Don't own Twilight and its characters. Anyone you don't know are mine and most of the plot, some things borrowed from SM, like back stories somewhat…Don't sue; I ain't got a thing but a passion for the written word.

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Broken

Chapter Three - Destroyed

"This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past."

Jasper POV

I sat there for hours holding her small body close to mine. I felt the shivers wracking her body, but when I touched her face, I knew she wasn't cold, it actually seemed like she had a slight fever.

So I remained where I was, wishing I could offer her some form of peace, because when she finally opened her eyes to me, my dead heart threatened to reanimate and beat out of my chest, the utter emptiness that I saw in her eyes, hurt more than anything I had ever experienced. Her eyes were even deader than they were yesterday.

From the moment she walked in the door, I knew my life was going to be forever changed. She was, without a doubt beautiful, even in a purgatory of unconsciousness, I could tell that, but it was not her mere beauty that called to me, nor her blood or her obviously intoxicating scent. Something bigger held my attention, but, I was hard pressed to explain just what.

Having her in my arms, the closeness, I now understood what Rosalie was talking about, while she all but reeked of another man, one that must have found her tonight, I could smell the others.

Being a vampire, my senses were more attuned, and at this moment, I really wished that wasn't true, it broke my dead heart to smell what lay on her skin.

I wanted to ask her what happened, how someone could smell of so many, but the emptiness refused to abate; I was for once in my life, completely out of my comfort zone, I had no idea how to proceed. My gift didn't work on her; I tried numerous times to offer her calmness, peace, but nothing, it was like the emotions pinged off of her right back to me.

When I tried to assess her emotions, it felt like there was nothing left inside of her, I'm not even sure if my gift was working or not, but that nothingness was terrifying and those thoughts scared me more than anything else.

"Carlisle?" I called softly.

I knew I didn't have to speak loudly, he would hear me and hopefully he would come.

But instead of just my 'Father', the whole family walked in to the room, quietly, but their presence seemed to fill the air.

The tension that seemed to seep out of each one, lingered in the room, almost heavy enough to be cloying, to overwhelm all other emotions.

It was then that the woman in my arms finally stirred, but what she did next left me unable to draw a breath, my eyes must have widened, because everyone looked back at me curiously.

Where before she was just resting numb and Jell-O like in my arms, she was now latched around my neck, her arms locked tight, her fingers wound in to my hair in a death grip and her beautiful face was pressed almost painfully in to my neck. I looked beseechingly to my father, but he merely raised his shoulders slightly and let them fall, in defeat it looked like.

The new emotions that were coming from my family, almost had me reeling, it was hard to keep up with. Anger, pain, sorrow, pity, desperation and a myriad of others, I tried sending them calm and was able to breathe a little easier, knowing my gift at least could help them, tension was still the most definable flavor of emotion, still as heavy in the air as when they first joined me, I was sure, I could have parted that troubling emotion, but it, like a hot knife through butter.

I had a few moments of wondering if I was broken, wondering if somehow, this small scrap of a woman could render my gift moot, thankfully, now, I could disregard that thought. As I was quickly becoming to understand, some emotions, when felt to such an excess, couldn't be manipulated.

Carlisle moved to the bed, sitting in front of me. For the first time in my long life, I realized that Carlisle was scared, he didn't know how to deal with this, but he was a compassionate man, he felt compelled to help, so ever so gently he laid his hand on her shoulder, hoping to get her to release her death grip I supposed, if I had been human, I would have died from asphyxia.

His cold, yet gentle hand had the opposite effect, instead of calming, she seemed even more upset.

With an audible hiss of pain when he touched her shoulder, she almost violently pulled herself from his light tough, and with panicky desperation, it felt like she was trying to burrow herself in to me, no longer content to be holding firmly onto me.

We all heard the desperate intake of breath, but I think I was the only one who heard the almost non-existent scream, it was like nothing I had ever heard before. Normally when people scream it was loud and shrill and more often than not, did nothing to alleviate a situation, but hers or so it seemed to me, came from her mind and echoed through mine.

I pulled her a little closer, trying my very best to not hurt her anymore than she already was, but even my most gentle touch didn't seem, well, gentle enough. I could see the bruises on her arms from where I grabbed her before she had fainted earlier, and it hurt my heart.

"Jasper, I have to examine her, she's been bleeding and I believe still is in some areas, we have to make sure she is okay." Carlisle said softly.

We both saw how she clung even tighter to me, I don't know how she did it, because it looked like she had already used all her strength, but she kept surprising me, actually, all of us.

"Will you bring Bella to my office; you can stay with her if you like Jasper."

I didn't know what to do, what to say, but I knew one thing, she had to be checked out, something could be terribly wrong. So with a hope I didn't really feel, I slowly stood up, not wanting to jostle her anymore than she already had been.

A groan rose and then fell from my lips, it escaped before I even had a moment to think, before I could even stop it, because as soon as I stood, her legs came up and wrapped around my hips, her bony little heels digging in to my ass cheeks.

It was the most erotic feeling and made me feel like a complete heel for even having impure thoughts, so instead of allowing my body to have free reign, I began to recite the kings and queens of England, I even switched to more gruesome and horrific thoughts but even with that running through my mind, it did little to assuage the way my body wanted her.

I looked at Carlisle with a pained expression, equal parts fear, horror and unquenchable lust. A sad smile flitted across his lips before he waved his hand at the door. I knew he was trying to help, in that small gesture, but I felt like I was dying.

"I'll see all of you downstairs." Carlisle said to the rest of the family. "Jasper, come on."

The short distance to his office was like spending a century with the most alluring of blood calling to me, and never being able to drink it. With every step I took, she all but ground herself against the part of my body that would not listen to reason and before I could stop myself, I began to purr. I had never purred before and doing so now, made me feel like the biggest ass in the world, but it also made my heart soar.

Trapped in a heaven-like paradise and almost surely set to burn in fires stoked in hell…

I tried to set her down on the examination table, a table that was not really needed, but it kept up the pretenses that we were always trying to project.

She wouldn't let go, and it hurt my heart, but it also made me feel like she needed me. Not knowing what I could do to get her to release me, Carlisle stepped in and took care of the problem.

Always the gentleman, the compassionate one, it was hard to hear the words that slipped through his lips and the finality that broached no argument. "Bella, you need to release your hold on Jasper, I need to check you over, you are bleeding, and until I can guarantee that you are alright, I will not stop." His voice was firm and full of power, but his face looked as pained as mine.

Still, the threat hung in the air, she didn't move, she didn't speak, she just clung to me, almost as if her life depended on it, I briefly wondered if it did.

A low, almost feral growl pushed forth from Carlisle's lips.

Squaring his shoulders, he moved to Bella, and forcefully removed her from my body. I am not exactly sure how he did it without causing more damage, but it seemed like he had.

He placed her on the examination table, stepping back once she was there, and with a brief glance, we knew something much worse was going on.

Whatever it was, the nothingness that I had seen earlier had not retreated, it looked like, she wasn't even here, her eyes were open, but they looked, for all intents and purposes, dead.

I tried to repress the growl that surged through me, but there was no point, somehow, during her short stay with us, thus far, she had weaseled her way, not only in to my life, but, in to my heart as well. Yeah, I was completely lost to this tortured creature. She had effectively taken my balls hostage.

Carlisle didn't bother with being modest; he removed her clothes, setting them stiffly on the chair next to the bed. It wasn't like there was much to remove; she had a shirt on and a skirt. Obviously she didn't care or need anything else, seeing as how I was sure, they would just get in the way…

I could hear the low hum of a growl being pulled from his chest too, with every inch of skin revealed; it was hard to keep any semblance of control.

Her body, while undernourished and deathly pale, was still beautiful, but the skin of her stomach, her breasts, her inner thighs, they were a patch work of scars. I couldn't even fathom what could have caused them, but the silvery patches all but glowed.

The bruises were almost the worst of it all. There were dozens of them, and each one, even the ones that were fading or almost completely gone, all were someone's hands. You could almost see the dips and swirls of the complex fingerprints. I had a brief moment of wondering if I could track down every man from those prints. I would be saving the women of the world if I took care of them…

When Carlisle moved her hair, I noticed her shoulders and in that moment, I truly thought we were going to get to see what a vampire looked like while puking.

I bent over almost violently, one moment standing straight, the next, my hands were on my knees and I was drawing in deep breaths, trying to pull myself together. With a great effort, I snapped my fingers towards Carlisle and then gestured to her shoulders.

Thank God he didn't require me to speak. But the words coming out of his mouth made my stomach lurch again.

"Jasper, I'm going to need you to hold her up."

"Dad, I don't know if I can do this." I was seriously starting to feel faint. I didn't need to breathe, but at that moment, I seriously felt like I was hyperventilating.

"She needs our help son…"

Damn it, he knew he didn't have to say anything else.

I couldn't watch, but I could hold her. I gripped her biceps loosely and pulled her forward. My traitorous eyes just had to look at her back before I found the strength to force them closed.

I kissed the crown of her head and just held her limp body. Cursing my mind and what I'd always remember…

Carlisle mumbled something, but it was practically unintelligible. "Fuck Me"

Finally I heard him say, "Okay son, you can lay her back again. I cleaned them all and stitched what needed to be stitched."

Again, unable to watch the next part of the examination, I stood instead, facing Bella, my eyes locked on her deadened expression, holding her hand, and all but begging her to react to me. But, as she lay as naked as the day she was born, she didn't flinch or make any indication she knew what was happening.

I heard Carlisle's weary breath, exhaled rather loudly, it sounded like he was relieved, but within moment's that small relief turned, contorted, becoming an animalistic growl of pure rage. I didn't want to, but my body, my eyes betrayed me, and turned to look at his face, and the look I saw, tore my heart, damn near shredding the un-beating organ.

I followed his eyes and saw where the blood was coming from, as he had moved her feet to lay flat against the table, and my knees suddenly felt weak, I suddenly felt weak all over.

With the draining of my energy, I quickly forced my eyes away, staring at nothing as I tried to control my need to tear something apart, someone preferably, limb from limb, lots of someone's.

I heard a hiss pass his lips as he pulled small bits of gravel and debris from her lower body and could smell when he treated them with an antibiotic cream, the larger ones were covered with Band-Aids, I could detect the smallest trace of adhesive, while he left the smaller ones uncovered.

I watched Carlisle move in front of me and closer to Bella's head, he gently prodded the bruising and swelling of her cheek and eye, it made me wince in pain. It looked like it hurt, but she wouldn't even acknowledge that anything was going on.

I figured he wanted to tell her to keep an ice pack on it, to keep the swelling and bruising down, but obviously he didn't see the point, she was, sadly beyond caring.

I don't know how long I stood there with my eyes closed and my one fist curling and uncurling, but it must have been some time, because as I finally pulled myself back to the moment, I heard Carlisle.

"There is nothing broken, but it looks like it has been broken before and never healed properly. There are small bone fragments that are lose but not detached…"

I had no idea if he expected me to say anything, because honestly, I truly had nothing to say. I was having a hard time concentrating.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, I finally noticed Carlisle was gone and some clothes resting next to Bella. How long had I been uselessly breathing, waiting for my world to realign, to stop making me feel completely ineffectual and weak?

Even with all the medicinal smells floating around me, I could still smell the man who had touched her, hurt her…

I shook my head for a moment, not knowing what my father wanted from me, but realizing that no one was coming back, I slowly pulled my hand from Bella's and began to dress her. There was nothing erotic about it, just full of too much pain and a whole lot of despair. With her clothed, I slipped my one arm under her legs and the other behind her back, and still she didn't move.

I walked slowly to her room and placed her under the covers. Wanting nothing more than to take her in my arms and make all of her past disappear. However, I needed to hunt, again, and I needed a few moments to get my self under control.

I turned back to her one last time, hoping, praying even, that I would see a spark of something, but her eyes just stared unseeing up at the ceiling. I gently extinguished the light and made my way down stairs.

My family looked almost as lost as I felt, but, knowing there was nothing I could possibly do for them, at least without manipulating their emotions, I gave them a sad smile and dashed out in to the rain.

The last thing I heard was Esme sobbing and from the second floor, I could hear Rose ranting to Emmett about the injustice of men thinking women were nothing but a sexual release waiting to happen.

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