A/N: This one really got away from me but I'm eager to get everyone back home and didn't want this to span two chapters. Thank you for reading, and an extra thank you to everyone who's taken the time to leave feedback. When I get discouraged or my motivation slips, your reviews keep me going. Thank you:)

An Audience

When Jasper and the others were about ten miles out from Maria's territory, Peter abruptly changed course. Trusting him, Jasper, Alice, and Charlotte immediately followed him, with Catalina right behind them. Jasper couldn't feel anyone, and he didn't hear anything yet, so he knew they'd beat Gabriel's army there. The sound of a vampire battle would have reached them by then if the fighting had already started.

It wasn't long before he felt the familiar warmth of his mate's emotions. She was on edge and slightly angry, but she was in her human form - which was surprising - and she wasn't anywhere close to as pissed off as he'd expected her to be in Maria's presence.

When he got within hearing distance, he understood why.

"I suppose I can't entirely hate you," she admitted grudgingly, speaking to Maria. "If you and those two witches you'd banded together with hadn't ambushed him at the side of the road, he would've died long before I was born."

Jasper grinned and put on a final burst of speed, making all the vamps running with him laugh at his impatience.

When Leah came into view, he didn't stop or slow down, and when Andrew went on alert and tried to get in front of him, Maria just quickly pulled him out of Jasper's way, telling him there was no need to be worried. Jasper ignored everyone else and just kept his eyes locked on Leah, laughing when she spun around in surprise.

He barreled right into her and took her to the ground, pinning her with his body and kissing the daylights out of her while surrounding her in all of his love and gratitude, and the happiness he felt at seeing her face again.

He didn't care that a fight was headed their way fast, didn't care that Maria was watching them curiously, or that the three members of her coven were watching with curiosity and amusement.

All he cared about was the fact that Leah was right there to kiss and hold.

Eventually, though, he had to pull back just enough to let her breathe and he looked in her beautiful eyes. "Hi."

"Hi," Leah laughed, pulling him back down to kiss him again one more time before shoving him off her so she could stand up. She frowned when she saw how dirty she was. "Not cool, Jasper. I don't have any— Oof."

Alice had decided it was her turn and nearly squashed Leah with the ferocity of her hug. When Peter and Charlotte stepped forward, Leah figured it would be best to just hold still and let the vamps hug on her for another minute.

Besides, she'd be lying if she said she hadn't missed all of them.

"Are we done now?" she asked when Charlotte let her go. "Because there's someone I'd really like to officially meet before this army shows up."

As one, everyone turned to Paul and Catalina. It was an odd sight, to be sure. A giant wolf and a larger than typical jaguar, both still in their animal forms, standing mere inches apart and staring at each other.

Jasper's eyes went wide with shock at the way their emotions were fluctuating and he turned back to Leah. "How is that possible?" he asked. He'd clocked some of Catalina's confusing emotions while they ran, but he'd been far more focused on getting to his mate as quickly as possible.

Leah shrugged. "It has to be the imprint. Believe me, we were just as shocked as you," she answered. Paul had stopped dead in his tracks when they'd first phased in Texas and he realized a new voice had entered his mental space.

By some bizarre cosmic law of supernatural soulmates, Paul and Catalina could hear each other. Leah couldn't hear her, and none of their pack back home had been able to either, but Paul could hear her loud and clear, and they had been able to hear his end of the conversation when he was talking to her.

"What is it?" Charlotte asked curiously.

"They're communicating," Jasper explained, gesturing at the two shapeshifters. "Did you talk to Jared on your way down?" he asked, turning back to his mate.

Leah winced and nodded. "He's not very pleased with us."

"Are you surprised?" Peter asked her a little incredulously. "He's completely helpless thousands of miles away while two wolves in his pack are volunteering to walk straight into danger for no real reason."

"No real reason?" Leah said just as incredulously. "You guys have all volunteered to walk straight into danger for them," she said, pointing at Maria and her coven. "So why would we not do the same for you?"

"He's your Alpha. You know how seriously he takes your safety," Charlotte reminded her.

"I know," Leah nodded. "That's why I'm not annoyed that he's angry and why I'm grateful he didn't give us an Alpha Command. He's not happy about it, but he didn't forbid us from coming down here."

Jasper squeezed Leah's hand to get her attention again. "As much as I love the sound of your voice, I'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable if you weren't quite so human right now."

Leah immediately nodded and darted behind a partially crumbled wall to undress. She and Paul had only come with a single outfit - or in Paul's case, a single pair of sweatpants - tied around their ankles and she didn't want to tear it by phasing on the fly.

"Wait!" Alice called before she could phase. "What are they going to do?" she asked, gesturing to Paul and Catalina.

"Paul won't let me fight alone so he'll be right in the fray with me," she answered as she pulled her shirt over her head. "Catalina doesn't want to fight but she also won't leave him undefended, so she'll probably just stick close to him to watch his back," she explained. Remembering what had happened back in Forks just before she'd gone human, she looked at Jasper a little sheepishly. "Jared isn't the only one who's not very pleased with us."

It only took Jasper a second to understand and he couldn't help sighing. "I assume they're not happy with any us?"

Leah shook her head. "Nope. Not a single one of us."

Jasper, Alice, Peter, and Charlotte had very purposely not answered their phones while they were running. All of the Cullens had known they wouldn't be in regular contact, so they'd been hoping to only tell them what was happening after the fact. After everyone made it to the other side unscathed.

"How'd they find out?" Alice asked Leah, who rolled her eyes a little at her baby brother's occasional inability to keep his mouth shut.

"Seth. The whole pack knew we were on our way here and all of them were wolves with us at one point or another. Seth told Bree, who told Esme, who told Carlisle. After that, it was just a trickle-down effect. I wouldn't be surprised if even Charlie knows by this point to be honest."

Alice and Jasper exchanged a slightly guilty look. Neither of them liked disappointing Carlisle, nor did they like risking Rosalie's temper being aimed at them, rare as it was.

A throat clearing brought everyone's attention to the black-haired devil whose territory they were about to defend. "As interesting as I find all of this domestic gossip, could we perhaps focus on more important things?" Maria asked.

That was enough to get everyone moving, and not even a second later, Leah came bounding back out as a wolf and went right to Jasper's side.

"Any chance I can convince you to stand behind me?" he asked her, knowing it was probably a futile request but figuring he should at least give it his best shot.

Leah huffed a little, but she could understand why he was asking, so she took two steps back so he was partially in front of her. Jasper quietly thanked her and then turned his focus back to the vampires who were closing in on them, though not before taking a second to send Leah his love.

Trying to sort out separate emotional signatures while accounting for the number of feet he was hearing, Jasper spoke to Maria in a hushed whisper. "Eleven, not including Gabriel," he told her, then tipped his head slightly and pushed his gift to its outer limits. "All newborns. Gabriel's about half a mile behind them. He's got one other vamp with him."

Maria nodded and her eyes narrowed as she prepared to fight. She'd lost enough already, she wouldn't lose her land.

"If you run west about half a mile, you can circle around and catch him from behind," Peter told her quietly.

Maria looked at him sharply. "Can I kill him?"

Peter shook his head. "No, but if you take one of your men with you, you'll be able to take out the one he's with and keep him from reaching the fight. He'll lose every newborn."

"Did he bring his whole army with him?" Sebastian asked.

Peter shook his head again. "No, but there are no more than five left at his camp. He'll have to regroup, which takes him out of play for a good few months."

Maria smiled to herself. She'd forgotten how useful it was having the benefit of both Jasper's and Peter's gifts at her disposal. She looked at Jasper and was just opening her mouth but he shook his head before she could utter a single word.

"Not a chance in hell. He said to take one of your men."

Maria couldn't even find it in herself to get angry at his refusal to come with her or the reminder that he'd stopped being hers decades ago. The news from Peter was too good to let anything get her down. Besides, she already knew Jasper would never leave his mate to fight without him. After only a split second of consideration, she told Miguel to come with her and took off running. She wanted Sebastian on the front line and Miguel was a slightly better fighter than Andrew.

Catalina had no plans to do any fighting of her own if she could help it, but her eyes were sharp and constantly moving as she watched the first of the enemy army crest the hill ahead of them. She wasn't going to directly help any southern leader hold on to the territory they cared about strictly for the number of humans who lived within it, but she also had far more experience fighting vampires than her new imprint did.

She understood why Paul was choosing to stand with Leah's imprint and his family, so she would do everything in her power to keep him safe while he did. Leah, as well. Paul loved her like a sister, so Catalina would keep her protected also.

Feeling a slight flash of nervousness from Alice, Jasper reached down and took her hand. With the shapeshifters fighting beside them, she couldn't see anything. Rather than addressing her worry out loud, he just squeezed her hand and sent her his reassurance and the confidence he had that she was perfectly capable of taking on any newborn she faced. Then he added a little bit of determination to help sweep away her nerves.

Peter, who rarely missed anything when it came to Jasper, particularly when it involved a fight, subtly shifted so Alice was just slightly behind him. At the same time, Charlotte shifted so she and Jasper were both slightly in front of Leah and Paul.

Sebastian and Andrew didn't take their eyes off the approaching newborns, but they both noticed the way the various members of the group fighting with them were placing themselves in protective positions.

"Honest to god, if I never have to feel another newborn for the rest of my existence, I'll be happy," Jasper muttered under his breath even as he prepared to move, making Peter and Charlotte laugh.

Knowing from experience that trying to calm down a snarling, spitting baby vamp was a useless endeavor, Jasper instead sent out confusion. The shapeshifters standing with them only served to increase that confusion. They weren't sure what Leah, Paul, and Catalina were, but they knew they weren't typical animals.

As soon as the first newborn's steps began to falter, Jasper launched himself forward and grabbed him around the neck, being careful to hold his jaw shut as he wrenched his head to the side so he couldn't get his teeth in him. Jasper was determined to get through this with no one on his side being bitten.

Once he'd severed the head, he tossed it away from the battlefield to burn once it was over, and he turned just in time to see Leah lodging her teeth in a newborn's arm as he tried to race past her to reach Alice. Jasper darted over and decapitated him while Leah held him immobile, then he tossed that head away also.

Out of the corner of her eye, Leah saw a newborn headed straight for Sebastian, who was in the middle of dispatching another one. Knowing Maria's second was the real reason Jasper was determined to be in that fight, Leah took off like a shot to intercept the young girl closing in on him.

Bree's face briefly flashed in her head but Paul quickly reminded her that this newborn was nothing like her brother's imprint. Where Bree had been trying to avoid a fight when Victoria led her 'army' towards Forks - and Leah was only just now understanding why Jasper put air quotes around army when he referred to that day - this girl had a manic glint in her eye, seeming to be thrilled by the carnage.

Vampires were weird.

Paul! Duck!

Paul immediately dropped to the ground at Leah and Sam's simultaneous shouts in his head, and before he could blink, Catalina was on the newborn who'd launched himself into the air straight towards her new imprint. Paul stood back up with a proud smile as he watched her quickly and efficiently break the vamp down to nothing but a handful of parts.

Maybe you could bask in how wonderful she is a little later?

Paul and Leah both laughed at the dry voice of their Alpha. He and the rest of the pack back home were watching the action through their eyes. Leah suddenly did a mental double-take, because was that…

"Focus, Leah. Please," Edward said with a sigh that was only slightly exasperated, and Leah realized that yes, that was Edward Cullen next to her brother. And they were all standing in the meadow that passed as the Cullen's backyard. When Seth turned his head, she saw that the rest of the Cullens and Bella were there as well. And they all looked way more worried than she'd ever seen them.

Oh boy. Jasper and Alice weren't going to be happy when they found out Edward and the wolves back home had joined forces to watch the fight like they were catching a movie. With Edward telling the rest of his family everything he could see.

"Leah," Edward said a little more forcefully. "I promise to take all the blame with my siblings if you would just please - and I can't stress this enough - focus."

Whoops.

"What on earth is going on?" Jasper asked in bewilderment when he suddenly appeared at Leah's side, making her startle a little. Appreciation, amusement, surprise, affection, back to amusement. Jasper couldn't even begin to make heads or tails of what might be going on in the semi-privacy of his mate's mind. Hearing Peter laugh clear across the battlefield, he spun around. "I suppose you know what's happening?" he asked.

Peter laughed again, keeping one eye on Charlotte where she was dispatching a particularly stubborn newborn. "We have an audience."

"What the hell does that—" Jasper cut himself off mid-sentence when realization struck and he whirled back around to look at Leah. "Who?"

Leah couldn't help rolling her eyes a little, because it wasn't like she could answer him. She tipped her head towards Peter, making Jasper spin around again.

But before he could demand some answers, he saw Andrew was struggling a little with a particularly large newborn, one of the last still standing. He dashed over and grabbed the guy from behind, then immediately flung him straight into Paul's mouth when he saw the wolf was crouching less than twenty feet away, hoping to get his teeth in one last newborn. Catalina was standing at his side, completely still but her eyes missing nothing.

Jasper did a quick visual sweep and nodded in satisfaction that Sebastian was tearing the head off the last member of Gabriel's army.

Before letting himself dwell on who might be watching at home, he pulled two lighters from his pocket and tossed one to Alice, asking her to help him start gathering up all the body parts for burning.

"Can you feel anything from Maria?" she asked as they worked.

Jasper nodded. "They're on their way back. Gabriel's gone and the other one is ash. Do you have any idea who's got eyes on us back home?"

"Knowing them, I'd say it's pretty likely they all do," Alice laughed. "With the pack in wolf form and Edward nearby to see into their minds, every supernatural being on the Olympic Peninsula probably knows what's happening," she said, tossing a stray hand into the flames Jasper was fanning. "And probably Bella."

Charlotte and Peter walked over then, both carrying various vamp parts. "I forgot how messy the clean up is," Charlotte grumbled. She'd been with Edward during the fight with Victoria's newborns, and they'd only had Victoria and Riley's bodies to burn.

Peter tossed a head into the fire and then wiped his hands on his brother's shirt.

"What the fuck was that for?" Jasper growled, smacking Peter's hands away and trying to wipe the extra venom off his clothes so he didn't accidentally go up in flames. Peter just shrugged and laughed so Jasper glared at him. "You're a dick."

"I'm standing here among body parts because of you," Peter reminded him. "The least you can do is help me wipe the venom off."

"I would have helped you if you'd just used your fucking words," he snapped. He wasn't really mad, though, which everyone knew perfectly well. Especially because he put his hand on Peter's shoulder and made him hold still while he checked him for any bitemarks. When he was finished, he did the same to Alice and Charlotte, both of whom just gave him indulgent smiles and let him do his thing. Jasper couldn't smell any of their venom in the air, but it didn't hurt to be sure.

Once he was satisfied that none of them had been bitten, he looked across the field to check Leah, Paul, and Catalina over again, even though he already knew none of them had been hurt. Then he turned his eyes to Sebastian and Andrew, who were both walking towards the fire with body parts to burn.

His eyes immediately narrowed when he saw Sebastian was rolling his shoulder, and he ran over to take a closer look. "Are you hurt? Did one of them bite you?" he asked quickly, taking the arm and head Sebastian was carrying.

Sebastian and Andrew both gave him weird looks.

"Uh… yeah, I'm fine," Sebastian answered slowly. It took him a second too long to realize that Maria's former second was actually worried about him. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little touched by that. He'd found Jasper to be a really good guy. "No teeth," he reassured him, showing him where the skin was stretched taut and separating at his shoulder. "That last one just managed to get hold of my arm."

Jasper debated his options for a second before dropping the body parts he'd taken from Sebastian and taking the ones Andrew was holding instead. "Lick it," he said, pushing Andrew towards Sebastian. When Andrew just gave him an even weirder look than before, Jasper pushed him a little harder. "He's basically your brother at this point, which means it's your job to protect him. And part of protecting him is helping him heal faster," he explained a little impatiently. Was Maria not teaching her coven anything?

Sebastian and Andrew did actually know that venom healed their wounds, they just didn't typically do that for each other. When Jasper had Sebastian lick the bitemark he'd left on Maria's shoulder, it was only the second time Sebastian had ever done that for his sire. And the first had only been because she'd lost an entire limb during a particularly vicious battle.

But Sebastian had seen Charlotte use her venom to close the bite Maria gave Peter, and he'd even seen Jasper lick it, even though he'd tried to be sneaky about it. So he wasn't completely surprised by Jasper's demand. The four vampires who'd traveled so far to come help his sire find Matthew were all fiercely protective of each other, and they all seemed to take care of each other in one way or another.

Sebastian wasn't ashamed to admit that he envied their closeness. He'd been a vampire for ten years but it wasn't until Matthew was changed three years before that he found a true friend in this life. He'd gotten closer to Miguel and Andrew out of necessity in recent months because they were the only ones left of Maria's army, but he couldn't say they were as close as brothers.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when Andrew started carefully licking his injured shoulder. The foreign venom initially stung, but it eased as soon as the skin began knitting back together. He looked up to see Jasper giving them a satisfied nod before going back to collecting vampire parts to burn.

Jasper walked over to the fire, where Alice, Peter, and Charlotte were talking quietly. What he really wanted to do was go be with his mate, but if he was reading her emotions right, she was mentally talking to everyone back home. Jasper wasn't quite ready to face the rest of the family yet.

"How much hell are we going to get?" he asked Alice and Peter, hoping one of them had an answer.

Alice shrugged nervously, but Peter gave them a little reassurance. "Not much, although Rose might do a little bit of yelling. Everyone else is more worried than angry."

Jasper nodded and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Oh darn, no service," he said, trying real hard to sound disappointed. "Looks like we'll just have to wait to talk to everyone."

Alice, Peter, and Charlotte all laughed at how unconvincing he was, but their smiles disappeared when the satellite phone rang less than two seconds later.

Jasper spun around when he felt Leah's amusement and saw she was walking towards them and rolling her eyes. He turned right back around and glared at Peter. "Why'd you give them that number?" he hissed.

"Me?" Peter scoffed. "That is all on you, brother."

When Charlotte held the ringing phone out to Jasper, he shook his head and pushed it towards Alice. "They like you better than me," he whispered. "And maybe do one of your best smiles. If Leah can see you, so can Edward."

Alice sighed but plastered on her most cheerful smile as she answered. "Hel—"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Rosalie growled, cutting her off.

Alice sighed again. "Lovely to hear your voice, Rose. How are things at home?"

"Don't you dare pretend—"

Rosalie was cut off by Edward grabbing the phone out of her hand. "Are you all really okay?" he asked, his voice much more calm than Rosalie's. He'd seen firsthand through the pack mind that everyone was alright.

"We're fine," Alice reassured him. "No injuries on our side."

It was hard for Edward to sort through so many people's thoughts - there were currently four wolves in his presence, two more he was seeing through their minds, along with all the other Cullens, so it was a lot to untangle - but he was trying to stay focused on Seth's mind, because his attention was locked on his sister. Edward was basically tracking what Leah was seeing by watching what Seth was seeing.

Needless to say, it was confusing. But looking through Leah's eyes meant he could see Alice, Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte.

Which is why Edward saw Jasper glance behind him when Alice said there were no injuries on their side. "Then why is Jasper looking at someone like he's concerned about them?"

Alice smiled. "Sebastian's shoulder was a little strained," she explained, then turned to look at Maria's second to check how he was doing. "He's perfectly fine now."

"Why the hell does he care about anyone in that whore's army?" Rosalie snapped in the background.

And boy did everyone's expression change at that.

Jasper slowly turned back around and Edward actually flinched back as he saw the look on his face from Leah's perspective. "Why do I care about anyone in Maria's army?" he asked coldly. When Rosalie started to answer him, he immediately cut her off. "Unless you've forgotten, Rosalie, I was once part of Maria's army. Peter was part of Maria's army. Charlotte was part of Maria's army. Are we not worth caring about? Were we such savages from the wars that we mattered less than the people who had the luxury of entering this life without having to immediately fight for their survival?"

As much as Edward was glad he wasn't near Jasper when he was this furious, part of him wished the empath was there so he could feel Rosalie's genuine remorse and regret firsthand. She spoke without thinking. A recurrent theme in her life, unfortunately. She was especially distraught because of how close she and Jasper were.

"I'm sorry," Rosalie said when Edward handed her the phone. Other than the low growl she recognized as Alice's, she was met with silence on the other end of the line. "I truly am. I've been worried and angry and I spoke without thinking."

"I love you, Rosalie, but you do that far too often," Alice snapped, her indignation on Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte's behalf making her more short-tempered than she usually was. "You're over a hundred years old. Do better. If you need guidance, ask Edward."

Rosalie winced at the implication that her least favorite brother had managed to change his problematic behavior while she herself had not. "You're right," she acknowledged quietly. "I'm sorry."

"May I have the phone now please?" Carlisle asked her, gently taking it from her hand while putting his other arm around her shoulders to offer her some comfort. It was clear on her face how terrible she felt.

As Leah went and leaned against Jasper's side, she was doing her best to stay calm because she understood Rosalie's reaction. Jasper being back in the south and fighting in a battle of the Southern Wars was the stuff her waking nightmares were made of. She and Leah had talked about it once before Alice and Jasper went looking for Maria in the spring, and Rose had admitted how scared she was that his sire was going to try and threaten his family in order to get him to fight for her again. She'd also admitted that she'd rather take his place and fight herself than let her empathic twin ever find himself down here again.

In her eyes, Maria was just the abuser Jasper survived. More than an abuser actually. She'd tortured him for decades and enjoyed it. To Rosalie, the three remaining members of Maria's coven were no better than she was.

But Maria was also Jasper's sire and the only reason they even had him around to love all this time later. Without her, he probably would have died in the Civil War.

Jasper also didn't judge people strictly because of what their life circumstances were. Sebastian being Maria's second didn't make a bit of difference in his estimation of the man. He'd come to genuinely respect him for who he was as a person. Jasper didn't automatically see him, or Miguel or Andrew for that matter, as any better or worse than anyone else just because they were part of the Southern Wars.

Everyone relaxed a bit as soon as Carlisle took the phone. The man was the personification of patience and consideration and it was hard to stay angry when he aimed his best calm voice at you.

"I'm glad to hear you're all unharmed," he started. "Can I ask how this turn of events happened? We know some information from the pack and Edward, but I'm curious about the details. This is one circumstance we never imagined would ever come to pass when you set out."

As Alice and Jasper explained how they all ended up there, Leah debated going human. Paul and Catalina were talking quietly through their mind-link, and being able to hear Paul's end of their conversation felt like she was intruding on a private moment. They'd only had a few minutes to talk between Cat's arrival at the battlefield and the beginning of the fight.

She also really wanted to hug her own imprint with her human arms.

Knowing Edward was using her to see Alice, Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte, she resigned herself to staying a wolf a little bit longer.

Not even a second later, Seth turned his head and Leah saw the telepath lean down to whisper in his ear. "I don't need to see them," Edward told her quietly. "You're free to phase back if you'd like."

Leah thanked him and ran towards the crumbling wall where she'd left her clothes. Just as she ran back out on two legs, Maria and Miguel reappeared. It was good timing, actually, because without her eyes, Edward didn't have to see the woman every Cullen hated.

"It went well?" Leah asked, doing her best to sound cordial. Actual friendliness was beyond her.

Maria nodded with a satisfied smile, which grew as she surveyed the battlefield and saw for herself that Peter's intuition had been correct and every newborn Gabriel brought with him had been killed.

Leah couldn't help scowling when the woman's eyes didn't even pause on Sebastian, even though his shirt sleeve had been torn off and he had an obvious new injury. Maria just marched straight over to Jasper and demanded to know the details of the fight.

Jasper huffed and glared at her. "I'm not your soldier and you can see and hear that I'm on the damn phone. Go ask Sebastian. He's your second, not me."

Leah smiled as she got back to his side and tucked herself under the arm he held out for her. Even with her slightly more human ears, she could hear the multitude of growls through the phone.

While Maria was unbothered by the growls, she was bothered by Jasper's dismissal of her. She knew he was talking to his coven leader but that was irrelevant. She wanted information from him and she wasn't accustomed to waiting. "I—"

"Please don't make me regret helping you," Jasper sighed. "Sebastian can tell you everything you need to know and when we're done with our call, we can fill in any gaps. But please, just give us a minute."

"It'd be a real shame if he had to give you another new scar," Peter added, pointedly reminding Maria that Jasper had bitten her. There was a surprised silence on the line, so everyone heard Maria's low growl.

"You bit her?" Emmett asked Jasper, the glee clear in his voice.

"She bit Peter," was all the explanation Jasper gave. Which resulted in another shocked silence.

"She bit Peter?" Esme asked incredulously.

Sebastian and Andrew appeared at Maria's side before she could snap a response. "Let's go over there. We can tell you what you missed," Sebastian said, leading her away from the group by the fire.

"Who bit Peter?" Bella asked in the background. "Maria?"

"He's fine. He's already healed," Jasper assured everyone. Then he gave Peter a little glare for stirring the pot unnecessarily. "He might have another new scar though," he added under his breath.

Carlisle chucked at the threat he knew Jasper didn't mean and got them back on track. "So what happens now?"

Jasper and the others only needed to exchange a quick glance to know the answer. They might not be heading home immediately, but they were all eager to get the hell out of Maria's territory. "Now we leave. Aside from Alice's offer to keep an eye on Aro and hope she eventually sees Matthew, there's nothing more we can do. Not even Maria is delusional enough to entertain the idea of going to Volterra to find him."

"Will you all be coming back to Washington?" Esme asked hopefully.

Everyone looked at Leah to field that one. While Brazil was still an unanswered question, it was one they didn't think they'd have time to answer before heading home. With how long it had taken them to find the nomad Samuel had told them about, and then backtracking all this way to help Maria, they were already closing in on August.

But even taking Brazil off the table for the time being, Paul had just met his imprint, who'd lived her entire century and a half of life in Mexico.

"Not immediately, but soon," Leah told Esme and the vamps standing with her. She hadn't had time to tell them what had been decided during their run from Texas. It hadn't been the easiest thing for Paul and Cat to have a conversation when they didn't speak the same language, but he'd had some help from the pack back home. Cat had agreed to come back to Washington with them but she wanted a few days to prepare. She'd been completely on her own for many decades and the idea of meeting so many people was understandably a little nerve-racking. "A few days. A week at the most."

All the vamps looked at her in surprise, pleased by that news. They'd already anticipated that Catalina would be hesitant to leave her home, and they knew Paul wouldn't leave his imprint this soon after meeting her. And none of them were willing to leave Paul behind, even if only temporarily.

Looking across the field at his sire, Jasper sighed and said goodbye to everyone on the phone. After kissing his mate, he walked over to deliver the news Maria already knew was coming but was going to fight against anyway.

It honestly didn't matter what Maria had to say about it. They'd done what they'd come for to the best of their ability. Anything else Maria wanted from him was either irrelevant or so far down his list of priorities that it was immaterial.

All he wanted was a little bit of alone time with his mate, and then to start the journey back home. Talking to the rest of the Cullens and the pack had only made it clear just how much he'd missed everyone that summer.

They had a shapeshifter to introduce to her new and unexpected family, and a wedding to prepare for. With their search for Matthew finally behind him, there was nothing lingering on the horizon or hanging over their heads.

It was time to move on.