll come home, I know it. I just don't know when he'll do it." Her arm wound around my waist. "I'm worried about him, of course, but he needs to do this. You're going to let him come back, aren't you? You're not going to make him stay away?"

"If Jasper wants to come home and be a regular part of our family, of course he can come back. But he can't be a tenant who comes and goes as he pleases with no accountability. He knows how this family works by now, and he has to make the decision about whether or not it's something he can deal with. Your father and I love him and we do want him to be able to come home and live with us again."

Alice grinned at me. "Good." Then she was off and running, calling out to Emmett for help with rearranging her room. Her simple enthusiasm made me smile. Despite the circumstances, she was not only able to keep going, but to find genuine joy in it all.

With the children taken care of, I went out to the garden to have some time to myself. Jasper had sat with me while I planned the layout, and offered his opinions on what he like and what I should plant where. Only he wasn't going to be there to eat the watermelons that were just starting to grow, or steal the tomatoes right off the vine.

It was these little moments that hurt more then the big ones. I could handle his old room being just a guest room again, or only seeing four kids in the car on the way to or from activities. I certainly didn't miss the unannounced social worker visits or having to lock up all the chemicals in the house, including the laundry detergent. But Jasper had been worth it. He was still worth it.

But I missed other things. Not making that extra cup of coffee so we could drink them together after everyone else went to school. Hearing the guitar through the ceiling when he was practicing a new song. Seeing the shy way Alice smiled when she looked at him. Without Jasper, our family wasn't really our family. We were the Cullen's minus one.

But there was someone who knew where to get him. I had been easy and gentle, but now it was time to get tough. I might not be Jasper's mother right now, but I was still Rosalie's. Sometimes the mother has to do things that her children might not like.

I took a deep breath and stood up. Rose was down in her garage and I was loathe to disturb her there. That was her safe place, and I didn't want to threaten that. Just as I wasn't going to chase Jasper into his own safe place, and I wanted my own space kept sacred, I had to show her that same respect.

Thoughts of what I should do and say kept me consumed through dinner prep. You have to handle Rosalie with a firm hand, but be gentle as well. I heard her footsteps on the stairs and called out softly. "Rose? Is that you, honey?"

Her blond head peeked around the door. "Yes?"

"Why don't you have a seat?" I pointed at her chair at the table.

She was immediately defiant. "If this is about Jasper, I have nothing to say."

If I didn't move quickly and smoothly, I would lose this battle. "It is about Jasper. I'm not asking you to tell me where he is. He's a grown man, and I'm not going to chase him down. But I do want you to talk to him for me."

Rose leaned forward on her elbows. "I can't promise anything, but go on."

"I want you to talk to him about at least putting your father and I down as an emergency contact. Have you thought about what would happen if he were to collapse and have a seizure? Or be in a car accident and end up hospitalized? Or even need to have someone cosign a loan for him?"

"He has me for those things." But I could tell she was thinking it over. "I know as much about him as you do."

"You probably know more." Sometimes the art of being a mother is knowing when to shamelessly flatter a reluctant child. "But one emergency contact might not be enough. All I'm asking for is for you to talk to him for me. He doesn't have to talk to us if he doesn't want to, but I do want him to know that we're still thinking about him and that he can come over if he would like to. He doesn't have to stay, and I won't push him to, but I want him to know that he's always welcome."

"Ok. I'll talk to him." She picked at the table. "I don't know if he wants to come home or not."

To Rose this was Jasper's home. He was ours, no matter how far or fast he tried to run. "Does he ever talk about it?"

"Not really. But I can tell that he's not doing so great. I wish he would just pull his head out of his ass and get over himself so he can come home. We get it, he can do it by himself. Bu the shouldn't have to. He's got us to have his back."

This was a bigger window then I usually got into Rosalie's thoughts. For the first time, she was expressing some anger at Jasper. It was still tempered with understanding, but she missed her brother as much if not more then the rest of us. "I wish he would come back too."

"I miss him. He's my favorite brother." She must have seen the face I made, because she gave an overly dramatic sigh. "Oh, chill out, I'm not picking on Edward the golden child. Well, not only him. I mean all the boys who have come through the house, plus Emmett back when he was my brother and not my boyfriend. Jasper's something special."

He certainly was. And I didn't believe for a second that that hadn't been a slur against Edward. There was always a tension simmering between them, no matter how much I work with them. Their personalities are just too different. Rose doesn't care for men at the best of time, with the exclusion of Emmett, Jasper, and sometimes Carlisle. Edward is overly sensitive to corrections, especially by the sister that he still views as an interloper into the family. They both like things to go their way and their way only, and what they considered best never seemed to be in line with each other.

"I miss him, too. Please try and get him to call."

"I will." Her eyes darted nervously and I knew that I was losing her. Even now, revealing her feelings to me makes Rose nervous. "Can I go back downstairs until dinner? I have homework."

"Of course. Dinner in a half hour."

"Ok."

When we got Jasper, I had to add a leaf to the table so we would all fit. Between Carlisle's hospital shifts and the antics of having 4 kids in school and various extracurricular activities, it wasn't that often that we all sat down together, but I wanted everyone to have a place when we did.

Without him, though, the table was gapped and empty. I kept the leaf in for the first two nights, but everyone was so fixated on the empty chair that it was hard to eat. I took it out, but left it in the dining room, so that we could put it back in right away when he came home.

If he came home.

I was pulling out the place settings when Alice came back. She took over without a word, expertly folding the napkins. I smiled at her. "How's the room going?"

"Good. Can I paint it again? It would look so pretty in green."

Alice was our little chameleon, quick and ever changing. She had an eye for color and a flair for decorating that would serve her well one day if she continued to want to pursue fashion or design. If I would let her, she would replace her entire wardrobe quarterly and paint her room once a month. "It depends. Do you have enough allowance saved up to pay for the paint?"

"Not exactly…."

"Then no. If it's important, then you'll save the money." I gave her a quick hug to soften the blow.

"But I can if I save it?" She was hopeful.

"Sure."

She put the silverware down and came back to my side. "Do you think Jasper's going to come home soon?"

I've always prided myself in not lying to the kids. They've been lied to too often by adults, and most of them can smell bullshit a mile away. "I don't know."

"He wants to come back. But I don't know if he can." She shook her head. "He's scared to stay where he is and he's scared to come home."

I could believe that. Jasper had been unusually brave to leave us, since he was usually so passive. He must have been extraordinarily afraid of what was going to happen to him if he stayed.

If Alice was correct, though, that had been his last hurrah. Jasper's more typical response to a threat was to freeze, which was what he had done now. He needed us to help him more then ever, but I knew that we would be pushed away if we offered, maybe forever. "I know, Sweetheart."

"He won't come home because he loves us too much. But I think he loves us enough to come home eventually. It must be very confusing to be Jasper."

At least that was something we could all agree on. "It is. I know that he's being very frustrating right now, and it's frustrating to me, too, but I want you to remember that he isn't doing any of it to drive us crazy. He's doing it because it's the only way he can hang on right now. So let's not be too harsh on him."

"Mom, I know. Rose knows, and Emmett knows. Edwards's the one who doesn't get it." For the first time, an accusing note crept into her voice.

Alice and Edward had always been close. From the first day we brought her home, they had been best friends. They rarely fought, and always defended each other from outsiders. Up until this year, they had been completely inseparable. But first love, in the form of Jasper and Bella, changed things. Two had become four, which made for one heck of a crowd. For the first time they were siding against one another and with their new loves. Normal, but painful all the same.

"Edward is hurting, too. We all need to stick together and be extra patient with each other."

"But he's saying mean things about Jasper." Her eyes welled up with tears. "He's being a jerk.

She would have been less upset if he had said those things about her. "I'll talk to him about that. Whether or not he still considers Jasper his brother, he knows better then to talk about people."

"You should do it right now." Her arms crossed firmly over her chest. I'll finish the rest of dinner."

"Watch your attitude, young lady. You are not the boss here."

Her face fell. "I'm sorry. He's just making me so furious!"

As much as I knew that she was genuinely put out, she was so small that her anger still appeared comical. If she had stomped her foot, I don't think I could have kept from laughing. "I know. I'll go up and let him know to be a little more tactful and understanding."

She huffed, but she nodded at well. "Tell him I still love him, but he's being a giant jerk."

"I'll take it under consideration." I pulled her close and gave her a quick kiss. "Don't let dinner burn, ok?"

Edward's door was closed, but I could hear movement inside. I knocked gently. "Can I come in?"

The door popped open revealing a rather surly teenager on the other side. "Alice is a liar and a tattletale."

Well, at least I wouldn't have to fish around to figure out what the problem was. "Would you like to at least wait until I tell you what Alice said before you accuse her of lying? Because you're not presenting yourself very well right now."

Guilt flared in his green eyes, but he held his ground. "Ok, what did she say, then?"

"That you were saying mean things about Jasper. She didn't give me any specifics."

"Oh. I didn't say anything mean about Jasper. I was just being honest." But he wasn't able to meet my eyes.

"What did you say that was honest but not mean?" I wasn't going to let him wiggle out of this one.

"That he was stupid and an asshole for leaving like he did. And that he and I are no longer brothers." His mumbling suggested he wasn't anywhere near as confident as he was pretending to be.

"Do you think that was a kind thing to say to your sister?" He looked down and didn't answer. "Edward?"

"No. But she needs to get over him. He broke her heart. He's not coming back, and everyone needs to quit pretending that he is. He's gone." There was the smallest quiver in his voice that lead me to believe that Edward was as devastated as the rest of us. He just hid things better.

I had to tread delicately here. "He may or may not come back. We don't know yet, and we might not know for a while. You can think what he did was foolish, and you can think that he was an asshole, though I would hope that I raised you with more compassion then that. And you don't have to treat him like a brother, but you do have to treat him like a human being, which does not include calling him an asshole."

"I hope he doesn't come back." Edward is stubborn, and he wasn't going to back down. "Will you let him come back if he wants to?"

His words were casual, and he was doing his best to seem totally uncaring, but I knew better. He was mostly secure with our family, but there was always the worry that we would abandon him, that he was somehow less then a biological child would be. So I heard what not only what he was asking about Jasper, but about himself as well.

Do you still love him? Will you love him the same if he decides to come home? Will he be treated the same, or will this be held over his head? What about me? If I choose to leave home, will I have a home to come back to?

"Yes. If he chooses to come home and be a part of this family, of course he's welcome home. But he has to make the choicer and not bolt every time things get hard for him. If he does choose to come back, I expect you to treat him like any other brother. You don't have to like him, but you do have to love him."

"I can pretend to love him." He was sulking like a spoiled teenager. This was probably because he is a spoiled teenager. Our kids are all good kids, so good that it's sometimes hard to remember that they really are kids, and kids that have been through a lot in their lives.

"Well, that's a start." I put an arm out, and he gratefully snuggled against me. "Where do you think we should go from here?"

I usually got better results by asking what to do, rather then telling them what they had to do. It worked this time, too, and Edward looked down. "I should apologize to Alice."

"I think that would be a nice gesture. We need to stick together." Especially since the family was already fractured.

Dinner was a quiet affair, punctuated only by Emmett's flat attempts at humor and the eye daggers that Alice kept shooting Edward over the table. Carlisle was working late, and I just didn't have the energy to corral and correct them.

Edward tried to make amends after dinner, offering to help Alice wash up. She accepted grudgingly, but I knew that they would work things out. Rose and Emmett disappeared. I've found that it's better to not think about what the two of them do in their spare time. They're grown adults, and they both know how to be safe.

I headed to the living room to watch some television, but was caught up short by the newest pictures on the mantel, framed just last week. After Alice had pointed out that we didn't have a single one of Jasper, I had made all the kids pose for a picture on the stairs. Jasper wasn't exactly smiling, but his eyes were happy, and the corners of his mouth were turned up just slightly. When I compared it to the way he had looked when he first arrived, he didn't even look like the same kid. If I had done nothing else for him, at least I had gotten him healthy and given him the best possible start as an adult.

I reached out and touched the picture, as if that would make us suddenly closer. Please, Jasper. Come home.