"Do you always have to play with your food?" Jasper drawls, landing lithely on the boulder not three feet away. I grin and laugh as the bear takes another swipe at my chest.

"It's revenge brother," I reply, growling back at the grizzly. It looks stunned for a minute before roaring and taking another swipe at me. A screeching sound meets our ears as his claws scrape across my marble chest. I laugh again. "Also, the bear reminds me of your wife whenever someone tries to pin her as the youngest."

My brother laughs at that thought. "It's not true though," He says. "Carlisle determined she was nineteen when she was changed, and she was changed in 1917. Edward is the youngest."

"Hmmm," I mutter. "Maybe this bear reminds me of Edward when we pin him as the youngest."

As I say this, the bear roars again, and I roar back before pouncing. Warm blood fills my mouth and covers my senses. Jasper wisely keeps quiet and still as I feed, knowing that if he moved closer in any way my instincts might take over and I might attack him by accident. Once I'm done I throw the corpse away and turn back to my older brother. "Should we head back?"

"We should wait for Edward," Jasper suggests. I shake my head no.

"No," I whine. "He's probably on some run three hundred miles away. I want to go home; we've been gone for two weeks. I miss my wife. Don't you miss yours? Eddie'll catch up, and it's not like he has someone to go home to."

"Fine," Jasper concedes. "Race ya."

He leaps from the boulder and sprints away. I smirk before catching up, being only slightly faster than him. Having hunted quite close to home, it's not long before we're standing outside of it... and crashing into Carlisle's car. We step back with guilty expressions while Carlisle continues to drive into the garage like he would have if we hadn't just dented his car. Our father steps out of the Mercedes and sighs, examining the dent. "You're lucky I don't love my car like you lot do. Where's your brother?"

"Who knows?" I grin. "He doesn't have a wife to get back to. We do. We want to see them. Bye!"

I turn and leave my brother and father in the dust, running to find my wife. "Rosie!" I shout, taking the stairs two at a time. She meets me at the top, smiling before she kisses me.

"Welcome home," My wife smiles, pulling me into our room.

A few hours later I'm sitting with my family downstairs, bar Edward. He's still not back, and Esme is begining to get worried. Jasper is too, and he feels guilty that we didn't wait for him. I roll my eyes as Carlisle begins looking towards the front door, waiting for our little brother. "He'll be fine," I say from my place on the floor, playing chess with Jazz. "Ed's probably just running."

"Probably," Carlisle mutters, turning back to his book with a worried expression. I roll my eyes again.

After another few hours it's dark again, and our little brother still isn't home. I have to admit that we're all worried now, even Rosalie and I. Jasper and Carlisle are most worried. It's obvious, especially as Edward is the youngest. If the rest of us were to go missing like this, no one would worry as much. But as Jasper is the older brother, and by comparison I am the little brother, we decided a long time ago that Edward is the baby brother, forever trapped under the guidance of all four of his older siblings.

At around three in the morning it begins to snow, and we all grin at the same time. First, because it's snow and it's great and we bloody love January. Second, because it means Edward will be home soon. He's never particularly liked the snow.

An hour and a half later it's still dark, and Edward still isn't home. "That's it," Carlisle announces, standing from the sofa. "I'm going to look for him."

"We'll come too," Jasper and I say, standing and following him. The girls decide to stay at home. Well, we force them to incase Edward has had a run in with a nomad and the vampire's still hanging around.

As we have to go through some grounds that humans may be camping in, we pull on our coats and grab some torches. We won't use them most of the time, but just in case some humans are around it's good to have them.

"Edward!" We call both mentally and physically, walking slowly so we don't miss him. "Edward!"

"Come on buddy!" I call, getting more worried as he doesn't answer. "It's not funny anymore."

"I'll go west," Carlisle says before running off in some direction. I assume it's west; I was never good at geography.

"I'll go that way, but I'll be close," Jazz states before running off in another direction. I continue in the direction we were all going, calling for my little brother.

I growl in frustration as he doesn't answer again. "Edward!" I shout, louder this time, and finally I hear an answer.

"Emmet.," It's far away, and it's almost a whimper. But it's there, and it's Edward's voice. Jasper's at my side immediately, staring at me with wide eyes. He heard it too. "Emmett!" We hear it again, slightly louder, but still a whimper.

It's still snowing quite lightly, but suddenly it seems a lot heavier as we battle through it to get to our brother. Suddenly the scent of blood assaults us, but it's smells like Edward. What the hell?

Finally we find him. He's lying on his front on the thick blanket of snow, blood surrounding him. We run around him as he's facing away from us, and we're shocked by what we see.

Jasper's POV

Our little brother is lying broken in the snow. A thin blanket of it covers him, and dried blood is matting his hair. Blood is still trickling from his neck and tears are covering his face. "You left me," He whispers. "They left me. They left me to die."

"Edward," Emmett breaths, kneeling in the snow and placing one hand on our brother's head. His eyes widen at the heat I can feel coming from him. They widen even more as we register the heart beat that is gradually slowing down. "Who did this to you?"

"A vampire," Is the weak reply. "They were hungry, and they can make people human. They made me human. They bit me. It hurts."

Edward's human? What the hell?! But we have no time to register it properly as he lets out a small cry of pain. He's not even looking towards us, and as I take his head in my hands and force him to look at me. They are a dark, forest green. The colour our father described when he told us his side of Edward's story. His eyes are tired as he glances at me, and they slowly begin to close. Even if I'm not human, I know how dangerous it is of he goes to sleep now considering how much blood he's lost and how cold he is. "Give me you coat," I order Emmett and he complies immediately as I rip mine off and put both of them on our brother. "He's not going to make it; we're too far out. You're going to have to bite him."

"Me?!"

"You think I have enough control to?!" I shout back, and he grimaces in understanding before leaning down and carefully biting Edward's neck. I pull Emmett off after a few seconds just to make sure he doesn't drain him. We wait a minute for the screaming to start, and when it doesn't I examine the bite. The venom is leaking out of it. His body is rejecting the venom. "Get Carlisle!" I cry, and Emmett's gone immediately.

"Edward," I murmur, shaking him. His eyes open slowly, and more tears fall from them. "You have to stay awake, okay? If you go to sleep you might not wake up."

"But I'm tired," He rasps out, and his eyes close again. Thankfully he seems to be fighting to keep them open.

"CARLISLE!"I hear in the distance, and even though Emmett's at least a mile out, I wince at the volume. There's no way Carlisle didn't hear that. I'm right; as suddenly there are two pairs of feet making their way towards us and Emmett is explaining everything. I feel the shock and anger radiating off Carlisle. Emmett even tells him that the venom didn't work. More shock.

"Oh my God," Our father murmurs, seeing Edward for the first time. He immediately takes his coat off and wraps Edward in it before gingerly lifting him into his arms. "We have to get him home."

He begins running, and we struggle to catch up. After a couple of minutes Carlisle seems to be at least half a mile ahead of us, and Emmett glances at me with wide eyes; our father has always been slower than us. "He's being a father," I realise out loud and understanding crosses my brother's face. "He's protecting his child."

Only a mile away from home, we stop running. Carlisle is miles ahead now, running with abandon. His fathering instincts are growing by the second. That's why we don't want to be home with him if he's too late.

"How is he?" Emmett and I ask quietly as we enter the house. It's been one or two hours since we found our brother.

All the girls are in the living room, and we can hear a steady beep coming from Carlisle's office. It's the monitor showing Edward's heart beat. I breath a sigh of relief. "Carlisle said he's stable," Rosalie whispers, then she buries her face in her hands, sobbing tearlessly. Emmett goes to her side immediately, wrapping her in his arms tightly. "I can't believe this happened."

"It's okay," Emmett soothes as I pull Alice into my arms, taking Esme's hand at the same time. "It's going to be okay. He'll be okay."

He's lying. We all know he is. Because Edward isn't going to be okay. He is going to get sick. He is going to fall in and out of love. He is going to make friends. He is going to break bones and fall over and join clubs and this will be the last time he goes to high school. He is going to grow old, and he is going to die. He will hate the fact he is ageing, and he will leave us. He is not going to be okay, and neither are we.