Major Wake Up Call

"Hmmm, I have an idea! How about we take the most powerful empath on the planet and put him in a building with hundreds of angst ridden teenagers, where he'll be constantly bombarded on all sides on a daily basis with feelings of: depression, loneliness, anxiety, frustration, anger, hatred, isolation, recklessness, invincibility, defiance, rebelliousness, jealousy, envy, worthlessness, insecurity, hopelessness, self-consciousness, self-loathing, egocentric vanity, boredom, self-doubt, stress, discomfort, fatigue, illness, pain, nervousness, competitiveness, apathy, suspicion, paranoia, regret, guilt, mischievousness, lust, desire, fear, terror, and spite, just to name a few.

Why the only torture comparable to that would be, say, putting him in a camp with 20 or 30 newborn vampires. Oh, wait, been there, done that. Talk about going from one hell to another, eh Major? Hey, at least he has his mate this time around, so it's not so bad, right?"

I looked at the vampires who were all looking from me to Jasper and back. Jasper, however was focusing solely on me.

"I'm sorry, Jasper," Carlisle apologized. "I never thought about how all those emotions would affect you."

Jasper shrugged, but before he could reply, I cut in with, "Oh, you haven't heard anything yet!"

All eyes were solidly on me again, so I continued, "Gee, I wonder why Jasper was having such a hard time fighting his bloodlust today. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with being in a room with hundreds of humans feeling hungry and thirsty all at the same time, along with four thirsty vampires. Edward even thought about how much harder it was for him to resist the thirst when he heard Jasper thinking about it, how much hearing thoughts about Jasper's thirst added to his own thirst. Yet not one of you ever thought about how hard it must be for Jasper to have to feel all of your thirst on top of his own, in addition to the humans' hunger and thirst, to absorb all of that and still manage to keep from broadcasting it to the rest of you!"

Jasper's eyes widened in surprise, and he sat up straighter in his chair, while the rest of them looked at him in shock.

"Oh, Jasper!" Alice and Esme both exhaled sadly, reaching for him.

"Sorry, man, I never realized," Emmet apologized while Rosalie dropped her head in remorse.

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes, and Carlisle wore an expression of extreme guilt. "Son, . . ." Carlisle began, at a loss for words.

"I want you all to go outside, for the sake of Esme's furniture, and for just two or three seconds, Jasper, I want you to project all the thirst you felt and held at bay while you were in that lunchroom at school today. This will answer the question once and for all for everyone whether you're truly the one with the weakest control of your thirst or if you've been carrying the thirst of other vampires and any nearby humans on top of your own all these years," I suggested.

They filed out, curious to know the answer themselves. Six ferocious growls later, Jasper and a thoroughly shaken Carlisle returned to the dining room to the accompaniment of trees crashing to the ground nearby.

"I'm so sorry I've underestimated you all these years, Son," Carlisle pleaded with Jasper. "Please forgive me!"

"Of course, Carlisle," Jasper responded easily, accepting Carlisle's hug. "You've always been supportive of me, and even I didn't understand how much my thirst was affected by my gift. I guess like Spec suggested, I was used to feeling it from the newborns and then from humans, and I just thought it was normal."

Carlisle shook his head and confessed, "I've personally never felt thirst that strong, not even that first month I starved myself as a newborn! I didn't know it was possible to feel that much thirst! Everyone talks about my self-control, but I think for whatever reason, I've just never felt the thirst as strongly as other vampires. Maybe that's my gift? Reduced thirst? I know I wouldn't have been able to simply run away out of London if I'd felt anything like that when I awoke! All this time I had no idea why everyone else found it so difficult." He sighed, hanging his head in shame.

"I'm glad you didn't feel the thirst like the rest of us then, because you were able to prove it was possible to live a different way, that we didn't have to kill humans to survive. Your way of life has been a blessing for me, and if you'd become a human drinker like the rest of us, if you weren't there to lead us to the animal path, where would we be now? Think about what that would mean for our family and the Denali's. You gave us hope, a goal worth striving toward," Jasper reminded him.

Carlisle smiled, clasping his shoulder affectionately. "Thank you, Son. I'm blessed and honored to have you and all the other members of my family."

Edward shuffled into the room and joined them, stopping a few feet away and staring at his feet, unwilling or unable to make eye contact with them. "So, in other words, all the 'accidents' you've had over the years you've been living with us have been our fault, not yours. If we hadn't been so thirsty ourselves, you'd never have slipped, being able to handle your own thirst just fine. Yet we looked down on you, blamed you, considered ourselves superior, and not one of us could've handled the level of bloodlust you carried today without acting, not even Carlisle, the one we've always considered the most self-controlled of us all. I'm sorry we never recognized it before. If anyone should've, I should've. I knew it always magnified my thirst to hear the others thinking about their's, but I was only listening to one mind at a time. It never occurred to me you would be experiencing something similar only worse, since you'd be feeling it from all of us at the same time."

"He's right, Jasper," Rose agreed, coming in next. "I'm so sorry for all the times I blamed you for us having to move, when we were the ones who pushed you over the edge in the first place."

"No problem, guys," Jasper murmured, hugging them both, uncomfortable with their guilt, regret, and remorse.

"Oh, Jasper, I should've realized it from all my visions of you when you were alone. I mean, you didn't even twitch in the diner full of humans where we met, and you'd been starving for over a month at the time," Alice whimpered, dancing over to comfort her mate. Esme was right on her heels, enveloping both of them in a warm hug, her apology wordless, but heartfelt.

"Damn, bro, that was horrible! I'd have eaten the whole school if I'd felt like that while I was there!" Emmett shouted as he came bounding back into the room. "That thirst was a hundred times worse than it was the two times I slipped."

"Thanks, Emmett, it really helps to know that," Jasper admitted, giving him a fist bump. "I think maybe a lot of the insecurity and self-doubt from all those teenagers rubbed off on me too. I hated feeling so weak, especially when I had always been so strong in the past. Knowing I really do have a lot of self-control actually makes it easier for me to want to try even harder to conquer my thirst completely."

"We'll all do our part too," Carlisle declared, looking pointedly at the others. "We'll hunt more often and not let ourselves get so thirsty."

"That's a good start," I conceded. "However, it's also a total waste of Jasper's time, energy, and talent to spend his eternity going to high school over and over again. He's a grown man who has commanded armies! Demoting him to the status of a minor child in the eyes of those with whom he associates on a daily basis and forcing him to endlessly endure boring repetitive lectures and mindless busywork decade after decade is demeaning and demoralizing. Your other children never really moved past high school in their human lives, but Jasper was living as a man for years before becoming a vampire.

He was a productive respected citizen, risking not only his own life to defend his home, family, and country, but making life and death decisions for other grown men on a daily basis as an officer, leading his men into battle, knowing he was at least partially responsible for whether or not they survived to see another day. He accepted responsibility for the lives, health, and wellbeing of an entire city's worth of women, children, elderly, and injured, escorting all of them to safety away from the bombing. He didn't just go to work and earn a paycheck. He literally put his life on the line, being shot at and returning fire, seeing people he'd come to know and care about dying around him, helpless to save them, enduring the hardships of war for years. He may have been only physically 19 when he was changed, but harsh living experiences had matured him and forged him into a man, with a level of responsibility more appropriate for someone ten years his senior.

How would you feel if you were the one sitting in high school year after year instead of being able to help people and save lives, Carlisle? Not college, not medical school, high school. How long could you endure the lack of purpose and respect, keeping your silence while constantly being condescended to by people who know less than you do, without losing your mind and sense of self? How could you expect that or want that for anyone else?"

"You make a valid point," Carlisle conceded, appearing concerned and deep in thought. The others were looking at Jasper with a whole new level of respect and understanding.

"Well, so far, your review of my faults has gone much better than I expected," Jasper admitted, grinning.

I smirked in response. "I'm not quite finished with you, Major, but I wanted to get the whole thirst issue set straight as soon as possible."