(Note to my regular readers - this story has nothing to do with Bones. It's written for FAGE 007, which is similar to the 'Bones Secret Santa' but instead of being specific to Bones, this particular fanfic exchange is open to prompts from any fandom. Fair warning, here be Twilight.)
FAGE 007
Title: I Feel Your Pain
Written for: Laurie Whitlock
Written by: MJ/Razztaztic
Rating: T
Summary/Prompt used: Twilight: Jasper/Bella, finding an old friend
If you would like to see all the stories that are a part of this exchange visit the Facebook group: Fanficaholics Anon: Where Obsession Never Sleeps, or add the C2 to get all the stories direct to your inbox. (Don't forget to remove the extra spaces in the link.) (fanfiction community / FAGE-007 / 93625/)
AN: This fic is AU. It is set immediately following the events that took place on Bella's 18th birthday at the beginning of New Moon, but I don't claim to be an expert in Twi-verse and the facts I do know, I've manipulated for purposes of this story.
I don't own these characters, etc. etc. etc.
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It had been more than 150 years since he'd had a good night's sleep.
Of all the changes that had taken place since the night he'd unwittingly crossed paths with vampires, losing the ability to sleep was the one Jasper still occasionally missed. A few hours of rest, of oblivion, time to shut down completely . . . those were all luxuries he no longer possessed.
Not that there weren't consolations to owning the uninterrupted hours of night.
A gleam of sensual hunger turned the burnished copper of his eyes to gold when his gaze rested on Alice, standing motionless at the window. He scanned her slim figure and imagined her naked and writhing beneath him. Sometimes, that was all it took. A hint of a thought became a trace of foreshadowing that was immediately seen with her gift as a moment of future inevitability. The erotic images in his mind transferred to hers and with an answering surge of desire, she would drag him to their room while the rest of the family politely directed their attention elsewhere.
The restless tapping of one foot and the worried lines of her profile told him that tonight would not be one of those nights. And, truth be told, he was relieved. Guilt over what he'd almost done still plagued him.
"I can't see him." Her voice was the faintest of whispers but it wasn't necessary to speak louder.
They had escaped - he wouldn't call it running away - to a small cabin they'd built for themselves decades ago off Fraser River. Darkness had fallen and the solitude surrounded them like a warm embrace. There were no candles. No lamps. There was only the brush of silver moonlight picking out the edge of a chair or dancing gracefully across the hardwood floor.
"I keep trying but I can't see him."
A muscle worked in his jaw.
"How about Bella? Can you see her? Is she . . . okay?"
The tension in the deep, soft drawl drew her attention. Her head turned toward him.
"You didn't hurt her, Jasper."
"I almost did. I would have." His teeth clenched as the memory of rich, warm blood teased his senses.
Human blood.
Hunger.
"Don't be ridiculous." Alice was at his side instantly. "It was a lapse, that's all. You would have controlled it."
"I would have killed her," he bit out. "Without Emmett and Carlisle there to stop me, she would be dead . . . and Edward would despise me."
"STOP IT!" Despite her small stature, Alice had all the strength of their kind and her cold fingers bit into the marble-like hardness of his arm. "I won't let you punish yourself like this, my love. Bella is . . ."
For a moment, the clear topaz eyes went blank. When they cleared, she gasped in shock.
"He's leaving her!'
At the distress in her voice, Jasper immediately put his own troubles aside.
"What's happening?"
When Alice looked at him, he could almost see the tears she couldn't shed.
"They're leaving. Everyone. Carlisle and Esme and Rosalie and Emmett . . . and Edward. They're closing up the house and leaving. Edward convinced them that it's the only way to keep Bella safe."
Surprise held him silent for a moment. Then his fists clenched at his side.
"This is my fault."
"Jas . . ." Alice reached for him again. "It isn't your fault. It's Edward and his deluded ideas of chivalry. He thinks he's protecting her."
The stiff manner in which he held himself was proof enough that the soothing words had no effect.
"We need to find them."
She nodded. "Alright."
They turned toward the door together. Neither suggested that they wait for morning. There was no reason. They owned the night.
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They were on foot and stuck to the interior of the dark forests of British Columbia, feeding along the way when easy prey crossed their path. They had just picked up the scent of a nearby caribou when a flutter at the edge of Jasper's senses solidified into something tangible.
"Alice."
She halted her pursuit of the animal at once.
"I can feel Bella."
"What?" Her bewilderment was obvious. "I thought you couldn't, that something about her made her impervious to us."
"I don't know how," he said grimly. "But somehow I can sense her now. She's in pain."
"Poor Bella." Alice's expression filled with sorrow. "It's Edward, isn't it? She's mourning Edward."
Jasper hesitated.
"Do you mind if we don't catch up with the rest of the family after all? I'd like to go back to Forks. If I can feel her emotions now, maybe I can help her."
She reached for his hand.
"What kind of friends would we be if we didn't try?"
They made it home by nightfall.
After a quick stop found their home as closed and silent as they'd expected, Alice and Jasper went into town and took up sentry positions from which they could unobtrusively study Bella's small house.
People came and went, including three men from the reservation. One of them stopped on the porch, sniffed, and stared hard right into their hiding place for several long minutes before he shook his head and stalked off with the rest. Other men followed a few minutes later, and then the doctor came out with Charlie.
"I'll be back around three," he said as they shook hands. "Keep her warm, make sure she gets plenty of fluids and she should be fine. A little hot soup now and then wouldn't hurt either."
Charlie waited until the doctor's car pulled away before he went back inside. The vampires' acute hearing picked up snatches of conversation amid the howls of celebration coming from the bluffs.
" . . . called the Cullens and no one answered . . ."
"Where . . ."
" . . . big hospital in Los Angeles . . ."
" . . . Edward left you alone out there in the middle of the woods?"
"I can't talk about this anymore . . ."
The light came on in an upstairs bedroom. A door was closed. A lock turned. Electronics whirred.
As a body collapsed to the floor, Jasper flinched and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Alice was watching him carefully.
"I'm going in there."
She didn't argue.
Bella didn't notice when her window opened and they slipped inside. Alice knelt beside the prone figure.
"Bella?" she murmured softly, as she stroked her friend's dark hair. "Bella, it's me. It's Alice. Jasper is with me."
Nothing happened.
Jasper took over. He pulled the quilt from the bed, draped it over her body and then picked her up. When he sat down with her limp form cradled in his arms, Alice tucked it around Bella's arms and legs until she was wrapped in a cocoon of warm down.
She looked at him warily.
"Are you alright? Is it too much for you, being that close to her?"
He shook his head.
"All I feel is her grief."
They fell silent as movement stirred downstairs and quiet footsteps approached.
"Bella?" Charlie tapped lightly on the door and gave the handle a jiggle. The lock kept him out.
Alice lowered her voice to a tone that approximated Bella's. She deliberately roughened it to make identification more difficult.
"Trying to sleep."
"Okay. I'll see you in the morning." His fingers tapped out a faint rhythm on the wood frame as he hesitated right outside. "I love you."
After a minute of silence, he moved on to his room.
The sadness that surrounded them was alive, pulsing in the shadows with a heartbeat that sounded like a repetition of the words he's gone. Eyes closed, Jasper rocked Bella back and forth and tried to chase them away with warm thoughts of love and peace and healing.
His efforts worked only sporadically. As dawn began to lighten the sky outside, Bella's eyes opened. One arm twisted free of her quilt wrapping; fingers grazed Jasper's cheek.
"Cold. Like him."
"Darlin,' don't do this to yourself." His soft drawl made no difference.
"He's gone."
Bella's eyes closed again.
When the sounds of Charlie rising and preparing for the new day came, Alice unlocked the door and she and Jasper hid in the tree outside the window. Bella was lying as if still asleep when her father peeked in a few minutes later.
Charlie crept up to the bed and bent to press a kiss on her forehead.
"Stay home today. I'll call the school, give you permission."
She murmured a wordless response and by the time the front door closed behind him, Alice and Jasper were with her again.
"We'll help you through this," Alice whispered as Jasper once again settled into a comfortable position with Bella in his arms. "Everything will be fine, I promise."
Little by little, Jasper absorbed the worst of her pain and replaced the sharp-edges of bereavement with a numbness that, at the very least, allowed Bella to face Charlie each day. Those fragile interactions, when she mouthed a few meaningless syllables and swallowed a few bites of food, earned her a week's respite before she was forced to face the world outside the four walls of her room.
A world without Edward.
For Jasper, it was an act of atonement.
For Bella, it was a brief moment of forgetting. It kept her alive, until a terrifying encounter in Port Angeles changed everything.
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Thanks to Laurie for all of the great prompts she submitted. I hope you like what I did with this one!
Thanks for reading!