A/N: Not me having writer's block and rewriting this chapter too many times. Shoutout to my brain for missing these fools and finally giving me the rewrite the broke the blockage

~.~

Hensley expected Bella to attack with hugs when they returned. What she had not expected, but probably should've, was that Bella would hug Jasper first.

Her mate hadn't expected it either, standing frozen on the edge of the living room. He looked down at Bella with a pitiful expression that made Hensley want to hug him as well. She knew he felt awful about Bella's birthday; they'd discussed it at length on the car ride back to Forks. Everyone in the vehicle had reassured Jasper that it was accident and to not be so hard on himself. Jasper hadn't taken any of their advice to heart.

"Bella, I-"

"Don't." Bella cut him off before Hensley moved to. Her voice was surprisingly hard and when she pulled back, her face was set in a stubbornly soft glare, "Don't you dare."

Not expecting such a reaction, or such a strong one, from her, Jasper just nodded. "Yes, Ma'am."

That caused Bella to break out into a grin and she pulled Jasper in once more to finish her welcome back hug. After she decided she had forced herself on Jasper enough, she moved to Lexi, hugging her with no doubt what was an equal force. "I'm so happy for you." Bella muttered, giving Lexi a squeeze.

It was one Hensley was more than happy to return.

As the girls reunited, Peter sauntered over, a smirk on his face that quickly fell into a genuine smile. He nudged Jasper's arm, not saying a word, but also saying everything he wanted to convey to his old friend.

Jasper returned the smile, nodding at Peter.

"Where's Davey? He ditch us?" Peter didn't have to look behind Jasper to know that Davey wasn't with them. His scent had faded from the house a couple days ago and hadn't returned with the rest of the group.

"He's not a clingy bitch like you, Peter." Hensley called over her shoulder, releasing Bella to see Peter's disappointed reaction. Jasper and Cooper laughed hard, no doubt having heard that from Davey himself a time or two. It was funny.

Peter mumbled something to the Whitlock brothers about Davey corrupting Lexi since they'd been gone.

She saw it more like an enhancement – just like life itself.

Having graduated a couple times, Hensley opted not to go back to school and instead spend the time with her family. Bella wasn't overly excited about the decision, though she felt far better when Alice and Edward said they'd attend with her. Of course, that brought the concern that it was odd Jasper did not return to school with his siblings and thus it was decided that Carlisle 'stayed back' in with Jasper so he could 'graduate a semester early' from the school in West Virginia.

Really it was perfect for Lexi. They couldn't risk being seen, so they both hung around the house, and with her, every moment, except when they needed to hunt. She finally got what she wanted: her family.

The first few days of their confinement were easy. She spent most of her time curled up with Jasper on the couch, bantering with Cooper when opportunity arose. Every now and then, she'd meander up to Carlisle's office for a change of scenery, lazily discussing her latest book with her father.

After a week, life became…less settling.

Not because anything drastic was occurring – quite the opposite. Hensley had never experienced downtime as she had in that week. While sitting around reading was relaxing…she quickly ran out of material.

"You just need a hobby." Cooper told her with an easy shrug, as if everyone had one of those.

"Hobby? Like, reading? I did that already." She frowned. Jasper's light chuckle against her did nothing to instill confidence in Cooper's words.

"Playing chess, playing piano, designing houses…hell, ya can do anything really. Try out one of the clothe making machines upstairs." Cooper snapped his fingers and pointed at her, "Better yet! Take it apart, just to see how it works."

Jasper cast his eyes to the house phone, "Let's see how long it takes for Alice to call."

"She can't see her decisions." Cooper waved his brother off, tossing his book aside. "Come on, shouldn't ya figure out how stuff works in life?"

The house phone ringing put a sharp halt to his encouragement.

Cooper's idea wasn't entirely in vain. Hensley did like figuring out how things worked and went together…but no amount of suspiciously intense encouragement could convince her to start with Alice's sewing machine. Lexi didn't know the bounds of Alice's rage and she didn't want to find out.

Instead, it was Rosalie who saw potential in Hensley's restless energy.

"If you really want to take something apart, how about we go out to the garage?" Rosalie had offered with a kind smile.

Lexi hadn't remembered seeing any sort of building materials out in the garage, not that she had looked hard recently. She learned quick that many things changed overnight when one lived with vampires who never slept.

She followed Rosalie obediently, Emmett trailing behind with his 'go with the flow' attitude. Though Rosalie hadn't called him, he seemed to know that she would need him and came without question or complaint. The Agency would've loved him.

The garage was a far cry from the spotless motor pools she'd walked through in the Agency. In there, the tools weren't hung in precise rows, and there wasn't a checklist taped to every surface. Instead, Rosalie's space was chaotic, cluttered with dirty rags, various repair manuals, and equipment. At first, the mess made Hensley's fingers itch. She wanted to grab a wrench and start putting things back in order.

Even the air, thick with motor oil and the metallic hum of the fluorescent lights, felt uneasy. Intimidating almost, as she entered a space unfamiliar. Rosalie's presence did little to help the quiet tapping of Lexi's fingers against her jeans. The other blonde knew exactly where everything was, even in the mess, and moved with a confident purpose. Lexi felt more like a child watching the adult do the real work.

They started simple, just as Rosalie had promised. "An oil change is basically a car's version of a spa day," Rosalie said, wiping her hands on her overalls. "Except it's not glamorous, just necessary."

Hensley watched closely as Emmett slid beneath his jeep parked in the center of the garage. She knew then why Emmett had tagged along. Rosalie explained every step with a mix of patience and excitement, as if she'd been waiting years to pass on the sacred rites of car maintenance to someone who might actually care.

"You wanna try?" She offered after a few minutes, standing to her full height. "Come on, I'll guide you."

Lexi hesitated, staring at the wrench Rosalie handed her. It felt strangely heavy in her hand, as if it were made of a different metal than all the other wrenches she had held. "What if I mess it up?"

"Then we'll fix it," Rosalie replied without missing a beat. "That's the whole point. You're fixing it."

"Or breaking it." Lexi pointed the wrench at her sister.

Rose rolled her eyes, but her smile never faltered, "If it didn't ever break, then we'd never have an opportunity to learn how to fix it."

It was such a simple, logical statement, but it was the rebuttal she needed to find the confidence to start. Or maybe that was Jasper from inside the house. Either way, she knelt down beside the car and slowly followed Rosalie's instructions. Loosen the bolt, let the oil drain, replace the filter, tighten it all back up. Her hands fumbled at first, quickly undoing the bolt so she wore the oil, and nearly dropping said bolt in the oil pan, but Rosalie didn't laugh or seem annoyed.

Emmett most definitely laughed, not that she expected anything less from him.

By the time Hensley finished, her hands were slick with oil and Emmett had jokes to last the next week.

Still, Rosalie was encouraging. "Not bad for a first try," There was a glimmer of pride in her voice that made Lexi's chest swell. "Tomorrow, we'll tackle something a little more challenging."

Lexi rose her eyebrows. "Tomorrow?" She was surprised, and grateful, at Rosalie's offer. She liked the weight of the tools in her hands, the methodical rhythm of taking things apart and putting them back together. Sewing machines might not have been in her grasp, but cars? Cars felt like a puzzle she could actually solve.

"Yeah, tomorrow." Rosalie wiped her hands clean on a rag. "Trust me. Forever is a long time. This'll keep you busy."

It certainly did keep her occupied, at least for a while. Rosalie would explain the next step in the process, leaving Lexi to it while she worked on something else. Lexi quickly found out that Rosalie wasn't exactly one for talk as she worked, preferring to listen to music or sit with her thoughts.

Hensley wished she could say the same.

Her hands worked in slow, carefully practiced circles as she lightly sanded the piece of metal and she glanced at her dim reflection. It reminded of her the time Kaufmann had purchased some silly glasses back in Montreal. The outer edge of the glasses had mirrors, so the wearer could see the person behind them. All four of them had worn those stupid glasses for weeks, Hensley giggling every time she spoke to one of the boys, seeing herself in the reflection when she looked at them.

Of course, the best part had been when her and Red tested out blind spots in the glasses, specifically to try and jump scare Kaufmann even when he was wearing them. Anderson had figured out that Kaufmann spent most of the time watching behind him instead of in front of him and scared the boy from the front. It took months for Kaufmann to finally live that down. Foiled by the one he least expected….

Anderson always was the unexpected logic in their plans.

She supposed that was true even recently.

The boy's words swirled around her head, reminding her of what was going on back at the Agency – being the unexpected know-it-all. Davidson creating more vampire hybrids…it wasn't such a bad thing, was it? The people involved were willing participants. And she certainly didn't have regrets about being created, just regrets about the confinement of the government. Kaufmann and Red would be good friends to the new hybrid.

But why had Anderson been so worried about her specifically? He had never really elaborated, just that she needed to get out and that he thought Davidson was recreating the project between Rooney and her father. Maybe he thought that Davidson would want Carlisle to recreate the project and if Hensley was gone, then Davidson had no real link to Carlisle. The thought made her blood chill. She couldn't imagine Carlisle back in the Agency. Such a kind man in such a cold place. There was no way Carlisle would ever go back…not willingly.

Maybe Davidson knew that. Therefore, maybe Davidson wanted Hensley to be the one to help create the new hybrids and Anderson knew Davidson would be a jerk about it if she said no.

That had to be it, the most logical conclusion. Hensley was Davidson's link to the vampire world in order to create new vampires. With her gone, maybe his plan was stopped. He had no hybrid to show off to the incoming vampires anymore, no one to go to in order to try and recruit new vampires to the program.

It brought her satisfaction, knowing that she had unknowingly ruined his plans and stopped him. She wondered how Davidson felt about that; being stopped by someone who had zero idea what had been going on? Pitiful, really.

She smiled at her reflection, though it didn't feel complete. There was a hesitation in her face, something that made the smile stop at her lips. Her thoughts shifted back to her eyes, imagining herself with those stupid glasses on one last time.