AN: SM owns the characters. There a bit in here I'd like to dedicate to mrsalreyma and her love of all things moose-like.

Chapter 21

"Bella, I think we have a problem," Jasper said, looking around him in shock. There was no response from the woman still submerged in the hot water next to him. "Bella," he said, more sharply.

When there was still no response, he sighed and reached down through the water and grabbed her arm, heaving her out of the water and setting her down on her feet, so she stood beside him, waist deep in steaming hot water.

"Why'd you do that?" she asked, sounding – and feeling - more than a little annoyed.

"Look," he said, gesturing toward the bank.

She glared at him for another moment, then turned to look where he was pointing.

"Shit," she whispered. "When did that happen?"

There was snow on the ground. At least a foot, maybe more.

"Well, SOMETIME in the last couple of weeks..." Jasper said, feeling as puzzled as she looked.

"Two weeks?" she yelped, sounding shocked. "We've been here for two weeks?"

It was his turn to look shocked. "No. We've been here over two months – we haven't come up for air in two weeks. Don't you know how long we've been here?" he asked her.

"I have a hard time with telling time anymore, you know, after the...box...and the cave...I just don't notice it going by..." she trailed off, her eyes sliding away from his, focusing in the direction of the forest.

"Oh...sorry. Yeah, it's been almost two and a half months. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised about the snow." Looking at it, though, Jasper still felt surprised.

"Wow. That's gotta be some kind of record, don't you think?" Bella said, quickly recovering from her moment of melancholy.

He laughed. "Actually, it's NOT a record. I'm pretty sure Emmett and Rosalie hold that honor."

"Really? For being submerged in a hot spring?"

"Absolutely. Six months. It's in Emmett's book."

"Emmett has a book?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. His 'Vampire's Book of World Records'." Bella looked at him in disbelief. "I'm not lying to you. He's very serious about it. Of course, not surprisingly, he holds most of the records in it - he bugs the hell out of other vampires when we run into them, asking them about things they've done, shit like that. Some of it IS cool," Jasper admitted. "And I'm pretty sure you're in it a couple times."

"Me?" Now she was shocked. "What have I done that would have gotten me in there? And why didn't he ever say anything to me about it? How did I not know anything about this book?" Bella was pretty sure she didn't like the sound of that. Not one bit. Not knowing Emmett the way she did.

It was Jasper's turn to look away and not make eye contact, confirming Bella's fears. "Um...I think that's something you should take up with him, Bella. It's HIS book. And really, you were pretty, um, preoccupied, you know? You really didn't have much time for family time before you and Edward left..." he winced a little at saying that, but really, he couldn't keep avoiding that whole time in her life. And he noticed she didn't flinch when he brought it up.

"Yeah, I guess so...but he is SO showing it to me when we get home...six months, though? They didn't actually go six months without eating, did they?"

"Neither did we," he pointed out.

And they hadn't. One week into Bella's "Spa Stay" - as she'd labeled it - Jasper had announced that they HAD to eat. Even though she'd dropped her shield enough that daily feeding wasn't necessary, her eyes had darkened to black again. And so he'd attempted dragging her out of the water. She'd snapped at him, sharp teeth barely missing his hand, yelling that she was NOT leaving the hot water, for any reason.

"Yeah, but WE played alligator. So, technically we didn't leave the water," she said firmly, suddenly convinced that they needed to be in Emmett's book. "So, really, that should beat Emmett and Rosalie's record."

"Well, TECHNICALLY, you DID leave the water. For exactly 4.5 seconds," Jasper reminded her.

With Bella's insistence that she was not leaving the water, and a few additional tooth snappings in Jasper's direction to reinforce her words, came the invention of the game Bella had dubbed "Alligator". The hot springs seemed to be a fairly popular watering hole, especially as the weather got colder. Jasper and Bella would lie submerged in the pool, waiting for an unsuspecting beast to come down for a drink. Their first victim was a large bull moose. It had a magnificent spread of antlers, and Jasper had felt guilty for a moment. The guilt disappeared, though, as Bella breached the water ahead of him and grabbed onto the great beast's neck as it bent down to drink, simultaneously dragging it further into the water and attempting to snap its neck. She may have been a vampire, but the creature had size on its side, and it was actually able to fling her off of itself. She had flown through the air and landed back in the pool on her butt, a look of surprise on her face. Jasper was on the creature before it had even finished its shake, and he had dropped it into the water with a resounding snap of its neck.

Bella stood up and joined him in the water next to the beast. "I can't believe that happened," she said, extremely disgruntled.

"Don't worry about it," Jasper said, trying to soothe her ruffled pride, even though he knew the fact that he was trying not to laugh wasn't helping matters.

"I'm supposed to be the ultimate predator, and I just ended up on my ass in a puddle thanks to my dinner!" she said.

"Bella, we ARE the ultimate predator. But a moose is NOT our natural prey. You're designed to take down PEOPLE. Not a 2,000 pound moose. He had physics on his side, babe. You'd have gotten him in the end. Especially if you'd been more willing to leave the damn water. You can't get a good grip on something like that, at your height, if you aren't willing to get up there on top of it. Why do you think Emmett likes taking on bears so much? Even though we know we'll get 'em in the end, at least it's a bit of a challenge. I can guarantee, when faced with your natural prey, there is not a human male alive that you could not lure in and have drained in under two minutes, with no trouble at all. Come on, before he congeals." Jasper squatted down in the water at the creature's neck, and gestured for her to join him. After a moment's hesitation, she did, reaching for the other side. She and Edward had shared meals like this, and it felt odd sharing with someone else. Even if they had become lovers.

Odd, but at the same time, completely right.

The memory made her laugh. "Yeah, but I got the next two just fine, so...if you don't count that FIRST week, since I guess I did leave the water, that STILL counts as over two months in the water. Of course...I guess they could have played alligator, too." The thought seemed to bother her. "Do you know if they did, Jasper?"

Jasper had to laugh at her sudden obsession with Emmett and Rosalie's hot spring stay. "I honestly have NO idea, Bella. I didn't really care enough to ask for details."

"Well, that's it, then. We only have to stay another FIVE months, and we'll have beat their record with a good margin of error." Quicker than he could stop her, she'd did a backwards dive into the water. Jasper noticed that as graceful as she was in her execution, she'd made sure that her feet didn't leave the water, making it more of a graceful flop. He sighed and dove in after her, reappearing a second later with a struggling Bella in tow. She may have been stronger than a moose, but she wasn't stronger than him.

"Bella," he said, exasperation filling his voice. "We can't stay here."

"We most certainly can," she insisted. "I have a date with Emmett's record book."

"What about Europe? Remember, you just HAVE to go to Italy?" They didn't have to, he thought desperately. He didn't want to go to Italy. But he DID want to get her out of the water.

"I don't," she lied, knowing he wasn't buying it. She didn't want to go anywhere. She wanted to ignore the pull. She could ignore it, if she was wrapped around him.

"We have got to leave. The full moon's only a couple of weeks away."

A flash of fear crossed her face, and he felt it from her, too, but then it just as quickly disappeared. "We were here during the last two full moons, and nothing happened to us," she pointed out smugly.

"I made sure we were under water the whole time the last two full moons," Jasper said.

"Then we'll just stay under this month, too – and every month. See, it will work out just fine!"

Jasper sighed again. He was doing that way too much since he'd found Bella, he reflected briefly. "Last two times they hadn't found us. This month, they know we're here."

"WHAT?" she shouted. "Are you sure?" she continued in a whisper.

"Yes. About two weeks ago, there was someone here. And it smelled not-quite-human. I probably would not have noticed a difference – Carlisle was right about that – but since I'd run into them before, in their human form, and knew what to look for, I could tell. He stayed for a day, then left. But he knows we're in here." He didn't mention that he was fairly certain it was Mstislav. He didn't know quite what to make of that information himself, and he didn't want to discuss it with her yet.

"How did I miss all this? Why didn't you say something earlier?" she hissed at him, beginning to get truly frightened.

"Relax, Bella. I didn't say anything earlier because we needed to stay SOMEWHERE until your eyes turned gold, and you seemed happy here. In fact, I would have been more than happy to stay longer, if it wasn't for this thing showing up. I wouldn't have mentioned it at ALL, but quite frankly, I knew you'd be a pain in the ass to get out of the water, so I figured a little bit of fear would light a fire under your ass and get you moving. As to why you missed it? Well, the fact that you won't get out of the water has something to do with that."

"Relax? RELAX? Excuse me, but have you SEEN my BACK lately?" she was screeching now.

"Every day, babe. Look, he's gone. But he'll be back, and he might bring friends. We'll get dressed now and take off, and we'll be halfway to Europe before the full moon..."

"Oh, Jasper," she moaned, looking at the snow again. "What about our clothes?"

"I put them up above the falls in a little cave, along with the Bond Bag."

"You left the water?"

"Well, it wasn't my Spa Stay, and I'm not trying to break some sort of record - that is all you, sweetheart." Jasper swam back across the pool and clambered up the rock next to the falls. Their clothes were still hidden in the rocks, along with the bag, nice and dry back away from the snow. The phone and GPS were fully charged as well. At least one of them had been thinking about something other than comfort during the past few weeks, Jasper thought with a snort. Although, if anyone had ever needed to just relax and think about nothing other than warm water, it was Bella.

"C'mon, Bella. Climb up here and get dressed, and let's get going. There'll be other hot springs, I promise you. Leave with me now, and I promise we'll break Emmett's record when we finally get home. We'll stay under for a whole YEAR if that's what you want to do. But, please, let's get moving".

She scrambled up to the ledge where he was standing and began pulling her clothes on, staring sadly down at the water.

"I really liked it here," she said softly.

"I did too, Bella," Jasper told her, pulling her in close to him. "I promise, I'll find another one for you when we get home. I know where lots of them are, all over Canada and Alaska."

"Promise?" she asked, looking up at him.

"Promise," he said softly, lowering his head to kiss her.

They ran at full speed through the night, their feet barely leaving marks in the snow. Even though it wasn't cold to her, the sensation of running through the deep snow in her bare feet felt extremely odd to Bella. Skimming across the top of it felt even odder. The rising sun found them a few hundred miles south of their hot springs, and Jasper thought they'd be coming up on a fairly decent-sized town soon, based on the increasing number of dwellings they'd passed during the night. They'd come out of the mountains, but they were still in heavy woodland. They were running along a road now, as the sun rose. The road had not been plowed, and there were no tire tracks in the snow. They hadn't seen or heard a vehicle, either, since they'd picked it up, and the town Jasper had hoped for had yet to appear. As the daylight intensified, they moved off the road, continuing to run alongside of it, but remaining in the trees and out of sight.

The trees finally opened out onto what Bella thought might be farmland during warmer months. The tree line was on the crest of a hill, and it afforded them a view of a river winding through open land. A small town sat on the river bank, on their side of the river. The road was still unplowed, and there was no bridge in the town leading to the other side, but from here they could make out a couple of vehicles coming and going across what looked to be a ford across the river, although there was still no traffic on their section of road.

"There we go, Bella. We can go in tonight, get some better clothes so we'll blend in, and catch a ride out of here on one of those trucks."

"Why do we need to ride?" Bella asked. "Wouldn't it be easier, and quicker, to just keep running?"

"Quicker, maybe, but we're leaving a trail."

'"But there's only the one road out of town," she pointed out. "It'll be pretty obvious which way we went ..."

"But that road leads to other roads. Obvious which way we left town, yes, but after that...not so easy to find us."

She nodded. "Alright, that makes sense..."

By midnight they were on their way south, riding atop a freight truck that had definitely seen better days. They sat on the canvas-covered load, hanging on to a bar of the roof's frame to prevent themselves from getting bounced off onto the snowy road.

"I thought Russians were blond," Bella told Jasper. "Everybody in that town looked, I don't know, Chinese or Mongolian or something..."

"Russians do tend to be blond. The people out here aren't Russian, though. They're, well, I don't know what they call themselves. Besides comrade..."

"Not anymore," Bella interjected.

"Right. Not anymore. Anyway, I would guess they're pretty closely related to the Chinese."

"I feel ridiculous in this get-up," she said, letting go with one hand and gesturing to her fur hat. Jasper had one to match, and they both wore old parkas over their clothes from earlier. Winter boots and gloves completed the picture. They should pass inspection if anybody decided to look closely at them. "And to be honest, the stuff stinks really bad."

"We're going to Yakutsk," Jasper said, as if that should be somehow reassuring, ignoring her comment about the smell. His clothing smelled, too, but he couldn't do anything about it at the moment.

"And that means exactly...what?" Bella asked him.

"Yakutsk is a fairly big place, we should be able to blend in, get some better clothes – some NEW clothes. If we can make it south from there, or even to Irkutsk, we could ride the train all the way to Moscow – you know, the Orient Express? Then make our way into Europe from there. Yakutsk is over 1000 miles from Irkutsk, though, and I'm not sure what kind of travel takes place between the cities, especially in the winter..." he trailed off, realizing that Bella was staring at him in shock.

"How do you KNOW all this...this...stuff? First the missile base, now the towns. And you speak Russian, and...and you're just like a walking trivial pursuit game!"

"Bella, we're vampires, we never forget ANYTHING. And we never sleep. It leaves a lot of free time to pursue a variety of interests."

"Are you telling me you're interested in Russia?" she teased him.

"I was," Jasper said, sounding formal, not rising to her bait. "On a more...tactical...level. The cold war was almost over by the time you were born, Bella, but it was right there staring us in the face for a pretty big chunk of my existence. And I'm a military man. Know your enemy, and all that."

"Hmmm. Well, do you think they'll have something with less fur on it in this Yakutsk place?"

"I'm sure we can find you something a little more modern looking," he assured her. "I never would have expected Bella Swa...Cullen," he corrected, mentally kicking himself, "to be concerned with how she looked, though." It was his turn to tease her. She took it with good grace, though, ignoring his slip with her name.

"Yeah, I know, I'm finding it hard to believe myself. But this coat weighs more than I do, and I feel like I can't maneuver in it. And I'd like you to know that I'm not completely fashion ignorant."

"Alice would be proud," he told her, laughing.

"She's probably cringing even as we speak," Bella said sourly, and Jasper's laughter cut off abruptly. The knowledge that his former mate was probably seeing everything that was happening made him sad on some level. He knew she would not begrudge either of them their happiness, but the feeling of violation and theft still haunted him. He hoped that she was able to deal with her own feelings, with the help of their family.

"Probably," he agreed, smiling, letting her know it was okay with him to talk about Alice.

She didn't follow that conversation line, though, and silence descended again. Finally, Jasper broke it.

"Bella, your shield is back up all the way. What's up with that? Can't you leave it down, just a little bit?" he asked softly.

"I can't," she whispered, not looking up at him, continuing to watch the scenery pass by. "I CAN'T. I promised Edward...I mean, when we were alone at the springs, it was different. But now...I don't feel safe anymore."

Jasper's heart lurched. He knew what Edward had told her. She'd told him. But..."Bella. Edward said when you're with family. I'M family. Surely he just meant, you know, while you were in danger. But you're safe now, Bella. At least let ME in. At least while we're safe like this. Please!"

"I know, Jasper," Bella whispered. "I know he meant just then, just to keep me safe. I KNOW that, but I can't...it was the last thing he asked of me. It's the only thing I can do for him."

Well, he couldn't blame her for that. He couldn't begrudge her the fact that her tie to her mate was still intact, even if that mate was gone. But it was making his attempt to forge a bond extremely difficult. She hadn't seemed at all opposed to his advances so far. Their time in the hot springs had been wonderful. She'd initiated contact just as much, if not more, than he had. And she'd let her shield down every time. But until he could FEEL what she was feeling all the time, not just in the midst of passion, he just couldn't be sure...couldn't be sure if she was open to ALL of his intentions. For he had every intention of winning her, in every way – not just as his lover. The best he could do right now, he decided, was wait. Wait, and help her with whatever this thing was she was doing, and prove to her that she could trust him.

"I understand," he told her. "I do. But Bella, I want you to know, and I can't say this enough - you can trust me. When you're ready, let me in. I promise, you can trust me."

"I know, Jasper," she whispered back. "I know."

AN: No exciting authors note. Sorry! Writing was going smoothly at this point!