A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer, but her characters are fun to play with so I'm making them do my bidding for the foreseeable future. Jasper as the God of War and Peter 'just knowing shit' are ideas that belong to IDreamofEddy.

An enormous thank you to my beta and friend Laurie Whitlock, and Shelljayz, my sister, who is both a pre-reader and beta.

This takes place in between chapters 20 and 21.

oOo

Nine days after Jasper's episode ...

JPOV

I was lying on a flat rock a mile off the coast of First Beach this time. It was just to the right of where the treaty line would have extended into the water if anyone would ever have bothered to think of it. The sound of the waves crashing against my rock was just as soothing to me as the currents of a river rushing passed me. The constant cloud cover of this godforsaken place had kept any bare skin from glowing and drawing unwanted attention.

I'd nearly attacked Rose three days ago. She had made some comment I didn't remember; as I so often didn't when I began to fall into the true danger zone.
It was Charlotte who'd intercepted me that time while Peter covered for me with the family. I'd been here on this rock ever since.

Neither Peter nor Charlotte had come to me yet but one or both of them would and soon. They were giving me time to decompress and come to terms with what I'd done. I was still trying to accept that I was struggling again and though I had no memory of it, goin' after Emmett and coming so close to beheading Peter was haunting me every minute of every day. There was no reprieve from it, the guilt never-ending, and my inability to project wasn't helping. The added burden of my near attack on Rose was practically killing me.

Though our relationship had started out rocky, we were close now. Alice was my best friend but my relationship with Rose was special in a different way. She was my "twin," even goin' so far as to take my last name every once in awhile when we posed as brother and sister, and our bond was deep. I wasn't sure what I would be goin' back to when I returned home and as much of a pussy as it made me, I was afraid to find out. I didn't want her to look at me the way she used to, I didn't want any of the family to look at me that way. I didn't used to give a shit what people thought of me and for the most part I still didn't, but I cared what they thought ... sometimes. When I couldn't feel anything I didn't give a fuck about anything.

It was Charlotte who came to me. Her head poked out of the water and she bobbed in the waves for a moment, observing me, trying to gauge my mood, before she hauled herself up onto the rock and lay by my side. We didn't look at each other, just stared up at the overcast sky.

We lay there together for several minutes, Charlotte letting me soak up her strength, peace, and calm before she broke our silence. That silence was uneasy at first, my hesitance to discover the state of things at home coloring the atmosphere, and that was rare for us but by the time she started talking we were back to our familiar comfortable quiet.

"You can quit worrying," she said. "I caught you before anyone really got a clue and Pete covered your ass brilliantly. I don't know how many more times we'll be able to pull that off though, Jasper."

I had already thought of this. My family wasn't stupid. There weren't any stupid vampires but some were smarter than others and every single member of my family was on the high end of the spectrum. I wouldn't be able to hide this forever. I was hoping that I would be able to get my shit together before telling them became a necessity.

"I know."

"Maybe you should just come clean," Charlotte suggested. Her voice wasn't nervous but her emotions had an anxious edge to them.

"No," I responded harshly. "I have worked my ass off to protect them from my past. I am not goin' to screw that up now!"

She paused for several seconds before she said anything else. "Why do you think they need protecting, Jasper?"

I was the one who didn't speak right away this time. "You, me, Pete, we don't see the world the way the rest of the family does. Our pairs of rose-colored glasses got lost in the mail when we were turned," I said. "I'm not sayin' they didn't have their struggles or that they still don't, but they've had something from the get go that we never did."

"Which is?" Charlotte prompted.

"Carlisle," I answered. "He was always there to give them love, guidance, and patience. He's always afforded them the luxury of bein' able to consider things from a perspective that takes right and wrong into account; whereas we always had to play by the rules of survival. For the longest time, right and wrong didn't exist for us because we had to play by those rules if we wanted to stay alive. That's not something they'll ever understand. Personally, I've always privately thought bein' so sheltered from the reality of our world was a cruel thing for him to do, but I get it, and I don't want to be the one that shatters that. I don't want them to know who I used to be. Peter's right. They may know but they don't know, and that's how I want it to stay."

"You should give them a little more credit," she said, thoughtfully. "I know the idea of tellin' them everything is scary but they aren't as delicate as you think. I believe they can handle it and my gut tells me they won't look down on you, on us, for any of it. We don't know how bad things are goin' to be this time, honey. We might end up needin' their help and if they know what you're dealin' with, the next time you start to lose it they might be able to save themselves instead of relyin' on Peter and I to do it for them."

"We both know that's bullshit."

"Yeah it is, but maybe it's time they start to learn how to manage you when you fly off the handle," Charlotte responded. "I'm not pressurin' you but I still want you to consider it. Promise me."

I didn't hesitate. "I promise." Then I reached up, tugging at my hair and growling in frustration. "I can't believe I didn't see this! How could I not have known?"

"It's not always cut and dried," she said. "You know that, and when you're not in your right mind, you don't always see what's starin' you right in the face."

"But I should have! The signs were there and I still didn't put it together."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been restless for weeks and my gift has been hit and miss for awhile. I've been achin', Charlotte," I said. "That happens when the emotions build up and can't be released. It's fuckin' miserable."

The itch was new but I didn't want to talk about that. The other stuff was bad enough, I didn't want to discuss the idea that I might have some sort of fucked up emotional herpes.

"I'm sure it is," she sighed sadly. "I can't imagine how miserable it must be but we'll figure this out."

"What if we don't?"

"We will," she promised resolutely, her confidence radiating out of her and enveloping me. "We always do."

I wanted to believe her. I truly did, so I soaked up her confidence like a sponge and basked in it.

We lay there for another two hours in comfortable silence before we made any more attempts at conversation. Curiosity, doubt, and a crushing demoralization had risen to the forefront of my mind in light of my reason for my self-induced exile in that time. I had a question that needed answering so this time it was me that spoke first. "Why are you still here, Charlotte?"

"Because you need me," she answered simply.

"No, I mean why do you bother with me after all the things I did to you?" I clarified. It may have been a question that needed answering but I dreaded what that answer would be. It was that dread that had kept me from asking it for the past one hundred twenty-two years.

"The answer to that question is both complicated and simple," she said.

"I'm fairly certain I'll be able to follow, Charlotte."

"Oh, I'm certain of that too," and she was. I could feel it. I could also feel her hesitation and wariness.

"You don't have to be afraid of me," I reassured her, but I think I said the words more for my benefit.

Charlotte turned on her side, propping her head on her hand. I did the same. "I haven't been afraid of you for a very long time, Jasper."

It was an honest statement, more honest than I'd been expecting. Charlotte wasn't a liar by any means but answering tough, potentially triggering questions like these was dangerous and though she believed in telling the truth most all the time (let's face it, there really were times when the truth was more hurtful than helpful and a lie was kinder), she was cautious in situations that could go south in a fraction of a heartbeat; even if it was me. Then again, she couldn't lie to me but it was still better to be cautious.

"Maybe you should be," I said, averting my eyes.

She waited until I returned my gaze to hers. "Maybe, but I'm not."

I let out a breath and rolled onto my back again, shutting my eyes and folding my hands on my stomach. Charlotte was still watching me. I could feel the weight of her gaze pressing against my skin.

"This is important to you," she stated.

"Yes." My voice had an embarrassing edge of desperation to it but I wasn't quite annoyed enough to castigate myself for it. I needed to know why.

"What if I don't tell you what you want to hear?" Charlotte asked seriously.

I frowned. "I don't know what I want to hear."

"You won't get anything but the truth from me, Jasper, nothing more, nothing less. Are you prepared for that?"

I turned my head to look at her, staring into her eyes for a long time. I planned to keep on looking no matter what she revealed. "I guess I'll find out."

"I didn't always love you," Charlotte began. Her tone was quiet but steady, her emotions sure. "After the bloodlust faded some and I started to come back to myself, there were times I hated you so much I fantasized about watching you burn."

I flinched. The honesty in her tone and emotions was brutal but I'd asked for this and I still needed her to keep goin' even though it was hard to hear.

"Whenever those feelings began to overwhelm me, Peter was there," she said with a smile. "He would drag me off, we would run for miles until we came across foothills or mountains, and he would pull me down to the ground. His arms would wrap around me, we would look up at the clouds or the stars, and he would tell me stories."

Charlotte sounded wistful now and I was growing confused.

"Stories?"

"Yes," she said. "They were stories about you, Jasper."

"What kind of stories?" I asked warily.

"About when you were human."

My eyes widened in shock. I opened my mouth to ask how the hell he could possibly know anything about when I was human but he was Peter. Of course he knew. My mouth closed.

"Some of them were silly, some were serious, some were endearing," she told me. I was morbidly curious about which stories he'd told her, I remembered so little of my human life, and I wondered what the purpose of his actions was. Charlotte seemed to have read my mind because she answered. "He wanted me to know there was more to you than what I was seeing but I was still so new to this life. I was volatile, my emotions were so unstable, and the only thing that made sense to me was my love for Peter so the stories didn't mean anything to me at first. He didn't explain why he shared those things with me those first few times, but you know Pete ... he has his reasons for everything he does," she said fondly.

My fondness added to hers and it brought me warmth, but not near enough to thaw the ice in my bones.

"I was six months old when he opened my eyes. We were comin' back from one of our trips to the mountains when I first truly saw how Maria treated you. He did it on purpose. He's never said so, but I know it. He always shielded me from it in his own roundabout ways. I think he was waiting for the right time, for when he knew I was ready to see." Charlotte was pained as she said it. There was shame there too and I couldn't help the anger and the red hue that began to creep around the edges of my vision like a poisonous miasma.

"I'm not a fuckin' victim," I growled, tearing my gaze from hers and looking back up at the sky. It was darkening just like my mood. I wondered how long I would last before I snapped, how many pieces I'd rip my sister into, the sister I cherished above all others.

"I didn't say you were," she responded, unhurried.

"I'm a soldier," I snapped, continuing on as though she hadn't spoken.

"You don't have to be. Not anymore," she whispered softly, gently.

"I wish that was true, Charlotte," I said. My anger left me in a woosh, the red fading from my vision and I deflated with a sigh. "I love freedom and makin' decisions for myself, knowin' my life is my own. I cannot even put into words how grateful I am to you and Peter for savin' me, but even though I'm not there anymore, I still am. I can pretend like I'm not, I can pretend that I've moved on, and sometimes I'm so good at it I even fool myself. Whether I fool myself or not, no matter how much time passes, bein' a soldier is the only thing that makes sense to me."

Charlotte reached over, pried my hands apart and laced our fingers together. "I know."

That was all she said but there really wasn't anything to say. Charlotte always knew when not to resort to empty words or platitudes.

"You didn't let me finish," she said a few minutes later.

I nodded and she continued. "After that I started to pay more attention - to Peter's stories, to every move you made, to how you interacted with all of us. I began to understand that the only reason I was still alive was because of how harsh you were with us during training. I became cognizant enough to recognize all the times you saved my ass in the battles we fought before I really got the hang of the fight, which you didn't have to do, and which was so contradictory from who you presented yourself as. I started to hate you less and less. Eventually, aside from learnin' more about Peter and sharin' things about myself with him, hearin' the stories about you were what I most looked forward to when we took our trips to the mountains.

"One day, three months after I started to come around, Peter told me something that he'd never told me before. He said, 'Darlin', one of these days things are goin' to be different and the Major will need us. We're goin' to have to be the ones to remind him of the man he was in those stories and bring him back to himself when he doubts. I know you can't see it now but it'll be worth it. He will be worth it. I just know.'

"My faith in my mate has always been absolute and unwavering. I believed him and in that moment I started to love you because it was only then that I realized how much he did," she explained and squeezed my hand. My skin only crawled a little, not enough to make me stiffen. Her touch never made me stiffen. "Then you let us go and my love for you became just as powerful and absolute as my love for Peter.

"Do you even understand what you've given us, Jasper?" Charlotte asked earnestly. "You gave us our lives. We've had 122 years of joy because of what you did. Despite our beginnings, you've given us a family more loving than my human one ever was or ever could have been. That is why we aren't mindless animals after all the shit we went through during the Wars. We could've been sucked into that darkness and never found our way back out, but we did find our way back. Do you think we could have done that without you?"

Her passion and conviction was powerful and almost suffocating. I wanted to ask her to stop because as ironic as it was, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I wouldn't ask that though because I'd asked for this and I wasn't about to back down. She obviously wasn't done yet and she seemed to need to say all this as much as I needed to hear it even though I no longer wanted to.

"Sometimes I wonder if our lives are worth the price you paid to give them to us. I know it was steep-"

I tugged her into my arms roughly, cutting off her words, and kissed the crown of her head. She tucked her face into my shoulder and fisted her hand in my shirt. To an outside observer it would have looked like a romantic embrace but it was one of comfort and platonic intimacy. "It was worth every second. Don't you ever doubt that and don't you ever forget it."

Her lips curled up against my skin before she moved her head to rest on my chest. Then she looked up into my eyes. I didn't want to look back but I wanted her to know I meant what I said so I met them anyway.

"I know you don't believe you're a good man but, Jasper, you are. You aren't perfect and at one point you were a sadistic bastard. Lord knows, you're still FUBAR but you are the best man I've ever known and Peter was right. You were worth it. You still are and always will be." The same passion and conviction were still there in Charlotte's voice and there was no denying just how much she believed in the words she spoke.

Venom gathered in the corners of my eyes and I turned my head away from her so she wouldn't see. I detested looking weak and though Charlotte had seen me at my lowest and most vulnerable, the knowledge of this only made me detest it more. I had no response to her words so I said nothing.

"Do me a favor?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Don't tell Peter I said you're the best man I've ever known. He's a very close second but ..."

I grinned, feeling happy for the first time in awhile. "Yeah, I can keep your secret."

Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief and I couldn't help but find it funny that after more than a century of life as a vampire, she still resorted to reflexive human reactions to certain emotional situations. Most vampires did.

"I'm gonna head home," she told me and then mused, "It's still odd for me to call it that."

"I can't go back yet."

I wasn't ready.

"I didn't figure you would, but you shouldn't take too much longer. The others are gettin' worried about you. They'll start askin' questions soon, especially since Alice can't see you. That's been happening more and more and she's not gonna keep lettin' it slide. I'm surprised she's gone this long without interrogating you."

"I know."

It was another thing I'd already considered and I would heed Charlotte's advice, but I needed more time to get my head on straight. Charlotte's confessions in addition to my already present demons had done some damage to my already fucked up psyche and I wasn't about to return to the house looking like an emotional little bitch. Those confessions had touched me though and I was somewhat confident it would be a easier to get my shit together. I had to be as shit free as possible if I was goin' to continue to deal with Carlisle's almost crippling depression on top of everything else and I had to deal with it because I needed to be with my family.

Charlotte nodded at me and dove gracefully into the ocean, speeding toward the shore at a leisurely pace. She wasn't doin' it to stretch out her time with me as much as she could. She did it because she thought that life shouldn't always move at vampire speed.

When her scent dissipated completely, I refocused all my attention on the sound of the waves, again letting the gentle crashing sound clear my cluttered mind. It was a nearly impossible task and I could not account for how long it took to accomplish it but once it was done, I felt immense relief.

When I allowed my brain to reboot, my thoughts trickled in at a pace of my choosing. It felt nice to be in control of the chaos in my head. I fixated on pleasant memories to keep myself as calm as possible, and once I'd remained in control of the chaos for a good long while, I finally felt it was safe for me to return home.
I needed to face Rosalie. She may not have known what I'd nearly done to her but there was still penance to be paid. I needed to show her I loved her and I would. I had to or I would go crazier than I already was. That I could not afford. That was something no one could afford.

oOo

A/N: More light has been shed on Jasper's inability to recognize the mating bond for what it is. He's confusing it with signs of the God of War. It is to a small extent but it's mostly the mating bond.

"FUBAR" means "Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition". Sometimes the "R" stands for "reason" or "repair" and it's a military term that dates back to World War II.

As always, your opinions would be appreciated. :)