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It started and ended with a bath.
That had been their first instruction. Number one on the physical list that Rosalie had left for Alice and Jasper. A list that was pointless, since she’d already gone over everything verbally with the two of them. A list that Bella had laughed over, Edward had glared at, and Alice had hand-waved away.
Jasper had eyed it hesitantly from where Rosalie had propped it up on the table, her elegant script comically large against the notepad, as if the bigger she wrote the harder it would be for Jasper or Alice to fuck this up.
“Maybe she should have written it bigger,” Alice replied to a comment he hadn’t yet verbalized, and when she inhaled to speak more, Jasper could feel her full body shudder from where she sat behind him. The sound of her gag was muffled, but now that the faucet was off, it was as loud as a scream in the noiseless bathroom.
Jasper opened his mouth to speak, but the air was still home to the wretched stench and he quickly closed it, cutting off his sense of taste and smell simultaneously. The discomfort at ceasing his breathing was far easier to deal with than the horrific sensory nightmare that was offered alongside the alternative.
“You know,” Alice began in a tone that implied he was going to hate what she had to say, but she continued nevertheless, “Nessie did warn you.”
Jasper could see her in the reflection of the window and watched as she flipped through the ring of measuring spoons. The clacking of plastic punctuated her point, and the noise was suddenly intolerable to him.
“I’m not convinced she didn’t set me up,” he complained under his breath, fighting the urge to reach behind him and still Alice’s fidgeting. He wanted to say ‘you could have also warned me’ but knew that it was a moot point.
The clattering against tile from across the bathroom clued him into the fact that Alice had given up on proper measuring, and soon enough she was pouring the entire box of baking soda straight into the tub.
The water fizzed at his side, and he finally turned his head to look at her. Alice was dressed head-to-toe in clothes that didn’t quite fit which he knew she’d either trash or burn after this. And she was currently studying the side of a second box of baking soda.
He had half a mind to reach out and pull her into the bath himself, but—
“If you so much as even try—” her words were suddenly scathing, and her annoyance stifled his passing amusement instead of encouraging it “—I will let you do this alone next time,” she snapped, glancing up long enough for him to see just how much she meant that threat.
Jasper scoffed and turned back around, and the stench of the room made his own annoyance more palpable in the atmosphere. He knew she wasn’t referring to this specific predicament, but instead to the situation as a whole. “Who says there’s going to be a ‘next time’?”
A small voice called from down the stairs. “I do!”
Renesmee sounded remarkably pleased with herself, only expressing a mere glimpse of the delight Jasper could feel radiating from her, where she was seated in front of the television in the den. He could hear the paper rip as she tore into another handful of sugar packets and just knew he and Alice would have to get the vacuum out. Again.
Instructions two, three, and four, ignored all at once.
But, Jasper thought, as Alice finally popped the lid off of the dish soap and started depositing it onto his head with a heavy hand, at least they didn’t fail step one.
Well. Not entirely.
Jasper had not wanted to babysit. Jasper had been content to leave the child-rearing to every other member of his family. Jasper had been confident that he would always be permanently placed dead-last in the unspoken ‘people who should be in charge of nurturing another life’ contest amongst them. Unfortunately, multiple colliding forces had crashed together—feeling very much like the set up for a disaster movie set mid-apocalypse—and quickly he’d found himself staring down the barrel of a gun that, he was loath to admit, unnerved him in a way that actual war never had.
But they had been two weeks into January, and two weeks from the traumatic events of the Volturi’s visit, when Emmett made a comment in passing that spiraled into the catastrophe that now awaited him.
“You really gotta spend more time with Nessie,” Emmett had remarked on the walk back from a hunt. “She’s growing like a weed and you and Alice were gone for most of December.” He’d vaulted himself over a few downed trees as he spoke, never once breaking stride. “If you want to bond with her, you gotta do it now, while she’s still little.”
It was meant to be friendly advice offered as a passing comment as part of a larger conversation. It had been kind, really, even if Jasper did think it was a bit silly. He could bond with Renesmee once everyone else got their fill—her ‘baby’ days would be over before the family knew it, and Jasper was well aware of the way most of his family had always craved the opportunity to…parent, in a way that Jasper never had.
It hadn’t been what Emmett had said, but who he’d said it in front of, that had triggered this entire mess.
Rosalie and Esme, who had been trailing behind the two of them, had unfortunately been within earshot when Emmett had started talking. And of course, at the mention of Renesmee, their attention had locked onto their conversation.
Jasper, who prayed that Alice would catch up soon, Carlisle in tow, had suddenly felt her absence very, very keenly.
He’d picked his response carefully. “I think we’ll be fine,” Jasper replied, being sure to vaguely include Alice in his response, since it hadn’t just been him who was gone for those few weeks.
Then Emmett had shot him a look—a mere precursor before divulging the worst information he could have delivered with their specific, attentive audience, a quarter-mile away—and frowned. “Dude, on Thursday she asked me if you hated kids.”
“She what?!” Rosalie’s echoed exclamation reached them the same time she did. “Why didn’t you tell me!” She’d demanded of Emmett, looking every bit as frazzled as Jasper could feel from her.
Emmett had the decency to look a little ashamed of himself as he witnessed Rosalie’s acute distress, but shrugged, as if that were an explanation in and of itself.
Before they’d made it home, but after Alice and Carlisle had caught up, a plan had been put forth into motion to correct this horrendous oversight; this terrible circumstance that bordered on emotional neglect. Esme and Carlisle had already been planning a weekend up to Denali—it seemed Garrett was still hanging around Kate, and there were apparently conversations they wanted to have with Tanya concerning Irina’s execution—so Rosalie declared that she and Emmett would also make themselves scarce for a handful of days.
It helped that Edward and Bella had been so wrapped up in their ‘newlywed bliss’ that Renesmee was spending most of her time at the house anyways. Now, all they needed to do—or, all Alice needed to do—was force Edward and Bella out of town for a little while, so that Alice and Jasper could get some “proper bonding in,” as Rosalie called it, Esme nodding enthusiastically to this terrible idea while Carlisle had smiled approvingly.
One week later, Jasper gifted Emmett a kidney punch as a parting gift on his way out the door.
The list was relatively short and quite simple, with six key components:
1) Renesmee needs to shower before bed.
2) She may have a small snack
3) No TV or computer allowed
4) Bed time is at nine
5) Do her hair care routine (further instructions are on the counter in her bathroom)
6) Sing a minimum of two lullabies
Jasper sat at the kitchen table, chin resting in his hand, watching as Edward’s eyes scanned over the list with annoyance.
Jasper couldn’t tell whether Edward was irritated at the fact that Rosalie had beaten him to the punch and created a formal list of ‘Babysitting Instructions’ for Jasper and Alice, or whether he was annoyed over the fact that Alice was already not taking her babysitting duties seriously.
The television in the next room was barely quieter than Alice’s voice as she talked to Renesmee about her ‘Givenchy and Alexander McQueen needed their detrimental entanglement in order for either brand to reach their full potential’ rant that they’d all heard some variation of over the last few years.
Jasper watched Edward’s expression with amusement as his aura morphed from ‘mild annoyance’ to ‘moderate irritation’ the further he read down the list. Unfortunately for Edward, this change of mood only served to amuse Jasper further. And when Edward picked up the discarded pen and quickly slashed through the last few lines, Jasper laughed out loud.
Edward shot him a nasty look.
“I didn’t say anything,” Jasper defended, grinning.
Edward crossed out the last two instructions and Jasper felt Bella’s curiosity before he saw her enter the kitchen. She walked up behind Edward to read the list herself and laughed harder than Jasper had.
Edward and Bella would soon depart for their ‘date night,’ as Alice had called it, having successfully talked the family down from their initial proposition of ‘Alice and Jasper babysit for an entire weekend’ to ‘Alice and Jasper babysit for one night.’ She’d gifted them gallery tickets, movie tickets, and insisted that Edward show Bella more of their typical stomping grounds; hunting areas further from Forks than they’d frequented since Renesmee’s birth. They’d return before sunrise, so that Alice and Jasper would thankfully be spared from also having to do a morning routine with Renesmee.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Edward grumbled, dropping the notepad.
“You guys are so endearing,” she tried to stifle her smile as she wrapped an arm around her husband’s back. “These are just normal, basic instructions. You should’ve seen the version Rose showed me this morning. It had like, seventeen more things on it. This one is so reasonable.” She tried to pinch Edward’s side, but he stilled her hand before she could squeeze. “Relax,” she laughed. “It’s not like they’re going to lose her in a supermarket. They’re going to just be here the whole time. They aren’t going to get bored and launch her into space.”
As if to loop him into the conversation, and the joke, Bella had looked at Jasper with a pointed expression, as if to say ‘agree with me, please’ to which Jasper frowned. He’d been so entertained by Edward’s budding tantrum that he’d almost forgotten that this list was intended to help him look after a literal child.
Bella glanced quickly up at Edward, who was also closely watching Jasper’s expression, and then met Jasper’s eyes again. Her mirth was slowly giving way to mild worry.
Jasper stared back at her, his expression very careful as he slowly said, “I will not get bored and launch Renesmee into space.” Then, he looked up at Edward. This is overkill.
Edward glared but sighed and turned away, tension lessening as he walked out of the room, car keys already in hand.
“I don’t think you were convincing enough,” Bella mused, but she quickly followed her husband out of the kitchen to say goodbye to Renesmee, and then within minutes, they’d departed.
Now, an hour after Edward and Bella had left for their date, Jasper was sitting in his study, the door propped open as he listened closely to the sound of the water running from the bathroom down the hall. He was genuinely trying not to hover, but after a couple minutes he stood from behind his desk—from where he’d been staring at the wall—and peeked out into the doorway.
Alice, who was sitting on the floor down the hall, met his eyes and was already smiling, having anticipated his anxious hovering. “Wow, you really are stressed out about this, huh?”
Jasper ducked back into his study, frowning, and refused to reply.
Alice was at his side within a second. “Oh, I’m just teasing you.” She wrapped her arms around his elbow and squeezed tightly so that he couldn’t shake her off. “Jazz, she’s not going to drown in there.” Then, she paused, and said thoughtfully, “I’m not sure she even can drown…”
“I don’t like how curious you are about that.”
“I am not going to try to drown Renesmee.”
“Phrases that would send Edward into a fit,” Jasper muttered, leaning down to press a kiss against the top of Alice’s head.
“Although,” Alice’s tone was still speculative, “I do wonder whether she can swim or not…”
Through the sound of the running water they heard Renesmee call out, “Not yet!”
Alice laughed at Jasper when he left his study, towing her behind him as he prepared to plant himself outside the bathroom door.
The list would’ve been easier to disregard if the instructions had left some wiggle room. Unfortunately, Rosalie was not good at keeping things concise.
Beneath the first point, there’d been a few addendums:
1) Renesmee needs to shower before bed.
- She knows how to put her shower cap on, just make sure to watch her so that she fastens it correctly, covering up all of her hair. Make sure there are no strands hanging out, I just did her hair this morning.
- If she plans on bathing for longer than 10 minutes, don’t forget to add a few drops of oil from the orange bottle on the shelf to the water so that her skin doesn’t dry out.
- Bath-time has a hard 30 minute time limit.
- There is lavender lotion on the sink, please help her moisturize before she gets dressed.
Thankfully, Renesmee showered quickly and without requiring any assistance. Jasper had stood awkwardly in the hallway while Alice had flitted around on the main level, poking through the pantry that neither of them ever acknowledged, trying to sort out what was considered a ‘meal’ and what was considered a ‘snack’ with the help of her laptop and a handy search engine. The door had probably been closed for five minutes before it opened again, Renesmee redressed in a matching pink pajama set, her hair blessedly dry, and smelling heavily of lavender.
She looked up at Jasper, and smiled. “All done!” She declared in her small, clear voice.
It was strange to acknowledge Renesmee’s independence now that the rest of the family was absent. She was almost five months old, but (according to Carlisle) the size of a three-year old, and (according to Rosalie) as advanced as a twelve-year old. Three very different ages. And Jasper did not know how to act toward any of them. Even taking clues from the rest of his family wasn’t exactly an option. Esme doted on her like a baby, still cooing and coddling, Emmett treated her like a little kid, trying to see just how much he could get away with when he played with the girl outside, and Edward treated her like a prodigy, focusing mainly on the skills she was able to successfully hone without putting forth much effort.
Even Bella treated her differently, content to let Renesmee lead the way, and folding herself into the role of ‘Mother’ like someone trying to find out which shoe size fitted an ever-changing foot.
Renesmee appeared to be studying Jasper in much the same way. Reflexively, Jasper tuned the atmosphere, adjusting so that the same air of calm comfort was still flooding the house, even despite its emptiness. The change in her was instantaneous.
Renesmee lifted her arms and, feeling caught off guard and unsure of what to do, Jasper extended a hand toward her, leaning down with his shoulders hunched to let the girl wrap her fingers around a couple of his.
It felt awkward to walk alongside her, holding her tiny hand as they made their way down the hall, down the stairs, and toward the kitchen. It wasn’t until he realized that he was sensing stifled disappointment from Renesmee that he realized he’d already messed up.
She hadn’t wanted to take his hand, she’d wanted him to pick her up.
Jasper hadn’t held Renesmee since she were barely a week old. The first time, because Renesmee had bit Jacob and none of them had been certain whether she was venomous or not, and the second time, because Bella’s status as a newborn had made her threat number one, where she would run the risk of maiming her very-much-half-human child if they weren’t careful.
But both times he’d held Renesmee, he’d immediately deposited her into someone else’s arms. First Rosalie’s, then a few days later, Edward’s. Then, he figured he’d better stop embarrassing himself, and Jasper stopped running interference after that.
“Great!”Alice exclaimed as they made their way into the kitchen. It took two seconds for Jasper to realize that Alice’s voice was coming from up high, and found her hanging from the wire shelving in their rarely-used (until this past summer) pantry, as she poked through boxes with one hand. “You’re done! Do you want a snack?” Alice tossed a bag of something heavy onto the kitchen table across the room, and Jasper looked where a random assortment of food items had accumulated.
Renesmee released Jasper’s fingers and scurried to the table, easily climbing into a chair and standing to better see the haul Alice had put together. Her confusion and frustration were already in the air before a tiny pout formed on her face.
“This isn’t a snack.”
“Excuse me?” Alice was half-offended, half-confused as she dropped back to the ground and approached. That was when Jasper noticed what, exactly, Alice had retrieved from the upper reaches of the pantry. A bag of beans, another of rice, two sacks of flour, dehydrated noodles, and a box of what looked like sugar packets.
“I can make something,” Alice complained, staring down the five-month-old, as if waiting for her to make a proper request.
Jasper had to refrain from contradicting his wife, and instead walked over to the fridge. Even though the family didn’t keep much pre-made food, instead opting to always make Renesmee food from scratch, someone had to have left something for them to feed her.
But nope. There were eggs, milk, and plenty of fresh produce. Thankfully, Jasper had paid enough attention over the years to know what was ready-to-eat and what wasn’t, but by the time he’d grabbed the tiny crate of blueberries and the carton of milk, Renesmee had changed her tone.
“Alice? Jasper?”
Jasper peeked out from around the refrigerator door to see Renesmee sitting in the chair, hands clasped neatly in her lap, still pouting but with a very particular expression on her face. It was familiar to Jasper, but he couldn’t tell why exactly. Thankfully, her curiosity and reluctance gave him enough context to understand what was happening when she spoke next.
“Can we go hunt?” And as if she knew the power she held over most of the household, Renesmee looked up at them from beneath her eyelashes, lips perfectly pouted and shoulders hunched.
“No,” Jasper replied before he could think twice. Was she really trying…to guilt them? He was almost amazed that she’d picked up this skill already.
“What?” Alice turned up to him next, her own brow furrowed. “That was a quick shut-down. Why not?”
And that’s when he realized why Renesmee’s expression looked so familiar. It was the same one Alice used when she was trying to get her way.
“Because—” he stopped himself before he could say ‘it’s against the rules,’ because he swiftly realized that it was not, in fact, against any of the rules listed on the paper in his pocket.
Alice, who knew this, held her hand out for the instructions and wiggled her fingers in a ‘hand it over’ motion.
2) Renesmee may have a small snack.
- She doesn’t typically ask so make sure you offer it no less than one hour before bedtime.
- Do not offer her anything with a high sugar content
- Wait at least 30 minutes before brushing her teeth before bed
Jasper sighed and turned his head upward to stare at the ceiling. He was not going to win this battle, so it wasn’t worth even picking. “Fine,” he sighed again. “You have to take another shower when we get back though.” He eyed the clock on the stove across the kitchen; they would have to make this quick.
“Thank you!” Renesmee hopped off the chair. “I will go put on outside clothes!” Then, she ran off in that strange way she did; a toddler with far too much grace to ever be able to blend in.
“You’re acting so weird,” Alice commented as she left the room. Jasper followed closely behind.
“I’m following the rules.”
“They’re guidelines, Jazz. Advice. Rose isn’t going to kill you if you, I don’t know, forget to brush Renesmee’s hair a hundred times before she goes to bed tonight.”
“You jest, but…”
Alice laughed. “It’s cute that you’re taking this so seriously.”
Jasper was suddenly happy that Alice couldn’t see his face as he lost the battle against the urge to grimace. Emmett’s voice was in his head again—“she asked me if you hated kids”—and Jasper batted down the guilt as he went to go grab his shoes.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
They’d run further from the house than they’d intended, but Renesmee had requested a marmot of all damned creatures, and they’d had to run up and into the mountains in order to fulfill the request, a full twenty-miles more than Jasper had wanted to run.
Alice had also taken advantage of the hunting opportunity and was a few miles down the range, enjoying a quick meal after giving chase to a small herd of deer several minutes before. Jasper, still too uneasy at hunting around his very-much half-human niece, opted to play watchman, simply observing Renesmee as she enjoyed her ‘snack.’
It had only been fifteen minutes, but it was the longest stretch of time that Jasper had ever spent with Renesmee alone. And, in that very moment, he was abruptly reminded that this actually-five-month-but-really-three-year old was exactly that: a toddler-sized baby.
And she had to use the bathroom.
“We can head home now,” he offered, watching as she wiggled on top of the dirt pile where she’d buried her small kill. “It’s about a forty minute run if we start now.” He could probably make it in under thirty minutes if he just picked her up and ran, but something told him that those ten minutes might not make much of a difference to this child that only came up to his knee.
Renesmee’s lower lip wobbled. “I can’t make it.”
Jasper bit back every expletive that now rolled through his mind, unravelling like a dropped spool of thread. He didn’t know what to do. He’d missed out on the potty-training era. Truthfully, he’d forgotten all about that. One day, he and Alice were there, and then they were gone, taken to the sea in order to bypass their family and make it as far south as they possibly could before it was too late.
By the time he and Alice had returned, Renesmee had gained a few inches of height, lost that much more of her baby fat, and was completely toilet trained.
Now, as he stared at the uncomfortable hybrid baby in front of him, he wondered how the hell he’d gotten himself into this mess.
“Do you know how to…” he gestured toward the trees around them, like an idiot would, “use the bushes or,” he made another dumb gesture with his hands, feeling every ounce the fool as he tried to ask a baby if she knew how to pee outside, like a dog.
Yeah, Edward would kill him if Rosalie didn’t get to it first. Maybe Bella could run interference if she were in an understanding mood. Possibly Emmett, if he thought Jasper had tried hard enough to actually do a good job, but those chances were dwindling.
“I don’t know,” Renesmee’s voice had taken on a dangerous whine, and as her eyes began to shimmer with the promise of tears, Jasper sprang into action.
“Okay, okay, it’s fine.” He took one careful step toward her, and then another. This time, when she held her arms up to him, he quickly lifted her. It felt strange to hold her like this—she was insanely light, and the fluttering of her strange heart still made him feel uncomfortable, even now—but when she leaned against his shoulder, he was relieved that she was holding tightly enough that she felt secure.
Then, he took off into the forest, in search of Alice.
It took him a frustratingly long time to find her, but after almost ten minutes of searching, traveling even further from home, he was so relieved to find her that he sighed audibly.
“What happened?” Alice finally had the awareness to be concerned at his and Renesmee’s expressions.
“She has to pee,” Jasper stated plainly.
Alice looked up at him. “Okay?”
“We’re too far from home.”
“Obviously.”
“So she’s going to have to use the woods.”
“She sure is.”
Jasper felt ready to tear his hair out. “She doesn’t know how.”
“Oh,” Alice grimaced. “Well, why are you looking at me like that?”
“I—what—show her how, perhaps?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know.”
“What do you mean?!”
“I’ve literally never peed in my life,” she reminded him. Not that she remembered, at least. “Did you forget how to pee?”
“I cannot believe this is what we’re talking about,” he spoke into the dead of night, as if it were the third member of the conversation, silent and mocking as it witnessed this asinine exchange between two super-powered immortals. He turned back to the toddler he was still holding.
“Renesmee, do you think you can figure it out?” he asked her. Maybe if he instilled enough confidence in her, she’d be content to walk ten paces away, squat behind a tree, and do her business.
As he began to slowly adjust the atmosphere around him, his vision blurred, and a scene unfolded in his mind. Suddenly, he was looking up at his own scarred, fierce expression, an acute discomfort making it impossible to focus on anything that wasn’t twisting legs together and wiggling feet back and forth.
“She’s not going to make the run back home,” he said, matter-of-factly, Renesmee’s hand still pressed against his neck.
“We can get you a change of clothes when we get home,” Alice offered, her tone as placating as she could make it as she spoke to Renesmee.
“Alice,” Jasper hissed in reply to Renesmee’s immediate horror and panic.
“It’s just urine. It’s literally not that big of a deal. You both can just change when we get back.”
It was moments like this that fully reminded Jasper that Alice—for all that he loved and cherished her, body, heart, mind, and soul—had, in a way, skipped over the human experience in its entirety. She wasn’t trying to be insensitive. She just didn’t understand.
This was when he fucked up.
In that moment, as he worked through his anger, exasperation, annoyance, and then his frustrated pity, he’d forgotten that Renesmee was still skin-to-skin with him. The speed of his fluctuating emotions, rumbling through his own awareness and, accidentally, Renesmee’s, shattered her concentration for a handful of vital moments.
The warmth on his arm and the front of his shirt was accompanied by a swift, ear-shattering cry.
“Oh, fuck,” Alice swore, yanking her jacket off and thrusting it toward them.
Jasper didn’t speak, nor did he breathe, as he wrapped a wet, wailing, distraught toddler in Alice’s thin jacket and shifted her to his other side as they prepared their run home.
But he did share the sentiment.
The hum of the laundry machine working across the house was loud in the relative silence. After they’d arrived home, Alice got to work stripping Renesmee of her clothes and running her a bath while Jasper quickly showered and changed down the hall.
He’d hesitated before stepping out of his and Alice’s bathroom before he realized he was being ridiculous. It was dumb, and he didn’t need to reference it. But, despite knowing how unreasonable he was being, he went to retrieve Rosalie’s list from his discarded trousers, and slipped the note into his pocket once more before he made his way back to where Alice was sitting as sentry, outside the bathroom door.
Alice had the decency to look a little apologetic, and when he sat down on the floor opposite to her, she leaned forward and pressed a couple of chaste kisses to his face. It was her version of an apology and Jasper folded instantly. No part of tonight had been Alice’s fault. She’d always despised not being able to see Renesmee’s future. It left huge, glaring gaps in days that she was used to running to a strict routine, and she was still struggling to adjust.
Alice smiled as she climbed into Jasper’s lap and wrapped his arms around her waist, snuggling backward into his chest. Jasper pressed his own kiss against the top of her head and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall opposite the bathroom door. This night could not be over fast enough.
But even as he tried to relax, he found himself keeping careful track of time as it passed.
After Renesmee had been in the bathroom for thirty-one minutes, Jasper pulled the list out of his pocket, ignoring Alice’s shit-eating grin. Then, he quietly pointed to all the specifics Rosalie had listed beneath it.
Alice didn’t look at what he was pointing at and instead rolled her eyes. “She’s not going to shrivel up in there,” she muttered quietly. “Nessie?”
There was the sound of moving water and then a pause before the girl replied, “Yes?”
Jasper appeared to be the only one who noted the anxiety in the child’s tone, because Alice just asked, “Are you having fun in there?”
Nervousness gave way to relief and Renesmee replied, “Yes.”
“Are you ready to get out?”
Another pause. “No.” She worded it more like a question.
Alice turned back to Jasper and shrugged. She stood up, and called out. “Alright, well let us know when you’ve had enough.” Then, quietly to Jasper, “I’m going to get my computer. I’m bored.”
Ten minutes later, Alice had made herself comfortable on the couch of Jasper’s study two doors down and Jasper was still idling in the hallway, feeling sillier and sillier with each passing minute. Before he stood to join Alice, the sound of the shower head turning on piqued his curiosity.
He looked down the hall, but Alice did not appear to be alarmed by the noise. After a few seconds he realized that she was completely unconcerned with Renesmee’s bath. It took a few seconds more for him to realize that now he had to do something.
“Renesmee?” Jasper asked.
There was that same pulse of anxiety, just like before. “Yes?”
“Are you alright in there?”
“The tub started draining a little, I’m just filling it back up.”
Why she was using the shower head and not the faucet, Jasper couldn’t begin to understand. “Alright,” he replied, because he didn’t know what else to say.
Fifteen minutes later, the shower head was still running, and a strange noise started to emanate from the bathroom. It was a slow, grinding noise. It almost sounded like tiny, barely-muffled scrapes. Jasper wracked his brain for the most approximate guess as to what it could be. It almost sounded like someone was slowly trying to cut a piece of paper little by little, millimeter by millimeter. Only it wasn’t a papery sound…
“Renesmee?” He called again, and when he heard the sound of metal clattering, he had his ear against the door in the next instant. That sounded like—
“Shit,” Alice was at his side in an instant, turning the door handle so quickly that it broke the locking mechanism with ease—Jasper hadn’t even heard Renesmee lock it—and pushed her way inside.
Jasper didn’t follow right away, or even think to look. He wanted to give Renesmee some semblance of privacy, despite Alice having no such qualms. It wasn’t until Renesmee’s voice rang out that he looked in.
“Please, please don’t tell Rose.”
With the shower still running, slowly filling the almost-full tub in the corner of the large bathroom, Renesmee sat on the countertop, her feet in the sink, wet hair flat against her scalp—shit, she hadn’t put the hair covering on like Rosalie’d wanted her to—and fluffy pink robe tied tightly around her. And although he knew Rose would be cross about having to re-do Renesmee’s hair in the morning, he didn’t understand why he could sense such potent fear coming from both Renesmee and Alice.
It wasn’t until he’d tentatively stepped inside the steam-filled bathroom that he got a better look at Renesmee.
It took him a few seconds for it to all make sense—Renesmee’s wide, brown eyes staring up at him, as if caught doing something very, very wrong; Alice, with one hand gripping one of of Renesmee’s tiny wrists, the other holding something small and white—and he recognized the tiny scissors that, early on, they’d realized weren’t strong enough to keep Renesmee’s nails trimmed as a baby.
Then, he saw the wet pile of bronze-colored hair in the sink.
Thankfully, just as efficiently as before, Alice verbalized the only thought in his head.
“Shit.”
Rule three.
3) No TV or computer.
- It does not matter if you deem it educational. Screens cause overstimulation which make it harder for children to fall asleep at night, potentially disrupting their natural circadian rhythm.
- If she’s bored you can read, practice piano, or utilize anything in any of the boxes on the south wall in her bedroom. Not the west side. South wall toys only.
Jasper, who did not know how to play piano and had never cared to learn, felt less bad about breaking this rule. Renesmee’s sniffles had subsided several minutes prior, but her guilt and shame were still permeating the air from where she sat, bundled into fresh pajamas on the couch as Alice did her best to even out the cataclysmic haircut Renesmee had given herself.
Before tonight, Jasper hadn’t seen Renesmee cry since she were three weeks old. By that point Carlisle had declared her almost as big as a nine-month old baby, and Renesmee had become quite adept at using her psychic ability to communicate.
The family had yet to discourage this mode of communication, even though Jasper had heard Carlisle vocalize the idea once or twice over the past few weeks. After all, Carlisle argued, they didn’t want her verbal communication skills to be hindered by any reliance on supernatural ability. Jasper thought the discussion was a bit pedantic. She’d been capable of coherent speech since she were a month old. Currently, Paradise Lost was sitting on her bedside table. It felt absolutely ridiculous to be trying to get a five-month old hybrid to conform to human standards of behavior.
Which was why he was content to break the third instruction and, with it, the fourth, too.
4) Bed time is at nine
- Establishing a regular routine has literally dozens of benefits
- Children who get a full nights sleep are significantly better at self-regulation than their peers
At the moment, Jasper found himself sitting beside Renesmee on the couch while Alice carefully and painstakingly trimmed Renesmee’s hair. He tried to ignore the bronze curls that had accumulated around her, the anxiety that were still ever-present in both Renesmee and Alice, and the snip of scissors that was drowned out by the animated movie on the screen.
It was while Jasper was staring at the talking cartoon cars and wondering whether movie executives were simply running out of ideas, that Renesmee reached out and grabbed Jasper’s hand.
Another memory flooded him. Earlier in the night, after Bella had fed Renesmee dinner but before Jasper and Alice had been left to babysitting duty, Alice was showing her a documentary on the 1990s fashion industry. Renesmee pictured the Givenchy stylist, and then pictured the red race car on the screen in front of them. Jasper almost laughed out loud at her confusion.
“Different McQueen,” he commented, to which Alice snorted and Renesmee nodded sagely, her newly minted bangs finally dry, the ends curling ever-so-slightly to make her angelic little features look more rounded. Then, another set of images flooded him.
More scenes from the same documentary; women and men with their hair cut and styled in different shapes and colors, none of it neat, but all of it chic in the way most editorials styled their models.
Then, Renesmee’s imaginings of her own high-fashion hair-style. Jasper was sure to keep his poker face set tight; he didn’t want Renesmee to watch him frown at the…unsightly bob she’d been trying to give herself. Then, an unspoken question.
“Trust me,” he muttered as his sight returned to him. “Alice is giving you a much better makeover than what Alexander McQueen could.”
Alice hummed, “I figured that’s what inspired this.”
“Daddy is going to be mad at me,” Renesmee mumbled miserably. “And Rose is going to be even madder.”
“Not on my watch,” Alice grumbled, still snipping away at the back of her head. Renesmee’s hair now fell just above her shoulder blades. Still much longer than Jasper’s, and much longer than Alice’s, but it seemed that Renesmee knew, just as much as they did, that the rest of the family adored her hair.
“It’s just hair,” Jasper nodded, trying to be assuring. Then, not trusting his words to be good enough, he adjusted the atmosphere until the room was clouded with a warm, comforting peace. If Jasper closed his eyes and focused enough, he could almost pretend like he wasn’t watching the most asinine movie he’d been forced to endure in decades.
At one point they’d had to pause the movie for Alice to vacuum, and Renesmee had sat, giggling hysterically while Alice vacuumed up all of the hair around them on the couch before turning the vacuum attachment onto both Jasper and Renesmee. Jasper could see Alice’s surprise and delight when she’d first vacuumed the sleeve of Renesmee’s pajama shirt and Renesmee had erupted into laughter. Then, Alice had met his eyes with her shocked ones, and spent the next ten minutes meticulously vacuuming every single hair off of the toddler.
It was something that would’ve given Esme a metaphorical heart attack—vacuuming Renesmee as if she were an old rug and not a vampire-human baby-toddler—but the pure, unrestricted joy that poured from Renesmee was a delightful change from her previous demeanor.
The movie took far too long to end, but Jasper almost didn’t mind the annoyance of it by the time it was over. Renesmee was happy again, and she was pressed against his side, a fluffy white blanket nearly swallowing her whole, only her face and hands peeking out.
Alice was thumbing through Emmett’s DVD collection when Jasper finally noticed the time. It was well past ten o’clock now. They’d granted Renesmee over an hour of extra time, but Jasper knew that, in addition to the events of the rest of the day, he and Alice were really pushing it now.
Renesmee lurched forward with an abrupt start suddenly, and Jasper barely moved in time to keep her from falling face-first to the carpeted ground—how tight had Alice wrapped her in this thing?
“Whoa there,” he said quickly, setting her on her feet but not letting go. “What’s the matter?” There was an exhausted sort of panic emanating from her now. The kind of panic that started when a person was either scared or surprised.
“Emmett forgot to help me fill my bird feeder!” She wiggled for a few seconds until her arms were free and the blanket fell to the floor in a heap around her. But after she’d taken a few frenzied steps forward she paused, turned to Alice, and then turned to Jasper, who had stood to follow her. She looked him up and down as if acknowledging his size, which ended up being exactly what she was doing. “You’re almost as tall as Emmett. Can you please go fill it for me?”
“We have bird feeders?” Alice asked, shooting Jasper an oblivious expression.
“It’s new! He installed it this morning but we didn’t have bird seed until this afternoon and by then he and Rose were gone. It was a Christmas present,” her voice took on that childish whine that Jasper was learning was more common than he thought.
“Christmas was weeks ago,” Alice commented, having turned back toward the DVDs. “Is Emmett trying to make it last all winter?”
“Oh, we didn’t do that much for Christmas here,” Renesmee replied, matter-of-factly. “Momma brought us to Grandpa’s where we opened presents with Daddy and Sue and Seth and Leah and my Jacob.” Jasper was grateful for her innocent recollection of the events, because Renesmee completely missed the frown and knowing looks that he and Alice exchanged over her head. “But I think Carlisle was too busy with all our visitors. We didn’t do any gifts here. I think everyone was still worried that we were all going to die.”
That was what sobered Jasper. Sometimes it was easier for him to pretend like his and Alice’s departure had only resulted in positive things. But the reality was this: they’d left in early December in a flurry of movement and dread, and returned on the 31st, barely in time to spare their family, friends, and long-held acquaintances a violent end. During those stressful, nightmarish weeks, their family had suffered in ways they hadn’t quite come to terms with.
Renesmee, a child, so new to this world she was still experiencing her first winter, had undoubtedly been affected by it. And here she was, begging him to help her with a belated Christmas present he hadn’t known about.
Jasper reminded himself to talk to Carlisle later about figuring out forms of therapy appropriate for a rapidly-aging quasi-immortal child, and did something he’d seen Emmett do hundreds of times over these past few weeks, bending down to be as close to her eye-level as possible.
“Ok. Show me where the bird seed is.”
“Then after the seed is full you can sort of toss that to the side. Just try not to spill the sugar water because hummingbirds only drink that and those are my favorites.”
Jasper listened attentively to Renesmee’s ramblings as she leaned out of her window and inflicted as much information as she possibly could onto him. The bird feeder was jammed into the ground with a ten-foot pole, not lifting it up high enough for Renesmee to see from the bedroom she used in their house, but enough that she could watch it easily if she sat at the windowsill and pressed her forehead against the glass.
Jasper almost laughed when he saw the vice grip Alice had on the back of Renesmee’s shirt. They were fairly sure a fall out of a two story window wouldn’t hurt her, but they’d taken enough chances tonight and refused to take any more.
“You can toss some seed into the grass, too! I read that it could help attract them. You can even toss it farther into the woods, too! It doesn’t hurt, and it could lead more birds here.”
Jasper wasn’t about to be the one to tell Renesmee that the reason she rarely heard songbirds from either of her bedroom windows was because birds, like most other animals, typically gave their home—and vampires in general—a wide berth. Not to mention the fact that it was January. But whatever gave her hope that she might one day have black-capped chickadees chirping outside her window…
It was easy enough to grab a hold of the complicated-looking bird feeder from its perch, and it took a few minutes, but eventually Jasper filled all the compartments and hooked it back onto the pole. Thankfully it took all of ten minutes and there was still a chance they’d be able to get Renesmee in bed before 11…
It was as he was turning to walk around the side of the house and duck back inside that Renesmee called out to him. “Watch out for the skunk family under the porch!”
Jasper paused, “A skunk family?” Outside of the odd squirrel or other rodent, mammals rarely approached the house, let alone made a den near it.
“Yeah, I was watching them run around the yard the other night. There’s four babies and an adult one.”
Jasper didn’t pay enough attention to the scurrying of creatures in the yard unless they were dog-sized or bigger, and couldn’t recall hearing anything tonight. Of course, if he focused hard enough he could hear dozens of tiny animal heartbeats scattered throughout the yard and its perimeter.
Jasper watched as Alice, still standing behind Renesmee, shrugged, as clueless as he was.
“Alright,” he muttered, bag of birdseed under his arm as he turned to head inside.
Unfortunately, Renesmee had been correct.
Jasper eavesdropped on Renesmee’s second animated movie of the night as Alice worked his hair into a lather and started scrubbing at his back and shoulders.
“You know, I could just leave you to do this by yourself,” Alice mused. “It is, frankly, revolting.” She dipped a rag into whatever concoction he was currently sitting in, and resumed her scrubbing.
Jasper nodded, “Go ahead then. The movie Renesmee is watching sounds very educational.”
“How’s the movie, Nessie?” Alice called, just slightly louder than their conversation.
“The giraffe is in love with the hippopotamus,” Renesmee called back, her voice a combination of amused and fascinated.
“Good for them!”
Jasper scoffed and then busied himself with helping to rid his skin of the skunk stench, grabbing a dry towel from beside him and getting to work on his arms.
Thankfully he’d dodged a direct hit, but still—for the first time in either of his mortal or immortal lives—he’d been skunked.
It was truly a shit ending to a wretched night.
After a few minutes, Alice’s hands stilled on his shoulders. She hummed, and Jasper waited.
“You don’t have to like kids. You know that, right?” Alice paused. Jasper remained silent. The moment stretched.
“Jasper. It’s important to me that you know this.” He could hear the splash of the rag as she dropped it into the tub. “You do not have to like kids.”
He felt just about ready to tear his hair out. “There is one listening into this conversation right now,” he whispered under his breath. He didn’t want to talk about this while there was a child within earshot. The very same child that had asked her dear Uncle Emmett why Jasper didn’t like her.
Which was not true, but still.
To his shock, he heard the bathroom fan click on, and the door softly shut. Then, Alice was behind him again, a hand pressed against the back of his neck. He turned, surprised at her sudden willingness to touch him, despite the skunk stink still clinging to his skin.
“Jasper,” she repeated his name, quieter so that Renesmee wouldn’t overhear, and with much more seriousness. “You’re allowed to not like kids.”
Jasper refused to meet her eyes, and picked up the rag she’d dropped. They could talk about this some other time. When they weren’t doing a crappy job at babysitting.
Truthfully, Jasper had never liked children. Not as a vampire, at least. They’d terrified him because of the fact that—until last summer—they’d only existed in the human world for him. And the human world was one he could scarcely traverse, lest he slip up. The idea that he was one lapse of judgement away from murdering the next group of ten-year-olds that passed him by in public was a reality that had always sat heavy in him. Children nearby meant humans nearby. Humans nearby meant that, statistically, Jasper could slip up and kill any one of them.
He already had enough blood on his hands.
There had been a period, when he’d been freshly immortal, where he’d thought hard about his human life. His sister had been less than a year younger than him and he’d caught himself thinking about her after a battle once. There had been a boy from church that had been real sweet on her, and Jasper wondered, five years into his immortal life, whether she’d gotten married and had children by then.
Now, he could barely remember her face. Now, when he thought of his sister, he didn’t think about Catherine, he thought about Rosalie.
So when Jasper started to talk, he did it with her on his mind.
“I think that Rosalie expects a certain measure of…paternal instinct out of me,” he spoke slowly, suddenly anxious to hear Alice’s reaction. “She’s implied just as much this past week without saying it outright.” He kept his head forward and his eyes downcast, looking at the murky waist-high water, feeling intensely uncomfortable at the subject matter.
“Okay…?” Alice enunciated slowly, as if not fully understanding the point.
“I don’t think that instinct exists in me. Not the way it does for other men. Maybe it’s because of my human life, or because of all those decades spent fighting, and I might not ever know why. But I…”
“Yes,” Alice encouraged, squeezing his shoulders comfortingly. “Go on.”
“Rosalie told me, back after Renesmee was born, that it wasn’t just that there was a baby in the house that was making her happy. But that she was finally able to see Emmett as he could’ve been, had they met and fallen in love as humans. She could finally see what he would’ve been like as a father, and it helped her to fall in love with him all over again and—”
“Jazz, Jazz,” Alice interrupted. “That’s beautiful and great and whatever, but what does this have to do with you?”
Sensing her persistent confusion, Jasper turned around again and met Alice’s eyes.
“Rosalie was saying—I mean, she was making it sound like I was a complete ass for refusing to, I mean. For not…”
“For not liking kids?”
Jasper nodded, feeling idiotic.
“You feel like you need to like kids for what? For me to want to fuck your brains out or something?”
“Christ alive,” he muttered under his breath, “I—no. But she implied that the same thing goes for women. That there’s this ‘instinct’ that all women have that make it so they want—”
“You think I want to be a mother?!” Alice screech was so horrified that for a moment they forgot they were trying to have a private conversation. She remembered swiftly, slapping a hand over her mouth, stifling a sudden burst of aghast laughter. “Jasper, what?!”
“I—listen, she was very convincing. She had me thinking—”
“When have I ever implied that I’d want a kid?” She gave a genuine full-body shudder, and Jasper could feel her discomfort in the air so potently that it was stinging his senses more painfully than the skunk stench. “I wouldn’t even want a dog!”
“I—You haven’t, but it’s not like we ever thought it was possible. Not that it is now, I mean. Obviously. But—”
“Oh, my god?”
“Rosalie got to me, alright? I wasn’t sure—I didn’t know—”
But Alice was laughing so hard that he knew she wouldn’t take in another word he had to say until it was out of her system.
After ninety-seven more seconds of a completely ridiculous, over-the-top giggling fit, Alice finally sighed, the noise choking off with another giggle, and spoke. “Jasper, do you wish we were human?”
He blanched. “God, no.”
“Do you with I were human?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Do you wish we had children?”
The ‘no’ that sat on the tip of his tongue, true and easily formed, felt wrong to say out loud, especially in a house typically full of vampires that either did have, or wished they had, children of their own. But, Alice had a point and Rosalie was not around. There was no one in the house right now except for them, and Renesmee.
“No,” he finally admitted the words, and felt simultaneously lighter and guiltier. He faced forward once more as he continued to ramble. “But the way Rosalie and Esme talk about it—”
“And you think I’d feel the same way? This is insulting, if I’m being honest. How dare you think I’d ever want to share your attention.”
“Be serious.”
“I am being serious. Do you think you’d be a good dad?”
“Fuck no,” he muttered under his breath.
“Do you think I’d be a good mom?” The question felt like a trick.
Alice clicked her tongue with reproach. “The answer to that is also ‘fuck no’. Come on, Jazz. We both know if we were human I’d end up constantly doing something stupid like, oh. I don’t know. Only feeding a child processed crap food and forgetting doctors appointments. And other accidents happen quite literally all the time to tired mothers. To be honest I could see myself leaving a baby in a hot car.” Her voice sounded inappropriately contemplative. Jasper turned back to look her in the eye.
Alice was stifling a smile, expecting the eye contact. “I knew I’d get you with that one.”
“So, you’re happy with the way things are?”
“Oh my god yes. Again, I’m so offended you’d think, even for an anxious, unsure second, otherwise. I’m so serious about not wanting to share your attention. Plus, we should be grateful we’re not human. Could you imagine if we were? If I could sleep and dream I am positive they’d be full of nightmares in which I get knocked up. And with the way we go at it, it would absolutely happen.”
“Hm, well, great news: I’m pro-choice.”
Alice laughed, “Maybe after bedtime we should practice making a baby but without the baby part.”
“Gross. How about we just have sex?”
Alice leaned forward as they spoke, her eyes locked onto his lips. Jasper found himself leaning toward her, too, but groaned when she pulled back at the last second. “Hm. Maybe after you don’t reek anymore.”
Before he could reach up and touch her she had backed up out of his reach and smacked the back of his head with a rolled up towel. He chuckled and lowered himself down into the tub, to fully submerge his head. Unfortunately when he flicked his head back up, intending to splash Alice with the murky water, she’d already lifted the towel in front of her, dodging his assault.
The sound of Renesmee actually laughing from the den, animated musical number echoing throughout the house, forced both of their attention toward the door.
“We better hurry up,” Alice hummed and grabbed Jasper by the shoulder, forcing him to face forward again. “We’re going to have a big morning tomorrow running interference with Edward and Bella once they notice her hair. Not to mention two days from now when Emmett and Rose get back.”
“I do like her, at least,” Jasper spoke quickly. He felt the urge to clear the air before they moved on from this conversation. “Renesmee, I mean. I like her.”
He could hear the smile in Alice’s voice when she spoke, “Good, because we’re stuck with her.”
They fell back into companionable silence after that. Occasionally Alice would lean forward and sniff the air, or his skin, and next she started adding vinegar to the strange bathtub concoction. Jasper listened as Alice moved from bottle to bottle, having collected all of the cleaning supplies in the house and tossed them to the floor after she’d pitched Jasper’s clothes into the woods. She added a few more chemicals to the tub, and eventually the skunk stench began to fade as a new, chemical smell took over.
Eventually, after they heard the movie credits begin roll, Renesmee called up to them.
“Alice? Jasper?”
“I’ll be right down, Nessie,” Alice called back. She exchanged a frown with Jasper, who leaned forward to pull the plug on the tub. They’d been hoping she would’ve fallen asleep, but no such luck.
“Rosalie is going to have our asses,” Jasper snorted as Alice handed him a towel.
“No, I’m going to have her ass for having you so worked up over one little babysitting gig. She took my perfectly good husband and gave him baby anxiety. I should key her car for that.”
Jasper whistled. “Those are fighting words.”
“Good thing I had a great teacher.”
The sound of tiny feet approaching made them move fast after that. Thankfully Jasper was fully dressed by the time she was on the other side of the door. “Alice? Jasper?” She called out again, her voice hoarse.
They both exchanged a worried look before Alice hurriedly opened the door.
Renesmee’s eyes were red and watery, but not because of another round of tears. She looked…ill somehow.
She started coughing the instant she inhaled to speak and Alice and Jasper were at her sides in an instant.
“Hey, hey,” Alice rubbed her tiny back, staring up at Jasper and mouthing ‘Do we call Carlisle?’ to which Jasper shrugged, clueless as to what could’ve happened in just the hour and a half while they were up there.
Renesmee stopped coughing for just long enough to look past them, into the bathroom. Then, she inhaled to speak again, and vomited all over the floor, just barely missing both of them with its trajectory.
Alice and Jasper were too stunned to speak. Renesmee beat them to the punch.
“Do you always make chlorine gas to bathe in?” She asked, wincing.
In the early morning, Edward and Bella returned to find the house empty and reeking. Thankfully it only took another thirty seconds to find a tent pitched in the backyard—the same tent they’d used the previous June. Outside of it sat Jasper, clothes damp, a little frozen, and smelling like a bleach-soaked skunk. Inside of it lay their sleeping daughter, wrapped up tight in no less than ten different blankets, a mess of hair that was hardly recognizable peeking out from under the covers, with a glaring Alice at her side, holding a finger up to her lips, demanding that they remain quiet.
They pulled their attention from where they’d poked their heads into the tent, and Jasper took one look at their confused, horrified expressions.
Jasper sighed.
“I can explain.”