Chapter 10 - War

JPOV

My anger had been slowly building again as I held my girl, waiting for her to fall asleep. So had my guilt for that matter. Of all the fucked up shit I had done in my existence, this was surely a winner. I almost killed the woman I loved and the only reason I didn't was because I took her, violated her, released my inner demon. How she could look me in the eyes again, I didn't know. If I were her, I would have ripped off my balls. But she didn't. She even told me she loved me. And now I felt like the world's biggest bastard.

Finally, she was asleep and with a gentle kiss on her forehead, I left her in our bed. Before I could tell her the rest of my history, I needed to ask Peter and Charlotte if I could tell the entire story, because it wasn't mine alone. Suddenly a thought popped into my mind and I rushed into their bedroom.

"Fucker!" I screamed at him as I grabbed him by the neck and smashed him roughly into the wall.

"You must have known something would happen on the hunt, jerk face," I hissed at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He was afraid of me, though he tried to hide that fact from his wife. The strongest emotion I sensed from him was regret though.

"I wished I had now," he croaked and I released my grip a little.

"Explain yourself."

"I knew things weren't going to go according to plan, but that you'd both be fine afterwards and that your bond would be stronger because of it. That's all I knew, I swear."

I released him when I felt his sincerity and I half expected a punch in the face for grabbing him like that. Instead, he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

"It was only after you had come home, projecting that kind of guilt and self-loathing, that I put the pieces together. I know now and had I known before, I never would have let the girl out of my sight. I'm sorry."

I couldn't answer him right then. I was trying my very best not to get swallowed by darkness again and going on a killing spree. Peter knew me too well and stood by me, holding onto my shoulder, restraining and supporting me at the same time. I was clinging to the love I felt from Charlotte and him, the love I knew Isabella had for me, and very slowly backed away from my inner demon. It was probably one of the hardest battles I had ever needed to fight: the battle with myself. For ages it didn't even seem like I was winning until I realized I had been standing there for hours and hadn't killed anyone. In the next couple of hours I was able to push the murderous rage far enough into the background for the guilt to take its place again.

"Go tell her our story, Jasper," Charlotte finally said and gave me a peck on my cheek.

I went back to our room to find Isabella on the verge of waking up. This next part I was dreading most, because this could be the deal breaker. If she couldn't cope with this, the people we used to be, then she would be gone forever. And I had come so close to losing her already, I felt like a prisoner on death row, walking the last hallway towards the gas chamber.

I sat down on the bed as gently as I could, but she woke anyway. Surprisingly, there was a smile on her face when she saw me. She stretched and turned to her stomach, mumbling to fuck off or at least get her some coffee. She certainly seemed to be alright. I hurried to the kitchen, made a quadruple ristretto and went back to my girl. The aroma of the coffee made her stir again and she sat up, silently taking the cup from me.

"So, I guess this is the time where you tell me all about you?" she half asked and her grumpiness made way for her curiosity. There should have been some form of apprehensiveness coming from her, but all I felt coming from her was complete trust, which made it a little easier for me to start talking.

"Peter, Charlotte and I escaped Maria in 1910 and wandered around the United States for a bit. We were restless nomads, always looking for something we couldn't find, wreaking havoc on small communities, turning them into ghost towns. We had a blast during the first part of the Mexican Revolution, but still the restlessness stayed. Until in 1914, when the Germans invaded Belgium and France and World War I started. We set sail on a ship to Britain and enrolled in the army. The trenches of Flanders fields were a feast for us hungry vampires."

After that statement, I stopped talking and waiting for her to freak out. I was well aware that patriotism was a rekindled emotion since 9/11 and the tolerance for feeding on soldiers would be very low. A few minutes of silence changed nothing about her emotions, rather than make her a tad uncomfortable. I began wondering if she understood what I had said.

"Do you understand what I'm saying Isabella? The three of us pretended to be soldiers and massacred entire platoons of our supposed to be fellow soldiers."

She nodded slowly and then surprised the hell out of me by reciting a poem.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields."

She sighed and produced a sad smile.

"This is the only poem I know by heart. We learned it in our history class last year and it kind of stuck. I don't know much about the First World War, but what I do know is that the trenches were the last place you would want to be. And I'm pretty sure that what humans did to other humans was far worse than what you did to get fed. So unless you're still doing that, don't expect me to run away screaming."

I was momentarily baffled by her little monologue, but then I remembered how well she had taken the first part of my history. I probably should have expected this kind of reaction. But then again, I had dismissed her easy acceptance of my past as a reaction to my dazzling vampire exterior. Guess I was wrong.

"So why do you hate being called Major? It seems like that was all a good time for the three of you."

"That's because my story wasn't finished," I answered her and went on with the tale. "After the treaty of Versailles, we went in search of other wars and armed conflicts around the world. It was like we were made to live in war zones, pretending to be mercenaries or regular soldiers, but always turning on the men who put their lives into our hands to survive. I led Peter and Charlotte through Africa, Eastern Asia and China and we were never hungry. They called me Major after my old title in the Civil War and I loved it. Our army of three couldn't be defeated and we felt freer than we ever had before.

We returned to Europe when the Spanish Revolution broke out in 1936. Meanwhile, something was stirring in the rest of the continent, with Hitler and Mussolini both in office. A storm was coming and we were determined to be in the middle of it. By the time the war started we were in a frenzy. We fought for almost every country; we were even part of the resistance in Holland for a short time. And when the attack on Pearl Harbor forced the US to join the war, we could even fight for our own country. We traveled all over the world searching for the war's hot spot to maximize the number of humans we could drain. But sometimes I needed a break, so we spent some time apart in big cities that weren't affected by the war. And by an incredible coincidence I found myself alone in the city of Hiroshima on August 6th 1945."

She gasped when she put the pieces together and I felt her anxiousness spike.

"You mean," she stuttered, "you mean you were actually there, right there, when they dropped the bomb?"

I nodded.

"I very nearly got incinerated. Luckily I wasn't in the central blast area. You see, heat alone doesn't hurt us; we need the presence of a flame to burn. It is the venom in our veins that burns, not our skin, and that's what saved my life, or rather my undead ass. But I saw first hand what it did to the humans and although I had been a ruthless killer for most of my existence, I couldn't take it. I was so utterly disgusted by the whole thing that I shunned the whole human race for a decade and still want nothing to do with anything army related."

"So you switched your diet to eating animals and you get mad when people call you Major," she summed up my story, her feelings radiating nothing but understanding.

"I'm not that man anymore and I don't want to be. I don't feel sorry for what I did during those years and I'm certainly not trying to atone for it. I'm just different now, but still very much a vampire."

"I understand, Jasper, I do. I like you for the person you are and I'm not going to try and change you. And as long as you're honest, nothing will stand between us."

As soon as she said those words, a huge weight was lifted off my chest. I hadn't even realized it was there.

"I like it when you smile like that," Bella said suddenly and I was surprised by how happy she was. My smile only got bigger.

"Don't say stuff like that, Bella. I'm a badass vampire and I have a reputation to uphold."

She swatted at me playfully and I pushed her against the headboard of the bed, placing light kisses on her neck.

"I'm sure you're still a creepy motherfucker to any human other than me," she assured me and wrapped her arms and legs around me. I had to remind myself she was still sore from yesterday, but that didn't mean we couldn't have some fun.

AN: Sorry it took so long, Jasper's POV is always harder for me to write. Thanks to mcruscito for beta'ing and a get well soon to my regular beta Kaitsa.