Bella bit her lip as she glanced sideways towards her father. Carlisle sat on the very edge of one of the plush chairs, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, his fingers folded over his mouth as if to hold back any unsavory comments or cries. He had assumed the position fifteen minutes ago when Alec had ushered them into the atrium, and Carlisle had not broken his pitiful stance since then. Likely would not break it in the thirty or so minutes it would take until they were brought into the throne room. She prayed that whatever he was thinking of in his stasis, it was bringing him to a final decision. He hadn't given any clues that said he had figured out what they would do, and Edward had said even he couldn't see what the decision was, the man was so wracked with doubt.
Edward too was sitting hunched over on the sofa next to her, looking serious, but he turned to meet her gaze when he felt her stare on him. He smiled, a trifle sadly, and accepted her hand as she reached out for him, opening her mind and letting him in.
Edward, she thought, letting him hear her silent words, has he made a decision yet? Does he know what we're going to do?
Slowly, Edward shook his head, his eyes pained.
Not even a hint?
He shrugged his shoulders and squeezed her hand. "He keeps going back and forth. Neither is stronger. We…we'll just have to wait and see."
She spoke aloud next, her worry too great to keep silent. "Where has Jasper been? I haven't seen him since yesterday."
Again, Edward shrugged, and even Carlisle in his frozen state winced.
"He knows how to take care of himself," Edward reassured them. "He's done it many times before. He can do it again."
"But…" Bella looked back to Carlisle, then spoke silently again. Without Alice, he's likely to do something drastic.
He didn't respond, but his face was enough; her fears were his own. They hadn't seen a glimpse of Jasper since he had left the room so abruptly the day before, and his absence led the mind to wandering. Jasper was not the type to sit idly by while his family…specifically his wife…was in trouble. He was a soldier, a man of action. And it was that action that Bella and the others so worried about.
An electronic buzz sounded somewhere to her right, and Bella watched as Edward pulled his cell phone from his pocket, quickly reading the message he had just received before sliding the phone back into his trousers.
"Emmett," he said simply.
"Are they well?" Carlisle asked in a hoarse voice from behind his hands.
Edward nodded. "No change. He and Rosalie are caring for them both but…no change."
Carlisle retreated back into himself, Bella slumped over on the sofa, and the doors on the far side of the atrium flew open. Maria strode through, a self-satisfied smile on her face, her chestnut hair streaming behind her with the fast pace of her walk. Also behind her was Jasper, walking with his shoulders thrown back and his stride sure but his face deadened and empty.
She paused in front of the seated three, her hands on her hips as she looked them over. Bella found herself averting her gaze, unable to look into those smoldering burgundy eyes of Maria's. The stories she had heard Jasper tell…she squeezed Edward's hand tighter and made sure her shield was up, protecting them all.
"Have you gone in to see Aro and the others yet, Doctor Cullen?" Maria asked, her voice almost feigning sweet curiosity.
Carlisle looked up wearily. "No…not yet." He shook his head sadly, yet his eyes met hers with a sort of determination even Bella could feel. It was as if he thought Maria might help them. The idea was almost laughable; given Jasper's past, she doubted anything Maria ever did was to help others.
But Maria smiled again and said, in that sweet, clear, cruel voice, "Against my better judgment, I've decided to help you."
Ever since the night before, the silence had been deafening. Emmett hadn't been able to stand it and had locked himself in his bedroom, blasting Ludacris just to fill the empty space. It was music that would not have been permitted had everyone been home – Edward called it noise and Carlisle called it trash, but the strong rhymes and thumping bass drove the thoughts out of his head enough for him to relax. For a bit. When Rosalie poked her head in the door and asked him oh-so-meekly to turn it down, his heart nearly beat in his chest, and he shut the music off altogether.
Who was he kidding? No matter what he did, he couldn't get that woman out of his mind. His heart. Whatever it was, she had control of it still. And damn if it didn't kill him every day to know that she didn't want anything to do with him. The way she withdrew from him every time he tried to be nice. How she avoided him with classwork or her cars or anything convenient. How even when she seemed to be completely into it, she shirked from his touch. What was wrong with him? Hadn't he done his time for that stupid magazine stunt?
But then again, wasn't she just as much as fault as he was? Sure, he had needled her again and again until she threw a bed through a wall…but she hadn't been a picnic either. Her and her histrionics, her attention-seeking drama fits, her stupid games to make him jealous. Yeah, maybe they worked, but could he forgive her for them? Could they forgive each other?
Emmett found his feet moving almost of their own accord, taking him from his room and down the hall, to where the elder of the sleeping women lay. His mother looked almost like a princess in a fairy tale, with her toffee-colored hair lying on the pillow around her pale, lovely face, and Emmett knelt at Esme's side almost reverently, watching her in her supposed sleep.
It was to her he had always come with his problems, especially those concerning Rosalie. Esme had always listened with a caring…or slightly disapproving…smile, had let him talk himself out, then led him towards the right path in a way that made him truly think about what he had done and what he must do. Now, with her…well, more or less gone…who would he go to? But maybe still she knew he was there. Maybe still she would hear his troubles once again.
"Esme?" he murmured softly, hoping his voice was reaching her somehow. "I really need you now. I mean, we all need you, but…I have no one to talk to. And…things are really screwed up. With me and Rosalie. She just refuses to try anything. Maybe it wouldn't work out again. I can understand that. But…we wouldn't know until we tried, right? And you always had sway with her, she always listened to you. I wish…I wish you could tell her…to get over it. We need to get past what happened, no matter what's gonna happen in the future. Because otherwise it's going to tear the whole family apart. Even more than it is now."
He bent down and kissed his mother's forehead.
"Wake up, Esme," he pleaded gently. "For me. For Carlisle. All of us need you."
But still she remained, silent as stone. And as Emmett turned to leave, he thought maybe, maybe he had seen a flash of golden hair disappearing through the door…but no, it was just the lemon-colored curtains swaying in the wind.
"Help us?" Edward repeated, listening carefully to what Maria wasn't saying. His Spanish wasn't poor enough that he didn't understand her silent, foreign words. "For what? What's this tradeoff?"
"Not a tradeoff at all," Maria countered. "Your brother came willingly. He offered himself to me."
"No!" Bella cried, shooting to her feet beside her husband. Carlisle rose too, a quick, snapping motion one wouldn't have thought he could do in his melancholy state. Each pair of golden eyes flickered malevolently, glaring Maria down as she smirked. Jasper, standing behind and just to the left of the woman, stared down at the ground, his face settled and empty of emotion. Even his mind was empty, a steady buzz of commentary on the floor – an obvious attempt to keep Edward out.
"Yes," Maria replied. "He came…in exchange for this."
She held a plain folded piece of white paper out, her eyes meeting Carlisle's. The man stared at it, questioning her motives for just a moment, before taking it from her hand and opening it. He read silently, yet the words echoed in Edward's mind as plain as day.
"The formula?" Edward asked Maria, wondering at once how she had got it and exactly what Jasper had given up to get this from her. It was a simple list of chemicals, ones that Edward knew would have extreme reactions with each other, not to mention when combined with the collection of highly-potent newborn venom that was also on the list of ingredients.
"The antidote should be simple to find, now that you have that," she commented lightly, almost laughing, as if she had bestowed upon them a mighty gift. Yes, truly, it was a gift, one that they were beyond pleased to have obtained, but at such a price? It was almost hard to accept.
Do it.
The words were strong, the voice familiar. Edward looked over to his brother and found him still staring down at the floor.
Do it, Edward. Take it. Thank her. For Alice. For Esme.
Slowly, Edward found himself clasping his hand on his father's shoulder, squeezing gently as he murmured, "Thank you."
Maria grinned. "You're so very welcome. I do hope it will be of service to you."
"Wait," Bella called out. "How can we even know this is really it?"
"She's right," Carlisle concurred. "Edward?"
He nodded and concentrated for a moment, peering into Maria's mind to make sure that…yes, this was the real formula. The antidote would be theirs to discover, now that they had this small list of chemicals to work against.
"It's the real thing," he explained, nodding his head and focusing again on his brother as Carlisle gave Maria his stilted thanks. Jasper barely glanced up – blackened eyes meeting honeyed – then looked back down to the floor.
For her. I do it for her. Let her know that.
Edward nodded, knowing Jasper would feel his assurance even if he didn't see it.
Tell her I am hers, no matter what. And I'll come to her. It's only a hundred years.
They didn't have a spare moment to speak. Maria turned, knowing that she didn't have to beckon for Jasper to follow her. His deadened eyes raked over them as he moved to her side, walking through the atrium doors that led to the throne room.
Bella was the first to collapse, sinking back to the couch she had jumped up from in a fluid motion. Carlisle soon followed. Edward, too angered and upset to sit, paced instead, from one end of the room to the other.
A hundred years? Edward blanched at the thought, unable to stomach the idea of being separate from the family, separate from Bella for so long. He had tried it once more and had been reduced to a decaying statue in a few months' time. How could Jasper so willingly give up his freedom, knowing that he faced such heartache?
But Edward had done the same thing, hadn't he? Not so very long ago. And had he known he would be reunited with Bella, he might have been able to make it through that time apart. That would be Jasper's hope, he prayed. The idea that, in time – a long, long time – he could return would keep Jasper from the utter despair Edward had once lived in without his wife.
"Edward," Bella called out, her voice soft and pained. He stopped in his pacing to look over to where she sat, stretching a hand out plaintively. He came over towards her, sitting at her side and holding onto her tightly.
"What now?" he asked to no one in particular.
Carlisle sighed, his mind echoing the torture he felt. "We have what we came for. And…I don't know if there's anything to do for Jasper. Is there?"
No one spoke, none of them able to think of a way out of this. If Jasper could somehow leave on his own, he certainly would. Yet he would not leave on his own for fear it would mean disaster for his wife and family. The honor-bound man wouldn't allow anything to happen to them, not if he could prevent it. Staying here was the only way he saw to do that.
"Then that's that," Carlisle said, his voice nearly breaking. Even though they gained back Esme and Alice, to lose Jasper was another heart-wrenching blow that would surely make the next hundred years pass by as if they were a millennia.
Jasper gritted his teeth as he and Maria walked closer to the thrones where Aro, Marcus, and Caius sat. Maria paused in front of the three, bowing slightly, her long hair falling over one shoulder. Aro smiled, pleased, and reached a hand out to her should, absorbing her thoughts into him.
"My, my," he said with a little smile, his eyes flitting over to where Jasper stood. "A Cullen has at last decided to join our flock." His face beamed with the look of a collector having finally completed his set. "What brought along this change?"
Maria looked up. "I was able to persuade him."
Persuade? Jasper hid his grimace. No, it was more like an offer he could not refuse. To turn away something that would help to save his Alice…he couldn't do that. He had joined them only to save her. He was Maria's in name only. His heart still belonged entirely to Alice.
The air was filled with curiosity, pleasure, all feelings that, had Jasper been in a better mood, he would have almost enjoyed. Everybody was watching him, wondering…everybody except one. Within the swarms of smirks, one genuinely upset heart rang out, someone feeling truly sorry for Jasper and his plight. His eyes scanned around trying to find the person who –
Marcus. Marcus, the lonely, the soulless, was pitying him, Jasper, who could very well someday be just as empty and hollow inside as that red-eyed man upon the dais.
"Why don't you escort our newest member out, Maria?" Aro suggested, breaking into Jasper's thoughts. "We have some business to discuss with his…well…with the Cullens." His smile was kind no more; a tint of pleasurable cruelty ran through it instead.
"Of course," Maria replied. "I'll take him to my…our chambers."
She threaded her arm through his, tugging his compliant weight through the door and away from his past.
