As always, all things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. The Civil War belongs to the ages. I'm just bending them to fit together a little bit.
Jasper
"Tell him I never want to see him again."
Bella fell into Alice's arms sobbing, but her words hung in the small room like the haze that covers a battlefield after the fighting's done.
Emmett looked at me and gestured toward the door. Always a gentleman at heart, he wanted to honor Bella's request that we go. I could see the pain in his eyes. I could see his fear; he would take it upon himself to tell Edward that the dead Yankee at Chancellorsville was Bella's husband. I feared that the news that Edward had widowed this girl would be his undoing, and I knew Emmett shared that fear.
I nodded at him and rose from my chair. I put my hands on the table and considered for a moment before I turned to follow Emmett out the door. My heart was broken for Bella, she was another in a long line of wives that were widowed too soon. It mattered not at all which side of the war a girl's love fought on; a dead man on the field of battle left a young woman alone, maybe forever. Maybe with children to care for, or a farm she couldn't manage. Every soldier was someone's father or brother or son. Someone's Jacob.
My heart was broken for Edward, my friend, my brother. He was so fragile already. Spending Christmas with those Yankees had changed him. He said after that he could never look across a battlefield at a blue-coated man and not see our friends' faces across the fire on Christmas night. Edward was always sentimental, even as a youth; and it wasn't a trait he could leave behind when we left to fight. When that Yank fell in front of Edward's bullet, he was inconsolable. I felt his devastation and pain almost as keenly as I felt the pain of my own wound.
And my heartbreak didn't end there. I ached for Emmett, for his responsibility, for his willingness to take the world onto his broad shoulders and carry us through day after terrible, bloody day. I ached for Rosalie, this beautiful, strong woman whose strength carried these girls through their trials. She was their Emmett, that was plain, but the lives the war had handed to these girls were more than anyone should have had to bear.
And Alice. Lovely, eccentric, clairvoyant Alice, whose peculiarities seemed so akin to my own. The tale she told me before the others came into the kitchen tore at my soul. Her gratitude for our company, for the protection we had unwittingly offered cut at my heart. What kind of man was I that I could walk out on these women? How could I leave them alone to hope that those Yanks or someone just like them didn't come seek them out again?
I walked toward the door, but stopped in front of Alice, who was still holding a weeping Bella on the floor. I looked for a moment at Rosalie, still sitting in the chair Edward had been sitting in a few moments before. The fair-haired beauty was staring at the locket in her outstretched palm, her expression stunned.
"Bella," my voice came out only slightly above a whisper. She raised her head, her tear-streaked face twisted in agony. "I'm sorrier than you can imagine for the loss you've suffered. I understand your wish to see us gone. I've only two things I must say before I go with Emmett to speak with Edward." She nodded slightly. Alice twisted a bit on the floor to meet my eyes.
"The first is to beg you to reconsider your request to see Edward gone for good. I understand very well that you're hurt and angry, but please, I implore you to hear your own words. He was doing his duty and nothing more, and beyond that, he fired that shot to save my life. I've the scars to prove that." I gestured to my ribs.
Bella's eyes hardened for a moment, but softened again when I brought up my own wound.
"I know you might not be able to look him in the face today, Bella, and I understand that. But please, don't shut the door on him for good. He mightn't survive another blow like that." I licked my lips before going on, knowing that my next words might tip the balance in Edward's favor, or they might wound her further, maybe even beyond repair. "Alice told us about your Jacob. She told us how terrible you felt when he left, how you begged him not to go. She told us about the guilt you carry in your heart for punishing him for leaving by not saying goodbye." Every eye in the room widened with my words. I knew I was treading on dangerous ground, but I pressed on. "I'm here to tell you, Bella, that man I met - he bore no grudge toward his wife. He bore no anger toward you for the day he left. There was nothing but love in his heart and pride on his tongue for you and for the life you two shared."
I waited a moment, pausing to measure the effects of my words. Bella stared back at me, her face a mix of anger and sadness. I'd overstepped propriety talking about her husband, but it had to be said. I took her silence as permission to continue.
"But Edward, he ain't Jacob, Bella. He's not had the love of a beautiful woman to sustain him through battle after battle. Truth be told, it's likely instinct and little else that keeps him from stepping in front of a bullet instead of trying to avoid them." Her face registered horror at the notion, but I'd gone too far to stop now. "He's broken, Bella. He has been since Christmas, maybe even before. He wasn't made for the life of a soldier. Meeting you," I looked around the room at Rosalie and Alice. "Meeting all of you, really, has brought him to life, at least for a day." Emmett grunted his agreement from the doorway to the kitchen. His agreement gave me the courage to finish my course.
"You gave him a little bit to live for, Bella. Even just for one day, there was life in his eyes again, the likes of which I haven't seen since the first time he fired a shot that took a man's life. If you send him away now believing that you hate him, it's like to kill him, just as if he did step in front of a bullet." I looked up at Em again, who nodded. We had a good idea of how Edward's mind worked, but he'd become increasingly distant since Chancellorsville, and Em and I had secretly discussed our fears about what he might do the next time we faced the Yanks.
"Please, Bella. Look at Edward as your chance to say goodbye before he goes off to fight. You needn't forgive him, or fill his head with foolish notions. Just don't send him away believing you hate him if you don't." I finished with a sigh and ducked my head. I wasn't usually one for long speeches; in fact that was likely the most I'd said at one time in months. But I could see in Bella's eyes, even through her tears and her pain that she was sending Edward away out of fear, and that despite her anger, she didn't hate him. The guilt she still carried for sending her husband away without a farewell weighed heavily, I knew, and I hoped she could see her way clear to realize she didn't want to feel the same guilt again when Edward left.
She closed her eyes, seeming to consider my words for a moment, which was more than I'd dared hope for.
"I'll consider your request, Jasper, but that's all I can do," her voice came out in shaky bursts, and I could see she was trying to hold back a fresh wave of tears. "For now though, I don't know if I can see him before you go. I do hope you can understand that."
Her eyes bore into mine and I nodded. It wouldn't be fitting for me to ask her not to mourn her dead husband, especially since the wound was fresh again now that she knew he was gone. I inhaled deeply and went on.
"But secondly," I looked at Rosalie then too, before setting my eyes on Alice. "I'll speak to Edward, I will. I'll not leave that to Em, even though it's plain he sees it as his duty to tell Edward what's happened. But I'll not honor your other request, Bella, no matter what you decide about Edward." She looked at me quizzically, but I ignored the question in her eyes to answer the one I saw in Alice's.
"I'm not leaving."
Emmett, who had been slowly making his way out the door, all the while pausing every few steps to look back at Rosalie still sitting in Edward's chair staring at Bella's locket, stopped short and spun on his heel.
"Beg your pardon, Corporal?" His eyes flashed, and I knew both by the look on his face and his use of my rank that he understood right away what I meant, even as confusion took root on the faces of the ladies in the kitchen. And maybe more importantly, I knew he was angry. He had a right to be, as my commanding officer; but as my friend, no, as the man I called brother, I needed him to understand.
I jerked my chin toward the door and hoped my eyes conveyed the words I couldn't say here just yet. I owed these girls an explanation, that I knew, but I owed it to Emmett to have this conversation in private.
He glared at me, then turned and stalked out the door. I looked down at Alice, whose face still registered confusion, but there was a tenderness in it as well. I thought perhaps she was beginning to understand what I meant. I smiled gently at her, reaching my hand a little toward her in a gesture of…what? Solidarity? Understanding? Sympathy? Love? I didn't know how to classify all the emotions I felt when I looked into that beautiful face. All I knew was that my heart belonged here with her now, and I knew it as sure as I knew my own name, even if I hadn't found the words to tell her yet. As I said, I owed that explanation to Emmett first. I sighed resignedly and started out the door after him.
When I stepped out of the house, Emmett was pacing furiously in front of the threshold. I looked around the yard, squinting into the sun that had climbed in the sky while the course of my life was changed forever a few yards away in the kitchen.
"What the devil do you mean, you're not leaving?" Emmett spat as he whirled to face me. "You damned sure are leaving, Corporal! There's a battle brewing not 25 miles from here. Our company's on its way there, and you will be too!"
As soon as he stopped speaking, he began pacing again. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought he'd walk a hole clear through the earth. But of course I did know better. If there's one thing I know, it's walking. And men can't ever walk clear through, not matter how it might seem they might.
"No, Emmett," I said, much calmer than I felt on the inside. Truth was, Emmett frightened me a good bit. He was a gentle soul, and I loved him like a brother. And he me for that matter. But he was a sight stronger than I, and I feared his temper. But this was important, so I pressed on. "I won't be there. I'm not going back. This is my place now." I looked back at the house.
"This is your place now?" Emmett was spluttering now. "Damnit, Jasper. You've been here a few hours and suddenly this is your place? Your place is with us, Jasper. With Edward and me." His eyes saddened for a moment as he spoke, then hardened again as he drew himself up straight, adopting the stance of an officer at parade. "And with your company. This is treason, soldier, plain and simple."
He drew a sharp breath, and the pain returned to his eyes as he stared down at me. I swallowed hard in spite of my determination to keep my head. I didn't expect Emmett to understand, at least not completely, but he was right. What I was aiming to do was treason, and he outranked me. Just knowing my plans implicated him as well, and if he didn't report me when he returned to duty, he'd be guilty of aiding my desertion. It tore me in two knowing the position I was putting him in, both as my friend and as my sergeant, but my path was set as sure as if I'd been set on it the day I was born.
"I'm sorry Emmett," I said quietly. He glared and clenched his fists at his sides. I didn't know if he would hit me, but it stood to reason that he might, and I wouldn't say as how I'd blame him if he did. He stood to lose no matter what I did.
"Hear me out," I begged him in an attempt to appeal to the man I'd grown up with, who'd been as much a cousin to me as he was to Edward, even though we shared no blood relation. "These girls, Em, they've been through a terrible time. Harder than ours maybe." He quirked an eyebrow at me. I went on to explain as quickly as I could what had happened here with the two Yankee soldiers.
By the time I finished recounting Alice's story, Emmett's fists were still clenched, and the anger in his eyes had turned to rage, but he was staring at the spot that Alice said the Yankees had stood, pawing at her and Bella until Rosalie stopped them. I shook my head in admiration again at what Rosalie had done.
It was a fact that most fighting men never actually fired a round. I'd seen many a private stand stock still in the face of the enemy just loading bullet after bullet into their guns, but never firing. Sometimes after a battle, we'd pick up arms abandoned or dropped on the field by the dead or wounded, and there would be as many as five or six rounds run down the barrel. It was as though the act of loading the weapon brought a measure of comfort, but the notion of shooting at another man was more than many could stand.
And yet Rosalie had the courage to walk far closer than a bullet's range and knock a man to the ground with just her own strength to save her sister and her friend. That was bravery of a kind not often seen on a battlefield, and I commended her silently for it before continuing.
"I can't leave them, Em," I said imploringly. "I can't walk out of here in good conscience and leave these girls here alone. Soldiers did that to them, Emmett. Not just men. Soldiers, just like us. Just like that girl's dead husband." I gestured inside to where we had left Bella.
My voice had grown louder as I spoke, a reflection of the anger I felt at what had almost been done to Bella and Alice and for what Rosalie had to do to protect them. I could feel the color rising in my cheeks and I knew my fight to maintain some level of calm was lost.
"Damnit Em!" I was shouting now. "We fight and kill and bleed for men we've never met! Rich, pompous, arrogant bastards who think it's their right to own another man and send us off to die to protect that right!" Emmett stopped pacing and faced me, eyes wide. I'd never been one for fits growing up; it was a rare day that saw me lose my head, so Emmett's surprise was warranted. But I was angry. Angry at those men and this war and at Bella's husband for being the man that shot me and that Edward killed that day. All those emotions and fears and all that rage had piled up like cotton at the harvest to get to this moment.
"We've been fighting all this time, and for what? For strangers and a cause we don't really believe in?" Emmett had let his fists go slack and his shoulders slumped as I finished. "But Em, who the hell's fighting for them?" I turned to point back through the door of Bella's house and stopped short when I saw Bella, Rose, and Alice staring at me from the doorway.
As soon as I saw them, all the anger I had been feeling drained out of me. I didn't even need to ask how long they'd been standing there or how much they'd heard. Alice's eyes shone with unshed tears, but her mouth curved up in a bright smile. That smile told me everything I needed to know.
I turned back to Emmett, buoyed by Alice's smile. He sagged as his eyes met mine, resignation and sadness and anger warring in his gaze, but I knew I'd won. He would leave and I would stay, and somehow, someday, he would forgive me for it. He was my brother and my friend, and someday I would make him truly understand.
He nodded once and looked back at Bella and Alice and Rosalie. Using what looked like all the strength he had left in him, he curved his lips up in a tight, pained smile, then turned without a word and walked off to find Edward.
A/N: Thanks as always to all of you for reading, adding, reviewing, PM'ing, tweeting, etc. I'd like to hug you all or buy you a drink or something! Instead though, I can tell you Chapter 10 is actually almost done and is in the editing stages, so an update will come very soon!
Also, thanks to averysubtlegift for her superbeta skills and most especially her encouragement. 3
I hope you enjoyed our little interlude with Rosalie and Jasper. Edward and Bella are back starting in Chapter 10...they needed to compose themselves a bit. Leave me your thoughts if you like; as usual (at least recently) reviewers will be teased!
