A/N: Beta'd by SweeneyAnne, and pre-read by THEChickNorris & GemmaLisax.

Another short one. Really, I probably can't even call it short. It's like...a mini-chapter. A wannabe. Meh. I'll make up for it with the next one. ;-)

Don't own Twilight.

Chapter 10 – Shy

I can feel each of the million thoughts speeding through my brain play out across my face, as I rapidly try to come to terms with a worst-case scenario that I hadn't even considered. This is bad; this is very bad—largely because of the confused brunette standing in front of me trying to figure out what just happened.

"Jasper? Are you..."

"Be quiet," I snap, and I close my eyes, instantly regretting how harsh the two words came out. "Just... I need a minute. Give me a minute."

It takes effort to squash the rising tides of all these uncomfortable emotions, and Bella's presence doesn't make it any easier. She's confused and I'm furious and we're both dreading what the future holds. I should have seen this coming.

I'm shoved right into that spot Edward's recently vacated. Now I'm the one who's bringing trouble her way, and I'm no fool; this is a hundred times worse than the game of tag brought about by a baseball game. That was a game of checkers; this is chess. This is real honest to God danger and this threat—she knows how to win wars.

"I have to go."

"What? Who was on the phone, Jasper?"

"An old colleague." She doesn't need to know any more than that, not right now. Besides, there's not really much else to tell. Charlotte and I have a strained acquaintanceship which is not made any less complicated by the fact that her mate absolutely loathes me. Still, we look out for each other, and it's an unspoken rule that if the past is rushing in, then everyone deserves a heads-up.

Bella looks like she's dangling between furious, concerned, and terrified, so I give her a little more explanation. "I have to make some calls. I'll be close, and I'll be back soon."

I'm still in the yard when I start dialing. I have every intention of calling in every favor I'm owed until I find out exactly when Maria figured out that I left the Cullens, and more importantly, if she knows that I've been playing house with a human. Bella is exactly the kind of leverage you never want your enemy to have.

The last time she sought me out I took the high road, politely declined her invitation to rejoin her and requested that she not bother me again. This time though, this time is going to be different, because Maria obviously doesn't respect my wishes, and she won't be refused twice. No matter what her intentions are, no matter which road she plans on taking, when I say 'no', shit's going to hit the fan.

I finally hit the jackpot with my fourth call. Louis and I had served together, and he'd jumped ship shortly after I did. We all keep in contact, keep our own sets of eyes on Maria, but I've been too focused on other areas recently, and I haven't been paying her the attention I should have been. Louis, however, has, and then some; he's a sneaky bastard.

She's losing territory, which helps to explain the timing. She's also recently lost her first officer, which makes her both desperate and weakened. It really could go either way in terms of how bad this is, but what has me most wary is that even Louis knows about the recent upheavals in the Cullen household, and it's entirely too possible that Maria knows exactly who I am with right now. It makes my veins run cold, this extremely likely possibility that she knows exactly who Bella is.

I fire off two more calls that go nowhere before heading back to the house. I've got feelers out, and I've got enough information to be reasonably certain that Bella is safe, for now, though I don't think it's going to stay that way for very long. Maria is not sloppy, and I know her better than she realizes; I know that it's no accident that this information is coming to me now. This is a perverted olive branch, this is an offer to rejoin her, and I'm positive that if I run far enough south eventually I'll find her waiting for me. She wants me to come to her, and she'll give me some time to do it. After that, she'll come here.

Bella's pissed, and worried. She's sitting at the kitchen table angrily filling out a crossword puzzle, and she doesn't even glance up at me when I walk in the door. She just stands and begins to make her way toward her room, and I block her path and put both hands on her shoulders to hold her still. She's determined not to make the first move, to not speak first.

Bella's brown eyes bore into mine, the steady racing of her heart thunders in the space between us, and this is really what it all comes down to; am I going to play hide the human like Edward did, or am I going to push her into something she may not be ready for. I don't even have to think about it, I already know which path I'll choose. I will not allow Bella to be a sitting duck, and I won't subject her to being the weak link; it's only a matter of time before Maria finds out about her, if she doesn't know already. I won't let Bella cower on the sidelines just waiting for the enemy to sweep her up. I want her to be able to fight back, I want her to be strong enough to defend herself if she needs to, and neither of those things can happen if she's human.

"We have to talk." The words slip out before I'm ready for them to, but it's no matter.

Bella looks at me curiously for a moment, and whatever it is that's scrawled out all over my face for her to read must be what she was looking for, because she nods and retakes a seat at the table. I sit around the corner from her and try to organize my thoughts enough to get what I've got to say to come out right.

"My Sire is looking for me."

She doesn't understand, and that's my fault. In all the things I've told her about the times I'd spent in Mexico, I never really explained any of it.

"She is..." There are no words to describe my disdain and hatred for that bitch. "She is not the kind of vampire you can trash talk while you stall long enough for me to get to you. She'll just rip your throat out, and go find something else to play with."

"Why now?" Bella asks, and I really don't want to tell her that I should known this might happen.

"She tried to find me, after I left, but by the time she finally tracked me down I was with the Cullens. One of the advantages to living with a coven, especially one so talented, is that even evil bitches realize that there's little use in trying to take you by force. Somehow she's found out that I've parted ways with them, and she hasn't made a move yet—but she will."

"We should call Emmett," Bella suggests, sounding far calmer than she really is. It's so odd of her to try and hide her terror from me.

"Yes, I think that might be wise," I admit, and Bella's eyes widen comically in a blatant display; she's starting to understand how serious this is. "When I refuse to come peacefully, then it's going to escalate, no matter how many I have on my side. I've been through this with her once before, and she didn't take too kindly to being rejected, but she backed off. That's not going to happen twice. The more, the better, and Emmett's invaluable in a fight. We should call him next week, that'll give us some time to wrap up our loose ends before the Cullens all come storming into town."

"Jasper...I think we should call him now," Bella argues meekly, and I can tell that she's worried that I'm going to dismiss her opinion without thought.

"If she's watching us or them, it'll buy us more time to call him later. She'll think that I've only just discovered that she's keeping tabs on me, that I'm calling them in reaction to the information. If we wait, she'll think that I haven't gotten her message yet."

What I should be doing is getting the fuck away from this girl, and dealing with Maria on my own—but I can't. I don't want to leave her, and I'm sickly pleased with this change of circumstances, so long as it all works out well. There's no doubt about it, I can take Maria, and unless she's managed to amass quite the well of talent, I can take a fair amount of whatever else she throws at me, too. With Emmett, time, and information it becomes more of an exercise in figuring out just how much manpower we need. It might not be all that hard, as long as I don't have to worry about Bella being taken hostage. Besides, she'd probably manage to come up with some crazy parallel between me and Edward if I so much as walk out the door again without her express permission, and I really hate being compared to him.

"Are you afraid?" Bella asks in a small voice as she furrows her eyebrows in my direction.

"I am... worried," I admit, wrinkling my nose with distaste at telling her this. "I think that if she realizes that you're here, with me, alone, she'll know that you would be a very powerful bargaining chip. She'll take you to make me compliant, and there wouldn't be a single thing you could do to stop her."

It's disturbing how true it is; I hadn't really recognized that Bella actually means something to me until I had to spell out exactly how much leverage she could represent.

"You're telling me that I'm out of time," she confirms, unnaturally passive about her impending doom.

"Yes. We're out of time."

"When?"

"Very soon."

She cycles through them so quick that I barely even notice that she did. Denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. She feels flutters of them all and then dismisses the wave with a struggling sense of acceptance. She's been thinking about this far more than I assumed.

"Okay." Bella nods and takes a shaky breath. "What do we do?"

It's pretty sweet of her to include herself in this mess, even if she doesn't completely understand what it is.

"We fight."

"I..." Bella starts to say something, but presses her lips together and stares out the window instead of continuing. Normally I'd poke and prod until she just spits it out, but I think that maybe she deserves some leeway, after all, I did just tell her that she's going to die in the immediate future. "I can't even throw a punch."

I chuckle at her, because there is no doubt in my mind that she'll learn just fine; the girl is fierce and stubborn, and she will be strong. "I'll teach you. It's something I am very good at."

The wink added at the end is definitely overkill. It's enough to drive Bella over the edge, and she collapses into fits of laughter against her forearms resting on the table. It wasn't that ridiculous.

"Are you flirting with me?" she asks once she gets a hold of herself long enough to sit back up, and I can't really tell if she's amused or horrified by the possibility.

"Maybe."

"You used to be better at it," Bella says with a laugh, and I crack a grin in her direction. "I thought you weren't the type to beat around the bush. Wasn't it you who told me that if I wanted a question answered I should just ask it?"

"I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be the best idea," I say in warning, and she just smirks at me, silently daring me to come out and proposition her.

I don't make a move, and she sighs and looks away first, that little niggling of self-doubt that always lingers within her rising to the surface, and I know I've gotta do something to wash that nonsense away. I can't let her get rejected every single time she stands tall and asks for something, and I'm not going to be like all the others who wanted her but said nothing.

"Alright, fine, I like you. I want you. It's not like you didn't know already." The words come out harsher than I mean, but instead of being hurt by them they dig her a little deeper into some other negativity taking hold.

She takes a deep breath, and looks down to the floor. I unconsciously lean closer, and when she looks up there's a sadness in her eyes that looks like it's been living there for millennia. This light-hearted diversion has taken on a suddenly serious tone.

"I'm sorry that I can't give you more time to come to terms with this." It's an odd thing for me to say, but it's quite possible that this is the first apology I've ever given that has been one hundred percent genuine. I'd wanted her to be able to choose, and now she doesn't get to.

"It's not your fault, Jasper," Bella insists, but I'm thinking that it kind of is. "Besides, you warned me about this. You told me this could happen."

"Doesn't mean I wanted it to."

"Yeah, me either."

"Does it hurt?" Bella asks, and I close my eyes and wonder if I should lie to her about the agony of the burn. I kind of want to, but I know that I can't.

"Yes. It hurts."

"How long does it take?"

"About seventy-two hours." For some reason it sounds better than three days—hours are shorter.

"And when it's done, I'll be..." She's scared, and I don't like that I'm the one who made her that way. I open my eyes to see Bella staring right back at me, the very same nervous curiosity and heart-pounding fear that's running through her veins painted all over her face—and I think that I get it. This is Bella's storm, the thing that she fears most.

"You will be wild, bloodthirsty, and very confused—but it will pass, and I will help you," I answer, and this is one of those moments where blatant honesty and truth is soothing, because there's power in that knowledge, and there's a distinct difference between being thrown into the fire and walking through it with your head held high.

"Emmett?"

"Yeah, Emmett will help, too. Esme, too, probably Carlisle and Rosalie...definitely Alice, they'll all show up eventually." It's going to be a fucking parade of Cullens coming through town.

"Where did you put them?" Bella asks curiously, and I don't have to feign my look of confusion. "The letters. Where did you put the letters?"

"They're still in my bag," I answer truthfully, pleased with myself for knowing her enough to realize that one day she'd want them.

"You read them, right?" Bella asks, assuming that I have—and I'd honestly considered doing just that, but for some reason I never did. I'm not going to tell her that, though.

"I may have."

"Do I want them?"

"That's not really up to me to decide," I tell her, and I'm chastising her a bit as I try to gently teach her this lesson. It's not up to anyone but her to decide what she wants.

"Who are they from?" she asks instead, and I don't understand why that would matter.

"Alice and Carlisle."

"Really?" Bella asks, wrinkling her brows and scrunching her nose in confusion. "I wouldn't have expected Carlisle."

"Why not?" I wonder, not quite sure if I agree with her or not.

"I don't know he always seemed so distant," Bella muses aloud. "We never really talked any, even when I was in the hospital. I just... I assumed he was undecided for some reason."

"Carlisle is..." I'm not really sure how to explain it in a way that won't come off as dated to the point of insulting. "He's rigid in his beliefs. He's been around for a very long time, and he finds comfort in the structure of the system. He's devout."

"He bought into that nonsense about Edward being allowed to run my life," Bella concludes, boiling it down to exactly what I was trying not to say.

"Pretty much, but he's still very, very fond of you. You should know that even though he didn't express it often, he cares about you, just like Esme does."

"You're sure Esme will come... after?" Bella asks. She's back in that lonely and worthless feeling tailspin, so I scoot my chair closer and try to give her a reassuring smile.

"When I talked to her, Esme sounded beyond furious. Apparently Edward never joined them, and she doesn't take too kindly to being kicked out of her home, forced to leave her daughter behind, and then have to watch two sons abandon ship." I hadn't really realized just how much that had to have sucked for Esme until this moment. When she talked about it on the phone it was with an air of anger, but listing the circumstances out, it's different.

"While she might have gone along with Carlisle before, I'd be willing to bet that if he tries to stop her this time, he'll wind up missing an appendage or two."

Bella lets out one of those instinctual chuckles that just can't be repressed in time, and she leans across the sixteen inches separating us to lay the side of her head against my shoulder. She barely reaches, and I scoot my chair closer again, so she won't fall on the floor or something. I think that maybe she just misses it; closeness and family.

"I think I'm ready to read them," Bella decides.

"Alright." I shrug, not letting on that I'm pleased with the step she's making. It's all about stages with this shit, and she's going to go through them again and again, right up until my teeth sink into her neck; at least she's still moving forward. "They're in the other bedroom, in the bag on the dresser. Go nuts."

She pulls away from me and pads off to the bedroom two doors down from hers without another word, and I'm not at all surprised that she retreats behind closed doors to read in private. I'm curious about what words Alice and Carlisle chose to part from Bella with, and I almost regret not reading them when I had the chance, but I know I'll get it out of Bella eventually.

She doesn't cry, not once, even though I can tell that she's close. Her heavy breaths sound out through the house, and after half an hour I hear the sound of pen scratching paper, and I figure that maybe she's actually writing back this time. I wonder just what it was that was said that she feels the need to reply; or maybe she's just writing her goodbyes.

Wind whips around the house in sharp shuddering waves, and I find myself with teeth clenched and balled up fists listening intently to the breeze. This is the storm coming, it's the axe beginning to fall, and it's all happening sooner than I would have expected and much later than I would have liked. If I'd have changed her back in Forks none of these worries would be pervading my thoughts and clouding my judgment— but then again, who knows what else, would be different now.

I almost search out a pen and paper of my own to plot out some sort of a timeline; for some reason the act of drawing it out seems comforting. I doubt that Maria knows exactly where I am, but she probably has an idea of the area, and it won't take long to figure out. She'll be cautious, precise; she'll try to take me amicably first, like she had in Calgary, and that gives us more time. If I can avoid her until Emmett gets here then she may back off, but I doubt it. This is the second time she's sought me out, and she needs me more now than she did last time.

I don't even want her to back off. I want to end this now.

I need to scout the area, and to hunt. I need to map out a perimeter and figure out some way to maintain it by myself for the time being, and I need to start doing all this shit now, or I might explode.

I knock once before pushing Bella's door open, and smile a bit at the roll of her eyes and faint shake of her head that's more fond than anything else as she reprimands me for it. "Jasper, that doesn't count as knocking. You have to wait for me to say you can come in."

I roll my eyes right back at her; this is the kind of banter that I enjoy.

"I'm going to check out the area, draw a perimeter. You know there can't be any more joyriding in the Jeep, right?" I'm pretty sure she's going to throw an absolute fit over it, but she surprises me by nodding.

"Yeah, I figured as much." Bella glances up from where she's sitting cross-legged on her bed, and she's trying to work her way up to something, so I lean against the door frame and wait for her to get there. It doesn't take too long.

Bella unfolds her legs and scoots to the edge of the bed before climbing out, one of the sheets of paper strewn all over her blankets folded up in her hand. She reaches out for my arm, and presses the piece of paper into my palm, muttering, "Read it while you're gone, and Jasper?"

"Yeah?"

Bella bites her lip as she looks up at me with nervous little sparkles in her eyes. She shifts her weight to the tips of her toes and kisses me lightly, right on the mouth. She pulls away before I can do much more than get over my surprise enough to lean into it. "I like you, too."

I'm barely out the door before I unfold the paper in my hands.

It's another list, and I'm not sure exactly when she made it, but I know it was at least a couple of weeks ago because the scratches crossing out 'Get a tattoo' are much fresher than the ink she wrote it in. I'm pretty surprised she'd made another one; I'd been so sure she wouldn't. She's systematically eliminated all but the one item scrawled out right in the middle. It's the completion of her brief confession. It's as good as her telling me that she wants me, too.

'Be completely and thoroughly loved.'

I'd like to turn around and storm right back into the house, to take her up on all those five words offer, but I steady my resolve and keep moving. I won't do anything yet. I'll leave things be with the flirtation and little touches that I've already formed an unhealthy addiction to, but not much more, for now. I'll give her some time to change her mind. It's pathetic and juvenile, and it's so far outside of anything I've ever done before, but I can't restrain my internal fist pump at the realization that I just might be able to get in her pants after all.

A/N: Teasers if you want 'em!