By the time Jasper finds her it's almost too late.
Unaccustomed to starring as the hero in the daily crises that seem to follow Bella wherever she goes, he's less prepared than Edward to deal with what he finds. And what he finds is something he never wanted to see. Not necessarily because there is a lack of desire on his part - he's a vampire, and such concepts as 'want' are not so much an exercise in 'if', as they are for humans, but a matter of how and when.
Perhaps that's why it is him they go to. He's already damned, so one more scratch on the bedpost won't raise anybody's eyebrows. Surely if Edward were here he'd be the designated savior. At least that's what Jasper is telling himself. He's less confident in his adopted brother than the others. Or less optimistic. What Edwards needs in life is not a half-mad moon girl with one foot in the grave, but an altar.
Really, he'd be much happier as a monk. Then he could direct his fanaticism and self-loathing into some more proactive pursuit than pining away for an unstable teenager. If Jasper were asked (not that he's been asked, mind you, or expects to be, on this topic or any other in the foreseeable future) he'd have counseled Edward to bite the girl already and be done with it. Bella wants to be a vampire, or a wolf, anything other than what she is. It's that transient Something Else that she wants and Edward has the ability to provide. So why not? She's mildly entertaining. And, apart from a disconcerting interest in dead things, she's relatively perceptive for a human. She could be useful. And isn't that the point?
No, the point is that Edward's not here.
The human's gone and got herself cursed and the one person most suitable for her at a time like this is most certainly not Jasper.
In Carlisle's house (it is always Carlisle's house, make no mistake about that and Jasper never has, whatever genteel platitudes the doctor makes ) swarms fear, stress and, faintly within, girl.
This knowledge comes to Jasper in the most primal, basic terms. Once his brain registers the scent and the stark feeling of it, it's all he can think of. It's all he knows, all he will ever or want to. Edward claims Bella smells like flowers to him, fresh green things, open air and wide, blue spaces. Perhaps this is so.
Jasper cannot see how, when to him she is nowhere near so prosaic a concept. For him she is an embodiment of need. He needs her, as he once needed air, as he still needs blood, as he has never anything in his life. At least for the amount of time it takes him to register her existence. She is blood and warmth and softness over fragile, satisfyingly breakable bones. These are real, tangible things. Not ideas, not pretty. He knows what these things are.
He is not strong. His love for Alice is real, but always a little abstract. There are acts and words attached to the idea of love, and therefore he does them, and is not greatly inconvenienced in so doing. They make her happy and he very much likes Alice happy. Her emotions reflect onto him and he is allowed, through the privilege of their arrangement, to enjoy what he cannot experience on his own. Sometimes he wonders what it would be like if he could not sense the suffering and triumphs of others, what he would be like. If there is anything.
"I'm sorry," Alice says, but she opens the door anyway.
Jasper takes in a sharp breath and is almost drunk on it. As he had followed Alice up the stairs Bella's scent had grown stronger and Jasper's resolve weaker. Through the heady cloud of fresh, seventeen-year-old girl, he is suddenly, unrepentantly angry.
"How could you bring her here?" he hisses. It is betrayal of the worst kind. To know someone is weak, and to ignore that in favor of - what? hope? a misguided altruism? - strikes Jasper has the height of irresponsibility. If not callousness.
When Bella is not in Jasper's presence he is more or less okay. He walks a steady middle on the tightrope. During those times, all he has to concentrate on is not killing anyone else. Some days he almost believes he doesn't even want to, anymore. Those days are usually the most dangerous.
But to expose Bella to Jasper in this condition, in such a condition as this, is not only unfair but outright sadistic. If Jasper did not sense Alice's distress, both for the girl on the bed and himself, he would not have imagined a day he could forgive her.
"We need your help," Alice says. "She needs your help."
Jasper disagrees. He disagrees very heartily, but only a part of him does. The rest of him has already made its mind up.
Beneath Bella's usual scent is a deeper, darker smell, so thick its almost a presence, wet and shiny on the shutter-stop reel of red images assaulting Jasper's mind. Having failed for the second time, it's almost a relief to come to this end. A confirmation of what Jasper has always known. Whatever the family tells him to his face, he knows how they really feel; and if he's ever in any doubt, Edward has never scrupled with the truth when Jasper sought it.
Still, Jasper gives it one last try. If for his own peace of mind if not the girl's. "Somebody else," he says, almost begs. "Somebody else, Alice. There has to be -"
Alice shakes her head. "Edward's not here. Emmett doesn't know if he could, you know, and… stop. And Rosalie," she pauses and Jasper wonders what she is omitting from the story, or editing. Rosalie is not shy about sharing her opinion and she has made her feelings known on the matter of Bella Swan. Likely as not she'd let this one die and declare them the better for it. Jasper is not sure he disagrees.
"Rosalie has declined," Alice says, apparently settling on the cold clarity of truth. Now is the time for it if ever.
"Carlisle, then," Jasper says. "He has the control and Esme won't make a fuss about it."
"Carlisle said it would not be possible, given Bella's special needs." Alice bites her lip, her wide consuming eyes turned to Jasper like the last well in a desert. From the bed Bella gives a mournful little scream to match Jasper's sentiments.
"He's still the town's best doctor and people ask more questions than they used to. He can't take care of the people and us and Bella, too. He said that because you're not, well -"
"Occupied?" Jasper supplies. "I might as well make myself useful, yes?"
His tone breaks Alice out of her descent into grief momentarily and her gaze on him hardens with her resolve. "Jasper Hale, you will do this. We - I - wouldn't ask it of you if I didn't think you could, if it wasn't the only option left." With that unforgiving fact hanging between them, she softens again. "Please," she says. "Bella is a sister to me and I love her."
"You don't know what you're asking," Jasper whispers furiously. "Otherwise you wouldn't have done it."
Alice nods, but not in agreement, merely in acceptance of the events that have brought them to this place. In some ways, she is well-suited to the mercurial interpretations of foresight, in others, she is maddeningly blasé to the point of uselessness. At least pretend that another option was looked for.
They are interrupted by another sound from Bella, this one thinner in strength, as if she is giving up. Jasper frowns.
"Please!" Alice says and literally pushes him into Bella's arms.
They both gasp, him in alarm and Bella in something decidedly more welcoming. Instinctively he tries to pull away but her arms have already wrapped around him like strangling vines and now she is everywhere. Her scent is filling him up, her warmth a living creature that electrics through his brain as bright orange wires. She is blood and sweat and deliciously sweet skin, the only things in this world that matter.
Her legs release from their stiffened angles and wrap clean as silk around his waist. With surprising strength she holds on to him and in a move that is wholly artificial and unbecoming of the Bella Jasper knows, she arches upwards, her body running rhythmically the length of his. She sighs in satisfaction and energy returns to her limbs. Her heart picks up speed from its gradually dwindling tempo.
Somebody's undressed her and beneath the sheet that slips from her waist she's entirely open to Jasper's gaze. Her dark hair is damp and sticks to her face with fever-sweat and her eyes are overly bright in their singular preoccupation of pain and need. She's beyond articulation, which means, among other unfortunate realities, that neither of them will even have the balm of telling each other she protested, later. Not that she will.
It's not egoism on Jasper's part, simply truth. She would let anyone touch her, now, if they were willing to give her what she needs. How much unluckier would she be were someone to touch without the intent to provide.
She's skinnier than he would have guessed, made up of sharp bones and awkward, haphazardly slashed lines. Her skin is naturally pale but has taken on a sicklier grayish pallor. Though her eyes are open Jasper can tell she isn't really seeing him, let alone understanding. He wants to say something, apologize, maybe, or offer some polite gentlemanly reticence at what he is about to do. But that, then, strikes him as a greater insult.
After all, there is still the matter of her body. Jasper is not a monk. He has never tried to be one. What he wants he takes, or used to. It is more natural that way, what he was made for, if he was made with any premeditation at all beyond idle diversion. He earned his keep once before and he will do so again, if that is required.
And Bella does require him. In this moment, he is everything to her. It's a very frightening power to have over someone, to need them. He had almost forgotten the sheer heady complacency of it. You are what others say you are. You are the sum of your actions and the results thereof. Jasper is very good at getting desired results.
"Please," Bella says. She tips her head back and whether it is deliberate or not her throat is where Jasper looks. She moves in a restless stream beneath him, tugging ineffectually first at his shirt and then, growing bolder, at his belt.
Startling Jasper by using his name, Bella latches on to it with ruthless purpose. "Jasper, please. I want you - I want you to help me. It's okay."
She might have convinced him, too, but there is so much confusion assaulting Jasper's senses that it is all he can do to keep his head above water. Pain, fear, revulsion, need. It's all there, but nothing resembling genuine affection or desire. Experience tells Jasper that you can and will do anything to simply make all of those feelings stop. She's doing nothing worth condemning her for. If only he could say the same.
More aware of Alice than he wants to be, Jasper eases himself slowly onto the bed. "Yes," Bella sighs, content as a cat as she lets her head fall back. The strain in her body morphs into something more fluid and inescapable. Without much of a fight left, Jasper realigns his body to more closely accommodate hers, biting his lip until he tastes blood.
And easily, too easily, they find a rhythm.
"Jasper, yes."
It's the curse. It's the curse. Closing his eyes, this is Jasper's last coherent thought before he gives up and consigns himself to the flames. It seems about as good as any other.