Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just playing with her characters. Also, I did not come up with Jasper as the God of War. That idea belongs to IdreamofEddy. The idea of Peter 'just knowing shit' is not mine either.
A/N: My prayers go out to all those suffering the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I wish all of you well and hope that you will be able to get back on your feet as smoothly as possible.
Thank you to my awesome beta Laurie Whitlock, my pre-readers AlwaysJASPERsLOVE and Shadman, and my beloved sister Shelljayz who also happens to pre-read for me. :)
Thank you to Ellie Wolf for the beautiful banner she made for Longing and to Laurie for surprising me with it. I will be setting up a link in my bio so you can view it. I have added a picture of Bella's phoenix pendant from chapter 7.
Again, all of you are awesome! Thank you to everyone who has read, favorited, and followed. And to those of you who have reviewed - I heart you! :)
So, I'm feeling a bit of a need to let you inside Jasper's head a little more so you're not too hard on him for being so stubborn and thick in regard to figuring out that he and Bella are mates. He's got some serious control issues because of his time in the Southern Wars, as we discovered last chapter, which have skewed his views of mating and he has quite a few misconceptions about it. He doesn't want a mate which is contributing somewhat to his confusion but the main reason he hasn't figured it out is this: He thinks because he's an empath and has lived with so many mated couples that he knows everything there is to know about mating and the bond that goes with it. He does know about it, there is no denying that, but what I want to get across is that feeling the bond between someone else and going through the process yourself is a very different experience. Does is have similarities? Of course, but everyone is different; therefore, everyone's experiences and feelings during that process are unique. Plus, because he is so opposed to mating, he has never asked any of the mated pairs he knows about what they went through. This is a big part of why he's clueless. There are other reasons too, but I won't go into those.
Alright, Louisville here we come ...
oOo
September 2080
Alice was curled up on the white leather chaise lounge that sat before the window wall in the bedroom she shared with Edward, gazing out into the night sky without really seeing it when she was blindsided.
Jasper had been gone for four days now and she was frustrated. She'd let him go without argument and convinced the family to do the same because she knew that was what he needed. Also, she'd seen what would happen if they'd tried to make him stay. It hadn't been pretty. She had comforted herself with the knowledge that she'd be able to keep tabs on him through her gift but that hadn't worked out. Jasper hadn't been making decisions so her visions of him had been few and far between. She wasn't sure if he was doing it to purposely shut her out after she'd brought up Maria and his past; he'd been even more distant and closed off since then but she suspected he was just going with the flow, which she supposed was a good thing. He got stuck in his head sometimes. A lot of people did, but considering what was locked away in his head, that was not a good thing. Needless to say, she had no idea where he was and it made her anxious.
The "kids" were hunting and Esme and Carlisle had gone on a weekend trip, so she was home alone. Alice had been grateful for this before, had needed it even. Now she wanted, more than anything, to be surrounded by the people she loved.
"Shit!" she cried, panicked. She didn't curse often but this definitely warranted it. "Shit, shit, shit!"
This was bad, this was very bad. She pulled out her cell phone and had half the number dialed when the phone rang in her hand. She briefly considered ignoring the call and continuing to dial but thought better of it; it would probably be worth listening to what he had to say before she did anything else. As much as Alice hated to admit it, he usually knew what he was talking about.
"Don't do it, Alice," Peter said before she even had a chance to say 'hello.'
Alice knew without having to ask what Peter didn't want her to do and in this case she really didn't want to listen to him. He'd better have a damn good reason.
"Why the hell not?!" she demanded.
"Honestly?" he asked, sounding just the slightest bit anxious.
Her eyes glazed over in a vision. She could see Peter on the other end of the line in a cozily furnished room, tapping the fingers of his right hand against his thigh in a rare nervous gesture, Charlotte resting her hand on his shoulder in a silent show of support and looking sick with worry of her own. He hadn't yet decided if he would tell Alice the truth and Alice hadn't decided if she would ask him for it. Part of her was too scared to but she sucked it up.
"Do you really think now is the time for lies?" she challenged, trying to sound austere but only partially succeeding. Mostly she sounded pitiful and desperate.
He sighed, "This is supposed to happen."
"Could you be any more vague?" Alice snapped.
"Probably," he said, trying and failing to sound like the insufferable smartass he generally was. His heart wasn't in it. She could see it in the slump of his shoulders and how he looked years older even though that was physically impossible. "Take a breath and try to look beyond the panic, Alice. If you can do that, you might be able to see that this could be a good thing."
Alice growled. "That would be a hell of a lot easier to do if you looked or sounded even remotely sure of yourself and your gift, but you don't; and even if you did, I still highly doubt I'd be able to see this as anything but a dire situation. Jasper's future has completely fucking disappeared, Peter!"
"I know!" Peter growled back, seething. "My gift has gone completely haywire just like yours has. For the first time since I was turned I don't know anything for certain so if you think I'm not just as worried as you are, your gift isn't the only thing that's blind. I've known him a hell of a lot fuckin' longer than you have, Alice, and he means more to me than he'll ever mean to you."
Alice felt like she'd been punched in the gut. Jasper was her best friend but Peter was right. He and Jasper had been through things together that she couldn't even fathom. They'd sacrificed and suffered a lot for each other, Jasper much more so, and Peter had gone back to save him from the punishment he'd suffered for letting him and Charlotte go and to save him from himself. As much as she would have liked to think she would have done the same, she was ashamed to admit to herself that, even though she loved Jasper, she wasn't sure she'd have been strong enough to.
"I swear to God if you're wrong, if something happens to him, I'll fucking kill you," she threatened lowly, savagely.
"If I'm wrong, I'll fuckin' kill myself," Peter promised, his tone so fierce and solemn it scared her a little. She'd never heard anyone sound so earnest in her life and she knew without a doubt that he meant it. "If anything changes and the darkness goes away let me know."
"You know I will," Alice said softly.
There was a soft click and she knew both through sight and hearing that he'd hung up. She was once again glad that the rest of the family wasn't home. No use worrying everyone else when she wasn't even sure there was anything to worry about.
Going shopping. :)
Alice shot off the text to Edward as she headed out to her canary yellow Porsche. She couldn't be here when the others got back. Even if she managed to hide how scared she was from Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett, she'd never be able to hide it from Edward. Even without the mating bond that connected them, he could still read her so well and if there wasn't that, there was his gift. She was pretty good at keeping him out of her head when she had a mind to but she, ironically, just didn't have the energy to expend on the effort it would take. She was too terrified for Jasper.
Port Angeles or Seattle? :)
Seattle, of course. :)
Of course. Have fun, love. :)
Always do. ;)
Love you. Buy something sexy for me?
Love you too. Don't I always?
:)
Let you know when I get there.
You'd better.
Ooohhh, commanding Edward. Keep that up and I might have to buy two sexy somethings for you.
Come back to me soon, love. I miss you.
You know I can't stay away from you for long. I miss you too. Now leave me alone. How can I properly spend all your money if you don't quit bugging me? :P
Lol :)
;)
It was so easy pretending like everything was okay as she texted back and forth with the man she loved more than anything, but it wasn't okay. She wished Edward was there to hold her.
Alice hopped into her Porsche, opened the garage, backed down the driveway at a speed that would have been dangerous for a human before swinging around the right way and punching the gas. She needed to get out of Forks as quickly as possible. She needed to keep her mind busy and there were only two ways she could successfully do that:immersing herself in Edward or immersing herself in fashion. Since the former wasn't an option for several reasons, the latter would have to do. Before she let herself, hopefully, get lost in the world of clothes, shoes, and accessories she sighed and thought of Jasper one last time.
"I'm trusting you Peter," she whispered dejectedly. "Please, please don't be wrong."
oOo
JPOV
After deciding Louisville was the place I wanted to stop, I had to decide where I wanted to stop. I had been essentially locked away inside my Mustang with my own thoughts and emotions for the last four days and, while that was what I had needed, now I wanted to drown in the emotions of strangers; but not just any emotions. I wanted variety: the loving, the angry, the silly, the intense, the sad, the joyous, the crazy, the stupid, and everything in between. Really, there was only one place I could go to find all those things and that was a bar. For an empath, walking into a bar was like walking into a grocery store of emotions only everything had this candy-coating of drunkenness engulfing it. I needed the mellowness of a buzz or the outright dizziness of being shitfaced drunk right now, any break from the sharpness that my existence as a vampire wouldn't allow me to escape.
Seeing as it was nearly 10:30 on a Friday night it wouldn't be hard for me to find a bar that was busy. I decided on the fifth one I came across. It was called The Finish Line, in honor of the city's beloved Kentucky Derby, and it was in a seedier part of Louisville. It smelled strongly of cigarettes, alcohol, sweat, asphalt, humidity, and horses as well as other humans, which is why I didn't weed out that one smell that should have stood out from all the others the second I came within one hundred yards of the place. If I had, I would have turned around and gotten right the fuck back into my car and driven right the fuck back out of town.
You have got to be fuckin' kidding me!
The past five weeks of my life had been all kinds of shitty for a lot of reasons, most of which could be traced directly back to one insignificant human girl; and there, standing not twenty-five feet away with her back to me, was that very insignificant human girl. I knew it was her because now that I had picked up her scent I could separate it clearly from all the others as if it was the only one in the room.
Goddamn it!
Of all the places I could have ended up, why the hell did she have to be here too? I had stopped in this city because it had felt like the right place to do so. It was supposed to be the place that I found some sort of reprieve from the shit that had yet again found a foothold in my head and she was ruining it.
It took all the restraint I had to keep from sprinting forward to snap her skinny, little neck just like I'd promised myself I would do if I ever saw her again. I wanted it, I suspected the Major wanted it though he wasn't being vocal in his agreement, but we were in a room full of people. Granted, they were drunk people but that still counted. I really, really didn't want them to count. Maybe I could make an exception.
When she moved away from the table she'd been standing at and turned around, I made no move to hide myself from her. I wondered if she would remember who I was. We had only spent a handful of hours together and we hadn't spoken a word to each other during that time. Humans forgot things; maybe I was one of those things. Then our eyes met, the look we shared intense, filled with challenge. She remembered and she had to have been just as surprised to see me as I was to see her, but she didn't act as though she was. She was good at playing cool, that one. Was she completely unaffected by me? That thought pissed me off.
I was tempted to let her know just how much she fuckin' pissed me off, how much I hated her, but I didn't. I schooled my features, making sure I looked completely impassive. Maybe it would have been satisfying to let her know just how much she affected me but, though I didn't really know anything about this girl and had no right to assume anything about her, I wasn't willing to take the risk that showing her how angry she made me might have been more satisfying for her than it would have been for me.
There was emotion on her face but it was vague and I couldn't read what it was nor could I feel it, though I'd zeroed in on her. Just like when I'd tried to read her before, they were flickering in and out so fast I couldn't figure out exactly what they were. I don't know how long we stood there staring at each other because it felt like time had stopped during our silent standoff much the way it had at the breakfast table all those weeks ago; and just like all those weeks ago I got lost in those pretty brown eyes of hers.
No! I growled internally, even more pissed, not even noticing the drunken argument that escalated into a full-on shouting match due to the anger I'd unintentionally projected. Her eyes are not pretty! They're the color of shit.
This time I was not dazed when the spell broke. In fact, I required no recovery time at all because the whole thing pissed me the fuck off even more. I didn't like losing awareness of my surroundings. There weren't any other vampires in Louisville at the moment but that could change in the blink of an eye. I wasn't afraid of confrontation with others of my kind but I wasn't in the mood, though I had to admit the idea of being able to take out some of my frustration on someone who could handle what I could dish out was deeply appealing. Then again, there weren't many, my kind or not, who could handle what I could dish out. Still, even though I was no longer lost in her eyes, I didn't drop her gaze. There was no way in hell I would be the first to look away.
Unlike the last time, she was the one to cock an eyebrow at me as if to say, What the fuck are you starin' at?
I just smirked, found a table in the back right corner of the bar and ordered a glass of Johnnie Walker Black from a waitress that came across as pretty damn desperate.
I wondered if the girl would approach me and couldn't decide if I wanted her to or if I wished she would stay as far away from me as possible. All I knew was that I wasn't leaving. If I left now, it might seem like I was taking off because she was here and I wasn't a pussy who ran away from things, especially not insignificant human girls.
Aren't you though? You did run away from Forks.
But that was different. Being overwhelmed by my gift and needing a break from shit wasn't the same as running away, and it's not like I wasn't going back.
"Paige! What the hell?" A bleached blond girl whom I immediately decided would be better known as Harpy Bitch, barked sharply, waving to get her attention.
My girl … no, not your girl… didn't spare me anymore of her attention; instead turning on her heel and heading behind the bar. Apparently, she worked here. I suppose I should have figured that out since she was wearing one of those little half aprons.
So her name is Paige, I noted with interest. Paige still didn't seem right to me but whatever. No, you don't give a fuck what her name is, Jasper.
I spent the next two hours watching her, studying her, trying to figure her out while continually fielding a parade of drunken women attempting to hit on me. She was still just as observant as she had been when she'd been a guest in the Cullen home. She took note of every customer who entered the bar even when she was swamped making drinks or waiting tables. During lulls, when she wasn't cleaning or refreshing customers' drinks, she played with the chain of her silver necklace. Also, she still did her best never to leave her back unprotected, even though that was nearly impossible to do if she wanted to do her job well. I could tell from the tense set of her shoulders that it made her uneasy when she had to compromise her vigilance for job quality. I found myself compensating for this, much to my severe irritation. I tried to stop myself from doing it only to find myself right back at it the next time she had to compromise her attention to her surroundings in favor of the bar patrons. Why did she care so much about watching her back? Did she even know she was doing it? If she was doing it on purpose, and it genuinely seemed as though she was, what had made her so fuckin' paranoid?
It doesn't matter. She's just a human. You don't care about her problems. You don't care about her. This is the bloodlust, that's all. You hate her remember?
And I did. The overwhelming urge to snap her neck almost overcame me once again.
I had to admit she was a damn fine bartender, mixing drinks with showy spins and flicks of her wrist, always to the rave reviews of her customers. Some of it had to do with the fact that the majority of her customers were males who clearly thought she was beautiful, which made me grit my teeth in annoyance.
She's not beautiful. She's not.
The girl truly was skilled though, both behind the bar and as a waitress, navigating her way effortlessly in and out of the paths of drunken customers with trays laden with drinks and standard pub food. Every once in a while her eyes strayed to me, an unfathomable look in them. My only response was to smirk at her.
"Hey baby," a man, probably in his early to mid-twenties, with dark hair and green eyes, called to her. He came up behind her as she pushed a Long Island iced tea across the bar at another older, seriously skeezy guy who had been on the verge of fatally trying my patience with his leering and inappropriate comments. The younger guy slung his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek, giving skeezy dude a pointed look. Skeezy dude immediately got the hint and backed off.
A growl rumbled in my chest, a new wave of fury crashing over me.
What the fuck? The question was directed more at me than it was at the douchebag currently groping the human girl. I really fuckin' hated her.
She stiffened at the physical contact with the douchebag, which made me feel minutely better. Douchebag, however, was hurt and disappointed. I knew because I'd homed in on the two of them the second he'd put his hands on her, hoping I might be able to break through whatever was blocking me from being able to feel her. I was out of luck where she was concerned but I could feel Douchebag just fine. He liked her. Hell, he was in love with her and her rejection of him made me just a smidge gleeful. There was also the intense desire to rip his arms off for touching her when I knew she didn't like it.
You do not care. She doesn't matter.
The girl eased her way out from underneath his arm as gracefully as she could. I couldn't figure out if she was being delicate about it because she didn't like being touched or if it was because she knew he had a thing for her and she didn't reciprocate. Then again, maybe she did reciprocate. It's not like I could tell since my gift was moot where she was concerned. God, she pissed me off.
The girl glanced at Douchebag, her expression stormy, "I didn't need your help, Christian."
At least she's consistent.
Douchebag … Christian, though I liked Douchebag better … was again hurt and disappointed by her reaction. He'd obviously hoped that coming to her rescue like some douchey knight in shining armor might make her love him back.
Pathetic fucker, I smirked.
He held his hands up in surrender, "Fine. Next time I won't bother."
The girl sighed. "I'm sorry, Christian. That's my knee-jerk reaction. Thank you."
I could tell it cost her to say it and that she didn't really want to. It made me wonder why she did, even though I was sure she meant it. Still, it was highly disappointing to me. I didn't like people who said or did things to mollify others. It was hypocritical of me to judge her for it since I did it quite often for my family but at least I did it for the sake of people I cared about. At most, the girl had known Douchebag for four weeks. She couldn't have cared about him that much.
Douchebag grinned at her, "No worries. Why don't you take a break, honey? You're due for one."
As the girl nodded, giving him a small smile and turning to head wherever it was she was planning on spending her break, I felt a strong wave of jealousy and anger. It only took a moment for me to figure out that it was comin' from Harpy Bitch, who happened to be another waitress and bartender. Either she had a thing for the girl and was pissed at Douchebag because he had a better shot with her than she did, assuming the girl was straight anyway, or she had a thing for Douchebag and was pissed because he was clearly in love with the girl. I was guessing it was the latter.
And the plot thickens …
oOo
A/N: And Bella remains ever mysterious. So what did you think? Up next: Bella and Jasper speak to each other for the first time. :) Wonder what they'll have to say to each other?
