A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm only borrowing her characters for a little while. The plot and original characters of Longing do belong to me, however. Jasper as the God of War and Peter "just knowing shit" are ideas that belong to Idreamofeddy.
Thank you to my wonderful beta and friend, Laurie Whitlock, my beloved sister/beta/prereader, Shelljayz, as well as the Jay of ShellJayz—my brother-in-law who helps sometimes, though he has no actual affection for Twilight and just puts up with me and my sister's affection for it. We love him anyway. Thank you also to the fabulous juliangelus for prereading. If you haven't read her story, tiger stripes, you should.
Thank you to all of you who have read, followed, favorited and reviewed my story. You are awesome, and I love you!
IMPORTANT: Longing is only the first installment in a trilogy. It may even extend into a fourth part. My intentions for the plot as a whole are simply too big for one story to encompass. I foresee probably forty-five total chapters for Longing, not including outtakes, or that is what I'm hoping for. Those chapters will all be long, I'm sure, and by the end, this story will be a lot of words, probably too many. ;) Just be prepared for the idea that the end of Longing isn't the end of Jasper and Bella's journey, and if you are interested in carrying on with that journey once Longing reaches its conclusion, you should put me on author alert. In any case, I will keep you posted about the second story in the series when there is news about it.
And now, we find out what was going on in the house during Bella's phone call ...
oOo
Thursday, November 12th, 2080
RPOV
Bella fucking Crawfield had kept her word and returned from wherever the hell she'd disappeared to for five days while on her road trip to "do the world a service." I did not know what the fuck that meant, and I was dying to go all Nancy Drew to find out, but we weren't allowed. Carlisle had made us all promise that with a steel to him I had never seen in the one hundred forty-seven years since he'd turned me. I had disappointed and infuriated him enough over this aggravating, idiot human and wouldn't risk doing it again, no matter how much she made my venom boil.
I had been angry with Carlisle for decades for turning me and bitter too, but I was over that now. The bottom line was he was my father and maybe I could be a frigid shrew, but I loved him. I couldn't stand the look he got on his face when I disappointed him. Didn't every little girl scrabble for her Daddy's love? I knew Carlisle loved me regardless, but I sometimes felt the need to claw for it and hold tight, as though it would slip away from me with the slightest touch of a breeze. It was a remnant of my human life and my relationship with my human father. He had seen no value in me other than what status my beauty could elevate him to. Carlisle didn't care about my looks, he didn't care that I was vain or that I could, on occasion, be selfish. He loved me anyway, and secretly, I kind of thought of myself as a Daddy's girl, but I had never been brave enough to tell him that.
At any rate, as long as Bella held to her end of the deal, I would hold to ours for his, Emmett's and the sakes of all the other family members who gave a shit about her. I loved them all too much to be selfish enough to violate the deal, but I still didn't trust her.
So fine, maybe the way she'd kept her mouth shut when ratty-haired Jessica Stanley tried to pump her for information on us was pretty cool; I did not so much appreciate the "Rosalie shoves hot peppers up her ass" comment, but her defensive comeback was strong, and she did emphasize it was a bullshit statement ... not that I gave a fuck what the humans thought. Bella was loyal, and that was a quality I liked, even though I did not like her.
The way she had handled Lauren Mallory was admittedly impressive as well. It reinforced her already obvious intelligence and ability to think on her feet. She had come back at that self-important bitch, (a hypocritical statement for me to throw out into the universe but whatever), quick as lightning, coming up with the back story for that little taunt with a speed that was highly unusual for a human. I could almost say it was vampire fast, but that was impossible. There were genius humans, but even their smarts could rarely compare to ours, and if she was a genius, why the fuck had she agreed to the hell that was high school? We endured it for a taste of normalcy and to blend in. If she was that damn smart, high school was beneath her, and she didn't have any reason that came close to ours to put up with all the bullshit and drama. Still, I loved how she'd handled the whole thing. It was a hell of a lot easier to swallow when I wasn't on the receiving end of her quick thinking and sharp wit, though I had always grudgingly admired how she'd handled me too. That wasn't to say it didn't piss me the fuck off every single damn time, but Bella kind of reminded me of Charlotte—like she had the potential to be the kind of friend to me that Char was. Bella had already proven she could hurl shit back at me just as hard as I dished it out to her, that she could keep up with my brilliant wit and biting sense of humor, and she'd already put me in my place once. All those things made me respect her unfortunately.
Then there was the comment she'd made to Emmett about me being the gold standard of gorgeous. I always appreciated compliments on my looks, no matter who they came from, and I certainly wasn't offended by her telling him I wasn't a waif. I knew I wasn't, and I was proud of that. Being too thin was not attractive. I didn't see the point of being a woman if you didn't have breasts, hips and an ass worth looking at. A girl couldn't have those things without a little meat on her bones.
I also liked that I bugged her just as much as she bugged me. Being mutual pains in each others' ass was also a plus.
That still did not mean I liked her. I disliked her for all the same reasons I had from the beginning with the exception of my initial assumption about her being in all this to take advantage of us. She had definitely shown that she wasn't here because of our money just as well as she had proven she could swing a proverbial punch just as hard as I could.
Everyone continued to become more and more attached to her, which was fucking annoying. So she occasionally had decent moments and even made me laugh sometimes. I didn't see how that made her endearing. Then there was the whole Jasper predicament. So Bella being here might be a good thing for him. I thought Peter was absolutely wrong about that. She agitated the fuck out of him. How was that a good thing?
I truly had hoped she'd be one of those bitches whose word meant nothing and that we'd never see her again. No such luck, and I'd had to watch the joy and relief on most of my family's faces as they welcomed her back. I'd also unexpectedly had to fend off the warm and fuzzies as I did it. It was irritating.
Now Emmett and I were sitting on the couch watching The Hangover, of all things, with her. The rest of the family had gone hunting and left us to babysit. Well, it wasn't babysitting exactly—Bella didn't need to be babysat—but that's still what I called it. It was Emmett's idea for us to stay behind. It hadn't been that long since we'd gone hunting ourselves, and he'd really wanted to spend time with her. He had asked me, his usual enthusiasm shining through even though he tried, for my sake, to tamp it down, and I agreed because he was Emmett and hanging out with the human was the current equivalent of lassoing the moon. I was even managing to be less hostile than I usually was.
He was chattering at Bella like she'd been gone for years instead of days. I had so far managed not to roll my eyes or make any snide comments. Emmett sometimes talked a mile a minute but he rarely ever said anything that wasn't worth listening to, even when he was being a dumbass. He almost always made me laugh, and Bella looked like she needed to laugh. I wasn't sure why I cared. Though she was smiling some, she was only half paying attention to him, and I was getting progressively pissed off by it, even if she did look like she needed a good dose of levity.
I was on the verge of tearing into her for it when her cell phone rang. She looked almost sick when it did, and when she left the room without so much as excusing herself or acknowledging Em, she appeared to be genuinely apprehensive. There was a resignation on her face that made her seem years older than she was. Now instead of scowling, I was frowning. Emmett was too.
We heard Bella's footsteps trail quite a ways away from the house but not far enough to travel out of our hearing range. We should have headed upstairs to one of the rooms with soundproofing to give her privacy. Technically, keeping our asses planted on the couch and eavesdropping could be considered intentionally prying and a total violation of the deal Carlisle had made with her and bound us all to without asking us about it beforehand. I didn't give a shit. I was fucking curious, and even though I'd agreed to abide the terms, I hadn't made that deal. I had no qualms about breaking it. The only one who would find out was Edward, and while he would throw a few disapproving looks my way, he wouldn't snitch.
Emmett was torn. He did care about violating the terms of the deal. He didn't want to give Bella any reason to leave, but he had noticed the troubled expression on her face as she'd trudged outside too. He was worried about her and was hesitant to leave in case she might end up needing him. I wasn't worried about her in the least. I was not.
We stayed.
Hearing Bella tell a woman her daughter had been murdered came as a shock to both Emmett and me. What could she possibly have been mixed up in that put her in that situation? It really was no wonder she'd looked so uneasy when she'd taken the call. She sounded genuinely torn up about it, tortured even, and sympathy for her began to creep into my veins. That couldn't have been easy news to break.
It crossed my mind that Bella's mysterious road trip may have had something to do with that.
I had then empathized with the woman when Bella met her request to know what had happened to her daughter with evasion, but Bella's voice was laced with compassion and true regret. I couldn't see her face, but it was as clear in her tone as a cloudless, sunny day. My anger with Bella at her refusal to share that information with the woman dampened at the sound of it, its flame dousing entirely when she explained she'd called to tell this heartbroken mother the things about her daughter the police would never be able to. For all I knew, Bella didn't actually know the details of how this woman's daughter died or about the life she'd lived, but she was trying to give this woman solace. That was a noble and kind thing for her to do.
As she proceeded to share all the wonderful points of the years of the life her daughter had led and this woman had missed, also sharing the tragic and brutal, the heartache Bella felt over it was only intensified more clearly. The woman, Mrs. Davidson, didn't notice, but that was understandable. The icy hatred I felt towards Bella melted a little. Emmett's heart melted completely, but Emmett was the most kindhearted person I'd ever known and ever would, and Bella had always had that effect on him.
When Bella revealed to Mrs. Davidson that she had a granddaughter, the woman's joy was monumental, intermingling with her immense grief in a potent way that almost left me reeling. I understood, though not for the same reasons. My grief and anger over what Royce had done to me had swallowed me up, consuming me, sucking me into a black hole of misery, pain and despair I never saw a way out of in spite of the façade I wore that suggested otherwise ... and then along came Emmett. He didn't take away the pain or the memories, but he lessened it, dulled the misery, eased the despair, showed me a way out of the black hole. It took awhile, but he gave me the ability to heal. This woman's granddaughter would do the same for her. Bella was giving that to her. I, of all people, could appreciate the kindness of that. A little more of the ice melted.
But it wasn't until Bella refused to give Mrs. Davidson any information on the little girl who had suffered so much and then lit into her for jumping the gun that could lead to her making promises to her granddaughter that she might not keep that the ice truly began to thaw in earnest.
Her protectiveness of the little girl was fierce and dangerous. Even with so many yards between us, Emmett and I knew it, and this was different than how she'd gotten protective of us. She had been fierce in that instance too, but there was a willingness and hardness to her tone and I suspected to her body language, had we been able to see it, that would have been the same. She would do anything to keep that little girl safe, and she confirmed it by threatening to kill Mrs. Davidson if she did let her granddaughter down. I believed with every fiber of my being that she meant it, and I didn't condemn her for it. I would have done the same thing.
My love for children, which began with Vera's Henry, had not died with me. I liked them until they hit puberty, unless they were spoiled, whiny little brats for no apparent reason. Then they just annoyed the shit out of me, but until that happened, I felt just as protective of them as Bella apparently did. It was another thing we had in common.
Neither Emmett nor I liked what Bella implied to Mrs. Davidson about the price she'd nearly paid to get her granddaughter out of that abusive situation. When the family voted to take her in, a huge part of that had to do with the likelihood that she would end up either in an abusive foster home or on the streets; Bella had just confirmed that we hadn't saved her from that fate even if it was a situation she'd been in before she came into our lives. That confirmation made me sick to my stomach.
When Bella finally hung up from that emotionally draining conversation and began to cry, my heart broke a little ... okay, maybe a lot. This seventeen year old girl had been carrying a weight on her shoulders that was so immense. No one should have to carry a burden like that. One look at my mate told me he felt the same. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her, to take on some of that burden.
I touched his arm and his gaze drifted to mine. "Go," I said softly. "She needs you."
Emmett nodded and got to his feet.
oOo
A/N: We got another look inside Rosalie's head. I always think that's fun, personally, and I hope you do too. Rose's perception of Bella is changing! How about that? Is it a freaking miracle or what? How will that affect their relationship do you think?
I did, in fact, finish the JPOV outtake for chapter 30 Part 1. However, it is being betaed and preread and all that fun junk. I will post it when all that is done, which means there will be an extra update this week. Does that make anyone happy?
As always, I would love to know what you think!
Take care until next time! :)
