Disclaimer: If you don't know by now then you never will. Stephenie Meyer owns it all. I'm just having fun.

Chapter 9: MEMORIES

Jasper POV

"Here you are kitten" I walked over and sat next to Bella on the outside swing in the back of the Cullen house. I had been looking all around for her ever since the Denalis had left twenty minutes ago. Alice had assured me that she needed time to figure out her feelings for Edward and that we should give her space but I wasn't buying it. First, because I knew Bella and second, because I could feel the excitement inside Alice. She was jumping up and down inside that Edward and Bella might get together. What she had really wanted was time to match make.

"I didn't know you were looking for me." She didn't look up but kept her eyes on a flower bush in the distance.

"Yep" I moved the swing back and forth looking to draw her out.

It didn't work. We sat there swinging absently not saying a word. This was the worst I had ever seen her. Bella had always been a bit of a loner but she always seemed willing to talk to me. There were times that she stayed in her head but within minutes if I just sat next to her she would open up. Even that night long ago when she had been scheduled to die and I had talked Maria into keeping her past her one year mark she had eventually talked to me. She had explained that part of her had wanted the flames because she hated the lifestyle that we were forced into. I had understood but selfishly I couldn't let her go. For so long she had been my only tie to humanity.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I couldn't let her sit and be miserable by herself any longer.

"Not really" She still kept her eyes locked away.

"Would you like me to beat him up?" I smiled. I wasn't sure I could take Edward in a fight what with his reading my mind but I did have decades worth of experience and for Bella I could sure try.

"No" Her voice sounded so far away.

"Do you want me to get Alice to beat him up?" That would probably be a fairer fight. He could read her mind and she could predict what he was about to do. They could be fighting for eternity.

She smirked. "That might be worth seeing." She laughed. "Does she even come up to his waist?"

I laughed too. Alice was small but we both knew that she wasn't that small. "Of course she does." Sarcasm was always the best way to get to Bella. "But I was thinking more along the lines of a makeover."

She really laughed at that. "Sure fire way to torture anybody." She finally looked over at me. "Thanks"

I put my arm around her shoulder. "Anytime" I smiled down at her.

She leaned her head on my shoulder and again I worried how to protect her. It seemed Maria wasn't the only hurt after Bella. Edward had somehow wormed his way into her life. I couldn't read her emotions but her face had always been an open book and I saw how she looked at him. She cared for him and his emotions were sky high whenever she was around.

I don't know what happened in that music room before we entered but I could feel him throughout the house. He loved her. There was no denying it. There was also no denying that the blonde woman, Tanya, was not pleased with it. The lust coming off her was enough to make me grab Alice and run for a nearby bed.

But there had been more to it than just lust. I hadn't felt that sort of anger toward Bella since we left Maria. I didn't want to say for certain but I felt hatred coming from her and she didn't know Bella at all. I couldn't understand it until I saw her actions. She had clung to Edward like glue and his emotions had gone from love to disgust faster than Alice could shop. Every time she touched him his body practically vibrated with distain. It was somewhat comical considering I wasn't feeling all that charitable to him since he had hurt Bella.

And she was hurting. I didn't have to feel it to know. Part of me wondered if this had anything to do with the fiancé that I had stolen her from. Could she feel guilt for someone long since dead and gone?

"Bella, can I ask you something?" I had never pushed her to share her past but I didn't want her shoulder any guilt that should be placed with me.

"Always" I could hear the smile in her voice.

"Let me know if I'm over stepping my bounds here." I stalled.

She leaned back and looked me dead in the eye with one of her patented smiles. "I always do"

"True" I smiled back. "But I don't want you to think I'm pushing." I hedged.

"Jazzy, just spit it out." She placed one hand on her waist.

"Okay" I closed my eyes and took a breath. I didn't want to upset her seeing as she had a nasty temper when really mad but I had to know. "What happened earlier with Edward did you….."

"I said I didn't want to talk about it." Her voice rose.

"Not about the two of you." I corrected quickly and she looked as though she had calmed down some. "I was wondering….that is I was just thinking…….well it was possible….."

"Jasper please tell me you are not trying to have the birds and bees talk with me" I started choking. "Because I can assure you that after living this many years and then being alone with you and Alice for three years and now spending a week in this house I think I pretty much know what to expect."

I couldn't breathe. I knew I didn't need to breath but even if I did I would be blue now from lack of oxygen. "Isabella Marie Swan"

"What?" She looked at me smiling. "You started it."

"I can safely tell you that I most certainly did not." All my concern about drudging up the past was gone. "I merely wanted to know if you felt guilt over having feeling for Edward because of your fiancé."

Bella sat and stared at me for a moment and I took that as a yes. "I simply wanted to let you know that you shouldn't." I tried to ease her mind. "That guilt lies with me. I stole you away from him and your family. You can't blame yourself for moving on. He's long gone now and you deserve a chance to be happy. I'm not sure this Edward character is the one for you but whoever does turn out to be him then its okay to be with him." I stammered.

"Not in a birds and bees sort of way; although that is okay to. Well at least it's okay if you love each other and you're sure he's your mate. But you should wait and make sure. Don't rush into anything. Make sure he respects you." I shook my head. This was so much more than I had meant to say.

I looked over at Bella not surprised to find her eyes wide open and on me. Then her shoulders began to shake, her lips cracked, and her eyes closed. Great I had made her cry.

"Bella I'm sorry" I pulled her into a hug. "I didn't mean to make you cry. I just wanted you to know it's alright to like someone."

That was when I heard it. "I'm not crying you idiot." Bella pulled back. "I'm laughing."

"Laughing?"

"Yeah" She looked at me smiling. "What else did you expect? I tell you my own mother didn't have as hard a time with 'the talk' as you just did and that was the night before my wedding."

I was laughing with her until she mentioned the wedding. I stopped and stared at her. "I thought you hadn't been married?"

A somber look crossed her face. "We hadn't" She shrugged. "Our wedding was to be the day after you found me."

I sucked in air but it did nothing to quash the pain spreading through my body. I had changed her on the night before her wedding. I had left a man standing at the altar wondering what happened to the love of his life. How had she ever forgiven me?

"Bella" I moved away from her. "I am so…."

"If you start apologizing to me again Jasper Whitlock I will throw you through that wall over there." She crossed her arms. "I have told you a hundred times there is nothing to apologize for."

"But Bella" Didn't she understand what I had done? "I stole you from your family. I denied you the chance to marry…"

"An ass" she finished for me.

I stared at her. Could she really mean that? "Bella?" She never talked about her human life and I was shocked that she would use such a derogatory term to describe the man that she had been about to share her life with.

"Look Jasper" She took a breath. "You know I hate to talk about my life before you but trust me, Clement was an ass and you did me a favor by stopping that wedding."

I couldn't bring my eyes away from her. "Was he mean to you?"

She laughed again but this wasn't her normal laugh. This one was hollow and sad. "He was mean to everyone; except his mama." She shook her head. "That man would have walked on water had that old bat of a woman asked him to and she hated me. Resented me from the first moment I walked into their house. If she had had a choice it would have been a cold day in hell before Clement and I were married." She laughed again but this one was closer to her regular one. "She probably rejoiced when they couldn't find me for the wedding. I'll bet she even danced on my grave."

I coughed lightly. Could she be serious? I knew Bella would lie to me to make me feel better but she looked so far away like she was stuck in a memory. It was that look that made me believe her.

"If she had hated you so much and didn't want the wedding then why were you marrying him?" She was finally answering some of my long held questions and as long as she would share I would ask.

"Our fathers had been good friends." The look was still there. "They had wanted so much for their children to join the families. So when I was born betrothal agreements were signed. It didn't matter that Clement was already fifteen years old or that he was seeing some other girl in town and had made promises to her." A far off smile crossed her lips. "Papa was stubborn like that. When he wanted something he got it. Didn't matter that he died a few years before, by that time Clement saw me as his property and he wasn't about to let me go."

I started to say something but she kept going. "I tried too. I begged mama but she grieved papa so that she couldn't look at us kids. I asked my brothers but they were all off and married themselves. It didn't help that they had never so much as looked at me for more than two minutes my whole life. They didn't see what the big deal was considering that we had been promised since my birth. I even found a few boys in town and tried to get them to have their way with me but everyone knew I was to marry Clement so no one would go for it." She looked back at me. "In the end I had just resigned myself to my fate and prayed that I would have the strength to endure. I was wondering the fields wishing that I had the strength to run when I felt you come up around me. I knew I was going to die and I welcomed it. I welcomed anything that would take me away from those who were supposed to be closest to me."

She reached out her hand and laid it against my check. "And when I woke and saw your face looking down at me I thanked God that he had spared me. That he had given me a second chance to do what I wanted in life and an eternity to do it in." She smiled. "That is why I have never held you guilty. Why I have never felt anything for you other than love. You saved me and gave me a chance. For that I will always be grateful."

If I could cry I would. All this time I had thought, no I had known, that she resented me for my actions but it was there in her honeyed eyes. She really did mean all that she had said. I wrapped my arms around her and just held her. This was my family. No matter what she was my daughter, sister, whatever. If she thought that I had saved her then I would; anytime she needed.

"You saved me too." I told her.

"Stop your lying" She pulled back and her cheeky smile was back. "I was nothing more than a pain in your butt."

I laughed. "You were that too." I pushed against her. "But you did save me." I told her. "I don't know what type of monster I would have become if I hadn't had you with me to keep me in line. To remind me that there was some humanity left. That was part of my guilt."

"It was?"

"Yes" I put my arm back around her shoulders. "You always seemed so happy to be with us. I knew that you hated what we were doing but when there wasn't fighting or hunting you would be smiling and joking as if you were having the time of your life."

"I was when it was just us." She told me.

"Still it helped to remind me that if you could find happiness somewhere with all that we were living through then maybe there was a chance for me. Which is what made me feel guilty. How could I deserve to be happy after what I had done to you? How could I think that I should have a chance at feeling anything human again after I had stolen your humanity away? And if there was some humanity inside me then how had I done what I did to you?"

"Jasper, you always were so silly" She leaned her head back down. "You always deserved to be happy and you had that wrong."

"How so"

"It was you that kept me happy and smiling and laughing." She seemed so peaceful in her memories of us not like before. "You were always doing something to make me laugh or making fun of me or yourself. You kept me happy. You gave me back my humanity."

I smiled and started the swing again. I felt contentment wrap around me and I looked down to see Bella smiling at me.

"Are you doing that?" I asked.

"Of course" She answered. "I wanted you to really feel that I mean what I said."

"I do" I kissed her forehead. She had said that I gave her back her humanity but as always she had it wrong. She was the reason I was sitting here, the reason I could love Alice, the reason I could love anyone.

It was time. We had been with the Cullens for a week now and Alice for three years and we had shared nothing. They needed to know what might be coming for us if they allowed us to stay. I didn't for one second think that Maria had given up. She would find a way to get to us and if the Cullens or Alice were anywhere near us at the time she would destroy them to. I couldn't let that happen.

I looked down at Bella with her eyes closed resting on my shoulder and a smile on her face. She was happy here. Even with what happened tonight I had seen a lightness to her here that I had never seen before and I knew Edward loved her. I didn't understand his relationship with that Tanya woman and how it pertained to Bella but I felt the love coming from him. I trusted that he would protect her whether I could or not.

And my Alice loved her almost more than she loved me. Sure she drove Bella crazy with the makeovers and dress up but she honestly saw her as a sister or daughter or both. She would do whatever it took to protect her. Emmett would be great to have in a fight and he had taken to Bella like fish to water. He teased her worst than I ever had and always called her his little sis and if Emmett fought with us then so would Rosalie. She would do anything for that man and it went both ways. So with some allies we might be okay but if they were going to stand with us then they needed to know what they were standing up to.

But was it fair? They had known us a week and we had dealt with this for a lifetime. What right did we have to barge in and break up their happy family? To put them all in danger? We needed to give them a choice. They deserved a right to decide if they wanted this burden but either way my lot in this life was to protect Bella. For my humanity and so much more.

"Bella" I stopped the swing so that she would know that I was serious.

"I know" She whispered.

"It's time" She shook her head in agreement.

"I'm scared" She voiced.

"Don't worry" I squeezed her shoulder. "We'll do it together."

"But what if they don't understand?" Her voice was so quiet. "What if you lose Alice?"

My insides cringed at the thought. "I won't."

"You don't know that."

"I do" I had to believe that it was true. "What if you lose Edward?"

"I don't have Edward." She spoke a little louder. "At least not the way that Tanya does."

I smiled. If only she knew but it wasn't my place to tell her. He would have to be a man and share his feeling himself. "Trust me you don't want Edward to feel about you the way he does about Tanya."

"What does that mean?"

"That is a conversation for the two of you." I moved back to what we were previously discussing. "Either way it doesn't change the fact that they need to know."

"Okay" She hesitated. "I hate this."

"So do I."

"Maybe she's forgotten?"

"Unlikely"

"I know"

I hugged her closer. "I want to talk to Alice first."

"Makes sense" She shrugged.

"Would you like to talk to Edward first too?" I teased.

"You must be joking." She swatted at me. "Not after tonight."

I chuckled to myself. It was funny to see Bella jealous. Edward was a lucky man or at least he was if he did right by Bella. If he didn't I would have to step in. No matter what she would always be mine to protect.

"Okay so it's decided" I let out a breath. "We tell them tomorrow."

"Why not tell me now?" I looked over to find Edward staring at us with a look of sear fury across his face. This night just kept getting better and better.

AN: Happy Turkey Day :). I know that I am a day early but with the holiday right around the corner and the fact that I had a death in my family this weekend it was easier for me to post today verses tomorrow. I hope you enjoy and next week we will be back to the regular posting schedule.

Don't make me blue; please review :)