Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the collective works of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga

This story will eventually discuss mature themes that will not be suitable for all ages. While the themes will not be explicit or graphic in nature, some readers might find them disturbing. If at any time you feel that you need support, please contact your local crisis center.


Chapter 8: Brain Games

"Remember, you have your MRI today at one," Louisa's father said while he handed her a note that would excuse her from her afternoon classes. "But I want you there at least forty-five minutes before. They'll have you fill out paperwork."

Louisa nodded and pushed soggy cheerios around in her breakfast bowl.

"How are you feeling today? Do you have a headache?"

Louisa shrugged her shoulders, prompting a sigh from her father.

"A verbal response, if you please."

"My head hurts a little," she admitted, dropping her spoon into the bowl and sitting up to face her father.

"Maybe I should come with you," Mr Collins said, taking in his daughter's pale skin. He sure if he wanted Louisa driving if she had a headache; these episodes only seemed to be increasing in frequency and severity, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't worried.

"You've got a meeting with a client today."

Mr Collins was unsure how his daughter knew this. "I can reschedule."

Louisa shook her head and stood, walking over to the sink and pouring her cereal down the drain. "I'll be fine. You should go to work."

Mr Collins pursed his lips. "You should eat something before you go."

Louisa shrugged again and dry swallowed two pills of Tylenol that she pulled out from the cabinet next to the sink. "I'm not hungry."

"I'm sorry, did that sound like an option? Because it wasn't."

After a fair bit of grumbling, Louisa grabbed an apple from the refrigerator and eat it angrily as she waited for her sister to make an appearance. When she did, Louisa thought that Dottie looked nearly as exhausted as she was, which was impressive, considering that Louisa had gotten less than four hours of sleep.

The sisters had decided not to tell their father about what had occurred the previous evening, though for different reasons. Louisa didn't want to admit that the house that she had chosen was scary to her. Dottie was convinced that if she were to talk about the supposed hauntings she would upset the spirits even more, which would only serve to make the paranormal activity worse. The younger sister had spent the evening at Chief Swan's researching ways to protect a home from supernatural entities and wouldn't hear a word that Louisa said to reassure her that ghosts did not exist. Particularly, after Louisa failed to think of a logical explanation for what had happened when challenged.

The ride to school was quiet, with Dottie dozing off in the passenger seat for most of the trip. After Louisa put the Prius in park, she leaned her head forward on the steering wheel and closed her eyes. She didn't exactly have a headache at the moment, but she could feel the uncomfortable pressure behind her left ear that told her that she would have one soon. She took a few deep breaths before leaning over and gently shaking her sister awake. Louisa slid out of the car, glancing around the car park while she pulled her backpack out of the back. Dottie bid her a quick farewell before scurrying off towards the school.

"Good morning, Louisa," a smooth baritone said from somewhere too close behind her, causing her to jump in surprise with an undignified yelp. She spun around only to be greeted with the glorious visage of none other than Jasper Hale. He had a small grin and his light brown eyes seemed to glow with amusement. If she wasn't awake before, she certainly was after that.

"Oh, hey. I was just about to look for you," Louisa said, hoping that he couldn't hear the slight breathiness to her voice (how embarrassing would that be?), and she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She reached into her backpack and pulled out Jasper's freshly washed handkerchief and held it out for him. "Thank you for lending it to me yesterday."

Jasper's head tilted as he looked at it in surprise before shaking his head. "No, you keep it."

"Oh, right, the blood." Louisa let her arm drop back to her side. Of course he wouldn't want it back. But what was she supposed to do with it? Louisa was hardly the type to use handkerchiefs — they were so old-fashioned. She supposed she could throw it out, but that seemed a bit wasteful. Maybe sniff it when she missed him too much? Extract his DNA from it and bare his children? Well, she had washed it too much for that last one to work, but she could probably make a voodoo doll out of it if he ever displeased her.

Her response seemed to startle the blond boy. "I beg your pardon?" He asked, his eyes wide.

Louisa tucked his handkerchief back into a pocket of her backpack. "I probably should have guessed you wanted it back after I bled all over it. I wouldn't want it back either. It is kind of gross."

"Oh. That. No, it's fine, I have too many anyway."

There was a very loud shriek from across the car park, and Louisa glanced behind Jasper to see a small, dark-haired girl bouncing around with a deranged grin on her face. "Isn't that your sister?" Louisa asked, glancing briefly at the tall boy next to her before focusing on the excited looking girl. "Is she alright?"

Jasper let out a long, suffering sigh. "As well as Alice can be. She's a few bulbs short of a full chandelier."

"Oh." She watched Alice in confusion, who made eye contact with her and gave her a thumbs up. Louisa gave her a confused wave in return, then looked up at Jasper again "Well, if that's it, I'll see you in homeroom?"

"Where are you off to?" Jasper asked, trotting after her.

"Main office, I've got a note I need to turn in. Boring stuff, really. Though I do get to skip classes after lunch."

"So you won't be in Spanish?"

"I thought I would give you and your sister a break," Louisa said, craning her neck so that she could grin up at him.

Jasper grimaced at her words. "Speaking of, I do apologise for what happened."

"What, with Rosalie? Why?" Louisa dodged around a girl from the planning committee who was carrying a large stack of fliers and a roll of tape

Jasper beat her to the door to the office building and held it open for her. "She put you in an uncomfortable position, and I failed to intervene before it got out of hand."

Louisa had the sudden mental image of Jasper in a floppy hat, tipping it towards her as she passed by. "I'm sorry, but I still don't understand why you are apologising."

"Because my sister—"

Louisa stopped without warning and Jasper walked into her, nearly knocking her to the floor. She turned to face the boy, brows furrowed in confusion. "No, I get that your sister was out of line, but I fail to see why you are the one apologising for her behaviour. You're not in charge of your sister's actions any more than I am in charge of mine, Jasper," she said before spinning back around and striding up to the desk, where the red-headed receptionist was watching them with undisguised interest. "If Rosalie wants to apologise, she is more than welcome to do so."

"Right," he said slowly. "I'll pass along the message."

Louisa shrugged. "If you want." Louisa tried not to be upset at the prospect of losing her newfound friendship (if one could call it that) with Rosalie but couldn't help the small bit of disappointment that washed through her. She pushed her feeling aside and tried to focus on what she was there to do. She shoved her hands into her pockets, searching for her note, only to find them empty. This was odd, as it was unlike her to lose things— usually, she was good at keeping track of her belongings. It was probably Jasper's fault. If he wasn't so gorgeous, she might actually be able to string two thoughts together.

"Do you have any idea what she up to with those questions?" She asked Jasper before apologising to Mrs Cope, who seemed much more interested in the two teen's conversation than whatever they had actually come to the office for.

Jasper, of course, knew exactly what his sister had been aiming for in class, but he was hardly going to share it with Louisa. He could only imagine how that conversation would play out: My psychic sister is convinced you are my soulmate and wants you to join the family as soon as possible. She started planning our wedding over the weekend. Hope you like spring ceremonies, because that's when it's going to be.

Yeah. That would go over well.

"I think she just wants you to have a date for the dance."

"Oh," she replied, shooting him a confused look. "That's rather anticlimactic. And here I was thinking she was asking some sort of trick question. I feel silly for worrying so much now." The girl let out a little chuckle before throwing her long blonde hair over her shoulder so it rippled in waves down her back. She pulled her backpack up onto the counter, accidentally knocking over one of Mrs Cope's picture frames in the process.

The secretary was watching him and Louisa with screwed eyes, and he felt much more nervous about his next question. He briefly considered not even asking her; what did he expect to happen, even if he did ask her to the dance? It's not like they could date, no matter how much Alice insisted they could. Louisa was a teenaged girl and he was a one-hundred and sixty-year-old Civil War veteran, and a vampire to boot. Even if he didn't accidentally kill her, what would they even have in common? The phone in his pocket vibrated, and he knew without even looking that it would be a text from Alice, berating him.

Gathering up all of his courage (and a fair bit of it from the other occupants in the room), he straightened his back and walked closer to the girl. "Do you?"

Louisa's emotions were distracted. She was still digging through her backpack, looking for that damn note. "Do I what?" She pulled out her day planner and began rifling through the pages.

She really was a mess in the morning, Jasper thought. Which was lucky for him, or else the girl would have noticed him stealing her note from her pocket when she got out of her car. But her distraction did make it considerably more difficult to ask her to the dance. Perhaps he should have waited until later in the day. Or just not bothered. Why would she want to go to the dance with him? Why did he even want to go to the dance with her? Besides her human nature and her body's fragility, she was kind of weird. Attractive, no doubt, and funny, and clever, but weird. She said the strangest things sometimes and he often didn't know how to respond. Sometimes she joked about things that were too close to the real truth that she had no way of knowing, and that could be incredibly dangerous for his family. He needed to protect his family.

He felt stupid for letting Alice talk him into this. Besides, Louisa wasn't interested in him at all, she was just being friendly. Even if she had been flirting with him, it was probably just to annoy Rosalie. He pulled Louisa's note out of his pocket, discreetly dropped it on the ground, then bent down, picked it up, tapped her on the shoulder, and handed it to her. Louisa gave him a smile and accepted it. The phone in his pocket vibrated again.

Damn Alice. Damn her to Hell.

There was no choice, he would have to ask her. If he had to choose between being rejected and Alice yelling at him for the rest of his very long existence, he would take the rejection any day.

Jasper ignored the pitying look Mrs Cope was giving him and repressed the urge to sigh in annoyance. Of all the creations on God's green earth, he had to be attracted to this irritating human? Was she being dense on purpose? Because she was doing a terrific job. Jasper briefly wondered if it had been difficult to ask girls out when he had been human. "Are you going with anyone to the dance?"

"I hadn't really planned on it," Louisa replied, turning around and handing the piece of paper to Mrs Cope, who gave her a disapproving look. "I'll probably be so busy the night of the dance, it wouldn't really be fair to my date."

"Oh," Jasper replied. "That makes sense."

The secretary extended a pass to her, excusing her from her afternoon classes, their fingertips brushing when Louisa reached forward to take it. It was then she realised what Jasper had been asking, and Louisa felt very cold and very warm at the same time. He had been asking her to the dance. And she had turned him down. She had just rejected Jasper the Babe.

What was wrong with her?

How was she supposed to fix this without looking lame?

Louisa followed after Jasper, thanking him when he held the door open for her again and walked quietly next to him as they made their way to homeroom. They joined the other students funnelling into the various school buildings, who gave the pair funny looks when they passed by.

"You know, Jasper," Louisa said finally as they approached homeroom. The boy halted and glanced down at her, his face expressionless. "If someone were to ask me, I wouldn't be necessarily opposed to it."

A tiny grin flittered across his lips after processing her words. "I'll keep that in mind, ma'am." He stepped aside to let her into the room first, and she gave him a small smile in return.

It was official. Jasper Hale was going to be the death of her.

No Stone Left Unturned

Louisa showed up thirty-five minutes before her MRI: ten minutes later than she promised her father and thirty minutes earlier than she actually needed to be there. She texted her father to let him know that he worried too much. The only other people in the waiting room was a freshman from the baseball team and his mother. The boy didn't know that he had a torn rotator cuff, but Louisa could see his mother reading a pamphlet about them and she wasn't the one in the sling.

"Is this your first MRI?" The boy asked, tossing his dark hair out of his eyes. He was evidently excited about having someone besides his mother to talk to. "I've never had one done before, but the doctor said it could be noisy."

Louisa shrugged. "It's not too bad, just kinda boring. You're going to be in it a while."

The boy's eyes widened dramatically, giving her the impression of a cartoon character. "Wait, in it?"

"Uh, yeah," Louisa replied slowly. "It's an MRI. What were you expecting?"

The boy turned to his mom, who had ditched the pamphlet and was flipping idly through an old magazine. "I have to go into something? You never told me this!"

The boy's mother gave a loud sigh and glared at Louisa, as if it were somehow her fault that the kid was woefully uneducated about medical diagnostic equipment, before turning to reassure her son. She didn't have too long to calm his nerves, however, because the technician was calling the boy back, and he was stumbling away, his breathing uneven.

"He's claustrophobic," Louisa commented.

"Incredibly," his mother snapped. "I wasn't planning on telling him, so thank you for that."

"Glad I could be of service." Louisa knew that the woman was being sarcastic, but honestly, why would she not prepare her son for something that she knew would traumatise him? That didn't seem like very good parenting. And why would she be mad with Louisa? How was she supposed to know that the kid was claustrophobic? It's not like she was psychic.

The mother and Louisa sat in awkward silence, punctuated only by the flipping of magazine pages and the woman's irritated sighs. Louisa thought that she was going to cry with relief when Dr Cullen of all people wandered into the room.

"What brings you to this neck of the woods, Doctor?"

Carlisle smiled at the girl and lifted up the large envelope in his hand for her to see. "I needed a patient's images."

"And here I thought you just wanted to see me," she replied, jumping up and walking away from the woman sitting opposite her.

If Carlisle still had a heartbeat it would have skipped. He had, after all, smelled the scent of his most interesting patient at the moment and had followed it. He had been hoping to watch the MRI but now that she had seen him, he felt like he was intruding on something, which was addlepated because he was a doctor and he had every right to be there. And how could she know that he had been following her? Either she was more observant than he had originally discerned or he was becoming less stealthy. Not that that made much sense; he was a vampire. They were very capable of moving silently. Perhaps— no. She's joking, he realised, taking in her large grin. "It wasn't my original intention, but I am happy nonetheless."

"That's good. I would hate for you to have to explain to your wife why you are stalking me."

Stalking was a strong word. Surveillance at a distance was more accurate.

Carlisle tried to hide his discomfort at her words and gave her another small smile. "How have you been feeling?"

Louisa shrugged. "I'm alive."

"Yes, I heard about yesterday," Carlisle replied dryly. "I am surprised you didn't come in." Surprised was a more polite way of saying that he was furious that she hadn't come to the hospital. He had nearly called the Collins' house after Rosalie had described the incident, and only Alice reassuring him that the girl would survive without any apparent damage stopped him.

Louisa looked down at her feet and shuffled them, refusing to meet his eyes. "Yeah, I just figured it wasn't important."

"If I told you that your symptoms yesterday matched those of a brain aneurysm, would you still think them unimportant?" Carlisle asked, doing his best not to snap at the girl. "Or those of haemophilia? Or anaemia? Or myelodysplastic syndrome?"

He watched as Louisa sucked her top lip into her mouth and began to gnaw on it. "It didn't seem all that important at the moment."

Carlisle repressed a sigh. Of course, she wouldn't. She was 16 and hadn't been practising medicine for hundreds of years. "Until we know what is wrong, Miss Collins, we need to treat every symptom like it's important." He noticed that the woman that Louisa had been sitting across from was leaning forward to listen to their conversation. Carlisle rolled his eyes and led the girl farther away so they couldn't be overheard. "After you finish your MRI, I would like for you to schedule an appointment with me. Preferably as soon as you are able."

Louisa nodded, thoroughly chastised, and unable to meet his eyes. "Of course, Dr Cullen." She was saved by a technician, calling her back, and she scurried off after giving the doctor a wave. She was then led down a number of hallways, handed a blue hospital gown, and told to change into it. From there, Louisa was led into the MRI room where there a nurse helped her climb onto the bed, had her to put in a pair of earplugs, and covered her in a heated blanket. The nurse then handed her a call button with the instructions to press it if she had any problems. A cage-like helmet was placed over her head and then she was slid into the machine.

This wasn't Louisa's first time in an MRI machine, but she could imagine how scary it would be for someone who had never been in one before. She wondered how that boy had fared. Maybe she should ask him if he had made it through alright if she saw him in school. Or maybe not. That would be really weird. She was still confused as to why that mother hadn't explained to her son what was going to happen. MRIs were uncomfortable enough, without the added burden of claustrophobia. The space was pretty small, she could see why someone might have a panic attack.

She had forgotten how loud MRIs were. It roared away and Louisa was very glad that the technician had given her the earplugs. And the heated blanket. Why was the room so cold anyway? Louisa would need to look that up later. The roaring stopped and one of the technicians spoke to her over an intercom, asking her how she was doing.

Incredibly bored was her reply.

It was annoying how still you had to be during MRIs. And that there really was only one way out. That had to be a safety hazard. What if the building caught on fire? Louisa was certain she would have difficulty wiggling out of the machine on her own. And heaven forbid that there was an earthquake and the ceiling collapsed. She could be stuck in it for days until she was dug out. That was assuming, of course, that the machine didn't collapse on top of her and crush her; in that case, she would die pretty much instantaneously. The roaring stopped and the technician asked her again how she was doing.

Ready to have the procedure over and done with was her reply.

She wondered how long had she been in the thing. How long were scans supposed to take? Perhaps she should have read the pamphlet that had been outside on the table.

But wait, hadn't she done one of these before? Louisa was certain she had. She took a deep breath and tried to relax. Why was she so tense all of the sudden?

Again the roaring stopped and the technician asked her how she was doing.

She was fine. She was doing great. Never better.

The hole she was in was smaller than she imagined. She couldn't remember the last time she had been in a space this small. Maybe when her cousin Logan had locked her in the cupboard under the stairs at their grandparents when she was 11— it was darker than this and had smelled like mothballs. In contrast, this was incredibly bright.

Wait, Louisa didn't have a cousin named Logan. And she had never been locked in a closet before in her life. Where was this coming from?

There was the technician's voice again, asking her how she was doing.

Not well. Was this almost done? She was feeling lightheaded.

Louisa's head hurt. The lights were too bright. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Her breathing was accelerating. She needed to calm down. She was almost done. When she was done, she could go back to school. There was planning committee today. They needed to choose a colour scheme today. Her chest felt tight and it was getting harder to breathe. She was too hot and she wanted to kick off her heated blanket, but she knew that she had to stay still.

The technician told Louisa that she was almost done and then asked her how she was doing.

She was having a panic attack, she was certain.

Louisa looked up at the ceiling of the MRI, which seemed to be closing in on her, blinking tears out of her eyes. The tears rolled down the sides of her cheeks, pooling in her ears. The sensation was uncomfortable but it grounded her to reality; she realised that she was looking straight up at the inside of the machine, nothing obstructing her vision. Where had the cage over her head gone? She was certain the technicians had put one over her head.

Her breaths were coming in gasps. The technician asked her to hold still a moment longer, that he was doing really well, and that he was nearly done. But he couldn't wait any longer. He needed to get out. He pressed the call button.

The second Louisa's head was clear of the machine and the bizarre birdcage, she sat upright and promptly vomited over the side of the bed. She could feel a hand on her back, soft and warm, rubbing the spot between her shoulder blades. A mother's touch. She vomited again, this time into a basin another technician had thought to provide.

"Wow," one said over Louisa's strangled sobs. "Two in one day."

"Duncan," the technician that was rubbing Louisa's back snapped.

"It's got to be a record," Duncan replied. He took the basin back from Louisa disappeared from her line of sight. She could hear him calling for people to clean up the mess, and her cheeks burned in humiliation.

"It's alright, honey," The woman said. "We've seen much worse than this."

"I don't know what happened," Louisa rasped, her throat burning from the bile. She accepted a paper cup full of water and downed it in one go. "This has never happened to me before."

"Sometimes things like this just happen."

Not to Louisa they didn't. Besides, she'd been inside an MRI on more than one occasion and had never had a problem. Had she somehow developed claustrophobia without noticing? A phobia seemed like a difficult thing to not notice. She swivelled her head to inspect the MRI, its opening appearing much larger now that she was no longer in it. She had felt fine before she gone in and she felt fine now. She didn't even have a sense of dread at the thought of going back into the machine. So what had happened?

The technician informed Louisa that they had gotten all of their pictures before she had pressed the call button and congratulated her for being so brave. Louisa just nodded her head, her whole body feeling heavy and weak. She wiped at her nose, relieved when she saw that it was just snot on the back of her hand. At least she wouldn't have to talk to Dr Cullen about another bloody nose today.

The technician helped Louisa off of the bed and then caught her when her knees gave out. Maybe she wouldn't go back to school after all.


"We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life." –Tennessee Williams


A/N: Shout out to my cousin Logan who would lock me in the cupboard under the stairs when I was a kid. What did you think of the chapter? I wasn't sure about Jasper's characterisation, but because my Beta has gone AWOL, I just kind of rolled with it. Because the background characters of the Twilight Saga are so underdeveloped, I feel that I can make them be who I want. Let me know if you like it... or hate it. Also, nobody has been able to guess what's up with Louisa still. If you can guess it correctly, and leave a signed review before next chapter, then you get a prize! Lots of Love, CheckAlexa