Title: Disillusioned
Genre: romance / hurt / comfort
Pairings: alice/jasper, edward/bella, alice/demetri
Warning: i'm in crisis, but it's bc student loans. bite me.
In reality, she knows Leah Clearwater can probably bench her like a dumbbell, but unrealistically Bella keeps fast-walking up the highway, trying to get a signal on her cell. She is also trying not to stumble over her own feet, pain and fury and tears making it hard for her to stay upright.
Leah keeps an even pace.
"Guess it's not that easy being the vampire-girl!" Leah calls from a couple paces behind her, voice purposefully louder than necessary. "I didn't even know those stiffs had cellphones!"
Bella curls her fist tighter against her chest and it stings in kind. She feels weighted down, her episode on the beach has made her weak and weary, sand logged and tired, but she cannot stop now.
Her pride would not allow her to accept a ride from Jacob and she screamed at him for the first few miles he followed her. So enraged, she swung her useless hand at his head.
Leah huffs loudly, as if she's annoyed. "You know, I don't even think it's even broken. I doubt you had enough strength to break it." Bella remembers the crunch, the pain, the anger of Jake's comment, and then screaming at him to leave her alone, just leaving her alone for once—
She really hopes it's not broken. She really hopes it's not.
That's the last thing she needs.
Just like walking past the Clearwater house and accidentally attracting the attention of one, Leah Clearwater who, lazing in her front yard, all six foot three of her draped across a lawn chair in her bikini top and cut-offs, took a keen interest.
"Helloooo, I'm talking to you!"
"Shut up Leah!"
"Oh, the little vampire-girl has some bite!" A crackle of laughter follows the statement. Somehow, that burns her just as much as Jacob's comment. Then you should just die. Then you should just die. She turns on her heel, furious.
"No! I just want some quiet, so I can get a-ahhh!" Bella stumbles over her own feet, tumbling into the roadside ditch. Her arms twists under her and from that instant pain singing through her bones, she knows if her wrist wasn't broken before, it is now. "Damn."
Above her, Leah whistles. The skin of her shoulders are alight with the sun beaming behind her. She looks heavenly, almost.
"So, do you need a hand or?" Her pretty dark eyes glint mischievously, but Bella can see a tightening at her mouth. A faint regret maybe? No, that's just wishful thinking. Leah is the kind of person who regrets nothing and means everything she says with singular, unabashed certainty.
At least, that's what Emily has always said, a little sadly, dark eyes tearing.
Bella feels the choke of tears again and presses her lips together, holding it in. Not now. Not now. Not in front of her. She tries to get up, but her arm burns a blazing trail of pain from her wrist to her elbow, making her falter. She cuts back a whimper with her teeth and, disoriented, shifts onto her other side.
"Hey, you going to get up or?" Leah calls, sounding almost curious now.
Bella bites her tongue in an effort to stop herself form making noise. She shifts onto her side and pulls her knees up. Pain slithers up her leg, wrapping a clawed hand around her ankle. Damn.
"Just—please, go away Leah."
"Why? Let the cyotes eat ya?"
Tears burn in her throat, so hot she can hardly breathe. "You know what? Yeah, yeah, I want the cyotes to just eat me. I want to fuckin' die. I want someone to swoop in and just—" She makes a gesture, lungs burning in her chest. "Just take me out of my misery, so maybe, just maybe someone can be happy, because it's clear to me—it's very clear now—that all I do is drag down the people around me and—and—fuck up their lives!"
She sits for a moment, uneven jags of breath rising her shoulders. The tears are real now, burning her vision. She ducks her head for a moment, pressing her hands to her face and feeling, in that moment, disgusted. At herself, her vulnerability, her brokenness.
I don't want to be this, she thinks and the sharp feeling curls within her, taking shape. I don't want to be this person.
She sits for a while like that, paying no heed to the passing cars or if Leah was still there, but eventually, she looks up to check for herself. Her face feels flushed and hot, sweat gathering along her back and chilling as the sun passes behind the clouds.
So quickly the day turns.
She wipes her nose. "Just, just leave me alone, Leah."
Leah shifts her weight and eyes her cautiously, like a predator unaware if she should approach. It almost makes her proud. Leah pops her hip, hands coming to rest on her waist. "Well, if your self-preservation means that much to you—" She trails off, voice light and airy despite Bella's earlier speech. "It would weigh on me at night if I left you to die, though."
"No." Bella sighs and shifts her weight, wincing at the pain burning her wrist. "When a shifter is around, my friend can't see if I'm in trouble." The words twist on her tongue. It seems weird to refer to Alice as a friend now, but it's all she has. "So, maybe if you leave me alone—"
"—your psycho-vampire friend might be able to save you?" Her head tilts, dark hair spilling over her shoulder.
"Psychic."
"Same difference. I saw her when we fought those red-eyed vampires. She was something else." Leah takes a step, gracefully slides down the gravel to kneel in front of her. "Okay, does anything hurt?"
"My wrist."
"Yeah, we've established that. Anything else?"
"My ankle."
Leah gently tugs at the pant-leg of her jeans to take a look and snorts.
"Ohmigod, are you made of glass?"
Leah hikes her none-too-gently up her back, hands on her thighs and Bella trying to keep a polite distance of her mouth and Leah's ear, her tee shirt against Leah's mostly bare back. "—Jake said you were clumsy, but I just figured you tripped over your feet, or dropped one too many glasses."
She smiles bitterly.
"Nope, I'm certified danger prone. I attract vampires, shifters, and all manner of dangerous beasts."
She feels Leah snort. "You could lean forward, you know. You're not gonna hurt me."
Bella nods to herself, but is suddenly embarrassed for her situation. She left Jacob on the beach, walked two miles up the main road trying to get a signal to call her dad, only to fall in a ditch and twist her ankle. Even more than that, she left herself have a breakdown in front of Leah Clearwater.
This is not her best day, but lower in the rung than most.
"Thank you for this . . ." She says, almost unsure. "I'm not, I'm not really like this."
"Yeah," Leah blows a strand of hair out of her face. "I know." The comment strikes silence through them, though it is off-handed, it sings with a certain singularity. Of course, Leah knows she is not usually like this. She would be a fool to think so.
Curiosity answers when Leah adds, "You're all books and good manners, most of the time, but you're hurt by all the hurt that's going on around you." Leah blows a raspberry. "You're just like my cousin."
Bella briefly wonders if she should be offended, or still grateful for Leah's kindness.
"That probably why she likes you so much, you're so much like her, where I'm," her voice shifts a bit, still light, but deeper for comedic effect, "the hell-raiser with a chip on her shoulder who turned into a werewolf. Fun combination, huh?"
Emily, Bella's mind supplies and it suddenly hurts her to think of her like that. All those warm afternoons amid the drama of the newborns and the Cullens, chatting about wolves and cafes and colleges. She never felt like Emily had been trying to surrogate her into the hole that Leah must have left.
Still, the thought was needling.
With nothing much to say to that, she says, "The Volturi say you're not werewolves."
Leah turns to look at her from over her shoulder, brows furrowed. "Listen, I don't need some undead white dude telling me what I am and what I'm not."
"Fair enough." Bella relents and Leah hitches her up again, muscles flexing. "Am I heavy?"
"Nah, I was thinking about tossin' ya." She says it so casually and before Bella can comment, she continues, "I won't. You're good. I think that's why I didn't like you at first. You were so good and it was poor little you, in love with a vampire and a wolf in love with you. I thought you were secretly a bitch. But then I realized, you're just as swept up into this as we are."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I didn't intentionally become a werewolf, so I could spend the rest of my life with my ex-boyfriend as the boss of me. You didn't intentionally start a war, or lead Jacob on or anything like that."
Bella closes her eyes. It's the sinking feeling again. The realization. How stupid, stupid, stupid she feels. "Does . . . everyone know?"
"Well, pack-telepathy is a funny business—"
"I don't think of him that way." She says, relenting. "I never have. I don't understand why or what I could have done."
"You leaned on him. That's enough."
She can feel it again, the tears. The strange feeling of looking back on all her memories of Jacob, their conversations—about Edward, about the pack, about her—and feels the comfort of them with a new, sickening light. Jacob's advice twisting her away from Edward. Jacob's pride in his own pack. Jacob's appraisal of her whenever she did something that swung, as he would have it, in his favor.
She feels sick at the thought of it.
"Are you crying again?"
She bites her lip. "Just drop me here to die."
"Okay, okay, none of that." Leah's grip tightens as if Bella might actually try and climb off. "Listen, Jake's not a bad guy, but he's young. He fell for you because you're his girl-next-door, childhood friend. You two would be that perfect little story to tell at weddings. He loves the idea. He loves you. It's not your fault."
"But did I lead him on?" Bella presses. "Did I ever make him think that I might feel the same way? I didn't even—well, I suspected, but I didn't think it was real."
"He created a fantasy in his head, that's not your problem." Leah says firmly and turns a corner, shifting a bit for a car to pass them, honking the whole way. "I think he desperately wants to imprint." Leah is silent for several breathes, and then, "We all need somebody. The change isn't easy and although we have pack, we all . . . we need somebody to lean on for comfort."
There's a moment again, Bella feels it rising up inside her. She wants to say something, but she's not sure she should. She wants to help.
She remembers Jasper's face, the blank expression, the anger, the rush of emotions so sharp and real, she would have never wished them on anyone.
But she takes a breath, prepares to be tossed into a roadside ditch, and says, "She misses you," Bella whispers, but she knows Leah can hear her. She can feel it in the stiffening of Leah's shoulders, the clutch of her hands, the daunting straightening of the spine. "She misses you a lot."
Leah doesn't say anything as they clear the next bend in the road to the border, a shiny black BMW sitting off the side of the road.
The door opens and, to Bella's surprise, Jasper gets out.
Its one of those odd days in Forks, with the sun pouring out of the cloud bank, and when Jasper steps out of the car, he is shining in that golden glory. His honey blond hair curling at his nape, his eyes, goldenrod and sharp, and his skin, sparkling, faintly.
"I never understand the skin thing, it's so weird." Leah mutters, but Bella knows Jasper can hear, though he does not reveal it. He toes the treaty line as if it were an invisible barrier; all vampires, keep out. His expression is stone. "You okay with him?" Leah asks, hand shifting around her thigh.
Bella studies Jasper, now that she's closer she can see the curiosity and concern in his expression, though he has not voiced it. He must be able to sense her discomfort, just as Leah has.
"Yeah," Bella relents and squeezes Leah's shoulder in return. "Yeah, I'll be fine."
Leah walks over the treaty line, easy as breathing. Though the Cullens cannot cross into their territory, Leah will cross into theirs with vigor, dance across it and throw a party. Still, she is eyeing Jasper like he might try something as she slides Bella off her back, one muscle arm curling behind her to keep her aloft. Bella shifts her weight off her bad ankle.
"She fell in a ditch." Leah says unceremoniously. Jasper cocks a brow and flicks his gaze at her. Embarrassment burns at her cheeks and she looks away, unable to meet those eyes which were very nearly dark a couple days ago.
He must have hunted, she realizes, and then images of him, running through the woods, hunting and killing to sate the anger and hunger makes her feel a bit queasy.
"Well?" Leah's voice is expectant. She glances up to find Leah staring down Jasper. "I can't hold her up all day. She's having a hard time standing."
She turns to Jasper. "Well, no it's fine—" But he reaches for her, hand taking her undamaged one and the other reaching for her hip. Leah's warmth falls away to be replaced by Jasper's cold. It sinks into her, just as any vampire's would, all encompassing, everywhere. She shivers.
Leah notices.
"Hey, at least you can use your dead self to ice her hand." The laughter is implied but it does not quite touch her tone. Bella looks back to find Leah's expression, critical and assured. Bella smiles tightly. Leah notices that too. "Do you want me to take you home instead?"
The question is blatant, too late and rude in a way Bella wishes she can be. Jasper says nothing for several seconds and though he does not look apt to argue, his hand stays steady on her elbow. "I could call someone." He offers, speaking for the first time. Its funny, she always expects his voice to be small, tinny and soft from lack of use. But Jasper's voice is a baritone, a major in command.
"I'm good, Leah, but thanks."
Leah nods once and let's her arm drop. "Whatever you say, vampire-girl."
Without another thought, she pulls her arm away from Jasper and sidesteps him. To her great relief and effort, she stays upright. She tests a few more steps and finds that she can walk on her ankle, albeit gingerly. It's not broken, at least. She makes it halfway around the car before she turns, eyes flicking from Jasper's quiet contemplation to Leah's cocked brow.
"Can you just drive me home? I'm having a terrible day."
As Bella settles in for what she suspects will be a quiet ride home, Jasper turns to her and asks how she hurt her hand. Which is a fine, perfunctory question, if she felt like answering it. For as long as she has known Jasper—and that is not quite long at all—she expects that he would give her silence.
"How did you hurt your hand?" He asks again and, when she doesn't answer, he studies her, in that weird way that he does with humans. He repeats his question, a touch louder this time as if she had not heard. Bella lifts her chin. She sees cars coming.
"Eyes on the road."
Jasper turns his attention. "You're angry with me."
Bella shifts back nearly against the door, staring at him. "You used your powers on me."
Jasper winces at the sound of her voice, the rough, quiet accusation of it; conveying how mauled she felt by the force of his anger. "Not my finest moment, I'll admit."
For some reason—the arrogance, the blasé attitude—his answer burns her. It helps her find that anger in her, the same from before, the kind that drove her to yell at a vampire, punch a werewolf, and scream down a mountain. She needs that anger. It keeps her going.
"No, not your finest moment." She snaps, she twists further, putting her back completely to the door behind her. She moves the chest strap of the seatbelt aside, all the while minding her arm. "And completely not okay! I cannot even think Alice's name right now without feeling sick."
Jasper seems to cowl under the force of her, but only for a moment. "You managed to block out most of my influence." He says quietly and then, gentler, "Your mind is a steel trap of a shield. Anything you feel now is entirely your own."
That gives her pause.
She considers he might be lying, but she remembers the way Aro had leaned over her hand, clasping her warm flesh in his papery, cold hands. A low hum of curiosity thrumming in his throat. "A shield," he breathed against her skin. "Magnifico."
She thinks about the vampires with the psychic gifts—Edward's mind reading, Jane's pain, Alec's numbing. She is impervious to all these things. But not Jasper's empathy and emotional influence. He can scent emotions like a bloodhound and shift them to his own will.
She thinks of Alice—bitterly—and the unheard messages on her phone, the unread texts, and unanswerable house calls.
She thinks of Alice—the starting force in all of this—and feels sick, sad, and sorry.
"That makes no sense," Bella says finally. "If my mind can keep psychic powers from touching me, why can yours?"
"My gifts aren't really used for harm."
Bella's brow crinkles. "How is emotional manipulation different then?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, do you just make people feel happy and content all the time? Or, was all those horrible feelings just a first time for you?" The corner of Jasper's mouth tucks in between his teeth, buttoning in a secret. "Well?"
"It's not—it's not the first time. However, I don't like to do it." Jasper rolls smoothly to a stop in a residential area, checks both ways and makes a right turn. Bella's teeth clench. "Your mind shoved out whatever I tried to shift around."
"You do realize you essentially tried to stuff me with all your bad feelings like a Thanksgiving turkey, right?" She stares at him as he considers this, drinks it in. "Not your finest moment, huh?"
"That was unfair. I shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry." Jasper says again and Bella studies his face in profile, the angular nose and set jaw. Beyond the window, she sees a mile marker pass by.
She turns in her seat, looking around. "Wait. W-where are we going?" She looks around wildly, but the residential area has shifted into a backwoods trail. All around her is the Forks forest in all its greenery. She turns to Jasper again, betrayed. "Where are we going?"
Now, it's Jasper's turn to look bewildered, as if he did not know not telling her where they were going is well and normal. Well, she thinks annoyed, I suppose he never had to tell Alice. "To the house," he says calmly and Bella can feel the residual wave of that calm drifting over her. "Carlisle needs to have a look at you."
Bella's mouth twists up and she thinks of what Jasper said before, a steel trap. Her mind is a steel trap. Keeping her insides in and her outsides out. She slams down hard around herself, even making a physical barrier of pulling her damaged hand closer to her chest.
She glares at him and waits.
Nope, no calm there.
She wonders if she should be satisfied or horrified by the result. Jasper peers at her as they round a corner which does, in fact, lead to the Cullen house. "Well, you're getting good at that."
"Stop the car." She says and, when Jasper first doesn't comply, she puts her hand on the door handle. "Stop the car or I'm jumping out." Jasper glances at her again, as if trying to gage her reaction. She curls her fingers around the handle. "Jasper."
"I'm looking for a place to pull over—" And then he jerks to the side of the road, very nearly taking them into a ditch and if Bella had not already been clenched with fight, her head might have knocked against the glass.
Once Jasper puts the car in park, he takes his hands off the wheel and looks at her. He tilts his head as if to say, now what? and Bella sucks in a quick breath.
"I am getting really tired of all this." She says finally.
"Us vampires?" Jasper queries. "Yes, we're quite a handful."
"No, people trying to handle everything for me. I didn't ask you to take me to Carlisle, I asked you to take me home. I have medical insurance from my dad's work until I'm twenty-five, thank you."
Jasper's expression crunches. "Yes, but what are you going to say to your father?"
"My father?"
Jasper winces. "It was not a jab, I promise."
"No, Charlie has been through enough. He can handle these things." She points to her hand.
"These normal things. Not me—me running off whenever something happens. This is normal. Broken hand and sprained ankle. I can handle this. He can handle this." Of course, the act of how these happened may be a bit harder to swallow, but still. Normal.
"I did not think of that. I thought you would prefer he did not know."
"Well, you could have asked."
Jasper drags his hands through his hair, flopping the honeyed gold over. He looks at her then, hands on seven and five. "Do you want me to take you to the hospital or home?"
"Hospital." She says after a moment. Her wrist is swelling. She must have damaged it too, then. She can feel the pain of it beginning to trickle in under the adrenaline; the searing, sharp, disjointed pain that burns a jagged trail from her knuckles to her wrist bone. She remembers hitting Jake again with that hand. The awful things she said.
Jasper makes a U-turn and starts driving back to town. Without looking at her, she can tell he wants to say something. She realizes she never told him how she broke her hand. She told Leah, or well, screamed it at her, but that was more anger than necessity.
She doesn't want to tell Jasper.
Her ankle throbs in kind.
"Why were you at the border, Jasper?" She asks, shifting to sit normally in her seat. The strap of the seatbelt settles comfortably over her chest. She looks at him and realizes how close she is. Maybe her back pinned against the door is the more favorable option.
Jasper doesn't answer for a long moment. "I was driving around when I saw you and Jacob on that bike. I thought I might wait for you and try to apologize."
"You could have called."
"Would you have answered?"
"No." She says and is shocked by how true it feels. She sits quietly for a long moment as Jasper inches back into town. They seem to hit every red light as they go.
Jasper flicks his gaze at her as they pull to a stop. "It feels like you're saying goodbye."
The non-accusation filters through her and with it she feels every moment she has spent with Edward, each sweet kiss, each argument; she feels Charlie's embrace, his pride, his joy; she feels Alice, the good, the bad, but mostly the good. She thinks of the friends she has made and left. "So, what if I am?"
The light flickers green, but Jasper soon noses up to another red light.
"The Volturi haven't left town yet."
The thought settles in her thick and cold, filling her up from the inside. She chews her lip and lean her shoulder against the door. "Well," she says, "before that happens, I'm going to the hospital to get my hand checked out."
"So that's it then?"
"What's it?"
Jasper's lips part and then press together again. For a moment, he looks like the sullen teenager he pretends to be. Discontent and moody. "Something Alice said," he says quietly. Bella tips her head, half-annoyed, half-done with this conversation. Part of her wants to bolt out of the car and walk herself to the hospital.
Another part of her, tiny and tucked away under her heart, is curious.
"What did she see?" She asks.
Alice's visions have always been a tossup. People—human's especially—can change their wills like the wind, a constant breeze one moment and then the next a maelstrom blowing down the gale. For the longest time, her favorite game had been waiting for Alice's visions, however small, to come to fruition. A twist on a television show. A switch in the weather. An outfit that surprisingly worked.
There was the larger stuff, too. Like Alice's visions of her as a vampire. Those were the ones she never shared; the ones Edward feared. In a weird way, Edward got his wish, however partly. Bella would live her life as a human, but Edward would not be with her.
Or, if the Volturi got involved she will loose everything and have to learn Italian.
Jasper looks at her then, his smile pleasant and then a bit sad as he says, "You have become disillusioned of us."
Bella can feel her pulse quicken in her chest. That short, painful feeling of something rude and sharp falling into place. Her wrist throbs from where she has it pinned against her chest. "I'm seeing you as people," she says after a moment. "Just people with flaws and problems of your own. It was me who . . . painted you guys up as these perfect beings."
"Immortality will do that to you." Jasper says thoughtfully, fingers drumming against the wheel. "After so long being fixed on one thing or one person, something has to give. You can't remain stagnant all your life."
They get a green light again. Then, fifty feet to a stale yellow light.
"I also wanted to say that I'm not mad for what you said in Carlisle's office." Jasper's hands loosen on the wheel and slide into his lap. He steeples them once, twice, but keeps them on his thigh. He uses his hands when he speaks. Bella has never noticed. "I actually think you are right. It was right. Alice and I—we love each other, but there is Demetri."
But there is Demetri. Bella mulls over the sentence in her mind. It sounds like it could be a turn of phrase. When it rains, it pours. We love each other, but there is Demetri.
She wants to ask what they will do. Will they work it out? Talk together? Try to go back to normal? Will they break up? Divorce? Never see each other again?
It's not my place, she thinks as she watches Jasper's expression go purposefully blank. Like the emotions he can control, he reins back his own. An outsider might think he feels nothing, but Bella felt that tidal wave of emotion before and feels sorry.
Jasper does not smile when he looks at her. "I am not actually comfortable talking about it." She nods, solemnly. "However, I wanted to say that I am sorry. I should not have used my power on you like that. I frightened you because I let me emotions get the better of me. And I am sorry."
They sit there for a long moment, sitting in a car, hitting every stop light and Bella closes her eyes, feeling embarrassed and confused and angry. Still angry. But she takes Jasper's apology. She accepts it.
Then, she turns to him and asks: "Can you take me to Carlisle?"
Jasper looks at her, half-curious, half-frowning and then makes another U-turn.
hello! i started my new night job which is great, but unfortunately all the big-kid office's i need to go to are opened early.
i love jasper and leah's scenes with bella.
we're on the final stretch folks! i remember cooking up this idea and just running with it because I had not pre-written anything past chapter six. However, we have made a lovely round-about in my vague "Bella seeing the Cullens as people" venture. *truth hurts by lizzo plays in the distance* i am also really happy to see this twilight resurgence. maybe i'll post my rosalie/bella fic bc i like writing about angst girls who have pieces that just don't fit right.
it has been a beast of a month, my readers. first, the move. second, grad school. third, loan sharks. fourth, missing roommate but that is neither here nor there. for now, i'm working my night job, making money, going to classes, and life will be rosy. i think it's important to see the beauty in all the crazy. me getting my big-girl life together (as you have read) burying some things and tentatively moving on. or, in bella's case, breaking out of a bad situation and being faced with opinions, accusations, and opposing forces, which, you know, is basically a long metaphor for adulthood.
please review, they make me so happy & i'm sitting her for four more hours
- cafeanna