Blood Moon [a Twilight Saga FanFiction]

Difference - Igor's POV

MISS ELIZABETH AND I RETURNED FROM WORK ONE DAY, a few months after we had been living in our new Canadian home. Mary Alice wasn't at home.
   "Perhaps she is merely hunting and will be back tomorrow," I said to a worried Elizabeth that same night. We had watched the sun rise and fall.
   One day stretched into two, and at the end of the second day with still no word nor knowledge of Mary's whereabouts, Miss Elizabeth wasn't the only one starting to worry. It was difficult to remain optimistic for both of us.
   "Perhaps we should track her down?" I suggested.
   "And if we come across something she doesn't want us to see?" Miss Elizabeth stated though she stood in the middle of our front yard, arms crossed tightly over her chest, staring towards the woods that surrounded our new home. "We have to have faith and be patient. We have to trust that she wouldn't just leave us without a word. Jasper must have needed her very suddenly. Yes, Jasper must have needed her."
   Day three of no word came.
   "If she has suddenly gone to retrieve Jasper, it would explain the many days," Elizabeth said as she stood on the porch, watching the treeline.
   "She'd have let us know that's what was happening," I stated.
   "But what if Jasper didn't have enough time for her to let us know?"
   I could see Elizabeth's logic. If it had been me in Mary's situation...
   "I think we should get them a new bed," Elizabeth continued with a chuckle. "Something sturdier than the one she has now."
   "And if she's not gone to Jasper?" I asked, unable to suppress a smile.
   "Then she has a bed ready for him when she does retrieve him."
   "And if something horrible has happened and we no longer have the need for an extra bed?"
   She turned to me with a soft, gentle, but worried expression.
   "Burn it, sell it, donate it. Keep it as a spare bed if we get guests," she offered.
   By the end of day three without Mary, she had a new bed in her room. Day four came and went, then came day five. Neither Elizabeth nor I went into our jobs out or worry for Mary Alice.
   "We should go find her," Miss Elizabeth said as she paced around the main room. "What if she needs us? What if something has happened to her while..."
   The sound of hurried steps, two people, cut her off. They were too far away to be able to distinguish between the two different paces until they stopped, and then one continued without the other. Mary was back.
  Miss Elizabeth was already on her feet when Mary got close enough to see. Then once Mary was only just through the door, Miss Elizabeth pulled her into a tight embrace.
   "He needed me," Mary muttered into Elizabeth's shoulder. "I am sorry, I should have left a letter."
   "It is fine, Mary," I sighed. I approached them and rested a hand on Mary's head. I was just glad she was back safely. "We understand."
   "We were so worried," Elizabeth said, finally letting Mary go, "never do that to us again!"
   Mary's responding laugh was controlled; it made me think that she had definitely planned the entire encounter during her run either to Jasper in Texas or while she was running with him back home.
   "I promise," Mary responded to Elizabeth, "but can you promise something to me in return?"
   Perhaps this is why the planning? She had seen a less than ideal meeting between us and Jasper? I couldn't understand why. I knew Jasper to be a fine gentleman...
   I had to remind myself that this was the first time Elizabeth would remember meeting Jasper, I had not been with her the first time they had been in the other timeline.
   "I've seen you read something in his past that makes you snarl at him," Mary explained, her eyes narrowing in on Elizabeth. "Please, don't? Don't judge his past too harshly. Please?"
   I could see Elizabeth's gorgeous smile reflected in Mary's cautious, calculating eyes. 
   I was suddenly taken by surprise at the beauty of it, that smile. I wish she had been facing me so I could get the full force of the kindness, love, and understanding in her eyes. I had only seen a reflection, but it was like I had forgotten what she looked like when she was smiling. Had she not smiled during the four-and-a-half days' Mary hadn't been here?
   I may not have been able to look at that perfect smile, but she did reach out to me, it was more than easy to reach out and take it. Still thinking of that smile reflected in Mary's eyes. How even in the curve of an eye, Miss Elizabeth still held perfection in every meaning of the word.
   "That's an easy promise to make," Elizabeth said, "you have my word."
   Mary then ran back out to meet Jasper where she left him. Elizabeth looked back to me and that smile broke out on her face again, she quickly looked away only to look back at me through the corner of her eye. Her expression was one of embarrassment and curiosity. Right, I was staring.
   "Focus," she whispered to me.
   Impossible. I had seen her every day, but it was as if I was seeing her for the first time. The most beautiful thing in my world, again.
   The sound of Mary and Jasper's running steps broke through my focus on Elizabeth. Mary had admitted to seeing Elizabeth snarl at Jasper. Why? What had happened in the soldiers past that would warrant such a reaction from my goddess?
  I breathed in with Elizabeth when the two walked through the door together. The first thing I noticed was how their scents went together rather nicely, they worked well melded together, the next was how Elizabeth's hand tightened around mine as she stepped closer to me.
   What had she read in his past? Did she react this way before?
   "Igor, Liz, this is Jasper," Mary introduced us.
   I made myself tear my eyes from Elizabeth to be able to extend my hand to greet the soldier. I hadn't realised before that he was still partially in his confederate army uniform, there was even still the faded symbol of his rank on his shoulder. Mary would have fun getting him new clothes.
  "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Major," again, I said, Jasper almost looked nervous.
   "I am sorry," Elizabeth said suddenly, letting go of my hand, "excuse me." She ran into her studio.
   It worried me, not only of what she may have read in his past but her reaction. Yes, she may not have snarled at the man, but she didn't exactly give a warm welcome, either.
   "Does he know of her talent?" I asked.
   "Yes," Jasper sighed.
   So he knows, "does he know, everything?" I asked, looking to Mary. She looked surprised at my question, which went against what I thought earlier that this entire encounter had been planned out to meet the desired outcome.
   "Oh, no, not that part of it," she answered.
   "Than Miss Elizabeth's state cannot be properly explained yet." I ran to join my bride in her studio.
   She had her charcoal apron on standing in front of a canvas when I walked in, I couldn't quite make out what she was starting to create, but I knew that charcoal was her favourite material to create with when what she was making was darker than normal.
   "This or last?" I asked, watching the pictures take shape. Wire fencing... possibly shrapnel...
   War?
   "This," she answered.
   "This is why you were tense?"
   "And why I may have snarled if I had not been warned," she sighed in an annoyance I partially understood.
   I loosely did her hair up behind her so she wouldn't get charcoal in her golden hair before I took a step back to watch the picture slowly take form.
   "This is going to sound... weird," Mary began explaining downstairs. "Weirder than most things anyway. Um... you may want to sit down?" Jasper didn't move at all. "Okay then, um... Thanks. So, first things first, I'm not crazy. Second, we've lived these lives before. In another timeline, we've lived our entire lives already, and I can see it, the whole timeline up until we died. We think I see it because it's one long line of decisions and possibilities that technically have already been made and I've technically already lived through happening in the past version of the future. Keeping up with me?"
   "Elizabeth's gift shows her both pasts," Jasper guessed.
   "Yes," Elizabeth answered without breaking a single stroke.
   "There was this big fight that killed us two, and Igor, and at that fight was this old vampire who had a gift to transport the consciousness of four people back in time, to save vampire kind or to save our families or whatever. The catch was that the eldest of the four would remember everything from that timeline, everything they already remembered anyway. The youngest of the four would remember it only as a dream. He sent back, Igor, Liz, Liz's brother, Carlisle, and his wife, Esme. You can ask Igor and Carlisle anything from that timeline and if they were there for your question, they'll remember it as if it happened in this timeline. Liz and Esme, it was only a dream. Liz has it lucky because her gifts show the past of our mind which means she knows what happened back then due to everyone's different pasts from all of our different perspectives. Am I getting the right so far?" Mary asked.
   "Very," I answered.
   "Okay. Any questions?"
   Elizabeth finally stopped drawing, but she was not finished, she, like me, was waiting for Jasper to respond.
   "Elizabeth... or Igor... when Elizabeth and I met, was her reaction the same?" Jasper asked.
   "I am sorry, Major, I wouldn't know. I wasn't there for your initial meeting," I sighed.
   Elizabeth chuckled.
   "I think I may have been a little preoccupied to really focus on your past the first time we officially met, Jasper," Elizabeth answered. "It was also the first time I was meeting my brother."
   I could suddenly remember the day as it pushed itself to the front of my mind. Miss Elizabeth in the station while I was working with the police on a case, she had been looking deep in thought, calculating something, worried. Argah had Mary.
   "In addition to the certain, situation, that you were in at that time," I added, "I imagine also altered your reaction."
   "Certain situation?" Jasper asked.
   "It will not happen in this timeline, so there is no need to worry about it," Elizabeth stated.
   "How do you know it won't happen?" Mary asked.
   "Because you remember."
   "So, where does this fit in?" I asked and Elizabeth went back to drawing.
   "It's the difference," she mumbled between still lips, "like Mary's memory, Edward's, this is Jasper's difference."