BELLA POV

"Bella, love, before we go into the house, I need to tell you something. Don't be too worried."

I look at Edward with fear. Is it the Volturi? Is Nessie injured?"

"I just heard Emmett and Carlisle's minds. Jasper has slipped, Dearest."

"Oh, Edward, he must be in so much pain! I need to see him!" I breath deeply, sensing Jasper's scent and run into the woods after him without waiting for Edward to reply.

JASPER POV

Bella rushed to me and threw her arms around my neck.

"Stop hurting yourself, Jasper! You didn't mean to hurt him! You're not a monster! If you were, you wouldn't feel bad. It's not your fault."

"I recognize the irony of a vampire saying this, Bella, but I don't believe in monsters. Monsters cause havoc and pain without any motivation for doing so other than the enjoyment of it. People—humans or vampires—make choices and have reasons for their decisions. Of course, we don't always know what the real reason for our decisions are at the time we make the decisions. There are some people who enjoy seeing other people hurt. I do not think they are monsters. I am perfectly willing to defend myself and others against them and I have no compunction in killing them. But they are not monsters. They are people living in fear and pain, sweetheart, and they can change if they really want to. Every person feels bad when they commit crimes, either because they feel remorse afterwards or because they felt anger, pain or fear beforehand. So, really, Bella, it is my fault. It is not only my fault. There are reasons why I killed him that are beyond my control, but there are reasons within my control, too. And I need to take responsibility for them by feeling remorse, by making restitution if possible, and by taking steps so that I never do this again."

Bella feels shocked, surprised and just a little angry. I did just disagree with her. Does she think I was telling her off? Maybe I am a little. Why does she think she is the one to help me? I mean, she's right that Edward isn't. He's a judgmental prick about almost everything especially me, but Alice or Esme or Carlisle are people who have offered me comfort since about the time her grandparents were born. Hell, she may be angry about something else entirely. Sometimes the reasons for her emotions really surprise me. I don't know her as well as the rest of the family.

Bella doesn't express the anger when she speaks to me. "Jasper, I know you're right, but how are you able to think things through like that so quickly?"

"I've been a veggie vamp for over 60 years. I've killed 4 people in that time. This has happened before and I've thought about it before. I was thinking about it sort of even before I started feeding off animals. I was trying to feed as little as possible because I could feel the loss among other things that most humans felt when I killed them. I didn't realize the loss that everyone else who knew them felt until I killed Marcia Restin in 1957. I went to her funeral. It was in Surrey, North Dakota. There were only about 600 people living in the town and we couldn't just pick up and leave immediately—it would have been too suspicious. So I saw what it did to a lot of people when she died."

"I'm so sorry that you've been through this so many times. I guess I understand better why you were so freaked about my control as a newborn. I just wish Edward could understand that he is not a monster like you do. Have you discussed this with him?"

I looked down briefly, disappointed but unsurprised by her response. Bella heard everything I said from the perspective of Edward and how it would affect him. I wanted her to hear that I was telling her about me and that I was challenging her. She is such a caring girl, but her perspective on the world is so small. She truly loves everyone who crosses her path, but she only sees how things affect people in the moment. I know every time she lies and she always lies when she is in pain. She tells people she is not hurt when she really is. I feel the pain and then I feel the deceit. If she truly understood how lies like that affect everyone, she might behave differently. Carlisle gave her morphine during the change and she lied to him and told him it helped reduce her pain. In fact, it did not. Instead she couldn't express the pain she was in while she was changing. What happens next time Carlisle is involved in changing someone? He will think he has found a way of easing their pain and will possibly make it worse instead. Bella thinks only about the feelings of others in the moment, not about how they will feel in two months, or two years, or two centuries, time. She makes things worse, or even intolerable, later by being dishonest now. She is so young.

Of course, immaturity is something Bella and Edward have in common.

"I have and I haven't. While I have tried to discuss my feelings and beliefs about killing people with every member of the family, Edward is always too angry to have a genuine discussion about it. I'm not sure that he's really understood what I think."

Bella is a little surprised, a little bit more hurt and a lot more thoughtful at this comment. Even she recognizes that Edward's quick temper makes it difficult for him to listen.

I wonder what Bella was like before she met Edward. She was even younger and probably even less mature, but she seemed to have a smooth drama-free life before she moved to Forks. How much has she changed by meeting Edward, by becoming a part of this family, by giving up parts of her previous life?

Bella is apparently thinking something along the same lines as me. "Jasper, you've changed a lot in your life as a vampire. You used to be one of those people who hurt others without understanding their own hurt. Edward thinks that vampires don't really change except when they find their mate. But you changed. You changed even without Alice."

Edward doesn't want to change, I think. But I can't say that unless she asks me directly. Unless she makes it clear that she wants to discuss Edward and her relationship with him rather than hiding it under a discussion of me and my slip. Huh. It seems I've allowed her to change the topic of conversation even though I didn't want to before. Maybe I push back on her to avoid criticizing Edward. I say, "Again, I think all people make choices, that those are genuine choices and that those people could have chosen differently. That means change can happen frequently if a person chooses it. I have both life experiences and a gift that make it hard to stop myself from feeding from humans. I always want to, Bella. I lived for almost 100 years feeding whenever I liked from any human I chose. I was the top of the vampire food chain as well the human one and I had instant gratification for most of that time. That habit was acquired involuntarily, but it is my job to change it if I don't like it. I still haven't done that successfully. I love feeding on human blood so part of me doesn't want to change. But I also hate feeding on humans. So I have changed. It's my own mixed feelings that are causing my habit to remain. That is my fault. And my gift is the reason I want to change since it forces me to empathize with human prey, but it also makes it hard for me to stay in control a lot of the time. I can get overwhelmed with human and vampire emotion so easily sometimes and I just lose it. Every time I've fed off a human in the last 60 years including today has been when I was in a particularly bad mood because of both my own feelings and the feelings of other people around me. It took the death of 4 people for me to even realize that, but I know it now. I should have isolated myself from humans today and I didn't. That is entirely my fault and it is something I can definitely change, which would ultimately change me. The other part about my mixed feelings, I can change that but I haven't totally chosen to. I know I CAN, though."

Bella's feelings have grown sad and anxious and self-doubting as I spoke. "Do you think I can change, Jasper?"

"Of course I do. How do you want to change, sweetheart?"

Bella's surprise is evident on her face not just in her emotions. She clearly did not expect that question. She is stunned. "I don't know." She repeats quietly, "I don't know."

I would have told her that that is fine, a good place to be. She has a question to answer and eternity to think about it. But she knows what the question is now, she is thinking about who she is and why she is like that. But I say nothing. Before I can speak, Edward calls to Bella and she runs to his arms. She doesn't end the conversation or acknowledge me in any way. How much did she hear me? Will she run to me again trying to console me superficially or will she think before she approaches people in pain? Was this conversation helpful to Bella? I don't know.