Chapter Text
The interesting thing wasn't that they were new in town. Sometimes people moved places; no big deal.
It wasn't even that they were new in town and rich, although yes, wow, that was some ostentatious wealth they had.
The thing was that they arrived with so much lore.
Even before their first day at school, there were all sorts of explanations in circulation: the money was from various dead relatives; the doctor and his wife had adopted the rest of the family; it wasn't weird that they were all dating, because the ones who were biologically related weren't dating each other, and no one was dating the thirteen-year-old. (Good. Great, actually.)
This town was not an inherently rumor-prone one. The abundance of explanatory information about these people almost no one had even met yet was...interesting. As though the doctor had gone out of his way to send out disclaimers ahead of time, so that no one had time to think it weird that everyone in his family was around the same age and dating.
Sadie stayed out of the discourse, even though she suspected the family themselves to have started it. She couldn't blame other people for taking an interest, but she was uncomfortable with the idea of gossiping (It violated two of her personally-held Rules: Don't talk about people behind their backs, and Don't form quick judgements on people based on little to no information.), and honestly she doubted that the wealthy lived particularly interesting lives anyway.
That didn't mean she made any effort to keep from smiling as her study group spun outlandish conspiracy theories about them seemingly for the fun of it (in between actual bouts of schoolwork).
"Listen, I'm just saying, when it's that many kids, it stops being called a family and starts being called a collection," Kennedy said, spreading her hands and swishing her gaze over the other three as though waiting for one to agree or argue.
"No, it starts being called 'redistributing the wealth'," Natalie drawled, picking at her nail beds. "Anyway, they can probably hear what we're saying; the rich have ears everywhere."
Sadie rolled her eyes benignly and continued labeling parts of the brain for her Psychology midterm. Any other day, she would have taken the opportunity to practice what she liked to call Unlicensed Amateur Therapy on Natalie to examine her feelings of being observed, but exams came first. The social sciences had already become her favorite classes, even more so than the arts or language studies, and this was only her first year taking them; junior year, after all, had fewer required courses (or required prerequisite courses) than freshman or sophomore year had.
"So we're just ignoring my cult theory?" Colin protested.
"Yes," Natalie said bluntly.
"We were open-minded when you said that it was probably for religious reasons," Kennedy reminded Colin. "It was when you kept saying 'cult' that we moved on to better theories."
"What's wrong with my theory?" Colin, as per his usual unfamiliarity with the idea of personal space, was quite close to Kennedy's face as he asked this.
"Cults aren't funny. Say they're space aliens or something instead."
Sadie cleared her throat. "So, amygdalas, am I right?" She wasn't quizzing them, but Kennedy opted to treat it as though she was:
"That's the weird-shaped one; it's responsible for fear and emotions."
"It's not the weird-shaped one, it's the caterpillar-head-looking one," Sadie corrected, "but you got the function right."
Kennedy pumped her fist in the air.
"Do me next," Colin said, scooting closer to Sadie. He was easily in a position to read the answers from her study guide, given his proximity and angle, but Sadie opted not to bring this up as she quizzed him.
Sadie was the first to leave, out of the group- not because of the unproductive gossip, but because she had chores and a dog and the only way to balance those responsibilities and get to sleep on time was to cut her time with the study group short. Her mother picked her up from the library on her way home from work, still dressed in her scrubs with her dark hair pinned up into an impeccably neat bun.
"How was work?" Sadie asked lightly, while turning the car's AC down on the passenger side. Her mom worked at the hospital. It occurred to Sadie that she might have actually met Dr. Cullen by now. But she didn't ask about that; she was not one to pry. She considered making that one of her Rules: Do not pry. But she doubted that that was a rule she could even hope to always follow; she was lucky enough to be mostly un-curious about the Cullens, but there were bound to be more interesting things to inspire prying, in the future.
"Work was fine. How was school?"
...
Alice hadn’t really been looking for much of anything, at least on a conscious level; Edward would have known it, if she had been.
They would be starting school tomorrow, in accordance with a weather prediction from Alice. Nessie would be homeschooled by Esme for at least the next year, because she was still growing like a weed and that would be even more noticeable than Carlisle's improbably young face, until it slowed down. The rest of them, though, were high school bound. But that would be tomorrow.
Today was a day significantly lacking in clouds, so all of them were confined to the house. Edward was at the grand piano, working his way through every variation of every song he’d ever learned or composed. Jacob and Nessie (the ones who least needed to hide from the sun) were playing some video game against Bella and Emmett (two reasonably balanced teams; Jacob and Emmett were about equally skilled, and Bella’s lack of investment in the outcome of the game set her on roughly the same skill level as Nessie, who was nearly three years old, now, but looked eleven or maybe twelve). The four of them were monopolizing the sofa and making no small amount of noise, not that anyone minded. Carlisle was in his office, upstairs, reading about recent feats in medicine and keeping himself available to his colleagues in a virtual capacity, if needed. Esme was in another room, making the minute final touches to the new house’s renovations; they had moved in only two days ago.
Jasper and Rosalie had just returned from a hunting trip; the latter was now having her hair touched up by Alice, in one of the chairs stationed around a dining table they did not use for dining, not far from the sofa. (The whole bottom floor of the house was essentially one large room, with only the barest semblance of division. Esme had developed a fondness for “open concept” homes; the only thing with walls around it, downstairs, was the kitchen, and those walls were glass.) Jasper, meanwhile, was standing completely still behind the sofa, watching the proceedings of the video game with disproportionate earnestness and absorbing the high emotions of the players.
On the whole, they were at peace. Light from outside was fracturing off of their bodies and sparkling across the walls, floor, and ceiling. Nessie kept trying to distract her opponents by using her gift to show them memories (though it distracted her more than it did them), and in retaliation, Bella was tickling her side, and they were both laughing. Rosalie turned a page in her magazine and then made an appreciative sound, at the sight of the new model of Bugatti.
And then Alice gasped, and Edward was treated to a brief barrage of images:
A brown hand tucking a small, dark braid behind the shell of an ear. A pair of lips quirked in a slightly uncomfortable smile. A pair of eyebrows lunging together in an indignant frown. A school classroom. Blood, and entirely too much of it. A tiny, pale hand (Alice’s, given the perspective) gently holding a warm human hand, applying nail polish. And a few more in a similar vein.
Edward couldn’t tell which sets of images belonged to the same branches of the future; he didn’t have Alice’s exact experience of the visions, only her surface thoughts. But those thoughts were enough to glean the significance, so he stood from the piano while Jasper’s head was still swiveling toward Alice in reaction to her rush of emotions.
“I’ll go hunting now,” Edward announced, and met Bella’s concerned, honey-colored gaze with a reassuring smile before he streaked out to the woods, where he could busy himself finding some deer to joylessly exsanguinate until Alice was done explaining her vision to the others– most pertinently, to Jasper.
Vampires were inherently obsessive beings. Edward himself was no exception, though it had taken Nessie wistfully saying that she hoped someone would crawl through her window one day to make him fully realize it, and realize just how differently things would have gone if his mate had been even the slightest bit less malleable to his peculiarities.
Jasper had rougher edges than Edward had.
It was doubtful that he would much appreciate that Edward had seen his second mate– or flashes of her, anyway –before he, Jasper, had even known of her. So, out of respect, it was best to leave the immediate vicinity while Jasper worked these feelings out.
A second mate, Edward couldn't help thinking, somewhat annoyed by the development. And just when everything was in balance.
…
"No, sir, this is people food," Sadie said, holding her dinner plate out of the golden retriever's reach. Brillig took the denial in stride; after only a couple more attempts to reach her food, he resigned himself to pitifully lapping at Sadie's knees, under the table. He was especially affectionate these days, as midterms had necessitated long study sessions, meaning she was home less often. If he tried to sleep in her bed tonight, she probably wouldn't stop him.
"'But I am a people,'" her dad said, in the voice they all tended to use when they spoke for Brillig.
"Canine Americans do not eat onions or garlic," Sadie said, lowering her dish to the table now that Brillig was not in danger of unwittingly poisoning himself.
"Oh, but they can be science experiments."
Sadie sighed playfully. "I only tried to replicate Pavlovian classical conditioning one time, and I stopped and apologized to Brillig as soon as I learned that standard psychological experiments involve more ethical guidelines than I was technically following."
"You don't actually have to debrief a dog," her mother interjected. "And you don't have to conduct an IRB-approved study if you want to test Pavlov's classical conditioning. On a dog."
"Still good to practice ethical guidelines," Sadie maintained.
"Oh, I met Dr. Cullen today," her mother added. "Over Skype."
"Really."
"Mm-hm. He's young, but he has a lot of references and he sounded like he knows what he's talking about. I'm optimistic."
Good news for the hospital, then.
Conversation moved through various other topics before Sadie was collecting their plates and bringing them to the sink. Over her shoulder, Dad remarked, "We'll go looking for cars this weekend."
She flashed him a grateful smile and said, "Sounds good. Thanks." She had never asked for a car, because material possessions did not interest her much, but her parents observed all the milestones of growing up (the real ones and the ones they themselves had created), quite reliably.
At twelve, she had first been allowed to wear colored lipgloss and ride her bike unaccompanied, within the neighborhood. At thirteen, she had officially been allowed to have a significant other, though it could only be a nominal title and would come with no privileges. At fourteen, she had been allowed to go on dates (but only double dates with her parents) and also to wear foundation and non-pink nail polish, and to ride her bike wherever she wanted. At fifteen, learner's permit and driving lessons and a dog. At sixteen, her current age (but only for another few months), she was allowed to go on dates without her parents, and she also had her driver's license. And soon, apparently, a car.
"You should look into what model you want."
"After midterms," her mother added. "You study cars after you study for midterms."
"Understood," Sadie said brightly. She plugged up the sink and half-filled it with warm water and dish soap while Brillig nosed at her thighs and her parents went upstairs. She plunged a hand into the white suds and sighed contentedly at the feeling.
...
The rest of the Cullens only got the swiftest of explanations before Jasper was led by hand upstairs to their room. Alice's exact words had been "We have another mate".
If Jasper's heart had been beating, its pace would have redoubled.
The joy radiating off Alice, even more than the unmatched beauty of her smile, was enough to sweep him up, to detach him from the sour smell of the paint Esme was applying to a wall a few rooms over or the adventurous music of the game being played downstairs.
Another mate. Him and Alice and someone else. He had never thought to want such a thing, but now that Alice mentioned it, it was all he needed.
"She's beautiful, Jazz," she informed him. "You love her. I love her. She's so sweet; she's absolutely perfect."
He could feel Alice's love; it tasted like nectar. The strongest, most dizzying nectar. She was already experiencing a mate bond with this person Jasper had not yet seen. To feel it secondhand...it was tantalizing. All of that love– a love that he knew belonged to him, too –and the euphoria that accompanied it...through her, he only felt an echo. "Where is she?"
He had another heart out there somewhere, out of reach, unprotected.
"At home with her family; she's a human now," Alice answered, a bit of sympathy and a bit of amusement mingling with her extreme joy and love- a tangy edge, added to the nectar. (Downstairs, Rosalie made an incredulous noise at the revelation that another of her siblings had mated with a human.) He had not meant to dilute her enjoyment with his desperation, but he was desperate. She raised her hand and cupped his cheek. "We get the best outcomes if we wait until school tomorrow to meet her. You will need the time to rein in your stronger impulses. You don't want to hurt anyone."
He didn't. It was true that he didn't want that. But the want not to hurt anyone was minuscule in comparison to all the other wants. He had another mate out there somewhere, and Alice had seen her, Edward had seen her, and he had to wait? He had to wait to feel the love Alice was feeling now? Jasper ground his teeth for a moment and felt glad that Edward had removed himself from the house; he was not taking his envy well, and his love for Alice didn't allow him to envy her. "What about tonight?" Jasper suggested. "Just a quick look while she's asleep."
Alice's eyes unfocused as she evaluated that future, and a shot of distaste ran through her, and her nose wrinkled as she returned to the present. "At school tomorrow," she reaffirmed, shaking her head. "She has a dog; if we go tonight, either it barks and wakes her up, or you kill it. Things don't go great if you kill her dog."
No, he imagined not. Still, Jasper wanted to pace the room restlessly; the only thing stopping him was his hunch that looking away from Alice would remove a great deal of his self-control. "Tell me about her," he requested.
Alice grinned, practically bouncing on her toes in excitement. "She's in our year, we can transfer to all of her classes, and her name is Sadie. Sadie Gilder. Middle name...Lily. She has two parents; they're alive and together, and they will become an obstacle to us if we don't keep our heads on straight. No siblings, one dog. The dog is named Brillig; it's from a poem."
"Jabberwocky," Bella informed them from downstairs.
Jasper twitched in annoyance at the interruption but said nothing that would further delay Alice's description.
"She does not have a significant other, but one of her male friends is very tactile, and there is a future where you kill him over it in class tomorrow; we really, really want to avoid that. She is extremely polite, which is good, because I don't see a future where we aren't both very weird upon meeting her, and her politeness compels her to shrug it off. When we do meet her, you are going to experience a strong urge to steal her away right then and there; resist that. If we stray too far from accepted human behavior too quickly, you will have to feel her fear, and you will not like that."
No, he wouldn't. Feeling his new mate's fear...Fear of him...He was sure that he would hate it. And now that he thought about it, most of his immediate impulses did involve things that would probably scare her.
Alice was right, as usual; he would need these several hours between now and tomorrow to maximize his control over himself. If he saw his new mate- Sadie -now, someone human and vulnerable and out of reach and unprotected-
"What if we have Jacob lure the dog away?" he asked.
"That's not how wolves work, ya dumb leech," Jacob called, with his mouth full of what sounded like popcorn. It seemed he had no interest in maintaining the pretense that this was a private conversation.
A flash of dismay ran through Alice, and she called back, "Did you just decide to transfer to her classes, too?"
"Maybe," Jacob answered unabashedly.
"Well, un-decide it! Whole hours of the future disappeared, and I need to see it!"
"Fine, but someone will need to be there to supervise you guys; it's clear that no human in that class is safe with you there."
Jasper felt his own offense mirrored in Alice, though neither of them could say that Jacob was wrong.
"I'm on it," Emmett said.
"To protect the humans, or because you're nosy?" Bella asked.
"I can have two motives. And it sounds like 'tactile male friend' will need a bodyguard." Emmett's tone was far more mirthful than the situation called for.
"I want to meet her, too," Nessie chimed in. "Especially if she's going to be a part of the family."
"Carlisle would never change a human who is completely fine and living her own life," Rosalie said pointedly, "and I'm sure Alice and Jasper wouldn't ask him to."
Jasper set his jaw to avoid giving a retort. He respected Rosalie, his pretend-twin-sister, but her staunchness was just not working in his favor right now.
"If she gets pregnant with a half-vampire, then she'll have to change," Nessie pointed out. "Oh, but Uncle Jasper can't sleep with a human..."
"Okay!" Bella said, unnecessarily loudly. The sounds of the video game stopped. "You and I are going to go catch up with your daddy."
"But Mom," Nessie groaned.
"On my back," Bella instructed.
The sound of Nessie obeying was immediately followed by the patter of Bella's steps as they exited the house.
She's not wrong, though, Jasper thought. I would have to be holding my breath the whole time to even have a chance...
"You guys are really clearing out the place," Jacob observed, still with the popcorn.
"Oh." Alice winced as she returned from another vision. She lowered her voice, not that it mattered, and said, "She does not currently have an interest in immortality."
"Good for her," Rosalie said. "I might like this one."
"She also isn't looking for a relationship right now, but she isn't closed to the idea, and she has always wanted siblings; that's a way in."
A part of Jasper wished that he wouldn't have to leverage his multitude of siblings in order to pique his new mate's interest, but that part was dwarfed by the tactical strategist in him, which was willing to leverage anything. "What else?"
"She likes..." Alice paused, and then frustration the taste of vinegar all but overtook her joy. "I'm serious, dog, stay out of the future! Don't talk to her, don't even talk about her! I need to see everything; no blanks!"
Jasper waited for Jacob's retort, as he always had something to say about being called a dog (most commonly, something like, "I prefer the term 'natural hunter of your species, tick."), but all he heard was more popcorn being chewed. And then he tasted sharp, sour annoyance as Alice hissed:
"Cut it out! Now the whole future's gone!"
"Is it?" Jacob said coyly.
Jasper was very close to running downstairs to deal with Jacob himself, but then Carlisle's voice in the office chided, "Children, are you respecting each other's boundaries?"
"I'm not your kid, doc," Jacob reminded mildly, but he must have let up in his stymieing of Alice's visions, because relief shot through her, and her joy returned.
"She likes terms of endearment," Alice discovered. "We're going to think of as many of those as we can tonight, okay?"
Jasper nodded, gratified to have some other task to dedicate his energy to besides waiting and being in control of himself.
"She likes your real accent." Alice beamed. "So, you won't hide that anymore."
"He hides it because we're supposed to be twins," Rosalie reminded. "I don't have a Southern accent."
"She won't have any questions or suspicions about that," Alice said. "Edward will inform us that she assumes you're just hiding yours. And you won't talk much in the beginning, anyway; you sulk."
"When will we meet her?" Jasper asked.
"She doesn't drive," Alice observed, pouting, "so we can't meet her in the parking lot. We can meet her in the hallway before class, but- Jacob, please decide to be somewhere else. Thank you so much. We shouldn't speak to her too soon; she has a test in the morning, and she'll be in a hurry. She's going to be dropped off at the front of the building by her mother in a blue station wagon. Her mother works at the same hospital as Carlisle; that could prove useful."
"It's somehow even creepier to be on this side of it," Jacob murmured.
"Tell me about it," Emmett muttered back, before more loudly inquiring, "Do you guys think that maybe using psychic powers to know exactly how things will play out kind of ruins everything?"
"No," Jasper answered curtly.
"Trust me, Emmett, this is still going to be pretty hard," Alice huffed.
"Is it an option for you to just avoid the girl?" Rosalie asked wearily. "She can't reciprocate a mate bond as a human, and once both of you start going crazy for her, we already know she'll be part of the family one way or another, whether she wants to or not."
"She'll want to," Alice said firmly. "That's what we're working toward. And we do have certain advantages on that front."
Jasper's talent for emotions. Alice's visions. Their siblings. Their beauty. Their wealth.
Their speed. Their strength. The fact that they wouldn't need to sleep, if it came to a chase...
"Let's go over the plan," Alice suggested, settling daintily on the edge of their bed. "We'll hunt again tomorrow morning, just to be extra safe, okay?"
Jasper nodded but couldn't bring himself to sit until Alice got back up, took his hand in both of hers, and led him to sit beside her. Still, he couldn't relax. "Tell me all the likes and dislikes you can find," he said. "And every way things might go wrong tomorrow."
Alice grinned in a way that was almost devious, and he loved it. This was one of the ways in which they were the most compatible; they both loved her power and would exploit its benefits to the ends of the earth. Especially for something like this.
Wow, Jasper marveled at the acuteness of his own feelings. If he felt this strongly invested just knowing that he would have another mate, how would he feel once he had seen her for himself?
...
Since her Psych midterm was in the morning, Sadie didn't take too long, as she disembarked from her mother's car, to process the group of teens huddled near the entrance to the school, though she did momentarily observe, So, those are probably the Cullens.
More accurately, three Cullens, two Hales, a Swan, and a Black would be going to school here. The two Cullen parents and the thirteen-year-old naturally would not.
Seriously, how had she accumulated this much knowledge of the family while staying out of the gossip?
(After the Psych test, she would have to do some introspection on that; regardless of which model of memory formation one subscribed to, it was generally understood that one had to be paying attention to something in order to remember it. She had evidently been listening to the gossip more than she'd admitted to herself. Fascinating.)
Okay, now name all of Piaget's developmental stages. Sensorimotor, preoperational...
It was a murky, drippy day to say the least, and the huddled group appeared stark pale, drawing anyone's eye, like a neon sign. That can't be healthy, Sadie thought, before catching herself in a judgement. She wasn't going to judge these strangers' vitamin D intake by their complexion. In fact, she wasn't going to judge other people's vitamin intake at all. Although I hope they do get enough sunshine, she thought as she opened the school's front door. She thought she heard one of them snicker, but avoided trying to listen in. She would not be nosy or rude with the new students.
It was only after she was through the doorway, as she was looking behind herself to see if there was anyone who needed her to hold the door, that she caught the eye of one of said new students; a tall boy (but not the tallest in the group) was staring at her with such unabashed intensity that it didn't appear to be an accident, though she was sure that it had to be. He had to have zoned out on the spot where she happened to be standing, or maybe he was watching some insect that she couldn't see.
Mustard hair, mustard eyes, which contributed to a sort of leonine look, except for his paper-whiteness. Well-dressed and very neat, in a cashmere sweater over a collared shirt and slacks, all in shades of orange. Sadie's favorite color. One of his sisters (or possibly his girlfriend, given this family's Whole Deal) had her hand on his arm. He was handsome, but he was also staring at her, so Sadie looked away out of sheer secondhand embarrassment.
Awkward, awkward.
Off to class.
It was his first day; he was probably nervous. No need to commit a fundamental attribution error against the poor guy.
Although, as she moved swiftly through the hallway, she did wish that she had kept looking long enough to see him stop looking; not having done so, she felt irrationally as though his eyes were still on her, even now.
...
Sadie Lily Gilder was shorter than Jasper and taller than Alice. Her skin was deep brown, her eyes nearly black and positively luminous, her eyelashes long, her hair woven into many braids, shoulder-length. She wore a tie-dye patterned shirt with matching purple jeans and high tops and star-shaped earrings; comfortable and colorful, but not what Alice would call stylish. There was a glaze of hot pink lipgloss over her lips, and a dusting of flesh-colored foundation on her cheeks, and Jasper's enhanced vision could detect every pore and hair on every uncovered millimeter of her body.
She looked soft, and her heartbeat was musical, and she was perfect, and every warning Alice had given him was real, because for an entire second, Jasper was sure he wouldn't let her enter the school. He was sure that he would take both her and Alice into his arms and run as far and fast as he could. Then Alice placed a warning hand on his arm, and Edward surreptitiously grabbed the back of his sweater, and Jasper's strategic mind returned. If he tried such a thing, his family would stop him. That was what they were here for, what he had agreed to, before seeing the face of his second heart had realigned his whole way of thinking.
He remembered the warnings. Don't kill her friends. Don't kill her dog. Don't approach her too suddenly: you might scare her, or break her, or eat her... He was smart enough to control himself.
Then he was looking into her eyes- Perfect. Mine. Control yourself! -as he tasted her half-frazzled anticipation for her test, and her slight surprise at his gaze, and her discomfort, and...She was embarrassed for him, how cute...and her curiosity, and...
She turned away while he was still appreciating every dimension of her emotional landscape, every cut of the diamond. All of the vampire instincts he possessed told him to follow her, to not allow her to pass from his sight when she was fragile and his, but as he was back on speaking terms with his wits, he got himself to hesitate for a fraction of a second.
It was Alice who immediately darted into the throng of students to follow their mate, before Jasper himself did.