A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks! We had some issues involving a possible food poisoning (SweeneyAnne) that turned out to be just plain old stomach flu, a whack-o at the workplace that won't go away (me), and a slight panic over the correct usage of an ellipses (both of us). Still don't really have a consensus on that last one... (See how I used an ellipses there? Funny, right?)

Anyway, beta'd by SweeneyAnne and pre-read by THEChickNorris & GemmaLisax. Just a warning, this one went through some funky editing on my end, hope I didn't eff it all up. *cringe*

Just a reminder that I'm contributing a JPOV of Chapter 1 of Long Way Down to the Fandom4Storms collaboration. You can donate until the 20th, the link is on my profile. :-)

Don't own Twilight.


Chapter 7 – Obstacle 1

Emmett's arrival comes heavy with trepidation from all parties, on the first Monday morning in October. We've had two weeks, just me and Bella, and it's abundantly clear from the jump that there's not going to be so much time spent with her in the future. I'm not happy about this, and I'm not entirely sure why; it just seems like it could go so wrong, like any bridges that manage to get rebuilt will collapse the moment Emmett leaves again, and I don't want to deal with the fallout when we'd been doing just fine on our own.

"Hey there, baby sister," Emmett grins, stopping a few yards away. He ran the whole way, stopping only to hunt probably, and his chest heaves with that phantom desire to pant for breath; it's something all the Cullens do, but I've never really seen the point.

Emmett feels cautious, like he's not entirely sure what sort of a reception he'll receive from the girl that he tried his hardest not to abandon, but his grin widens when he takes two steps forward that aren't met with three back from Bella.

"Hi, Emmett." Bella bites her lip, and the indent of her teeth has me wishing she'd press just a little harder, barely enough to draw blood so I can seal the wound. There is something seriously wrong with me.

They're cordial with each other, and while Emmett pretty much ignores me, Bella keeps sending cautious glances over in my direction, a confusingly primal tinge of fear and nervousness comes in my way each and every time. They're just fine, on the surface, like we all knew they would be—but there's dark waters churning deep in them both, and I'm vindicated in this selfish knowing that I had been right in my assumption that this wasn't going to work out like they wanted.

It's easy to brush Emmett's turmoil off, but Bella; every single thing Bella feels cuts deep, radiates out from her in razor sharp waves that slice and stab at me, and I can't not feel it, no matter how hard I try. She's so determined to pretend everything is fine, for Emmett's sake, and her guilt is suffocating it's so thick. Being around her like this is torture, and suddenly I'm sent spiraling to a time where I had no control over my gift or myself. It all comes bounding in, the thick of it suffocating, until I feel like I'm going to explode from the strain of keeping it all contained.

The whole house swells with the grief and guilt hiding behind the happiness, and within six hours I'm wordlessly heading out into the Tennessee wilderness, ignoring the calls behind me, intent on taking some time to hunt and regain my bearings in solitude. Bella's hurt swells high enough that the distance doesn't even help until she's out of my gift's range, and the relief that comes with the absence of those sharp knives is enough to make me take a deep breath in and let it out slow.

The run is nice, crisp, but it's all ghostlike and phantom—me moving between trees, never so much as breaking a twig or crunching a leaf. There's no heartbeat pounding against my back, there's no Bella stomping behind me, and I think that I might miss those things.

When the sun falls from the sky I realize that I don't have a back-up plan here and it almost sends me into what I'm sure would be categorized as a panic attack. I burned every single bridge I've ever walked across, except for the one leading me back to Bella, and even that one is smoldering hotter with every step I take away.

It bothers me enough that I stop in my tracks, and turn back toward the house. I don't retreat, just stare out at the empty forest in front of me, and try to figure out how the fuck I wound up here. It feels so eerily like something I'd heard in passing, about not even realizing you're driving until you're parked in front of your house and have no idea how you got there.

I wind up staying closer than I'd intended, and I hunt like I haven't in decades. It's all wild and out of my head with spatters of blood and broken bones. It's me prowling through the woods and taking all this confusion out on everything that strays into my path. There's no order, only chaos, and I relish this feeling of not having to think or plan or do anything other than let this beast inside me roar.

I'm halfway through making a dent the size of Forks in the woods when I realize that maybe this isn't the most healthy way to deal with the handicap my gift brings me—but it's probably the most effective. Bella's sitting back in that house with Emmett, completely oblivious to the havoc she wrecks on me, and it seems unfair and cruel that when I go back there I'm going to be at blame for bolting the moment I could.

I'm convinced that she'll call me callous and cold, Emmett will nod with surly assent, and I'm going to be the monster, not them, even though they're the ones who are destroying nearly everyone they've ever called family—and I absolutely hate myself for whatever it was that rose up inside me and took notice of that girl. It blindsided me out of nowhere, took me by the neck and throttled me until I faced forward and uttered that 'no' that so irrevocably changed all of our lives, and the most infuriating part of all of it is that I know that if I had the chance, I'd do it again.

It's nearly seven in the morning when I smell Emmett on the wind.

"You have some serious anger management issues, man."

"Go to hell. You have no idea what being around the two of you is like." I sneer the words at him, and lean against one of the few trees left in this little crater I've made. "That girl could probably kill me with her emotions if she tried hard enough—and you; my God, Emmett, do you ever feel like shit."

"You of all people should understand why," Emmett says, shaking his head as he stares at me intently.

"I tried to tell you that Bella wouldn't be offended if you did something as absurd as staying with your wife."

Emmett lets out a long breath and shakes his head. So much pity and sympathy is coming off him that I think I might choke on it. "Jasper, I'm starting to think that you are incapable of understanding some things, so let me break it down for you. I love Rosalie very much, but Bella is my sister. There was no choice here, I had to come and see her, because if I didn't I wouldn't be any better than Edward, and she deserves to know that I'm not going to fade out of her life.

"Rosalie knows that at the end of the day I'm coming back to her, and Bella understands that this is the way it's gotta be for a bit—but she gets that because I made this trip, because I showed up and told her so, face to face."

"If everything is worked out so well, then why do I still feel like Bella's come up with an extremely effective form of torture?" I am not looking forward to getting within range of that girl again, not until she calms the fuck down. She may be hot, but right now she is deadly.

"Sometimes it just hurts, man." He shrugs it off as nothing, as he so often does, but right there, that's the crux; those words are what it all comes down to. Sometimes it just hurts. "You should come back before she wakes up. Not gonna lie, she's already upset, but she's brushed it off as you needing to hunt. If you're not there in the morning she's going to think that you've lost whatever interest you had."

"Why would she think something like that?" Sure, Bella comes up with some stupid explanations, but this one is just idiotic.

"Because that's what Edward said, when he broke up with her; that 'our kind' is easily distracted, that she wouldn't be missed."

I wonder how long it would take to track that shit-head down. I'm betting I could do it in a week, and I'm pretty much lost to all but the intensely pleasurable fantasy of ripping each of his joints apart until Emmett clears his throat and shoots a knowing grin in my direction.

"Believe me, when the time comes for that, you and I are on the same team."

"I still can't figure out how we wound up on opposite sides in the first place." It's an accusation, a barb; something to tell him that I still think this whole mess is a little bit his fault.

"You need to come to terms with the fact that not being in your corner does not equate to being against you. I was, and am, on Bella's side. You were not a factor in my decision that night; I saw someone going after my sister, and I stopped it. End of story."

"You left, right along with the rest of them."

"Why are you trying to turn me into the bad guy?" Emmett's definitely reached his limit. He stomps forward two steps and narrows his eyes as he clenches his fists, and his aggression turns my vision red around the edges.

"Because she forgives you anything, and she's still pissed at me for some random thing I said in the car on the way here!" More likely a hundred of the things I said, but I'm not going to point out how many times I probably made her want to punch me in the face.

Emmett's jaw drops, and he sputters for a moment. "Did you eat a hippie, Jasper?"

"Why would I do that?" I think maybe Emmett's teetering off the deep-end if he's asking me questions like this.

"I was being..." Emmett says, looking confused for a minute before he rolls his eyes and throws his arms up in the air. "Never mind. Look, there's a very good reason why she forgave me,"

"Yeah, because you're her fucking brother or whatever." I'm so fed up with this obvious difference in our relationships with that ridiculous human girl who winds me up so tight that I can barely even breathe.

"No, because I apologized."

"Well, it's kind of obvious, when you put it like that." I feel like an idiot.

"No shit."

"I won't let anything happen to her." I mumble the words and it makes me sound like some embarrassment of an insecure teenage boy, but I'm thinking that maybe that's the price I pay for being a total ass about this whole Emmett and Bella situation.

"Good." Emmett nods. "I'd really hate to have to throw down with you. I'm never really sure which of us is gonna walk away."

He must be delusional. "Obviously it would be me."

Emmett laughs, and he feels more like the guy who ran around Forks all summer with Bella and Edward. "Just fix it, okay? Preferably before she manages to talk herself into an even bigger funk."

"I was planning on it."

"The first step is saying you're sorry," Emmett teases with a wink before heading back to the house.

I wish the first step involved the kitchen table.

I knock down another tree because it feels like it proves some sort of point, though I don't know what, and one more just for the hell of it before following Emmett's trail back to the house. I'm determined to prove that I'm not like that ass-hat Edward or as inept as Emmett seems to think I am—but I don't understand why it's on me to apologize for something that Edward did to her. He's the one who made her feel worthless and weak, and he's the one who trampled her into the ground without a second thought. I wish there was another readily apparent way to make Bella realize that there's absolutely no way to get her out of your head once she's in there, and I would know, I've tried. Sort of. Either way, I'm not taking the blame for something that's not my fault.

There's a happier atmosphere floating over the house when I walk in the front door. They're sitting on the couch together, with what I recognize as Esme's goodbye letter to Bella sitting between them. There's still the grief and longing, the sadness and guilt, but it's lessened by enough to allow myself to believe that my absence actually did some good. Bella and Emmett were able to talk frankly and without interruption, and it was something they both needed.

Bella doesn't seem to share my view on the matter, and Emmett was right—her anger and hurt slowly begin to seep from her when she raises her head and catches sight of my disheveled form. Her brows arch and jaw drops, and she's more than a little appalled with how dirty I've managed to get. I'm pretty sure I can see a leaf stuck in my hair out of the corner of my eye, and I'm positive that I've got at least a little blood on me.

"Have fun?"

"You know it."

Emmett makes a strangled attempt to cover his laugh with a cough that doesn't fool anyone, and Bella's attention refocuses on him. "You oughta get that checked out, Em."

I roll my eyes at the pair of them in a completely over the top manner, probably failing in my attempt to make everything seem casual and friendly. I keep listening to their continual banter as they argue over which tourist attractions they have time to visit before Emmett has to leave again, and I strip off what's left of my clothes and let them drop into the garbage can instead of the laundry hamper.

I'm slightly irritated and highly amused by the happy bickering coming from the Living Room, and it kind of makes me want to stride out in a bathrobe and admonish Bella and Emmett in that silly tone Carlisle used to use when he'd say 'Children', and wait to see which of them sticks their tongue out at me first. It's a toss-up.

Their words turn quieter, and irritation abounds. The tint of self-consciousness and pang of loneliness tells me that it's Bella's. Maybe I should have said something to her before all but flying out of the house the moment she had some other company.

I take a little longer than I need in the shower, trying to work my way through Bella's confusion, only to find that she's not all that mad, not really; mostly she's just confused, which is something that I can identify with. I don't think I've had my head on straight in months, and while I've always realized it to some extent, I don't think I've ever noticed how close to backwards I am.

I don't treat her much different from anyone else, but it's only with her that I think that maybe there's something severely off about me; like I started out defective and only got worse from there, and everyone else has been too kind or too scared to draw attention to it. She highlights all those things within me that I've always written off as just there, the way I am, and all those bright yellow marks she's drawn over me are taunting in their declarations of damage. I only feel bad about these things when they involve Bella.

I nearly break off the faucet wrenching it to turn off the water when I realize that I'm essentially hiding in my bathroom from an eighteen year-old girl; how pathetic. This isn't nearly as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be; it's not like Bella's spitting mad at me, and I'm not really the cause of her anger in the first place—but she is upset with me, that much is clear, and if I want any chance at dispelling Bella's insane notion that it's possible to simply get tired of her, then I'm going to have to suck it up. Figuratively.

I square my shoulders, and dramatically liken my short walk out to the living room to walking off the edge of a cliff.

"Give us some space," I tell Emmett. He wars with himself a bit over it, but decides quickly.

"I'll be right outside, Bells." I glare at him on his way out, trying to convey just how unnecessary I find the sentiment to be. As if she has anything to fear from me beyond the norm.

She smiles at him, and stands as well to see him off, and once he's gone she eyes me from the end of the couch, making no effort to sit once I do, and I don't know why she's being so damn stubborn. The staring match that follows is utterly absurd, and it's infuriating to be the one to break first.

"Just sit down for fuck's sake!"

"What is it, Jasper?" she asks wearily as she takes a seat on the couch so far away from me that she may as well be straddling the arm. Always trying to make a point, that girl.

"Emmett told me that you have some misconceptions about why I left yesterday." There's no point in beating around the bush.

Bella stays completely silent, and makes no indication that she's even considering responding—but she can't hide the confusion and self-loathing that spills from her and into me. I can't believe Emmett was right. In the end it's not really about whether or not I'm taking the blame for something I don't believe myself to be at fault for, it's more about making sure that Bella doesn't assume that she is.

"I..."

"You what?" Bella snaps. She's not going to make this easy. I'm starting to think that maybe this is the boiling point for everything she's steadily repressed ever since we left Forks.

"Emmett said I should apologize to you." Christ, those words just feel weird.

"For what?" Bella asks, like it doesn't matter all that much—and I'm a little confused, because I know that this is important to her, and I hadn't realized that she'd want clarification of my motives. She sits there; looking unimpressed as she rapidly taps the fingers of her right hand, and gives me a look that screams 'get on with it.'

"Look, I shouldn't have..." I'm not entirely sure what it is she's expecting from me here, and I'd really like to touch all the bases so I don't have to come back and do this again. "I shouldn't have run off like that without saying anything. I'm sorry."

Bella rolls her eyes and prods, "And?"

I take a stab. "I'm sorry for being a jerk."

"No you're not," she retorts, but she's smiling just a little bit.

"I'm sorry for not apologizing sooner?" I have absolutely no idea what she wants me to say, and from the look on her face she knows it.

"Do you have any idea why I'm upset with you?" she sighs, shaking her head as an angry humor runs through her.

"Not really," I mumble as I narrow my eyes, and try to figure out if she's still pissed off. The only thing I can decode is that she's not going to be giving me any help, so I throw Emmett's advice out the window, and say exactly what's on my mind. "Fine. You're angry because I couldn't stand your obscenely stifling guilt and hurt and pain—and in the end it was easier to just get the fuck out. At some point I said something that obviously offended you, but I have no idea what it was, and you won't tell me. Mostly you're just pissed because you can't figure out who's to blame for this mess you're in.

"Well, I've got an answer for you; it is Edward's fault, not mine. He did this to you, to Emmett and Rosalie. Believe me when I say that you don't even want to know how crushed Esme's gotta be. If you want someone to blame, blame him."

"What about Alice?" she asks after a moment, and I know that she knows that this question is completely unfair.

"Don't play dumb. I'm the one who hurt Alice, and we both know it—the difference is that she dug her grave just as much as I did."

"I don't understand what happened between the two of you," she admits, and I suck a breath in. I'm going to have to actually explain this to her.

"Did anyone ever tell you that Alice's very first vision was of me?" This seems like the easiest place to start, and I already know that Bella's going to be getting the cliffs-notes version. No way am I telling her everything.

She shakes her head, and waits for me to continue.

"The Cullens came later, but I was the beginning for her. She saw me wandering around Philadelphia, and when she decided to come find me she saw us heading west together. She..." I don't even know how to put this so Alice doesn't come off as a lunatic. "Alice's visions are subjective, they need to be interpreted, and what she saw of us..."

"She assumed it was romantic?" Bella asks gently, and I give her a tight nod in response.

"We tried, for a bit. We actually tried pretty hard, but in the end we just don't work together in that way. She was miserable and I didn't know how to fix it; she kept spouting out shit about love and I didn't feel that way about her."

"So you left her," Bella says bitterly, and I can't have that sympathetic anger that's starting to rise.

"No. We just...drifted. I don't think either of us were motivated to definitively end it at first; by the time it was over it was, well, over." It had been a slow-motion train wreck.

"I see," Bella comments softly, mulling it all over in her head.

"What did you do while I was gone?" I ask even though I don't particularly care, but I've gotta change the subject, and cordial niceties seem like a good way to go.

"Mostly bummed around the house with Emmett. We talked." She's not so willing to go with it.

"What else?"

"I called Esme," she shrugs, and I don't think she could have said anything more surprising.

"You did?"

Bella hums her assent, still fixedly avoiding looking at me. "Alice, too."

It takes me a moment to step back and see the whole picture, to connect the dots and realize that she tricked me into telling her my side of the story of Alice and me. "You think you're all sorts of sly, don't you?"

"Well," Bella shrugs, the hint of a smile coming across her face, "it worked, didn't it?"

It's another of those glimpses at the other side of her, and moments like this one fill me with accomplishment, because nobody else saw that under the surface Bella could be strong-willed, sharp, and absolutely devious.

"Dragging your ass outta Forks was the smartest thing I've ever done." I definitely don't mean to say it out loud, but the words spill out on their own regardless. I'm thinking that maybe it was the perfect sentiment though, because Bella gives me the first honest and genuine smile I've seen from her in quite a while, and I'm hoping that I've finally been exonerated for whatever it was I did that put us on such shaky ground in the first place.

"What did Alice say, when you talked to her about this?" It's a sick sort of curiosity I have, this wanting to ensure that Alice didn't dress me up like a villain when I tried so hard not to paint her as a psychopath.

"Pretty much the same thing that you did. You tried, it didn't work. You seem to be a bit more disconnected from it, though." Bella shrugs, making an effort to seem like she isn't affected by that.

"It's not the same." I edge closer to her, and for some reason it's important to me that she realizes this. "What happened with me and Alice is nothing like what happened between you and Edward."

"How would you know?"

"Because he believed that he loved you." Her heart gives a little twinge and her head drops, and before I know it I'm asking, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do you really want to listen?" she asks skeptically.

"You tricked me into baring my soul for you; I think it's only fair you do the same." It's overdramatic and manipulative, but I don't really care; there are some things that I want to know her side of.

"What do you want me to tell you?" she asks nervously, and I don't waste any time.

"I just want to know what happened."

She lets out a long breath, and it takes her less time that I'd assumed it would to begin explaining. "Edward was a dream. He was a fairy-tale I'd always been taught to believe in. He swooped in and saved the day, and he drew me in, and...

"He pushed me away enough that I convinced myself that I needed to be something else to keep him, and I loved him, I really did—but that day, in the hospital, when I woke up; it was like I woke up from that dream I'd been living in." Bella bites her lip and rolls her eyes up toward the ceiling. There's so much bouncing around in her that I can't figure out where she's going with all of this.

"You're not really saying anything I didn't already know." I'm pushing her, I know I am, but something tells me she kind of needs it.

"My eyes were open, when we got back to Forks, and things... things weren't like I remembered them." Bella lets herself fall back into the couch cushions with a huff, and her eyes narrow into slits. "He didn't listen to me, he didn't trust me, and he wouldn't give my opinions any weight."

Bella's finally getting into her rant, and she's so much more passionate in her injustice than I would have thought.

"I thought that maybe if I were changed, it would be different, so I came clean with Alice and I confirmed our plans with you—but I don't know if I ever really believed that it would work, and looking back on it now, I think that a little part of me was hoping that he would do exactly what he did."

"Why's that?" I ask curiously, unable to decrypt her motives into anything that makes the slightest bit of sense to me.

"Because I shouldn't have had to change to be with him," Bella spits.

"Good girl."

"Whatever. Look where it all got me. Now I'm stuck in Tennessee with a man who can barely get his head out of his ass long enough to realize that being nice doesn't make him weak," she mutters under her breath, but the satisfaction that rises up in her when I glare off to the side is enough to tell me that she only said the words quietly for show. She wanted me to hear it.

"I'll try to work on that." I can compromise on this one, maybe; I'm willing to at least give it a shot.

"Good." Bella nods, relaxing a little bit with my concession. "Did you want to come with me and Emmett? He's taking me on the 'Great Tour of Gatlinburg.' First stop, Ripley's Aquarium."

"I think I'll pass, let you have some time with him before he goes home." Of course she manages to take it the wrong way, so I throw a little more in there. "Besides, you're gonna be stuck with me for God-knows how long. Can't have you getting sick of me."

It's easier than I thought it would be to tell her what she so obviously needs to hear.

Bella sits back in her seat and props her feet up on the coffee table, finally relaxing. I mirror her pose and fold my arms behind my head as we sit together, but distanced, and talk about nothing in particular.

Emmett acts like a proud papa when he comes back and whisks Bella away to show her his hometown, and it's been so long since I was around more than one person and none of them were completely miserable that I find myself smiling long after they leave. There's still that sadness, that ache in the air, but I think that for the first time Emmett might be completely right about this. Bella would never have understood that leaving wasn't leaving if he hadn't come down here to tell her that himself.

It seems reasonable to make some sort of gesture, to present some sort of olive branch that will let Bella know that I'm going to try not to be such an inconsiderate ass to her while she's trying so hard to get her shit together.

The directions seem simple enough, there's milk in the refrigerator, and I'm fairly certain that I don't need some silly device to measure it. I'm not quite sure how this terrible looking orange powder is going to become cheese, but I figure that Bella bought this shit, so it must work.

It smells absolutely disgusting. It's also not quite as easy as the inch wide side of the box led me to believe; I have no idea how to figure out if it's done. Two failed attempts later and I realize that I don't even know when Bella's going to be back, so this was kind of a stupid idea anyway. In the end I toss the nasty mush in the trash, and figure that I'll just order whatever she wants when she gets home.

I pick up one of the books Emmett brought with him as a peace offering, and thumb through the pages a couple of times before sprawling out on the couch. I can't really remember what it's like to sleep, but I bet it's a nice way to waste some time. I need a project. Something to make the time seem less stagnant and this house less claustrophobic; something to to occupy my mind enough that I'm not constantly stewing over all the loose strings Bella and I left in our wake, and all the things I've done to upset her. I can't really even figure out why I care so much, but it makes sense I suppose, if I look at it from far enough away.

Logically, I like the girl, I enjoy her company, and I want her to want to stay—so I should try harder to not piss her off. The mangled apology I reluctantly spat out this afternoon still tastes bad in my mouth, but the bitterness is outweighed by that persistent fantasy of a crimson-eyed, newborn Bella—and I just know she's going to turn the whole world on its head; I really want to be around to see it happen.


A/N: Sending chapter 8 to the beta tonight. Teasers if you want 'em!