Title: Disillusioned

Genre: romance / hurt / comfort

Pairings: alice/jasper, edward/bella, alice/demetri

Warning: i'm in crisis, but it's bc i move in two days and i haven't packed

After the flight back from Volterra, Bella never saw Edward and Alice fighting again.

She supposed they did. Knows they did. In private. Waging battles in their own Bella-free time where they screamed at each other. The air between them had never quite thinned after Volterra. Even the car ride back to the Cullen's was unbearable, the trapped heat filled with every hateful thing the two of them wanted to say to another. Now, in the safety of the Cullen house, at Alice's heels, Edward is shouting at her—long, unintelligible things—and Alice rises to the bait with the ferocity of a panther defending her territory.

Esme keeps Bella behind her, as if thinking the fight might actually turn physical, but quickly her attention is taken by her children, tearing the jagged hole of her family further open.

The Volturi have retreated, for now. They promised to stick close to the Seattle area, weeding out any hangers that Victoria might have created, but Alice had slipped a cell phone into Demetri's hand, a slim black burner phone, like a secret. To contact them, but its existence had enraged Edward.

"—if you had wanted to rejoin them all along, then why did you come to our family? Why did you meet Jasper? Why does everyone else have to suffer because you're unhappy?" Edward is shouting, voice frantic and too loud. Bella wants to cover her ears, but she knows she will still be able to hear, no matter how deep into the house she sinks, past the couches, past the tables, the book shelves, the photographs, into the back study, further—

Edward had been returned to them, followed by a smirking, curious Alec, as soon as Jasper disappeared. Alice calling after him, unable to get a response, unable to follow.

The exchange back to the Cullen family, between Esme and Carlisle's loving, awkward embrace had been as cold as Demetri's outright indifference.

In the corridor, she can still see them—the family—circling one another like animals in the wild, the divide between them a battle no one wants to cross.

Alice lifts her chin, tiny fists curling as she meets Edward's gaze head-on. "I am not the reason Bella doesn't love you anymore, Edward."

That stung. That really, really hurt. Bella can feel the weight of it just as if Alice had struck her.

It hurts her more to feel like she's right.

It's a half-truth.

It's a mess.

And it hurts.

"I suggest you two stop," Carlisle says, the voice of fatherly authority and calm. Bella can see the tension wrinkling his forehead, the shelf of his brow finally making him into the vampire he is. Teeth behind his lips appearing, just barely. "Before either of you says something you will regret."

He says it with such assurance, Bella cannot help but find proof of error.

Edward snorts, indignant. "She regrets every breath she's taken when she is away from her tracker! Can't you see that?" Edward weighs himself back under Carlisle's hand, but his verbal assault is not to be held at bay. "Once you know," His eyes shift from Carlisle, to Esme, to Rosalie, to Alice. "It is hard not to see it in every gesture."

Alice makes a noise sort of like a cry and Bella decides she cannot watch anymore.

She turns the corner to the back study and shuts the door as quietly as she can.

It doesn't matter. She can still hear them.

"Is that what you want?" Alice demands, voice rising in her fury. She hears shifting, feet, a struggle? Alice's voice is louder, but she is further away. "I am not happy! Is that what you want to hear? Or have you been ignoring me this entire time? I miss him, is that what you want to know? I miss him and I loved him and he was this part of me that—that you would never understand, Edward, because you never had someone love you like that—"

Bella sits with her back to the door, hands pressed over her ears, but the noise still permeates.

She finds Jasper in the shadows with her, silent, unbreathing, eyes downcast.

It takes her too long to realize, but once she spots him amidst her tear-blurred fury, she wonders how she could have missed him, sitting at one of Carlisle's two chairs before his great desk, as if he takes consultations in his home.

Then, she remembers the fight still happening beyond the door, and if she can hear it, how well can he?

She stares at him a moment longer, saying nothing, thinking him dead and the thought of it spikes a strange charge of panic through her. Does Edward know he's here? She wonders and then the next a shameful, second-hand disappointment overwhelms her. Of course, he does.

"I didn't think you would come here." She says quietly and, robotically, like a doll, he moves; head tipping up so she can see him in that sparse evening light.

She finds herself catching her breath again.

Jasper never looked quite right after he returned from his trip to wherever. His eyes are still amber, a bleeding between the gold of the Cullen's and the red of those newborns, of the Volturi. It never occurs to her until this moment, that maybe Jasper had been bad on his journey away, that that had made Edward cagey, protective, angry.

Alice not only drove Jasper out of the family, but drove him to kill.

Jasper regards her as if she were furniture he had not realized was there, a piece out of place. That's what she feels.

"Emmett went to go look for you," she offers, but his expression does not change.

He keeps staring.

"You're scared," he says, his thin voice a faint echo of that accent—old Texan, she now knows. His mouth is a deep line. His brows furrow. "Of me?"

"You startled me," she says, almost gasping on the breath. She never realized until she saw Esme how still the Cullen can stand, for hours at a time, without the human need to shift or scratch or hum. They can stand in perfect stillness, almost statue-like for hours. She considers making a joke—a bad one—about becoming street performers in New York, one of those eves and avenues where person statues stood and collected money, but she taps down the impulse.

Jasper does not look like he wants to laugh right now.

He sits still, haunting in his stillness, his back erect, his jaw clenched. He looks at her and there is something violent and rueful in his gaze, a taunting, terrible smile.

She feels her pulse quicken.

"You have a question for me." It's not a question either, it is a flat statement, a solid fact that sinks through her. "Ask it."

"Why did you leave earlier?" She forces herself to say it, let the words roll off her tongue and become real, flowering into that too deep, too much, question. Jasper's grin looks full of mirth now.

"I have never met Alice's mate before this," Jasper says, his voice has a hint of airiness in it. As if he were underwater, in a dream, still wrapped in those thoughts she interrupted. She presses her lips together, tighter. "He never wanted to meet me either, I suppose. I don't think either of us took it too personally."

It's a joke at his expense. Bella curls her lips like a smile, but it is gone too quickly, anchored back by her confusion and fear.

Bella stares at him and gets that feeling—that human feeling—to comfort. But, she is not sure how to comfort Jasper, more so how to comfort someone she fears like Jasper. Someone who has a history weak blood resistance and looking the way he does now. Still, the longing overshoots the needling fear and she draws closer, surprising him, surprising herself.

She does not touch him, even if he were human, she does not think he would be the type take comfort in that. She stands close and sinks into the chair in front of him, leaning forward so that they can talk properly. A heart to heart.

Jasper watches her do this with a faint amusement, lips pressing against his teeth.

"Are you—" She starts and pauses, teeth catching the inside of her cheeks, she considers her words, reads them over, tries again. She meets his eyes this time. "How are you doing?"

Jasper laughs, not loud like he would with Emmett, or a scoff like he would with Carlisle, it's a bark. A short, mirthless bark that nearly shatters her confidence. Everything is brick by brick.

What is she doing? Why does she think she can help? Why is she trying?

Still, she holds firm, just as he is resolute in his mirth, she will in her empathy.

He stares at her a long moment, studying her, and she realizes he must be filtering through her emotions, testing the air in the room. His lips curl, as if in disgust, but before she can truly damn the idea, he speaks again, and softer this time.

"I feel sick." He says, his voice hitching on an emotion she cannot quite name. Hurt, but also something else. Something rotten. "For the first time in a long time, I feel truly and physically ill. It's like when I was in the war." He blinks, almost as if to ward off tears and Bella can feel something rising in her. "I remember it, its like a grief brought my memories of similar pain back. When we were standing in the field—when they saw each other—they loved each other so much, so much, so much more than she ever loved me."

Alice's words echo back to her, ten-fold. The only man she never saw coming. Her lover, her smiling, bloody tracker, that introduced her to the world she knows, that gave her light and life and purpose. The man she loved unconditionally until the moment she decided she needed something else.

Someone like Jasper who was also ragged and broken and needing.

Bella feels her own stomach drop and, she thinks, she knows this is a bad idea. She should have never tried to help someone when she doesn't know how. She feels embarrassed then, for bringing up such pain for him, and pity, pity for his words, for his situation, for Alice. She hates that Edward is allowing the fight to happen outside knowing Jasper can hear every word.

Still, that part of her hands to make it better. She wants to make it right.

"I don't think you can measure thing like that," she says quietly, mouth drying up with her words. She licks her lips, fingers worrying together into a knot. "She loved you, you loved her, she loved him. Love is, love is not a measuring cup—"

She hears the sound of wind before she can comprehend it. Jasper's smooth rise to his feet, his angry amber eyes burning down on her, his mouth in a grim line. "You don't understand anything." He says coldly and it's just as loud as if he had screamed it in her ear. Bella can hear the words rattling through her head.

She can feel the mettle rising up in her, taste his anger on the edge of her tongue, driving her forward. "Don't," she says quietly, muffled by the blade of her teeth. "Yell at me."

Jasper glares at her, dark eyes in even darker shadows. "Get out of here Bella. I don't want your sympathy, your empathy, your pity—take it with you when you go." And then, in a gesture as if to show her out, he gives it to her, all at once.

Bella chokes on the sudden rush of feeling. Her chest clamps tight, feeling awful and sick and enraged in her own rite. She can feel Jasper's anger, the faint taste from before nothing to the betrayal, the apathy, the feeling of the one you love, loving another so much that your heart burns—

She clutches her chest, hoping to elevate the feeling, but it does not relent. Jasper's emotions are tarry and sick, sticking to her like a second-skin, as if they were her own. The infect her and sink in deeper and deeper until she is sick with them.

She can't breathe.

She sits for a moment, settling into it, brain rushing to focus on that, that that is hers, what she needs. Anger.

She takes a breath when she looks up, staring into those dark eyes, that stone-face. "You may be able to feel and control emotions Jasper, but that doesn't mean you understand them." Jasper blinks at her, one moment furious, the next confused as she rises to her feet, chin high and in her best, nail-bitten fury says, "I did not pity you before, but now I do!" Before running out the door.

She feels for a moment victorious, angry, scared—

But then she runs headlong into Edward, whose arms come around her in an instant. "Bella," he says, voice dropping to her ear, too close. She shuffles back, but his hands are still on her, checking her over. "Are you alright?"

Part of her wants to laugh. Part of her wants to scream. If Jasper had hurt her, wouldn't the entire family know by now? Wouldn't Edward see it in Jasper's mind, as clear as he saw him tearing through her on her birthday?

"I'm fine," she says and steps out of his arms, half-turning back to her plan of exit, but then she hears it—sobbing. Long, loud, tearless sobs coming from the living room, her main exit.

At first, she thinks its her, bogged down by this ugly emotion Jasper gave her, but she quickly realizes its not.

Alice, she thinks and unbidden, Jasper's feelings of resentment and pain rise up in her like a fever. It stabs her and, for a moment, toys with her, the idea of shouting at Alice. That she has no right and how dare she and why would she, but Bella taps that down hard. No, she thinks, pain twisting in her chest. That's not me. That's not mine. She takes a breath, summoning something cool and calm. That's not even Jasper.

She imagines a wall around her mind, barring out all outside influences, like Edward's mind and Jane's pain and Alec's numbing—

God, what would she give to feel numb?

Edward reaches for her wrist. "Let me take you home."

Bella jerks herself away, limbs coming flat against her body, a clear distinct do not touch reading in her eyes. She thinks of how hours ago he had been holding her tenderly, taking her goodbyes, or hours before that, how he hovered over her, unable to touch.

Touching would be the death of her. She is repulsed by it.

"I'm going home," she says even though she's crying, even through the shaking tears. "I am going to get in my car, drive myself home, and I am going to bed." She takes a calming breath and exhales through her teeth. Then she looks at him. "And I will do it all alone, alright?"

She doesn't wait for Edward to answer. She grabs her bag and her keys from where she left them in the hall and strides through the living room, her gait purposeful and jagged. She checks her stride once, turning to the living room to find Alice in a crumbled heap in Carlisle's lap, Esme and Rosalie around her as tearless sobs rack her tiny body.

She checks herself—

Rosalie's eyes hover like twin shooters over Esme's brunette head, daring her to speak, to intervene, to say anything.

Alice looks up from her hands, her beautiful face screwed up in pain, and then she buries herself back into her hands, another rack of sobs and soothing hands.

Bella nearly runs through the door and down the stairs to the driveway. Her fingers fumble with the keys, taking nearly several attempts to get the key in the ignition before the engine turns over and she tears out, down the road and back to town, back to people, back to humans just as terrible and flawed as the Cullens. People who cheat and lie and over-hear, people who say terrible things and love you and curl in like worms in the dirt.

She does not stop until she is home and she has Charlie in her arms. She has to lie, she has to tell him that she and Edward settled it and are, completely and irrevocably, over. She has to say it because there's no other reason she would cry so hard, in such relief, in such pain.

Days pass, Alice calls her twice. Bella doesn't answer.

For as terrible as she feels, she does not want the girl who was supposed to be her best friend.

Jacob picks her up on his motorcycle. She is so excited to see him—his dimpled cheeks, his dark eyes, the bike—that she cries when he pulls up to her curb. "Bella? Bella what's wrong? He asks and touches her shoulder, her arm, her hand.

He puts up the kick stand and holds her, letting her breathe in the scent of him, the feeling of being protected, of his solid, unhurt build. She wraps her arms around him and dries her tears. He is a miracle in the making. Broken rib to show for the war against the newborns, but otherwise unhurt.

"I'm fine," she wipes under her eyes, drying tears and the burning feeling in her chest. She forces a smile, too wide and too many teeth. "Can we go to the beach or something?"

"Or something." Jacob echoes, smiling in spite of himself, he reeves the engine when she gets on. She wraps her arms tight around him, mindful incase he is still in pain, but happy once the bike launches full-throttle down the road.

They go to the beach, the unusually warm day making her regret her jeans, but she has no desire to go digging through her box of Arizona clothes for shorts. So, she rolls her jeans to mid-calf and collects sand in her shoes, putting up with Jacob's smirks as he knots his laces around his wrist. He walks bare-foot across the rocks and says, conversationally, "These are my last good pair, and my dad will probably kill me if I ruin these too."

"Sure, sure," she waves dismissively and smiles at the phrase, second-hand from Jacob, passed down from his father. She notes his smile too and tucks hers back between her teeth, admiring the shoreline and few people dotting the beach, kicking through the water, squealing.

Her eyes flicker up to the cliffside where she practiced diving only months ago. Her stomach swirls at the thought and she looks away, back to the pretty shoreline, the water, the rocks. She turns further up the beach and Jacob follows her, away from people and listening ears.

"It's so much more peaceful now without Victoria."

"The red-head?" Jacob inquires and shrugs off her eye-roll. "Yeah, this is one of the spots where we always saw her. The pack hasn't had to patrol the area as much anymore."

This rises question in her. "Anymore?"

"Those—" Jacob makes a gesture as if trying to summon the word.

"The Volturi?"

"Yeah, them. Where did they go after the fight? Seth said he was seen by one of them, but he didn't attack." Jacob's mouth tugs at the corner. "We thought they might show up, so we've been keeping up patrols and that. Carlisle called to tell Sam not to worry, but try tell him that."

Bella is at a bit of a loss with that too. The Volturi left so quickly. Demetri dismissed the shifters as nothing, but cited it briefly after Jasper left, demanding answers and saying Lord Aro might have to investigate.

Investigate, the word turns her stomach, along with the thought of Aro, cool and creepy, long black hair and cherry eyes, sulking around La Push investigating if that is the proper word. She shivers at the thought, wishes she can offer words of comfort, of solidarity, but more than anything—she wants to see Emily, see Claire, Seth, the boys, make sure they are okay.

"The Cullens are saying you two have an alliance, that you would never harm another vampire," Jacob snorts, unimpressed. Bella glares. "Unless provoked. It's not about the truth, Jake, it's about how it sounds."

"Sure, sure." Jacob rolls his shoulders, as if shifting his worries back. Bella watches the gesture, noting that he is wearing a shirt that she had seen on Sam quite a few times, an old band one, washed one too many times to clearly decipher, but still unnaturally green.

It makes her smile, a little, thinking of the wolves sharing a pool of clothes, making up for the torn bits of shirts, pants, and shoes found scattered around La Push recently.

She wonders if she could ask Esme about finding more clothes to offer. Although the smell may be something to be desired, scents can fade, and the Cullens do have an overabundance.

But, as soon as she thinks it, she finds herself shooting down the idea.

She has not been back to the Cullen's since she left two days ago. Two days of human peace, talking to financial aid officers and calls from her mom about colleges in Florida—smaller universities, near beaches and Disneyland, but it's the thought that counts.

She can hardly imagine herself there after adjusting to the cold of Forks. She might actually melt in the heat.

"So," Jacob has his hand behind his back, scratching his neck as he ends another impressive stretch. Bella raises a brow. "You're not . . . going to become one of them, or anything right?"

The question slams something deep inside of her. An in-the-air question, a declaration to the Volturi, an invitation to something greater. She remembers the weight of Demetri's gaze, how if she had not been held at the time, she might have crumbled to the floor like her legs were jelly. She thinks of how his lips curled back from his teeth, as if he might have bitten her there and then. Brought an end to the relentless questioning.

"Jake," She takes a deep breath and considers. "I might not have a choice."

Jacob's brows pinch. "But, but you're not with him anymore."

She can feel the rush of the words just as he says it, a wrecking ball, a break through her glass house of ignorance. She can hear it in his voice—it's all Edward's worries, the pack's glances, and Emily's knowing, sad eyes. Jacob likes her. And his attachment to her drove him impulsively, irrefutably in her direction, to protect her, to keep her safe.

She thinks of the talks they had before, about imprints and soulmates, the hesitant, wide-eyed look in her eye as she asked if he had. Jacob's soul crushing frown as he informs her, he had not.

Has not.

Somehow, it makes this all worse.

"Jake," she says and stops once she realizes he's not walking anymore, just staring at her, shocked as if she had slapped him. She curls her arms around herself. "It's bigger than that."

Jacob's jaw tightens in resolution. "We can protect you—"

Unbidden, imagines of the wolf pack slaughtered appear in her mind. Not just the wolves either, but their families. Everyone. It surges up such a panic in her that she feels like she might burst into tears. She grabs Jacob's arm, as if he might go charging off to some Volturi hidey-hole now to demand her humanity.

Her grip tightens.

"No! No, no I would never ask you to do that. Not again. The newborn army . . . you and Seth and everyone. It was too much that time. I never want you to do that again. The Volturi are," She struggles to find the correct words for what they are. With the newborns it had been easy. They were monsters, feral, just the scent of blood sent them into a frenzy. She can see them clearly in her mind, untouchable, immortal, as proud as stone. "They're ancient. They've been killing for years."

"Just another coven." Jacob says, lips pursing. "Just another couple of blood-suckers to—"

"Jake, listen to yourself! This is bigger than either of us, bigger than the Cullens, bigger than the newborns, the Volturi are a legion, they've been around for centuries. They are the reason real werewolves—real werewolves—are extinct."

Jacob stares at her as she catches her breath, the hysteria in her voice, the ache in her throat from shouting. It felt too real. Too visceral. She hates it.

"They'll kill you; they'll kill everyone. Your dad, your sisters, Emily, everyone. Anyone that can possibly be a shifter, don't you get that? They can track down everyone. They can—don't do that for me. I would never ask you to do that for me, Jake, listen," She can feel the pain of tears in her throat, the oppressiveness of the air, her voice lowering to not be over-heard. Jacob's eyes are wet too, red-rimmed, but tears not yet falling.

Good, she thinks and moves her hand to take his, to comfort him now that she has made her point. She sucks in a breath.

It has all been so hard. Going through the motions of setting up for college, looking at flights, and speaking with advisors, making all these plans she is not sure she will get to see go through, planting seeds in a garden she might never get to walk in.

"It's either I turn," she says quietly, slowly. "Or I die." She watches the realization sink in and then realizes it in herself.

Turned or death. Turned or death. She remembers how Caius phrased it. It had only been her ties to Edward and Alice that saved her from death, her love for Edward that she thought was eternal, and the promise of a bite and cold, immortal perfection in a year's time.

Now, the future is in the air, unclear. At one time, she saw her life as a vampire stretching out before her as a beautiful, thrilling expanse.

Now, she can hardly imagine entering such a cold lonely world.

"There's no in between." She whispers, tears stinging her eyes again. She can feel the uneven jags of breath in her lungs now. The pounding against her breastbone. The sweat gathering in her palm where she is holding Jacob. She can see his jaw working, his mind trying to summon what he can say to her—but what can he say? She is caught in this mess she tangled herself in and nothing, not even the wolves, can get her out.

And then—

And then, Jacob says, "Then you should just die than becoming one of them."

Bella's hand drops from his, the slow uncurl of fingers, of oneness, of friendship turning tepid between them.

It sparks something in her in that moment, between one labored breath and the next, between the cold resolution of Jake's expression and then the sudden morph of regret, apologizes, and "God, Bells, I'm so—"

She doesn't hear him. She just sees him.

The boy she grew up with—her greatest friend—her confidant showing his fangs to her.

She recalls Jacob's earlier stories of wolf anger, how the emotions run wild and feral inside their bodies, new and feral and too animal to ignore the foam at the mouth. Still, she has never seen it, seen evidence of it, yes, but never seen Jacob's wolfish anger rise to the surface.

Because this was wolfish—because he is sorry—because he doesn't mean it—she can hear it in his voice already, as he tries to summon up the words to apologize.

"Then you should just die." It sounds like a joke, a solution, something she never thought would be said to her, in any context, ever. If she were to splay out the cards of people she knew in her mind, she would gather the people she knew hated her, deeply, carelessly, ceaselessly, and think, "Them. They might say it."

But Jacob? Never.

She curls her hands into fists, trying to steam the shaking, but it's useless. She can feel the panic shooting through her, heavy like a bass drum. She can feel the beginnings of tears in her chest, still rising, still hurting, but now renewed with some shaky purpose.

His hands skim her elbows, about to yank her into one of his crushing bear-hugs, all-encompassing heat and the smell of forest and minty body wash, and—

Bella throws one of her fists.

She throws it and at once, she is sorry because she's not violent, she's not physical, she believes that conflicts can be resolved with conversations with thoughts and opinions and compromises, but never violence. And because Jake's rock-hard cheekbones do turn out to be, in fact, rock hard.

She endures next a moment of silent screaming. Or, actually screaming, she's not quite sure. Jacob's hands are on her, trying to gently pull her off the ground, guide her into his arms, take her back to the bike, to the house, to the hospital—

But all Bella can do is scream.

She pummels him, even with her damaged fist, and keeps screaming. Even though she does more damage to herself than to him, she knows he feels the impact of each hit as clear as a kiss. It is as if all the frustration, all the insanity of the last week, the last month, the last year has been shaken and left to explode on the spot. Jacob did that too her. Jacob pulled the cap.

Later, she will feel regretful. She will hesitate to call and slam the receiver down when she hears his tentative, hopeful voice because he forgives her, she knows he does. She will feel ungrateful, for turning against him when he has given her so much, too much of himself, of his pack, of his family.

But, some things, even regretful things, need to be done.

hello! i am procrastinating taking down the bed in the attic that will be mine for the next year.

can you tell i've been reading a lot of joyce carol oates? although i love her writing, i do not particularly like much of her work. she is someone who, when i read them, fills me with such apathetic hatred for the general human populace.

that lovely image aside, she does make me want to write realistic, messy relationships, of which i have many. so, how do we deal with these? we let them change us, shape us, and become newer, different, better.

i never want to wrap my characters in plot armor, so i often just let the plot attack. how am i doing?

please review, they make me so happy

- cafeanna