Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Whelp, this was supposed to be posted ages ago, but there was so many things I needed to address and wrap up that it just kept going... and going... and going. So, as usual, it's been split up into two chapters.

It took me a while, but I'm finally satisfied... hope you are too.

The cabin walls shook with the force of Jasper's roars as he broke through the – now demolished – cabin door, the whites of his eyes almost disappearing completely as they were met with the view inside.

His mate was held in Edward's arms, his teeth buried deeply in her neck and the scent of Bella's blood in the air. The euphoria on Edward's face quickly turned into fear and, in his panic, he wrenched his mouth from Bella's neck hard enough to tear her skin and dropped her to the floor where she fell with a gurgled moan.

Her blood stained his lips and his eyes – shot through with ruby – blinked rapidly as he held his hands up in supplication and attempted to formulate a response.

"Alice made –" was all he managed to get out before it was drowned out by the metallic screech of metal as the blade Jasper held sliced through the air and cleanly separated his head from his body.

So fast you could barely track his movements, Jasper darted towards Alice – who was trying to make her escape – and dropped into a crouch, cutting her off at the knees. As she thumped to the ground, he turned his attention to the last vampire in the room, who managed to get off a single swing before Jasper caught his throat in an iron grip.

"I was trying to save my wife," he wheezed, his accent thickened and made barely understandable by the hand crushing his larynx.

"I don't care," Jasper growled gutturally as his fingers tore through his neck.

Dismissing the vampire as his decapitated corpse slumped to the ground, Jasper turned coal black eyes down to Alice, who was pulling herself desperately towards the door, dragging her useless legs behind her and leaving a trail of venom in her wake.

The press of his boot to the small of her back stopped her dead and Jasper increased the pressure until her shriek and the satisfying crack of her spine breaking comingled in the small space.

"Jazzy," she gasped, her dark eyes, blackened with pain, blinking up at him beseechingly. "I did this for us. We belong together. Please," she begged as his fingers roughly snagged her short black hair and forced her head back until the smooth, pale skin of her throat was exposed.

When she saw that her pleas were falling on deaf ears, her face darkened and her lips twisted into a cruel, victorious smirk. "It doesn't matter," she spat. "You're too late. Now she'll never have you. You're all mine. All. Mine."

"I was never yours," he hissed and brought the blade down.

-oo-

Shaking off the haze of disorientation that came with diving that deeply into his vampiric side – farther than he had ever gone since the Wars – Jasper stumbled towards his fallen mate. He had smelled her blood from minor cuts on a handful of occasions and had never been bothered by it, but in the back of his head, he had always wondered if that same iron clad control would exist if more of her blood was factored into the equation.

Now he knew.

Unaffected by the blood that practically soaked the wooden boards beneath her, the venom that had pooled in his mouth in reaction to battle, vanished completely as Jasper collapsed to his knees beside Bella, cradling his mate's broken body in his arms and keening lowly when he couldn't hear a heartbeat. "Don't do this to me, darlin'," he begged. "You can't do this to me."

"Do it now," a voice ordered.

Jasper's head snapped up in surprise when he realized he was no longer alone in the cabin. Nan stood over him, looking as drained as she had in the clearing, but still visible to his eyes.

"You have her permission," she said urgently. "She wants you to change her."

"But – "

He looked down at his mate's pale face, straining his senses and was finally able to make out the faint, but stilted sound of her heartbeat. He snarled lowly when he caught the scent of Edward's venom in her veins, and although he would never willingly offer him thanks, a part of him was grateful that the small amount, just barely enough to begin the change (albeit a slow and agonizingly painful one) had kept her heart beating when, in any other circumstance with this amount of blood, it would have stopped.

"Do it now," Nan barked again. "Her life force is fading swiftly."

"I love you, Belle," he whispered. Muttering a quick prayer to the God he had lost faith in a long time ago, Jasper sunk his teeth into the unmarked side of her throat. Squeezing his eyes closed tightly with guilt, he began injecting his venom into her bloodstream, determined to eradicate every last drop of Edward's venom.

He owed her that much at least.

-oo-

Peter and Charlotte burst through the brush surrounding the cabin. The first thing their senses registered was the sickly sweet scent of venom – intertwined with the scent of blood – perfuming the rapidly cooling air.

They looked at the cabin long enough to glimpse the decapitated corpse blocking the entryway before their eyes snapped to the figure hunched near the edge of the cliffs, his skin lit up by a glorious sunset in the background and sparkling faintly. His shoulders shook as he wept over the limp body in his arms.

Charlotte's breath hitched as Peter stumbled his way towards them, prepared for the worst. As he got closer, he exhaled shakily as he heard the distinct sound of venom rushing its way through Bella's veins. It sounded different than blood. The substance was thinner, so it moved faster, almost humming as it did so.

"Jasper," he breathed in relief as his vision flashed and he knew what was to come. "She –" Peter's words choked off when Jasper's neck twisted hard enough to make Linda Blair proud and glared at him with rapidly darkening eyes. Seconds later, Peter was slammed to the ground, Jasper's blood stained hand clamping around his neck – his fingers squeezing hard enough to hurt.

"You left her," Jasper snarled, his eyes accusatory and slightly crazed.

"I –"

"She almost died." He squeezed harder. "You promised to protect her. You failed."

"Maj –" Charlotte began hesitantly in the background.

"Silence!" Jasper roared. "I trusted you! Both of you!"

"Ranger," a calm, weathered female voice interjected. Though Peter couldn't see who had spoken, he saw Charlotte's – who had neared as close to Jasper as she dared – eyes widen in disbelief. "Don't blame him," the voice continued. "Chime made him go. Ruby was in trouble."

"That doesn't make it okay," he gritted out angrily, though the pressure on Peter's neck lessened.

"It's over," the voice spoke firmly. "What's done is done and Chime will be fine."

Jasper stared hard down at him and Peter nodded emphatically to the words she had spoken. Jasper eased off of his chest and allowed Charlotte to rush to his side to help him up. Peter waved off her attempt and rose enough to perch himself on his knees.

"I am so sorry, Jasper," he whispered brokenly, his ruby eyes misted with venom. "I failed you. I deserve whatever punishment you deem worthy." He lowered his head in shame.

-oo-

Jasper's gaze flitted briefly to the abandoned knife that he didn't even remember dropping on the ground before returning back to Peter. Charlotte had curled herself around her mate, fear permeating her emotions and her stance conveying that, while she may accept Peter's choice to offer himself up in repentance, whatever Jasper planned to do to him, he'd have to do to her too.

He sighed loudly, his shoulders drooping with impossible sensation of exhaustion. "No, Peter, it's –" he paused and closed his eyes, battling back the hot flash of rage at the remembered sight of Edward's teeth buried in his mate's throat. " – it's not your fault."

He walked back to Bella's still form and gathered her in his arms. "I should have seen this coming." He pressed his forehead against the clammy skin of Bella's cheek. "This is my fault."

Something swatted his head – the pressure feather light – but it got his attention enough to look up and see Nan hovering over him.

"You're not gonna spend eternity playing the blame game, Ranger," she scolded. "I can tell you right now that Chime won't allow it."

"But it wasn't supposed to happen like this," he insisted. "I was... we were... I don't even know if this is what she really wanted." He cursed himself for not sitting her down and having a more frank discussion than the one they'd had the other day. He had deliberately been putting it off until after graduation, wanting her to get to finish that important human chapter of her life before she had to address the beginning of a whole new story.

He could still hear himself saying, 'I always knew what your answer would be', and he still believed that, but had never had the chance to discuss with her what her choice would inevitably cost her – what she would be forced to give up.

Turnings required plans and preparations. This wasn't the days during the Wars, where people disappeared without nary a thought, there were steps that needed to be taken and now all that was thrown out the window.

"She wouldn't have wanted you to save her?"

He looked down and watched as Bella's forehead creased in pain – yet she remained silent. "Is that what I did? Saved her?" he asked disgustedly. When he said he wanted the moment to be right, this wasn't what he meant. Far from it.

"Oh, you have no idea, Ranger. Not only here today, but you saved her before she was even born."

Jasper frowned. He appreciated Nan's efforts to make him feel better, but this was just ridiculous. Not to mention impossible. "How?" he asked skeptically.

Nan knelt down beside him. "Do you remember a night many, many years ago, when foolish pregnant woman decided to take a walk through a dark alley and a vampire came to her rescue?"

Jasper's eyes widened as he was transported back to that misty spring eve.

-oo-

He had been with Alice for a little over a year at that point and they had been mere months away from finding the Cullen's – or technically the Cullen's would find them. According to Alice, they were due to move to Phoenix sometime in the next three months and Jasper remembered being amused that a group of vampires were going to live in such a predominantly sunny city. (In the end, they would only end up living there for five months.)

He and Alice were basically squatting in this run down house on the outskirts of town – something she'd been complaining about for days at that point – and Jasper, feeling the barest beginnings of oppressiveness (unaware that it would eventually control his life for decades to come) managed to slip away from her while she was lost in a shiny vision of the future she'd have with the Cullen's.

He was never really sure why he wandered into town that night (because of his newness to the animal diet, he usually kept to the outer woods), but he liked to believe it was more about testing himself, and not because he was actively looking for a reason to slip up.

He had been staring at a couple canoodling under a streetlamp for the better part of ten minutes – entertaining thoughts he wasn't particularly proud of – when he heard a choked scream from an alley roughly a block from where he stood and the familiar scent of another vampire – a human drinker, smelling heavily of unwashed skin, stale blood and fear. It was mixed in with another scent, like sunshine filtering in through the forest trees, and he had reacted without even thinking.

As the body of the unnamed vampire fell at his feet and the words of advice rolled off his lips, he'd only managed to catch a quick glimpse of the woman he'd rescued – pretty, dark hair, dress clinging gently to a stomach slightly swelled with pregnancy – before she had run off.

He had never told Alice what had happened that night (he would eventually come to realize that those split second decisions shielded him from her visions and would use this to his advantage) but the feeling he'd had afterwards, from actually helping someone and not hurting them, would aid him with his struggle against his blood lust for years.

Whenever he got close to slipping, he'd remember that woman.

-oo-

"That... that was you?"

She nodded. "You're safe Ma'am, go home. And stay outta dark alleyways in the future." She smiled at him slightly. "Sound familiar? I never forgot that and I knew it was you the minute you pretended to tip your hat at me in the clearing that day. So, you see, you made it possible for my Chime to even exist and for that reason, I know she was meant for you. Meant for this."

"But you couldn't have wished this life for her."

"What, a life of love?"

"No," he sneered self-deprecatingly. "A life of being a monster."

That same feather light sensation brushed across his face as she slapped him. "What did Chime tell you about that?" she chastised. "Am I ecstatic that she'll be a vampire?" She sighed. "I'm not going to lie to you and say I am, but I know she won't be anything like the ones you dealt with today. You and your family – her family – won't let that happen."

He felt Peter at his shoulder. "She's... I'm sorry, who exactly are you?"

Jasper couldn't stop from grinning as Nan rolled her eyes.

"Who do you think I am, Pumpkin?" she snapped sarcastically. "Know a lot of ghosts, do you?"

"You can't –" he sputtered "– how is that even possible?"

She snorted. "You're a walking, talking corpse and you're gonna ask me about what's possible and what's not? I think we can all agree that the world works in mysterious ways." She looked down at her hands and Jasper knew she was thinking the same thing he was.

"Why can we still see you? Whatever you did, it looked like it took a lot out of you."

"It did. I thought for certain I was done for." She twisted her transparent but still clearly visible hand and flexed her fingers. "I'm not doing anything to sustain it, not like I was earlier, so I really don't know." Said hand reached out to smooth over Bella's tangled locks. "Being near Chime always made me stronger, which might be why you can all still see me."

Peter cleared his throat impatiently. "As I was saying, Nan's," he stumbled slightly over this word, still clearly not believing his eyes, "right, she won't be anything like, well, a regular newborn. She was a one of a kind human, Jay and she'll be just as special when she's a vampire."

Jasper gazed down at her with the faintest stirring of hope. It had been impossible to fit her into the same box as the other humans he had met on a regular basis, so why should he expect any differently when she was a vampire? And Nan was right, no matter what happened, he and his family would be there to help her.

The three vampires whirled around defensively, creating a wall in front of Bella's prone figure, when they heard pounding feet and breaking thicket.

Rose, the first to break through, her hair tangled and both sleeves of her leather jacket torn off, darted her eyes frantically around the open space.

"Bella – " she gasped out just as Emmett burst through behind her, nearly slamming into her back.

"Bells!" he bellowed, flitting towards the cabin. Peter intercepted him, clamping his hands down hard on Emmett's arms to stop him from throwing him off.

"She's –" he swallowed thickly. " – she's gonna be fine, Em."

Jasper and Charlotte parted and Emmett froze as Rose's hands came up to cover her mouth, venom welling up in her eyes. She was kneeling by her seconds later, tracing a gentle hand over the slowly healing bones of her jaw.

"Who did this?" she hissed.

Jasper looked away and gritted his jaw. "Alice and Edward."

Rose's eyes darkened and her fists clenched. "I'll kill them," she swore vehemently.

Jasper's face hardened. "They're already dead."

"Good," Rose replied simply, going back to running her hand soothingly over Bella's face.

"Em? Emmett?" Peter said as he shook the statue still figure of Emmett.

Emmett swallowed thickly. "She'll be alright?" he whispered. When Peter didn't immediately answer, he turned, his eyes wild, and grabbed his upper arms. "Tell me she'll be alright goddammit!" he demanded, jerking him back and forth.

"She'll... be... fine..." Peter managed to choke out in between the vigorous shakes.

Emmett collapsed to the ground and cradled his head in his large hands. "How did this all go so wrong?" he brokenly wondered out loud. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I was wrong about Alice, she wasn't just jealous."

"This again?" Nan said exasperatedly. "Look, we can sit around and point fingers at each other all day, or we can agree that we all failed spectacularly and move on to more important things. Like the fact that my granddaughter is changing into a vampire in the middle of the woods, in her underwear, barely ten feet away from three dead bodies?"

Rose - suddenly realizing that she wasn't the only one by Bella's side – and Emmett's heads snapped towards the irate woman. "The hell..." he sputtered, some of his old fire back in his voice. "Am I seeing this?"

"Nan?" Rose ventured hesitantly at the same time, gazing wonderingly at the misty apparition beside her.

"Hello, Star," Nan replied, patting her gently on the cheek before turning to Emmett and smiling sweetly. "And yes, Duke, you're seeing this."

Emmett collapsed on his backside, befuddled disbelief written all over his face. "I don't know how much more I can take," he muttered, his eyes blinking slowly.

The bushes rustled again and all the vampires tensed. They remained that way even as Carlisle and Esme hesitantly made their way into the clearing, dirt, leaves and venom staining their clothes.

"We followed you," Esme admitted guiltily as she looked at Rose.

"Is she alright?" Carlisle asked, looking towards Bella, a concerned but clinical look in his eyes.

"She's changing if that's what you're asking," Jasper replied stiffly.

"I could check –"

Jasper shifted, blocking her from Carlisle's view. "No," all the vampires gathered growled simultaneously.

Carlisle nodded. "Very well. I believe all the newborns have been dealt with." He looked around at the loosely gathered group of vampires for confirmation of his declaration, but they all remained silent. He cleared his throat uneasily. "And you caught the woman who started this?" he directed towards Jasper.

"I did," he said darkly, his gaze flickering minutely towards the entrance to the cabin.

Carlisle frowned. "She made it this far? But –" his words trailed off when he caught sight of the pale arm sticking outside the door frame, the dying rays of sunlight glinting off the slim golden bracelet clasped around it.

Esme gasped in horror as the couple darted towards the wooden structure.

"Alice," Esme bemoaned, crouching beside the beheaded vampire. She looked up at Jasper who was now standing at her back. "She didn't...?"

"She did."

Her head bowed and he heard her mutter, "You foolish, foolish girl," under her breath.

Jasper watched as the pain on Carlisle's face over the loss of Alice was quickly overtaken by the absolute agony of witnessing the crumpled figure sprawled in a pool of venom by the bed. His hands shook as he hovered over the body of his first turned, his son not of blood, but of venom. "What have you done?" he whispered harshly.

The question was not asked to anyone specifically, but Jasper knew it was directed towards both of them.

"Did you know?" Jasper asked as Emmett and Peter flanked his sides, both fully prepared to help him deal with them if they did.

"I swear we didn't," Esme promised, timidly shrinking away from the three vampires.

"No, I didn't," Carlisle echoed tonelessly, unable to tear his eyes away from Edward. "May I... may I finish this?" He finally looked up at Jasper. "Privately?"

"No," Jasper returned stoically. Edward was dead, of that he was certain, but death was a tricky thing when it came to vampires and they needed to be burnt in order to be absolutely certain. He didn't trust Carlisle not to attempt to fuse Edward back together.

"He is my son." He glanced at Alice and seemed to belatedly realize the callousness of his words. "They were my children."

"And they tried to kill my mate. At that moment their lives were in my hands and it is my choice on how they shall be dealt with."

Carlisle still appeared reluctant to leave and buried deep in his jumbled emotions, Jasper sensed his desire for retaliation. He knew he'd never do it though, that was always Carlisle's problem. He was too much of a pacifist to assert authority over anybody, especially his coven. Perhaps if he had, if he had attempted to rein in Edward and Alice's behavior, then maybe none of this would have come to fruition.

Nan was right; it was pointless to place the blame on one specific person. What had happened to Bella today was, in some ways, everyone's fault. A few snowballs rolling down hill that had quickly turned into an avalanche.

It shouldn't have happened like this, but it did. He was just going to have to live with that.

He nodded towards Esme who did her best to pull her husband back outside. As soon as they were a reasonable distance away, Jasper fished his lighter out of his pocket and tossed it towards Peter. "Burn the whole goddamn thing to the ground."

"Yes, Major."

-oo-

As Peter and Charlotte kept a careful eye on the cabin burning brightly in the background, Jasper gathered his mate in his arms, wincing when he felt a burst of pain flare up in her. It was never a good idea to move someone going through the change, but he refused to let it happen out in the middle of the woods. He needed to bring her back somewhere familiar, somewhere she felt comfortable. Not the place where she had, for all intents and purposes, died.

Carlisle was still there, gazing blankly off into the distance and despite the fact that Jasper felt no sympathy towards him; he still felt the need to say something.

"He brought this on himself, Carlisle. He should've known what the outcome would be."

"And what of Alice?" he asked snidely.

"Alice may have been the instigator to this whole mess, but Edward agreed of his own free will. You knew as well as I did that no one could force either of them to do anything they didn't want to."

He saw his jaw tighten. "It sounds as if you are saying I should have seen this coming as well."

"Were you even at that party? She was his singer for Christ's sake. I mean Jesus, Carlisle, did you even try to help him with this?" He had told himself he wouldn't point fingers, especially since this particular part was just as much his fault for not dealing with Edward earlier, but it was so easy to shift the blame – or at least a good chunk of it – on to the vampire who had been caught with his teeth in his mate.

"He needed to deal with that on his own," Carlisle argued back weakly. "It was the only way he could truly master the temptation. And then we moved and I thought... I thought it had been dealt with. I thought he had it under control."

"Well let me ask you this again, Carlisle," he spat caustically, gesturing his head towards the dried rivulets of blood that streaked down Bella's chest and arm, "was that Edward in control?"

Carlisle remained silent, closing his eyes and turning away from the sight. "I will consider any ties we may have left terminated at this point," he finally said.

"Carlisle," Esme entreated softly, gripping his upper arm tightly. He ignored her.

Jasper felt Rose and Emmett come up behind him and curl a hand around his shoulders, their choice clear. "We have no ties, Carlisle," he said. "We haven't for a long time; you just refused to see it."

Just before Carlisle turned to leave, never to be seen by Jasper or the others again, their eyes met for a brief moment and in that short glance, Jasper knew with absolute certainty that in a few years, Carlisle would attempt to recreate the family he'd once had.

Jasper felt sorry for their replacements.

-oo-

Jasper quietly perched on the windowsill and watched as Rose dropped the bloody cloth in the bowl resting on the bed stand. She nodded towards Charlotte and together they gently shifted Bella's freshly cleansed body into a loose cotton nightgown (which Rose had to dig deep in her closet to recover) and laid her back down on the bed.

"We got it out of her hair as best as we could," Charlotte lamented, tracing her fingers down Bella's slightly dampened hair.

Newborns usually went nuts at the scent of blood when they first awoke, even their own, and as tempted as Jasper had been to put her in the tub and thoroughly wash all traces of it from her skin, they couldn't afford to jostle Bella anymore than they already had, so a sponge bath was the best they could do.

"Well have to take the chance," he replied, holding steadfastly to the hope that Bella would truly be as different as Nan and Peter claimed she would.

Emmett and Peter were currently downstairs nervously pacing the living room floor. As close as they were to Bella, Jasper refused to let them see her in a state of undress. Charlotte scooped up her underwear and blood-stained tank top off of the floor where she had thrown it.

"I'll burn these," she said quietly and left the room.

Rose hovered in the doorway, her hand curling around the frame. "Do you want me to stay, Jas?"

He managed a half-hearted smile. "Can't risk it, Rosebud," he replied, using the nickname he hadn't called her in years. "If she's volatile when she wakes up, I'm the only one who can control her."

"She won't be," she assured him gently, pulling the door closed behind her.

Jasper turned his gaze back towards his mate and stared at her still and silent body. His mate, so vibrant and full of life merely two days ago, looked so small and – though he could barely admit it to himself – dead laid out on his dark green sheets.

'How did this happen?' he wondered. 'How did this go so bad so fast? How–'

"You're doing it again."

Jasper jerked slightly. He had spaced out so completely in his self-hatred, he'd forgotten Nan was still in the room with him. "Doing what?" he asked guiltily.

"Blaming yourself. I can see it in your eyes."

"It is –"

Nan shook her head. "No, Ranger. It's everyone's fault and at the same time, no ones. The signs were there, both small and big, and we all ignored them or misinterpreted them. It happens. It happened."

He scowled. "Not to me it doesn't."

She cocked her head. "Good or bad, they were your family, Ranger, I imagine a part of you didn't," she paused, "or possibly even couldn't suspect they'd be capable of this." She drifted closer and gazed down at Bella. "Renee was barely a mother to my Chime, cold and indifferent when she should have been loving and kind, but you know I never gave up on the hope that she wake up and realize the error of her ways and become the mother that Chime deserved. So you see, Ranger, it's not entirely impossible to be blinded to the worst when you're too busy trying to see the best."

Nan settled herself down on the bed as close to Bella as she could get.

"What are you doing?"

"Giving her something else to concentrate on," she replied, closing her eyes. "Usually I talk to her out loud, so this should be interesting."

"You're talking to her in her head?"

"She told me about what could possibly happen during the change, so I'm making sure she doesn't forget anything."

"In her head?" he repeated dumbly.

One hazel eye peeked open. "Yes," she said exasperatedly. "And you're interrupting."

"Sorry," Jasper mumbled petulantly.

Nan grinned and began speaking out loud. "It was raining buckets the day you were born – can you believe, eighteen years, and the weather around here is still just as miserable – and your mother, already in labor for thirteen hours at that point, was threatening to castrate your father with his badge..."

With a small grin, Jasper moved over to the bottom of the bed and settled back against the foot board, allowing his troubles to melt away as he immersed himself in his mate's life.

A/N: So, Alice and Edward got what was coming to them. I wanted Alice's demise in particular to be... unpleasant, and I hope I didn't disturb anyone with how far I took it. Though I suppose in retrospect, I could have taken it a lot further. Even as I type this, I'm getting a detailed visual that's ooking me out and making me question what the hell is wrong with me.

See you on the next chapter.