There are theives, who rob us blind,
and kings, who kill us fine,
but steady, the rights and the wrongs
invade us, in innocent song.
I'm not ready, I'm not ready
for the weight of us, for the weight of us,
for the weight of us, for the weight of all of us.

- "The Weight of Us", Sanders Bohlke

I woke up to the smell of bacon frying; rather than spark the usual joy breakfast typically did, all it did was leave me irritated because it meant someone had broken into my trailer again. It was a frequent problem with Jacob, and by extension, Hotaru.

To be fair, they had my spare key, so it technically wasn't breaking and entering, but it was nice to maintain the illusion of privacy I hadn't had since I was a teenager before Edward decided to creep on me in my sleep. As an adult I could only look back and shake my head at my younger self who'd found it somehow so romantic; now, all I saw was how invasive and dangerous it was. A vampire with boundary issues and a stronger than usual lust for my blood watching me when I was most vulnerable? Yikes.

The only person in my life who actually bothered to knock and wait for me to answer the damn door was my boyfriend, so it couldn't be him. I kept my eyes closed as I reached over to pat Sadie who sat stiffly beside me and I had a fairly good idea who was in my house.

Sighing, I sat up and reached over for the pill bottle on my nightstand, tipping out the antidepressant and dry swallowing it since I'd neglected to grab a bottle of water before stumbling to bed. I shoved my feet into my slippers and made my way to my closet sized bathroom and flicked on the light.

The woman who looked back at me in the mirror looked rough. It might have just been the crap lighting but my skin looked washed out, almost sallow. My face was puffy from my late-night crying jag, with huge dark circles that further highlighted my bloodshot eyes.

Sighing, I grabbed my brush and worked through my hair in sections until I was tangle free, then twisted it up out of my way and held it in place with a clip. I stripped and stepped into the tiny shower stall and turned on the water. What it lacked in space it made up for in water pressure and more than decent hot water supply. Face washed, teeth brushed, legs shaved, and body clean, I stepped back out and dried off before stepping back into my bedroom to get dressed. I had no plans to face the public today and I refused to wear outside pants in my own home. I pulled out a pair of black yoga pants and an old concert t-shirt I'd accidentally gotten bleach stains on. I again dithered over whether or not to put on a bra, because just like outside pants, they did not belong on my body when I was going to be lounging at home. I compromised with a sports bra and finished getting dressed.

To stall for time, I made my bed and did a quick spot clean of my bedroom; living with a roommate for a couple of years had forced me to learn the art of actually putting shit away where it belonged instead of letting it stay where it dropped, so there wasn't much for me to do. Finally, I had nothing left to occupy my hands and decided it was time to face the music.

"Hier Sadie girl," I said softly, patting my leg. She sighed heavily and came to my side, pressing close as she watched me, waiting for my next command.

As I'd feared, it was Jasper and Peter who'd decided to invade my space again, although I was definitely confused that they'd chosen to occupy my kitchen. Peter was on the other side of the counter, leaning his hip against as he talked quietly to Jasper who was in front of my stove, looking at whatever was in the pan in front of him.

"Is an inclination towards breaking and entering one of the requirements for being a vampire?" I groused as I shut my bedroom door, then went to the front door to let Sadie out to do her business.

"I assure you there was no breakin' involved," Peter said cheerfully. "Thanks kindly for leavin' a spare key."

"How did you even find it?" I demanded. He winked and tapped the side of his nose.

Jasper glanced over at me with a half-smile and my heart nearly skipped a beat at how much it changed his face. The Jasper I'd known had never smiled; a shame, I thought now, it suited him much better. "Did you sleep well?"

I shrugged. I didn't dream, and that was the important part. "Not bad. Might have slept more but I smelled bacon. Why do I smell bacon, exactly?"

He pointed to the plate at Peter's elbow, where there were several strips of bacon. He turned off the stove and reached for the plate, and slid onto it a pile of fluffy looking eggs. "Coffee?"

"Please. Percolators in the cabinet to your right." He nodded and pulled it out as well as the can next to it and went through the motions of making coffee like he did it all the time. He was pouring it into one of my larger mugs when I let Sadie back in and placed it right next to the plate.

Peter refused to move an inch as I slid onto the barstool beside him and reached for the mug, my eyes sliding to half-mast as I inhaled the chicory scented steam and took a sip. "For a guy who drinks blood, you make a good cup of coffee," I admitted, setting it down to drag the plate in front of me.

He leaned against the opposite counter, crossing his arms over his chest. I was very pointedly not paying attention to how his shirt pulled oh so nicely over said chest. "It's one of the few things I remember enjoying when I was human. Even had a taste for the chicory stuff after I enlisted and coffee became hard to come by. Too bad it doesn't taste as good as it smells anymore." He looked a little wistful as he said that and I quickly busied myself with eating. The bacon was extra crispy just how I liked it, and the eggs were perfectly seasoned. As soon as my plate was clear, it disappeared into my sink.

"Thank you," I said. "You didn't have to do that. I know human food smells revolting to you guys."

He raised an eyebrow as he considered me. "Edward tell you that?"

I nodded once.

He sighed heavily through his nose and briefly glanced upwards as if praying for strength. "Rotten and dead things smell revolting," he corrected. "Human food is mostly neutral to us, although some things can smell appealing, but it's usually the memories we have to that food that make it so, rather than any desire to eat it."

"Like coffee," I said slowly.

"Like coffee," Jasper answered, and it was then I noticed his nostrils flare slightly as he inhaled the steam from the pot as he topped off my mug.

His concise explanation made more sense than the hour long lecture I'd received from Edward about what was and wasn't acceptable foods to be around. I'd always thought his reactions to what I ate was a little over the top, but I didn't question it, blindly accepting it when Edward used it as the basis for his reasoning to change my diet. It made me wonder if what I was and wasn't allowed to eat stemmed from his memories of being human, and by extension, what he remembered liking.

I turned my attention to Peter. "I was wondering if I could ask you something," I said, deciding to stop delaying the inevitable.

"You can ask me anything you want, sugar," he said with a sunny smile and pulled out the other barstool to perch himself on it. I got the impression he was the kind of guy who'd never met a stranger in his life, given how comfortable he seemed around me, a perfect stranger.

"You said last night that you two are brothers, but Jasper is your sire?" I tripped a little over the last word, the term feeling strange in my mouth.

"A-yup." He waggled his eyebrows. "As you can surely tell, I'm the good-lookin' and charmin' one."

"What a burden you carry to be so blessed," I deadpanned.

Peter nodded sagely. "It ain't easy but someone's gotta do it."

Jasper rolled his eyes so hard I wondered if he got a look at the back of his skull. "I'm sure you've got questions," he said to me and my brief good humor vanished to be replaced by trepidation. I was drowning in them, but I wasn't sure where to start, and was on the fence on whether or not I even wanted them.

"Not really," I lied, and the slight narrowing of Peter's eyes made me realize he'd caught me. Could they smell lies? I knew the wolves could. "But I was under the impression you had things you wanted to tell me."

Jasper took a deep breath through his nose and it was then I noticed how tightly he held himself. Was he nervous? I glanced at Peter and saw there was a curiously blank look on his usual expressive face. They were nervous, and whatever had vampires nervous couldn't be good.

"I…" Jasper trailed off, his long fingers of tapping a quick nervous beat against his arm. "I'm not sure where to start." He offered an apologetic smile. "There's so much you don't know."

I took a sip of my coffee and considered him over the rim of my mug. "Most people start at the beginning."

He huffed a laugh, the sound barely perceptible through his nose. "Right," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It started on your first day of school."

"What about it?"

"It was the first time I caught your scent."

Oh. It'd been made clear to me once I knew the Cullen's secret that Jasper's bloodlust issues made it difficult for him to be around humans. Edward refused to tell me his story, but apparently, he'd had a steady diet of human for who knew how many years before he met Alice and subsequently joined up with the Cullen's. From what I'd understood at the time, it'd not been what anyone would call a smooth transition.

"It was breakfast at first smell then?" I asked, half-joking. Peter snickered but Jasper shook his head, his eyes suddenly very serious.

"What do you know about mates, Isabella?"

I blinked, nonplussed at his non sequitur. "Not much. I know Edward claimed I was his and Alice explained it was almost but not quite like a love at first sight kind of thing, almost like soulmates."

"The little pixie would frame it like that," Peter complained, ignoring Jasper's pointed frown as he barreled on. "We find our mates by scent. It's the pheromones, see? Humans can sense 'em too, but they don't realize they're doin' it. Y'know how some folks ya just like better than others? And then you've got others ya want nothin' to do with or just smack 'em stupid on sight? It's 'cause of how they smell to ya."

I traced a finger around the rim of my mug as I turned his words over in my mind. In a weird, non-human way, it made sense. "So, whoever smells the best is the basis of vampire relationships?"

"Scent is our strongest sense," Jasper explained. "It doesn't lie. We're drawn to what's appealing to us, same as humans."

"But what if there's potentially more than one person who smells like your mate?" I asked.

Jasper and Peter looked at each other, having another one of their strange silent conversations. "It's not unheard of," Jasper said slowly. "It's rare, but it does happen."

"So, what happens then?"

"Depends on who's involved. Vampires are territorial, males more so than females, although they can kick up plenty of fuss to put the fear of god in any male stupid enough to piss her off. We're not inclined to share, especially our mates."

Peter shifted his weight on the stool in a very human gesture. I wondered if it was an unconscious habit, or if he was trying to make me more comfortable. Even after I was dating Edward, it'd been unnerving to see how still vampires could be when they felt comfortable enough to do so, but I almost felt that maybe it would have suited the two of them better. They looked human – but they were very much not and their acting like humans… It drew to mind Charlie's explanation of how the best hunters mimicked their prey in order to lure them in for the kill.

"But sometimes an… understandin' can be had," Peter chimed in. "Say the males are in the same coven, and both find their mate in the same female - "

"And if the female is consenting," Jasper interrupted, placing a heavy emphasis on the last word, slanting Peter a warning look as he did so.

" - and if she consents, then they'll share her."

I had an uneasy feeling settling in my gut as I eyed the two vampires. Jasper wasn't quite looking at me, although I could feel Peter's eyes practically burning a hole into my skull as he waited on me to say something.

Surely, they weren't implying what I thought they were… I swallowed hard. "And what if said female is human?"

Peter visibly tensed, as if bracing himself against something. Jasper reached out and laid a hand on Peter who relaxed almost instantly. I knew Jasper was able to effect people with his gift without touching them, but I wondered it touch made it more potent.

"It gets a little more complicated," Jasper said. "The males protective instincts would likely be heightened because as a human, the female is more vulnerable. They'd likely want to change her as soon as possible."

My heart leapt into my throat as the sickly feeling grew, escalating into a cold finger running down my spine. I swallowed hard, and hated myself for how strained and small my voice sounded as I asked, "Would they force her?"

"Never," Peter hissed. "Forcin' your mate to do anythin' is fuckin' unforgivable."

"It'd make things complicated," Jasper admitted. "The bond isn't complete until all partners are marked with a bite and an injection of venom. Humans can't do that, and they also don't feel the pull as strongly as we do. We run more on instinct than humans do, but they would feel something. After a while though, she'd want to complete the bond."

"Edward said the change is painful."

Peter's lips twisted in a grimace as if he was recalling the memory of being changed. "Worst pain anyone can go through. You're lookin' at three days of hell on Earth. After that, two years minimum 'fore you can even stand to be around humans and not wanna instantly kill 'em."

That was a lot more than I expected. "But I thought newborns were only unstable for their first year?"

Peter shook his head. "That's when newborn strength starts fadin', but the mood swings don't stop for at least another six months after that. A responsible sire'll keep their newborn under wraps from everyone but them and their coven if they have one for about eighteen months or so. Can get complicated though, 'cause the sire's gotta bring meals in for their newborn. Easier if they've got a coven, so someone can babysit while someone else is huntin'.

"Assumin' the newborn's calmed the fuck down by then, there's about six or so months of supervised interactions with humans. Learnin' self-control mostly. Learnin' to hunt's the easy part."

"Instincts and all that?" I guessed.

Peter winked. "Right in one, babe."

"Ideally, the newborn should mostly be rational and calm enough to starting really learning how to function and survive as a vampire by then. That's roughly two and a half, to three years of work," Jasper chimed in.

Peter flashed me a wicked smile. "We're not all domesticated like them Cullen's, but we've got ourselves a nice, civilized society."

I held out a hand and felt better when Sadie's warm head pushed into it. "I think I understand now what you said last night." Jasper cocked his head, brow slightly furrowed and motioned for me to elaborate. "When you said some sires will get rid of their newborns because they're too much work."

He looked slightly abashed and ducked his head, avoiding my eyes for a moment. "I should not have spoken to you that way, Isabella, and for that I sincerely apologize. There's no excuse for my behavior."

I waved his apology off with a dismissive hand, saying, "It's over with. Let's all just agree to play nice going forward."

Peter leered at me, and I heard rather than saw a sharp cracking sound; Jasper had moved to fast for me to see but going off of how Peter was holding the back of his head, Jasper had given him a solid slap. I snorted into my coffee, tamping down a smile as Peter proceeded to swear a blue streak at his thoroughly unimpressed brother.

When Peter paused in his tirade I cut in, "I get that siring someone is a big deal, but does it really matter who your sire is?"

"Yes," they said in unison. Peter motioned for Jasper to continue.

"The venom changes more than just your species. The first thing it changes your scent. Besides smelling like a vampire, you'll carry a bit of your sire's scent, which can be useful in identifying allies and making connections. The most important thing however is the formation of what's called a sire bond."

"Jasper here bit me over a century ago, sugar, and I still come to him when I'm in deep shit," Peter took over. "Not just 'cause we're family, but 'cause the bond between sire and child is right up there with that between mates. On an instinctual level, you're always gonna know your sire is your best protection and you'll always turn to 'em in times of crisis."

"But what if your sire ends up hating you?"

Jasper shook his head. "Your sire is always going to have a sense of responsibility toward you. Some find out they can't handle it, and cull their newborn, but most know what they've signed up for."

"Who sired you, Jasper?"

I was prepared for the sudden dark look that crossed his face and found myself leaning away. "Nobody you need to worry about. She'll be dead soon enough."

"But you just said –"

Peter reached out and laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, his wide red eyes very clearly telling me to shut the hell up.

After a moment Jasper inhaled deeply and suddenly a pressure I didn't realize had been there was gone. Evidently he'd been projecting, and judging by the look of relief in Peter's eyes, he'd felt it too.

"I think I know what you've been trying to tell me," I said, because I was too chicken shit to actually say the words out loud. "So I guess I'm asking which one of you would bite me?"

"I would," Jasper said gently. "While Peter is an excellent protector and fighter, I've got more connections and influence to protect the both of you."

I stared at him, and my eyes dropped to his mouth that hid the razor-sharp fangs that he'd all but stated he wanted to use to end my life. Bile rose unbidden in my throat, and I sprinted to the bathroom to throw up. As I heaved, cool hands held back my hair, while another rubbed my back and pressed against the heated skin of the back of my neck. I puked until my stomach was empty and blindly I reached up to flush away the remains of my breakfast.

A glass of water appeared in my vision and I took a sip, swishing it around my mouth before spitting it in the sink. I did it three more times before I was satisfied and braced myself against the sink, unable to look at the two vampires who'd blessedly given me some breathing room, but still managed to block the door.

"Just so I understand, you're saying the day you caught my scent you knew I was your mate?"

"I am," Jasper said in a muted voice. "Peter caught your scent later when Edward rescued you from those thugs in Port Angeles. He and Char were passing through the area on the way to visit me when he smelled you."

"Took everythin' I had not to snatch you up right then and there, sugar," Peter admitted without an ounce of shame. "Imagine my surprise when later the same fuckin' night I found out you'd already caught the Major's attention."

I swallowed hard and then took another drink of water just for something to do that didn't involve looking at them. "I have a boyfriend. I love him."

"We know," Jasper said gently. "We're not asking you to drop everything –"

"Speak for yourself," Peter muttered.

"But rather to give us a chance. Get to know us. If you find that you'd rather just stay friends, then we'll respect your wishes."

"Will you?" I demanded. "Because I've had a vampire tell me they'd 'respect my wishes' already and it nearly ruined my life."

"Edward really did a number on you, didn't he, darlin'?" He said so softly, I wondered if I was meant to hear it. It stung but instead of cowering like Old Bella, I straightened my spine and stared him down.

"He tried. But Edward doesn't rule my life, I do."

"Good girl," Peter said approvingly. He leaned against the door jam and looked me up and down. "You're too much woman for a kid like him to even dream of handlin'."

His appreciative smile made me think he'd done some dreaming of it of his own. He had another thing coming then if either of them thought I was just going to roll over and take it.

The smart thing to do would be to kick them out, like I should've the second I laid on them in my kitchen. I'd ran with vampires, loved them with everything I had, and had been left with less than nothing when they later abandoned me. I had no business even entertaining the thought of letting them back in my life, even on a casual basis, for multiple reasons.

They were the packs natural enemies. I'd either had to lie to Jake or I'd have to put my big girl pants on and endure the lecture I'd receive after telling him the truth.

They had red eyes. He hadn't offered an explanation and I hadn't asked for one, but Jasper had clearly returned to his old diet for reasons I was annoyingly curious about. It was frustrating, but a piece of me still cared about him, about them. From what I'd been told, drinking from humans hurt Jasper – but here he was, sporting red irises. It didn't hurt that they looked better on him than the gold.

They both wanted a romantic relationship with me. I didn't totally understand how the logistics of that would even work; were they together too? Was I expected to be going back on forth between them or was everything shared, including… that? My cheeks burned as I stamped down that train of thought. I wasn't a virgin anymore, but my limited experience had been fairly vanilla.

I was in a committed relationship with Liam. I loved Liam, that wasn't even in question. He built me up, supported me, was kind, warm, made me feel safe, and brought me cherry cordials when my cramps had me curled in bed unable to move. Liam was good for me.

But hadn't I cried myself to sleep literally last night because I wanted more?

Pursuing a romantic relationship right out the gate with these two was out of the question. I was woman enough to admit that I was insanely curious to learn more about them, not just because they were easy on the eyes, but because they reminded me of a time when I still believed in magic. A time that ended in ruins, but I'd built myself back up from the ashes and rose to be something better.

And maybe I could get some closure. I wanted nothing to do with Edward, but I had loved the rest of the family like they were my own blood. I still wanted to know if they were happy, if they were okay.

If they missed me, even a little.

"If we're going to get to know each other, we're going to have some ground rules," I said, biting back a smirk as they visibly perked up. It vaguely reminded me of Mike Newton and his golden retriever tendencies.

"Anythin'," Peter said earnestly.

"Whatever you need," Jasper added.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other as I considered my words. "No showing up whenever you want. You gave me your numbers and you have mine. If you want to come over, you have to ask and let me say yes." I waited for them both to nod their understanding before continuing. "You have to let the wolves know you're here. They've been too good to me and I refuse to lie to them for you."

To their credit, they didn't so much as make a face of distaste and nodded their acceptance.

"Finally, I'm not breaking up with Liam. If you can't respect that I'm in a committed relationship with the man I love, then we need to end this now. I'm open to getting to know you both as friends, but that's it."

They looked at each other for a long moment before looking back at me; Peter's expression decidedly mulish while Jasper's was almost pained. I expected them to fight it, ask for concessions, something. Instead, Jasper answered for both of them when he said in a clipped voice, "We understand."

The phone rang from the kitchen and the two of them said their goodbyes before slipping out the door, leaving me staring after them with the horrible sinking feeling that a piece of me had gone with them.