Hello! It's been awhile but we're back! Sorry about the delay – one half of our duo has been battling some health issues. Hopefully all is well with you all!
Enjoy! Sending all our love to our beta Fran for everything and to our prereaders who help us make sure this stays on track.
We're meeting someone new today.
Jasper
There are certain things in life Jasper Whitlock will never outgrow.
Rollercoasters.
Wind blowing on his cheeks when he increased speed.
Hot dogs on Coney Island.
New assignments.
He didn't generally prefer one over the other, as they are all generally different in nature and are difficult to compare. Still, at the moment, he is particularly enjoying his new assignments as he watches them from his hopefully hidden viewpoint.
Sometimes, he makes his appearance known to them. He's bumped into both of them at different times, both instances leaving them baffled and curious. Sometimes he just stands back and watches, wondering how long it would take for one of them to notice him.
It never takes long.
He's the hair on the back of a person's neck that suddenly stands on end. He's the face that appears in the most random places, just often enough to raise suspicion. He is the random windstorm on an otherwise quiet day.
They belong to him.
Or, rather, they are assigned to him.
He doesn't get a say in the matter at all; it's not up to him to choose what his next case will be. He reports to his designated post and receives a new case as soon as his previous case has been marked and filed as Closed and Complete.
The case of Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan was pretty textbook if he is honest with himself. Young, good-looking guy swimming in money and an equally young, beautiful woman searching for meaning after one of life's traumatic events.
Jasper wonders if his intervening in their lives is even necessary.
Leaning against the wall, he watches his two subjects on the roof, his distinct blonde hair submerged in the darkness. He's on the roof as well, behind one of the locked doors used for maintenance, and his presence goes completely unnoticed.
He isn't surprised.
He saw it, felt it, the minute they met at their apartment. They were just supposed to be roommates; he had made the ad appear in Bella's search the minute it had crossed Edward's mind. The owner, Emmett McCarty, was out of the apartment so often that their presence wouldn't be detected.
And if they were ever detected in Emmett's apartment, well, who doesn't love a good ghost story?
The thought has Jasper chuckling to himself, remembering all the times he would fuck with people just for fun.
Ah, just a typical job perk in his line of work.
His head turns at the sound of Bella's laughter, her head tilted back as Edward watches her, unable to keep the smile off his own face as well. The Christmas tree Edward had brought up to the roof twinkles in the dark, casting gold flashes and shadows against their skin.
They look beautiful together.
This is why he wonders if he needs to be here at all. This case, with Edward and Bella, might as well already be marked Complete.
Even if he hadn't been doing this for over a hundred years, he could tell. He can sense when his subjects connect on a level higher and deeper than what they understand as mere humans. He can see the way Edward looks at her - like she's the fresh breath of air he didn't know he needed. He can tell by the way Bella peeks at him out of the corner of her eye that Edward being in her life was the jumpstart she needed to start living again.
He uses the term live loosely, simply because they are not anymore.
Alive.
Any of them.
Jasper is aware of it - he's been The Interventionist for over a hundred years. He remembers the day he died but prefers to think about the way he lived, and more importantly, the way he chooses to now live.
That's usually how it works. Someone dies, passes into the next phase, and everything goes according to plan.
There are, however, some who do not follow the same path as the others—those who cannot move forward and cannot move back. They are the ones who end up staying exactly where they are, in a world no different than the day before.
They just don't know it.
However, what they see is not always as it seems.
That is where Jasper comes in as The Interventionist.
He stays close to his subjects, discreetly altering their state of perceived reality as needed. He'll sometimes twist their worlds so getting a cup of coffee or donuts is not suddenly something his subjects can't do. He'll send an email now and then from a coworker or a family member if the case arises. Small gestures like that are necessary in his role as The Interventionist, and he has never been discovered earlier than needed.
There always comes a time when his subjects do, in fact, have to find out who he is, what he does, what he's there for—his purpose.
Jasper has found that day to always be very unpredictable, with each subject handling the news of their death and his role in it in different ways. Some are obviously distraught at the thought - dying, living in limbo, with family, friends, jobs, and pets that are to be left behind. Destroyed by the illusion that Jasper has altered for as long as necessary, clueless as to where they belong and why they have been stuck here, in limbo.
What am I doing here?
What am I supposed to be waiting for?
Jasper sighs as he recalls thousands of these conversations at once, resting his head against the bricks next to the outdoor closet on the other side of the roof. There are always so many different reasons his subjects stay in limbo. To make amends. To settle unresolved debts. To slow down.
In the case of Edward and Bella, they simply must forgive one another.
It seems easy considering they were strangers until a couple of weeks ago. They had lived separate lives, weaving in and around each other in the same city, most likely crossing paths but unaware as life is sometimes just too busy to notice the other moving pieces.
One thing Jasper knows for sure: the night their cars collided in the darkest of the night had been the moment when their file had landed at his post. Separately, they had each been on the road to greatness - Edward landing the account of a lifetime and Bella towards a new, independent life.
The only way for them to move forward, to leave this in-between, was to acknowledge and discover what had happened to them that night in the tunnel and to forgive each other.
It may seem easy, but once a person realizes that life as they knew it has been robbed, taken from them, it becomes harder to distinguish how one should feel and how one actually does. Or how one will act.
He hopes when the time comes, the spark currently lighting the air around his subjects on the roof tonight is enough to sustain them.
Enough to make room for forgiveness.
Enough to allow them to move on to the next phase.
Until that time, Jasper waits and watches. He watches as the seasons change from winter to spring, watches them become more comfortable with one another in friendship, and, no doubt, something more.
He just prays it's enough.
Jasper knows. Most of you already knew. Now we all know.
Edward and Bella, well, they'll eventually figure it out.
Join our Facebook Groups! Jgaff 's Group: In the Twilight Hour, and Lily Jill's: Lily Jill Fics. Jess is getting ready to post a brand new story and has been gifting group members with daily teasers, collages, and updates. Don't miss it!
Lily Jill is dropping the most important chapters to The Muse in the Shadows, and will be posting all of her "clues" in the coming days. Don't miss that, either!
See you soon!