AN: Don't own Twilight. Stay tuned for the AN at the end.

A FRESH PALETTE

"It was revenge." I know it. I knew it before I felt him on me, in me, everywhere. "Wasn't it?"

"Yes, I reckon it was, Bella. In my own way. In yours, too."

I pull the sheet over me, not having felt the need to cover myself before this moment. Honesty is best served naked, but isn't the instinct always to cover it up? He watches peripherally, and I know he understands completely. He can feel the sudden shame. I am a bit too fucking exposed all of a sudden.

"Who are you punishing?"

"Myself." He turns to face me now, a look of familiar resignation on his gorgeous face. He sighs in an extraordinarily human show of self-exasperation. "Alice. Edward," he finally adds with a lift of his brow.

"Me, too," I tell him. He rolls with unimaginable grace to face me straight on.

"I know Alice went to him freely. It didn't shock me in the least that that she gave up everything for him. He was her brother in every way but birth. He meant that much to her. But in a way . . ., I don't know, Bella. In a way, he took her from me. I guess I needed to take you from him. To take what he never allowed you to give him. Same reason I told you he could hear you, I guess."

"Not the same, Jasper."

"I know. I didn't have this motive in mind before I came through your window. I never intended to tell you about the mind reading, either. I don't think I did, anyway. Even I can lie to myself from time to time."

"This never even crossed my mind until it was happening. But I'm glad it did," I admit to him, shivering. It's gotten so damn cold lying here beside him. He grabs my comforter from the floor beside the bed and tucks my it around me in what would be a tender gesture if it hadn't been done with preternatural speed. Tucked in by the sexy, frozen vampire you just fucked. Strange.

"But I get it. I guess I wanted to do the same thing. To give away what he can't ever have. But we're both stupid."

"What?"

"I gave that away to some random guy a while ago."

"Yeah, uh, about that," he smiles. That's the smile he used to save for Alice. The smile of perplexed amusement. Her smile. But Alice isn't here. I guess it's my smile now.

"I banged some guy a few months ago while I was testing out alcohol as a coping mechanism. It wasn't working so I thought I'd give sex a shot at the job."

"And?"

"Yet another failure. This was much better," I smirk.

"Glad to hear it."

He gets up, leaving the sheets, the bed, me behind. It's obvious he's consciously slowing his movements, aware of humanity close by. It makes me sad to really think of how they all had to do this, they all had to suppress the reality of their own existence to accommodate my own. I feel sorry for the Cullens. Things are certainly changing.

"Leaving?"

"I think it's time. Don't you?"

"Are you coming back? Like, ever?"

"Do you really want me to, Bella?"

"Right now I don't know. I think so. Maybe." I can only shake my head, confused by my own feelings. They are a bit unfamiliar to me these days. "At least I get the farewell scene this time."

He gives me a lopsided smile, one that I realize I'd seen so many times before but never actually took in. It's real, it's sad, it's beautiful. It's Jasper. "Thank you."

"For the sex?"

"For the wake up."

"Good bye, Jasper."

It feels so fucking final. And I needed to say it. He bows in the most courtly way, an action that would be absurd from any other man, but from Jasper it is so perfect. And then he's gone.

All the love, drama, melodrama, naivete, pain, fear - it's all gone.

They're all finally gone.

And I'm left with this new person who is me.

AN: So that's it. Not just for this story, but for my Twilight fic adventures. I am still writing, but I think this is where my Twilight inspiration ends. Thank you so damn much to every single person who has ever read, liked, or reviewed my words. Thanks for still being around.