JPOV
Carlisle takes three days off from the hospital, and spends all three inside that room with Hermione. It smells like chemicals and burning. I can't imagine her surviving. She was so hurt. Poor Alice was borderline hysterical when she finally finished telling Edward what had happened. He and Esme took her off to the cottage to calm her down and get her focussed on some other project. I asked, not because I was particularly interested, but because I got the impression Esme wanted me to ask.
"What project?"
"We're going to get the cottage cleaned up. Ready for you and Hermione."
"Hermione? What makes you think she's going to make it?"
"Because Carlisle is with her, Jasper." She sounded so assured. I so wished I could believe her. They went off after that, and I went and sat outside the door. And for three days, I sat there.
Rosalie and Emmett are sitting with me now, Rose's head resting on my shoulder. She hasn't told me what she saw or did in that room, but I could smell something foul on her afterwards, feel the horror and torment she was experiencing. Finally, Carlisle opens the door. The three of us scramble up, and I try and see round him. He looks like he's seen a ghost.
"Jasper, you can go in. Be gentle with her, she's still in quite a lot of pain. I've given her some morphine, but there's a limit on how much I can administer."
"Yeah, sure."
She's bandaged up more or less everywhere. I can see her face, just about, but everything else is special burns dressings, and white bandages. I'm relieved to see that he eyes seem OK - at least they're open now, and not the milky-white of blindness that I was afraid I'd see.
"Jasper, is it you there?"
"Can't you see properly?"
"Not yet, but Carlisle thinks that they'll get better."
"what's up with your voice?"
"Smoke inhalation. I'd rather not talk about that right now. Please come closer, Jasper. I can't see you."
"Shall I sit here, on your bed."
"Yes, but be gentle with me. Don't touch me."
"Are you really hurting?"
"Yes," she says simply. I've endured torture before this, Jasper, but I've never been in such pain."
"Did it at least work?" She smiles at me.
"It worked. You must go to the clearing again for me today, and be absolutely sure that you can no longer see anything at all that shouldn't be there. You're looking for either the picture of the office, or a small crack in the air. I mean, I'd go myself, but Carlisle threatened to tie me down if I tired to move, everything hurts, and I just cannot see well enough to spot the little fissures."
"Still annoyingly practical then."
"Naturally. How are you?"
"I'm fine."
"I missed the full moon. I'm sorry."
"It's Monday now. You were gone for two and a half days. I thought you'd died." She squints up at me.
"Now, really, Jasper. Once you get to know me a little better, you will learn that I have never once broken a promise."
Carlisle chased me out after that, insisting that Hermione needed rest. I take a little comfort in remembering that he face had been as badly burnt as the rest of her, and now looks much, much better. Her beautiful honey-coloured eyes are just the same as ever. Except she can't see me. I don't care, I realise pretty quickly. She's alive, and she's sort of OK. She's talking and breathing, and that is something I can be happy with. I'm just relieved she came back more or less in one piece.
APOV
We finish up with the cottage in a couple of days, at least all the major restorations. Hermione and Jasper are both conservative types, and we kept the cottage a cottage, despite Emmett wanting to add all sorts of fancy touches, an extra couple of floors, but Esme and I had our way on it. He and Edward are making shelves and Jasper has volunteered to do something fancy with the mantelpiece. He's been wood-carving since before he got immortal, and he is amazing at it. He's working right now, using the existing wood, the pure English oak. It matches the colour of Hermione's hair - or the colour it used to be.
"Esme, I'll be back in a bit, alright? I got some fabrics we could use as curtains and cushion covers, I'm going to grab them." I lit out before she could respond, and then I'm knocking softly on the door of Carlisle's medical room. He answers, and looks vaguely surprised to see me.
"Alice, what's wrong?"
"I wanted to see Hermione. If she's awake and stuff."
"She's awake. But like I told Jasper early, she's got a lot of morphine in her, but she's still in a lot of pain, so try not to touch her."
"OK."
"Five minutes, alright?"
"Yeah, sure."
I slip round the door, scared of what I'll see. She's all bandages.
"I can't see you, whoever that is. Come on over, I don't bite."
"It's me, Alice."
"Can I help? Come on over, sit down here." She doesn't move much, but I'm guessing it's because she can't really yet without it hurting her.
"I had to come. I had to come and say that I am so sorry. No, Hermione, don't interrupt me. I have to explain. You frightened me, you scared me so much. You came out of nowhere, literally from another world, and I didn't understand you for even a second, and that scared me. It scared me that I couldn't see you, I couldn't see what you'd be to my family. And then you could give Jasper what he really, really wanted, and he was suddenly - suddenly, it was like all he could see was you. And that seriously, seriously pissed me off, and I'm so ashamed that it did. You've had a really lousy first impression of me, Hermione, and I needed to say that I am sorry."
"Alice, it's OK. I know what I was - or what I seemed like to you. I just exploded in, talking about the end of the world and rips in Time and different universes, and then me and Jasper got closer and I know that to you, I was just barging in acting like I knew what was best for everyone. I know why you reacted the way you did, and I understand."
"He better value you highly, Hermione, because you really are something."
"Why?"
"You know full well who I mean. Jasper. My brother loves you. And maybe I have no right to say this to you, but you need to know why he can love you so fast and so much. Vampire's mate for life, like swans. Once we find that one person, we're with them forever, no matter how many thousands of years. Even if one mate dies, that's it for the other. We are all - except Jasper - mated. Edward and I, Rosalie and Emmett and Carlisle and Esme. Jasper's been alone now for a hundred and sixty seven years, and that's far, far too long. Now, I can understand that for you it's different. You're not a vampire, you won't form that intense bond. But I know, deep down, that you will one day be my brother's entire world, and he yours. Hermione, take what time you need, but I am begging you not to hurt him."
"I wouldn't, Alice, you have my word on it. I can't promise I'll fall in love with him - but when he becomes human, I will stay with him, for as long as he needs me, and for as long as it takes for us to work it all out."
HPOV
Over time, the pain decreases by infinitesimal amounts. At first, the decrease is tiny I don't even notice it. And then there was the hell of the Dittany burning through my system, the pins and needles of Blood-Replenisher flying through veins that were barely there any longer, and finally that bloody Skele-Gro stuff. We need to start developing healing Potions that don't cause horrific pain. The three days were excruciating. I read a book once about a boy burned when he called down the lightening in a war, who was put in a cave to be healed. That book said nothing about pain when the Healing actually began, just unconsciousness. I should have had words with the author. I've felt every second. I felt it when Carlisle put dressings on me when he'd administered to Potions, which soothed for a while. I assumed he'd know about dressings and so forth, and luckily he knew to put them on anyway.
And then, finally, came a moment when I realised I wasn't in as much pain. I could move the fingers of my right hand and not feel like it was going to give me heart failure. I could open my eyes a little, but everything was blurred and indistinct, and the light hurts, so I close them again, content to rest. And then, pain recedes to a level that leaves me able to think about something else for any length of time, and able to open my eyes and endure the light on them. I'm aware of somebody moving about, but as soon as I twitch, they're bending over me. It's Carlisle, I can see him if I squint.
"Hermione?"
"How long?"
"Three days. I dressed you correctly - but if it was wrong, we can remove the dressings."
"It was right. Can you see any skin?"
"On your face."
"How's it looking?"
"A damn sight better than you looked three days ago. The burns seem to be healing. But, it's impossible."
"You've known me two weeks now, Carlisle, you know me better than that."
"Indeed. But this is something else, Hermione. I mean, you were cooked, quite literally, there was flesh falling off you. You were burnt black and what wasn't black was red. You weren't able to breathe for yourself, you weren't able to move without screaming in agony, and now your face is more or less back to normal."
"If it makes you feel any better, I'm still in serious pain and I can't see properly."
"Not really. But I can do something about both those things. I'll sort you some painkillers, but let me see your eyes first." He shines a light, examines my eyes with an instrument. "They don't seem to be too bad. I think they'll heal up on their own, but it might mean glasses for at least a little while. At least you'd suit them. And you're also bald, by the way. What was left of your hair fell out when we dressed your wounds."
"Ah well, then the entire world is coming to an end. Get the drugs coming, Doc, it hurts something awful."
Jasper comes, and then Alice. When she leaves, she leaves me quite a bit to think about. When Carlisle comes back in to conduct his routine examinations, I seize the chance to question him.
"Carlisle, when you first met Esme, did you know that she was the one you wanted to be with forever?"
"Yes, I did. Although we met under slightly unconventional circumstances, I knew that she was the one that I had been looking for, for the better part of two centuries. So I changed her, and she returned my feelings. We've been together now for just under one hundred years, and every time I see her, it's still like that first time again."
"She was human, when you met her?"
"Yes. Human, and dying. The people I changed - Edward, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett - were all very close to death, with no chance of recovery. I knew that Esme was the person who was absolutely destined for me, the one I had been waiting for. I knew that I would never again meet anybody else, that she was my only one, my true mate, and so I changed her, and we've had many happy years together, and I still love her, and I always will. Why do you ask?"
"Alice said that I was Jasper's mate."
"Indeed you are, although I did hope that Jasper would be the one to tell you that. However, I'm sure Alice has her reasons."
"What will that mean - you know, when I change him?"
"I don't know, but I would assume that it would be carried into his human life. He'll have the easier end of the stick - he'll be certain about how he feels."
"I can see myself falling in love with him, Carlisle. I mean, Merlin knows, I'm attracted to him, to his mind and his personality, and he's handsome with it. I do believe that I could be happy with him."
"Good. I didn't change Jasper, Hermione, and his past is definitely his story to tell you, but he's my son all the same and I will love him, from now until the day he dies. All I regret is that isn't me who can really, truly give him happiness. Give him that, Hermione. You have a place in this family now, whether you end up with him or not. Just do what you can."
"That's only ever been my intention. To fix up the worlds, and make some people happy."
"You're wonderful, Hermione. You truly are. Now, do you want some more morphine, or would you rather I just knocked you out for a few hours?"