Book 3- Jasper- Chapter 3

Jasper's POV:

I stayed trapped in that wormhole for a long time and Kare and Kair came to visit me many times. At first I just cuddled the girls and was content to let time pass, but then I started asking them questions using sign language.

"Your name what?" I asked the girl with the red LED lights. I thought that this one with red was Kair, but until I asked, I would not know for certain.

"Air," she signed back, confirming my suspicions.

It had never occurred to me that Kair would sign her name Air, because I had just assumed she would spell it out. But now that I thought about it, using the sign for a word that sounded exactly like her name was very clever and I liked it. I might even teach her to sign her name this way once she emerges and that just got me thinking about how Kare might sign her name, so I turned to the girl with the blue LED lights and asked, "Your name what?"

"Silly past father. My name R," she signed back.

I smiled and hugged my girls, liking the translation of Kare's name very much; having single signs was much more convenient then constantly having to spell out the four letters of their names. But then the girls left, being called home by their flashing lights again, and a new set of girls came to me. I thought of a few more questions I wanted to know and so I asked, "Old you?"

Both girls put up four fingers, which I promptly kissed. Kare laughed and I could feel her breath leave her mouth and ghost across my face.

"No, no, no," signed Kair.

"Home," signed Kare while squirming to be put down.

I put both girls down and for the first time, they left before their lights flashed. Of course they would have to leave to get more air in their lungs after the accident, but it felt so strange to me that our visit had been cut short. I did not know how long our visits usually were, but I had come to expect a certain fixed length of untime to pass before the lights would flash and they would leave. Now that they were leaving early, I wanted to follow them. I am not sure why I had not thought to try to follow them before, but I tried now and failed miserably. I could not follow them because there seemed to be an invisible impenetrable barrier in the way; I could not even move into the infrared as far as I could into reality.

I was frustrated with my inability to navigate this wormhole and my inability to break free and my total lack of blood and air. I was getting increasingly irritated by my circumstances and I decided that I would try to break free. I had no idea how I was going to make this work, but I was confident that I could make it work, if only because of what my girls had said to me on the day we met.

"Oh and Dad, we're sorry in advance for what happens when you're in para with us. It'll be an accident and we'll fix it, so don't worry or over react or anything," Kair had said to me.

If I did not get out of here, then they would not have said that and more importantly, their eggs would never have been implanted into hosts. I probably would not die if I stayed in here forever, but their eggs would not be viable if they were disgorged in here, without blood to keep them fresh. And more to the point, those eggs could not possibly last for the rest of my parity like this. The blood in my stomach would eventually be used up and then the eggs would suffer and not develop. That clearly was not the case, because my twins were alive and visiting me, so there must be a way out.

I did not have to wait long before my first escape attempt occurred to me. The twins came back, dressed in a clean change of clothes and ready to cuddle, but instead of indulging them when they raised their arms to be picked up, I signed, "Take home me," and started pushing my way through the wall of the tunnel, towards where my family and reality were waiting for me. But the tunnel resisted and when it finally gave and let me move outward, it moved with me, dragging the entire wormhole with me.

"Take home not you," Kair signed back.

"Go home me and you," I insisted.

"Cannot," Kare signed.

"Go mother you," I signed, hoping that I could simply follow them out once they made the hole. The girls looked at each other, before turning back to me without signing a reply, so I pointed to just outside the wormhole, to where Alice was sitting on the couch surrounded by my older children. Jackson was telling everyone a vision of the past, but Scryan was off in the future and not listening.

"Mother?" Kair signed.

"Yes, mother," I replied.

"Past Mother?" Kare asked for clarification.

"Yes."

"Love you Past Father," Kair signed.

Kair and Kare crawled perpendicular to the tunnel of the wormhole and they broke through quickly in a flash of harsh white light. I tried to follow and force my body into the hole after them, but I just could not follow them. The tunnel was as hard to penetrate as ever, even where the hole was. And then it was over so quickly and the hole closed and then my chance of escape was gone.

"Kair, Kare!" Alice exclaimed rushing to our twins and picking them up in a hug. "Where's Daddy?"

"Stuck," signed Kare.

"Trapped," signed Kair.

I was a little surprised by the fact that my girls were still signing even though there was plenty of air for them to talk on their side of the wormhole. But the more I thought about how young they were, the more sense it made, because if the girls were only four years old, as they had said before, then they were likely to only be able to speak a few words.

"Go back and get Dad," Allison said. She and the rest of the kids had learned sign language from going to human school with Masen.

"Can't," signed Kare.

"Why not?" asked Scryan.

"Stuck," signed Kair.

"Break through can't," signed Kare.

"No pass through," Kair added.

"Try," pleaded Alice. "Please girls, go to your father and try to bring him home to us."

Kare and Kair nodded and began to crawl back to me, opening up the hole for a second time. I reached out and tried to get my fingers into their hole, but it was no use and I was no closer to figuring out how to get through. The girls opened the hole for me a dozen more times and even held it open for a prolonged time, but I was not able to determine why they could pass through and I could not.

Allison's analysis of the hole yielded a few more clues than my own. She examined it each time it broke through on her side, even reaching her arm in, to see if she could reach me and pull me out. At first I did not know what she was doing, but when she did it a second time, I reached out to her, trying to grab her hand through the web. The fabric of space-time was too thick and coated both of our hands, so that we could never quite touch, but I could feel the shape of her hand as it pushed against mine.

"I did it, I found Dad!" Allison exclaimed. "I can feel his hand touching mine."

"Let me try," Ashley said moving towards the hole with her hand out.

"Together; let's all pull," replied Allison.

Jackson nodded and added his hands to the hole, while Ashley and Allison added their other hands. "Come help us Mom," Jackson requested and Alice joined them. They probably would have asked Scryan to help, but he was still off in a vision.

It took them a while to find me, but they each eventually made contact with both hands to different parts of my body. Allison had my right arm, Jackson had my left, Ashley had a hand on each of my legs, and Alice had her arms around my torso. Their hands were not quite touching my body, but I could feel them pressed against me, with the web-like fabric in between us and separating us. They tried to pull me out, but they just could not get a solid grip on my body, even though I was trying to hold onto Allison and Jackson's hands as tightly as I could. No matter how hard we tried, the fabric would not budge and in the end our hands would all slip and Kair and Kare would lose control of the hole and it would close.

We tried three times before Scryan returned from his vision and said, "It's no use. Kare and Kair are too young and not powerful enough to thin the fabric enough for Dad to be able to cross through the gateway. They're toddlers, not babies, when they rescue him."

And with that everyone stopped trying, the hole closed, and everyone in reality turned to Scryan asking for more answers. He did not have any additional knowledge, so I sat back down and waited.

As my family debated what to do, Kair and Kare silently opened another wormhole and crawled back through to me. I pulled my girls into my lap and held them, cherishing the fact that at least I had them to love. If going through this wormhole was part of getting two new babies, then I could endure this a little while longer. I thanked them for trying and hugged and kissed them, but too soon their lights went off and they had to return to their own time.

When six days had passed for Alice and the kids, Bella, Edward, and their kids arrived to offer Alice emotional support while I was away. They stayed for a few weeks and once they left Emmett and Rosalie arrived with their children to take Bella and Edward's places. Then Carlisle and Esme stopped by, but by then it was fairly obvious that they were not needed, because Alice and my kids had everything under control. Plus, Peter and Charlotte were right next door and they stopped by every day to see how things were going.

And although my twins came and went, I was never alone for long, because my twins from another day would come visit me just as soon as the current ones left. There were never more than one set at a time, but there was almost always one set here and when there was not, they were either coming or going. At first I had assumed that my girls were getting older each time they left and came back. They had on a fresh change of clothes each time, so it was natural to assume that a day had passed for them. But eventually it occurred to me that my girls were slightly smaller than when they first came to me; not much, just a millimeter shorter and an ounce lighter, I was sure of it, although they changed so slowly that it took me this long to notice. Their bodies seemed to be more tightly curled into the fetal position, which was a sign of recent emergence. And their hair seemed to be retracting inwards, because it had gotten a centimeter shorter. I began to get a nagging suspicion that they were getting younger, not older.

"Old you?" I asked my girls again.

This time they each raised three fingers, instead of the four they had raised last time. Could it be true? Had an entire year really passed for them this quickly? How many times had they visited me now? I had not been counting, but my memory was perfect, so I went back and started counting. Three hundred forty-two times was the number I came up with and if each visit, however short it was, represented a day in their lives, then a year really had passed for them. I was not sure how much time had passed for me, but I knew that only twenty-six days had passed for Alice and the kids back in reality, because Alice had a white board put up in the living room with the date on it, which I could see through the fabric of the wormhole. I wanted to say twenty-six days had passed for me too, but the concept of time did not quite exist in here, so maybe it was more like twenty-six undays had passed for me.

Twenty-six days was longer than I had ever willingly gone without blood. It was not long enough to starve, but my throat was burning with thirst and the thought of blood was constantly on my mind. I began to wonder when I would get my next meal and just how long I could go before my eggs would be permanently damaged. I also began to fantasize about the taste of the warm succulent fluid and the way it feels going down my throat; the last time I had been so obsessed with blood I was still with Maria's army.

And then one day when the girls came, Kare had a backpack made of vampire leather strapped to her back and my blood worries ended. They crawled to me and Kare signed the word, "Off," before pulling at the straps.

I reached down to remove the pack for Kare, but she had already torn the straps and Kair and I had reached for the bag at the same time. It ripped in two as it was pulled in two directions at once, despite being made of the sturdiest material known to vampire, and six units of synthetic blood spilled out. Kare and Kair looked to me and signed the word, "Blood."

"Bag gone, blood no more," signed Kare.

I was just so happy to see blood again that I did not care that the bag had ripped. I would care tomorrow when the bag was not available to bring me more blood, but right now I was too excited to care. I sent my girls my excitement, joy, and gratitude for the blood and reached down to pick up a unit. I tore the top off and drank the cold vile blood straight from the bag, relishing each drop as it flowed through my mouth, over my tongue, down my throat, and into my empty stomach.

"Blood cold disgust," Kair signed.

"Blood want you?" I signed to the girls, holding up a second bag after having discarded the first one.

"No. Current mother blood warm me," Kare signed.

"No, three blood me," signed Kair. "Stomach ache me."

"Stomach ache me," agreed Kare.

I should have comforted my daughters, but instead I smiled knowing that Alice must have fed the girls extra just before sending them so that there would be more blood for me. She probably even made the backpack just so that she could send me this blood, although I was not sure where she would get the leather from…maybe Peter and Charlotte helped her with that. And as I thought, I emptied the second unit of blood, before reaching down and picking up the remaining four units. I drank those too.

"Current mother backpack make?" I asked when I finished the last of the blood. There was a lot of debris in the wormhole from the plastic pouches the blood was stored in and the torn backpack, so I began to gather it up into a pile, trying to think how I would get rid of it and wishing I had a trashcan.

"No, current father and favorite uncle backpack make," Kare signed.

I had not thought that I would be present and sending the blood to myself, but it made sense because I would have to exist in their time or they would never have existed.

"Stomach ache me," Kair signed feeling queasy.

I picked her up and tried to comfort her as I should have done earlier, but she was just too full of blood and I got the distinct impression that she was about to blow chunks; I had seen my first four kids vomit up blood when they were full, enough to know the look when I saw it. There was nothing I could do about it in here and I did not have anything with which to clean up the potential mess, so I decided to send the girls home.

"Go home you," I signed, but then I realized that they would never make it all the way to their home in time, so I added, "Past mother go you." I put the girls down and pointed out of the wormhole to where Alice was keeping her vigil, waiting for me to reappear from the wormhole. She had noticed a blind spot in her visions for today so she was certain someone was coming out of the wormhole to visit her and she was already waiting.

"Love you," Kare signed and pulled Kair with her out of my prison and into reality with Alice.

I watched as Kair vomited all over Alice. Then Scryan came into the room with Jackson on his heels and my two boys cleaned up the mess on the floor, while Alice set about cleaning herself and the girls. She took them into the bathroom that was just off of the living room and while she bathed the girls, she called out to Ashley and Allison.

"Yes Mom?" they asked, going into the bathroom and blocking my view of the girls, because I could not move my wormhole closer to them. Well I could, but only an inch at a time and it was just not worth it.

"Can you go next door to Peter and Charlotte's and borrow some of the clothes we bought for Kynna's for your sisters? Their's are ruined and Kynna's are the same size and she's not using them yet," Alice said. Peter and Charlotte's children were not due to emerge for years, but Alice had already taken Charlotte on the first shopping trip last year.

"Sure Mom," Allison replied before taking off with Ashley.

Ashley and Allison returned shortly with two nightgowns and by the time the twins were dressed in Kynna's clothes, their LED lights from their discard clothes were flashing. Their eyes did not turn black this time and for once they did not ask for blood, but they opened up the gateway to my wormhole just the same. They crawled off to their own time, leaving me trapped, but no longer starving.

The next time they came back I was surprised to see that the backpack was back and on Kare's back again, but then I remembered that the girls were getting younger as time passed, so tomorrow for me was yesterday for them. That meant that tomorrow for them was yesterday for me and the reason I had not had blood up until now was that we had torn the backpack on the last visit. I was angry at myself and I considered telling Kare and Kair to tell me in the past to be more careful with the pack and not to damage it, but then it occurred to me that it was a bad idea to try to change the timeline and that the girls were too young to relay such complex instructions.

I carefully removed the backpack this time and looked inside, only to be disappointed to find the pack almost empty. All that was inside was a note from my future self, which read:

Dear Jasper,

I'm sorry about the backpack breaking tomorrow (for me) or yesterday (for you). Please don't dwell on it, because it wasn't your fault. The girls have been bringing you these backpacks since they were born and they failed due to normal wear and tear. I wish that I'll be able to obtain more leather to make another pair of bags, but I already know that I won't, because I don't remember the girls having another set of bags. It was really difficult for me to obtain the first batch, because of the source (Jane, if you're wondering and I know you are, because I was).

The important thing is that we got the blood to you before you starved and the eggs are fine. I've sent you blood in the backpacks since the day the twins emerged three years ago, so you can expect a constant supply of blood until then. It's very important that you're there to watch them in their first five years of life, because I can't follow them in their travels. You did, or will do, a wonderful job watching them and making sure they're safe and stay together. This will become more important as they get younger, because there'll come a time when they don't yet know the rules of time travel, which happens to be where most of the leather went too, because I had to replace those bracelets many times.

It's very important that you teach our girls to stay together and to mind the bracelets and the joining cord while they're with you. You also teach them not to breath in the wormhole and sign language, which is how you've been able to communicate with them all of this time. And it's with you that they first journey to other times and explore the furthest reaches of their powers. I would just like to remind you of how important it is that they don't disturb the time-line, because you getting stuck in time is critical to the decision making process of choosing their hosts. Without a host, they'd never emerge, because it's all interconnected. Plus if you weren't stuck, there would be no one there to watch them.

You won't be stuck forever, because the girls rescue you, just as they rescued me. They can't come to you now, because the babies are blocking the passage with their presence. The wormhole is narrow and they can't exist in the same place at three times (they're already existing there with you twice, because they're both inside your egg pouch as embryos and with you as babies). But don't worry, because the girls, as toddlers, will come and rescue you just as soon as the babies go back into their eggs within their hosts. You'll enjoy the adventure you have with them.

Sincerely Major Jasper Cullen Whitlock

P.s. I'm having a great time living here with Peter and Charlotte and I'm really glad we moved the hosts here for the emergences, because the girls can't travel across the country, only through time.

I tucked the letter from myself into my back pocket and then proceeded to fill the backpack with the trash from yesterday. Once the wormhole was clean, I pulled the girls into my lap and began signing to them with the goal of teaching them sign language in mind. They already knew everything I signed, but I knew there would come a time when they would not, because of the letter. When their lights flashed, I reattached the backpack and happily sent the girls on their way, knowing that the blood would run freely from now on.


Author's Note: Fiona, don't ever let that hold you back: hold your head high and try.

This chapter reveals the story arc for Jasper's book. When he finishes doing everything he told himself to do in the letter, he'll finally be able to go back home. And time will continue to flow in opposite directions for Jasper and the twins until the twins' emergence, when they'll go back inside their eggs.