AN: Hi there, thanks for reading!

This chapter will be mostly about Bella, reflecting on how she arrived to where she is now and her thoughts on the coming conversation with Jasper. I really enjoy writing this, exploring a more mature, grown-up Bella.

Song of the Chapter: Send My Love (To Your New Lover) - by Adele

I've forgiven it all, you set me free...

Chapter 2

Bella walks into her apartment, quickly shutting the door and locking the bolt tight with a relieved sigh. Home. Safe. The words echo in her brain and she can feel the tightness of her back leaving, able to breathe just a little easier. She kept her lighter clutched in her hand the entire ten-minute walk, but she doesn't feel brave enough to drop it just yet.

Tonight, was her first vampire encounter since Edward, her first human-hunting Vampire encounter since James. She had been lucky, though she supposes the universe was granting her a little mercy after that hellish year when she was a teenager. She had figured that Vampire was just a regular human, coming up to talk to hit on her until she finally looked at him, and his red eyes. She expected to feel fear, to feel panic, to scream, but instead...instead, all she felt was annoyed.

Because it was the fucking cherry on top of an already shitty night.

Her Publisher, Blitz Books, had wanted to take her out to celebrate her birthday, especially after the glowing reviews and early sales of her latest novel. Despite her repeated protests, they insisted. When she gave in, only to get them to shut up, she had expressed a desire of a more low-key affair. Maybe a cool new restaurant in Fishtown, or a bar in Chinatown. No, they had wanted to check out Roux Nightclub, Philadelphia's most exclusive club, and using her birthday as an excuse was perfect. History repeats itself once more, people ignoring what she actually wants to do for her birthday to cater to their own wishes. They all had one drink, toasting Bella, before abandoning their table to dance or hang by the Bar and mingle.

The dancing and the crowd of people at the bar was giving Bella anxiety, so she had decided to just sit by the table until it was an acceptable time to leave. She had promised herself 1AM was a perfectly acceptable time that she wouldn't have to fight any protests, so she just had to wait.

She passed the time enjoying a few drinks and texting her best friend and editor, Jamie, unfortunately sick in bed with strep throat.

Kill me, please.

Jamie's text came quick, she was probably bored out of her mind at home, Worst birthday ever?

Bella smiles and can't help but reply, Well, it doesn't beat my eighteenth birthday when a vampire tried to kill me.

Hilarious, was the droll reply.

Bella laughed at her little inside joke. She had decided that when someone asks about her past, and why she is the way she is, she'll just flat out tell them the truth. It sounded ridiculous, because it was ridiculous. Her first love was a Vampire, he had a Vampire family, his Vampire brother had almost killed her because she got a paper cut, and then her Vampire boyfriend abandoned her alone in the woods.

Apparently, her deadpan delivery really sold it.

Three months after Edward had left, her dad had forced her into therapy. Dr. Nelson had asked what had spawned this depressive episode. Sleep deprived, annoyed, depressed, and anxious, Bella had snapped.

"My Vampire boyfriend left me and took his Vampire family with him because his brother tried to kill me on my birthday."

Undeterred, the Doctor just clicked his pen and wrote something down. "And how did that make you feel?"

Bella had switched Doctors after that session, finding a female Doctor in Seattle who specializes in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, particularly from relationships. Dr. Jones helped – helps – immensely. Together they had a firm handle on Bella's depression, built up some self-esteem, and helped Bella realize that the root of all of her problems wasn't Edward – though he was a contributing factor – instead, it was her mother and her life growing up.

Necessity had forced Bella to grow up faster than she should have. If she didn't cook, she didn't eat. If she didn't pay the bills, it got shut off. She can count on two hands the number of times her and Renee had gotten kicked out of apartments because, "Oh! I guess I forgot to send the check this month," Renee would playfully slap her own head, smiling that oblivious smile down at Bella. While frustrated with each situation, resisting the urge to snap at her hare-brained mother, Bella would just smile back and shrug. "Mistakes happen," and comforting her mother with a "It's okay, mom," and they would find a crusty and dusty motel. Rinse. Repeat.

It made sense that the first time she had really felt seen by someone, by Edward, she had jumped right into the deep end. She didn't just feel needed, she felt wanted.

"Most of us do not end up with our first love," Dr. Jones told her, during their first real breakthrough session. "First loves are an all-encompassing, juvenile love, full of grand promises of forever; Being each other's whole life, not wanting to live without each other."

"Romeo and Juliet," Bella muttered from the comfy couch of Dr. Jones' office, feeling the click in her brain at those words. "I was unequivocally and irrevocably in love with him." She cringed. A lovesick teenager in the throes of her first love. Those words, once so passionate, they now seemed ignominious.

Dr. Jones must have seen her thought process because she smiled at her blushing face, "Your world is so small as a child, especially as a teenager, once you actually see the world, everything shifts."

Bella brushes her fingers against the raised edge of the bite mark on her wrist, brief echoes of the burning pain flash in her mind. What if that was it? What if she had been changed right then and there? Seventeen-year-old her would have been ecstatic with it, twenty-seven-year-old her...

Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

"How did you get that scar?" the tattoo artist, Shadow read the ornate gothic sign above his station, had asked her, studying the bite mark from James up close. It was her twenty first birthday, she had just started her senior year at UPenn, and had just submitted the final draft of her first novel to Blitz. Bella was sick of looking at the bite, a final relic of a dark time in her life. Jamie had suggested a tattoo to cover it up, thinking it might have been a self-harm scar, despite Bella telling everyone that it was a-

"Vampire bite."

"Ha! Good one," Shadow had laughed before applying the stencil to her arm. It had taken three sessions to complete, Jamie accompanying her the last two to hold her hand. She still gives Bella shit for almost breaking her hand from squeezing it so hard.

Feeling a nudging at her legs, she glances down and meets the disapproving gaze of her cat, demanding that she halt whatever little thing she was having and feed him. She had gotten Fitz (as in Darcy) at a shelter three years ago; Jamie having shared a posting about him on social media. The poor thing had been found cold and alone in the woods, his former owners having abandoned him there. A kindred spirit, Bella immediately called to inquire about adopting him. He was officially hers the very next day.

While she had no desire to become a mother to a human child, a desire that had been told would change as she had gotten older (yeah, not so much) she enjoyed nurturing her cat. She felt needed in a healthy way, as pathetic as that sounded, and it made being alone – which she never really minded – a lot better. Smiling affectionately at the little fuzzy beast, she reaches down and picks up the purring creature, nuzzling her face in his soft grey fur as she makes her way to the kitchen.

She passes her bookshelf and catches a glimpse of her first novel.

"How did you come up with the idea, again?" Jamie had slurred to her two years ago.

Bella's first novel had just been published and both of them were plastered at her release party, secluding themselves at the bar while Blitz Books, Bella's Agent and her PR Rep handled all questions and congratulations by the party goers. Bella took another shot of whiskey following up with a pickle back before she grinned, "It's based on my high school boyfriend and his family of Vampires."

As if that was the funniest thing she ever heard, Jamie laughed almost falling off her stool. This sent Bella into fits of laughter, both women ignoring the stares they were getting as Jamie said, "Yeah, my therapist had me cope with trauma in weird ways too."

Plopping a can of wet cat food in his dish, she smiles as Fitz immediately goes to town on it and she walks into her bedroom, her favorite room of the apartment.

A great thing about living on her own, she could decorate exactly how she wanted, so she did. One wall of her bedroom was brick and she had painted the others a sage green, a calming and serene color. It reminds her of good memories of Washington – her dad, Angela, Ben, Mike and Jessica, the lush green of the landscape. While she had moved to the city for a reason, to forget the bad memories – she had wanted to keep some of the good.

Across the walls were hanging lights, much like the ones she had back at her dad's house in Forks. It gave her room a cozy feel, and she loved reading in the brown chaise in the corner of the room.

Her bed was pushed against the brick wall, white comforter littered with some grey fuzzy hair from Fitz. "Gotta do laundry tomorrow," she mutters, peeling off her clothes and tossing them into her full hamper. Across the room by the large window is her desk, giving her a view of the street. "Very Carrie Bradshaw," Jamie had teased when Bella had given her a house tour. The Editor had received a pillow to the head for that. On her desk laid her MacBook, some scattered bills, a cup of pens and markers, a couple of her novels she had to sign and ship out, and framed pictures; her and her dad at her college graduation; her and Jamie at her second novel release party; her and Fitz on his adoption day; one from high school graduation.

All of those pictures fill her with warmth, gratitude, and love.

The wall on the other side of the room had three framed covers from each of her novels, pride filled her as she looks at them, all billed at the bottom with NY Times Bestselling Author Isabella Swan. She had debated writing under a pseudonym, not wanting Edward or really any of the Cullens to somehow use it to track her down. Ultimately, she decided against it. She wanted people to know her words, to know that Isabella Swan wrote the words they're reading.

And after all, he had promised to stay away.

Bella walks into the attached bathroom and starts the shower, pulling her hair up with a clip. Letting the steam soothe her still jittery nerves, she washes her face and body. She gives herself another fifteen minutes to just relax before her stomach growls and she turns off the shower and wraps herself in a fuzzy robe to dry off. Pulling her hair down, she runs a brush through it to work through some tangles and then grabs clothes out of her drawers – spaghetti strap white tank top, old navy sweatpants with UPenn down the leg in red lettering. Since she was having company, she had begrudgingly pulled on a bralette, even though she had deemed her home a 'bra-free-zone'. Unfortunately, Vampire sight was very good and she didn't feel like giving Jasper a show. Walking to the kitchen, she sees that Fitz has eaten all of his food and she reaches into the fridge to grab some leftovers from lunch – Wawa mac and cheese - popping it in the microwave.

It hits her then.

"Oh fuck," she whispers, losing her appetite. He's coming here. Jasper Hale is coming to her apartment. Vampire member of the Cullen family is going to be in her apartment, alone with her. Her heart starts beating erratically and she curses herself. Is she crazy? Probably. Is she also curious about what has happened in the past decade? Absolutely.

She's not curious about Edward. God, no, it would actually be a little creepy if she was curious about him. Despite him being born in 1901, Edward is seventeen, frozen at seventeen for the rest of his life. She is a twenty-seven-year-old woman, she has done just what he told her to do – live her life and forget them. She has a lot to show for it, and she is proud of the woman she has become. Strong and resilient. She experienced college, she has friends, she has three novels published, she has a home and a cat and a life. Sometimes messy, sometimes stressful, and all in all wonderful.

Honestly, she's just curious about what the hell Jasper is doing in Philadelphia and if the rest of the Cullens are here. If they are, well, Philadelphia is big but not big enough for all of them.

They'll just have to leave; she was here first after all.

Taking the bowl out of the microwave, she forces herself to get something in her stomach. She sits on her couch and turns on her tv, just for some background noise. Fitz immediately jumps up next to her and cuddles down to sleep, purring away contently, unaware of the anxiety his human is going through.

The last time she had seen Jasper, he had been trying to kill her. Tonight, he had saved her from a vampire. Same date and all.

"It's almost poetic," she mutters to herself. If she was a believer, she would believe it was fate. The part of her that believed in that fairy tale nonsense died on the floor of that Forest in Forks. Tonight... was just a convenient happenstance, nothing more, nothing less.

Shen then thinks about his appearance. While Edward had always bemoaned the fact that they were frozen in time, never changing, never evolving, Jasper had changed. Granted, she never really knew him that well, only spending those days evading James with him and Alice, but he was different. Dressed differently she noticed first, gone were the preppy sweaters and khaki pants replaced with a plain black tee shirt, jeans, and boots. Casual. Relaxed. Right. He stood taller than she remembers, she had remembered him towering over Alice, the couple being comically polar opposites. But up close and personal, Jasper is tall and long and lean. Of course, he's handsome. All of them are, even the most average ones like James would still stand out amongst the humans. He changed though, his demeanor specifically. He had been submissive, almost wallflower-ish around her when she was a teenager – mostly because he couldn't get too close to her – but the Jasper she spoke to tonight radiated calm confidence, invoking fear in that Vampire who wanted to make a meal out of her.

Was he always like this or had something happened to make him change, and if he was at that Club, only accompanied by those other two vampires, the man and the woman, then where the hell was Alice?

Thoughts of her former "best friend" invoke more conflicting feelings. Alice dropping everything and leaving hurt almost as much as Edward. She had never really had a girl friend before, besides Renee since she was more of a friend than a mom, so it had been special for her. Now, that she had experience with how friends truly act with each other, she felt more like a Barbie for Alice than an actual friend. While she still has some fond memories of the times her and Alice spent together, they're still tinged with a bitter tang from the abrupt exit.

Knock-knock.

Bella jumps a little at the sudden noise, Fitz now glaring at the door, the noise having woken him up from his sleep. Checking the time on her phone, she sees that it's 3AM, right when he said he would be there. Not exactly sure how Fitz would react to Jasper, she picks him up and puts him in her bedroom. He has no issue with it as she makes himself comfy on the large bed. Bella quickly grabs the bowl and places it in the sink before heading to the front door. She pauses, steadying herself, taking two deep breaths, in her nose and out her mouth. Slow and steady, she knows he can hear it through the door but she doesn't care.

She opens the door and he's standing there, small grin on his lips.

"May I come in?"

AN: I am currently eating mac and cheese from Wawa, would recommend if you live on the East Coast.