A/N: This ends on a teeny tiny cliff, so the next chapter will be up tomorrow. Thanks for reading and reviewing:)

Speculation

Jasper tossed his book on the coffee table with a growl of frustration and stomped over to fling his door open. "Either knock and come in or go and do that angsting up in your room, but make up your damn mind," he snapped. "You're giving me whiplash."

Edward's eyes went a little wide. Not only was Jasper typically polite and good-mannered, even when he was irritated, he was also discreet enough with his gift - far more discreet than Edward himself ever was - that Rosalie wasn't the only one who sometimes forget he even had one. And Edward had been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn't been listening to Jasper's increasing frustration at his indecisive pacing outside the door to his study.

"And you're giving me a headache," Alice grumbled from down the hall.

"Sorry," Edward said with a little laugh of embarrassment. "Are those my only two options, or can I come in and do some angsting in there?" he asked Jasper, gesturing to the open doorway.

Jasper looked at him for a moment before sighing and stepping back to let Edward walk past him. "If you must."

While Jasper went to sit back down, Edward wasted some time pretending to read the titles of all the books on his floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, as if he'd never seen them before. For the first minute, Jasper rolled his eyes and ignored him, but at about the ninety second mark he couldn't help it and started chuckling. "Quit stalling and just spit it out, kid."

Edward turned to him with that familiar scowl. "Just because I'm not as old as you doesn't mean I'm a kid."

"Then perhaps you should stop acting like a child," Jasper said with another sigh. "Just sit down and get to your real reason for bothering me."

Edward's scowl fell away, leaving him looking like nothing more than an insecure seventeen-year old, so Jasper forced himself to shove aside his irritation and frustration with the telepath.

"Come on, come sit down," he said in a kinder tone. "You're not bothering me," he assured him as he set aside his book again.

Edward dropped his eyes to the floor and shuffled his feet a few times before sighing and falling into an armchair across from Jasper. "I just… How is it so easy for you?" he asked.

Jasper looked at him in surprise for a few moments. "How is what so easy for me?" he asked. "I'm not sure there's a whole lot in the last century and a half that I'd categorize as 'easy'. Good? Absolutely. Easy? Not so much."

Edward shrugged a little. He knew enough to know Jasper wasn't being sarcastic or flip. Much of his life was far more difficult than anything Edward had ever faced, or ever would face in the future. In his more honest, and less self-absorbed, moments of reflection he could acknowledge to himself that he would never have survived life in Maria's army. Not for a month, and certainly not for seventy-five years. He might not always treat Jasper with a whole lot of respect, but he did respect him. A little. Sometimes. "You're a stronger man than I am," Edward admitted quietly. "A better man."

"Is that what you came in here to tell me?" Jasper asked with an amused smile. "Because I already know that."

Edward smiled a little and rolled his eyes, then got down to his real reason for pacing the hallway outside Jasper's study. "Since you met Leah… everything's been so easy for you."

Jasper looked at him a little incredulously. "Okay, let's forget for a minute that one shitty issue after another has popped up as a result of us being mates," he said with a pointed look. "Do you think it might, just might, have anything to do with the fact that I'm not a dick?"

Edward scowled at him. "I'm not a…"

Jasper sighed when he trailed off there. "A dick, Edward. It's okay to say the word," he assured him while rolling his eyes. "Would 'asshole' be more comfortable for you to say? Because you're often one of those lately, too."

"No I'm not," Edward huffed.

Unfortunately for him, all of his siblings had super-hearing. "Yes you are!" Alice, Rosalie, and Emmett all called out from around the house.

Jasper smiled when Edward looked towards the door with a frown. "So am I guessing correctly that you've been rooting around in my head and saw how I spent my evening?" he asked, wanting to get this whole thing moving so he still got to enjoy some peace and quiet before the sun rose.

Rather than answering, Edward just shrugged again.

"I'm sitting here willing to talk to you, even though you've gone out of your way to lash out at both me and my mate," Jasper said a little more forcefully. "You've spent a good portion of your time recently making this a very unhappy home to be in, Edward, so either act your actual, chronological age and talk to me like the mature man you seem to think you are, or keep on acting like an eternal seventeen-year old and find somewhere to spend your time that isn't my study."

Edward growled in frustration, though whether it was aimed at himself or Jasper, he couldn't say with any degree of honesty. "They all like you! Sue went to the extraordinary step of petitioning the council to let you cross into Quileute territory just so you could go to her house! You're the only exception that's been made in hundreds and hundreds of years! Bella's dad seems to actually enjoy your company and even invited you fishing! You!" he exclaimed. "Leah accepted you so easily right off the bat and the two of you don't argue or disagree and even Paul likes you and he hates vampires!"

Jasper just sat patiently and let him rant for a couple minutes more until he got it all out of his system. Once he wound down and let out a dejected sigh, Jasper raised an eyebrow. "You done?"

"I guess," Edward muttered. "I'm sure I'll think of more things later."

"I'm sure you will," Jasper laughed. "Look, Edward. It all boils down to what I said before - I'm not a dick. Wait, let me finish before you start arguing. The things that you see as coming so 'easy' to me have happened because I'm not an asshole, with the exception of Sue petitioning the council. She did that before she'd even met me. If Leah had imprinted on you and you made her smile, I have no doubt that Sue would've petitioned the council on your behalf. That was less about me specifically and more about how much she loves her daughter," he explained. "Does Charlie like me? Yes, he does. I'm not the kid who broke his daughter's heart, monopolizes her time, and tries to control her every breath. You and I are very different people, Edward, and Charlie isn't some dumb, small-town hick. He didn't just accidentally fall into the role of Police Chief. He's smart and observant and he sees the differences between how you treat Bella and how I treat Leah, not to mention how we both treat him."

"Obviously not that observant," Edward muttered petulantly under his breath. "He hasn't noticed any of the weird things about us or the fact that her 'best friend' turns into a giant animal."

"Are you so sure of that?" Jasper asked sharply. "Just because he respects the right to privacy of the people around him, particularly those people he loves most, doesn't mean he hasn't taken any notice."

"What?" Edward asked in surprise.

"You can't hear his thoughts clearly and you've spent no time getting to know him, so don't presume you know what the man's thinking," Jasper snapped, before wrangling his irritation again and pushing it aside. "You've been my brother for a long time, and I love you, but it's no secret that I don't like you much lately. I don't know what's happened to you since you met Bella, but from what I can see, the two of you bring out the worst in each other. You want to know why my relationship with Leah seems so much 'easier' than yours? It's not because she's a supernatural being whereas Bella's human. It's because I respect her opinion and her point of view, and she and I actually communicate with each other. We haven't agreed about everything but we also haven't stopped talking since we met. And I don't mean grilling her about her favorite color or which season she prefers," he added. "I mean open, honest communication, even when it's uncomfortable. If you want a better relationship with your mate, perhaps you should start there."

"What have you disagreed about?" Edward asked with a scowl. "I've never heard you argue."

"You've hardly been around us, and when you have, you've done nothing but behave like a spiteful child," Jasper snapped, giving up completely on keeping his irritation from showing. "We haven't argued yet but that doesn't mean every moment since I met her has been 'easy'. You think it was 'easy' telling her about my past?" he challenged. "You think she didn't have any negative reaction to learning about my time in the south? Of course she did, and I expected her to, but did that keep me from telling her? Of course not. Just because a truth is ugly or uncomfortable doesn't mean it should be kept a secret."

Edward opened his mouth but Jasper wasn't done yet.

"You think Leah didn't have any issues with me threatening Sam? You think it didn't bother her a little that I threatened Sam's loved ones?" he asked. "We figured out the best way forward together because I immediately told her what I'd done. I didn't try to hide it from her just so I didn't have to run the risk of dealing with an upset mate. She and I are equals, Edward. Our voices carry the exact same weight."

"And that's why he's the better man, Edward," Rosalie said quietly from the doorway, with none of the vitriol that was so often in her voice when she spoke to the telepath. "Not because he managed to survive Maria."

Jasper opened his mouth but then closed it and looked at the wall that separated his study from Alice's room. After a moment, he turned back to Edward. "Assuming Bella doesn't get sick of your possessiveness and your efforts to control her, the two of you have a very, very long future ahead of you," he said, his voice slightly gentler. "You need to give some thought to how you want that future to play out. You have two couples in this house who you can look to in order to see how a mated pair should function, so maybe open your eyes a little more and open your mouth a little less."

Before Edward could answer, probably defensively, Jasper stood up and strode out of the room. Edward watched him go looking slightly insulted, as if Jasper had dismissed him before he was ready, but Rosalie's concern was clear on her face as she watched her twin walk into Alice's bedroom without knocking. That wasn't at all like him. Alice had told him more times than Rose could count that he didn't have to knock, but he always did. Always.

"What is it?" Jasper asked quietly as he sat down on the edge of Alice's bed and reached for her hand. He'd felt the jolt in her emotions that signaled she was being pulled into a vision, and then she was filled with uncertainty, fear, and an unmistakable sense of dread. It had started right after Rose told Edward why Jasper was the better man.

Alice wasted no time throwing her arms around him when she blinked her way back to the present, but just as quickly, she scrambled off him and lunged for her phone that was sitting on her desk. Her fingers were nothing but a blur on the keypad, but Jasper didn't need to see what number she dialed to know who she'd called, and he felt his own sense of dread rising.

Just as he'd expected, it was Peter's voice that answered. "Hey Ali."

"When's the last time you saw Maria?" Alice asked so quickly that her words bled together.

There was silence on the line for a moment and Rosalie walked in and stood beside Jasper, her hand gently gripping his shoulder. Within the span of a single human heartbeat, Emmett and Edward were standing silently in the doorway to Alice's room.

"1974, but you already know that," Peter answered slowly.

"And not since? Not recently?" Alice asked, a franticness in her voice that Jasper hadn't heard in a long time. Seventy years, to be exact.

"No. I would've told you both if we'd run into her, you know that," Peter gently reminded her. "What's happened?"

Alice closed her eyes and her shoulders slumped. "I don't know. Maybe nothing. It's been such a long time since I've had a vision of her and… I guess I just assumed I'd never have to 'see' her again."

Jasper reached for her hand again and gently tugged her closer. "What did you see?" he asked softly.

"She's traveling on her own somewhere and she runs across a nomad. She asks him if he knows our family," she explained as she sat beside him, and Rosalie's very unnecessary breath caught in her throat.

"Can you tell what part of the country she's in?" Jasper asked her calmly, trying not to immediately jump to the worst case scenario.

Alice looked up at him with eyes that were clouded with frustration, anger, and fear. He didn't need his gift to know what she was feeling. "No," she shook her head.

"You made the distinction that she was traveling," Peter pointed out through the phone. "So you saw enough to know she's not in her typical haunt?"

"What color were her eyes when she asked about us?" Jasper asked her before she could answer Peter.

"Red," Alice answered immediately.

Jasper nodded at the same time as Peter hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I guess that's something," he said.

"What's something?" Emmett asked in confusion from the doorway.

Jasper looked up at him with a small smile. "Maria's biggest tell has always been her eyes. She could be whispering endearments in the most convincing manner but her eyes always gave her away," he explained. "Any time she was upset - and it didn't matter to what degree, she could be mildly irritated or filled with murderous rage - her eyes would be black."

"You said she was traveling alone, Alice?" Charlotte asked through the phone.

Alice replayed the brief vision from beginning to end again a few times to make sure she wasn't missing anything. "I think so. She's definitely on her own when she meets the nomad and the other flashes of her running all show her alone."

"Well that's another something," Peter said.

"What's another something?" Emmett asked, but then held up his hand to stop anyone from answering him. "Never mind, just took me a second. If she was looking for a fight she'd have a newborn or ten with her, right?"

"Doesn't even have to be newborns," Jasper answered. "She'd never look for us alone, period, if she was coming with some kind of confrontation in mind. Maria is a lot of things, but stupid isn't on that list. She knows she stands no chance against our family on her own. And she knows me just as well as I know her, so I'm sure she assumes I've already taught y'all to fight, so we're not defenseless."

Emmett cleared his throat and gave his other brother a pointed stare, making Alice smile a little. "I do admire your ability to subtly throw shade even in the midst of this mess," she complimented Emmett.

Edward ignored the implied reminder that he never really let Jasper train him with the others and hesitantly cut in. "I'm aware that there are other priorities than this, but I don't want Maria anywhere near Bella. Whether or not she's trying to find us with the intention of starting a fight, I'd prefer Bella never come within a hundred miles of that woman."

Jasper immediately nodded his understanding, as did his other siblings. They could all defend themselves, even Leah was capable of protecting herself to an extent. Bella, on the other hand, couldn't. "You're right, there are other priorities, but that doesn't make that particular point unimportant," Jasper answered. "I completely understand your concern."

"So… what? You go looking for her before she finds us?" Rosalie asked Jasper, then crossed her arms and glared at him. "It'll be a cold day in hell before I let you put that stupid fucking plan in motion, Jasper Whitlock."

Jasper's eyebrows shot up and he huffed a laugh. "I didn't even say anything!"

"You didn't have to say anything, you were thinking it," Rose snapped. Jasper just looked at her with a soft smile for a moment but didn't otherwise react or answer. He knew she was more scared than angry. Eventually she huffed a few times and then sat on the edge of the bed beside him. "If I'm willing to accept that you're a capable adult who has the right to make his own choices, then I'd just ask that you don't go alone. Take Alice or me or Emmett or Carlisle or Peter or Charlotte or–"

Jasper cut her off with a laugh and pulled her a little closer so he could hug her. Then he hugged her a little harder. Alice was sitting on Jasper's other side and she loved a good hug, so she just crawled right into Jasper's lap and then wriggled her way in, making both Hale twins laugh.

Once they got the hugging out of the way, Peter got them back on track. "Do you have a timeline?" Peter asked Alice.

Alice again reviewed the whole vision to see if anything could give her an idea of just how far into the future it would happen.

"Wait, go back," Edward said quickly. "There. That tree doesn't bloom until late April or early May and all of those blossoms are fully open. It's too common a tree to narrow the location down, and I don't know that I can give an exact timeframe, but I'd be willing to bet it's not for at least three weeks."

Seeing the surprise on the faces of his siblings in response, Edward just rolled his eyes.

Emmett laughed and threw an arm around his shoulders. "See? It pays to be the nerdy virgin of the family. You get to swoop in like that, throw a random piece of knowledge at us, and save the day."

Edward rolled his eyes again. "No one's saved the day yet, Emmett. Maria is still out there looking for Jasper. Or she's going to start looking soon."

"Maria didn't ask the nomad about Jasper specifically," Charlotte pointed out.

"What were her exact words?" Rosalie asked Alice.

"She says she's trying to find a coven she's heard rumors about, a group of seven who have gold eyes because they supposedly learned that they could survive on animal blood. She asks if he's heard any rumors like that, then asks if he's ever heard the names Carlisle or Cullen," Alice explained.

"And is it a nomad who knows any of us?" Jasper asked.

"No," Alice answered with a little laugh. "He tells Maria she's crazy if she believes rumors like that."

Peter's deep chuckle came through the phone. "And what color were her eyes then?"

"Black," Alice laughed. "He wisely hightailed it out of there before she could kill him."

"So why ask for Carlisle specifically or the coven in general if it's really only Jasper she wants to find?" Emmett asked, not really expecting an answer but feeling it was worth putting out there anyway.

"Maybe she knows finding Carlisle means she finds Jasper," Rose answered. "He claimed us as family when she found him in 1950, and when Peter and Charlotte crossed paths with her in 1974, Jasper was still with us."

That didn't feel quite right to Jasper. Unless Maria was trying to manipulate someone for her own benefit, she was unflinchingly honest. She wasn't the kind of woman who beat around the bush, always preferring to get straight to the point.

"Maybe in case Alice happened to get a vision of her asking about us?" Edward suggested, having heard Jasper's skeptical thoughts. "Rather than giving away that she's trying to find you, she pretends she's simply interested in the coven as a whole?"

Jasper immediately dismissed that. "No, she doesn't know about Alice's gift."

"You're sure of that?" Edward asked.

Jasper gave him a sharp look. He'd been laser-focused on Maria's emotions when she'd tracked him down in 1950 and there was nothing that made him think she knew about his gifted coven mates. There was no curiosity or interest aimed at either Alice or Edward. "Yes, just like I'm sure she doesn't know about your gift. Why, did you hear something different in her thoughts that day?"

"No, but that doesn't mean she wasn't aware," Edward said stubbornly.

Pretty much everyone rolled their eyes at that, including Peter and Charlotte all the way down in Texas.

"You seriously think that visit in Calgary would've played out the same way if she knew Alice could see the future and you could snoop in everyone's thoughts?" Rosalie asked him incredulously.

Emmett nodded his agreement. "If she knew we had a seer, a telepath, and the empath who'd deserted her twelve years prior? She would've blown this coven apart to get her hands on all three of you."

"And she's not like the Volturi," Jasper reminded Edward. "They're constrained by their own laws. Maria is constrained by nothing. If it benefited her and she thought she could get away with it, she'd have tracked us down with an army of newborns in order to get all three of us to work on her behalf."

Edward had to grudgingly agree with them. Maria was all about using and wanting every weapon at her disposal, and the combined gifts of Alice, Jasper, and himself had the potential to be a pretty mighty weapon.

Everyone spent the next hour throwing out possible scenario after possible scenario, and implausible suggestion after implausible suggestion. All Jasper was left with was frustration, because he felt like they were missing something. And aside from Peter and Charlotte, who were equally frustrated, none of the others knew Maria. They'd met her once seventy years earlier, but they didn't know her.

"Look, this is getting us nowhere," Jasper eventually sighed. "We can speculate all we want, but I don't think we're going to find any answers that don't come directly from Maria."

"He's right," Charlotte agreed. "There's something we're missing."

"Isn't that what your mate's supposed to be so good at?" Edward sneered in the direction of the phone. "Knowing wh–"

Jasper struck so quickly that Edward didn't even realize he'd moved until he felt his back slam into the wall behind him and Jasper's hand was wrapped around his throat hard enough to make cracks form in his skin. He wasn't growling or snarling or hissing, he was just looking at him with cold, hard eyes filled with fury.

Edward thought there was a strong possibility that Carlisle and Esme arriving home just then was the only thing standing between him and his final death. And it would be no one's fault but his own. He knew better, but he opened his mouth anyway. He'd denigrated Peter while speaking disrespectfully to Charlotte, all in the same breath. Jasper could tolerate a lot - far more than Edward could - but one thing he refused to tolerate was poor treatment of Peter and Charlotte. Edward had been given a pass the year before, mostly because he'd stayed close enough to Bella to keep an eye on her during their visit, which kept him from being rude directly to their faces.

Carlisle and Esme came to a stop at the top of the stairs and took in the scene in the hall. "What happened?" Carlisle asked calmly.

Jasper didn't speak or look away from Edward, nor did he have any plans to loosen his hold around his throat that Alice could see, so she popped her head out her bedroom door with a scowl aimed the telepath's way. "He snapped at Charlotte and tried to insult Peter."

"Edward," Esme sighed after a moment of heavy silence. "This has got to stop."

Edward didn't respond, nor did he move. Not only could he not speak while Jasper was crushing his throat, but his fear was too great. Jasper was still strongly considering just burning him where he stood and then dealing with whatever fallout came as a result.

Edward honestly wasn't sure if he would've attempted to defend himself even if he could have gotten the words out. Well, he was too stubborn for his own good so he probably would've at least made a token effort. But Edward knew he had crossed a line that all the Cullens had silently agreed to never cross. Jasper was protective to the extreme when it came to three people - Peter, Charlotte, and Alice. Four now with the addition of Leah, Edward corrected in his thoughts. Jasper was just as much a Cullen as Edward was, but he was also different in some fundamental ways from the rest of the family, and as he looked into Jasper's furious eyes mere inches from his, he was quite literally staring one of those ways in the face.

Carlisle looked in Alice's room and saw Emmett and Rose in there, both looking a combination of pissed off and worried, and heard rustling coming from the phone sitting on the bed, which he assumed was Peter and Charlotte. "What else happened?"

Alice worried her lip and hesitated for a moment before answering. "I had a vision of Maria," she said quietly. "She's going to be looking for us."

Carlisle and Esme practically exploded in shock. "What?" Esme breathed. "Why now? Why after all these years?"

Alice could only shrug. "I don't know. And we've been speculating for what feels like hours but we haven't gotten anywhere. There's something we're missing," she answered. "We don't know what the catalyst is for her decision to try and find us."

Esme gave Edward a sharp look. "And insulting Peter?"

"He's currently finding me less than helpful," Peter chuckled through the phone, though it quickly cut off and his voice turned harder. "Which is fine, I'm frustrated also. What is not fine is him speaking to my mate that way."

Edward closed his eyes when Jasper started growling lowly. The reminder that he'd snapped at Charlotte was doing nothing but lowering his chances of surviving this.

Carlisle calmly asked Alice to explain her vision in detail, then took a minute to think it all through. "You think Rosalie mentioning Maria's name was the trigger for the vision?" he asked her.

Alice shrugged again. "I'm not sure. I didn't search for her, though, if that's what you're asking."

Carlisle nodded. "And if you look for her now?"

Esme went and stood beside Jasper while Alice searched her visions. She didn't speak or try to get him to release his hold on Edward, she just stood beside him and tried to make her emotions as calm as possible to give him something to anchor himself with.

"She's in Mexico," Alice answered after she blinked herself back to the present. "I think. It could be Texas near the Mexican border."

Carlisle just nodded calmly again. "Peter, do you think the reason you don't know anything is because there's no true danger?" he asked.

There was silence on the line for a good thirty seconds. "I think it's probably more likely that there's no danger yet," Peter answered eventually.

When Alice started searching her visions again for any piece of information that might help them, Edward's eyes snapped open, but with Jasper's hand still crushing his throat, he couldn't speak.

Jasper felt the flash of recognition in him and loosened his hold a tiny bit, though his cold glare stayed just as piercing. "What?"

Edward managed to croak a single word. "Utah."

"You recognize something?" Carlisle asked sharply as he turned a gaze on him that was every bit as piercing as Jasper's. Edward just nodded because Jasper tightened his hand again. "Jasper," Carlisle said, his tone more gentle.

Jasper clenched his jaw and released the telepath but stayed where he was, so he was effectively still keeping Edward from moving.

"Arches," Edward answered after clearing his throat. "I don't know when it is in relation to the vision where she meets the nomad, but Maria's running somewhere near Arches National Park. Not in the park, but it's visible in the distance."

"Which direction?" Charlotte asked.

"East of her," Alice answered after she'd worked out the perspective of what Edward had seen in her mind. "She's running northwest with the park to her east."

There was silence in the room for a few long moments.

"So she's pretty much on a direct course from the Mexico-Texas border straight to Washington," Rosalie said, dread and anger rising inside her. "She's not looking for us. She already knows where we are."