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Jasper sat with his head in one hand and Alice's delicate wrist closed in the other. The slow steady beat of the heart monitor was encouraging, but it still should be a little faster. He sighed, hating the cold, sterile smell and the dull white walls of the hospital room in which he sat keeping vigil over the young woman he hoped he had saved.

Alice. It was a relief to know her name, even if the circumstances by which he discovered it were not so great. Alice.

She looked so tiny in the large bed, so frail with all the wires and tubes attached to her body. Rage swept through him again as his eyes fell on her damaged lower lip and the many dark round marks marring the pale skin of her neck. He could only imagine the damage done to the rest of her body and to her mind.

A soft snuffle behind him, drew his attention to the young woman, Bella, curled in the sleeper lounge with the blanket tangled in her legs. He was more than grateful for her support of his continued presence in the face of Edward's anger. A fight would have most certainly occurred if Bella had not stepped in and insisted that Jasper remain with them for Alice's sake. Her brother had agreed, but not easily.

After everything had settled down and there was nothing to do but wait, Jasper thought about the absolute insanity of the past night. He marveled at the coincidence that the woman he had felt such a strong reaction to in the brief seconds of their interaction in a diner had turned out to be none other than his business partner's beloved little sister. And yet he raged that their second meeting had been facilitated by that asshole's attempt to drug and rape her.

He could barely stand to think about how he had felt when he had spotted her, purely by accident, pinned against the wall by that man. He had recognized her instantly, a sharp spasm of irrational agony and jealousy jolting through his system as he first thought that she was being a bit of an exhibitionist by hooking up in the corner of a crowded club. Then he noticed how her face was twisted in pain rather than pleasure and her movements were born of panic rather than passion.

Time had never seemed to move so slow as he rushed down the stairs, shouting to the bouncer, and around the people to get to her before it was too late. He felt as though he were running through molasses. The rage that already filled him grew to tint his vision red as he saw the tiny trail of blood streaking down her chin. Even as he was a few yards away, her eyes drifted closed and terror split his world wide open. He wrapped his hand around the monster's neck and ripped him away from her with a roar.

It had been the hardest thing he had ever done to let them pry his hand from the man's throat, but the faint crack from behind him turned his attention elsewhere. He whipped around to see her on her knees, her dark eyes open but glazed and unfocused. With a start, he realized that she was Edward's sister as her attire, a short dark grey dress and four inch heels, registered. Alice.

He ducked down to put himself on level with her and reached out to wipe the blood from her face. The look in her eyes gave him pause and instead he just held out his hand, hoping that she would understand enough to take it.

"Alice," he said, working hard to keep the tremble of emotion from his voice. He shifted closer, holding his hand out to her as he spoke. "I don't know if you remember me, Alice. We met earlier tonight at that little fifties diner on Main. My name is Jasper. I helped you remember your phone. Do you remember?"

Alice watched him, her eyes glazed with alcohol and trauma. He didn't know how long they stayed there until she reached out and placed her hand in his. Relief flooded through him.

Jasper moved slowly, keeping his eyes on her face for a hint of a change. He carefully helped her to her feet, the rage that had consumed him earlier increasing as he noted the large bruises on her neck. He could only imagine what the rest of her looked like.

She watched him, too, and her expression lightened briefly as if she remembered something important. "Jasper," she mumbled softly. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and all tension left her body.

Before she could fall, he scooped her up into his arms, slightly disgusted with himself that he enjoyed having her so close no matter the circumstances. He was also surprised and pleased that she had remembered his name. The soft rasp of her voice as she identified him had sent a small thrill through his body. He wished their second meeting had been under better circumstances. She was so light that he had little trouble shifting her weight to one side so that he could free one hand to wipe the blood from her lip.

A shriek interrupted his concentration and he looked up just as Bella appeared at his side, closely followed by a murderous looking Edward.

Bella's hands fluttered all over Alice's body, pulling off her shoes and straightening her clothes, while giving orders to various staff that had gathered around. "Edward," she called, drawing him away from the two who still held her assailant.

Edward was next to them in a flash, his arms extended to take Alice. "Thank you, Jasper. I'll take it from here," he said, looking at Jasper expectantly.

A bubble of panic expanded in Jasper's chest and he only tightened his grip on Alice. "No," he said flatly. At that moment, he couldn't handle not feeling her faint heartbeat through her back against his bicep or the light contractions of her torso against his chest as she breathed.

Edward's eyes narrowed and his expression darkened. He refused to move away or drop his arms. "Give her to me, Whitlock." Their eyes locked, the tension thick between them.

Jasper returned his gaze evenly despite the rising doubt in his chest. He was confident in his ability to match Edward, but he was uncertain if his presence would be a comfort or a curse to Alice. He looked down at her, taking in the chalky paleness of her skin spotted by dark bruises and remembering the incredible bravery and trust in her eyes as she placed her hand in his. He could smell her shampoo and it tightened the knot of inexplicable emotion deep inside him. Right then and there, he realized that he had lost himself forever to the delicate woman in his arms. Regardless of what he wanted or she wanted or anyone around them wanted, he was in love with her and no one could ever come close to that claim. He would destroy anyone who tried to separate them until she told him herself that she no longer wanted him around. He set his jaw. "No. She is staying with me."

Bella, quick to anticipate the fight that was surely going to occur, stepped between them and faced Edward in Jasper's defense if only to get Alice the care that she needed right away. "Edward, it's fine. We just need to get her to the hospital."

Both men turned their gazes to her in surprise.

She scowled at both of them, grabbing a proffered blanket from a bouncer and tucking it around her best friend. "We need to make sure that she's okay. What if he drugged her? What if –" her voice broke but she continued, "What if it was round two?"

Jasper was certain that he was going to crack some teeth, his jaw was so tense. A low snarl escaped his throat.

"I'm not saying it was," Bella rushed out. "But either way, we need to make sure and build as strong a case against this guy as we can. I've got our car waiting out back." She grabbed Jasper's hand and pulled him along with her.

The trip to the hospital passed in a blur, quite literally for Edward drove at over one hundred miles an hour despite chattering at ridiculous speed on his phone. Jasper kept his eyes locked on Alice's face, searching for any changes that might indicate a worsening of her condition. He felt Bella's eyes resting heavy on his face, but he ignored her. Alice was all that mattered.

Nurses plucked her from his grasp as soon as he walked in the door, leaving him stunned and bereft. Bella spared him a sympathetic glance as she trailed after Edward to keep him in check and out of the nurses' way.

He didn't know how long it was before Bella touched his shoulder and led him through the halls to a quiet room in a secluded area of the wing. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, it all felt the same. He stepped through the door and some of the tension in him unknotted as he saw her. Edward was speaking quietly to the doctor near the foot of her bed, but drew the man out of the room to make way.

Bella dropped into a chair on the left side of the bed and indicated the empty chair on the right. She watched him as he sat down and carefully lifted Alice's still pale hand from where it rested on the thin white sheets. "He drugged her with GHB," she informed him softly.

Jasper looked at her, really looked at her for the first time the entire evening. Deep circles hovered under her eyes and her mouth was pressed into a thin, frustrated line, but her chocolate eyes were sharp and clear as they regarded him from across the bed. There was an assessing fierceness in her gaze that he noticed and he found himself hoping that he had shown her whatever she was searching for.

"You love her," she told him.

The simple truth of her statement caught him off guard, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. "Yes." He winced internally at how it must sound.

The smile that spread across her face threw him even more. "Good," she said. "She's been waiting a long time for you."

He let his confusion bleed into his expression. This woman confused him more each second. "How can you just accept what I say like that? It doesn't seem odd to you that I'm confessing to loving her after I've met her twice?"

"Twice? So, it was you that she met earlier?"

A little burst of pleasure tingled in his chest as she admitted that Alice had talked about him though their meeting had been so brief. He nodded.

She shrugged. "If you were like most people, it would, but I happen to know real love when I see it."

"Real love?" he asked incredulously. "How do you know?"

Bella let a small smile turn her lips upward. "Because I've experienced it myself."

His surprised expression must have amused her because her lips turned up in a small smile.

"Edward and I have been together since our junior year of high school. From the moment I saw him, I stopped living for myself because I knew that I existed solely for him. It was just good luck that he felt exactly the same way about me." She pressed a soft kiss to the back of Alice's hand. "It kind of runs in the family that they fall in love like that, Edward with me, his brother Emmett with his wife, Rosalie, their father, Carlisle, with his wife, Esme. And they've all had the good luck to find people with the same capacity to give themselves in the same way."

Jasper felt a sliver of despair needle its way into his chest. "How do you know if she'll feel the same?"

Bella just smiled.


Consciousness drifted back slowly, little flickers of sound breaking through the darkness. A soft beep, a quiet shuffle, a low whisper all helped Alice float back to self awareness. She breathed in deeply, the reflex action interrupted by an unfamiliar pressure under her nose. Her hands flew up to rip the foreign object away as her eyes snapped open. The cold, white walls gave her pause. She looked at her hand to see a nasal cannula in her fist and an IV needle embedded in the back of her hand. She was in the hospital.

A quick glance around the room revealed that Bella lay in a partially reclined sleeper chair, covered by a blanket. Her makeup was smudged and her lower lip was raw.

Otherwise Alice was alone. Taking the opportunity, she pulled the IV from her hand and switched off the monitors before detaching the rest of the monitoring systems. There were advantages to having a doctor for a father figure. She slipped out of bed, pushing a chair aside, and crept into the bathroom, closing the door as quietly as she could to keep from waking her best friend. As soon as the lock clicked into place, she let out the breath she had been holding.

The light was dim, but Alice didn't mind. She lowered herself carefully to a seat on the shower chair and tried to remember what might she have done to get landed in the hospital. She remembered most of the night up to deciding to crash in the spare room next to the club's offices. After that, her recollection was spotty. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the cold tile. After that last drink, the music had swept her away. Brief flashes of memory darted through her head. The drink, the dancing, the hand around her wrist leading away from the dancing, the wall pressed against her back, a powerful grip on her thigh, the painful hold on her breast…Alice gasped, tears of shock and horror springing to her eyes immediately.

Shaking violently, she pulled up the edge of the hospital gown to expose the top of her leg. She blinked rapidly to keep her vision clear as the gown cleared the top of her right thigh. A sob escaped as she saw the florid bruise in the shape of a man's hand marking her leg just under her hip. She pressed it and winced in pain, but what worried her was what she didn't feel. Tears burst forth, spilling in endless waves down her cheeks.

A full minute passed before she made a sound. Somehow her body broke through its paralysis and she gasped in a deep shuddering breath. The air freed her vocal chords and a wail loud enough to wake the dead issued from her throat.

She didn't hear the shouts outside the door nor did she acknowledge the violent pounding on the door after the handle refused to turn. All she knew was deep, solid grief.

Time passed, minutes or hours she couldn't be sure, but the flood eventually slowed to a trickle and then it stopped completely. She felt empty. She could hear both Edward and Bella pleading through the door for her to let them in, but she couldn't move. It was as if the flood had drained everything out of her but the most basic instincts.

She shivered, her skin feeling brittle and cold as ice. She turned on the shower, making the water as hot as she could stand it and just sat there under the spray watching the room fill with steam.

When the custodian finally came with the master key to unlock the door, that was how they found her, shivering and staring at nothing.

Bella shoved the nurse out of the way and shut off the water. She grabbed a thin towel from the rack and draped it over Alice's shoulders. She took another towel and crouched in front of her to lay the towel across her legs, rubbing her skin through the fabric. "Hey, Alice," she said softly. She paused every couple of seconds to scrub her hand across her face.

"What did he to do me?" Alice rasped, her throat raw.

Bella glanced over her shoulder at Edward. He shook his head fractionally.

"Tell me. Now," Alice ordered. She stared directly at Bella, her empty dark eyes boring ruthlessly into Bella's soft chocolate ones.

Bella sighed. "You were given GHB, which in small doses induces euphoria in most people. You, however, appear to be extremely sensitive to it and the dose he gave you was too high combined with all that alcohol in your system."

"Is that why I don't remember?"

Bella nodded. "Yeah."

"What else?"

"Um." She glanced at Edward again before continuing, "He got you to one of the dark corners…and…"

"Raped me?" Her voice sounded cold and dead, even to her.

Bella almost lost her control. "No. He didn't." She forced the words through her teeth, just managing to hold on. "Jasper got there just in time."

The jolt of surprise sparked a brief light in Alice's flat gaze. "Jasper?"

Bella nodded, confirming Alice's thoughts. They had met again.

Edward stepped forward and crouched next to Bella, taking Alice's hand in his. His light eyes contained a mixture of fury, anguish and relief. "Yes. Jasper Whitlock, my partner. He stepped in when he noticed what was going on. It's thanks to him that you're okay. The police have the asshole that assaulted you in custody."

The ice inside her thawed a little at the mention of his name. Jasper. "I want to go home," she said.

Edward nodded and left the room with the nurse. Bella stayed behind to help Alice into some dry clothes.

"I brought some sweats," Bella said, uncertainty in her eyes. "I know that you don't like wearing house clothes out in public, but you should be comfortable."

Alice shrugged indifferently. "That's fine. Thanks, Bella."

"He's still here, you know."

She looked up sharply, mild panic speeding her heart. "What?"

"Jasper is still here," Bella said again. "He wouldn't leave. He wanted to make sure that you were okay."

"Why?" Embarrassment flooded her body. He had seen her as a victim, drugged and abused. Now she would only get his pity, if anything.

Bella rubbed her forehead with her finger and thumb. "He was really worried about you." She paused, indecision clear in her face. "When we got downstairs, you were already unconscious and he was holding you so carefully. The expression on his face just reminded me of the way Edward looks at me when I'm hurt. He was terrified for you. He wouldn't let Edward take you."

Alice snorted and shook her head.

"No, really, Alice." Bella took hold of her hands and squeezed them tightly. "I think he's your Edward."


Jasper leaned against the wall that separated Alice's room from the hallway. He could see Edward speaking in level, but menacing tones with the discharge nurse to get Alice released. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

Hearing Alice cry like that had torn him apart. He wanted nothing more than to kick the door down, pull her into his arms and surround her with the inexplicable, life-changing love he felt for her if only to let her know that he would always be there when she needed him. Only his fear of frightening her further kept him from pleading though the door next to Edward and Bella. The silence after the flood scared him more than her cries had.

Figures that she would have awakened the only time he had left her side. He had wanted to be there to hold her hand, to reassure her, to make certain that she was all right.

He could hear the soft murmur of her voice intermingled with Bella's. He tried not to listen to the words, but hearing her voice calmed some of the chaos in his head. He let the doctor's words play over in his head. "She's sustained a cut lip and some bad bruising, but otherwise she is okay. She might be skittish around men for a while, so take it slow and never leave her alone. I'll prescribe some painkillers for her, but keep an eye on them. It's hard to tell how it will affect her right now."

"Jasper?" Bella's soft call brought him around.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. It had been a long night. "Yes?"

She beckoned him over. "She'd like to see you."