A/N: Sorry this is a couple days late, but the next chapter will be up tomorrow to make amends:) This could kinda count as cliffhangery, but it's not a dramatic dun-dun-dun one. Thank you for reading and an extra thank you to everyone who has taken a few moments to leave feedback. I love hearing what y'all think!
Coffee
Rosalie waited until she could no longer hear the Jeep that Edward and Bella had just left in before speaking. "What the hell was all that?"
The rest of the family - minus Carlisle, who'd been delayed at work - was still sitting in the clearing and they were just as bewildered as she was.
"That was awkward as hell, that's what that was," Emmett laughed. "Is there something going on between Bella and the wolf?"
"A few hours ago, I would've said no, but now?" Alice shrugged. "I know Jacob thinks he's in love with her, and her reaction when she learned about imprinting was weird. Was she disappointed he hadn't imprinted on her?" she asked Jasper.
Jasper debated how to answer that. He tried to be respectful of people's privacy where his gift was concerned, but he honestly couldn't really make heads or tails of Bella's emotions that afternoon. She was a tangled mess of contradictions. "She was," he eventually answered. "But that doesn't necessarily translate into her being in love with Jacob, because she's not."
"Then why the disappointment?" Esme asked.
"I have no idea," Jasper admitted. "I'm not sure I know Bella well enough to answer that with any degree of certainty."
Alice thought about everything she'd seen when she arrived back in Forks, and what she'd learned from talking to both Bella and her father. "I know she leaned on Jacob really heavily while we were gone. She completely fell apart and credits him with putting her back together again. She doesn't return his feelings, or at least she didn't then, but she acted a little bit like a girlfriend - enough that Jacob's friends assumed they were a couple - and never came right out and told him she didn't feel the same. I think she was afraid he'd stop hanging out with her all the time if he knew he had no shot."
"So she was taking advantage of his feelings for her so she didn't have to be alone?" Rosalie asked.
Alice hesitated. "No, I'm not sure I would put it like that. She thinks of him as her best friend, and she didn't want to lose her friend."
Everyone else felt just as skeptical as Rosalie looked.
"As callous as this sounds, I'm not sure Jacob versus Edward is all that relevant at this point," Emmett said after a moment. "The Volturi are expecting her to be changed."
Jasper couldn't help agreeing with him. "I can't say categorically that Bella's feelings for Edward and Jacob aren't conflicted, but what she isn't conflicted about is her desire to become a vampire. She still wants that just as desperately as she always has. Which leads me to believe that she's less conflicted about Jacob than maybe it appears she is."
Rosalie scowled but kept quiet. She thought the girl's eagerness to throw her life away for a boy who tried to control her every move was foolish and stupid, but Edward had backed them into a corner by going to the Volturi. Bella Swan would be joining the family, whether Rosalie wanted her to or not.
"We should probably talk about Leah," Jasper said, wanting to change the subject. Not a single member of the family who'd been in that clearing, Edward included, had been pleased with Bella by the time Edward had ushered her back to the Jeep, and talking about her was just extending that sour mood. "I have no expectation that I'll ever be allowed in the wolves' territory, but I don't want Leah to be constrained the same way."
"You want her to be able to cross the treaty line onto our land?" Esme clarified.
"Yes," Jasper nodded. "If she can't come into our territory, we can only spend time together on land that's not claimed by either group."
"I agree with Jasper," Alice nodded with a smile, and Rosalie and Emmett nodded their agreement also. "Edward's going to try to argue against it," she warned.
"He can try but he won't get very far," Esme said with an exasperated sigh. "Unless he wants his own mate's access to him restricted, he has no grounds to attempt to restrict Leah's access to Jasper."
"Ha!" Alice laughed. "Can you imagine his reaction if you told him Bella had specific visiting hours?"
"What about Seth and Paul?" Emmett asked. "If Leah can come and go as she pleases, maybe they should be allowed to also. It's obvious how close she is to both of them, and it feels wrong to tell her she's welcome in our home but her brother and best friend aren't."
"I have no problem with that, and I can't imagine Carlisle will either," Esme answered.
Rosalie looked at Jasper a little uncertainly. "I'm inclined to agree with Emmett but…"
"No one else," Jasper immediately assured her. "Having met Seth and Paul, I'm comfortable with giving them permission to come and go, but for the moment, I don't think the other wolves should be included in the exception. Sam Uley and Jacob Black are both extremely hostile towards our family, and without meeting the other wolves to get a read on them, the idea of them being permitted to come into our territory makes me incredibly uneasy."
Rosalie breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Jasper understood her concerns and agreed with her.
Everyone heard the sound of running feet approaching, and Jasper looked at Esme curiously. "Did you talk to Carlisle?"
"No, I only texted back that we were still here. Why?"
Jasper smiled and rolled his eyes. "I think Edward tried to get him on his side before we could talk to him, but I have a feeling it didn't go the way he was hoping it would."
"What do you mean?" Emmett asked, his nose scrunched up a little in confusion.
"Carlisle is happy," Jasper laughed. "Completely over the moon with joy."
"Of course I am!" Carlisle exclaimed as he broke through the trees. "How could I not be? You've been waiting for this day for such a very long time!"
"Nicely done," Rosalie laughed. "You managed to congratulate him and get in a jab at how old he is."
Carlisle plopped himself on the ground in between Esme and Jasper. "I'm talented that way," he smiled, then turned that smile on Jasper.
When Jasper felt his hope, anticipation, and hesitation, he returned the smile and nodded. Jasper hadn't always been comfortable with physical contact due to his time in the south, and that particular cocktail of emotions was the way Carlisle silently asked if Jasper would allow a hug. It had been decades since he'd said no, but Carlisle still 'asked' out of respect. Jasper found it sweetly endearing.
Carlisle wasted no time throwing his arms around Jasper and practically bombarded him with joy and excitement. "Congratulations, Jasper. I'm so happy for you."
It was a little bit of an awkward hug, what with both of them sitting on the ground, but Jasper just let himself soak up Carlisle's warm emotions while letting him feel his own happiness and gratitude. It meant a lot to him that most of the family was so excited he'd finally found his mate. "Thank you."
"So. Tell me everything," Carlisle said as he pulled back. "I'm assuming you had knowledge Leah was your mate and that's why you proposed training the wolves?"
"That was part of it," Jasper nodded, then launched into the tale from the moment he started feeling the gentle tug on his heart. "And everyone sitting here agrees that Leah, Seth, and Paul should be allowed to come into our territory without restrictions," he said as he got to the end of the story.
Carlisle nodded his understanding as he thought through everything he'd just learned. "There's nothing in their emotions related to us that are a cause for concern?" he asked.
"No, not from those three. Sam Uley and Jacob Black, yes. Which is why I'm not comfortable extending that courtesy to the other wolves."
"I have no problem with that," Carlisle said with a smile. "You and Leah deserve to have the same access to each other that the other mated pairs in our family have."
"Alice said Edward is going to try to argue against this. Did he call you already?" Emmett asked.
"He did," Carlisle said with the same exasperated sigh Esme had let out earlier. "I reminded him that Bella had the freedom to come and go as she pleased, and that unless he wanted Bella's access restricted, he should think long and hard about attempting to restrict Leah's access. I also pointed out that he and Bella could still spend time together at the Swan's house if he didn't want to risk the 'danger' of being around a wolf, whereas Jasper doesn't have any other options except for unclaimed territory."
All the siblings smiled at how similar Carlisle's thinking was to Esme's. Carlisle might be the coven leader, but the two of them made virtually all decisions together, and the safety, security, and happiness of every member of the coven was always in the forefront of their minds.
They'd been a good example to Jasper for the past seventy years about how a mated pair should work - they were separate individuals with their own interests, but they respected each other, worked as a team, and both had equal power in their relationship. Carlisle's opinion didn't hold any more weight than Esme's, and if they ever disagreed on anything, they talked it through until they came up with a compromise both of them were happy with.
Because the other siblings had a relationship like theirs to help guide them, they were all a little dismayed that Edward hadn't seemed to absorb any of the same lessons in how he approached his relationship with Bella. Both Carlisle and Esme had spoken to him multiple times about treating his mate as an equal, but Edward argued every time that Bella was a human, which he somehow interpreted to mean that they were not, in fact, equal, and that his job was keeping her safe no matter the cost.
It was the cause of a lot of tension in their home. Because of their history, Esme and Rosalie were especially uncomfortable with relationships where one person had more power than the other. Rosalie didn't particularly like Bella, but she also didn't like the way Edward treated her as his to control. It was actually one of the reasons she didn't much care for the human - she was so enamored with the telepath that she basically let him walk all over her, never standing up for herself.
"Thanks, Carlisle. I appreciate your support," Jasper said with a smile. "Now, if y'all will excuse me, I have a date to arrange."
Leah was just closing the front door behind her when Sam walked out of the trees. She ignored him and walked to her car.
"Lee-Lee, please—"
"Don't, Sam," she snapped, her steps not faltering. "You don't get to call me that anymore."
"Be reasonable, Leah. This is dangerous."
Leah paused with her hand on the door handle. "Me seeing my imprint is dangerous? For who exactly?" she asked.
"For you, for all of us," Sam growled. "You know we can't trust the bloodsuckers, yet you're about to drive right up to their crypt? This is foolish and you know it."
Leah rolled her eyes and got in the car. She was about to go on her very first date with Jasper and she'd be damned if Sam Uley ruined her mood. When he moved to stand at the bottom of the driveway, she simply rolled her eyes again, put her car in reverse, and started backing out.
"You can either move or I can run you over, but either way, I'm leaving. If I run you over, I'm not stopping, so make a decision," she snapped as she reversed.
Sam glared at her through the back window, but Leah didn't so much as hesitate. Realizing that she was fully prepared to hit him, he moved out of the way at the last second. As Leah drove down the street, she looked in the rearview mirror and saw that her mom and Seth were standing on the front porch, both looking beyond pissed as Sue laid into Sam.
Good, Leah smiled to herself. It was about time Sam had to answer for his behavior. He'd been told by the elders not to interfere, yet there he was, interfering, just like Leah knew he would.
It had been a long twenty-four hours for Leah. She'd been on patrol the night before with Paul and Embry, which was actually not as bad as it could've been. She and Embry were decent enough friends, and while he was a little grossed out that her imprint was a vamp, his desire for Leah to be happy outweighed his disgust at the vampire race. He couldn't imagine ever choosing to spend time with a vamp, but he didn't give Leah too much of a hard time.
Sam wasn't on patrol and had no need to phase, but in the early hours of the morning, his mind joined their weird telepathic link. He made some excuse about investigating a noise in the woods near his house, which was absolute bullshit and they all knew it. He was taking advantage of their pack-mind to get a read on Leah's thoughts, and to find out what transpired in the clearing after he left. It's how he knew she was going to the Cullen's to meet Jasper that evening.
She knew it was also the reason he hadn't attempted to give her an Alpha Command to stay away from her imprint - he'd seen that Sue already told her the elders had forbid him to do that.
Old Quil and Billy Black had paid a visit that afternoon to find out everything that happened straight from Leah. They were perfectly aware that Sam and Jacob weren't the most impartial when it came to Leah in the former's case, and the Cullens in the latter's.
Leah had been a little nervous that Billy's feelings about the whole weird situation with Jacob and Bella would predispose him to be judgmental about her imprinting on a Cullen, but his thinking was pretty similar to Embry's. He wanted Leah to be happy more than he hated vamps. Both men were slightly wary and cautioned her to be on guard around the whole family, but they reiterated what her mom had already told her - she had their support, and they were pleased she'd been fortunate enough to find her soulmate.
It had been a long conversation, and some of it had been a little uncomfortable, but it was ultimately positive. Leah's father had been an elder before he'd died, so Leah and Seth had always been close to Billy and Old Quil, and she was grateful they were firmly in her corner.
Leah was surprised by how not nervous she was as she drove into Forks. She didn't know if it was because of how at ease she was with Jasper specifically, or if it was just because of how powerful the imprint was, but she supposed it didn't matter much. She wasn't nervous, so it was a win regardless of the reason.
By the time she was pulling up the Cullen's long driveway, she'd made quite a long list of questions she was curious about. How do you even go about getting to know someone as old as Jasper? A hundred and seventy-six years was a hell of a lot of time to catch up on.
Jasper had very kindly called her earlier in the day to remind her that Edward was a telepath, and if there was anything she didn't want him knowing, he urged her to try and push it to the back of her mind while in his vicinity. He explained the different ways the family kept their thoughts private so that Leah could do the same.
Leah wasn't sure she could translate War and Peace into Italian - when Jasper told her that was one of the ways Alice kept her thoughts private, Leah had snorted with laughter and said she just barely managed to speak proper English most days - but song lyrics were right up her alley. On finding out Edward was particularly disdainful of country music, she'd downloaded some on her phone to listen to on the car ride over.
If she purposefully chose songs that were slightly awful with a lot of repetitive lyrics that got stuck in your head? Well, Edward Cullen seemed like a dick, so no one would blame her probably.
As Leah turned off her car and got out, Jasper stepped out the front door with a smile. "Hey," she grinned as she walked up the front steps onto the wide porch. "Nice digs."
"Tell Esme that and she'll like you even more than she already does," Jasper laughed. "Did you find the driveway okay?" he asked, taking her hand.
"I did," she nodded, inwardly squealing a little at getting to hold his hand again. She'd have to rein that in, because she had no interest in being a fangirl cliché for anyone, imprint or not.
"I know we're hardly typical teenagers on their first date, but Carlisle would very much like to meet you. Do you mind coming in for a minute?"
"He wants to meet me or he wants to embarrass you like a real dad?" Leah teased.
"Both," Jasper laughed. "Expect jokes about curfews and a mini-lecture about how he's counting on us to make responsible choices while we're out."
Leah laughed, thinking Carlisle sounded like an alright guy. She'd already met the rest of the family, and that had mostly gone well. "That's fine," she nodded.
Jasper opened the door and held it open for her, and he didn't miss that she seemed to take a deep breath as she walked by him. He'd have to ask her about that at some point. Seth had said the vamps smelled pretty bad to them - cloyingly sweet, like burnt sugar - and the other wolves smelled pretty yuck to the vamps, but Jasper didn't find Leah at all yuck-smelling. He thought she smelled like the forest during a rain storm, like earthy moss and petrichor.
"Hi, Leah," Alice said with a bright smile as they walked in the living room.
Jasper rolled his eyes with a huff of laughter that the entire family had joined Carlisle and Esme, who'd been reading together on the loveseat when he'd heard Leah's car approaching. Fortunately Edward was at the Swan's, so they didn't have to deal with his attitude. Jasper had purposely avoided him since the afternoon before, completely unwilling to have any conversation about his mate with the boy.
Leah gave Alice, and the rest of the Cullens, a wave. "Hi."
"Welcome to our home, Leah," Esme greeted her with a warm smile. "I know you've met everyone else, but this dashing man beside me is my husband, Carlisle. Who has promised not to embarrass Jasper or any guests in our home," she said sternly, playfully glaring at her mate.
"I wasn't going to embarrass anyone," Carlisle protested with a smile. "Reminding Jasper and Leah to make responsible choices while they're out isn't embarrassing, it's just sound advice."
"Which reminds me, what time is Jasper's curfew? I'd hate for him to be grounded because I kept him out too late," Leah said, keeping a remarkably straight face, even when all the Cullens started laughing.
Carlisle smiled and stayed seated, not wanting to make Leah uncomfortable. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Leah Clearwater."
"You, too, sir," Leah said as she slowly walked over and held her hand out. She didn't want to make any of the vamps nervous, but she also felt like it would reflect poorly on her family and her tribe if she didn't greet the coven leader with the same respect he showed Ephraim Black on meeting him back in the 1930s.
Jasper smiled as he watched his mate walk over to shake Carlisle's hand.
Carlisle slowly stood up and shook her hand with a warm smile. "Thank you."
Leah's head tipped to the side a little in confusion. "For shaking your hand?"
"For that, but also for that," Carlisle said as he pointed at the smile on Jasper's face.
"I swear y'all share a brain," Jasper laughed. Feeling Carlisle's confusion, he gestured to Esme. "That's almost exactly the same thing Esme said yesterday."
Carlisle smiled at his wife. "I can't think of any better compliment."
"Okay, ew, can you be sickeningly sweet in private please?" Emmett groaned.
"My mom and dad were like that, too," Leah said with a little smile as she stepped back to Jasper's side. She had so many happy memories of her dad and she was determined not to let her grief keep her from remembering the wonderful things. "They used to finish each other's sentences."
Carlisle gave her a sympathetic smile as he sat back down. "I was so sorry to hear about his passing. I never met him in person, but I spoke to him before we moved back to the area."
"He was a good man. A good husband, a good father," Leah said quietly. She slipped her hand back in Jasper's, and he gave it a gentle squeeze in support.
"So what's the plan for tonight?" Emmett asked, hoping to lighten the mood a little. He didn't know Leah much, hardly at all really, but she was his favorite brother's mate, so he didn't want to see her looking so sad.
Jasper rolled his eyes with a smile. "It hasn't changed since you asked twenty minutes ago, Em."
"Excuse me," Emmett huffed. "I believe it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind, so I figured it couldn't hurt to ask."
Leah gave Rosalie an appreciative smile. She wasn't as good at reading people as her little brother was, but she was observant and paid attention. Emmett's respect and love for Rosalie was clear on his face every time he looked at her, just as Rosalie's was when she looked at him.
"Same plan. A bookstore in Port Angeles and a stop for coffee. And maybe a snack," Leah told the behemoth. "Coffee and a snack for me," she added when Emmett's nose scrunched up a little. "No snacks are on offer for Jasper."
Emmett and Alice both laughed. "What, no blood kink?" Emmett asked with a dimpled grin.
"Okay," Jasper laughed. "I'm one hundred percent certain that's our cue to leave," he said, making a beeline for the door and towing Leah along behind him.
"It was nice meeting you, Dr. Cullen," Leah said over her shoulder with a very un-Leah-like giggle. "Nice to see you again, other Cullens."
"I expect you home before midnight, Jasper," Carlisle called. "Damn, I wish he hadn't graduated last year, I could've told him it was eleven on a school night," he muttered to himself.
Jasper shook his head with a laugh. His family was completely ridiculous. Feeling Leah's curiosity as he led her outside, he smiled at her. "No, I don't really have a curfew. Carlisle just thinks he's hilarious."
Leah laughed when she heard Carlisle's very indignant reply. "That's because I am hilarious."
Leah looked around the little coffee shop as she waited for her order. There were a few tables near the front of the store, but the back was made up of several small sitting areas, some just a pair of overstuffed armchairs, one made up of a couch and loveseat. It was a cozy place that Leah immediately felt comfortable in.
It was no secret that the Cullens were ridiculously wealthy, so she'd been slightly worried that Jasper would take her somewhere she didn't feel like she fit in. Fortunately he was just as casual and down to earth as she was, so both the bookstore and coffee shop were places she could see herself happily returning to.
"Thank you," she said with a smile as the nice woman who'd taken her order handed her a steaming mug. She made her way to the armchairs tucked into the back corner that Jasper had immediately snagged when they walked in, and carefully sat down beside him, making a concerted effort not to spill her coffee on herself. It smelled way too good to lose even a single drop. "I like it here," she said quietly. "How'd you find this place?"
Jasper smiled at her. "I walked past it one day after leaving the bookstore and it looked like a nice place to sit and read. I wasn't in a hurry to go home, so I figured I'd waste a few hours here instead. And I may not be able to drink coffee, but it smells really good, so that was a nice bonus."
"Have you tried it? Coffee, I mean. You know, in this body," she said as she gestured at his vampiness.
Jasper shuddered a little. "Once. There isn't a lot of human food that smells good to me - and by not a lot, I mean literally nothing besides coffee - so I thought maybe it would taste as good as it smelled. It won't be a mistake I make again."
"That bad, huh?" Leah laughed quietly.
"Worse. Whatever you're imagining, it's worse."
Leah grinned at how serious his expression was. Thank god she didn't have vamp tastebuds, because coffee was one of her absolute favorite things. "Why didn't you want to go home?" she asked curiously.
"You mean the day I found this place?" he clarified, and Leah nodded. During the drive to Port Angeles, they'd kept their conversation pretty casual, deciding to hold off on any weightier topics. They'd mostly just asked general 'getting to know you' questions about each other's families and interests, nothing about the supernatural world or their places within it. "Being an empath is useful in a lot of ways, but it can also be a bit of a curse sometimes. I don't just feel my own thirst, I feel the thirst of any of my family members I'm near. Home used to be my escape from that constant onslaught, the one place I didn't have to constantly be on guard or feel the fire in my throat from being around humans. But then Edward got involved with Bella and started bringing her to the house."
Leah nodded her understanding. "So your 'escape' was gone. Why didn't he just hang out with her at the Swan's house?" she asked. "Does he know your gift affects you like that?"
Jasper nodded. "He does. But Edward doesn't tend to think about much outside of his own desires, so I doubt it even occurred to him in the beginning that him bringing a human into our house was a strain on me. And with Bella being his singer, it's exponentially worse than it would be with any other human. After the first few times she visited, both Alice and Esme talked to him about it but he wasn't willing to compromise. He just said Bella was his mate so she has every right to be there. And he's right, I can't argue with that," he shrugged. "So I started spending more time out of the house, sometimes on my own, sometimes with the others. If I'm doing something in the human world, like sitting in here reading for a few hours, I prefer to do it on my own so I don't feel the bleed-off from anyone else's thirst."
Leah frowned a little. That sounded pretty miserable. Her own wolf-sized appetite was enough of a pain, and she wondered how she'd cope if she had to feel the pack's hunger all the time on top of it. With the amount of food they consumed, she'd be the size of a house.
"Do I make you thirsty?" she asked worriedly. "Is it going to be difficult spending time with me?"
Jasper reached over and took her hand with a smile, marveling at how hot her skin was. "No, you don't smell at all like food. None of the wolves do."
Leah wondered what they smelled like to the vamps. Was that a question she needed the answer to? Did she want to know if their scent made her imprint nauseous? No, no she didn't.
"What's a singer?" she asked instead. "And while you answer that, any chance I can get you to stick a finger in my coffee for a few seconds to cool it down?"
Jasper laughed and picked up her coffee, discreetly holding it so his thumb was inside the lip of the mug. "They're clean," he assured her with a smile when she looked at the hand she was holding a little more closely than she needed to. "A singer is a human who smells ridiculously delicious to a particular vamp. They're called that because their blood 'sings' to them, or so I'm told. I've never actually come across one. Here, see if that helped," he said as he handed her coffee to her.
Leah blew across the top of the mug and took a careful sip, making a note to ask some follow-up questions to that particular info drop at some point.
"Perfect," she sighed happily. "So, are you ready for me to launch into the long ass list of questions I've mentally compiled? I have almost two centuries to learn about and you need to be home by midnight."
Jasper laughed as he nodded and gave his mate's warm hand a gentle squeeze. "Ask away."