Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Calm
I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace. – Helen Keller
I watched the lush green trees pass us by in silence with my head pressed against the window.
Forks, Washington had a charm to it that I would be able to appreciate much more if we weren’t forced to be here by vampiric circumstances. By that, of course, I mean our inability to live anywhere the sun shines more than once or twice a year. I hated the sun, and the heat that came along with it, when I was human but I’ve since found that I miss it now that my life revolves largely around avoiding it.
We were on our way to school and already the boredom was starting to get to me. Something that I could feel echoed in Alice through the hand that I was holding in my lap. Jasper’s own anxiety was slightly more distant because I wasn’t touching him but no harder to discern. Whether that was because he was projecting or because my ability was that in tune with him, I had long since given up trying to figure out.
The three of us had been open books to each other for over fifty years now. The line where one of us began and the other ended was blurry most of the time due to mine and Jasper’s abilities. Though, thankfully, that had less to do with a lack of control on either of our parts now than a desire for closeness. Years ago, I would not have been able to prevent myself from listening to Alice’s every thought as we held each other’s bare hands. That was no longer the case and I basked in the silence between us, my mind touching theirs only enough to feel them but not to hear them, as Jasper drove us to school.
Minutes later we arrived at Forks High School and I braced myself for the end of the—relative—quiet that I had been enjoying. True silence was not a luxury afforded to vampires but the peace between the three of us that we had carefully cultivated over our years together was the closest that I had come to that kind of calm since waking up to this life almost a century ago. In some ways, perhaps, it was better because it was a peace that did not rely on absolute quiet or anything other than the three of us alone together, content not to speak.
Either way, my calm was shattered as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of the school and a few hundred voices and heartbeats assaulted my senses.
Jasper parked his truck on the other side of Edward’s Volvo—why Edward always insisted on arriving so early was beyond me—and we each, reluctantly, got out of the vehicle.
I helped Alice step down from the cab, grateful for this small opportunity to show my affection in a way that wouldn’t bring unwanted attention to us.
I felt her brush against my mind—decades of Edward and I connecting with our family this way had trained each of their minds to some degree—especially Alice—and I strengthened the mental connection between us to be able to hear her thoughts while our hands were still touching.
We’ll go hunting this weekend. To the cabin. Her mental voice was light and lyrical, like always, and I basked in the warmth of it.
I looked adoringly down at her, grateful for the umpteenth time for whatever higher power there was that brought her and Jasper into my life. I look forward to it.
She flashed me a quick smile and reached up on her toes to press a brief kiss to my cheek right near the corner of my mouth. The skin where her lips touched me tingled pleasantly and I resisted the urge to pull her back to me as she twirled over to Edward, Emmett, and Rosalie standing impatiently a few feet away.
I felt Jasper come up behind me, a comforting presence at my back, and I let my bare hand fall backwards to brush against his. It took almost no effort to connect to Jasper’s mind. His mental presence was steady and watchful even with his thirst constantly pulling at his attention while in the vicinity of so many humans and the thirst of the rest of us compounding his.
Alice says we’ll go hunting this weekend. We’ll be able to relax, just the three of us.
As my thought settled into his mind, I felt relief and gratitude flood through us both and underneath that, the same aching affection that I felt myself for Alice. Somehow, she was always able to give us both just what we needed. In this case a reprieve, Jasper from the thirst that was a constant barrage while we attended school and me from the endless, senseless noise.
That will be a relief, his mental voice was soft and I could feel the sincerity underneath it before it turned abruptly into a mischievous sort of amusement, I’ve missed having you both all to myself, Darlin’.
Oh, and what are you going to do with us when you have us all to yourself, Cowboy?
We walked over to meet with the others, the slightest touch of our hands keeping our connection open as we continued to speak mentally.
Wicked, wicked things. He flashed through a dozen memories of the three of us doing ‘wicked things’ together and I had to swallow with a dry mouth at the images I saw in his mind, suddenly even more desperate for this day to end.
Alice’s twinkling laugh interrupted us before I could say anything else—though I was at a loss for words, my mind thoroughly in the gutter, so I’m not sure what I would have said anyway—and we both turned to look at her. She was looking at Edward and as soon as Jasper and I both saw his face, we understood the reason for her laughter. He looked pained and through my connection to Jasper I could tell that he was feeling mortified. He must not have been able to block out mine and Jasper’s thoughts.
Sorry, I thought at Edward only slightly apologetically.
He acknowledged me with an exasperated nod of his head before turning to huff at Jasper.
I turned my head slightly to look at him myself and I had to fight back a smile at the smug smirk on Jasper’s face. It was unspeakably nice to see him acting so unburdened while around so many humans. Edward must have heard my thoughts because the tense set of his shoulders relaxed slightly and he sent me a brief smile, agreeing with me.
“Can we go in already? Or are you all going to keep having your little mental conversations?” Rosalie demanded impatiently, arms crossed tightly in front of her chest and a glare set on her face.
“Hm,” I began teasingly and winked quickly at Alice once she looked at me with a brilliant smile on her face, “I think we’ll keep having our ‘little mental conversations’ if it’s all the same to you.”
She huffed at me—she and Edward really were too alike for either of their own goods—and walked away without saying anything else. Emmett waved at us briefly before turning to follow her.
“Babe, wait up!” Emmett’s voice was loud, putting on a show for the curious humans around us.
Edward gave me a narrow-eyed look and began to walk after her and Emmett. Guess he didn’t like the comparison. I shrugged, amused.
Jasper, Alice, and I started to head into the school as well, Jasper and I still almost shoulder-to-shoulder and Alice slightly ahead of us. My bare hand brushed against Jasper’s again and I felt a brief flash of anxiety from him for the second that our hands touched reminding me that my hands were still bare.
I started digging around in the pockets of my jacket, pants, and backpack before Alice turned around and grabbed one of my hands.
“Looking for these?” she asked as she slapped a pair of short, black leather gloves into the hand she was holding. If I could blush, I would be after feeling her loving amusement through our hands.
She and Jasper both laughed at me while I embarrassedly scratched at the back of my head with my free hand. A habit from my human years that I had never done away with.
“I swear, Darlin’, you and Carlisle must be the only forgetful vampires in existence,” Jasper teased me
I nudged him with my shoulder and sent a fake glare at him. “Preoccupied, not forgetful,” I corrected.
“If you say so.”
I ignored him starting to laugh again and turned my attention back to Alice.
“I wouldn’t have this problem if someone didn’t insist on cleaning all of the gloves out of my backpack every day because it isn’t ‘fashionable,’” I made air quotes with my newly gloved hands, “to wear the same pair of gloves more than once.”
“It’s not.” Alice shrugged unrepentantly back at me before turning around and walking into the building.
The day passed slowly from there. Though having Jasper in all of my classes did help things move a little quicker. We were able to keep ourselves entertained with whispered conversations too quiet for the humans to hear correcting our teachers and textbooks and mocking the inaccuracies they were perpetuating.
Thankfully, it was lunch time now meaning that the day was half-over.
Edward and Alice were already at our usual table when Jasper and I arrived. Rosalie and Emmett were typically the last to show up though so it wasn’t unusual. Rosalie avoided coming into the cafeteria for as long as she could most days. Even a creature as vain as my sister sometimes was could still be put off by being gawked at so thoroughly by so many teenagers.
I had, perhaps, the least amount of issues with that out of all of my family. Rosalie, of course, drew attention everywhere she went for her beauty. Emmett’s size, if nothing else, made him stand out. Edward, perpetually alone, was all the more attractive to the humans because of it. Alice, who was strikingly pretty with an otherworldly grace and charm, tended to be the focus of everyone’s eyes when she moved. Jasper, who was more handsome than anyone had any right to be but never quite managed to have an even facial expression around so many humans, still had a natural charisma that meant curious stares were always on him no matter how unsettling his expression seemed. And then there was me. As a human I had been particularly adept at blending in, something that carried over into my vampiric life, and then you compare me to the rest of my family and it’s easy to see why I fade into the background so much better.
Edward raised a subtle eyebrow at me as he listened into my thoughts. You know it’s true brother. The rest of you have much more reason to stand out than I do. I rather appreciate it.
He jostled his left shoulder slightly, a shrug to answer my thoughts and then he turned his head to glance at Alice sitting a seat away from him.
Alice’s eyes glazed over for a moment, having a vision, before they cleared and she sent me a fond but exasperated look over her untouched and full lunch tray.
“That may be true but you forget how absolutely gorgeous you are. I have visions every day of some girl or boy approaching you, hoping to earn your attention. You’re the most approachable out of all of us and it’s only Jazzy’s presence by your side that keeps the rabble away.”
Jasper bumped shoulders with me and picked up seamlessly where Alice left off. “It’s true, Darlin’. The humans lust after all of us but they feel the most… affection for you.” He seemed to struggle a moment to choose the right word. “Or, at least, the most confidence that you’ll respond favorably.”
I sighed deeply. That was not a situation that I was pleased with. “Great, just what I want, for the humans to think that I’ll give them the time of day.”
I sat down on the seat in between Alice and Edward while Jasper dropped into the seat on the other side of Alice, each of us with a full tray of cafeteria food that we would only touch enough to make it look like we were eating to the curious humans around us.
Alice dropped both of her hands under the table and grabbed the closest hand each from Jasper and I, making sure to take one of my gloves off as she did so.
“Maybe if you stopped actually giving them the time of day, they would stop thinking that you’ll give them the time of day,” Rosalie said, finally walking up to our table with Emmett standing next to her, a large smile on his face at the conversation they were walking into.
“Just a thought, Krissy sissy,” Emmett teased while reaching around from Edward’s other side to ruffle my hair.
“Don’t call me that and don’t do that,” I said peevishly while swatting at Emmett’s hand.
Emmett just laughed so I resolved to ignore him so he couldn’t get any more enjoyment out of my reactions.
“I get it, I get it. I’m too nice to the humans,” I slumped back into my chair, pouting slightly, I admit.
Aw, don’t pout. Alice thought at me and I could feel the adoration she had for me in her thoughts. It’s not a bad thing, love.
Yeah, Darlin’. It’s why you’re Esme’s favorite. Jasper’s mental voice added in smoothly, a warm kind of amusement in his tone.
I am not. I sent back at them.
Yes, you are. They answered completely in unison and I covered my face with my free hand to hide the nonexistent proof of my embarrassment, another quirk that I had never been able to break from my human life.
I let them feel my embarrassed appreciation for their attempts to cheer me up—I hadn’t even really been upset but that would never stop either of them from being attentive—and tuned back into the conversation that our siblings were having while Jasper and Alice’s quiet laughter rang in my head before I let the connection fade enough that their thoughts became silent again.
Emmett, Edward, and Rosalie were talking about the new girl that would be coming to town soon.
“I hope she livens this place up a little,” Emmett was saying to them and Rosalie scoffed.
“No human girl could make this place any less dreadful than it is.”
“Rose, at least give her a chance!” Emmett protested while laughing his booming laugh.
“Chief Swan’s daughter?” I cut in before Rosalie could go on a rant about how she ‘would absolutely do no such thing’.
“Yes, Isabella Swan, she’s all anyone else is thinking about,” Edward answered sending me a grateful look for heading Rosalie off.
“And they’re all speculating about whether she’ll be nice and quiet like the Chief or if she’ll be flakey like her mother.”
I could feel Alice’s amusement and a slight thread of annoyance through our connection as she spoke and remembered that Chief Swan had been messing with her visions a bit because he was fretting so much over her arrival that he kept changing his mind about everything. That, and something about the Swan girl had been making Alice’s visions weird as well. They had been a little off since news of her impending arrival had gotten out a few weeks ago, at least.
“I hope she’s a flake. That would be hilarious.”
Of course Emmett would jump at the scenario that would bring him the most entertainment.
Jasper spoke next and I could feel his disinterest in this conversation and a brief spike in his thirst as a human—Taylor or Tyler or something—walked a little too close to our table. “I’m sure she’ll be like any other teenage girl, torn between lust and jealousy when she looks at us.”
Rosalie smiled. “As she should.”
I reached over and grabbed an apple from the tray in front of me to toss around.
“I’ll guess we’ll find out soon.” At my words we all feel silent for a moment, letting the conversation about the Swan girl die down.
I held the apple up to Alice’s mouth and she playfully snapped at it with her teeth while Jasper chuckled at our antics.
The rest of lunch continued in that same vain. We discussed the various tidbits of small town gossip that Edward and Alice were able to glean from the students and townsfolk and made a show of pretending to eat our lunches.
Before we knew it, the lunch bell rang and Jasper and I escorted Alice to her next class before heading to ours. All three of us counting down the hours until we would be able to go hunting. It was a Friday and Alice had already said that we would be going to the cabin. That meant that we would be driving up near Pemberton and spending the weekend hunting, and doing other things, in the wilderness of Garibaldi Provincial Park.
The last couple of classes went by quickly until Jasper and I were finally walking to Alice’s last class to pick her up so that we could go back to the house and get ready for our trip.
As soon as we met up with Alice outside of her art class, she wasted no time on grabbing mine and Jasper’s hands and swinging them between us while leaning into Jasper to reinforce their relationship in the eyes of the students.
“How was class?” I asked Alice as we walked letting my voice carry loud enough that the eavesdropping students in the hallway could hear.
“Awful,” she groaned out dramatically, “we had to sketch a bowl of fruit and Mrs. Feakes did not appreciate the funny faces that I drew on my banana and apple.”
I coughed into my hand to hide my laughter and I caught Jasper out of the corner of my eye staring determinedly at the ceiling and fighting back a smile. Knowing Alice, those ‘funny faces’ would be hyper-realistic making them that much more unsettling to see drawn on fruits.
“Is that so?”
I had to cough again when she stomped her foot, even more dramatically, and began ranting about her least favorite teacher this school cycle.
“Mrs. Feakes wouldn’t know talent and vision if it bit her on her oversized nose.”
At this point, I was biting my lip so hard that if I had been human I would have drawn blood and Jasper had raised a hand to his mouth to hide the wide smile on his face.
“I’m sorry, Darlin’, some people just can’t appreciate genius.”
That sent us over the edge and all three of us began laughing garnering stares from the students that were still lingering in the hallway.
“Really?” Rosalie asked with a raised eyebrow as we walked up to her and Emmett.
“Really.” I nodded back at her and had to stop myself from laughing again at the indignant look on her face.
“Hey, what’s so funny?” Emmett complained from next to her. “I want to laugh too.”
Jasper, Alice, and I shared a look. “Nothing,” we said in unison and walked past them to the exit of the building to meet up with Edward in the parking lot.
“C’mon guys!” Emmett called out behind us, really hamming it up, and I could hear Rosalie sighing under her breath. Emmett, out of all of us, enjoyed the human charade that we put on the most.
We waved goodbye to Edward when we reached the parking lot and climbed into Jasper’s truck to head home. The entire car ride back to the house, Alice was practically vibrating with excitement in between us and Jasper and I kept sharing amused, besotted smiles over her head.
As soon as we got home, Alice climbed over me to get out of the truck and ran at full vampire speed into the house. Only a second later, we could see the light in our room turn on.
Jasper and I shook our heads at her. Alice was a force when she wanted something, even when it was something as simple as a weekend hunting trip.
We made our way into the house leisurely. Edward, Emmett, and Rosalie were already inside—Edward was always so impatient when he drove, Jasper, on the other hand, was more content to take his time—and we could hear Esme asking the others about school as we walked in.
“Hi Ma,” Jasper said as soon as Esme turned to face us. His southern twang was even thicker than normal in an effort to suck up to our adoptive mother. Esme was always a little disappointed when we left for trips like this. Nothing made her happier than having us all under one roof.
Deciding to join him in his efforts, I added my own, “Hi, Mom.”
Esme smiled widely at us—I chose to ignore Edward and Rosalie rolling their eyes behind her and Emmett’s obnoxious whisper of ‘suck ups’—and we walked over to join her, all of us pretending not to hear Alice’s impatient mutterings above us.
“Hi Jasper.” She accepted the kiss that Jasper pressed to her cheek with another beaming smile before turning to me and accepting my hug, “Kristina. How was school?”
“Horribly boring,” I said while laughing.
“Boringly horrible,” Jasper added just a second later and I pulled at one of Jasper’s curls teasingly for the awful joke even as I laughed harder. Esme’s exasperated chuckles joined in right after causing Jasper to smile proudly at both of us.
“Did Alice have a chance to tell you that we’re going hunting this weekend?” I already knew that she hadn’t. I knew Alice didn't do more than shout a ‘hello’ over her shoulder on her way up to our room.
My words sobered Esme’s face slightly but her smile was still there.
“She didn’t, no. Are you going up to Canada?”
It was common knowledge where we went on our semi-frequent weekend hunting trips. We always made sure that we had somewhere private fairly close by to any place that we were living. Somewhere that we could escape to when the charade got to be just a little too much. Jasper and I, at least, were prone to getting overstimulated when we were around too many humans without a break and Alice did occasionally get fed up with sharing mine and Jasper’s attention. These trips were something that all three of us needed.
“Yes, the excitement at school over Chief Swan’s daughter is just a little much for us. We could use a break,” I explained and Esme gave us an understanding nod.
We both smiled gratefully at her, glad for her understanding.
Before we could say anything else Alice’s voice carried down to us. “Are you two going to help me or not?”
Esme laughed and shooed us off. “Go on.”
I darted forward to hug her again and then jumped onto Jasper’s back, taking a second to appreciate the firm muscles of his shoulders as I held onto them.
“Onward, my trusty steed.”
I kicked at his thigh to spur him on and he bucked me playfully before taking off at human speed up the stairs.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Aw man, I wanted a rematch.” Emmett’s whining trailed behind us and so did Rosalie’s exasperated, “Stop whining, you oversized toddler.”
I laughed when we heard Edward’s exasperated sigh, just imagining him standing by his piano and pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Don’t forget to say goodbye before you leave,” we heard Esme say just before we walked into our bedroom and the chaos that Alice had unleashed in it.
Our obscenely large closet looked like it had been completely emptied out and there were clothes for all three of us piling up on every available surface. I couldn’t even see the top of our bed anymore.
“Um…” I started to say and then trailed off. Alice usually went overboard whenever we went somewhere but most of the time either Jasper or I, or both of us, were there to head her off before it got this bad.
“Abort! Abort!” I whisper shouted playfully into Jasper’s ear.
“A strategic withdrawal in not a retreat,” Jasper muttered under his breath, sounding like he was reassuring himself, and slowly started to back out of the room.
“Very funny.” Alice growled petulantly at us. “Get in here and help me. I can’t figure out what to pack.”
I touched a hand to Jasper’s neck, glad that I had taken my gloves off on the car ride home, and sent a quick thought to him.
Why do we even need clothes?
Your guess is as good as mine. Jasper’s shoulders shifted under me as he shrugged.
It was funny but we went through some variation of this conversation every time we went on a hunting trip up to our cabin.
“How about that stuff that we painted in a few weeks ago? It’s all going to get ruined anyway, right?” Jasper asked and I nodded along. We had gotten a little too playful when we had repainted our room the month before and absolutely covered the clothes that we had been wearing in paint so that made perfect sense to me.
But not to Alice, apparently, because she growled again.
All three of us ignored Emmett’s shout of ‘That’s right bro,’ and the crashing sound of Rosalie smacking the back of his head.
“Oh, wait, if that’s the case we have to take Jazzy’s denim jacket.”
“Hey now!”
Alice stopped growling to consider that for a second before shaking her head. “I don’t want that hideous thing to spoil our trip.”
“It’s not that bad!” Jasper said and I could feel the indignation through our connection.
Alice and I shared an eye-roll and spoke at the same time, “Yes, it is.”
A second later Edward, Emmett, Esme, and Rosalie echoed us causing Jasper to pout and grumble under his breath about how much he liked it. The thing was discolored and ratty and Jasper had patched it so many times that it was almost more patches than denim now. It was truly an act of love on mine and Alice’s part that we let it exist within one hundred miles of us but he had had it for decades so we knew there was no getting rid of it. No matter how tempted all of us had been at one time or another to stage an accident for it.
I pressed a quick, consoling kiss to Jasper’s cheek before I jumped off of his back and walked over to one of the piles of clothes—my clothes it looked like—on our bed.
“Let’s just take some sweats. I really don’t want to ruin anything too expensive.”
Jasper stopped pouting long enough to agree with me and started picking up clothes and putting them back in our closet, careful to stick to Alice’s organizational scheme.
Alice sighed dramatically and threw her hands up in the air. “Fine!”
An hour later of putting away clothes and packing a couple bags at barely above human speed, we were ready to go. We loaded up my dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee and said our goodbyes to Esme and the others.
“Can you tell Carlisle bye for us?” I asked Esme as we took turns giving her hugs goodbye.
“Of course, dear.”
Alice stood back, bouncing at the door. “We have our phones if you need us but I haven’t Seen anything happening so we should be okay.”
“We’ll be back before school on Monday,” Jasper added. “Bye Ma.”
Finally, we climbed into the car and started driving north for our weekend escape.