Chapter 15

"What's all this, Bells?"

Blinking, Bella lifts her gaze from the computer, rubbing at the tired corners of her eyes. There's several sheets of paper spread out around the desk, their ancient printer still churning out another page at a splutteringly slow rate, like a smoker trying to hack up a chest full of tar. They're running low on ink again; oops.

Dad's leaning over her shoulder, inspecting the papers and Bella shuffles out the way, fingers skimming across the keyboard and hammering a new sentence into the search engine.

"College stuff?" Dad asks after a moment, bushy eyebrows migrating to join one another above his nose, moustache twitching like it too wishes to join in the emigration. Bella watches the movement for a moment, then returns her focus to the screen as she scrolls through.

"Yeah, college stuff. What with Jasper graduating, I figured it was time I started looking into my options for the future too."

"And this," Dad murmurs, lifting one of the sheets of paper so she can see it, almost as if he's checking she actually knows what's on it, "is what you're interested in?"

"Hell yeah. Science is cool and it's not just for boys." She's a little early to the female scientists exist party, but Bella's sure as hell on board with it all. She'll never manage being a doctor; she just doesn't have the temperament for it, nor does she think she'd ever be able to cope if she lost one of her patients. But, being a doctor isn't the only way to help people. Especially the very specific patients she has in mind.

"Right, of course." Dad might not have a complete understanding of what she's saying, but he's got the spirit, that's for sure. "And this, er, biological engineering? That's what you wanna spend three years on?"

"Might be a bit more than three years, but yeah, that's what I wanna do." It's kinda obvious now. She can't be a doctor, but biological engineering? Finding out faults in different forms of biology and coming up with ways to fix it? To improve things? Oh yeah, that sounds like a perfect way to spend a couple of decades. And- and she has seven vampire friends (even if one of them is determinedly ignoring the fact Bella considers her a friend) who all have problems they've never tried fixing. With this, she can learn, can explore ways to help improve their lives.

That she'll need to know more about vampires, that she'll have to spend even more time in their (Jasper's) company to expand her knowledge base, well, that's just a bonus, isn't it?

"And are your grades at the level for this?"

"Of course. And no, I won't let them slip. I mean, Jasper's already signed up for an online year on his history course so he can stay put, so it's not like I'll spend loads of time travelling to see him, and it'd be too embarrassing for him to head off the college next year and me be stuck here not following because I was too busy making moony eyes at him to not study. That's even if we last that long." She's hoping they will; Bella really, really likes Jasper. He's fun and charming and just pure delight in a six-foot plus package. There's not much about him that she doesn't like, but maybe there will be down the line? Maybe there won't be. She doesn't know. Alice probably does but she's not gonna ask. It'll ruin the surprise of the future if she keeps crawling to Alice for insider information.

She might ask about lottery numbers though.

"I'm glad you've got a good head on your shoulders, Bells." At that, she does grin, spinning around in her chair and waving at her dad with one of the many sheets of paper.

"Of course, I've got a good head on my shoulders; you and Mum raised me that way, didn't you?"

.

She's pinning the photos of her and Jasper at prom to her wall, cut out in a leaf-like shape to go on the branch she, Jess and Angela had painted, when the roar of an engine announces the arrival of a guest. Snatching up her shirt, Bella shimmies it on, adjusting the wide collar so it sits evenly across her shoulders and doesn't expose any bra strap on either side. Now presentable, she spins on heel, making for the stairs. The two short knocks on the door that Jasper always announces himself with has Bella brightening, bare feet slapping against the wooden flooring before she gets to the door.

Standing on her porch with the morning sun outlining his form, Jasper stands as if he has every right to look so presentable and pretty in a morning. She should have known he's an early bird- or, wait, does he even sleep? She'd not thought to ask that one, too busy focused on the whole sparkling during the day and drinking blood to survive.

What is a surprise is the serious face he has on him. Not to say that Jasper doesn't usually wear a serious face; it's normally his default expression until Bella comes bouncing about and sets her sights on coaxing that pretty, high definition smile out of him. And those dimples; man, now they're a sight for sore eyes. She loves those dimples.

"Good morning?" she tries first, offering her best smile, head tilting up and back, eyes widening. Is she going for that cute-bambi look? Maybe so. But it's worked before and it's working now. It's soft and there's clearly something weighing heavily upon her darling vampire, but Jasper Whitlock is smiling. Whatever's wrong? Well, Bella can do her damn best to fix it.

"Good morning, Bella." Oh no. No nickname. That means it's serious. "Do you have the day free to come over? Something, something has come up, Darlin'."

Something has come up? What on earth could 'come up' for vampires? No, wait, stupid question. She doesn't know everything about vampires even if she is totally dating one. But clearly, it's something she needs to know about or be involved in because otherwise Jasper wouldn't be here.

"I've always got time for Yummy Vampire Mummy and family," Bella agrees with a bright smile, scanning the hallway for the nearest pair of footwear. One pair of flat leather sandals later, she's ready to go, throwing on the hoodie that's on the hook by the door on the way out. She doesn't recognise the car on the drive by brand, but she does recognise by design that it's probably something speedy. The kind of thing your average Joe would get to drive once in a lifetime. Yeah, she can picture Jasper in this now that he can go out in the summer's sun, the window rolled down, one arm resting on the door, sunglasses on.

"Bella?"

Cold fingers brush up against the curve of her cheekbone and Bella leans into the touch for a moment before she snatches the hand from the air (more like Jasper allows her to snatch it). Even if the walk to the car is so very short, there's never an opportunity missed to hold hands in their relationship. Not so long as Bella gets a say of it.

"Should I ask about it now, or would it be better if I asked once we got to your house?"

"Probably best if you ask when we get there, Darlin'. Now, tell me about that mud slide; are we are the right time of year to go and try it yet?"

"Oh, Cowboy, you do know how to pick your topics…"

.

The drive to Vampire Central is filled with Bella's mindless chatter but she's rather cottoned on to the fact that Jasper likes that. That he listens to her is everything Bella could ever want and more. He asks questions in all the right places, doesn't quite laugh out loud but certainly smothers a chuckle or two, and occasionally looks over at her with eyes so fond that she can't help but stumble to a mid-sentence stop to drink in the expression on his face.

Man, she is so done for; Jasper is her teenaged sweetheart and she'll fight to keep him as her lifetime partner.

"What's got you feeling so determined?"

"Just thinking about how I wanna spend all of my days with you," Bella admits with zero shame, throwing her hand over Jasper's, fingertips grazing the edge of the handbrake as he puts the car in park. Those gorgeous golden eyes find hers and Bella smiles, leaning forwards to peck a kiss to Jasper's nose. The hand on her cheek drawing her back is as unexpected as it is welcomed; she adjusts her hand, the way her knee rests on the chair, but leans in better to continue the kiss Jasper starts. It's still strange as fuck because his lips are like moving marble but smoother, dry in a way that lets her know he's being exceptionally careful about the vampire venom stuff. Still, Bella has the saliva necessary for a smooth brush of lips and, though there's little to no give on her end, she still sucks on his lower lip before parting, bumping the tip of her nose against his.

"You're too sweet, Mr Whitlock."

"I'll try not to give you toothache, Miss Swan."

.

She's still laughing when Jasper walks her over the threshold of the Cullen household, head thrown back and a beaming grin on her lips. It slowly mellows when she comes face to face with a very serious looking Carlisle. She can't see any others of the Cullen clan but that doesn't mean they're not around, nor that they're not listening in. That it's Carlisle who's the one meeting her… it's probably something vampire related. She hasn't been to the hospital in, like, months. Hasn't had her blood taken (for medical purposes, not that she's had a vampire blood extraction yet either) so they can't have done tests to find anything wrong. Plus, if it were something wrong with her dad then he'd be the one telling her, not Hot Doc.

"Hello, Bella. Are you well?"

"I'm doing swell, Doc. By the pained grimace, I assume all is not well in the land of the centenarians?" That, at least, twists that soft smile into something warmer, something more welcoming.

"Not all of us have lived a hundred years yet, Bella."

"Yeah, but it sounds better than the land of the old people," she muses, pushing down the squeal that wants to come up and out of her mouth when Jasper's cold fingers find hers, winding between them, thumb brushing across her knuckles. He all but radiates reassurance and while Bella knows that means he's probably trying to wrap her up in emotional cotton wool for whatever is about to come, well, she can't really focus past said warm-fuzzy wrappings. Man, she should be asking Jasper to do this every time she wants to go to sleep; its phenomenal.

"Have you had a chance to eat yet, Bella?"

"Warm comforts and food? You're not leaving town, are ya?"

.

They're not leaving town. Not that Bella wouldn't have been able to go on without them (she's quite certain she and Jasper could keep up a long-distance relationship, or, she could or her end, at least), but it woulda been quite the knockback. It's a little worse than them leaving town. Well, not emotionally, but in regards to the consequences of the news? Yeah, it's a little big.

Lifting the parchment that Carlisle has just finished reading from, Bella studies it, squinting at the so neat it's near illegible handwriting.

Dear Carlisle my old friend, blah blah blah, hope you and the family are well, waffle waffle waffle, I've heard tales about a human you're hanging out with and the discovery of walking beneath the sun, words words words, as you know when it comes to certain secrets, sharing isn't caring and is most certainly forbidden, natter natter natter, turn the girl before we next see you or you're in trouble. Oh, and there's an invite to Italy at the bottom that makes it seem more like a permanent move than a two-week holiday.

Of course, it's all in a hell of a lot fancier terminology than what she's just finished decoding, but Bella gets the gist of it.

"So… what does all that mean?" That's not to say she doesn't get the general gist of it. These guys are clearly in charge of the vampire world (they have a government; that's pretty cool and she's also got questions; do they pay taxes? Is there any need for them to pay taxes? How does their government work? Is it worldwide? It must be if it's based in Italy) and they must've known Carlisle for a long time. But hey, for all that they don't look for new stuff, vampires sure are quick about spreading it once it's been discovered.

"Darlin', curiosity isn't the right emotion for dealing with the Volturi," Jasper murmurs, his hand still wrapped in hers but now it seems like he's cradling her fingers a little bit closer, with a little bit more care. Not that he didn't already take more than enough care with her. But… these guys scare Jasper. Jasper who's covered in bite scars and has probably been in more fights than she can possibly imagine. "I- Carlisle. You spent some time with them, could you explain to Bella just how, significant this is please? I need to go hunt." That's weird, because Bella's sure his eyes hadn't been that burnt honey colour when he picked her up earlier. She's missing something here.

"Of course, Jasper. Come back when you're ready."

.

Carlisle catches her up on what the Volturi are and she only has more questions at the end of it all.

Jamming a spoonful of some delicious Esme creation (how is she this good at cooking without an appetite for it herself? How?), Bella swings her legs back and forth on the bar stool, humming in contentment. So, the Volturi are some kind of monarchy of the vampire world, make all the laws, and if you don't want to mysterious disappear, you don't break any of their rules. Such as the 'don't tell a human' rule. Bella's not sure she gets that one (though she does now understand why the Cullens had tried making her believe she was coming up with wild ideas, right up until the point Jasper had pretty much admitted what they were). Why would the Volturi not want the humans to know? What would it change? Sure, the humans would know there's some big bad predator replacing them at the top of the food chain but… it's not like they could really destroy the vampire race. Well, maybe they could now with all the advanced weaponry, but in the early days, centuries ago?

She's still mulling over the thought as Jasper comes back in, wearing a new sweatshirt and jeans combo that looks really quite appealing, even if she's certain it'd look even better on the floor. No, wait, she's lying, it definitely looks better on Jasper, everything (including his birthday suit) would look better on him.

"All full now?" Bella asks, springing to her feet. Then, she pauses because she's certainly not finished off Esme's delicious cake and oh, she wants to.

"Esme won't mind if you take the cake home; there's more in the fridge."

"Oh, thank god." And Bella bounces over to him, tripping over her feet (a genuine accident) to land in his arms. "Hi there, Cowboy. Did rustling up your dinner go well?"

"Yes, Bella, it went well." Icy lips press up against her temples, hard and gentle all at once and her eyes flutter closed for a mere moment, basking in the sensation. She's got her legs back under her again, standing up and she's still ridiculously short compared to Jasper; there's probably a foot or something between them. Ah, they probably look hella cute walking around town with each other though.

Pressing up onto her tiptoes, Bella tilts her head and lays a smacker on Jasper's jawline. Then a second. Then a third. He catches on before she can land the fourth one, swooping down to entrap her lips with his own, the hands that'd been supporting her now slowly meandering up her ribs.

After a moment, he draws back, though the gap between them remains small. "You're remarkably calmer than I thought you'd be," he admits, thumbs stroking very distractingly along her sixth (seventh?) ribs.

"I have so many questions about the Volturi, so many questions for the Volturi that I'm struggling to prioritise- hey, can I see your room yet?"

.

Jasper's room is twice the size of her own. There's the usual glass wall that she's coming to expect of all the rooms within this house (barring the bathroom, thank god). Another wall is dominated by the largest bookshelf Bella's seen outside of a library, along with a bigger collection of non-fiction books than she'd found in the history department's store cupboard at her old school (not that that was a particularly high benchmark; the less said about the focus on history in her old school, the better). A comfy looking leather couch faces the window and there's a massive, untouched bed in the centre of the room. She half expects to find the tags still on the pillowcases.

But no, they're tag free.

"Was the running leap necessary?"

"Of course it was necessary," Bella declares, rolling onto her back and spreading her limbs as far out as she possibly can, fat-man-starfish position style. Nope. Not one limb can reach the edge of the mattress. As previously state; it's huge. Huge and unused. "Like, I know you don't sleep or anything, but how could you own this bed and not spend days lounging out on it?" To emphasis her point, Bella shuffles to the edge of the bed before snatching up the duvet, rolling to the other edge until she's firmly wrapped up in a Bella-burrito.

She wiggles slightly as Jasper takes a seat on the mattress, having removed his shoes (not kicked them off at the door as Bella had done) before doing so. She shrieks when he grabs hold of the bottom of her burrito, screeching and chortling until he's finished pulling her into his lap, arms still trapped up in the swath of blankets. She's got no hope of getting them free to wrap around his neck as she wants to, so Bella settles for option two; resting her face against a rippling pectoral. Once again; marble like. Not the most comfortable thing in the world but hell, she can adjust.

"Carlisle explained what the Volturi were, what they represent to us, and yet, you're more than scared. You're curious. And determined."

"And horny," Bella admits, even though she's relatively certain Jasper's well aware she has sex on the brain a lot when they're spending time together. It's fine, she can wait, she's a good little girl. Plus, who knows what the horizontal tango would look like between a human and a vampire. Death by snu-snu would hardly be a bad way to go, especially if they put a picture of Jasper on her gravestone. Yeah, I went out banging this guy, can you blame me?

… on second thoughts, that's probably not appropriate for a graveyard. Eh. Belay that.

"I would love to know where your mind goes to inspire that wistful amusement," Jasper whispers, fingers now running through her hair, the ever so gentle scrap of his nails against her scalp almost sinfully relaxing and Bella melts. He's probably using his gift to calm her down, but it's sure as hell working if so.

"Sorry. Anyway, back on track! First of all, the letter said that they'd be getting in touch or checking in or whatever it is that vampires do soon. But, Carlisle said for vampires, that could be anywhere between next week and next century. So, undetermined amount of time." She shuffles about in the blankets until Jasper relents and helps her sit up somewhat straight. He doesn't release her from the duvet straightjacket though.

"Anyway," Bella continues, meeting his honey eyes and grinning, "that means I can do what I do best. Surprise them. They're based in Italy, right? So, the obvious answer if for me to go over there and plead my case!"

.

Ten minutes of Jasper sitting and listening to her plan later (even if the expression upon his face clearly indicates he's questioning her sanity), they're both knocking on the door to Carlisle's office, despite the door being open. Hey, he's got his laptop out and seems to be hard at work, it's only polite. It's with a deep sigh that Jasper steps into the room first, even though she doesn't really have a choice. She's still in the blanket burrito, as if the protective, warm covering will be enough to shield her from the evil vampires too.

"You heard everything, Carlisle?"

"I did," the elder vampire admits. Man, he sure looks good for being nearly four-hundred or so years old. Hey, he said he met the Volturi three-hundred years ago, that makes him the oldest person she's ever met. "And I think it's the only way we're going to be able to solve this problem and rest peacefully at night."

"See, Hot Doc agrees. Doctor's have to have a degree, so obviously Carlisle is smart and we should go with what he says."

"We all have degrees, Darlin'," Jasper huffs, setting her back on her feet and, with a deft flick of his hand, effortlessly freeing her from the blanket entrapment. Super cool.

"I mean, worst comes to worst, I become a vampire. I mean, I'm not sure if that's what I want; it'd never really been an option before this year so I'd not considered it, though seven-year-old me from a week before Halloween would be having fits right now."

"Because you wanted to be a vampire, Bella?"

"Nah," Bella mutters, shaking her head as she grins over at their resident doctor, "I thought werewolves were the cooler ones at that age."

Jasper strangles a disbelieving chuckle beside her, wrapping one of his arms around her waist and Bella's in no way ashamed to admit she sinks into his side, basking in the physical contact. Once again, spending the rest of her days with Jasper is sounding better and better, and speaking of the rest of her days-

"Back on task, Bella, come on! Right, I was thinking since you're the Hot Doc, maybe there could be a completely fictitious science conference over in good ol' Italy and, knowing my interests, you asked if I would care to attend with you, as no one else in the fam really cares for the disciplines. Meanwhile, Jasper just wants to go to get a good look at the Ancient Roman empire and its historical remains, big history nerd that he is. Thoughts?"

"I don't know how your father would feel about you being taken out of the United States," Carlisle murmurs, resting his head on one closed fist and Bella sure as hell may be head over heels for her good-Southern-boy, but she can appreciate Hot Doc is one fine piece of ass. Lucky yummy vampire mummy.

"I think he'll be fine; you're a well respected professional that he's worked with for at least a year and dad actually likes Jasper. Dad trusts me; if I say I'm going for academic interests; which I kinda am because I wanna know more about the Volturi I have, like, so many questions- I mean, if I say I'll be good, he'll trust me." She knows he will. Dad loves her. She's never lied to him before and she really doesn't want to start doing so. Lying by omission sucks, but it'll keep him safe. That's what matters. The next thing is getting herself to a point of safety and dragging Jasper along because… oops, he's the one that told her, wasn't he? And the Volturi law says snitches end up in ditches. Or pyres. However, they dispose of their dead. Why does a vampire die by fire? Is it the only way? Fire's the result of a chemical reaction, so-

"I'll ask for the plane to be charted. Is two weeks acceptable, Bella?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, two weeks sounds great. No school, job hunting, hanging with Jasper for two solid weeks? That's where I'm at."

"And you know there's no going back, right?" It's Jasper this time. Jasper who's spun her around to look him in the eye, lips pressing into a worried hard line that makes Bella want to tug on one of those golden curls. She does. They're soft and bouncy and she's jealous. All the other girls of Forks should be jealous too because she's the one that gets to touch those curls.

"I know. But I think I figured out what I wanted to do with my life thanks to you guys, no matter what becomes of it."

Update! *clapclapclap* And is that plot in amongst all that fluff? Who'd have thought it?

I was supposed to update something else today, but then I heard the Twilight news and, in honour of that (AKA I'm really hoping we see more Jasper) have a chapter.

Tsume
xxx