A/N Twilight is the property of Stephanie Meyer. Anya Simms is all mine.

Chapter 14: Orphaned

APOV

Sunday AM Jan 16/05

I woke up with the lingering warmth of the fire against my back, the smell of ashes and burnt wood in the air. For a moment, I let myself believe I was back home, in Montreal, where the sound of my mom's laughter or the clatter of my dad's breakfast routine might greet me any second. But then reality sank in, sharp and cold, like the rough edge of the rug beneath me.

What had I done last night?

I pushed myself up slowly, the blanket falling away, and took in my surroundings. The room was dim, the fire a pile of ash. I hadn't meant to fall asleep down here, much less on the floor. But then again, last night had been... well, it had been a mess.

It had all started off so normally. I'd been working on my dissertation, happily engrossed in the world of the French Resistance, piecing together the lives of the ordinary women who had done extraordinary things. Dreamworld or not, research was still research, and I wasn't about to slack off just because I was stuck in some fictional backwater with a bunch of fictional vampires.

I'd been typing away, Leonard Cohen's voice in the background, his melancholy tone oddly comforting. Everything was fine. I was fine. Except... my thoughts kept drifting. Kept pulling me away from the words on the screen to something more personal, something I hadn't wanted to think about since I arrived in Forks.

My family.

We're close. I mean, really close. We called each other all the time, dropping in on one another without warning, always in and out of each other's lives. It was just how we were. Yet, in the two weeks I'd been here, not a single call from home. No texts. No check-ins. It was as if they'd disappeared.

At first, I'd chalked it up to the weirdness of this place—maybe American Anya's family was more scattered. Or they preferred letter writing. But that didn't explain why all the family photos in this house stopped at 1996. Not a single picture of my vibrant crazy family beyond that—no awkward high school dance photos, no graduation caps, no family vacations from my later teens.

Something had gnawed at me, a quiet fear growing louder. So, I did what anyone would do—I Googled myself. Simple, right? Just a quick search to put my mind at ease, to reassure myself that everything was fine, that they were just a phone call away.

Except they weren't.

What I found instead was a cold, clinical headline, buried in the archives of some Detroit newspaper. A freak car accident. No survivors. My family—my parents, my older sisters, and younger brothers—they'd all died years ago. When I was seventeen. Just like when the photos stopped.

My world had shattered in that moment. Everything I knew, everything I loved, had been wiped out in a blink. And here I was, alive and well—or at least this version of me was. But this wasn't my life. These weren't my memories. The Anya in this world had no family left. They were all gone. Dead.

I had no family in this world.

The grief that hit me was overwhelming and threated to take me under. I'd tried to breathe, tried to remind myself that this wasn't my real life, that I still had my family back in Montreal. But the weight of it—the weight of knowing that, in this twisted reality, I was utterly alone—was too much.

I broke.

I remember stumbling outside, the cold drizzle soaking through my clothes, but it hadn't mattered. Nothing had mattered. I'd wanted it all to end, to be done with this nightmare. To be done with this world of fictional vampires and the suffocating loneliness that came with knowing I was orphaned.

I'd even given him permission to kill me. Jasper. I knew he was out there, lurking in the shadows, watching me like some silent guardian—or predator. I didn't care which. I just wanted the pain to stop.

But he didn't. He didn't kill me. Instead, he did something else – something that washed over me like a blanket of calm, dulling the edges of my grief until I finally slipped into the oblivion I'd begged for.

Now, in the gray light of morning, with the fire dead and my body aching from the hard floor, the numbness was starting to wear off. The reality of my situation—of this twisted, fucked-up reality—was settling back in.

I was stuck here, in this world that wasn't mine. In a life that wasn't mine. My real family was still out there, back in Montreal, probably worried sick about me. No doubt huddled around my comatose body at the hospital while I was off singing and dancing in Meyer's Twilight. And all I wanted was to go back to them. To escape this place where nothing made sense, where I was trapped in someone else's nightmare.

That's when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I reached out to find my glasses, my fingers brushing over the familiar frames. I slid them on, and sure enough, there he was—the empath—watching me.

I felt the weight of his gaze settle on me. Jasper sat at my desk, quiet and still, but I could sense the tension in the room.

I wasn't stupid. Grief stricken, yes. Stupid, no.

He was waiting, probably running through a hundred different scenarios in his head, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. I'd told him I'd explain everything today, but there was no way I was rushing into that conversation without at least a little fun. I needed to find my equilibrium.

First things first, though—I needed to pee.

I stood up, stretching casually as if I hadn't just slept on the hard floor all night, and made my way through the house to the record player in the living room. His eyes and then his steps followed me, but he didn't say anything. I flipped through my collection until I found something suitably light-hearted—ABBA. Perfect.

He sat on the arm of the couch. Watching. Waiting.

The cheerful strains of "Dancing Queen" filled the house, and I couldn't help but sway to the music as I started up the stairs, deliberately taking my time. If he wanted answers, he was going to have to wait. I wasn't about to let a little existential crisis ruin my morning routine.

By the time I reached the bathroom, I was fully into the groove, humming along as I did my business. I took my time in the shower, letting the hot water wash away the remnants of last night's breakdown. I kept dancing, kept the mood light, even as the weight of everything lingered at the back of my mind.

What does one wear for a tête-à-tête with a bad boy vampire? I pondered the question as I rummaged through my closet, finally settling on something casual but comfy—stone-washed jeans with a slight flare, a soft cowl neck sweater that hugged me just right. I twisted my hair up into a messy bun, securing it with my trademark chopsticks, and then, just for good measure, spritzed on a bit of perfume. Lilacs and sunshine. A little reminder of the world I actually belonged to.

Feeling more like myself, I bounded down the stairs, still humming along to the next track, "Momma Mia". Jasper hadn't moved from his spot, though his eyes had darkened a shade as he watched me approach. His broody look was in full effect. It didn't suit him.

"I've been told to invite you to lunch," he said, his voice flat but edged with something I couldn't quite place.

I rolled my eyes. "I bet you were." Leave it to Alice to be the orchestrator of all things social, even when it involved existential crises and vampires.

I quickly stopped the record and then I grabbed my keys from the side table, tossed them to Jasper with a wide smile. "You're driving. But first, we're making a stop—for sushi."

For a moment, Jasper just stared at the keys in his hand, like he wasn't quite sure what to make of this turn of events. Then, without a word, he stood up, his movements smooth and fluid as always.

He followed me out to the car, the tension between us lightening just a little. I could tell he was still on edge, waiting for answers, but I wasn't in a rush. It's not like I had anywhere else to be.