Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.
Rated M for a reason.
Chpt 8 Knowing
BPOV
It's at times like these that I feel my aloneness.
The only person I would have considered talking to about any of this is lying in a hospital bed a few miles away, hooked up to a festival of tubing and starting the long, painful process of healing.
I am submerged in a black hole only a part of my mind aware of my predicament, the rest stuck on a feedback loop of my only friend bleeding his life out onto dirty concrete. Just because I am familiar with that feeling of powerlessness does not mean I find it any easier to accept. It's my permanent living nightmare of watching events unfold and not being strong enough or fast enough or enough of anything to affect it.
I do not know what time it is or even what day it is, I could have been curled up like this on my couch for days and without physical needs and I would remain unaware. The sentient part of me wants to fight its way back to the surface but the rabbit in the main beams is in control now because idealised Bella, the one from Edward's time and real Bella are at war.
I register the sounds of banging at my door and eventually breaking glass but they do not influence me.
Words are spoken.
A pair of strong arms lift me, carrying me to my tub. More words, just sounds, white noise in the blackness. Tenderly I am undressed and lain in the warm water. Hands wash me, every inch of my skin, lathering and rinsing my hair, all the time the white noise. Wrapped in fluffy towels, bound tight between long legs, leaning against a marble chest and cocooned in muscular arms.
"Bella." He whispers. "Bella, come back to me. Darlin' come back to me, we can do this forever if that's what it takes but you need to talk to me, come back to me."
"Jasper?" My voice is barely there.
"I'm here darlin', I've got you."
I sigh, snuggling back into him and feeling his calm wash over me. "Thank you." I whisper.
"No, thank you" he chuckles wryly "I've been throwing calm at you since I got here and this is the first time it's had any effect. I thought ma gift was on the fritz."
I sigh again and his arms tighten around me. "No, I think it's me that's on the fritz tonight."
"I'm afraid I may have dented your front door and broken the glass on the balcony darlin'. I couldn't get you to respond and your emotions were all over the place. I might have panicked a bit." He concludes quietly.
"What was I feeling?"
"Sorrow, horror, fear, regret and self loathing. It was overwhelmin'."
I laugh bitterly, it certainly was but I'm back on the surface now and able to tread water. Would I have made it back on my own I wonder idly.
"What happened?" He asks quietly, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
In a dispassionate voice I tell him about today. Every sight, every sound and every word. He doesn't move or speak, without interruptions or questions he holds me tightly and he listens. When I finish silence stretches out.
"Is he dead?" He asks finally.
"No" I shake my head slightly "not yet. The Doctor's say its touch and go. I aimed for his arm, I really did, but it was a long shot and I missed. Now he might die."
"But Joel will live?" He asks.
"Yes, I saved his life." And there is the nub of the issue. Joel will live. The shooter might die. Idealised Bella wants to wail, rend her hair and grieve for the life potentially taken, for his friends and family. Real Bella would shoot him again in a heartbeat to save Joel's life.
"Bella it's a hard thing that you did but you did it for the right reasons, you need to focus on that."
"I already know that Jasper." I snap, unreasonably. "And the psychologist told me the same thing tonight before they let me come home."
"What happens now?"
"Captain Harris and I are suspended while they investigate. Use of deadly force is a sensitive issue, we could lose our careers or even be prosecuted."
"How do you feel about that?"
"Honestly?" I shrink in on myself a little while I admit my feelings. "There has to be some recourse, you can't just pin on a badge and go round shooting people without having to answer for it. But it pisses me off! No one made him shoot those other cops, no one made him shoot Joel. He made a choice. Even if he now turns out to have epic mental health problems or the world's worst drug habit he still made a choice."
Jasper shifts uncomfortably behind me.
"I'm a monster." I whisper.
"No Bella" he says with feeling "I'm a monster. You're someone who made a painful decision to save the life of a friend."
"You are not a monster Jasper!" I interrupt hotly. "You're a vampire, you have instincts and yet you try your hardest every day not to do what comes naturally to you."
"Like fighting a mental health or drug problem?" He asks.
"But it's not the same thing, you don't . . Oh." I'm slow, but I'm not stupid.
"Exactly." He sighs. "I've killed thousands of people Bella. And not always for food. Will you be judge, jury and executioner for me?" He finishes, throwing my words from the other night back at me.
"I'm sorry." I whisper, stroking his thigh. "I'm not thinking very clearly, I didn't mean to offend you."
"You didn't darlin'. I take full responsibility for my actions. I know how I came to do the things I did, my memory is unfortunately perfect but that doesn't mean it's easy to accept. I know better now but I should have known better then."
I sit up, turning around to face him and settling cross legged between his thighs.
"Tell me?" I ask, tentatively "Tell me what happened to you."
He sighs, running his hands through his hair in a gesture I'm coming to recognise. "I don't want to."
"Why, is it too painful?" I ask.
"No, I've learned to live with it because I don't have a choice but it isn't a pretty story and I'm not sure how you'll react."
Taking both my hands in his he looks deep into my eyes and tells me a story that makes my hair curl.
An eager young man from a simple background and loving family, who lied about his age to join the Confederate Army. His natural talent for soldiering and his charisma helped him rise rapidly through the ranks until he became their youngest major. And then one night it ended abruptly when he stopped to help three 'innocent' women on the road.
After three days of excruciating agony he woke to a brutal new reality. One where everything revolved around blood, who craved it, who controlled it and what they would do to get it. The Southern Vampire Wars. Where covens used armies of newborn vampires to fight for them because of their increased strength and disposability.
The strongest, fastest and most tactical of these newborns he survived while others perished, until he found favour with his evil mistress. He earned twisted rewards for his successes and lavish tortures and punishments for failing or disobeying.
He controlled and trained the newborns by the harshest of methods, destroying the failures and the no longer needed. Master strategist and strongest warrior he led the survivors into battle after battle, a cold and merciless machine of war doing the bidding of his mistress.
As he learned about his emerging gift he used it ruthlessly to achieve his mistress's goals gradually coming to the conclusion that the gift was a curse, a divine punishment for the monster he had become. He felt everything from those around him, the pain, the fear, the rage, the desire, the blood lust and the hopelessness. And love, Peter's love for Charlotte, instead of destroying them he let them go.
Withdrawing into himself he spiralled down into despair and was eventually rescued from the brink by two people who saw something in him he didn't see himself. Then he wandered with them, lost in depression but trying to re-find himself.
My heart clenches and twists in my chest with every revelation, every atrocity. The telling has taken a couple of hours and I sense that although he hasn't told me everything he has left out nothing but details that add flesh to the horror he has shared with me. I am speechless as I regard the man before me. He ought to be a raving lunatic! Instead he is looking into my eyes calmly waiting for what he obviously assumes will be my condemnation and revulsion.
"You're so strong." I gasp in wonder.
He drops his head, focussing on our hands.
"Jasper, you are not the man you think you are."
"Bella, I am that man" his head snaps up, his eyes hard "I will always be that man."
"No Jasper." My voice is a firm as my instinct. "That man would not have a family who love him and who he is able to love. That man would not be sat here on my bed trying to help me, an inconsequential little human, deal with her issues. That man has never existed. Maria created a monster but she didn't turn you into one, if she had you wouldn't be here. How could anyone have changed enough to become what you are after what you went through? I don't know how you did it but the essence of Jasper Whitlock survived because he's here, holding my hands."
Jasper continues to stare at me and I sigh, thinking about my own feelings for a moment. "The shooter may be as much of a victim of life as you are but I can't fix the world or make bad things right. I can only deal with what I know and what I have in front of me. If this has happened because someone or something has destroyed him then I'm sad and I'm angry but it doesn't change anything. I did what I did to save Joel's life and I can live with that. And I won't judge what you did in the past, I can only judge what you do now."
He smiles, transforming his already beautiful face it into something else entirely.
"So what do we do now? He asks.
"Now I need to go to sleep. I'm exhausted." I yawn to illustrate my point.
"I'll go." He says, releasing my hands.
"No, please stay." I capture his hands back. "I don't want to be alone tonight."
When he nods I release his hands again climbing stiffly to my feet and going into the bathroom to change into some PJs. Returning I find my room empty so I settle myself between the sheets sighing in almost contentment.
"Jasper" I whisper "I meant stay with me, not my couch."
"Yes ma'am." He drawls, appearing and dropping down onto the bed next to me, gathering me and my covers into his arms.
I wake the next morning wound up in those covers like a sausage roll, an amused looking Jasper grinning down at me.
"What?" I demand.
"You are cute when you're asleep." He chuckles. "You talk."
"Yes, I do." I sigh, worried. "What did I say?"
"Nothing embarrassing and yes, I'd be delighted to practice my Tai Chi for you in pyjama bottoms."
"I knew you'd know Tai Chi!" I squeal.
"I do darlin' and I'd be happy to teach you, if you're prepared to learn in only your pyjama bottoms. That's a very stimulatin' image that works both ways."
I laugh and then abruptly feel terrible. What right do I have to be happy and flirting after yesterday?
"Bella." Jasper sighs, brushing his thumb across my cheek. "If there's one thing I have learned in this fucked up world it's to take your happiness where you find it. If you're off work for a couple of weeks why don't you come back to Montana with us?"
Oh the temptation. "I can't Jasper, I have responsibilities."
"To do what?" He asks knowingly. "To sit in your apartment wallowing in guilt?"
"What about Joel?"
"Bella, he has a family and after what you did I'm damn sure he knows you care about him and would understand if you needed to get away. You can talk to him in the phone."
"What if they want to interview me again?"
"Ask 'em."
So I do. And then I pack my bag to take a vacation with the Whitlocks in Montana.
