Peter was outside already waiting when he heard the first distant footfalls of the approaching vampires. He had known it would be more than Jasper, but unsure who among the Cullens were joining them. To Peter, it sounded like damn near all of them. Sometimes he knew a lot, and sometimes he knew too little. Lately it's been too little, and he didn't care for that. Vampires were steadfast beings. Not accustomed to change, and a hell of a lot was changing in Peter's world the last few days. Having a newborn around was one thing…
"Hey Major." He greeted Jasper first when they finally came to a rest. He gave a nod to the others, but Peter couldn't help himself from wondering about what could be in the ornately carved wooden chest. "What's in the box?"
"A present for Bella." Jasper said, not elaborating because he didn't want to hear it from Peter.
"It's Edward's head." Emmett supplied helpfully. He didn't know Peter well, but he knew Peter knew Jasper better than anyone else could and maybe he knew why Jasper was being so… Jasper. Except for Edward, that is. Who would rather use what he saw in Jasper's thoughts against him rather than understand him. Maybe if he had taken the time to be compassionate and not a nosey little shit, he'd still be alive. Emmett had a moment where he felt anxious that he might be overheard thinking such a thing about Edward, but he didn't have to worry about prying ears anymore.
"You brought her his fucking head?" Peter's eyes were wide as he stared at the box. "Why?"
"Do you think she won't like it?" Jasper sounded oddly concerned, and Peter wondered what exactly had happened in Volterra. Jasper usually had a lot more confidence with the ladies.
"Jasper, what the fuck?" Peter had heard of vampires doing that a thousand years ago. Now? Giving a severed head to a teenage girl, a freshly turned vampire? A newborn with absolutely no control over their emotions or impulses. Peter was speechless. Mostly. Jasper had done some fucked up shit before, and this was more along the lines of what The Major would have done if he had met his mate. He didn't meet Bella in the Vampire Wars though, he met her in a High School.
"Finally, someone is saying what we've all been thinking." Rosalie said, not wanting to say it herself. Jasper had been in a total mood since they left Volterra. She had never liked Bella, and had been very vocal about it. So she had kept her mouth shut, not wanting to draw any leftover ire he had at Edward's behavior towards herself. Something she still couldn't believe. As many times as she had thought about ripping Edward's head off, she never would have actually done it. Between Edward attacking Bella and Jasper beheading Edward, she had a hard time believing it was all real. She avoided looking directly at the wooden chest, despite how pretty she thought it was and had a stray thought that it was a waste cause no one would want a box soaked with that asshole's venom.
"I…" Jasper stopped himself from trying to explain. He didn't understand why he had the urge to give her Edward's head. It just felt like the right thing to do. He wasn't going to let him live regardless, but keeping his head personally kept Aro from putting him back together. He couldn't even say that was why he decided to keep it and give it to Bella. He thought of that on the flight home. That was something that made Jasper inwardly smile, he could lie without Edward calling him on it.
"Where is Bella?" He finally asked, noticing a lack of her and Charlotte. She should have woken by now, and he didn't hear a fading heartbeat in the cabin. Didn't she want to see him as badly as he wanted to see her?
"Oh, she woke up, saw my scars, and took off like a bat outta hell." Peter shrugged, as if it couldn't have been helped with foresight. Like realizing that newborns would see scars from old bites as a threatening gesture. Or you know, not grinning like a serial killer. "She's trying to hunt animals with Charlotte." The rest of the Cullens were surprised that they weren't forcing Bella to abide by a human diet. They had been brought into this world with a bias towards blood drinking vampires that would take time for them to shake. Jasper should have taken this moment to remember that he had three times as many scars as Peter. He didn't. Out of all the anxious thoughts running through his mind, that wasn't one of them.
"Did she say anything about me?" He asked anxiously, feeling a bit needy and anxious all of a sudden. He hadn't talked to Bella since Prom Night, which was a week ago today, now that he thought about it. That was barely talking though, a brief kiss on the forehead and an unspoken promise of something more. He was ready to follow through on that promise now that everything standing in their way was sorted.
"Not a damn thing." Jasper wouldn't confess it, but his spirit deflated a little at that. Was it too much to ask for his mate to want him immediately upon waking?
"Harsh, bro." Emmett quipped. Jasper rolled his eyes. Emmett better shut up. He still had a lot of pent up energy he didn't get to expel in Volterra. It would be more good humored than he would have liked but… A good fight is a good fight.
"About her attacker? Or what happened to her?" He questioned further.
"Nope. She apologized for running away, said she was thankful I saved her life and then I knew I had to come back here. Obviously to stop you from giving her that chest of horrors." Jasper knew then that even if he didn't give her the chest with Edward's head in it, that he would never live it down. Between Peter and Emmett he would be hearing about this until the end of time. Which means if he didn't give the chest to Bella, she would hear about it and wonder why he didn't. So he had to give it to her now.
"Come on, let's go inside and I can tell you what little I know about what happened to her before they get back. Then you can tell me about all the fun you had in Volterra!" Peter laughed as he turned around and entered the cabin, leaving the door open for everyone else.
.o.O.o.
As it turns out, hunting animals took a bit more effort and finesse than humans. Animals were used to predators, but humans had spent so long on the top of the food chain they lost the awareness they had when they were wild. It was easier to sneak up on someone in a crowded bar than it was to stalk a deer through an empty forest. Every snap of a twig, every swish of a branch, even the wind blowing their predator scent in the wrong direction were obstacles alerting their prey to their presence. Charlotte and Peter had perfected the sneak and drink, a method that worked great on humans, not so great on wildlife.
Eventually by working together, Charlotte stomping through the forest towards Bella, and Bella grabbing the first animal she could that Charlotte had driven in her direction, Bella managed to get a moderate amount of blood in her, to the point where the thirst was just a minor annoyance.
"Hunting humans is easier?" She asked Charlotte while they walked back to the cabin, already debating if her morals could bend on drinking from humans.
"It really is. Not as messy, either." Between Bella's original cause of death, running through the woods, and her drinking more than a few members of the local wildlife, she was a fucking mess. Her hair was wild; blood, twigs and leaves stuck it in every which way. "Sometimes it can be a lot of fun." She added as an afterthought. She didn't know how much she knew about vampires, only that she learned it from a vegetarian coven. They probably wouldn't bother explaining the joy of the hunt.
"How can it be more fun than this?" Bella gestured to herself. When she woke up she had already lost her jacket and sweater. Sometime between waking and now her long sleeved henley lost a sleeve and was ripped here and there. She was clumsy as a human, but wow. Didn't even notice her whole sleeve missing?
"Have Jasper show you." Charlotte said, waggling her eyebrows. Bella frowned suddenly, stopping in her tracks. Jasper? What did Charlotte know about him?
"Fuck Jasper." Bella spat out vehemently, shocking Charlotte. There was a lot she didn't know about the young vampire's time with the Cullens, but she had thought any hate would be towards the one who tried killing her. "How do you know that asshole?" Bella demanded, suddenly mistrustful of the vampire she had felt so safe around moments before. Charlotte realized she fucked up, but then again, how on earth was she to know she shouldn't mention Jasper? It just coincidentally never came up, until now.
"Jasper's the one who asked me and Peter to find you." Even though that was only partially the truth, they had found her already.
"Why didn't he come look for me himself?" She hadn't seen him since Prom, the memory hazy but she could still feel his lips ghosting across her forehead. She had waited for him and he never came for her.
"He couldn't, he was in Volterra." Bella knew next to nothing about Volterra. If she had any memories of it as a human, they had burned away with her change. She shook her head at Charlotte, not understanding the significance. "You really need to ask Jasper, I don't know any more than that." She said at Bella's confusion. "I'm dying to know too, trust me." She tried to reassure the younger vamp.
"I literally just died, Charlotte. Wow. Talk about insensitive." Bella couldn't resist, she always loved making dumb ass jokes. Charlotte felt like she had whiplash, however. Bella had seemed so angry only moments ago and now she was cracking asinine jokes like Peter.
"Yeah, you seem real broken up about it." Charlotte acquiesced. "Come on, lets go back to the house. Maybe Jasper will be back from Italy by now." She definitely needed some answers, like how Jasper's newborn mate ended up being their problem. Not that she minded doing Jasper favors, but some information would be nice.
"I fucking hope so." Bella said, suddenly full of piss and vinegar again. "Emmett said that newborns were stronger than older vampires." She said with a gleam in her eyes and the prospect of taking her frustration and anger out on him. "Is that true?" Charlotte tried not to laugh, and was glad Bella wasn't empathic at all. Even with her newborn strength, she wouldn't be able to
"It's true, but absolutely useless against Jasper." Charlotte had seen Jasper take out countless newborns without a single scratch or bite. She doubted he'd have problem with a single newborn, even if he was reluctant to hurt her because she was his mate.
"How so? Because of his empathic woo-woo?" Charlotte just smiled, shaking her head no.
"You don't know about how we were all changed, do you?" She asked her then, wondering just how close she was with Jasper before she was attacked and left for dead in the woods. Bella took a few moments to think about it. She knew very little about how any of the Cullens were changed. She knew about Edward being changed on his deathbed, Emmett being saved after he was mauled by a bear and Carlisle being changed and left by his maker.
"No, I don't know anything about Jasper." She was quiet for a beat. "Except that he is an asshole!" Charlotte couldn't help but laugh at that one, Jasper was going to have his work cut out with this one. She could relate, she thought Peter was an asshole on occasion. It was then, with both women laughing at the edge of the wildly overgrown backyard they realized they had an audience. Jasper was standing at the bottom of the steps to the back porch, cowboy hat perched on his head, with Peter behind him in the open doorway. Charlotte knew from the wide maniacal grin on Peter's face that they had absolutely heard Bella call Jasper an asshole. The laughter had ceased, and Charlotte didn't need Jasper's empathic gift to know that Bella's mirth had turned to fury, and it was aimed at him.
.o.O.o.
Jasper went to set the chest with Edward's head in it on the living room coffee table, but Peter wasn't having any of that.
"No, absolutely not. Keep that shit outside." He made exaggerated shooing motions, as Jasper dutifully turned around and walked back outside. "Weird ass fucker." He mumbled under his breath, knowing full well Jasper could hear him. He turned to Alice then, who had been abnormally quiet the last few days.
"Can't you see it's a bad idea and tell him?" He practically begged her to help him keep Jasper from giving Bella her ex-boyfriend's severed head in a chest. Alice just smiled smugly and posed Peter with her own question on foresight.
"Do you 'know' it's a bad idea?"
"Well, no. I just think it is. Why does she actually end up liking that shit?" Alice didn't answer, she just pulled the lever on Peter's lazy boy and kicked back, literally. She wasn't going to influence anyone's futures by telling them what she saw of it, not unless it was life threatening. Some things had to happen naturally, and Alice had to learn that the hard way. If she had let Bella naturally meet the Cullens, without forcing Edward onto her and encouraging his obsession, he might still be alive. Things would have been different. Sometimes knowing too much about the future was a bad thing.
"She won't tell me shit." Jasper said when he came back inside and plopped himself down on the couch.
"That's not true, I told you where this cabin was." Jasper just rolled his eyes.
"Alice, you were there when I bought this place." Jasper didn't know they had gone to this particular property, but he only had so many. Or rather 'they'. He shared everything with Peter and Charlotte. This was the closest one to Forks, unless you went into Canada. Crossing the border with a changing newborn didn't seem like something Peter would risk. So this was the logical choice.
"So what happened in Volterra, and where's your coven leader?" Peter wanted to know, and he couldn't wait for Charlotte and Bella to get back and prolong his curiosity being sated.
"You're looking at him." Jasper replied and Peter raised an overly sarcastic eyebrow.
"If you're going to cosplay Daddy Carlisle, you should be wearing a scarf." Peter quipped, knowing full well Jasper was taking his place as boss man. Peter thought it was about time, he hated being in charge even though it was only him and Charlotte.
"No, your coven leader. You're looking at him." Jasper didn't look too enthused about the idea, the last time he was in charge of a large group of vampires he ruled with fear and intimidation. He had helped Carlisle numerous times over the decades, so it wasn't like he was a stranger to the ins and outs of running a coven. He just didn't want to.
"Well I'll be a monkey riding a unicycle for the pope! Daddy's home!"
"NO! No, no, no, no. You are not going to start that again." Jasper turned an accusing finger towards Emmett. "And don't you think about it either." But it was too late. Emmett was already running through a catalog of jokes in his mind. He could reuse so many of his Daddy Carlisle ones. He could start giving him scarves for Christmas. Christmas was several months away, he had time. He'd ask Rosalie about it later, she'd help him buy scarves.
"You're really taking in all these strays?" Peter asked then, more seriously. He didn't have anything against the Cullens, he just thought they were all twats, except for Emmett. He never cared about the color of Peter and Charlotte's eyes. He and Charlotte had been alone for a long time, only briefly living with Jasper outside the confines of Maria's camp before he left to find himself. And found Alice and the Cullens instead. It was already a big adjustment with the newborn, there absolutely weren't enough rooms in this 2 room cabin.
Jasper abruptly stood up, his head snapping towards the back door and the female voices he heard traveling on the wind, quickly followed by footsteps. Anxiety suddenly rolled through Jasper, freezing him in place. He wanted to go outside but he was worried that she would still be in love with Edward.
"Better go get your present." Peter teased, trying to pull Jasper out of his funk. He was projecting to the entire room.
"Fuck off." It was a nice try at a distraction, but Jasper knew how vampires were when they were first changed. If they truly believed in something, they were steadfast in that belief. It was why Carlisle drank from animals, and why Edward believed he had no soul. Bella had loved Edward, he knew that with certainty. And he had her ex-boyfriend's head in a box on the front porch. Would she even want his killer? Or a killer at all? Jasper didn't know how mates worked, not really. He knew the general basics, but nothing could prepare you for truly finding your other half. Could your mate reject you? Knowing Jasper's luck and karma, he would be the first vampire who gets rejected by their mate. Did he have time to hide Edward's head before she arrived?
"Buckle the fuck up, cowboy." Peter said, slapping an old dusty white cowboy hat into Jasper's chest. "Stop projecting your emo meltdown on the rest of us and go get your girl!" He took the hat from Peter and stormed out the door, slapping it on his head on the way out.