Jasper and Bella: the alternative ending.

Chapter 1

It had been five horribly devastating months since he left.

I still can't bear to speak his name, let alone think it or hear it. I keep wanting him back, so that the past months would only seem like a nightmare; but he won't come back, never come back. I haunt Charlie's house like a ghost. I never go out with Angela or Jessica; I have stopped listening to music, and never see any movies. All of these changes happened because of him. I scarcely eat either, I mostly just pick at my food and swirl it around my plate so that it seems nibbled at.

I can tell that Charlie worries about me, about a month ago he thought Renee would be a better help to me and almost shipped me back to her, but I had a big enough fit that he let me stay. Every day I eat a bite for breakfast, go to school, come back, go to the Newton's store or do my homework, make dinner for Charlie, and then fall into a deep sleep where he haunts my every thought. I haven't woken screaming in a while. The first night that I did Charlie burst through my bedroom door with one of his guns because he had thought that someone had broken in and was trying to kill me.

To most people my dreams wouldn't seem like a nightmare, but to me it is. The dream takes place in the woods by the (winces) Cullen's house. I am right by, him, and his goodbye repeats, he walks away, faster than any human could as I try to follow. He leaves no trace whatsoever, and it seems as if he'd never existed, just like he had said that night. I trip and fall on the many thorns plenty of times as I get lost and more lost in the dense woods. Soon, my dream self gives up and falls to the ground in defeat. I lose track of time, but later a cold, stone hand pulls me off of the ground. I can't see the face, for it is too dark, but the man feels like a vampire to me.

Then, I wake up. Today is Saturday, but the nightmares seem to be getting worse, so I decide to try and see if he is at his house. I hop in my rusty old truck and start the noisy engine. I don't have to worry about Charlie following me, he's at work again. My truck chugs down the roads at twenty five or thirty miles per hour, and for once I'm annoyed at how old and slow it is. When I finally spotted the turn off for the house I parked near the front door and got out. I walked up the steps and warily tried the knob. It turned easily and the door opened. I cautiously pushed the door farther open and stepped inside. All of the furniture was hidden in white covers so that the dust would stay off.

I circled the room, touching every object and feeling the painful memories flood through my brain. I passed the piano, remembering Edward playing this piano not so long ago with me sitting next to him. I could almost hear my lullaby playing. I went up the stairs and found his room which was covered in sheets too. I looked at his couch and remembered my first time in here, when Alice had asked him to share me and he had cuddled me into the couch after I had teased his ego. My eyes watered and a few tears spilled over. I quickly wiped them away and closed Edward's door behind me after I left. I looked at Rosalie and Emmett's room and Esme and Carlisle's room. Both were covered too, even Carlisle's office. I passed by Alice and Jasper's room and peeked in. No white sheets covered their room and there was a small backpack lying in the middle of the bed. My heart clumped painfully. One of the Cullens was back! I ran down the stairs and was half way to the open door when a man filled the door way. I looked at him more closely and saw a surprised Jasper wearing the same expression that I probably was.

"Bella? What are you doing here?" he asked in surprise.

"I thought I'd drop by and look at the house, I wasn't expecting you here."

"I wasn't expecting you either."

"Are the others coming back?" I asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid not," he said, braced for my reaction, "I only came back because of Alice."

"What did she do?"

"I know you don't want to believe me, but she broke her side of the marital contract. She cheated on me."

My jaw dropped. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry Jasper….who was she with?"

"It wouldn't be good for you if I said who."

"I need to know, please."

He sighed, then his voice became shaky, waiting for my emotional explosion. "She is with Edward."

My heart paused and I felt like the air in my lungs had been sucked out. Tears pooled in my eyes and my hands went cold. My knees buckled beneath me but Jasper caught me before I fell. He held me as I slowly regained my breath. The tears still came but less so now.

"Why would they betray us like that? Wasn't it enough that he left me? Did he really have to ruin someone else's life, too?"

"I don't know, maybe they didn't truly love us, maybe they wanted something new. I guess we just weren't enough for them."

He gently rocked me as fresh tears started. When my sobs returned to calm breathing, he let me go and stood up. "You should go now, you have been here for and hour now."

Since I was too unstable Jasper decided to drive me home. Every few minutes when the words flashed through my mind he would throw another wave of calm over me. Soon we were at my house and I noticed that Charlie's cruiser was still gone. "Would you like to come in?"

"Um…" he might have said no, but he looked at me and felt my twisted, raw emotions toiling in me, so, naturally, he said yes.

I opened the door, I'd forgotten to lock it, and led Jasper into the kitchen. He sat in one of the chairs as I dug through the freezer and made myself some chocolate ice cream with whip cream and chocolate syrup. I hate to admit it but I was getting the feeling of déjà vu, if you catch my drift. I had let Edward into my house in the same way, he had sat in the same chair, and I had gotten myself something to eat both times, and, both boys were vampires. Tell me about it.

"So, where have you been these past few months?"

"Um…Europe, mostly, we went up to Denali for a bit. Edward was mainly in South America pining after you but when he came up to Europe with us, something in him had changed, I couldn't place it, not even with knowing his feelings until I found him and Alice together. I threw a few things into my bag after a heated argument with her and got the earliest flight out of there. I stayed in Texas for a while, and saw some of the civil war monuments, the same in Virginia. Then I decided to come back to Forks and see how the house was. I didn't know that you had been in so much pain ever since Edward left. I was hunting when you came over; I thought you'd be far away with those kids from school. I was just heading home when I caught those waves of pain and remorse coming from the house. I was surprised but even more when I realized that they were coming from you."

"So will you be leaving soon, to go back to the rest of your family?"

"I don't think so; if I do it will be quite a few weeks, many months from now. I cannot lightly forgive Edward or Alice for what they did to us."

The building stress melted off of me, I relaxed now, knowing that he wouldn't leave for a while. I finished my ice cream and we headed to the couch to turn on the TV. We didn't watch it, we talked instead. More like played the get-to-know-you-game. His favorite color is civil war blue (or gray, whichever one is south), favorite movie: in between Pride and prejudice and Batman, favorite human food: was cake, favorite place: Texas, favorite song: 'I love Rock n' Roll'. Just as I was about to ask the next question, who his first crush was, he held his hand up.

"I hear a car pulling up the driveway, I believe it's your father's. It is time for me to go." He waved goodbye and disappeared out the back door.

Charlie came in the front and I turned to greet him. I actually smiled, I hadn't been able to stop smiling ever since I saw Jasper earlier today.

"Hey kiddo, you seem happier today, glad to see the grave yard attitude has gone away."

"Me too dad, me too. So how was work?"

"Good, how was your day?"

"Good."

"Good, so what's for dinner?"

"Well, I was thinking that we could have backwards dinner since I already ate a bowl of ice cream."

"Sounds good."

He got himself some ice cream and I started making some pizza and cut up some apple slices.

About forty-five minutes later the pizza was ready and we started eating. I only ate one out of the two slices on my plate and gave the left over slice to Charlie after he asked for it. I jumped up the stairs, thrilled that I would see Jasper again tomorrow. I was so jumpy that it took me around an hour to fall asleep after brushing my teeth.

The next morning I woke up at nine thirty and knew before I got downstairs that Charlie was at work already. I ate a bowl of cereal and took a long shower. For the first time in five months I actually stressed about what I was going to wear today: jeans or track suit pants, blue hoodie over white T or red sweater over pink T? In the end I chose the track pants and the blue hoodie but I swapped the top for just a blue T shirt.

When I was done arguing with myself I went downstairs again and dialed Jasper's number. "Hello."

"Hey, Jasper. It's Bella."

"Hello, Bella, how are you?"

"Good, how about yourself?"

"Good, also."

"So should you come over to my house today or should I come over to your house?"

"You should come over here, I took off all the dusty sheets last night, the house looks like home again."

"Okay, I'll be there in a sec."

"I hope that you are speaking figuratively, with that truck of yours it would take you closer to an hour to get here."

"Ha, ha, Mr. Funny pants, you know exactly what I mean."

I hung up and started my truck. I beat Jasper's exaggeration by forty-three minutes. He opened the door before I could raise my hand to knock. I entered his house and saw that he had removed all of the white sheets from all of the rooms. His house looked like how I had last seen it with the whole family here. The couches were stain free and stark white, the same with the piano and the antique wood table was dust free.

"I couldn't sleep so I decided to fix the house."

I rolled my eyes at the sleeping pun. "So what are we going to do today?"

"We could rearrange some of the furniture just for fun."

"Okay, although I have a feeling that you will be doing the majority of the moving."

We went up to his room and moved his bed so that the head board was up against the big window. We moved his desk in between the over sized closet door and the wall that the bedroom door was on. We didn't rearrange really any other rooms in the house; we did move around the living room furniture a little though. We switched the couch and the love seat and then angled the table in the dinning room differently but that was all.

When we were done we sat on the couch and were silent for a few minutes. "So what do you want to do now?" I asked Jasper.

"I don't know, what do you want to do?"

"I asked you first."

"My question overrules yours."

"You wish it did, mister."

"Fine, you win, little missy. I don't know what I want to do."

"We could take a stroll through the woods or go back to my house."

"Let's go to the woods."

I nodded.

We walked out of the house, not bothering to lock the door. We walked around the back and stopped when we came to the river that ran behind the Cullens' place. "Do you want to get wet or would you rather jump over?"

I could tell that the water was still chilly, even though it was early spring. "Um, I'd rather jump."

"Okay, up you go."

He scooped me up in his arms and took a running start. He flew over the water and landed with a muffled crunch. My eyes were wide open. He laughed, "I guess it was as shocking to you as your first time on a vampire's back, wasn't it?"

I didn't respond. He laughed again and gently set me on my feet. I stood there for a moment but before I could unfreeze Jasper threw a wave of calm over me and I relaxed. He walked into the tree line and I made my legs start moving in order to catch up to him. He slowed down so that we could walk side by side. We wound through the trees and skipped around the rain puddles. At one point Jasper pulled me to him as I narrowly missed being splashed by left over rainwater that had fallen off of a tree. After I looked away from the water I realized how close I was to Jasper. He seemed to notice at that moment too, but I think we both felt something there before he took a step away.

Chapter 2

Jasper had been in Forks for almost a month now. Every morning Charlie would leave for work and either Jasper would come here or I would go to his house. Every day we would just sit and talk, then we would go do something like walk in the woods or ask each other things or talk about what we had done in the five months that the Cullens had been gone. We would occasionally listen to music; he liked hard rock and country while I liked alternative rock and some pop.

One day Jasper took me to an indoor ice skating rink, I'll admit, I was a bit worried. We took his car, a Mercedes, and we drove to the rink, got our ice skates, and prepared to get on the ice. The good thing about ice skating is that I couldn't tell the difference between Jasper's cold, rock hard body and the ice. I would have bruised myself and even maybe have gotten a concussion if Jasper hadn't of been there. He caught my clumsy self plenty of times.

Once I got the hang of it Jasper guided me around the ring and I didn't even wobble. He skated backwards while holding my hands. He even picked me up, twisted around, and put me in front of him, all without hurting anybody. He kept his hands on my waist to steady me.

"So you were an ice skater?"

"No, I just played on the iced ponds a lot when I was little."

"Could've fooled me."

He laughed, "jealous much?"

I rolled my eyes and smiled.

When I needed to take a break Jasper got me some hot chocolate from a machine and put it in my hands, still chilled from holding him so tightly. I drank it down as fast as I could without burning my insides and we skated for another hour. When we were done we returned the skates to the snotty lady at the counter who scowled at me and smiled too much at Jasper. After we left, Jasper took me to a restaurant and got me something to eat. I refused to go at first, saying that I had edible food at home, but he persisted and I gave in.

I ordered ravioli, which triggered another déjà vu feeling. When I was done, he paid the bill when I wanted to, drove me home, drove his car home, and then came back to my house. I was in the living room when he knocked.

"Come in," I spoke at a normal volume, since he could hear me.

"Miss me?"

"You know I did you goof."

He sat on the couch next to me and took off his jacket. We sat watching George Lopez for a while until the commercial came on. When it did I reached for the remote and accidentally knocked it off the arm of the couch. I saw Jasper move in the corner of my eye.

"No, I'll get it," I said.

But he had already leaned across me and picked it up. He was still half leaned toward me as he handed over the remote. My heart stuttered but I otherwise stayed still. I raised my hand to take the remote but it fell in my lap and I instead grasped Jasper's hand. He blinked in surprise. I stared at my hand, thinking that it was crazy.

"I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

"That's okay," he interrupted, looking me straight in the eye. My eyes left his and traveled down to his lips that were looking very inviting after being a hermit for so long. He noticed, "would it be okay…?"

"Yes."

I slowly, very slowly leaned closer to Jasper until our lips met. The moment that I felt his cold skin, my body reacted like it had when I had been with Edward. My fingers knotted themselves in his hair and pulled him against me. My heart sped and Jasper's mouth crushed mine with enough pressure to bruise. He let me hold him there for a moment before he unknotted my hands from his hair and pulled himself away from me. That one kiss had been better than any of the ones that Edward had given me, I'd thought those kisses were heaven, but in reality they were only bliss, this was heaven. ((Hunger was visible in his eyes))

Jasper held me in his arms as I regained my breath. "Is this the right thing to do?" I asked. "I mean, you're still married, and I don't think they're aware that you're here…with me. You might still want to go back to Alice, you could forgive her, like I might do to Edward."

"Alice and I have been married for decades now, it's not as easy to forgive as it would have been if she had cheated on me right after we were married."

I nodded in understanding and rested my head on his chest. We hugged for a long time before I decided to go take a shower while he waited in my room. I took my time, even after the déjà vu feeling came to haunt me again. I got out, dried off, got dressed, brushed my teeth, and pulled my long hair into a ponytail so that it wouldn't be a 'haystack', like Edward called it, in the morning. I opened my door and sat on the bed next to Jasper.

"What's wrong? I can feel loads of anxiety rolling off of you."

"I'm just stressed about Edward and Alice. He would probably kill me, although he technically left me first. Alice might feel betrayed, even though she's the one who cheated. Not to mention the fact that you're still married."

He was silent, digesting my speech. "I can see what you're saying. You're dad's pulling up in the driveway. I'll call Alice and tell her that they need to come back here so that we can work all this out." He kissed my forehead. "See you tomorrow, missy."

He opened my window and quietly dropped to the ground just as I heard the front door open. "Bells?" he asked as he shut the front door behind him.

I sighed, why did he always have to assure himself that I was here? It was so annoying, did he expect me to run away or for someone to break in and murder me every time he was gone at work? "I'm here, Ch—dad, I'm okay. How was work?"

"It was good, nothing too serious to worry about."

I walked down the stairs and began to get dinner ready, we were having hard shelled tacos. I stuffed one and gave it to Charlie and then fixed myself one, but I picked at the insides, too nervous to really eat anything. I watched him pick up his plate and head for the living room. "I think I'll go do a load of laundry."

"Ok bells, I don't know what I'd do with out you."

I smiled and went up the stairs to the tiny laundry room. I did a smaller load of laundry, dumping in a little soap and setting the dial. Then I went back to my room and laid on my stomach on the bed, staring out the window.