A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer, but her characters are fun to play with so I'm making them do my bidding for the foreseeable future. Jasper as the God of War and Peter 'just knowing shit' are ideas that belong to IDreamofEddy. I do own the plot and original characters of Longing though.
Thank you to my wonderful beta and friend, Laurie Whitlock and my beloved sister/beta/pre-reader, Shelljayz, who brings me great joy every day. The two of you rock and this story would not be the same without you and your guidance. I love you both to death. :)
Thank you so much to everyone who has followed, favorited, reviewed or just plain stopped by to read or visit. I love you all! :) I haven't been good at all about responding to reviews the past couple weeks and I'm so incredibly sorry for that. I just really haven't been feeling all that well. I'll try to do better this next week.
So now Bella is back in Forks ...
Chapter 25
oOo
Friday, October 23rd, 2080
JPOV
"Uh, uh," I argued. "There's no way. No way in hell."
Peter grinned at me, his emotions radiating humor and amusement but also obstinacy. We were in my study, my personal haven that almost no one was allowed to enter without my permission. The exceptions to this were Peter, Charlotte and Alice, but only because they knew when it was okay to enter without asking first and when I absolutely needed to be left alone. "Careful, Major," he cautioned. "Your geek is showin'."
"My geek is showin'?" I sputtered incredulously. Peter smirked. Fucker! "Maybe so, but at least I have good taste!"
"How do I not have good taste?" he asked, looking baffled and wounded. It was a crock of shit, mostly. He was still a cocky bastard.
I rolled my eyes. "You've spent the last half hour arguin' the merits of the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher Batman films over the Christopher Nolan trilogy. Two minutes of listenin' to that shit had me questioning your sanity, but half a fuckin' hour has me thinkin' you need to be committed. How could you possibly think that those cheesy ass movies can even touch the brilliance of Christopher Nolan?"
Peter's gaze narrowed but he was still amused. He reached for the closest thing to him, which happened to be my newest historical novel and chucked it at my head. I caught it before it hit me between the eyes. "I happen to like cheese, you dick! And they weren't cheesy for the time they were made!"
"Alright, fine," I said in begrudging agreement, "maybe I'm not cryin' over the four hours of my eternity I'll never get back after havin' watched the Keaton films but-"
"But," he parroted triumphantly, succeeding in mocking me and prompting me to continue simultaneously. If I didn't love the guy so damn much …
"Need I remind you of the disaster that was Batman & Robin?" I pointed out. My brother cringed at the mention of it, and it was my turn to smirk.
Peter recovered quickly as he was wont to do, and grinned at me. His emotions hadn't changed much, only now there was a hint of his usual mischievousness. "What Major? Didn't you like the close-ups of rubber asses and bat nipples?"
"No, Pete, I can't say I did," I returned with a smile, "but I do remember you disappearing into your room for an awful long time after you bought the VHS. So long, in fact, that you had Char and I worried."
His grin didn't falter. "What can I say? George Clooney was one fine hunk of man meat in his day. If I swung that way, I would have fucked him."
I grimaced. "I cannot even tell you on how many levels I find that disturbing, and I'm beginnin' to question what I ever could have seen in you that made me think puttin' up with your ass for eternity was a good idea."
Peter folded his arms behind his head and propped his feet up on my desk chair, which wasn't far enough out of his reach. I was going to have to burn it later. "My rugged good looks, of course."
I scoffed. "Oh yes," I fired back at him, my tone dripping with sarcasm, "that is precisely why I turned you."
"Obviously," he agreed without missing a beat and then changed the subject. "Have you no respect for the man who brought us the Terminator?"
I was glad he'd switched topics as our conversation was getting uncomfortably close to one I didn't fuckin' wish to discuss. I was content right now bullshitting with my brother ... well, as content as I could be considering how off I continued to feel; especially since it had been sixteen days with no word from Paige when she had promised to be back in no more than fourteen. Maybe that meant she had just been blowing smoke up our asses when she'd told Carlisle she was going to move in. After our last confrontation, I couldn't say I was sad about the prospect of her having lied about it, though there was a little stab of disappointment at the thought that I refused to acknowledge beyond the initial irritation I'd felt when it had first hit me ... and I wasn't worried about her. I wasn't. I wasn't curious about where she had gone either.
"Just because he brought one kickass machine to life did not give Arnold Schwarzenegger license to bring a lame one into the world," I countered.
"Mr. Freeze is not lame," Peter shouted, the semi-faux-offense returning to his voice and emotions. He looked scandalized when he said, "He's not even a machine ... and you call yourself a Batman fan!"
"He wears a mechanical suit to keep himself alive, douche," I said, folding my arms across my chest, "that makes him part machine, and he's not the best Batman villain but he's got potential. Thus, the lameness of his portrayal of the character in part ruined a potentially great movie."
Peter's smirk returned. "Come on, Major. They're just movies. Why so serious?"
He had been waiting for the entirety of our debate for the perfect time to use that line. If I knew my brother, the whole reason he'd even brought the subject up was so he could. I tossed my head back and laughed, and I wasn't the only one in the house that did, but not before picking up the useless paperweight I kept on the end table next to my leather armchair; only because it had been a gift from Esme, and taking my own shot at his head. Peter caught it before it shattered against his forehead more because it was a gift from Esme and not because of the mess it would have caused ... well that, and the loss of reflex prowess points that would have damaged his rep. Just because I had no use for Esme's gift didn't mean it wasn't important to me, and Peter knew that.
The sound of footsteps approaching my study door echoed down the hall, Carlisle's scent giving away that it was him. His knock and emotions were hesitant, and it made me wonder what he could possibly want. Carlisle was kind and patient but he didn't lack confidence, so it wasn't like him to show that trait.
"Come in," I called, hesitance absent. I would have reassured him that he had no need to feel uncertain of himself around me no matter what he wished to discuss, but I still wasn't able to project. I was beginning to feel like an emotionally constipated empath.
Carlisle peeked around the door, his expression matching his emotions, and I gestured for him to enter in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. He finally lost the uncertainty and made his way inside.
As he ventured further into the room, he met Peter's gaze. My brother and best friend stared at him with a calculating sheen to his eyes, his emotions colored with a suspicion and cunning I didn't understand. I had never seen Peter look at Carlisle like that nor had he ever felt that way in his presence. I would have to ask him about it later.
"I'll just leave the two of you to it," Peter said, standing and moseying from the room in that lazy manner he had perfected so many decades ago.
"What's on your mind, Carlisle?" I questioned curiously, but still wary.
He took Peter's seat on the couch across from me, resting his elbows on his knees. I really did want to know what he had to say. My respect for him had skyrocketed in the past weeks. I had always respected him, but he had surprised me with his strategies both in convincing most of us to be in favor of Paige living here and the Quileutes as well. Of course almost half the family hadn't been a hard sell but succeeding in getting Rosalie to vote yes was quite the accomplishment. Convincing the wolves hadn't been an easy feat either and he had done so brilliantly. To say I was impressed was an understatement.
Carlisle tried to look nonchalant but he couldn't hide his concern from an empath. He knew that I both hated and appreciated that shit, and those feelings tipped the scale in favor of one or the other. He was testing the waters to see which direction I was leaning at the moment, but I wouldn't know until he spilled whatever the hell had him in here treating me with kid gloves. Actually, that was pretty much the deciding factor and I was fuckin' irritated now.
"I just wanted to check in with you," he said, "see how you're doing."
Suddenly all of this made sense to me. I had been expecting this conversation for weeks now but that didn't make me any less peeved.
"I'm not goin' to hurt her, Carlisle," I said through gritted teeth.
I'd had my doubts about it but Peter had assured me I wouldn't. It had taken some persuading on his and Charlotte's parts to make me a believer since Paige was so damn annoying, but, in the end, I had caved. I always caved because even though he was a mischievous asshole, I trusted Peter and his gift implicitly. Maybe it was malfunctioning some lately but that didn't make the things he did just know any less accurate. He had never led me astray before and he never would. If there was anything I just knew, it was that.
"I never thought you would," Carlisle assured me and he wasn't lying. I could feel it.
"Then why are we havin' this conversation?" I asked with a frown, my more prevalent exasperation overshadowing my confusion.
Carlisle smiled at me. "You seemed a little off kilter the other day, and I know Storm moving in isn't something you want-"
It's Paige, I corrected silently. I didn't know why it fuckin' bugged me that everyone kept calling her by a name that wasn't hers but it did. Even though it bugged me, I still wouldn't verbally correct them. Not without her permission. Plus, I didn't want to get into how I knew what her supposed name was.
"-I meant to speak with you about this before, but things have kept coming up," Carlisle continued. "I was disappointed when you voted no. You must have felt that," he paused, waiting for me to acknowledge whether or not I had. When I nodded, he carried on, "You know I wasn't disappointed in you, right?"
Carlisle never had been disappointed in me. Not when he found out about how I had come into this life, not when he found out about my time in the Southern Wars, not when he found out that I was the famed Major, the fiendishly legendary God of War, and never when I fucked up and drained a human dry.
Every year around the anniversary of the last time I had been overwhelmed by my bloodlust and taken a human life; which had been nearly fifty-one years ago, he took me on a two week long hunting trip. We had never gone to the same place twice to do the actual celebrating but they always had two things in common: they were teeming with top-notch prey, the filet mignon of animal blood, and they were always by some body of water. Carlisle may not have known that the sound of currents rushing passed me as I gazed up at the stars or the clouds were two of the only things in this world that brought me peace and clarity, but he was observant enough to notice that I always seemed to be more clear-headed when I was around some form of water.
We had developed a ritual over the years. We would go for a light hunt in Forks before we headed wherever it was we'd picked to go. Then Carlisle and I would hit up the town nearest to our chosen hunting spot and patronize the local bar from open to close for three nights. We would sit there in the thick of the drunk humans and I would soak every last ounce of those hazy emotions up, sharing a mild buzz with Carlisle but mostly storing them and compounding them and multiplying them. Then we would head to our feeding grounds, I would let those emotions loose and Carlisle and I would go drunken carnivore hunting, stumbling around like idiots, wrestling sloppily with our prey, and getting more on us than in us.
Once our thirst was sated, which was always by the actual anniversary, we'd park our asses on the beach and carefully build a bonfire. I would dial the drunkenness back from shitfaced to just this side of too much. A drunken Carlisle was fuckin' hilarious and it reminded me that even though he was centuries older than I was, he was still really only twenty-three. As responsible as he was, he could let loose with the best of them, and I wasn't sure if that was a side of himself he had shown to Edward or Emmett. The thought made me feel special.
During those trips Carlisle never said that he was proud of me. A lot of people needed to hear words to confirm that kind of shit but I wasn't one of them. Actually, I just didn't fuckin' like it and he knew that, so he always abided that unspoken rule. He didn't need to say it though. His pride in me and my accomplishments radiated out of him like a beacon, a lighthouse to a ship in a storm. So we sat there, drunk, shooting the shit for days, and I basked in the glow of it and his pride and love for the whole of that time until we packed up to hunt again before we headed home.
The buzz always wore off after five days if I was really trying to retain it. Because the emotions produced by alcohol weren't entirely natural, I couldn't produce them continually unless I was constantly in the presence of a drunk or high person. After the buzz dissipated, Carlisle and I would hunt like civilized vampires in our chosen place before we went back to the family.
"Yes," I confirmed, and he let out a relieved breath at the knowledge that I still understood his faith in me.
"I just want you to know that you can come to me if you find yourself," Carlisle paused, looking for the right word, "frustrated."
I wanted to snort. Frustrated did not even begin to fuckin' cover what Paige made me feel but he didn't need to know that. Even so, I was still going to try to curb that frustration for the sake of everyone else in the house. My anger at her from weeks ago had dissipated but I had come to some conclusions about her stay here, if she indeed came back.
"I'll be polite, Carlisle," I promised, "but," I paused for effect, "I won't stand idly by when she runs that mouth of hers and she will. You're," I said, and then corrected myself, "we're showin' her a great kindness by allowing her to live here, and I will not fuckin' tolerate disrespect, especially not to you or Esme."
I generally did my best not to curse around the two of them. We all did. Esme and Carlisle weren't much for that kind of language, though they did let a curse slip on occasion, but neither one of them ever corrected or yelled at us when we did. Even though they often acted as our parental figures, they knew we weren't children, that we had a right to speak however we wanted as long as we didn't curse at them. They were also the first to admit that our houses weren't just "theirs." We all chipped in whenever we bought a new place, so they couldn't pull that parent "as long as you live under my roof, you will follow my rules!" bullshit. They left us alone and didn't complain about it. That was why we tried so hard to keep our tongues in check in their presence but, despite my traditional Southern upbringing, I tended to curse more when I was pissed off or agitated.
Carlisle's emotions were touched as I said this because even though he couldn't feel it, he knew I meant it. "Go easy on her, Jasper. She's had it pretty rough."
"Everyone's had it rough at one point or another," I pointed out. "Life is rough. That doesn't make it okay for her to mouth off to people who don't deserve it, and I won't coddle her just because mommy and daddy didn't love her enough."
"Jasper!" Carlisle admonished sharply.
I shrugged. It was a nonchalant gesture but I wasn't sure what else I could do to make him understand that I hadn't meant that in a disrespectful way. "I'm not bein' callous or vindictive. I'm bein' honest. It's not an excuse and you know it."
He sighed sadly. "You're right," he admitted, "but she's really not as bad as you think."
I met Carlisle's gaze evenly. "It's not that I think she's bad. She's a survivor, and I both admire and respect her for that. She should be respected for that. I just think she shouldn't make it her life's mission to piss people off."
To piss me off.
Carlisle's gaze was just as even. "Have you never been so lost and angry that you wanted nothing more than to make those around you feel just the same as you?"
Well, shit! I thought with a frown.
Carlisle had a point. I had been lost and angry for a long time. I still was and I couldn't blame Paige if that's how she felt too. Maybe I would have realized this if my gift wasn't so fuckin' useless around her and if her face and body language weren't so damn hard to read most of the time. Then again, I was 236 years old. I should have had some fuckin' idea anyway but I'd been too stuck in my own head lately.
As I sat there, I really thought about her and the little time we had spent together. I remembered it all in vivid detail, more detail than I cared to for the most part. I tried to look at it all differently, to separate the confusion, irritation, and other emotions she evoked from the facts.
There was a lot about Paige I didn't know: where she came from, who her parents were, why she was in the situation she was in, what exactly that situation was, or if Paige Donnelly was her real name. But there were things about her that I did know for certain. She had monumental trust issues that made her uncomfortable with the idea of letting anyone in and didn't take kindly to what she perceived as condescension and pity. She had a sense of pride that made it hard for her to accept help. She was tough and guarded, quick-witted with a sense of humor. She didn't take shit from anyone and wasn't shy in letting people know it. She was stubborn and hardheaded but rational and acutely aware not only of her surroundings but of the people in them. She rolled with the punches better than most of the people and vampires I had met in my long life, and she watched her back with a vigilance that was rare in someone her age, rare in someone of any age. She wasn't afraid of hard work and threw herself into whatever task was presented to her, wanting to do her best no matter if it wasn't necessarily pleasant. That had been easy to see from watching her in the bar. She cared about people, doing her best to help them even if they were awful to her as evidenced by the way she had handled things when she'd thought Harpy Bitch had been drugged. I remembered the way she had looked at me, like she knew me better than anyone else ever had, including Peter, who knew me best; how she had taken the time to really see me when she had no reason to bother or care. She was smart and resourceful, thought on her feet like it was second nature. She did what had to be done but because she cared, I had a hard time believing anyone got hurt when she did those things. She was a survivor, but, more than that, she seemed like a genuinely good person, which was more than could be said for me when I was in a place similar to hers.
When I thought about all of this, I realized we had a lot in common, more than I was comfortable with. Yes, she was damn good at pushing my buttons, annoyed me easily, and affected me more than anyone had in a long time but she challenged me too, and I couldn't say I didn't like that ... on occasion. I also couldn't deny that there were times I wanted to kill her and times when I just plain wanted her. I still didn't like that one fuckin' bit and living with her would be difficult. It would try my patience in ways it probably never had been but there was nothing I could do to change things. Her being here had already been decided and Charlotte and I had been outnumbered seven to two.
I had to try to be civil. I had to try to like her just as I had concluded two weeks ago when she showed up at our door acting like something had crawled up her ass and died. After our time in Louisville, I figured she would grow on me eventually. I did no longer hate her after all and my anger with her had melted away more quickly than I'd expected it to. I really did respect her for all of the things I knew for certain about her, and I couldn't judge her for the things I didn't. I couldn't be that hypocritical.
My silence gave Carlisle all the answer he needed but he didn't rub my initial hypocrisy in my face. Sometimes, Carlisle was so patient and good and wise I wanted to rip his face off.
"Like I said," I told him, my tone not as unyielding as it had been before and also lacking the bite, "I'll be polite to her and I'll do my best to be understanding, but I am still not goin' to allow her to disrespect you."
Carlisle grinned at me, his happiness and relief seeping into my skin. "That's all I can ask."
I returned his smile tentatively, not entirely comfortable with or even sure of what exactly I was getting myself into.
Carlisle had been about to impart yet another sage piece of wisdom that would undoubtedly have left me wanting to claw his fuckin' eyes out but before he could, his cell phone rang.
He pulled it from his blazer pocket, answering with a warm, "Hello."
"Hey, Doc," Paige's voice sounded on the other end of the line.
Goddamn it!
The sound of her voice still did things to me that I was not fuckin' okay with. It would have been different if the last time I ever saw her was in Louisville and she remained strictly as a permanent memory in my eternal spank bank, but she was going to be here all the fuckin' time, a living, breathing reminder of the mind-fuck that was that early September morning in our alcove behind 'The Finish Line'.
Fuck!
I never would have touched her if I had known she would end up living with us. This was going to be a hell of a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
So much for getting her out of your fuckin' system.
"Storm!" Carlisle exclaimed, his relief so overwhelming I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Too bad it didn't lift the weight off my chest, but I was almost used to it now ... almost. "It's been sixteen days. I was starting to worry."
I could practically hear Paige rolling her eyes. "Don't lie, Doc. You were worried the second I walked out your door."
Paige was right. Carlisle had been worried the second she'd walked out our door. As far as I could tell, he was irrationally concerned for the girl. He didn't know her well enough to elicit that kind of concern and if he knew her the way I did, he certainly wouldn't be so fuckin' apprehensive. Paige wasn't some shrinking violet. She could handle herself pretty damn well. Hell, she'd taken me, me, by surprise and pinned me to a fuckin' wall. I'd expected that to piss me off after my head had cleared from our little encounter. Instead, nothing had changed and all that shit did was make my dick hard.
Do not go there, Jasper, I snapped at myself. Paige was off limits, and even if that weren't the case, she bugged me too fuckin' much.
"That's true," Carlisle admitted.
She snorted. "You are too honest for your own good, Dr. Cullen."
"I heard it was a virtue or something," he quipped and she chuckled. I liked the sound of it. I liked the sound of it way too damn much.
Fuck!
"Are you back in Forks?" He asked, his excitement and hopefulness taking over the room like he'd detonated a flash grenade.
"Um, no," Paige said. "I'm in Port Angeles at the sh-crap, motel."
"Forks has a shit motel, you know," Carlisle pointed out, knowing the word she had meant to say and playing around with her a little. He may have been so good and kind and patient that it, on occasion, made me want to commit horrific acts of violence out of sheer fuckin' frustration, but the guy wasn't lacking for humor, and a cursing Carlisle was always, always hilarious. I would have laughed if he'd been talking to anyone but her. I was too preoccupied to laugh when it was her.
"It does," she said. If she'd been surprised by Carlisle's cursing, she was hiding it well. She sounded playful and sarcastic when she said, "but that one is clean and, dare I say it, quaint, while this one has faux-silk, porn star sheets and magic fingers. Honestly, Dr. Cullen, it was a no brainer."
Faux-silk porn star sheets and magic fingers? Seriously? She's still torturin' me without even tryin'. Shit!
"You are absolutely right, Storm," Carlisle conceded easily. "That was a no brainer."
"Bella," she said quietly, "my name is Bella."
"Bella," Carlisle repeated, a little smile stretching his lips. "I like it," he concluded, "it suits you."
Yes, it does, I agreed. In all the time I had known her, all the names I'd known her by just hadn't fit. 'Bella' was perfect. I just wondered if it was real.
"Thanks?"
"You're welcome," Carlisle answered, ignoring her uncertainty.
"Sooo," Bella continued, "is your offer to help me move still open?"
"Of course," he responded immediately.
"Good," she replied. "When I turned you down I hadn't taken into account the supplies I was going to need."
"Supplies?" Carlisle mused aloud, seemingly before he could stop himself. His curiosity was so strong it had my whole body feeling like it was just coming awake after I'd lost circulation. He lived to solve puzzles, it was one of the reasons he was such a damn good doctor, and Bella was like one of those packages that came with several of them.
"Now, now, Doc," Bella chided, "don't make me reach through this phone and smack your hand with a ruler."
Carlisle chuckled. "I wouldn't want to make you go to all that trouble because of my errant, but goalless, curiosity."
"It's no trouble," she replied cheerily.
"How much stuff do you have, Bella?" he asked. Then he quickly elaborated, "So I'll know which vehicle to use."
"I've got a duffle bag, a large steamer trunk, and four boxes," Bella told him. "Two large and two medium."
"We can take my Suburban," Peter said from the door of my study.
I had been so fuckin' absorbed in Carlisle's conversation with Bella that I hadn't heard my brother approach. Sure, Peter was a sneaky fucker, stealth being one of his greatest talents, but I still should have felt him coming in many ways despite his lack of scent: through my gift, my senses, my instincts, and just from how well I knew him. That was going to have to change. Bella's presence here couldn't compromise how well I could protect my family and myself.
"Do you mind if I bring Peter along?" Carlisle inquired.
"Eh," Bella said, and I could picture her noncommittal shrug, "no skin off my nose."
Esme appeared at the door next. "It's five. Ask if she's eaten dinner, dear."
"Have you eaten dinner, Bella?"
"No, sir."
"Esme will no doubt have something ready for you by the time we get home," Carlisle told her.
"Is she making dinner for everyone?" she asked.
"We've already eaten," he responded.
This was him sparing us from having to consume human food. The rules we'd be operating under while Bella lived with us were almost identical to the ones we had established when she'd been here before. Now, however, we would be doing just about anything we could to avoid eating with her without being obvious about it. Knowing how observant she was, she'd notice whether we were subtle about it or not. This was why we would be restricted to short hunts during daylight hours that could be passed off as running errands and whatnot during the weekdays and extended hunts on the weekends with the excuse of visiting Carlisle's family, i.e., the Denali coven, who lived not far away, far being a relative term.
"Oh, it's not necessary for her to make something just for me," she protested. "I can make my own dinner."
Carlisle laughed. "You don't know my wife, Bella. The likelihood of me convincing her not to make you food is about as high as the possibility of it raining spaghetti. Peter and I are leaving right now. We'll see you shortly."
"Alright, Doc," Bella said. "I'm in room number four."
My whole fuckin' world was about to change and, if the time I had already spent with Bella was any indication, implode.
oOo
BPOV
It was 11:07 pm and I was in the guest room I had stayed in two and a half months ago. It was now my room and it hadn't changed in the least. The walls were still a light blue, the carpet was still stark white, and the artwork was still all beautiful, dreamy pastels with occasional splashes of bold color. The bed was still framed in naturally-finished oak with a headboard to match, the sheets were still lilac and soft, the comforter was still plush and white with several over-stuffed pillows piled on top of it, the fireplace still regal, and the mattress was still the most comfortable mattress I had ever had the pleasure of resting on. I actually didn't think there was one piece of furniture in the Cullen house that didn't bring a person close to nirvana while sitting or lying on it.
Mrs. Cullen had emphatically insisted that I make the room my own, telling me that I could paint it whatever color I wanted, get new furniture and bedding, even a new bed if that would make me feel more at home. I wondered what she would say if I told her that in order for it to feel like home the walls would have to be stripped down to the gray of their sheetrock and left bare of any decoration, the bed downsized to a twin and covered with scratchy, cotton sheets, the dimensions downsized by roughly 60%, the bed frame and the rest of the furniture swapped out for sturdy metal bolted to concrete floors, and with all warmth completely sucked out of the room. I sighed. That didn't matter.
I had every intention of making use of that fuckawesome bed in a couple of hours. Alice had insisted that I go shopping with her and everyone else the next day. She still had the puppy dog face in her arsenal and her enthusiasm over the prospect of shopping was truly scary, so I was going to have to sleep some if I was going to survive the experience. She hadn't really given me a choice in the matter and I couldn't argue. I needed clothes and shoes appropriate for school (the clothes I had now were only wearable in a barn or a bar), a desk and chair, and some other things. I couldn't sleep just yet though. I had some things to do first.
I went to the boxes Dr. Cullen and Peter had so carefully carted up the stairs for me, opening them and unpacking their contents and taking inventory of it all as I meticulously removed the packaging. When I was done, the floor of the bedroom was strewn with neat piles of computer components and peripherals (think all the extra things like monitors and cables). I needed a hardcore computer as well as other equipment for my Jane investigation, and for how I intended to go about said investigation, there wasn't a pre-made computer out there with specifications that would meet my needs or be to my liking and standards. As for the rest of the necessary equipment, it was specialty and I couldn't buy it without the purchases being logged, and I wasn't about to steal any of it. I had committed enough felonies lately. Therefore, I was going to have to build my own, which was also why there was a separate pile that held all the necessary tools to accomplish this. Procuring the required parts, all of which were top of the line, was what had pushed me two days passed the two week timeline I had given Dr. Cullen for my return.
I had purchased all $40,000 of the parts myself and had checked them beforehand but I still felt the need to inspect them a second time for any damage or visible design flaws I may have missed. From what I could tell, it was all in good working order so when I built my computer and everything else, which I intended to begin the next day, everything should go smoothly.
What I was doing now was equally important but in a different way. I had a theory about something and I was going to test it. It was necessary to test it.
In order to become Bella Crawfield, I'd had to hack into the computer system of the hospital I had chosen to be "born" at, insert a record of my "birth" to Catherine and William Crawfield, who had died in a car crash when Bella Crawfield, I (she was me now), was ten, and then insert random snippets in strategic places to prove my existence without having to go into excessive detail. It was generic, unimaginative life stuff, milestones that would be recorded in this or that public record. I had created a tentative existence for my fictional parents and myself, vague but filled out enough not to draw suspicion if anyone dug into things, but, as always, one of the keys to an airtight alias hinged on fingerprints. As I'd mentioned, if I shed a set and came up with a new one on my own, there was always that minute curve that gave away that they originated from me but the fingerprints I took from other people lacked that curve, matching flawlessly.
I was hypothesizing that I could create a set without that telling curve if I made a model and practiced adopting that model until they lost that curve and achieved the same perfection that my borrowed ones possessed. It wasn't a hypothesis that was rooted in science so much as naive hope. I was pretty sure that what enabled the borrowed fingerprints to be so perfect was a genetic trigger. When I touched a person's hand, I suspected there was some DNA transfer that enabled me to replicate their fingerprints when I made the decision that initiated it. If that was the case, my efforts would be fruitless, but I was willing to give it a shot. If I again ended up in a situation where I couldn't avoid getting arrested, I wanted to be able to minimize the risk.
In order to test this theory, I had to have several things. Some of those things were very simple, like paper and a run of the mill ink pad used for rubber stamping. The others were a bit more complicated. I'd had to design an original set of fingerprints, sans the telltale marker that pegged me as Soldier Omega, using computer software, and then use a 3D printer to carve out a base model of the print for each finger. After that was complete, I'd shaved the model down until it was a millimeter thick. Then I had taken foam latex, the kind make-up artists used to make prosthetics for movies, poured dabs of it into the mold and let it set. Once I had removed the prosthetic from the mold, I took a penknife and split them into three separate, usable applications - I had to have several sets in case my hypothesis ended up being bullshit. It was intricate and time-consuming and a total pain in my ass. The chemistry involved in making the correct oil that would be secreted by one's fingertips during the actual fingerprinting process was an even bigger one. I planned to carry both with me at all times though I had yet to figure out how I would apply them in a jiff. I would come up with something though. I always did.
Using the sticky substance my fingertips secreted as the application medium, I stuck a set of the prosthetics on, touched them to the ink pad, and neatly pressed them to the fresh sheet of paper in front of me. Then I removed the foam latex pieces and began the tedious process of duplicating them exactly by morphing my fingerprints from my current set to the new one. Then I rolled my freshly minted fingertips over the ink pad and repeated the process on the paper, checking for the flaw.
As I worked, continually suffering the searing burn that always accompanied the tweaking of my prints, I couldn't keep my mind from drifting back to the evening I had spent with the Cullens …
-Flashback-
I only had to wait forty minutes for Dr. Cullen and Peter to show up at my motel room. When I opened the door at their knock, Dr. Cullen smiled at me, his arms twitching at his sides as though he wanted to hug me but knew better. Peter smiled too but it wasn't the same kind of smile as Carlisle's. It was the kind of smile I would give someone if I was trying to figure them out and gave a shit what they thought while I was doing it. In Peter's case, I was pretty sure he was only smiling because he was Mr. Perma-smirk. He was another tough one to read and I would be watching my back around him particularly close but, for the moment, he was helping me. He had offered up his own vehicle to help me move my things so I was going to be nice until he gave me a reason not to be.
"Hello, Bella," Dr. Cullen greeted.
"Hello, Dr. Cullen," I greeted in return, giving him a little smile, and then turning toward my other visitor and nodding. "Peter."
Peter smiled at me, and I felt myself smiling back before I moved aside to let them in. "Bella," he acknowledged. "It's nice to know the 'pretty little lady's' name, and it certainly fits."
I levelled him with a calculating gaze after I closed the door. "I would ask if your girlfriend knows what a flirty douche you are, but I already gathered that she does from my last visit so I guess you must have some redeeming qualities."
Okay, so that technically broke my 'no disrespect' clause but only a little. So Peter was a little flirty. I didn't actually think he was a douche, yet, but you could tell a lot about a person from how they reacted to being goaded, and he was one of the only Cullens I hadn't had a good chance to observe. I was curious.
Eyes wide open, Bella.
Peter's smile took on a goofy, love-sick sort of quality, full of earnestness and adoration, at the mention of Charlotte, but he quickly regained his smirk. "My Char knows who my heart and, consequently, my dick belong to."
"George Clooney?" Dr. Cullen asked innocently but with eyes full of mischief.
I was not going to touch that.
Peter scowled, though his eyes remained good-humored, and he rounded on Carlisle. "Shut it, Doc," he commanded, playfully shoving the older man's shoulder before turning back to me. His face and voice lacked pretense when he spoke again, "And yes, I do have a few redeeming qualities."
"He does," Dr. Cullen agreed.
"Noted." Taking in all of that, I came to the preliminary conclusion that Peter was genuine and decent but hard to rattle. That was good. "So," I gestured to my stuff, which I had stacked neatly and compactly next to the bed, "let's get out of here before the motel manager comes scrounging around for more cash, huh?"
"There's no rush if you need more time," Dr. Cullen told me. "I can pay for an extra day."
I rolled my eyes. "I've got the money to pay for an extra day but the dude's skeezy as hell, and I am not in the mood to be leered at while he tries to swindle me."
That's right. This shit motel may have been better than the one in Louisville but the landlords that ran both of them were cut from the same cloth.
Peter scowled again and I swear I heard a sort of rumbling that could have been a growl. "Do I need to break some shit … like a limb or two of this manager's? Maybe rearrange his face?"
I rolled my eyes again but felt oddly touched. "Nah, let's just go," I said. If I wanted to break the asshole's limbs, I would have done it before I left for New York. Hell, if I had a nickel if I broke the bones of every asshole I came across, I'd have a hell of a lot more than $500,000 tucked away. I gestured toward the steamer trunk. "All three of us are gonna have to cart that thing to your car. It's heavy."
Dr. Cullen just smiled. "We can handle it, Bella."
I shrugged doubtfully. The steamer trunk doubled as a safe that held my weapons and some of the other things I had to have with me but couldn't leave lying around in the event that one or more of the Cullens decided to snoop. I didn't think any of them would, they didn't really have any reason to, but a girl couldn't be too cautious. What it did not contain was the hard copy of the file on Jane Doe's murder case or the physical evidence I had stolen from the Louisville PD evidence locker, all of which I now knew by heart. Those things resided in a storage unit I had rented here in Port Angeles. While the safe I had built was sound, it seemed stupid to keep that stuff in a residential home. Said safe had a double biometric lock that required both fingerprint and retina scans to deactivate, and I had pre-recorded several sets of prints and retina duplicates to cycle through at different intervals and in different combinations. Since I was the one who had written the program that activated the locking mechanism and had an eidetic memory, I would always know which combination would open it. I wished anyone else that tried to bypass that lock the best of luck.
The safe itself was made of a tungsten alloy. Tungsten was a heavy metal and one of the strongest as well, which is why I had chosen it, but the sheets I had used to make the safe part of the steamer trunk weren't nearly as thick as those generally used for a quality safe made of a different material. The strength of the metal itself didn't require the extra thickness which cut down on the weight significantly, to the point where it wasn't heavy enough to give away that there was much more to it than meets the eye, but it still weighed a little too fucking much for two guys to handle on their own. I wasn't going to say that though. Some men had delicate egos. Both Dr. Cullen and Peter didn't strike me as insecure men but you never know.
"Well then, have at it," I invited them casually.
"Goddamn, darlin'," Peter complained when he and Dr. Cullen picked up the trunk, "what did you cram in here? Russia?"
"Just my life," I answered flippantly, and some of the keys to finding someone else's, I added silently.
By the time Peter's Suburban was loaded with all my stuff, it had been fifty-three minutes in total from the time I had hung up with Dr. Cullen while he was still in Forks.
After we all settled in the car, he spoke, "I'm going to let you bask in the peace and quiet on the drive home. You won't be getting much after you're all moved in." His voice held a playful warning but from my knowledge of his children and wife, I knew this was true. "Oh," he added, "I would prepare myself if I were you. Emmett has been plotting ways to officially welcome you to the family since you agreed to move in. If you had done it right away things might not have been so bad but you gave the boy sixteen days to mull it over. Be wary," Dr. Cullen said. "Be very wary and watch your back."
"I always do."
oOo
After enthusiastic hellos from Emmett and Alice, an enthusiastic greeting from Mrs. Cullen that was laced with anxiety no doubt due to my behavior from the last time I was here, and a genial welcome from Edward, I carried my duffel bag up to my room. The rest of the Cullens, save an MIA Rosalie, Charlotte and Jasper, insisted on taking care of the remainder of my things.
It turned out that Emmett's grand idea to welcome me was an innocuous X-Men movie marathon. He cornered me as I sat on a barstool at the kitchen counter, eating the fabulous hot pastrami sandwich Mrs. Cullen had made me for dinner and badgered me until I agreed. It didn't take much convincing. As long as it wasn't a sappy romance and I didn't end up sitting next to Jasper, watching an action movie was harmless, and I would not be sitting next to Jasper. No fucking way. Thankfully, I managed to snag an armchair.
"You don't have any popcorn, do you?" I asked. We were halfway through X-Men: First Class, and I was hungry again.
Emmett grinned, pausing the movie, shooting up from his seat next to Rosalie on the long couch and angling himself so that he was facing me. "We have popcorn, Red Vines, and peanut butter M&Ms."
My stomach growled loudly at the mention of all that sugary goodness and most of the people in the room laughed. Rosalie was unamused. Charlotte's and Peter's reactions remained a mystery because they were sitting next to Jasper, and I did not care what he thought of my rumbling stomach; therefore, their reactions were just as negligible.
Fifteen minutes later, a piece of popcorn hit Edward, who was sitting in the armchair next to mine with Alice in his lap, squarely between the eyes. I snickered at this, watching as his gaze snapped to the culprit. The guilty party was Jasper.
"You did not just do that," Edward said incredulously.
"Yes, sir, I believe I did," he drawled, a slow grin stretching across his face. Jasper was always hard for me to read but right then it was easy. That haunted quality and the sadness were still there but there was mischief and playfulness in his eyes too. Happiness even. It tugged at my heart.
I groaned internally. Why do you have to be so fucking pretty?
But he wasn't pretty. He was so, so much more than that, but he was still an asshole and every time I looked at him I wanted to stab him in the fucking neck. The only reason I hadn't confronted him was because if I even opened my mouth to discuss what had happened between us, I would stab him. Also, if I talked about that, I might give Dr. Cullen enough clues for him to piece together too much of what had happened before he'd come across me in Wildfire's stall, and that was not a fucking option.
Alice slid off of Edward's lap and he rose to his feet, a smirk twisting his lips. He grabbed a handful of popcorn. "You're going to regret that, Jazz."
I snorted. What the hell kind of nickname is Jazz?
"Unlikely, brother," Jasper responded, palming his own handful of popcorn.
The next thing I knew, we had all split off into groups, teams, I guess: Emmett, Alice and I made up one, Dr. and Mrs. Cullen, Edward and Rosalie made up another, and Jasper, Peter and Charlotte made up the last.
"That is not fair!" Emmett protested at seeing the latter three group up. "You guys have been doing shit like this since you were … kids."
"Get over it, Em," Charlotte chirped, "and bring it."
After that it was on. It wasn't a skirmish, it wasn't a fight, it wasn't even a battle. It was a full-on popcorn war that was soon joined by Red Vine and M&M projectile missiles. By the time it was over, all the food was everywhere and no longer edible, and no one could claim victory but, my God, had it ever been fun.
Was this what normal felt like?
-End Flashback-
Looking back on those things, it was what I had observed of Jasper that stood out the most. I hadn't been able to keep my eyes from straying to him constantly. Did that bug me? Fuck. Yes. But I couldn't seem to help it. What I had seen of him tonight confused the hell out of me. I remembered everything about our time together very clearly. I had a fucking photographic memory for God's sake so that was understandable, but I was having a hard time reconciling the Jasper I had witnessed hours ago and the Jasper of Louisville. I had seen smug Jasper, cocky Jasper, indifferent Jasper, intense Jasper, furious Jasper, amused Jasper, unreadable Jasper, horny Jasper, but never playful Jasper. Though I had never given it any conscious thought, I supposed I had just assumed that he wasn't capable of it. Then again, I didn't really know him but I did know all the important things, like that he was a back-stabbing asshole.
That knowledge still didn't cure me of my confusion though and I wondered, only briefly, if maybe I had made a mistake. Was a boy so devoted to his family and who could be so silly and playful really capable of something as callous as turning me in when it was entirely likely I'd end up in prison for a good long while or worse? But then everything that had happened in Louisville washed over me like a tidal wave, the fear and uncertainty rearing its ugly head for a moment, and my anger returned with a vengeance. In its wake, I could no longer entertain such thoughts. I had things to do. I didn't need distractions.
oOo
By 2:00 am I was frustrated. I had been practicing this shit for two hours and had made no headway.
"My life would be so much easier if I didn't have fingerprints at all," I lamented. Though in this situation, the lack of them wouldn't be any help. What would help would be if no one had them. Then I wouldn't have to think about shit like this.
The searing burn of the shift shot through my fingertips without my permission, and my gaze snapped down to them in surprise. My eyes widened in disbelief. I had no fucking fingerprints! That's right, my fingertips were smooth as a goddamned baby's ass.
"Son of a bitch! Seriously?!"
oOo
A/N: Okey dokey, Bella's all moved in and she got to talk to Peter a little bit! Jasper is still struggling with his God of War issues but he's making progress on the Bella front, and Bella's questioning her convictions.
The last couple chapters were a bit angsty, so I wanted to do a chapter that was lighter and more fun. I also wanted to show a lighter side to the Jasper/Peter dynamic since it's basically been all drama so far. I hope I did a good job with that.
I have a special place in my heart for superheroes and I love Batman. I don't actually have anything against any of the movies, though The Dark Knight trilogy is my favorite (Heath Ledger as the Joker, 'nuff said) and I have a special bond over those particular Batman films with my friend David, so it's a tribute of sorts to that bond.
Up next: Bella continues to settle in to life in Forks ...
