Okay, so voting is officially closed! Thanks for the input everyone who voted, I really needed a shove to get me out of that hole. Romance won nearly unanimously, so this story is now officially Jasper/OC. Italicy bits will be changed back ASAP. Unless I forget. Sorry to anyone who wanted friendship, but I have to go with the majority!

EVERYONE GO READ THE PREFACE IN CHAPTER 1 AGAIN 'CAUSE I MADE IT BETTERER.

This chapter is more about Jasper and Kira than much plot, but it does clear up the issue of Kira not knowing Jasper's story. Plus I tried to expand Jasper's character a little. Some of this is not it the books, but none of it is actually contradictory, just a little artistic licence. But then the end went all kinda angry… But in some ways I think that works better.

Aware

The weeks and months ticked by. The Cullens relaxed more and more around Kira, and mainly because of Jasper. His control, now he had found the way, was massively improved. Even if she wasn't close to the Cullens, they all tolerated Kira. But the only one who it could be that she really got on with was Jasper.

She didn't know exactly why they got on so well. Maybe it was because both of them were slightly outcast from their groups. Maybe because they were both scarred by loss. But they seemed to understand each other surprisingly well. Jasper had always kept his distance from humans, with reason, but he felt Kira easier to be around than some of his family. Her constant slightly crazy but cheerful atmosphere was definitely a nice climate to be in. The others knew all about his power, of course, but they didn't really understand it. Kira had a similar kind of insight, with her frankly unnerving talent for reading people. The others knew about what he could do, but how he did it was something they didn't really understand.

It wasn't straightforward like Edward's mind reading, not like just experiencing the emotions yourself. He was glad of that, actually, because if he had to feel every single emotion he'd probably have a severe breakdown. He couldn't explain it all that well, but when Kira brought it up, back down on the beach again, he tried to think how to say it.

"How does that emotion-reading thing work, anyway?"

"It's… complicated."

She snorted at that. "You know, 'it's complicated' is the most used excuse when people are either hiding something or don't know the answer."

"It's also what people say when it's too complicated for someone to understand, especially when the person who it is being explained to is less intelligent than the person doing the explaining, which is the situation now. Something this complicated is too complicated for an uncomplicated person to understand."

"Learn a new word for complicated. Besides, that oh-so-subtle slur on my intelligence is merely a distraction. Explain it to me, because if it is so complicated to explain to people regardless of comparative intelligences, thank you, then it is just proof of the explainer's intelligence if they can explain it and just proof of their lack of intelligence if they refuse to even try."

"You know, it's very childish to try to out-long-sentence me."

She laughed. "You started it."

He smiled at that. "Alright, I'll try to explain. But don't blame me if you fail to keep up with my superior intelligence."

"Don't blame me if I deck you for being a jerk."

He ignored that comment, and tried to think more about his talent. It was so natural for him; it was hard to even grasp how it worked.

"It's sort of like watching a light show behind someone. All their emotions, they're like colour staining the air around them. It seems so obvious to me I wonder how no one else can see it."

"I know how that last bit feels. This reading people thing, it seems so obvious sometimes, I think people should have some things written on their T-shirts."

He was intrigued in spite of himself. "Like what?"

"Mr Acton, the art teacher. He needs a shirt saying 'Insecure so I bully people'. I don't know how other people can't get that."

He thought this one over. Now she mentioned it, it was a little obvious.

"So where do these freaky extra talents come from anyway?"

"Do you ever let up with the questions?"

"Nope. I am The Eternal Questioner." You could hear the capital letters.

"Fine then. Well, the theory is that your strongest trait as a human is intensified when you change into a vampire. For example, Emmett's strength was his strongest trait as a human. Now he is strongest of everyone in our family."

She mulled this one over for a little while. "How strong are vampires?"

He picked up a pebble from the beach and held it out for her to look at. She picked it up; turning it around a bit until she was satisfied that it was a genuine pebble. She dropped it back into his palm. He curled his fingers around it gently, squeezing softly. A quiet crunching noise like a very far off earthquake sounded. He opened his fingers again and tipped a shower of gravel into her hand.

"Wow. That was scary in a quite awesome way."

He reached out to scrape up the gravel again, and despite the weak, clouded light, Kira noticed something. She caught his wrist, and he stopped moving instinctively. She pushed his sleeve back a little further, exposing some of the more prominent scars that decorated the skin there.

"What's that?"

He tugged the sleeve back, but Kira had spotted the bizarre patterning across his skin.

"Don't try to hide from me. Tell me what it is."

He ignored her.

"You know I'll find it out eventually. You're just postponing the unavoidable."

His head snapped up and he glared at her. "Take the hint: I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh my god it speaks. Come on, Jasper, you know you want to tell me."

"No, I know I really, really don't want to."

She shoved his sleeve back up and traced around one of the light crescent marks. "What could make a scar like that?" she muttered to herself, tapping one finger gently against her teeth. She removed her hand from his arm, which he was glad about – despite her clean absence of scent removing nearly all temptation, the feeling of blood pulsing under her fragile skin was still like a call to the animal inside him. Then her tapping stopped and he felt the blow of horror and fear that came with an undercurrent of knowledge. She'd worked it out.

She curled her fingers to fit her teeth, and then laid the still-curled fingers over the marks on Jasper's skin. They were very nearly a good fit.

"Why? How? What happened to you?" The questions were a shocked gasp.

His teeth ground together hard as all the memories surfaced. "I went through hell. Literally."

…………………

(Much as I love Jasper's story, there are limits to what I'm willing to type out. Besides, copying pages from Eclipse is too much like blatant plagiarism.)

He told her the whole story. Although Bella had thought, when she'd first heard it, that he hadn't edited to avoid frightening her, he had in fact edited quite a lot. With Kira, he told it all. Not just the facts-and-figures version he told Bella, but the whole story. The intense fury of the battles, the stinging of a thousand bites all over, the feeling of watching your few almost-friends being torn limb from limb by other newborns. He didn't know why he told her the 'horror story' version. Part of the reason was that he wanted someone to understand. By the end, she was shivering from more than the cold Atlantic wind. He wasn't worried about her reaction – she was tough, she would cope – but more worried that she would pity him. Even if she hid I, he would feel her pity. It was sickening how everyone felt so apologetic. 'Oh, we're so sorry you had to live through one of the bleakest periods in vampiric history. To make it up, have some totally fake concern and understanding, because we all want you to think we know how you feel, even if we can have no idea at all.'

"You're making me angry," Kira told him, sounding surprisingly calm.

"Sorry." The bitterness in his tone contradicted the word.

"What are you apologising for? First off, you can't change what you can do and I'm sure as hell not going to be the one to tell you how to use it; and secondly, you went through some pretty horrific stuff, you're entitled to some strong emotion."

He picked up another pebble and hurled it full-force toward the ocean. It made a pretty impressive splash. Kira leapt to her feet suddenly, and paced back and forward.

"What are you doing?" he asked, latching onto the distraction from the one part of his story he hadn't shared – meeting… her… and losing her.

"You may not notice it, but it is freezing out here. I'm trying to avoid dying of hypothermia."

"Why don't you leave?"

"Two reasons. First, Mum is crazy obsessive about cleaning and she is slightly on the rampage due to mud everywhere which had nothing at all to do with me, I swear. Second, you have the car keys and I am not walking all the way home."

"How do you always have such good answers when you're lying?"

"How do you know I'm lying?"

"Your emotions gave you away."

She thought about this for a few seconds. "Damn."

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down onto the rocks beside him, to stop her pacing. "So why are you still here, really? The real answer this time."

She stared down at the pale sand, and he could feel that she was trying to evade him. "It's nothing really. Forget about it."

He waited, and eventually his patience paid off. "OK. The reason I'm still here."

"Go on."

"I'm… worried about you. All your family seem… maybe not happy, but content at least. But you seem to be suffering. You know how I can read people. I can't see why, but you're really struggling."

"That's not why you're still here."

"I feel like I should try to help you. But I don't know what's wrong. I feel like you need someone."

"I don't need anyone." Anger spiked through him, strong and overpowering.

"Now who's lying?"

"I'm serious."

"Sure you are. Just keep telling yourself that."

He knew that he was about to do something very stupid, and he would probably regret it later. But all he wanted now was for her to leave him alone.

"If you think I need someone, you are mistaken, Kira. I don't need anyone, especially not you. I want you to leave." His voice was laden with acid.

Kira's eyes blazed with dark fire. "Fine then. I'm not going to solve your problems for you."

She leapt up and melted into a snow leopard, leaping away across the beach. Jasper waited until she had gone before he let himself feel that little bit guilty.

Ah, I'm mean to them… Review please!