A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Change of Plans

"First, I'm sorry," Jasper started, looking at Maria. Before he went on, he realized she was rubbing her shoulder, where his bite was still an open wound. She obviously couldn't reach it herself and he certainly wasn't going to lick it closed, so he gestured to Sebastian to do it.

Maria didn't like it, but she tolerated it while she glared at Jasper. "You should be," she snapped.

"I'm not apologizing for biting you," he snapped right back at her before pushing aside his irritation. "I meant that I'm sorry about Matthew," he said more calmly. "Did Peter and Charlotte explain everything?"

When Peter shook his head and told him they hadn't gotten the whole story out before she lost her shit, Jasper and Alice took a minute to tell Maria and Sebastian everything they'd learned from Carlisle and why they firmly believed the Volturi was responsible for Matthew's disappearance.

"I'm honestly not sure there's anything we can do from here," Jasper said when they finished.

"I've tried searching Italy, but I can't see anything about him," Alice added. "I even tried it with having Carlisle call Aro to ask him directly, but if Aro's determined to keep that information to himself, which it seems he is, I won't see anything."

When Maria turned her heated glare on Alice, Charlotte jumped in. "It's difficult for her to see people she isn't familiar with," she explained. "She doesn't know any of the guards, so seeing them is virtually impossible. The only one in Volterra who she sees at all is Aro, and even with him she doesn't see everything. She's not trying to throw up roadblocks just for the hell of it, Maria. She very literally can't see anything."

Maria sighed and turned to Jasper. "Do you know any of the guards?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I met Demetri once but it was back in the early '40s. I haven't seen or spoken to him since."

Maria sighed again and closed her eyes.

"The only thing I can offer is that I'll do my best to keep an eye on Aro and hope that eventually I'll see Matthew," Alice told her. "If Aro has recruited him to be a member of the guard for whatever reason, there's always the possibility of him leaving Volterra if he's sent on missions. I'm genuinely sorry to say it, but I think your only chance of seeing him again is if he leaves the castle."

As much as Jasper was still fighting against the urge to inflict a little more pain on Maria for hurting Peter, he couldn't help feeling some sympathy for her. She was furious, absolutely, but underneath that, she was being flooded with hopelessness.

While he could empathize with her in the strictest definition of the word because of his gift - he could share her feelings because he very literally felt them - he couldn't empathize in the traditional sense of being able to put himself in her shoes, because he'd never faced exactly what she was facing. He'd felt plenty of hopelessness during his very long life, but he'd never lost someone he loved the way Maria was beginning to understand she'd lost Matthew.

Up until he met Leah, the only people Jasper had loved in that way since being turned, or thought he'd loved, were Maria and Peter. And once he knew a little more about life and emotions, he'd realized what he and Maria had shared wasn't love.

So the closest he could get to understanding Maria's current loss was back when his relationship with Peter ended. But that had only happened because Charlotte had been changed. Rather than lamenting losing the person he loved, he was just happy for Peter that he'd found his mate. In Jasper's eyes, Peter deserved all the love in the world and every good thing their world had to offer, so he'd never felt the same exact hopeless heartache and sorrow Maria was currently drowning in.

So yeah, he was pissed she'd just bitten Peter, but he wasn't a complete asshole, so he went and crouched in front of her and took her hand. Alice, who also wasn't an insensitive asshole, silently gestured for everyone to give them a little privacy.

Once they were alone, Jasper shifted to sit beside his sire and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He didn't take away her feelings or use his gift to try to manipulate her into feeling differently, he just sat beside her and tried to be a silent support.

It said a lot about Maria's mental state in that moment that she didn't snap or growl that she didn't need anyone, she just accepted his offer for what it was and let herself lean on him for a few minutes.

"If Alice ever sees him leaving Volterra, if it ever looks like we might be able to find him, I'll come with you if you want so you don't have to confront any of the guards on your own," he offered quietly.

Maria shook her head even as the lingering affection she felt for him flared to life for a moment. For all the times she'd tried to break Jasper, even with every awful thing she'd done to him and put him through, he still had a good heart. "I appreciate that, but if Chelsea has made him loyal to the kings, I'm not sure there's anything any of us can do," she said, her hopelessness welling up again.

Jasper agreed with her but he kept that to himself. No need to throw salt on the wound. "Maybe seeing you in person will be the reminder he needs."

Maria just nodded against his shoulder, not really believing him. "What do I now?"

"What do you want to do?" he asked. "You have Sebastian, who seems like a pretty good man to have at your side. And I don't see Miguel or Andrew deserting you any time soon."

Maria sat up and turned to him, and the look on her face stole all the breath from his lungs. He'd seen her vulnerable the day she'd first told him about Matthew, but it was nothing like the devastation he saw now. "When I lost my mate, all I wanted to do was burn the world to the ground. But now?" she said, shaking her head. "Now I have no idea what I want. Maybe I should just let you kill me and be done with it," she muttered with a humorless laugh.

"I'm sorry, but I won't do that," Jasper told her, knowing there was a part of her that actually meant it. "If I didn't kill you back then when you'd made it your life's mission to ensure I was as miserable as possible, I'm certainly not going to do it now."

"Why didn't you?" she asked. "Why didn't you kill me back then?"

Jasper looked away from her. "You're my sire. I couldn't do that."

Maria might not have known Jasper in the same way Peter, Charlotte, and Alice did, but she still knew the man who'd fought at her side for the better part of a century. "What aren't you saying? You told me you were prepared to walk into a fire instead of killing me, and even I can admit - very, very grudgingly - that I probably deserved it for everything I put you through."

He debated not answering her, debated keeping his reason to himself, just as he had for the last eighty some years. Edward knew, and Alice suspected, but Jasper had never spoken about it out loud with anyone. But after only a few moments of consideration, he knew it wouldn't actually cost him anything to admit it. The others were still within hearing distance, but he figured it wasn't the worst thing in the world for them to know the truth, so he turned back to her.

"You let Peter live. Even after you knew how I felt about him, and with how much you hated that I had someone I loved who wasn't you and that someone else had my absolute loyalty, you never killed him," he explained quietly. "Up until his very last day in our camp when you put Charlotte's name on the list, you let me keep him."

Maria just nodded, not all that surprised. She'd known back then that Jasper would go to any lengths necessary to protect Peter. When she'd ordered Charlotte to be killed, she knew there were only two possible outcomes. Jasper would either kill them both as quickly and humanely as he could so Peter wasn't forced to continue his existence with the kind of devastation he'd feel if he'd lost his mate, or he'd help them both escape.

And that sadistic, cruel part of her would have been satisfied with either.

Both would break the man who'd stopped worshiping at her feet, and both would get rid of the man who'd been the reason for him to turn away from her.

"Is this how you felt when you lost him?" she asked Jasper curiously.

"Which time?"

That brought Maria up a little short. She hadn't really thought about it in those terms - that he'd lost Peter twice. "Either. Both."

Jasper took a moment to think about it. "When I lost him to Charlotte, no. I loved him enough that his happiness meant more than my own, so I let myself just be happy for him. But when I lost him the second time… it wasn't exactly the same as what you're feeling, but it was similar in terms of the hopelessness. I was glad he'd escaped, glad he had at least the chance of possibly leading a peaceful life with his mate, but when he left… he took all the light with him," he admitted. "With him and Charlotte gone, there wasn't a single good thing left."

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, both lost in their thoughts of the long ago past.

Maria sighed and put her head on his shoulder again. "I'm sorry."

That was enough to jolt Jasper straight back to the present moment, and as the shock practically exploded out of him and he felt the shock from Peter, Charlotte, and Alice, who were all shamelessly eavesdropping, he looked at her in astonishment. "You changed me over a century and a half ago, and this is the very first time you've ever apologized to me. For anything."

Maria shocked all of them further by laughing. "Better late than never, I suppose," she said with a little shrug.

After that, the surprises just kept on coming. Charlotte walked over and sat on Maria's other side and said a quiet but absolutely genuine "Thank you for letting him live." Peter practically launched himself at Jasper and spent a good minute just hugging him to the point of suffocation. Alice loved a good hug, so after giving Peter enough time to have his own moment with Jasper, she dove for them and scootched and wriggled her way in. Because Peter had hit Jasper with enough force to knock him away from Maria, Sebastian took the opportunity to take his place next to his sire and he pulled her against his side to offer her some comfort in a way he never had before.

And Catalina just watched them all with wide, bewildered eyes.

"Would y'all get off me?" Jasper laughed, trying to free himself from the iron grips of two of the people he loved most in the world. "This is one of Leah's favorite shirts on me - says it really brings out my eyes, whatever the hell that means - so I'm gonna be seriously pissed if there are any holes in it."

Maria had been so lost in her own despair that she'd forgotten about Jasper's earlier admission. "So you really found your mate?" she asked him once he was sitting up and carefully dusting off his slightly damp shirt.

Jasper looked up at her with eyes that were suddenly fierce, his good humor seemingly disappearing in a split second. "If you say a single negative thing about her, or who or what she is, I'll reverse course on not killing you," he warned her.

Maria just huffed and rolled her eyes. "If I hadn't been the one who'd drilled into you the importance of using violence to get your point across, I might be offended by that. As it is, that was me, so I'll overlook the threat. Once."

Then it was Jasper's turn to huff and roll his eyes. "I've survived you for a century and a half, Maria. I'm not the only one in this weird little partnership of ours who couldn't kill the other," he pointedly reminded her.

"Maybe," Maria conceded. "But that doesn't mean I won't kill one of them," she added, pointing to Alice, Peter, and Charlotte.

"Okay," Alice scoffed. "Good luck with that."

Maria hadn't actually meant the threat, so she just shrugged and ignored the tiny little seer. "So you met your mate?" she asked Jasper again.

He looked at her carefully for a moment before nodding. "Yes."

Maria rolled her eyes again at his apparent unwillingness to give her any more information than that. "When?"

"Does it matter?"

Maria growled under her breath. "Why are you being so difficult?"

"Because you made it your mission to strip me of everything that mattered to me," he growled. "Up until I met Alice in 1948, I'd cared about precisely three people in eighty-five years and only loved two. You made sure I lost both of them out of nothing but jealousy and spite. Why the hell would I trust you with any information about my mate after that?"

Well, he had her there. Maria couldn't deny that was true. "If I meant any of your wolves harm, don't you think I would have acted on it while I was up in Washington?"

"If I know you at all - and I think we both know I do - it's less that you had a desire to leave them in peace and more that you knew you couldn't kill any of them on your own."

Maria looked at him with a frown. "Why would I want to kill them?"

Her genuine confusion caught Jasper off guard. "Why wouldn't you want to? They exist to kill our kind and you aren't exactly one to ignore any threats against you, whether direct threats or not."

Maria's confusion only increased at that, and at the same time, Jasper felt confusion from Catalina as well. "What do you mean they exist to kill your kind?" the shapeshifter asked, walking a little closer.

Jasper, for his part, was bewildered by the whole thing. The only thing he could say with any certainty was that it was obvious he was missing something. "I don't understand. Surely you know why shapeshifters exist?" he asked Maria.

"They exist for the same reason we exist. The same reason any animal or human exists," she said slowly, just as bewildered by what she was missing.

Alice, impatient to move this whole conversation along, looked at Catalina. "You can kill vampires, right?" she asked, and the young woman nodded. "But that isn't your sole purpose in life?" she clarified.

Catalina shook her head. "No, of course not. That would be an awfully empty existence. I can protect myself from them, and I'll be the first to admit that there is a part of me that wants to get revenge for the killing of the rest of my family, but I don't seek them out strictly with the goal of destroying every vampire that walks the earth."

As Jasper thought back to when Catalina was initially following them earlier, he realized Maria's dominant emotions had been those of caution. Urgency, but not alarm or hostility.

"Are you saying my imprint became a wolf just so he could destroy you?" Catalina asked Jasper.

"Maybe not me specifically, but vampires as a whole? Yes," he nodded, then went on to explain the origin of the Quileute spirit animals and the way they eventually evolved into the protectors that exist today. "Our coven back home has a peace treaty with them solely based on the fact that we don't hunt humans. And up until very recently, it was an extremely reluctant peace on the part of this generation's wolves."

"I can see why you thought I'd want to kill them," Maria muttered under her breath.

Jasper turned his attention back to Catalina. "Unless I'm mistaken, you were fully prepared to kill me about an hour ago. It was only telling you I'm a shapeshifter's imprint that convinced you to stop."

"True," Catalina acknowledged. "But that was more due to circumstance. You and your friends here were very close to the place I consider my home. I may not seek your kind out, but I will protect the place I live however I have to."

"Are you not part of a tribe?" Charlotte asked her curiously.

"No. It's just me now. The others were my blood family, not my tribe."

Jasper felt sympathy for the young woman again that she'd lost the people she loved and had found herself alone in the world. "Do you think you'd ever like to live among others like you?" he asked her. If her answer was no, he didn't doubt for a second that Paul would join her where she was, but he sort of hoped she might have at least a little interest in meeting her imprint's tribe. Jasper had learned firsthand that having a place you belong with people who love you could go a long way towards healing those jagged edges born from loss.

Catalina nodded but it was slightly hesitant. "I would like to meet his family," she said, not actually answering if she'd ever want to live among them.

Jasper's phone ringing broke the resulting silence and he pulled it from his pocket to see it was Leah on FaceTime. He almost ignored it, but his desire to see the face he loved so much as often as possible overrode his instinct to keep her hidden in front of his sire.

"Hey sweetheart," he answered. His eyes immediately narrowed when he saw the expression on that face he loved. She looked a little bit too much like Rosalie when she was trying to convince him she was innocent about something. When Leah hesitated, he laughed and rolled his eyes. "What are you about to tell me that you know I'm not gonna like?"

"Nothing!" Leah answered, pretending to be offended by the accusation.

He just raised an eyebrow and stared her down until she cracked.

"Fine," she huffed. "I'm—"

Leah immediately stopped talking when a certain black-haired devil leaned into the frame. Way back when Alice had first seen Maria looking for Jasper, she'd drawn a picture of her so all the wolves would know his sire if they ever crossed paths with her. Seeing her for the first time, Leah couldn't help the growl that rolled out of her or the surge of hatred that churned inside her.

Jasper pushed Maria away from the phone, but not before she told Leah she had no intention of hurting her mate.

"You've already hurt him," Leah snarled. "You hurt him for seventy-five years. So while I'm sorry you've lost Matthew, the little bit of sympathy I can muster up doesn't outweigh my hatred for you for all the misery you put him through."

Jasper laughed again when Peter leaned over to look at Leah with his very best pout.

It was enough to make her crack a smile. "And the misery you put Peter and Charlotte through," she added.

"I thought they wanted to kill all human-hunting vampires," Sebastian whispered in confusion that the wolf seemed to feel genuine affection for Peter and his mate, two red-eyed vampires.

"I would never hurt anyone Jasper loves," Leah snapped, even though she couldn't see Sebastian. "Not all supernatural beings are cold-hearted, merciless killers."

"Oh hush," Jasper laughed. "You know he's not like some of the others down here," he reminded her. He'd already told her that he actually liked and respected Maria's second. They all did. "So just spit it out. What are you planning?"

"Planning?" Leah asked, again trying to appear innocent.

Jasper gave her a very unimpressed look. "So the planning stage is over, I guess? You're already doing whatever it is?"

Leah did a little grumbling under her breath about imprints who knew her a little too well before slapping that too-innocent, cheerful smile on her face. "Paul and I thought it might be fun to go for a run."

"How long of a run?" he asked suspiciously, although he already knew the answer.

"Oh come on," Leah whined. "You're not going to try to ruin this for me, are you?"

In the very next second, Leah yelped in surprise and was shoved away from the phone. "Ruin this for you?" Paul snarked as he took her place. "I'm the one who found my imprint, thank you very much. The world doesn't revolve around—"

Jasper saw Leah's hand dart into view before Paul disappeared with an 'oomph' and the phone went tumbling to the ground. After that it was just a roiling blur of dirt, grass, dark hair, and tan skin. After waiting patiently for about thirty seconds, Jasper just went ahead and ended the call. One of them would call back eventually.

"Anyway. Where were we?" he asked, looking at the group around him.

"I don't think we were actually anywhere," Alice laughed. "We still need to figure out what we do from here. Although knowing Leah and Paul like I do, I'm inclined to believe that they're the ones who are going to decide what we do."

"You're probably right, but—" Jasper stopped mid-sentence and his smile faded as he looked to the east of them.

"What's—"

Jasper held a hand up and shook his head to silence Maria, honing in on the new set of emotions that had just entered his range. They were somewhat close to human civilization, but these were very much vampiric in nature. Vampires felt things deeper and more intensely than humans, which made it easier for him to differentiate species from a distance, although not all the time, and not when he was in a populated area with hundreds or thousands of emotional signatures.

This particular vampire had been able to get much closer than Jasper was comfortable with because they'd all been distracted, a fact that made him curse under his breath. And with the Mexican landscape being what it was, there wasn't much cover where they were currently sitting. Anyone approaching from the northeast - at least any supernatural beings with enhanced sight - would likely be able to see them from miles away, before any of them could hear them coming.

Everyone was on alert as they alternated between watching him and surveying the area around them. They couldn't detect anything or anyone yet, but it was more than clear that Jasper did.

Jasper silently chastised himself for dropping his guard this close to so many potential enemies as his eyes darted around to try and find somewhere he could hide Maria. She was the one who would be recognized immediately, with Sebastian likely being a close second.

Knowing what he was thinking without him needing to say anything, Peter and Charlotte leapt into action and pushed Maria and Sebastian so they were lying flat, then rolled on top of them in an attempt to shield them from view. Alice did the same to Jasper, a fact that highly amused Catalina even as she prepared to switch forms.

Unfortunately for everyone, they were too late. Jasper felt the shift in the stranger's emotions and knew they'd recognized Maria. In the very next second, the emotional signature began moving away from them, quickly and with a sort of malevolent satisfaction or glee.

"Motherfucker," Jasper growled, gently pushing Alice off him so he could sit up. At the same time, his eyes snapped to Peter as he felt the shift in his emotions also. "What is it?" he asked when Peter sat up, grumbling under his breath about whatever knowledge he'd just received.

Just as he opened his mouth to explain, Jasper's phone rang and he cursed his mate's timing. "I'll call you back," was all he said as he answered, then he quickly apologized for his poor manners and hung up.

"We can't track them and stop them?" he asked Peter.

He shook his head. "No. Even with Charlotte, we won't reach him in time. They were already poised to move on another army. Now they'll just shift targets."

"Gabriel?" Maria snarled as she shoved Charlotte off her and got to her feet.

Peter hissed at Maria's rough treatment of his mate. "Watch it," he growled. Charlotte just rolled her eyes and smiled at him, unbothered. "Gabriel isn't the one who saw us, but it was a scout from his army," he explained after turning back to Jasper. "Knowing Maria is this far from home, he'll try and take advantage of her absence."

Maria immediately took off running with Sebastian right behind her. He pulled out his phone as he ran and made a call to Miguel. Gabriel's army might have been poised to move, but the scout still needed to run the hundred or so miles back to camp to explain what he'd seen. And traveling any kind of distance with a large group of newborns wasn't easy, so if he and Maria ran at their top speed all the way back to their territory, they might be able to beat Gabriel's army there.

With dread pooling in his gut, Jasper watched them go and then turned back to Alice, Peter, Charlotte, and Catalina.

"Seriously?" Peter whined when he saw the look in his eyes. "This isn't what I signed up for."

"I know," Jasper nodded. "And I don't expect anything from you. If y'all want to just go back to Texas, that's perfectly understandable. I might even prefer it if you do. But given the other blow life just dealt her… I feel like I should help her," he sighed, shaking his head. "She already lost Matthew. She might not deserve much, but she doesn't deserve to lose the territory she's fought to hold onto for centuries, or any of the three people left who are loyal to her."

Alice put her hands on her hips and stared him down. "Liar. This isn't really about Maria, is it?"

"It is!" he defended himself with a laugh. Then he shrugged. "And maybe a little about Sebastian," he admitted. "He's a good guy. This is the only life he's known since he was changed, so if I can help him keep it, I'm going to."

Alice launched herself straight into his arms to hug him. "Softie," she laughed before dropping to her feet. "I'm in," she agreed.

Charlotte and Peter didn't need more than a single glance to come to a decision. "We're in," Charlotte nodded.

Jasper looked at all three of them carefully for a solid minute. Seeing and feeling their determination, he nodded once. "As long as you're sure. You know I won't blame you if you don't want to come with me. This won't be like going up against Victoria's 'army' - these newborns will be trained."

Peter laughed and slung an arm around his shoulders. "You know I'm always down for a good fight."

Catalina cleared her throat and all four vamps turned to her. "Your mate's phone call… Do you think she and Paul are traveling south?" she asked Jasper.

"I do," he nodded. "Would you like to run with us and we can arrange for somewhere you can meet them?"

Catalina didn't need to think about it, she just nodded and immediately stripped off her clothes and changed to her jaguar form. She wanted to meet her imprint, and if traveling with these vampires was going to let her accomplish her goal, she would do it.

After collecting the clothes that Catalina had set on the ground and shoving them back into his bag, Jasper asked her if there was anything she needed to get from her home before they left the area. "If there is, I can carry it for you."

Catalina nodded and took off running, so the three vamps followed behind her, and Jasper pulled his phone out and called Leah back as he ran. He had a pretty good idea how she was going to react to the sudden change of plans, so he braced himself for her anger.

When he finished explaining, there was silence on the line for a few beats. "I'm sorry, I think I must have misheard you. You want to do what?" she asked.

"There's a chance we won't make it in time, but I need to at least try. I know you don't like it, but you didn't feel her emotions earlier. She's devastated. She shouldn't have to lose anyone else just because Gabriel is a greedy dick who wants more land."

There was another few seconds of silence. "How far away are you?"

"A little under five hundred miles to the outer boundary," he answered. "A little more to the center of camp."

Leah let out a heavy sigh and moved the phone away from her mouth to talk to Paul. "Is Catalina with you?" she asked when she came back on the line.

"She is. I was already assuming you and Paul were going to start heading south, so we were hoping we could arrange somewhere for y'all to meet her."

"Only Miguel and Andrew are at her camp now?" she asked rather than addressing that.

"Yes. Maria and Sebastian are on their way back already. We're stopping at Catalina's home so we'll probably end up being about twenty minutes behind them," he explained. When he heard the telltale sound of Paul phasing in the background, he had a terrible feeling he knew what his mate was going to say next. "Leah—"

"Don't," she cut him off. "If you think for one second I'm going to idly sit by while you fight a newborn army, you've got another thing coming, Jasper Whitlock."

"Leah—"

"Nope," Leah cut him off again. "You've always stressed the importance of personal autonomy and you've never tried to dictate my life choices, so don't you dare start now," she said firmly. "We're closer than you are, so if you have a way to get in touch with Miguel or Andrew, just go ahead and warn them they've got two incoming wolves."

"But you—"

"I love you. I'll see you soon."

And with that, she ended the call. Jasper was both shocked and completely unsurprised, which was an interesting mix of emotions to be honest. One part of him was flooded with gratitude that he'd somehow been given a mate who loved him enough to wade straight into hell so he didn't have to wade in without her. But the other part felt like ice was trickling down his spine at the thought of his mate walking into a battle of the Southern Wars, something he'd thought he'd left behind him for good over eighty years ago. Not to mention Leah coming face to face with his sire who she hated so much.

He was really regretting giving Leah and Paul a detailed outline of Maria's territory before he left Texas. He'd only done it so they could stay well away from it, not so they could find it in person.

Everyone ran in silence for a few miles. While Alice, Peter, and Charlotte would never have chosen to have Leah and Paul help them, they were slightly less conflicted than Jasper. All three knew how hard both wolves had trained before Victoria showed up, and they had a fair amount of confidence in their ability to not be killed.

Besides, with the four of them fighting alongside Maria, Sebastian, Miguel, and Andrew, that gave them eight vampires who were experienced fighters. Certainly more experienced than whatever newborns Gabriel brought with him. Numbers had decreased all across Mexico after the Volturi sent some guards to forcefully impose limits on the armies back in the '70s, so they'd likely be facing no more than ten or twelve newborns. With those numbers, Leah and Paul would be lucky to get a tooth or claw in any of them.

Which isn't to say they couldn't understand Jasper's turmoil, which is why they kept their mouths shut until after they left the cave where Catalina kept her few belongings.

Eventually, though, Peter couldn't help chuckling and looked at his brother. "I've said it before, I'll say it again. Fate really did you a solid with that one."

Jasper rolled his eyes but couldn't completely smother his smile as he put on a burst of speed. Peter wasn't wrong. He'd maybe prefer her to be slightly less stubborn and loyal in that particular moment, but fate had done him a solid by tying him to Leah Clearwater. A fact he would forever be grateful for.