Dedicated to melizzymoo [who actually bid for me in the SupportStacie auction –shockhorrorgasp-]

Request: Jasper/Bella – AH – Angst

SUMMARY

Jasper Whitlock has lost his life to looking for his missing sister, Amy. He thinks he's found her when a strange girl, identical yet different, crosses his path. They want different things from each other - can the reconcile after miscommunication tears them apart?

If I owned Twilight (or made ANY money from the shit I write), I wouldn't be working on a shitty Mercer laptop from the early 60's and living in a matchbox in the middle of nowhere. Seriously.

This story contains mention of an OC, who DOES NOT feature in the story. She is important to the story line, but she is NOT PRESENT at ANY TIME during the course of events. Please, remember that.

SweetDulcinea is my other half. She tells me to stfu when I get emo & makes sure my shit is somewhat readable.

[JASPER]

525,600 minutes.

31,236,000 seconds.

8,760 hours.

165 weeks.

36 months.

1,095 days. 1,095.

It never got any easier. Doesn't sound like that long, right? 1,095?

What about 8,760?

8,760 hours of emotional torture. Because that's what it was. Never really knowing… determined, searching, but never sure.

What about 31,236,000?

It's not an exact number, but it's close enough. 31,236,000 seconds, and every single one was just as difficult as the one that preceded it. Does that put it in perspective?

5,362 phone calls.

165 trips to the police station.

89 published letters to newspapers and magazines.

525,602 minutes, and I was no closer to finding her. I was beginning to doubt that I ever would.

1,096.

I timed my push-ups to the flashing of the light on my answering machine – the pace made the muscles in my arms ache and burn. I enjoyed the pain. It gave me focus. It was the only distraction I had from thoughts of Amy.

Every day was difficult - but today was worse. Today she'd been missing for 3 years.

Only when my body began to shake and my arms were practically giving out from under me was I forced to stop. I was still watching the little light flash. I had been since I'd gotten home. Long ago – millions of seconds ago – I used to check my messages compulsively, when I managed to drag myself away from my phone at all. After 3 years, no one phoning would have news I wanted to hear. So I made no move to check the messages. I could it put it off a little bit longer.

My hair was dripping sweat down my face, stinging my eyes – I needed to shower. I could put it off for a few more minutes. What's another 15 minutes on top of over half a million?

My showers were never a comfortable experience. The water was never just warm – I worked only in extremes. Boiling hot, or freezing cold. Never just warm. It was meagre penance for my sins.

Once I'd scrubbed away the day's dirt and sweat, I held my face under the spray – the high pressure made it impossible to breathe, like I was drowning – until my lungs started to burn, till they hurt the way the rest of me hurt; body, mind, heart.

I didn't bother to dry off. The chilly evening air felt good against my naked skin. Tugging on a pair of jeans – force of habit – I carried my laptop through to the lounge, lowering the volume on the stereo on the way past. It was still bleeding heavy-bass industrial dance into the air, and it was making my head pound.

I grabbed a beer while I waited for the laptop to boot up – preparation for another night scouring news sites – and tried to work up the nerve to listen to my messages.

14.

One from Alice.

"Hey Jasper. Just checking up. Haven't heard from you in a while. You wanna do coffee this week? Let me know. Love you." I sighed heavily, scrubbing a hand over my face and making a mental note to call her… some other time. She was a sweet girl, and one of the only feeble connections to Amy that I had left – I couldn't afford to lose her, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with her particular brand of psychosis.

One from my boss.

He spewed contempt at my clothing, personality and lack of work ethic – among other things. A familiar, venomous diatribe. I hit delete as soon as he started screaming.

The rest of them were from Emmett.

"Hey buddy. Gimme a call when you get this."

"Jaaaaaaasssperrrrr, why aren't you answering your phone?"

"Asshole. Pick up the damn phone."

All of them were the same, except the last one. In the last one, he swore at me – repeatedly and creatively – till I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

The phone rang as I was punching in his number.

"Do you have obsessive compulsive disorder?" I asked, sighing. I knew it would be Emmett phoning. Again.

"Jasper, you fucking wank-stain. Why didn't you answer your fucking phone? You're such a loser."

I snorted. Rosalie – who, really, was the butch one in the relationship – would kick his over-muscled ass if he spoke like that around her. So of course, he reserved his trucker mouth for me.

"I was with Esme, you dick. It's Wednesday, remember…"

You'd think that after 2 and a half years, he would remember. Esme Cullen had made it her mission in life to rescue me from myself. This consisted of feeding me crumpets and Darjeeling every Wednesday morning and keeping me occupied well into the afternoon. She and her husband had been like surrogate parents to Amy, so if it allowed her to feel like she was helping me in some way, I couldn't begrudge her.

There was silence on the other end of the line, but he managed to recover pretty quickly. "Yeah. Right. I knew that… Anyway. You wanna come grab a beer tonight?"

He didn't even wait for me to reply. "Fantastic. Meet me at Rhino Room in 20. Okay? Okay. Cool," and then he hung up. I stared at the receiver disbelievingly for a couple of seconds before rolling my eyes and setting it back in its cradle.

The only good thing about Rhino Room was that it was cheap. Cheap was good, because judging by the increasing frequency and vehement ire of Aro's messages, it was only a matter of time before I was out of a job - he'd made it very clear that he would only put up with my shit for so long.

But Emmett loved the place.

A beer actually sounded like a really good idea, and I figured I owed it to him to at least make an effort, so 15 minutes later, I walked into the bar – to see Emmett, already there, sitting at one of the picnic tables, somehow managing to take up an entire bench, two empty bottles in front of him and another in his hand. I got the feeling that Aro was giving him a hard time at work – because of me. Guilty by association and all that. I tried to care.

Once I'd managed to get a beer out of the highly intoxicated bartender, I made my way over to him. He was still grease-stained from work, and I almost felt bad for leaving him a double work-load. I still couldn't care. He was a big boy, he could deal with it.

He held up his bottle and nodded as I seated myself opposite him.

"Aro is contemplating the best ways to murder you – you know that right?"

"I'm fine thanks, how are you?" I said pointedly. I did not want to talk about Aro and my impending unemployment right now.

"Get off it dude," he spat. "You're in some deep shit at work, and I can't keep covering for you. You need to make a plan."

I took a deep pull on my beer and looked away. As much as I hated it, most of the time I appreciated Emmett's total lack of tact or subtlety and his blunt way of cutting through all the bullshit and going straight for the jugular. I needed that sometimes.

Tonight, though, was not one of those times.

"Yeah, Em. I know. Seriously though," I turned back to him, levelling him with an even gaze, "Just drop it, okay?"

He matched my stare for a second, weighing me up. "Sure, whatever," he said finally, looking away.

We sat in silence after that, sipping our beers and watching kids that couldn't have been older than 17 dancing and groping each other next to the pool tables.

"Seriously, dude, why do you even come here?" I asked incredulously, watching one of the kids weave drunkenly around the dance floor before curling into a ball on top of one of the tables.

He turned to me, grinning playfully. "You can't say this shit is funny to watch…"

The muscles in my face didn't want to cooperate – I couldn't even grimace. I just stared at him blankly, until he coughed and looked away.

Neither of us spoke again.

For an hour, through 5 beers, we sat in silence, watching the crowd and…

In some detached part of my mind, I registered the bottle slipping from my fingers and crashing to the floor.

She was across the room, about to walk out into the night.

She'd turned around to say something to the guy she was with – he looked like a little punk; scruffy clothes and fucked up hair that looked like it hadn't seen a brush in years – and my entire world tilted on it's axis when I saw her face. Amy.

I was out of my seat and across the room before Emmett could blink, but she was already walking out the door.

"Amy!" I shouted, but she didn't turn around. "Amy!"

I caught up to her quickly, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder, spinning her to face me.

For the second time in as many minutes, my world shifted. It was Amy – it had to be – but in her eyes - chocolate brown when they should have been ocean blue, like mine – there was no recognition. She stared at me, unblinking, her face totally impassive, if a little bit shocked.

I was vaguely aware of her little friend in the periphery, watching us, but it was all just background to me. The only thing that mattered was that she was here in front of me, different, but real. I don't know how long we stared each other, but it was only when the little punk made some sort of comment – "Come on, Bella. Let's go," - that she blinked and jerked her shoulder out of my grip.

I should have said something, but all I could do was stare – until she gave me a polite, tight-lipped smile, and shattered my world with four cold, emotionless words.

"Can I help you?"

alright... this isn't going to be pretty. but you know you're gonna keep reading anyway.

hit the review button, dudes. seriously. I love hearing what you think.