disclaimer: I own nothing Twilight related whatsoever. it's gracefully Stephenie Meyer's.

Also, the song is by Dead Poetic. totally not mine!

I shut my eyes tight to escape these horrors I was going through. I couldn't deal with all of this. It was too much, and I was getting ready to break. My phone kept ringing and ringing, names showed up on my Caller I.D., none of which I wanted to talk to. And then the name came I had been yearning for.

"Carlisle?" my voice was so eager for a positive, uplifting response. "Bella's going to be alright, isn't she?"

I heard a sigh arise. "I don't know, son, I don't know." I didn't hear the rest of what he said. I couldn't listen anymore. Everything I feared was right in front of my eyes. Bella might not make it. And it was all my fault if she didn't.

Well, not all my fault, but I was the one who put her in danger. If it wasn't for me, she'd be alive and well, and not in a hospital bed, dying. She wouldn't have to risk herself over and over if she was away from me. Not in love with me. Doesn't matter much now...

God, just thinking about how all of this happened sent me drowning towards a place way below the ground. If only I could have done something more! If only...

-flashback-

I quickly dialed Jacob Black's house, hoping someone would be awake at this early hour. And luck was with me. "Hello?" a tired voice asked.

"Is this Jacob Black?"

"Yeah..who is this?"

I sighed in relief. "This is Jasper Hale. Listen, before you hang up on me, I really need you to do a favor for me. It regards the safety of Bella Swan."

All was silent on the other end of the line. Then I heard a shuffling noise. "What did you bloodsuckers do to put her in danger?" His brittle voice finally said.

"I'm not entirely sure. But a very infamous, Italian, royal vampire family found out about her, and we have to find a way to get her out of town so they won't find her. If I go with her, they'll just track me down. I need someone who can not only protect her but can confuse her scent."

"So why did you call me?"

"Because you're the only werewolf I'd moderately trust with my girlfriend. And she knows and trusts you. Please, Jacob, please help her out."

I heard hm groan. "You're gonna owe my pack. Lucky for you, I happen to care about Bella' well-being, so I'll bite--no pun intended. Assuming the time you're calling, you need me to come over to her house now?"

"If you could. Use the window instead of the door. Charlie can't know."

"Got it." He hung up before I could get a word in. I was going to thank him, but I guess that would have to wait. For now I had to wake up Bella and get her informed. I shook her gently and she responded by opening her eyes, then being frightened by my frantic mood.

"Bella, you need to get your stuff together now. You need to get out of town. I don't really know what is going on, but Jacob Black is going to get you away from here."

She nodded without asking any more questions and gathered clothes into a backpack of hers, quietly trying to unzip iy so Charlie doesn't wake. "Jasper, can you get my stuff from the bathroom? I don't want Charlie--" I was nodding before she'd finished her sentence and hurried to gather all of her things and was back in a split second.

She was packing the stuff and I was helping her when there was a noise at the window. I stifled Bella's scream by changing her emotion from fear to complacency. "It's only Jacob, Bella." I soothed her as she relaxed into my arms.

He came through the window and crossed his arms, a scowl on his face. I thought it would be kind of rude to cringe, but he really did smell terribly awful. "So where am I whisking the princess off to?" he asked me.

I cleared my throat. "Far enough to get her to safety. Far enough to where the Volturi can't track her scent."

"The Volturi?" she whispered, and then shivered. "I knew they were coming after me."

"The Volturi's those Italian leeches?" Jacob asked. I confirmed.

"Just please take her far enough away so there's no danger. I don't know for how long. But I'll call you when it's safe."

"Yeah. Okay. I'll make sure I put you on my speed dial." Didn't know someone could be that sarcastic!

"Jacob, thank you so much for this; really. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." He rolled his eyes. "You're welcome. But I'm not doing it for you."

"I know. But I'm still very gratuitous towards you."

I turned to Bella then, put my hands on her shoulders. Tears were rushing towards her eyes. I wiped them away. "Hey, don't cry. Everything will be okay. I just want you to know that I love you with every beat of your heart. That'll never change. Even if your heart stops beating. Forever and always, right?"

She laughed meagerly and nodded. I took her face in my hands, and I kissed her with more emotions than an entire roomful of people, not caring if the werewolf could see us. He made a gagging sound, then told Bella they had to go.

I watched him climb out the window with her stuff, then catch her in his arms when she fell. His VW Beetle was parked around the corner, and I watched as they climbed in. "Gratuitous," he muttered. "Who says stuff like that?"

They drove away, leaving me in a solitary room, wishing I could run after the car and be the one who got to lead her to safety, not Jacob Black. But none of this was going to get solved by me yearning, looking out a window at silhouettes on a horizon.

I returned back to the Cullen house; took my usual place at the dining room table and looked at Edward for an explanation. He was going to give me an explanation of how the Volturi managed to find Bella out.

"Alice was right. There's a vampire coven just passing through, and they saw you and Bella together. They were shocked and confused. But you see, the head guy is a tracker, and he caught onto the scent. He knew about us from the start."

What? Okay, what is that supposed to mean? "It means he knows Aro. And Aro is trying to find incriminating evidence on us because he feels threatened by our large numbers. He was spying on us, and he reported what he'd seen to Aro."

My heart rose into my throat. I felt like I was choking on reality. "One more thing, though. The Volturi is like, the least of our worries, cause Aro's willing to let her live if we promise to change her. It's the tracker I'm worried about. His plan to abduct her and do god knows what. We have to make sure her scent is derailed."

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem then, should it? I mean, Jacob Black will completely obscure her scent, right?" I knew that wouldn't be enough. If he was serious about tracking her, he would find her. He would find some way to get around Jacob, and that would be the end of Bella. We couldn't save her. It would be too late.

"Not necessarily, Jasper. If you're keeping in contact with Jacob, you can make sure you know where they are. We can make sure you know where they are. We can stay here, in case something goes wrong. Everything will be fine."

I sure hoped it would. Because everything in my life would change if she was gone. Everything. More than I could bear to realize at this point.

My family looked at my sympathetically and then disbanded from the table, breaking off into smaller groups and leaving me to drown in all of my sorrows. I didn't want to call Jacob and pry; to seem like I was being completely over protective or something. Like I am with everything else in my life.

And the only thing I could do was sit around and wait for a call from Jacob to tell me that everything is alright, or not so alright, depending on how determined this tracker is. But if I'm trusting Jacob to take care of her, he better not screw this up. If she dies under his watch...let's just say he'll be walking around with three legs, rather than four. I guess that sounds mean, but Bella's life is at stake here.

I wanted to get up and ask Alice if the vision she'd had was still the same, or if it had changed any. I still wanted to rush after the car and follow Jacob and Bella to wherever they were going. It sucks being completely incompetent when it comes to blood. How I can't even stand to be around it without the frenzy beginning. How, even though she could be in a hospital dying, I wouldn't even be able to visit her.

Just then my side started buzzing, and I read Jacob's name on my Caller I.D. I opened the phone, and he didn't wait to start talking. "Jasper, I don't know what's going on." His words were slightly slurred. I was wondering that myself...

"Where's Bella? Is everything alright?"

"I...I don't know. One minute I was talking to her and she said she had to go to the bathroom, and then she never came out. No one I've asked has seen her."

I sighed, clenching my jaw hard, fihgting with myself to say something I didn't mean. "That's okay, Jacob. It's alright. Do you at least hace any helpful information that could help us find Bella?"

"Umm..." his voice shook with hesitancy. "I don't exactly know where she is...but we were at an airport. She wanted to go to Arizona and warn her mom and stuff. I let her use my phone to call her, and she called her back, said to wait til she picked her up."

"Thanks. You're being very helpful." I faught with myself again to maintain a pleasant voice, and to use kind words, despite what I wanted to do.

No one hesitated to get into motion as I hung up the phone. Edward and I got into the Volvo, Emmett and Alice into the Jeep, and Esme and Rosalie into her BMW. Carlisle was staying here until we needed him, gathering up medical devices in case we needed it. He'd be on the plane with us, though.

We sped through the road, to catch something that would lead us in the right direction. Edward was talking on the phone all the while, trying to get us tickets to go Phoenix.

I should have known she'd want to go there. Didn't want to put her mom and Phil in any danger. But I thought maybe they'd go someplace a little less obvious.

We got onto a plane quickly and sat around once again, being helpless as we drifted into the sky, hurtling towards a new town. I should have known something like this would happen. The tracker and Bella were probably the most stubborn people, both determined to do whatever they wanted, and not to give up. He could have tricked her, she could have done whatever it takes to keep her family safe.

Geez, would the plane move any faster? I felt like I was going 10 miles per hour, even though Edward reminded me a dozen times that it was faster than flying. It was the worst feeling in the world--not knowing if she was dying or not. It made me feel a bit better that Carlisle was here, and he'd know exactly what to do. But I couldn't help but keep thinking: what if we were too late? What if the tracker had already killed her? Or she'd already been bitten and the venom was spreading throughout her body?

I wouldn't mind if she was a vampire sometime in the future, years later and after she had a whole lifetime of experiences. But not now. Not like this. Not when she has so much more to live for. So much more to see and do. Her life couldn't jst abruptly end now, when she has so many things to look forward to.

Still, I anxiously sat in the plane seat next to Edward, who I'm sure was reading my thought and making a concoction of helpful things to do or say to calm me down. With my overreacting all the time, though, I don't know how it was going to help.

"Okay, Jasper, here's the plan," Edward whispered towards me, in case there were any eavesdroppers. "We;re going to go to Bwlla's parents house, see if she can find something from there. And when we do, Carlisle and I will find her. Just for safe measure I'm going to ask you to stay behind."

I nodded my head emphatically. That was the safest bet. "We'll call you when we find Bella." I nodded again, unsure of my ability to speak. As much as it killed me to jsut sit around, useless, waiting for a prognosis, I knew it's exactly what I had to do. Just in case she was bleeding. I couldn't be around her very well.

Just then the plane started to descend, and I relaxed a little. It meant we were getting closer to resolving these issues. And hopefully closer to saving a human's life. Ironic when you think about it, isn't it? A vampire saving a human instead of killing it.

I was about to rip my seatbelt off and run out the doors by the time the plane had reached land. It was taking forever to unload and I was eager to get away from the airport. Carlisle gave me a disapproving eye and whispered 'patience' until the seatbelt sign turned off.

I unclipped it and jumped out of my seat, getting into the aisle and following Edward as we unboarded. Once we got in the airport, we waited for Carlisle who was still getting off the plane and we hurried past security. They looked at us strangely from the lack of luggage but let us pass by unscathed.

We were outdoors now, but surrounded by people and that made it hard for us to escape properly. We tried to push through crowds of people waiting for a taxi cab or the bus to find someplace out of the view of human eyes. We briskly walked til we found a place we were sure no one was watching us, and then we ran.

It wasn't hard to tell in which direction we were supposed to be traveling in. The air was fused with Bella's freesia scent, leaving us a trail to follow down to Scottsdale. It didn't take too long to reach her house, and then we were flinging open the door hastily.

Upon entering the house my hairs bristled as I caught the icy scent of another vampire long gone--the tracker. It made me furious to know that he'd been here, looking through her family's objects, touching things...made me want to rip his throat out.

In the kitchen by the phone was a number on a pad of paper and a brochure for Mimi's Ballet Studio. I vaguely remembered Bella saying something about dancing some when she was a little kid. She'd claimed she'd been awful, and quit at about age nine. A ballet studio sounded like a great place for a theatric death. Maybe the tracker led her there.

Edward nodded at my thoughts. "Sounds like something our tracker would do, too. We'll check it out. Make sure you keep your cell on and wait for our call, Jasper. And please stay here."

I didn't have the will to argue with him. He informed Carlisle of the location, and my family was off in search of Bella again. I could catch the trail of the tracker going in the direction they were headed, and prayed to got it was the right place.

When they caught the guy, I hoped they'd save him for me. That they'd get Bella in a safe place first, then call me so I could finish the bastard off. I deserved to be the one to rip him to shreds. If he messes with my girlfriend and harmed her in any way, then death would be exactly what was coming for him.

I sat down on a stool in the kitchen by the phone and waited for a call. I knew it could take a while for an answer...I just didn't know what to do in the meantime. I needed something to keep myself preoccupied. I needed something to keep me from remembering the situation I was in...

-end flashback-

"Jasper, everything will turn out okay in the end. Things will be fine, son." Carlisle told me.

"Just as long as that tracker's not alive," I snapped, knowing I had no right to use that tone with Carlisle, when all he'd been doing is trying to help.

"Edward...eliminated him." His voice was filled with remorse. I knew he was against murder at all costs, but we had a pretty good reason for him to be taken out of this world. "He won't hurt anyone else."

Exactly. We had to kill him so no one else could die. So no one else would be dying or changed. "Carlisle...did he bite her?"

He sighed. "Yes, he did. We got there just in time to stop the venom from spreading too much and causing permanent damage. But Jasper, she's lost a lot of blood and she's in a deep coma right now. There's no telling when she's going to wake up."

"Can I visit her?"

"Umm..." he was very hesitant to answer. "I don't think that would be a good idea right now, son. It's even hard for Edward to be around her. Give it a couple of days until you come down to the hospital."

But I wanted to be with her now, not two days from now. I wanted to stay by her side all of the time, holding her hand. I wanted to be the first thing she sees when she opened her eyes. But of course I couldn't do that. If only I could just choose mind over matter...

I shut off the phone and put my head in my hands. This could not be happening to me. I couldn't lose everything! Not again...

From my peripherals, I saw a guitar, dusty, in a corner and handled with care, plucking strings. It looked like it hadn't been used in forever, and it was still in mint condition. I begun to tune the strings, and then familiarized myself with the way it played.

I began to form a new song in my mind then, scrambling to find a pen to write with on the tiny pad of paper provided on the kitchen counter. I wote it out with the pen I could find, then sang it with meaning, with emphasis. With total clue of how absurd my voice sounded, breaking. With knowledge of how useless the words actually were. With an understanding that Bella and I should have never been together in the first place. But still I continued on...

"Cause you bleed all the time. The pieces of a broken heart are wasted time. And I can't forgive myself for all the things I've done. But you, you do.

"Bleed one more time for me. 'Cause my heart is filled with loneliness, and this world is filled with loneliness. Bleed one more time for me. 'Cause the struggles of this world are blistering. Blistering.

"Your cells run through my veins. The times you lifted a dead man. That's me again. And I can't forgive myself for all the things I've done. But you, you do.

"Bleed one more time for me. 'Cause my heart is filled with loneliness, and this world is filled with loneliness. Bleed one more time for me. 'Cause the struggles of this world are blistering. Bleed one more time for me. 'Cause the struggles of this world are blistering. Blistering."

I wasn't sure what I meant by these lyrics, or what I was trying to get across. Maybe that I couldn't stop fate? That, in this world, in order to feel okay again, we have to bleed? Did I even know if the words had meaning, or were they just a bunch of nonsense put together with a melody?

I couldn't tell. Couldn't think. The only thing on my mind was Bella, and what she looked like right now. She'd be in a hospital gown, an I.V. attached to her. Possible there'd be a brace on her leg from where the glass had gotten stuck. There'd probably be blood in her hair, drying. And one of those gauze bandages, with a nurse checking the dressings every hour or so.

I pictured her in deep, critical condition, hoping my view of what she looked like was wrong on every level. And the only person who could tell me that was Alice, who had called me--I had to check my phone just to make sure--five times since I had been waiting for either Edward or Carlisle to call me.

I dialed her number now and she answered on the first ring, telling me how happy she was to hear my voice again.

'I heard what happened, I'm so sorry!" she babbled. "Or, rather, I saw most of it. He's got it all on tape and I was browsing through it to see what he'd done to her. Poor thing. The tracker snapped her leg, smashed her into a mirror, and bit her." I could imagine her shaking her head.

"I did learn something from the video about my human life, though,' she continued. "I am in the dark for most of my life, that's why I don't remember anything. In the dark in a mental institution. I was in love with a vampire who worked there.

"But the tracker was after me also, so he broke me out of my asylum and changed me. The reason I was born alone, is because when the tracker found out I was already becoming a vampire, he didn't want anything more to do with me. He killed the other vampire who changed me, and then left."

I was stunned at Alice's evaluations. He'd been after two of the women I loved. What am I, poison or something? "So how are you doing?" she demanded, and I sighed, dreading that question.

"Not so great at this point. Carlisle's forbidding me to see her until the smell of blood's been washed away. It's hard, being away from her, knowing she's at the hospital. I just really wish I could be there for her. Relieved she's not dead, relieved the tracker's dead, but also mad for the danger she was in, angry I put her in that situation."

"You shouldn't blame yourself for everything," she noted. "This could have happened if she'd been involved with any of us. If you're going to make it your fault for dating her, then you have to blame the whole family. Especially me, for being her best friend. And I know the only person you're blaming is yourself."

She paused, then spoke again. "The tracker is the only one you need to be angry with. He's the one who caused this, not you."

I swallowed hard. "Yeah, I guess so..." I sighed again, knowing she didn't believe anything that was coming out of my mouth now. "I'll stop blaming myself if that's what you want..."

I drifted off at her dubious 'mhm'. Then I started over. "Look, I gotta go. I'm sure Jacob will want to know what's going on so he can tell his pack. He's still at the airport somewhere, and I have to go find him."

"Good luck," she told me, and then hung up.

Oh, god, I wish closing my eyes would bring sweet dreams, free of pain. Instead, all I still seemed to be getting were image of Bella's battle with the tracker. I doubted if the images would ever leave me alone again. And if they did, I'd still have the memory of just how much I will always be able to hurt her behind my sleepless eyelids.