"Alright, Cecy, show us the big bling."
It was Rose who'd raced up to the newly engaged couple as soon as the door closed behind them. Smiling proudly, Cecilia held out her hand, the diamond on her ring finger breaking down and reflecting the light from the lamp above them. Rose let out a gasp, turning her hand from left to right to get all the angles.
"It's beautiful," she said, smiling kindly. Her eyes shifted to Demetri and she gave him a nod, the expression on her face faltering every so slightly. Cecilia knew she was trying, it had taken her ages to warm up to Jake and he was around every day, so she didn't mind. "Congratulations you two."
"Thanks, Rose," Cecilia said kindly, giving the other vampire a quick hug. Grabbing Demetri's hand with the one that didn't have a beautiful ring on it, the two of them managed to make it to the living room before her mother came rushing up, looking like she might burst out crying any minute though that was not physically possible.
"My little girl," her mother said softly, looking at the ring. "You've grown up."
"I have for a while now," Cecilia said, no hint of her usual sarcasm or irony audible. She hugged her mother close, appreciating the way her mother held her tight. From the outside, Esmee looked like a petite and soft woman and though many people could misuse her sweet character, but she was still a vampire with the love only mothers seemed to possess.
After she had let go of her mother, Cecilia looked up at her father with a smirk. "So, did he ask for your blessing?"
"He did," her father said, smiling calmly. "The first day you two arrived."
"How neat," Emmett teased, but his obvious happiness was visible.
Rose gave him a nudge. "You could learn a thing or two from that."
Cecilia beamed, looking quickly over her shoulder to look at Demetri. Even though the news of their engagement would make things much more difficult for her, she was grateful that he'd done it. At least her family could be joyful about it for a couple of hours, before they would forget her altogether.
"Celia," Jasper suddenly said, gaining her attention. It had been a while since anybody had called her that nickname. Demetri had never used it, preferring her full name over anything, and ever since she'd joined the Volturi she guessed she had simply outgrown the name. "Can I talk to you privately?"
"Of course," she replied quickly. Demetri shot her a questioning look and she shrugged, not sure what Jasper wanted to talk about either. Still, Cecilia followed him quietly, hearing her family continuing with their congratulations to her soulmate, only stopping when they had reached the balcony Demetri and Alice had made their sneaky plans almost a day ago.
Cecilia hadn't noticed it then, but now, as she leaned against the balustrade, she noticed the view. It was beautiful, trees everywhere you could see, with little hills and clearings. It wouldn't be long before the sun would be up, brightening the day again, for Cecilia and Demetri had almost spent the entire night in that spot in the forest, locked in each other's arms.
"You're happy, about the engagement," Jasper stated after a moment, breaking the silence.
Slowly, she tore her eyes away from the peaceful scenery to look at the vampire standing next to her. "Of course I am. I've been asking him like a spoiled little child for years now. Quite embarrassing, if you ask me."
Jasper nodded, looking lost in thought. "But you're sad as well. I can feel it."
Cecilia didn't reply immediately, letting her eyes wander back to the trees in front of her. "You know when I told you I was afraid of losing my memories?" she asked quietly, and from the corner of her eyes, she could see him nod. "Don't you think it's ironic that my gift should be just that, making people lose their memories?"
"Maybe you felt it beforehand," Jasper replied. "It's not unheard of for people when they're still mortal to display certain tendencies that will develop later on in gifts. I had always been good at reading people."
"That's true," Cecilia said. She allowed the soft breeze to move her curls over her shoulder, not bothered by the cold as she might have once been.
"And besides, you have plenty of memories now," Jasper said.
"I'm not sure I can take many more," Cecilia said seriously, turning to face the person she'd always been able to talk to. Jasper had been drawn to her for her childish happiness, she had been drawn to him because he was more often than not better at being able to understand what she was feeling. "I have taken entire existences, of vampires living for so many years. Do you know what it feels like to take a century's worth of memories all at once and be expected to remember them? Oh, and the lies I give in return. The lies are the worst. Sometimes, I lie awake at night and a memory reaches the surface. It can take me ages to figure out if it was one of my own, someone else's or simply a fabrication. I'm not sure I can't take it any longer, and it's only been thirteen years"
Cecilia cut herself off abruptly, her hands clenching the wood of the balustrade tightly. Not once before had she voiced her thoughts that way, and she sincerely hoped that Demetri hadn't listened in. She knew he worried about her enough as it was and the last thing she wanted was to burden him any further. Besides, if everything went well, it would only be a couple of more weeks.
"You can leave the Volturi," Jasper stated, his voice resolutely. Almost all of her family members had entertained the matter at least once in the last three days, but Jasper was the most serious about it. "And if they refuse, we will fight them. We will call upon our witnesses as we have done thirty years ago and fight."
Cecilia smiled sympathetically, her heart warm from love. "I cannot let you do that."
"And so you're going to do something else," Jasper concluded. "Something that brings you great sadness."
She nodded, taking a moment to observe Jasper. His sleeves were raised and she could see the scars all over his arms. Maybe she could relate to him now just as well as before, even though she had lost her childlike happiness, because both of them had been fighting on the wrong side of history at one point. Jasper had done it once, almost a hundred years ago, and she was doing it now.
"Is it anything we can help you with?" Jasper asked, suddenly sounding a little anxious. He must have noticed the shift in her emotional state, from sadness to determinedness.
She shook her head, her fingers drumming against the balustrade. Cecilia knew she had to do it soon, but she would put it off to the very last possible moment. She and Demetri had taken all the pictures of her the day before, which hadn't been a lot, thankfully, and hidden the photo albums in one of their suitcases secretly. Her family hadn't reacted with a lot of suspicions to the request, understanding that such things weren't usual at Volterra, where utter uniformity was demanded of all the guards, and saying that they could get new pictures printed every other day anyway.
"Cecilia," Jasper said. He reached out for her and grabbed her arm, taking her by surprise and forcing her to turn around. Cecilia stared into his eyes, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with a deep sense of sadness she wasn't sure of whether it was her own, or if Jasper was manipulating her. "You should at least talk to Carlisle, he knows the ways of the Volturi-"
"And you think I don't?" she interrupted him, firmly but not too unkind.
Jasper fell silent, the muscles in his face softening. She could see the change of his posture, his slagging shoulders and the grip on her arms lessening. They were all signs of defeat. "Just don't do what I think you're about to do."
"I'm sorry, Jasper," she said, never having meant those words more before. "You're my family, I love all of you and I will never forget you, but I have to do this."
"Cecilia, don't-"
But it was too late. She reached out, cracking open Jasper's mind like a chestnut. Where reaching out to Vasilisa from the Michael pentagram had been like taking all the wrong turns in a narrow and thorny maze, it was quite different for Jasper's mind. She imagined herself walking along a tree-lined dirt path with the path leading straight to the centre of his mind.
It didn't take long before she got to his memories, and vaguely she noticed the desperate expression on his face turning in a blank one, his movements coming to a halt mid-motion, his arms raised but not reaching. Another second later, she saw her youth from Jasper's point of view. All the way from the very beginning, where he had such difficulty controlling his thirst with a clumsy little human, but was determined to play an important role in her upbringing, to the very end, where they had been talking only seconds ago.
The scenes in between were filled with a brotherly love Cecilia reserved for all of her family, except for her mom and dad. Most of them were of Jasper reading stories to her, or telling her about his experiences in the army, the good parts as well as the bad, but others were playful. She saw herself as a toddler, running around in the garden with a water pistol, shouting and screaming gleefully as she managed to hit Jasper square in the face. She saw herself seated across the table, telling him about her worries and fears, felt his determination to protect her from those horrible things.
She caught glimpses of everything and after taking a deep breath, she replaced it all with emptiness.