Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the collective works of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga

Birthday Visits

Louisa was spending a lot of time at Forks General Hospital, and for once, it was of her own volition. The newly turned seventeen-year-old strolled through the halls with the familiarity of one who was either a frequent visitor or a recurring patient of Forks' paediatric ward, which, in Louisa's case, was true on both accounts. It seemed whenever she wasn't running away from murderers or jumping off cliffs, she was suffering from debilitating migraines which had left doctors scratching their heads and claiming that there was no rational cause for the headaches. Which, in all honesty, was a fair assumption, considering that the pains stemmed from a supernatural source— psychometry, an odd talent Louisa possessed, which gave her the ability to perceive information from objects that people left behind. The doctor who figured out the cause of the headaches, Dr Cullen, was no stranger to the paranormal, being a vampire himself (and coincidentally, also the adoptive father of both her boyfriend and her best friend).

"How was your trip?" Kelly asked the moment Louisa stepped into the room.

Louisa gave a faint smile at the little girl's enthusiasm as she sat down in a chair next to the bed. "It was nice," she replied before pulling her purse into her lap. "The sunflowers were a good idea."

Her father's pale eyebrows had risen far above the rims of his wire glasses, but he hadn't said anything when she had placed the yellow flowers on her mother and brother's graves. The sunflowers stood out amongst the white tulips and white rose that her father and sister had laid down, though not as much as the Chewbacca Funko Pop that someone (Louisa suspected her friend, Petya) had placed at the base of Laurie's grave. The sixteenth of March had marked the one year anniversary of their deaths, and the Collins family had made the three-hour drive to the cemetery in Tacoma where they were buried.

Kelly nodded with an air of wisdom more suited for a Buddhist monk rather than a ten-year-old. But instead of swathed in resplendent robes of saffron, the preteen was drowning in an oversized, teddy bear patterned hospital gown and attached to a dialysis machine. "Sunflowers are always a good idea."

Louisa nodded in agreement and extracted a book from her purse, chatting with the girl about how her mother was doing ("Busy.") and how she was feeling ("Tired."). Neither answer was surprising to Louisa. Kelly's mother had taken on a second job to pay for Kelly's medical bills and always showed up to pick Kelly up from the hospital looking drawn and pale. Louisa had volunteered to babysit the girl on more than when occasion when the two women met, but Ms Beckett had waved her off with an exhausted smile and a kiss to the forehead. And Kelly, who despite her bright smiles and endless enthusiasm, was much sicker than she liked to let on: she had been born with a rare genetic disorder Louisa couldn't even begin to pronounce, causing both of her kidneys to fail the previous summer. She had been placed on the transplant list, and doctors were confident Kelly would be able to undergo a kidney transplant. That was if they were able to find a kidney that was suitable. As it would happen, Forks General Hospital didn't have too many child-sized organs laying around. During the interim, Kelly received several hours of dialysis each week, a number which had been steadily increasing in the five months they had known each other.

Unable to do little else, Louisa had increased her visits and sat with the girl during her treatments. They played games together in the paediatric ward's small playroom, and when that became too strenuous for the girl, Louisa read to her. They had started with the Sherlock Holmes novels (something Louisa's mother had read to her when she was sick), and when those were finished, the Harry Potter series. Her boyfriend, Jasper Hale, could also sometimes be cajoled into joining them and would bring along his first edition copy of The Hobbit.

Still, as the months dragged on and seasons began to change, it was clear that Kelly was only becoming sicker. Infections became more frequent and it wasn't uncommon for Louisa to don a face mask when she came to visit. Kelly's vivid red hair took on a dull sheen and her already skinny frame had turned almost skeletal. It was a difficult thing to witness for anybody, but it was even harder when the person who was wasting away was someone you loved.

"Are we going to start Lord of the Rings today?"

"No, Jasper said he'd read it to you," Louisa said. "This a new series."

"Does it have dragons?"

"Not really," Louisa admitted, chuckling at the displeased look Kelly gave her. "It's about a boy and a summer camp." On her last visit, Kelly had all but shouted at her that her mother was allowing her to attend summer camp for the first time. She had been able to talk about little else in her excitement for sleeping in log cabins and roasting marshmallows ("There's even a doctor on-site, so I don't have to leave for dialysis!").

"Well, I guess that sounds okay," she admitted, peaking at the cover of the book. "The Lightning Thief? How do you steal lightning?"

"Shall we find out?" At Kelly's impatient nod, Louisa thumbed to the first page and began to read aloud. "'Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.'"

Louisa made it through three chapters before she was interrupted by Kelly's soft snores. She marked the page in the book and rose from her seat, slinging her purse over her shoulder. Gently, so as not to wake the sleeping girl, Louisa adjusted Kelly's blanket before pressing a kiss to her forehead and slipping out of the room. She shared wan smiles with the nurses she passed but was otherwise too exhausted to start up a conversation with anybody.

She made her way to the car park, sitting in her Prius for longer than was necessary whilst she collected her thoughts. Jasper and Rosalie had left early in the morning for a quick hunting trip and wouldn't be back until later in the afternoon. Dr Cullen, she assumed, was at work, while the rest of the family were at Louisa's house, setting up for her surprise birthday party. Not that she was supposed to know anything about that. The curse of psychometry, she supposed.

If she were being one-hundred per cent honest, Louisa wanted nothing to do with the party, and if anybody besides her family and the Cullens were hosting it, she would have skived off. She understood their reasoning, of course: it was supposed to be a way of reclaiming what was supposed to be a happy day for her. Last year she had been too numb to process that she wasn't celebrating her sixteenth birthday, her brother and mother dying in a car crash literally the night before. This year, with new friends, a boyfriend, and some therapy sessions under her belt, she thought she would be excited at the prospect of a surprise party. Instead, she only felt gloomy and ready for a party that hadn't even started yet to be over.

She could imagine Jasper saying something sensible, yet esoteric like 'grief isn't linear' or some similar bullshit. Not that she cared what the reasoning behind her mood. What she wanted instead was to bury herself in Jasper's arms and sleep for the rest of the day.

It didn't come as a surprise, then, to find herself sitting in front of the Cullen's home a short while later. A lamp was on in the front room, Edward's red hair catching the light. He was sitting at his piano, head tilted to the side and eyes glazed, playing a song she couldn't yet hear. She wondered if he knew she was there.

Without looking out the window, Edward raised his right hand made a rude hand gesture at her. Louisa had to laugh and she stepped out of her car, not bothering to lock it behind her while she dashed up the front steps and into the house.

"Good afternoon, Louisa," Edward murmured, remaining at his piano, his fingers gliding over the keys and filling the room with Abba's Dancing Queen. "What are you doing here? We didn't expect you back yet."

She brought up a mental image of Kelly asleep in the hospital bed and Edward hummed in understanding. "Plus," she said, toeing off her snow-covered shoes at the door and relieving herself of her coat. "Everyone is at my house right now, setting up the party."

"How do you know about—" Edward demanded, before remembering to whom he was speaking. He shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Never mind." The music shifted, and Edward began to incorporate the birthday song into the melody. "Happy birthday," he added.

She dropped down on the piano bench next to him, realising with a jolt that he was composing the song off the top of his head. Jasper had mentioned that Edward played the piano, but he hadn't expressed just how gifted the youngest Cullen was. "Happy isn't the word I'd use," she replied. "But thank you."

Edward hummed before shifting over to the left-hand side of the keyboard, the melody shifting so that it was only the baseline. He nodded towards the keys and it took a moment for her to realise that he wanted her to join him.

"No, you're going to make fun of me."

"On your birthday? That hardly seems polite"

"I haven't played in a year," Louisa objected. "And I suck at the piano anyway." Starting at the tender age of eight, the Collins siblings had been forced to sit in front of the piano with their crotchety old neighbour for an hour a week. Whilst Laurie had taken to the instrument like a duck to water, neither Louisa nor sister held much talent and spent many grudging hours on the bench if only to appease their parents. The sound of a metronome still made her blood pressure skyrocket.

Edward pounded out the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in response. (What the response actually meant, Louisa was less sure of.) She rolled her eyes at his antics but sat up to join him nonetheless. Edward didn't even attempt to hide the smug look on his face.

"Shut up," she snapped. He let out a little laugh before letting her pick the next song. If Edward was annoyed she picked a show tune, he didn't comment. He was also nice enough to not comment on the tempestuous nature of her thoughts, which Louisa appreciated.

While visiting Kelly was never a chore, it certainly had become more difficult in the most recent months. When she had first met the fourth-grader back in November, Kelly had been a rambunctious force of nature and could spend hours in the playroom at Forks General Hospital. Now, however, only five months later, Kelly was often too tired to even leave her bed after her dialysis treatment. There was only so much Louisa could do for the child, and each time she visited, her heart felt even heavier than it had days before.

The nurses and doctors couldn't tell Louisa much about Kelly's condition, and it hardly seemed appropriate to badger Kelly's mother for details when the woman was already so stressed.

"What will happen to her?" Louisa asked aloud, knowing that Edward had heard all of her internal musings.

"She'll be put on a list to receive a transplant. Her age and the nature of her condition are advantageous, and she'll be prioritised to receive a donation." Edward explained, his fingers continuing to dance across the piano keys, switching to a sombre sounding sonata that Louisa had never heard before. She removed her hands from the keys and watched his hands if only so she didn't have to see the pitying expression on his face. "It's not a short list. There are hundreds of children in the state that just as sick as she is and who have been on the list for longer than she has. Her condition is progressing too fast for her to wait and her mother isn't a candidate to donate a kidney."

Louisa became aware that her fingertips had grown cold, numb almost, and shoved them under her thighs, her mind racing with so many thoughts she felt almost dizzy. There had to be a way to help Kelly, Louisa knew. But Louisa was a teenager— she had never been to medical school and had no clue where to even begin. Short of giving Kelly one of her own kidneys, Louisa was pretty much useless.

Unless…

"What makes someone a good candidate for a kidney donation?"

Edward's hands stilled and Louisa could see him turn to face her out of the corner of her eye. "You wouldn't be considered, Louisa," he said softly.

"My blood type is O negative. I'm a universal blood donor. I could be a match for—"

"Lou," he whispered, grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand out from under her leg. His fingers wove between hers and he gave them a gentle squeeze. "Have you see yourself lately?"

The question threw her for a loop and she tilted her head to look up at Edward. His lips were pursed and his brows were drawn together, a heartbroken expression on his face. What was that supposed to mean?

"No sane doctor would put you on an operating table unless doing so would save your life," he explained. His hand slid up to her bicep, and Louisa watched in surprise as he encircled her arm between his thumb and his middle finger. True, Edward had long fingers (pianist hands, her brain was helpful to point out), but that didn't seem like it should be possible.

"I haven't been hungry," Louisa said, feeling rather defensive. She tugged on her arm and she slid as far away from him as the piano bench would allow.

"I know," Edward replied with a wan smile. "Between your headaches and nausea that accompanies them, why would you be?"

Louisa turned her head away and glared out the window, blinking furiously when she felt tears sting her eyes. "So what? I'm just supposed to let her die?"

Edward was silent for a while and she knew he was he watching her, his yellow eyes soft, pitying. "I know what you are thinking. I've been there before. You want to fix everything. But, Louisa, you can't. Take it from someone who has lived far longer than you have, who has stood in the position that you find yourself in now, and believe me when I say you can't save everyone."

"I don't want to save everyone," Louisa replied in a watery voice. "And I don't want to save the whole world. I just want to save hers." Her gaze dropped to the floor and studied the plush carpet, the cream and gold fibres bleeding together as her eyes filled with tears. Louisa wasn't sure why she was crying. Sure, she was sad that Kelly was dying before her eyes, but that didn't really seem to be the crux of the matter. She figured it had more to do with the timing of it all— the realisation of Kelly's most likely imminent death coming around the one-year anniversary of her mother and Laurie's death. It was hard not to love Kelly, and Louisa would be lying if she said that she didn't feel some sort sisterly affection for the girl.

Perhaps that was the problem. Maybe she felt like she was losing another sibling. And just like last time, she felt powerless to stop it from happening.

"The burdens of the people in the world are not yours to shoulder," he said, reaching forward to wrap an arm around her shoulders, turning her so that he could pull her into a hug. "You will burn yourself out trying."

Louisa couldn't stop the gasping sob from escaping her chest. "So what?" she asked, her voice muffled in Edward's shoulder. "I just don't care anymore?" She supposed it would be easier, especially when Jasper turned her into a vampire. Everyone she knew and loved would die around her. She might as well get used to it.

Edward pulled away and fixed her with a stern look. "Never do that," he said. "When you stop caring, you stop being human." Only it was no longer Edward saying the words, but Carlisle. She could feel his fingertips digging into her shoulders despite the fact that nobody's hands were on them, and she had to swallow the bratty 'but we're not human,' retort that was on the tip of a tongue that wasn't hers.

"Sorry," she said, though she wasn't sure what she was apologising for. The headache that always seemed to be present nowadays gave a particularly nasty throb and Louisa reached up to make sure her nose wasn't bleeding.

Edward gave her an off-kilter look as if he only remembered that her gift could be just as invasive as his, and let his arms fall away. Without a word, both teens turned back to the piano and Edward began playing the baseline of a fugue she remembered from her piano lessons. The silence was filled with contemplative sort of silence where they were both so lost in their own thoughts, neither considered having a conversation. They moved onto a song from Beauty and the Beast, which Edward played in a style far jazzier than what the original composers had in mind.

"What was her name?"

If Edward was upset by her question, he didn't show it. "Josie," he said.

"Did you go to school together?"

Edward shook his head, his eyes going glassy. His fingers began to play a song Louisa had never heard before and she wondered if it was something he composed himself. "It was 1943. I met her when I started my residency. She was a patient in the oncology ward. She had leukaemia." Louisa didn't need to ask what happened to Josie: the tightness in Edward's jaw spoke volumes for the girl's prognosis.

"I miss her," he said. He moved onto a new song, one that was as sweet-sounding as it was sad. "I never did complete my residency. I went through med school again back in the nineties but…"

For as long as she knew Edward, he was the loner of the Cullen family. Rose and Emmett, Carlisle and Esme, Jasper and Alice. They all went off and did their own things together, and whilst they generally invited Edward along, he was often the awkward third wheel in most situations. Louisa wondered how much his mind-reading impacted his decision to seclude himself from others, or how much of it was because of Josie's death. It had to be difficult, after all, to not grow attached to people after hearing their most innermost and intimate thoughts. Perhaps Edward kept to himself out of necessity, to protect himself. He wasn't so much cold and aloof, as he was terrified of what people could do to him.

"I never wanted to feel like that again," he confessed, surprising Louisa with his frankness. "Carlisle respects my decision of course, even if he doesn't agree with them."

"It sounds lonely," Louisa commented, leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder.

"I suppose it can be," he conceded. Neither knew how to continue after such a heavy conversation and instead sat in companionable silence, playing the piano. Every so often, Edward would get a text message regarding what Louisa assumed to be the status of the party, though he was careful to angle his mobile away from her whenever he responded so she couldn't be too certain.

"I'm just going to go lay down in Jasper's room if you don't mind," she said when her fingers began to ache, a tell-tale sign that she had been playing for too long.

Edward nodded and offered her a boyish grin when she stood to leave. A soft melody followed her up the stairs and which she could still hear after she shut the bedroom door behind her. Letting her hair out of its bun, Louisa crossed the short distance between the door and their bed, sliding beneath the covers and burying her head in the pillows. The sound of Edward's soft music from below combined with the cinnamon and apple scent Jasper left behind quickly lulled her into a light sleep.

She was awoken sometime later by Jasper's tuneless humming when he emerged from the adjoining bath and padded barefoot into his bedroom, a pair of jeans slung low over his hips. Even in the hazy light filtering in from the bath Jasper's skin shimmered, highlighting the countless crescent-shaped scars that marked his back. The steam from his shower made the air thick, and his warm scent was seemingly intensified by the humid air. Jasper wandered towards his wardrobe as he towelled off his hair, before rifling through it for a shirt.

Louisa grinned at her partner, revelling in how a supernatural creature could act so… normal. "How was your trip?"

Jasper froze for the briefest of moments before spinning around to face her. "My trip?"

"Yes," Louisa drawled, propping herself up on her elbows. "Your hunting trip?"

"Oh, it was fine," he said with a slight laugh.

His odd reaction caught her attention, and she narrowed her eyes. Did he not go hunting as he had said? She was reluctant to play the part of the suspicious girlfriend, but, well, he was acting rather suspicious. "Are you alright?"

Jasper nodded his head, humming in affirmation. In a swift motion that was too fast for Louisa to comprehend, Jasper was fully clothed, the cotton t-shirt he had selected darkening where it touched his still damp hair. "I didn't realise you were awake. You surprised me."

"I surprised the vampire?" Louisa asked, scepticism lacing her voice.

"Seeing how I need to wake you up in the morning, yes, I am rather surprised you are capable of regulating your own sleep cycle."

"You ass," she laughed, falling back down into the pillows. "Though I must admit I much prefer you over my alarm clock. You are slightly less shrill."

"Little Miss," Jasper said, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips betraying the stern look he gave her. "You better be nice to me, or you aren't getting your birthday present."

"Seeing you shirtless wasn't my birthday present?"

He let out a belly laugh and crossed the room, crawling onto the bed and hovering over her before pressing a kiss to her lips. "I can do that anytime. All you gotta do is ask."

"My, my, Major Whitlock," Louisa murmured against his lips. "You sure do know how to spoil a girl."

Jasper laughed at the annoyed sigh she let out when he pulled away. He leaned over to the bedside table and pulled out a velvet box from one of its drawers. He sat up and moved to rest his back against the headboard, before scooping her up and settling her in his lap.

"I know you know about the party," he said, bending his head to place a kiss on the crook of her neck. "I wanted to give you your gift now before everyone else can distract you."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to know about that," she responded, watching the box in curiosity. It was too big to be a ring (thank God, because that would start some uncomfortable conversations) but too small to be a bracelet.

"Are you claiming you don't?"

"No, I do. I just thought we were pretending that I didn't."

"Just don't let Esme know that you know," he said, reaching up with his free hand to give her hair a small tug. "She has this way of making you feel so low that you'd have to look up to see Hell."

"Good thing I've been practising my surprised face all morning," Louisa deadpanned. She hadn't of course. But if Esme was truly surprised that Louisa, who was perhaps the nosiest girl in the Pacific Northwest, already knew about her surprise birthday party, it was her own fault. Besides, asking her about her favourite cake flavour had been a dead giveaway.

Jasper snickered and buried his face in her neck. His nose was still warm from his shower but the action caused a shiver to run down her spine anyway. "Happy Birthday, my love," he said, pressing a kiss to her temple. He handed her the little box without any fanfare, and she opened it up, her pulse thrumming with excitement.

Inside was a reddish-brown stone with thin white streaks, set in sterling silver. A silver cross-like design formed a loop at the top of the pendant where a thin chain fed through. It was small and understated and wasn't much bigger than the end of her finger, but the design was somehow elegant in its simplicity. Louisa stroked the small stone with her thumb, half-listening to Jasper's commentary about the gift while she stared at it in awe.

"Edward suggested that I give you an heirloom," Jasper explained, his voice low in her ear. "Not that I have any to give you, but I'd be worried if I gave you something with too much history, even if I did."

"It's jasper?" Louisa guessed, unable to peel her eyes away.

"Emmett said that it was cheesy," Jasper admitted. "But it was my father's design. He made it for my mother after I was born."

"Jazz," she whispered, craning her neck to look up at him. "It's beautiful." She reached up and pulled him down for a kiss, not even caring about the awkward position she had forced her neck into. When she pulled away, she offered the box to him and a second later, she felt the necklace's weight settle against her sternum. Louisa twisted her torso and wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers weaving through his hair, and pulled him back down for another kiss. "Thank you."

Jasper merely pulled her back and deepened the kiss. They were going to be late for the party and either of them could bring themselves to care.

Alice seemed to care, though, if the nineteen texts and three phone calls were any indications.

"It would be pretty rude not to show up for your own birthday party," Jasper sighed, pulling away. "We shouldn't keep your guests waiting."

"The birthday girl is never late," Louisa said, tugging Jasper down for one final kiss. "Everyone else is just early."

They pulled up to Louisa's house sometime later, both Edward's and Dr Cullen's cars already joining her father's in the drive. Louisa let Jasper help her out of her car and together they walked up the front path, pausing at the door to stomp off the snow that caked to their boots. Jasper winked and ducked down to press a quick kiss to her cheek before he opened the front door and Louisa was assaulted with shouts of "Happy Birthday!"

But it was one 'Happy Birthday' in particular, the one shouted in a foreign language, which stood out to her. Because there, standing between Dottie and Rosalie, was none other than Pyotr, wearing a balloon patterned party hat and a shit-eating grin. He broke away from the loose formation the other party-goers had assumed and ran towards her. If it hadn't been for Jasper catching her, Pyotr would have knocked her off her feet.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, glancing between his excited face and Jasper's smug grin.

"I missed your sister," Petya responded, giving her a sardonic look. "I couldn't stand to be without her for one more moment."

Louisa laughed after recovering from her shock and pulled her friend in for a hug. "I knew you liked her more than me."

"Who doesn't?" came Dottie's unmistakable drawl from the lounge.

"But seriously," Louisa said, glancing over Petya's shoulder to look at her father in confusion. "I thought we weren't allowed to see each other until after the trial?"

Mr Collins shrugged and gave his daughter a fond smile. "Just don't discuss it."

"But kidnapping and murder make for such good party conversation," Petya replied, guiding her into the lounge by the shoulders. "No? Just me? Okay."

Louisa laughed and shoved her friend, sending him crashing into the back of the sofa. "Still as violent as ever, I see," he said before glancing over her shoulder at Jasper. "What do you see in her?"

To Louisa's surprise, Jasper chuckled. Her eyes narrowed as she watched her introverted boyfriend interact with someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger. Sure, Jasper could talk to people he didn't know, but he rarely did. So, had the two met before? When she wondered this aloud, it was Rosalie who answered.

"How do you think he got here?"

Oh.

Jasper hadn't gone hunting at all this morning. No wonder he had reacted oddly when she asked about his trip. Across the room, Edward snickered in response to her thoughts.

"Shall we move to the kitchen for cake?" Esme asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. Louisa knew it wasn't every day she got to celebrate a real birthday and couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. Taking her hand, she allowed herself to be dragged into the kitchen where a small strawberry shortcake sat on the bench, decorated with seventeen candles.

"One second," Petya said after she finished blowing out the candles, stepping up to her, a hand hovering over the top of his head. He moved it over to Louisa until it rested against her forehead. He repeated the action several more times, his expression darkening with each repetition.

"You're taller than me," he accused, eyes narrowed. He whispered something under his breath in Russian that sounded suspiciously like 'Damn Americans'.

Louisa cackled at her friend's thunderous expression. "Happy Birthday to me!"

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone." –Orson Welles

A/N: I'm backkkkk! Life can be busy and I needed to take a little break from Louisa. I love her so much and her story, but sometimes you just need to take a step back and work on other projects, you know? But never worry, Louisa's got a lot more story to tell. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think! -CA