Disclaimer: I do not claim to own anything from the collective works of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series.

Spider Webs

"'For me,' said Sherlock Holmes, 'there still remains the cocaine-bottle.' And he stretched his long white hand up for it," Louisa finished, her voice carrying over the beeping of the heart rate monitor and the buzzing of the dialysis machine. She closed up her battered and well-loved copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes and looked at the girl on the bed in front of her. "Well," she asked. "What did you think?"

"I wish I could solve mysteries," Kelly sighed. She was sitting cross-legged on top of her blankets, elbows resting on her knees, her hands propping up her head. The steroids the doctors had put her on had caused her cheeks to swell, which, paired with her expression, gave the impression of a disgruntled chipmunk.

Louisa picked her rucksack up off the floor and tucked her book carefully inside while she considered how to respond to the statement. She could hardly tell the girl that solving mysteries was overrated, especially not after regaling some of her own adventures. "Perhaps we can when you feel a little better."

Kelly's face lit up with excitement. "Really?"

"Of course, every Holmes needs their Watson."

The little girl nodded seriously. "Yeah, you'll need me for sure. You'll make a good Watson."

Louisa suppressed a grin. "I'd be honoured," she replied, her voice solemn. "But if you're going to be fighting crime, you're going to need to study more."

Kelly's nose wrinkled at the thought. "Like science? We're learning about the solar system at school right now, but it's real boring. I like history more. Last week, we finished our unit on the ancient Egyptians. I want to learn hieroglyphics but the library doesn't have any books. The librarian told me that they have lots of books in Spanish, but that's not the same."

"There is a distinct lack of pictures in Spanish," Louisa agreed before reaching back into her rucksack and extracting a gift bag. "But I was thinking more along the lines of something else," she finished, handing the gift to Kelly, who gasped excitedly before diving for it.

The eight-year-old looked around the outside of the bag for a moment before looking up at the teen with a confused expression. "There isn't a card? Mummy says I should always read the card before opening a gift."

Louisa laughed and shook her head. "Nah, cards are boring. Nobody keeps them."

Kelly nodded, her red hair falling into her face, only for it to catch on her nasal cannula. Louisa leaned forward to help the little girl untangle her hair. "Yeah, why do adults give them in the first place?" Kelly asked while Louisa slid a spare hair tie off of her wrist and help her pull her hair into a ponytail.

"That's a good question. We should ask one. They know boring stuff like that," Louisa replied before redirecting Kelly's attention towards her gift.

The little girl complied and seconds later, pink tissue paper was flying. She extracted a crocheted doll wearing a deerstalker and a trench coat, gasping in surprise, fumbling with the doll in her swollen fingers before she managed to hug it to her chest. "It's Holmes!"

"He'll be able to read with you when I can't be here," Louisa explained, watching as Kelly pulled out the second part of her present, an illustrated copy of the complete works of Sherlock Holmes. "It's not hieroglyphics, but at least there are pictures in this book."

If it wasn't for the multitude of wires connected to her, Louisa was sure Kelly would've tackled her in a hug. Instead, she was blessed with a radiant, gap-toothed smile. Her heart swelled with happiness as she watched Kelly began to read through her new book, oohing and ahhing at the appropriate times when the little girl pointed out a particularly colourful picture.

Nurses filtered in occasionally to check on Kelly. They wore smiles and laughed when Kelly told them a joke or some fanciful idea that popped into her head, but Louisa could see the tightness in their eyes. Louisa didn't need to deduce the nurses to know what had them worried: the two nosebleeds and obvious weight loss the little girl had experience spoke volumes about her current condition. Kelly's kidneys were starting to fail and it seemed that even the dialysis treatments she received multiple times a week were not able to stop.

Kelly either didn't realise how sick she was or she did know, and simply didn't care. Louisa wasn't sure which was more upsetting. The little girl chose to speak over the beeping of the various machines, chattering away about her school lessons, as though she was simply taking a vacation from her education, rather than essentially putting it on hold. And though her feet were too swollen to run around in the playroom, she seemed more than content to sit on her bed and play with her menagerie of stuffed animals.

"Is Jasper going to come back and visit soon?" Kelly asked, pausing from her dramatic enactment of

"I'm not sure. He's afraid of doctors," Louisa lied for lack of a better thing to say. She could hardly tell the girl that the tall blond was a vampire and it was unwise for him to be around so much blood. He had shared with her that the only reason he visited her back in November was because she had been there and it had been incredibly reckless of him.

Kelly nodded with understanding. "I used to be too. Maybe he can go on an adventure with us when I am feeling better?"

"I'll make sure to ask him," Louisa replied. "But if I'm Watson and you are Holmes, who would he be?"

"Miss Morstan," she responded without hesitation. She leaned forward, her expression serious. "He has a crush on you," she whispered.

Louisa blinked in surprise. "I should hope so," she said. "He's my boyfriend."

Kelly looked at her with wide eyes. "Really? That's so cool."

Louisa couldn't help but laugh at Kelly's childlike fascination. She could vaguely remember being eight years old and holding a similar belief that having a boyfriend made you a grown-up. Now at eight years later, she didn't really feel all that grown up, if anything, she felt young, especially when she was with Jasper. "He has his uses," she agreed.

Kelly sank back into her pillows, her disappointment evident on her face. "I wish I had a boyfriend. But all of the boys in my class are dumb."

"I don't know, girls can be pretty dumb too," Louisa said. When a nurse popped her head into the room and let Louisa know that visiting hours would be ending soon, she leaned forward to help Kelly settle into her bed, pulling up the blankets around her tiny body.

"You're not," Kelly said as if this somehow proved her point.

"Are you kidding? I'm the biggest dummy of them all," Louisa laughed. "I didn't even figure out that Jasper was asking me out the first time he did."

Kelly's brows furrowed as she considered the teen. "Yeah, you're right. That is pretty dumb."

Louisa chuckled and pressed a kiss to the little girl's forehead. "We all have our moments." She turned to leave, only to pause when a little voice stopped her at the door.

"You'll come back, right?"

She turned and looked over her shoulder, only to see that little girl she had grown so fond of had already drifted off to sleep.

No Stone Left Unturned

Louisa was so used to seeing Jasper in her room that she didn't even startle when she entered after her shower that evening. He was sitting at her desk, long legs crossed at the ankle, and inspecting one of the picture frames that stood there. Louisa continued to dry her hair off, only briefly pausing to run her fingers through his hair before padding towards her wardrobe in search of a pair of socks. Jasper let out a little hum of content at her actions but didn't look up from the picture in his hand.

Ever since her last episode, Jasper had taken to spending the night with her. He hadn't asked if he could, he had just sort of showed up one evening and kept doing it. Whilst she did find it a little annoying that he had no problem invading her personal space, and more than a little creepy that he showed up to her house nightly for the express purpose of watching her, she couldn't deny that her anxieties were lessened in his presence, and not just because he was an empath, though that certainly helped. There was something calming about his presence, and whether that was because she was his mate or simply because she didn't have to be alone, she had no plans to evict him. Being in her room still gave her gooseflesh, and though she could avoid it during the day, she knew her father would become suspicious if she suddenly decided to abandon her bed in favour of the sofa in the lounge. Instead, she began leaving the back door unlocked for her boyfriend so she didn't have to keep getting up to let him in, and the two slowly began to adapt to sharing a small space together.

The first few nights had been awkward and hesitant. Louisa had fretted about such a major change in their relationship, particularly so soon after they started dating, and what it meant. Were they moving too fast? What sort of things would he expect of her, now that he was in her bedroom? Was she even okay with the new developments? She couldn't answer the first, was too nervous to ask the second, but the third… that answer terrified her. Because, she knew, even before the thought had finished crossing her mind, that the answer was yes. This revelation, in turn, brought up the first question again and her mind began to ruminate over that ad nauseam. And then, of course, she wandered about the physical implications of allowing Jasper into her room. What would he do whilst she slept? She imagined that he would be rather bored, watching her lie still and unresponsive for hours on end. Also, what if she snored, or made weird sounds when she was sleeping?

As it turned out, Jasper usually brought his laptop with him and he claimed that she was usually so still when she slept, he often had to check if she was even still alive. He easily assuaged her fears and discomfort, and despite the acceleration in their relationship, seemed more than content to allow her to set the pace of it as far as the situation could allow. He never demanded anything of her and he gave no indication of needing something more than she was willing to give him. His attitude was definitely what made the transition into the new level of intimacy as smooth as it was. Or maybe it was the mating bond, manipulating everything.

Even if it was the bond, however, she found it less and less something to be worried about, and more a fact of a life. Did the idea weird her out? Absolutely. Did she like the idea of not being in control of such a massive part of her life? Hell no. But could she avoid it? The truth of the matter was, she couldn't fight it any longer. The more time she spent with Jasper, the less she found herself wanting to resist. She enjoyed their verbal sparring matches, how he could easily give as good as he got, how his eyes light up when he delivered a particularly well-crafted gibe, and his toothy grin that always foreshadowed the warm chuckle that made his chest vibrate. She was fond of the way he knew a little bit about a lot of things and could always surprise her with a new fact, or the way he listened intently when she went off on rambles about a subject he was not familiar with. She was grateful for how he seemed so calm and collected, especially when she felt like a nervous wreck, and how he didn't seem to overthink things like she did.

It was on the fourth night, however, that any pre-existing hesitation flew out the window, and it started with Louisa accidentally invited him into her bed. She had awoken abruptly after a dream involving being strangled, and Jasper had been sitting on the edge of her mattress, watching her with concern. He had helped her sit up, supporting her weight when her muscles had seemingly turned to jelly and handed her one of his many white handkerchiefs for her bloody nose. He helped her sort out what was true for her and what had been true for Anna. He blocked the spot where Anna had died from her view with his large body. He let his comfort and peace wrap around her like a snug blanket. She had fallen asleep in his arms and had it not been for the migraine she had when she woke up in the morning, she had had one of the best nights of sleep in her entire life. If anyone asked, she would say him lying in her bed at night was simply for logistical reasons—to keep the nightmares away. It wasn't really the truth, of course, she still did have the dreams about Anna, but his presence upon her waking offered a sense of safety and security that calmed her scrambled thoughts so they could be assembled back into the correct order again.

As it would turn out, sleeping next to someone created a sense of trust, meaning that she got to see the parts of Jasper that she knew realistically had always been there, he had just never shown her. He wasn't shy, just introverted, though he could be quite the chatterbox if you got him on the right subject. He loved being warm, and though he never explicatively stated it, she got the impression that he missed living in sunny places. He was incredibly tactile, and while he was always hesitant to initiate physical contact, he would turn very cuddly when allowed the opportunity, which went directly against the war-hardened vampire image he liked to project. He was sassy, silver-tongued, and could swear enough to make a sailor blush (which, in turn, always seemed to bring out the manners his mother had instilled in him, causing for many apologies after an especially colourful profanity).

Louisa tossed her towel in her hamper before wandering over to her boyfriend, wrapping her arms around Jasper's neck and resting her chin on top of his head to see which picture he had picked up. It was of her and her mother on an ice skating rink, Louisa clutching tightly to her mother's arms, trying desperately to stay upright. Clara Collins was laughing at her oldest child's struggle, her lips pulled back to show front teeth that were slightly bucked, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. Louisa didn't look much like her mother (in fact, all you really had to do was take a look at her father to see who she had taken after), who had a willowy sort of body that, even in frozen in a photograph, seemed to move with elegance and grace. She was a pretty woman in a girl-next-door sort of way: she had soft features that could turn heads, certainly, but the way she carried herself was what truly caught your attention. She had a confident air about her like she knew exactly what she wanted and how she was going to get. "Laurie took that picture. He refused to get on the ice."

"Your brother?"

"Laurence," Louisa supplied with a nod. "He was always a bit of a grump. He's three years younger than me, but I think he's really an eighty-year-old man in disguise. Like you."

Jasper craned his neck to look up at her in mock annoyance. "Excuse me, little lady. I will have you know that I am one hundred and seventy-three."

Louisa grinned. "Little lady? Five foot eight is rather tall for a girl. I can't help it if you are freakishly big."

Jasper placed the picture frame back on her desk before spinning around and wrapping his arms around her, gently tugging her into his lap. She went willingly, her arms lifting to encircle his neck, fingers playing with the soft hair at the nape. He ducked his head to touch his nose to the little patch of skin between the back of her ear and where her hair started, his breath tickling her throat. "You know what they say about men with big bodies," he murmured into her neck, his lips brushing against the sensitive skin there and sending shivers down Louisa's spine.

Louisa pushed away from him, the tips of her ears turning pink. "Please don't finish that sentence."

"Their hearts have more love to give," Jasper finished, his eyes alight with mirth. "Get your mind out of the gutter. It's not becoming of a lady."

Her nose wrinkled in annoyance. "Good thing I'm not a lady then," she said.

Jasper chuckled and pulled her closer. "Good thing indeed," he agreed, ducking his head to press a kiss to her temple.

Louisa's heart jumped and her stomach swooped oddly at the sight of his boyish grin, her skin growing warm and prickly as if an electric current had been applied. She was certain he could hear her heart accelerating if his roguish grin was anything to judge by. He leaned forward and began to rub his cold nose along the jaw, occasionally giving her throat a playful nip with his teeth. It was never enough to break the skin (she would have been royally pissed off at that), but it always caused her to jump, the sensation making her hair stand on end. She wasn't sure if it was because she was afraid that he might accidentally sink his teeth into her or because she enjoyed it. Then again, Jasper wouldn't knowingly upset her so he was probably aware of something she wasn't.

"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" she asked, quite proud that it didn't sound nearly as breathy as it had been the previous times Jasper had done this to her.

Jasper shrugged, his fingers running along her ribs in lazy strokes. "Edward has somehow managed to shove his head farther up his ass, Carlisle cured cancer, and Alice has achieved world domination and is our new overlord." When he nibbled on her clavicle, a strong electric shock jolted through her body and she thought her heart might stop. Her skin felt tight and her muscles were twitching and she felt a familiar emotion well up inside of her: the one that made her stomach tingle and her breath hitch and she knew she wanted something but she had no clue what it could be. She didn't have a name for it, but she experienced it enough around her boyfriend that she was certain he was the source of it.

She took a shuddering breath and pushed him away, attempting to give him a disapproving look. The expression on his face told her that he knew exactly what he was doing and he wasn't about to apologise for it. He truly was incorrigible.

"Is that all?" she laughed, standing up, her hands shaking with adrenaline. Jasper let her go, his eyes tracking her movements as she crossed the room and got into bed. She patted the mattress as an invitation and he rose and followed after, toeing off his boots before settling down next to her, pulling up covers around them.

Jasper hummed, the sound tickling Louisa's cheek when she rested her head on his chest. "Oh, I almost forgot. Emmett tracked down Mrs Sweet."

Louisa sat up in bed and stared at him with wide eyes. "Did he really?" The rag-tag team of teen sleuths (which Emmett had affectionately dubbed Mystery Incorporated Junior) had realised that they would have to re-interview all of Anna's friends and family about two weeks into their investigation if they wanted to gain any sort of traction on the investigation. The transcripts they had received from Chief Swan were not exactly incomplete, but they indicated that the police at the time had little experience with interviewing. Someone had to know something, but it seemed like the police hadn't wanted to push the subject, which Louisa called a miscarriage of justice. Even if they hadn't wanted to upset grieving friends and family, it should have been the top priority to understand everything about Anna, no matter how personal (Rosalie told her that most people weren't as insensitive as Louisa was when she said this).

"She has been living in Portland under her maiden name," Jasper explained. "Which explains why it took so long to locate her."

"Portland, that's what, a four-hour car ride?" Louisa asked. "I wonder if she would be willing to talk to us." They had managed to contact Anna's father the previous week, only to be shot down for an interview. Louisa could understand his desire to move on with his life and not bring up such painful memories with a group of teenagers. He had, after all, he had lost his daughter, moved away from the only place he had ever lived, and had his marriage fall apart in the span of a few years. Even still, it didn't make his rejection any less frustrating. She had wanted to visit him anyway and try to cajole the information out of him, but the plan was nixed after Alice informed them that Mr Sweet would call the police if they did.

"Alice thinks she will, but she still hasn't decided," Jasper explained, reaching up to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. "Alice has planned a road trip playlist in the event that she says yes."

Louisa leaned into his hand, biting her lip as her mind whirled through the possibilities the interview could present. It would be a hard sell, getting her dad's permission to go on a trip to Oregon for the day. She could hardly say she was following up a lead, after all. Her dad would insist on driving them, citing the distance, which wasn't really an option. What was something that her dad would let her do alone? The answer came to her almost immediately.

"Jasper, will you go to prom with me?" Louisa blurted out.

The boy looked appropriately confused by the abrupt change in topics. "Pardon me?"

"Prom," Louisa repeated. "Will you be my date to prom?"

His brow was furrowed in confusion and his hand dropped to rest on her hip. "Yes?" he was rather pleased that he even managed to respond without stuttering. There never was a dull moment with the little blonde around.

He was rewarded with a blinding smile and a swift kiss on the cheek. She curled up next to him, using his chest as a pillow once more and his fingers found their way into her still drying hair. Louisa's phone vibrated on her bedside table, a message from Alice popping up on the screen.

Fairy Princess: that will work

"May I inquire to what she is referring?" he asked.

"I'll tell my dad that I'm going prom dress shopping with Rose. He won't want to go and Dottie doesn't need a dress because she's a sophomore," Louisa explained before burying her face into his shirt. "We'll be able to interview Anna's mum then."

"Oh," he said softly. He continued stroking her hair for a moment before adding on, "But we're still going to prom together, right?"

She looked up at him, an eyebrow raised. "Unless you want to go with someone else?"

"Not particularly," he replied. He'd been to prom a few times before, and always under the threat of bodily harm from Alice. He wondered if it would be different, going with someone you actually wanted to dance with. Not that he didn't love Alice, of course, but she was tiny, making her a less than ideal dance partner. And she just wasn't Louisa. (There was also the fact that he didn't enjoy being stuck in a room full of what were essentially sweaty blood bags, but he tried not to think about that.)

Louisa hummed. "We can go after the new year," she said. "No sense in making the holidays more miserable for her than they already are."

Jasper's hand stilled, and Louisa gave him a critical look. "You seem opposed to the holiday season," Jasper noted.

"Not really," she said, her voice trailing off and her eyes going glassy, her thoughts apparently a million miles away. "I can relate to her," she said slowly. "Holidays are a time for family, and she's missing hers." She lapsed into silence while she gathered her thoughts. "It's our first Christmas without them, you know?" Louisa finished.

Her tone was even, but Jasper didn't need to be an empath to know how much it belied her true feelings. The pain and sadness were written across her face, plain as day. He shifted so he could pull her into his arms so that she was laying on top of him. She let him, all but melting into his embrace.

"May I ask what happened?" he asked, his voice low.

Louisa sighed deeply, her eyes screwed shut. "It was a car accident," she began. "The other driver had decided to start celebrating St Patrick's Day a day early. Mum was picking Laurie up from a mathletes practice. Laurie and the driver died on impact. Mum died on the way to the hospital." She was silent for so long that Jasper thought that she was finished. "It was the day before my sixteenth birthday. I just..." she trailed off, her breath hitching. "It's hard to think about. I keep waiting for Laurie to burst into my room to inform me of some inane fact, or to walk in on my parents making out in the kitchen, or… I don't know… something. And I keep waiting for it to stop hurting, you know? But it doesn't."

Jasper stared up at the ceiling, trying to collect his thoughts. He wanted to offer her some sort of comfort, but he wasn't sure how to do so without it sounding like he was trying to minimalize her feelings. "I don't think it gets any easier, Louisa," Jasper said, stroking her hair. "It just becomes less difficult. The part of you that was ripped out when they died stops bleeding, scabs over, but there is still two people sized craters, and there always will be."

"Maybe," she replied before sighing once more. "Sorry to drop this on you."

He craned his neck down so he could press his lips to the top of her head. "I don't mind," he murmured.

She let out a watery chuckle. "You're my boyfriend, not my therapist."

"I'm whatever you need me to be," the answer flowing off his tongue easily. "You don't have to deal with this all on your own."

"I don't know how not to deal with it on my own," she admitted quietly.

He ran his fingers along her spine in slow, even strokes. "If you'd let me, I might be able to help with that," he whispered. Her breath hitched again and he could smell the saltiness of her tears as they began to form in her eyes, each one scalding hot when it landed on his chest.

"I think I would like that."

She cried quietly. Not because that was what was came naturally to her, but because it was what she had trained herself to do. She was so used to trying to hide her feelings. A part of it was because she wanted to seem strong for her sister, or she didn't want to give her father one more thing to worry about, but mostly it was because she wanted to hide her emotions from herself. She was afraid that one day she might start crying and never be able to stop, that her tears would overwhelm her and that she might fall apart. And maybe, if she cried too much, she would have to actually admit that her mum and little brother were never coming home.

He let her cry, soak his shirt with tears, and empty herself out. He wanted nothing more than to take away her pain and shoulder it himself. He had the ability to do it and every part of him was screaming that he needed to ease the pain she was experiencing. And God was she hurting. But he didn't because there were some things people needed to feel. Sorrow was is of those emotions that left your muscles fatigued and your bones aching as if they might crumble to dust; it seems unbearable and it always leaves you asking how you would ever recover from it. But life goes on. Time does not stop because of grief, so muscles must grow stronger and bones become harder to break. But in order to do that, Louisa would have to break down, becoming undone, to allow the jagged pieces of her heart could be puzzled back together again. So he laid in her bed, her head on his chest, her burning body curled around his cool form, her scent blending with his, and held her as tight as he could without snapping her in two, knowing that when she eventually emerged from this, maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, she would be stronger.

Grieving as a long process and everyone experienced it differently. It would be foolish to think that a single session of crying would help her come to terms with her mother and brother's death. But, like Jasper was so fond of reminding her, at least she didn't have to do it alone. So she allowed herself to be comforted by him, his embrace uncharacteristically warm and soft. His strong arms were wrapped around her like an anchor, a tether, a lifeline.

It was that evening when she began to realise that the mating bond wasn't simply romantic in nature. It was stability when the ground was eroding beneath her feet, comfort when her heart lay in painful shards, and support when she needed scaffolding to rebuild. It implied safety after waking up from a psychometry induce nightmare, companionship in the long stretches of silence that didn't need to be filled, and calm when the stress from school and family and unsolved mysteries became too much. It meant nagging to eat enough, wrapping a blanket around shoulders when their temperature difference became too apparent, correcting grammar on Spanish homework, tracing the patterns the early morning sun made on bare skin. It was an uncomplicated state of being that the messy world couldn't infiltrate, where people with all of their drama and the confusion they caused were left behind, and time seemed to slow down just enough to catch a breath. The nature of their relationship was intimate on a level that Louisa hadn't realised she could ever be comfortable with, but very slowly was starting to realise that maybe she truly relished in it.

True, the mating bond had dumped a lot of feelings on her way too fast, and maybe if she had been a vampire at the time she met Jasper, it would have been easier to adjust. But either way, it had formed the day they met, as thin and fragile as a spider silk, only to grow as she stayed with him until she was caught in it like a fly stuck in a web, and no matter how hard she fought against it, she was resigned to the fact that she could not easily break free. Assuming, of course, that she wanted to.

She didn't.


"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love." –Washington Irving


A/N: Thank you for reading is chapter! What did y'all think of it? The return of Kelly was actually a random inspiration whilst I was waiting for my mum in the A&E (she's fine!) and I forgot how much I loved writing her. She's important to the plot, so don't crucify me if you think that it was just a filler. Also, if the part with Jaz and Lou seems to rattle those of you who actually understand how a timeline works, please don't leave me a comment telling me that it seems a bit wonky. I know. It's one of my many faults as a writer. Just roll with it and know that this chapter takes place a week before Christmas. Anyway, thank you all who have reviewed. I do read all of your comments and they never fail to brighten my day. Thank you also to those who follow this story. It makes me happy that there are people who actually want to read my work. Lots of Love, CheckAlexa