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, and also to the fabulous juliangelus for prereading. The three of you keep me grounded, inspired and also from going insane. Thank you is a poor phrase to express my gratitude. :)

Thank you to all of you who have read, followed, favorited and reviewed my story. I am continuously in awe of the response I've gotten to this story. :)

oOo

Wednesday, November 18th, 2080

BPOV

It was 8:15 am and school would be starting in another fifteen minutes. I was waiting by my car, listening to the iPod I'd bought over the weekend and enjoying the solitude before the bell rang. I wasn't looking forward to when I would have to head to history and be confined in an entirely too small space with Jasper. Even though I now knew he hadn't turned me in, he still unnerved me and being in close proximity to him was hard. My desire to make up for my shitty behavior toward him hadn't changed. I just had yet to figure out how I was going to go about it, and until I came up with something, I wanted to keep him at arms length. It was safer.

I normally parked next to Edward's Volvo or any of the other Cullens' cars. I never rode with them because there were days I worked directly after school, and on the days I didn't, driving by myself gave me the perfect chance to get a break from the Cullens; it was still hard for me to spend so much continuous time with so many people even though it had now been a little over three weeks since I'd moved in. Well, it was technically a little less than two and half if I discounted the five days I'd been off taking care of Derek Henry. Those days didn't seem to matter in regard to my adjustment though.

I had gone to the diner at four this morning to help Laurie with the prep for the day. She opened for breakfast at half past five, and I was doing my damnedest to make up for the five days I'd been gone, especially since I had only been working there for ten days when I took off. If I was her, I'd have fired my ass for having the gall to even ask for that much time off so soon after I started, no matter how important I told her it was. Apparently, I was too damn good at my job to let go.

By the time I got to school, there were no spaces available next to the Cullens, but that was okay because I was again feeling the need for some distance. It was becoming more and more difficult not to get attached to them, especially after Emmett comforted me during my breakdown. The realization that Jasper had nothing to do with my arrest, his saving me from my flashbacks and any number of little things done by the others, in spite of how suffocating their continual presence could be, wasn't making it any easier either. I still had nearly three more weeks here, four if I did, in fact, decide not to count my road trip, and I couldn't afford that. I didn't have to stay for that long, of course, but with all the time I'd spent collecting the evidence required to blackmail Connor Jameson and solving Layla's murder, I hadn't exactly experienced the normalcy I'd been hoping for. I had been considering sticking around for longer to make up for that time, but it was looking like it would be a bad idea to prolong things.

The weather in Forks had shifted from merely dreary and rainy to cold, dreary and snowy. It had snowed all through the night, in fact, and the roads and parking lot were covered in snow and ice, some of it black and nearly invisible to the typical human eye. It was because of this ice that I now found myself in another entirely fucked up situation.

Tyler Crowley had hit a patch of that black ice as he rushed into the parking lot, presumably concerned he was going to be late for school, and his improperly weatherproofed tires were now spinning his van out of his control.

I slowed the scenario down in my head the way I'd been trained to do, which allowed for lightning-quick thinking and strategizing, and weighed and measured the best way to get myself the hell out of this.

There were a few ways I could go about it.

The obvious was to use my considerable speed and reflexes to spin out of the way. Another obvious option was to use those abilities to jump up onto the van. Yet another would be to use my strength to stop the van in its tracks. The problem with those options was that in doing any one of those, I would give away that I was not your average teenage girl, and I really didn't want to do that. It was something I had always been able to avoid in the past, and I didn't want to have to end that streak now.

Another option would be to let the van hit me. It wouldn't kill me, after all. Emmett had named me "Storm" before I had given him and the rest of his family something else to call me, but if he was going to compare me to one of the X-Men, the most accurate would have been Wolverine. My bones weren't made of Adamantium but they may as well be. Getting hit by Tyler's van wouldn't break them. All it would cause would be flesh wounds and some bleeding, and with my new found ability to play dead, I could make a graceful exit from Forks by yet again ending up in the morgue and escaping it after a reasonable amount of time had passed. I so did not want to end up in the morgue though. If I ever saw the inside of one of those again while I was still breathing it would be too fucking soon. That option was out.

I was still wavering on what to do and was actually bracing for impact just in case I couldn't get my shit together when something solid as granite bowled me over, landing on top of me with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs. My skull collided viciously with the asphalt, my eyes slamming shut with the impact, but there was no pain, and I didn't see stars or white spots behind my eyelids. Tyler's van skidded above me and whatever had knocked me over, and the sound of ripping and a strange grinding noise flooded my ears while the smell of slightly singed fabric and heated metal filled my nostrils. Then there was the ear-splitting crash of one vehicle slamming into another: shattering glass, the screeching cry of metal on metal, the gruff, crinkling grind of paint flaking off and all the smells that accompanied those things too. Those weren't the only smells permeating the air though. There was rich, sun-warmed leather, nutmeg, newly cut hay, and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies with an undertone of sunshine, the scent of the air right before it rains and crisp, red apples.

My eyes popped open, and I found myself staring into a very familiar pair of golden ones.

"Jasper?"

oOo

JPOV

The whole thing happened so fast. I don't even remember making the decision to do it. The only thought in my head was, Don't you fuckin' let her die!

And then I was there and Bella was underneath me and we were underneath Tyler Crowley's van and she was looking up at me with wide eyes.

"Jasper?"

Oh shit! I cursed. You've really fuckin' done it now, Whitlock.

And yet, I couldn't bring myself to regret it. My family loved this bizarre human girl. I was assaulted by that love via my gift all the time; they would have been devastated by her death, and she had grown on me too, just as I had suspected she would. Still, this was not good. I had spoiled things. We had all known we couldn't keep that we were vampires a secret from her forever, but we had all hoped for more than just over three weeks. Better to know our secret than to be dead, I guess.

"You hit your head." I didn't know what else to say.

"Not hard." She rolled her eyes, sounding exasperated and not taking her potential injuries the least bit serious.

"You're a pain in the ass, Crawfield," I snapped irritably.

Bella smirked, and then her expression turned amused with an undertone of mischief. "You know," she said. "If you wanted to get me underneath you, there are probably a million different ways you could've gone about it, but even I have to admit, saving me from becoming a puddle of Campbell's Chunky Bella was pretty damn smooth, Texas."

It was the first time she'd called me "Texas" since Louisville.

An abrupt laugh escaped me, and I dropped my head into her neck, inhaling deeply. "You are somethin' else, sugar."

"Yes, we've already established that," she said with a chuckle and a shiver. I wondered what that was about.

She remembered.

Then she squirmed, and her body rubbed against mine provocatively.

Despite her comment, it was the first time I registered just how tightly we were pressed together, and for the first time since I'd met her, my body didn't react in an entirely inappropriate way. I was too keyed up from this whole thing, from her near death, to be affected in that way apparently. It was nice. It was also a relief; it would definitely not be appropriate at the moment. It was never appropriate, and it was always uncomfortable as fuck. Plus, there would be absolutely no way for me to hide that shit and that would not be fuckin' cool. That was beside the point though. I was more worried about her than I was about the state of my dick.

"It's not a good idea for you to move, Bella," I said as I met her eyes, my concern showing in my voice.

"I'm fine, Jasper," she insisted, annoyed.

"You hit the ground pretty hard." I was unwilling to give up on this. She might have a spinal injury or something, and anxiety was creeping into me.

"I. Am. Fine."

I scowled. "You are the most stubborn person I have ever fuckin' met. You know that, right?"

"Hello, pot," she replied. "I'm kettle."

"Do you really think now is the time to be flip, Bella?"

"It is always the time to be flip," she said with a smirk. Then she turned serious. "I'm not the only potentially injured person here, Jasper. Are you okay?"

"Of course," I told her immediately.

She rolled her eyes again and reached her hands around to my back. There hadn't been time for me to do anything but push her down and cover her body with mine before it was crushed between Tyler's van and her car. If I had stopped it with brute strength, I would have had to rip the van apart to do it, which wasn't an option if I didn't want to kill Tyler. All I could hope to do, then, was brace myself and prepare to do as much damage control as possible when all this was over. Hell, I would have had to do damage control no matter how I went about saving Bella. I was just lucky the van was high enough off the ground to almost completely accommodate us. Unfortunately, when we'd been swallowed underneath it, my coat had hooked onto something and ripped across the back. My T-shirt had been taken with it, and whatever metal had passed over me had gouged into my flesh, causing a grinding noise.

My skin was unscathed, and I wasn't sure how the hell I was going to explain that once we got out from under here. Bella ran her fingers over that skin, the electricity of her touch tearing across it with a vengeance and coursing through my body in a heartbeat. I hissed at the contact, finally beginning to react the way I would have in any other situation, and prayed she didn't notice. My concern over her well-being hadn't faded any, so I thought of all the horrific ways this could've played out if I hadn't gotten here in time, and my erection died abruptly. I returned my attention to where it should never have strayed from, watching her face as she felt my uninjured back, but it was inscrutable. It was as fuckin' frustrating as always.

"Do you think you can move?" she asked. "Because I would really like you to get off of me now."

I wasn't sure how to take this. I had just saved her life using my vampiric speed, a van had passed over us, her roaming hands had proven to her that I had done damage to it while it had done none to me, I couldn't read her face and now she wanted me to get off of her. Of course, that could have had nothing more to do with anything other than her being uncomfortable with me pinning her to the ground, but I wasn't stupid. That probably had something to do with it, but all the other shit certainly would have had something to do with it too. I would have to worry about that later though.

I scrambled steadily until I managed to do as she'd requested without doing any more damage to my clothes, to Tyler's van or potentially to her if she was hurt. Once I was off of her, I eased out from under the van and into the crowd of anxious, annoying assholes surrounding the accident, angling my torn clothing and unblemished flesh away from prying eyes. Ignoring those assholes, my family stationed several feet away because of the scent of Tyler's blood from whatever injuries he'd incurred because of the accident, I then reached my hand out to Bella to help her do the same. I was expecting her to refuse it, but she didn't. She latched onto it, and in part, allowed me to use my strength to pull her out as well as using me as leverage to help herself. When she emerged she was lugging her messenger bag in her other hand.

As soon as she was on her feet, she turned to me.

"I rescued your messenger bag, Texas," she said. "You don't want to forget it."

My brows furrowed. For starters, why the hell was she so fuckin' worried about my goddamn messenger bag? And second, her's and my bags were damn near identical brown leather, but that bag was hers, not mine. She winked at me and lifted the bag over my head so that the strap hung diagonally across my chest and the bag itself covered the rip in my coat and shirt, hiding my unscathed back. This shocked me, but I kept my damn mouth shut.

After that she disregarded me, which pissed me off, and turned her attention to Tyler. He was conscious but disoriented in the driver's side of his van. He was also bleeding from a cut above his eye, and the smell of his blood was suddenly too much in addition to everything else. Before I could move, Peter and Emmett were there, placing reassuring, not restraining, hands on my biceps. I was appreciative, but I shrugged them off and turned away from the scent of our natural food source on my own. I had worked my ass off to gain control over my bloodlust and hadn't lost it in nearly fifty-one years; I wasn't going to ruin that because some snot-nosed fuck up who should never have been given a fuckin' driver's license in the first place had gone and proved that by almost killing someone. I briefly entertained the idea of ending his worthless existence. He had nearly killed Bella, after all, but I decided against it. There was a good chance I'd just put a fuckin' spotlight on our secret, and I couldn't risk drawing more attention to the family.

When I reached the others, it was clear that Rosalie was furious, despite an infinitesimal smidge of relief, but she held her tongue. I was in for it when she got me alone. Emmett, Edward and Alice took turns throwing their arms around me in gratitude, relief and happiness, and for once, I didn't mind. Charlotte was wrestling to remain ambiguous, but her confusion was overwhelming, and despite her attempts to hide it, there was relief there too. Peter's emotions were the most difficult to read. They were flickering rapidly and unintelligibly, and one look at his face told me he was somewhere else. I didn't know what it meant, but I couldn't worry about that now. Ordinarily, because of the situation, I would tuck that information to the back of my mind, saving it for later, until a more appropriate time came to question him about it, but I didn't have to know everything that went on in his head. Maybe I would let it go for once.

When Bella pulled his door open, Tyler immediately began to whine. "I'm sorry, Bella. I'm so, so sorry!"

"Shut up, Tyler!" Bella chided, taking his face in her hands and observing him keenly. "Did you lose consciousness?"

"I don't think so," he responded distractedly. I suspected he was more concerned with Bella's hands on him than on answering her question accurately.

"What's your full name?" she questioned, moving her index finger and thumb over his right eye, which showed signs of swelling and bruising, and widened his lids. Tyler flinched and tried to pull away. "Stop being a pussy and quit squirming!" she ordered authoritatively. It was the same tone she'd used with me in the alley in Louisville, and Tyler immediately quit struggling. Bella leaned in and peered into his eye closely for several seconds before she let him go and did the same with his other one. "Your name?"

Tyler's brow furrowed, and he winced. Bella's expression turned impatient, so he answered despite his confusion, "Tyler Aaron Crowley."

Next, she gingerly touched her fingers to the cut on his forehead and the surrounding area, probing it lightly. Tyler hissed, shying away from her again, and Bella regarded him sternly. "What did I say about squirming around like a little bitch?"

A sheepish expression crossed Tyler's face. "Sorry," he said, sounding timid.

"What is today's date?" Bella asked.

"November 18th," he answered.

"The year?" Bella was still pressing her fingers to his forehead, but she began widening the surface area of her exploration.

"2080," Tyler answered obediently, still cringing at the pressure of her touch.

As entertaining as his pain was, I couldn't figure out what the hell Bella was doing. Tyler proved he was actually good for something and cleared that up for me.

"What are you doing exactly?" he asked, his curiosity plain.

"Checking your injuries," she answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and that was obvious. What I wanted to know was why. Why wasn't she leaving that to the professionals? She grabbed his hands. "Squeeze," she ordered again. I didn't know if he squeezed them or not because I was standing too far away and there were too many people blocking my view of that particular angle. "If I were to make an educated guess, I'd say you've got a mild concussion, but your skull isn't fractured. Does anything else hurt?"

Tyler frowned but also looked amazed and kind of love struck.

I rolled my eyes. Asshole!

"My shoulder is a little sore," he said.

Bella pulled his T-shirt aside, scrutinizing the area, and repeated the process she'd used on his head; he looked like he was in fuckin' heaven, but he winced anyway. That gave me a sick sense of pleasure. I did not like her fuckin' touching him.

"It's not dislocated or broken nor is your collarbone, but they're going to bruise," she informed him. "You're going to be in some pain for a couple weeks, and I suspect you'll have to give up football for a little while, but you don't have to take my word for it. The doctor you see will probably confirm my suspicions."

"How do you know all this?"

Yes, how do you?

Bella shrugged noncommittally. I didn't think she ever shrugged any other way.

"Yeah, how the hell does she know that?" Emmett wondered curiously through Edward's gift. His tone was slightly awe-struck, and I got it. Everyone in the family was feeling that way.

"Who the fuck knows? Nothing about this girl adds up!" Rose sniped impatiently.

Rosalie was right. Nothing about Bella really did make sense.

Sirens indicating the arrival of the ambulance and Sheriff Dwyer sounded in the distance but that distance closed quickly, and they pulled into the parking lot with haste. While they'd managed to do it quickly, they had also managed to do it cautiously, completely avoiding any patches of ice—normal and black—unlike the douche who had taken to yet again hammering Bella with sniveling apologies and promising that his insurance would take care of her car. It made me grit my teeth. My hands itched to wrap around his throat and squeeze.

As soon as the paramedics and the Police Chief stepped on scene, Principal Greene ushered all the students not involved in the accident to class, including a very reluctant Emmett, Rosalie, Edward, Alice, Peter and Charlotte, leaving Bella, Tyler and I alone in the parking lot with the medical professionals and Police Chief Dwyer. Since Tyler seemed to be in the worst shape, he was checked out first. This irritated the shit out of me; Bella was the one who'd been nearly crushed by a fuckin' van. Another paramedic attempted to move on to me, and in my agitation, I was only semi-prepared to handle the situation, but Bella stepped in.

"Oh," she chimed in with a charming smile that made the male paramedic's heart rate speed up. "Jasper's just here for moral support, sir." Then she grabbed my hand and squeezed it, shifting her smile to me. "He only helped me after the accident happened. He wasn't actually involved."

I kept my face neutral as I tried to figure out why Bella was bailing my ass out, but then decided it didn't matter. I was just relieved that I'd dodged a bullet and also that skipping me meant he was moving on to her. Still, I could have bailed my own ass out. I didn't need her to do it for me.

The paramedic bought it without question, and if anyone was asked, no one could dispute it. I hadn't been by Bella's side when the van crashed into her car, and now that I reflected back on it, people's emotions indicated that they had been so focused on the crash itself, we could easily sell that I slipped underneath the van after the fact to see if she was okay and to help her get out. People were stupid and we were pretty; they would eat up whatever we fed them.

The paramedic checked Bella out next and didn't find anything physically wrong with her, which was really fuckin' abnormal because I had heard how hard her head hit the pavement. She should have had a concussion at the very least, and I didn't trust that the guy was right. He was practically a child, which meant his experience was limited. He could have missed something. He did seem to recognize this, and he initially insisted she go to the hospital, but she managed to charm him out of it. I did not approve, and I tried to intimidate him into changing his mind. Unfortunately, the asshole was too smitten with Bella to listen to me, and the only way I could have snapped him out of it was to start snapping bones, which would have been frowned upon. That didn't mean I didn't still want to, but I had just saved Bella from getting crushed by a van in a way that had to have her mind churning with a million questions, and snapping the paramedic's bones with the flick of my wrist would only add to them. Needless to say, I was now entertaining fantasies of ripping his fuckin' throat out later. I would if he had missed something and she suffered for it.

Tyler, on the other hand, was not given the option of skipping out on the hospital and was carted off minutes later.

Once the ambulance turned out of the parking lot, Sheriff Dwyer got Bella's account of things, which was very brief. After that he left. The whole process had taken twenty-five minutes.

As soon as his patrol car disappeared down the street, Bella about-faced and started heading toward the school.

I reached out and grabbed her arm, jerking her gently around to face me. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To history," she said as if I was a complete idiot, yanking her arm from my grasp.

"The hell you are," I spat. "We're going home." If she wasn't going to the hospital, she was going back to the house to rest.

"You can go home if you want, but I am going to history," she repeated stubbornly.

"Bella ..." I warned, my anger flaring and my back going ramrod straight. My jaw clenched as well, and my teeth ground together.

"It's adorable that you think you have a say, Whitlock," Bella said in amusement with an undertone of annoyance.

"You were just in an accident!" I yelled in exasperation.

"And the paramedic cleared me," she reminded me impatiently.

"Because you batted your fuckin' eyelashes at him!"

She smirked. "That had nothing to do with it, Jasper," she insisted, though her tone clearly told me she knew better. "I'm fine."

I glared at her, my eyes shifting from gold to black. I didn't know why, but I could always feel it when they did.

"If you're so fucking concerned about my health you could always come to history with me," she suggested.

I stalked forward, forcing her back against the unruined side of Tyler's van, caging her in with one arm on either side of her head. The faint scent of arousal assaulted my nose, but I smelled that coming off of her from time to time, which drove me fuckin' crazy. She was a seventeen year old girl, so that was normal, and I definitely remembered that she liked being pushed up against things. I doubted it had anything to do with me, and I was too pissed off to give it much thought. The scent disappeared before I would have been able to think much on it anyway.

"Or," I said darkly. "I could throw you over my shoulder and take you to Carlisle right fuckin' now, whether that's what you want or not."

I was so furious I could hardly see straight. Why did she not take her safety seriously? I had half a mind to run her over with my own damn car. I needed to know that she wasn't hurt. She should have needed to know it too. The jumble of emotions threatening to overtake me because of all this were too twisted together for me to identify, and I was so close to losing it.

"You really like to pin girls up against things," Bella noted angrily. She made no move to get free of me though.

Just you, sugar. Just you, a voice in my head that was neither mine nor the Major's echoed.

"You seemed more inclined to listen to reason the last time I did, sugar," I said, still glowering at her.

"You're memory is faulty," she replied as she crossed her arms over her chest. "And you don't intimidate me, so this shit isn't going to work. I'm fine, and you can't force me to do anything."

"There are plenty of things I can force you to do," I assured her, my tone darkening further. "But I'm not keen on forcin' women to do anything. At this point, however, I wouldn't feel bad about doin' precisely that. You are too damn stubborn for your own good, and you have a fuckin' death wish."

"You are an asshole," Bella growled irritably.

"I know," I agreed. "And it is so much fun."

Bella snorted and ducked out from beneath my arm.

Damn, she's quick, I noted.

Almost too quick, the Major observed with obvious confusion and a tint of suspicion. He was rarely ever confused about details like that. Neither was I. It was part of our past and our stellar ability to read people and piece together what they were capable of.

I turned to face her, and she rounded on me, a fierce glare on her lips and the challenge I loved so much blazing in her eyes. At the moment, I did not love it. I hated it. It was frustrating as fuck.

"My name is Bella Crawfield. I'm 17 years old," she practically barked, putting four feet of distance between us. I was tempted to latch on to her, but I restrained myself. She spun back around to face me before she spoke again, "I was born in Oakland, California and raised in Fairfield, also in California. I got my driver's license in Montana. Today is November 18th, 2080. You are Jasper Whitlock, a monumental pain in my ass," she rattled off with confidence. She marched towards me, her steps perfectly even. She twisted at the last moment, twirling behind me and making a grab for her messenger bag. I whirled around after her, the bag swinging just out of her grasp, but she dodged, sidestepped my advance and darted behind me again. She again reached for the bag, but I yet again thwarted her. Her expression clouded over with fury and frustration, but she stopped, took a deep breath and forced herself to relax until the only emotion I could read on her face was annoyance. "My coordination, balance and reflexes are flawless, I'm not dizzy or seeing stars, I'm not confused or feeling foggy, I didn't lose consciousness when I hit my head and I remember every detail of the accident with perfect clarity," she said with a pointed look. "There is nothing wrong with my memory in any other respect, my speech isn't slurred, and I don't feel fatigued. I'm not nauseated, and I'm clearly not vomiting, though if I feel the urge, your shoes are the first thing on my hit list. I also don't have a headache and my ears aren't ringing. I don't have a concussion." She turned her back on me and lifted her sweater over her head to reveal a thin camisole and peeked over her shoulder to meet my eyes. "I'm not bruised, am I?"

"No, but I can't see your whole back," I groused.

Bella, still peeking at me from over her shoulder, rolled her eyes, turned back around and moved until there was only half a foot of space between us. Grabbing my hands, she placed them on the bare skin of her sides just under her camisole. The electricity coursed through my body, engulfing me in fire. I suppressed the shiver that threatened to rip through me and fought hard against all the venom that was currently rushing straight to my dick. I was angry right now, not turned on.

Bella trembled under my hands, and I saw through my peripheral vision that her nipples had hardened. I once again wondered if she could feel the electricity that I could or if her reaction was merely from the chill of the air and the coolness of my touch.

"See for yourself," she invited softly, again turning her back to me and causing my fingers to trail across her skin. Gooseflesh broke out across that soft skin of hers, and I found myself even more desperately wanting to know the cause of it. I ignored it.

You're pissed, Jasper, I reminded myself, gritting my teeth and letting my rage resurface. That's much fuckin' better.

I lifted up the back of her shirt and her flesh was, indeed, flawless. I ran my thumb up her spine, fascinated by the sight of that perfect, creamy expanse. Another tremble wracked her body.

Goddamn it, Jasper! Get your head out of your ass! You're pissed.

"You can quit touching me now," Bella told me sharply.

I grudgingly removed my hands from her. She turned away from me again, tugging her camisole back down and putting her sweater on.

"Well?" she demanded impatiently.

"You're not bruised," I admitted reluctantly.

She smirked triumphantly, and I wanted to smack the expression off her face. It took all my self-control not to.

"That doesn't mean shit, Bella," I insisted.

"Of course it does," she argued.

"Why do you always have to argue with everyone?"

"I don't have to argue with everyone," she contradicted. "Just you, and I do it because it's fun. Are we done now? Because if we spend any more time out here sniping at each other, I'm going to miss history altogether."

"There's no talkin' you out of that, is there?" I sighed, still pissed as all hell.

"Nope," she confirmed.

"Fine," I ground out. "But if you're gonna be such a stubborn idiot, I'm comin' to the classes you and I don't have together, and yes, I'm perfectly capable of convincing your teachers to let me," I told her before she could protest. "I can be a smooth bastard when I want to be. They don't stand a chance, and if you so much as sneeze, I will throw you over my shoulder and take you straight to Carlisle. There will be absolutely nothing you can do about it. Not only that, but you're skipping sixth period, goin' home, and Carlisle will check you out then. That is not negotiable."

Bella crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. "We'll see about that," she grumbled. "You're a domineering dick, you know? I'm going to class."

"Why are you so eager to go to class when you've got a free pass to skip, especially history?" I demanded suspiciously, unable to resist reaching out and wrapping my fingers around her elbow before she could take off. With the way she was handling our project, I knew it couldn't have been her favorite subject.

Her eyes narrowed in brief fury, flitting down to my hand on her, but then she rolled them. "I did miss three days last week."

"I don't buy that," I said. After everything that had already happened today, I didn't want to see her upset, though it seemed that those feelings were directly connected to the terrorist attacks of 2012 and not what we were currently studying in class. I still worried about it though.

"I do not care what you do or do not buy," she informed me, wrenching her arm out of my grasp. "Now I'm getting my ass to class."

"After you, sugar," I snapped, my voice tight as I waved my arm in a broad, sweeping stroke.

Bella marched off towards the building that housed our history classroom, and I followed behind her.

After a moment, I realized we had a problem. "Wait!" I said, reaching out and pulling her to a stop. "I can't go to history."

The feel of her underneath my fingertips was reassuring, and it was possible she agreed because her posture relaxed the slightest bit. I didn't know what it was about the gesture, but it seemed to break the tension between us. Just like in Louisville, it was almost as though we hadn't been fighting in the first place. I was still irritated, but I was almost always irritated with her, so we were basically back to normal, at least in attitude.

Bella quirked an eyebrow at me.

"My clothes," I reminded her. I moved ahead of her and gestured to my ripped coat and shirt hidden underneath her messenger bag.

"Right," she said with a nod. Her rage seemed to have dissipated some as well. "I guess we're going to the gym first."

My confusion was obvious.

"Shit," she cursed. "You don't have gym, which means you don't have gym clothes. Why is that?" she asked and then shrugged. "Oh, well. That's not really important. We're going there anyway."

Her fingers wrapped around mine, and she dragged me to the boys locker room, peering up and down the hall to make sure no one was coming before she ducked inside, towing me along with her. I wanted to ask her what the hell we were doing but decided against it for now. I was curious.

Bella took a deep breath and went up and down a couple rows of lockers before she stopped at one—Riley Dwyer's by the scent of it—and leaned in close to it. There was the brief scent of a sizzling something, but I couldn't place it before it was gone. Then she began twisting the lock, and I got distracted. I didn't realize what she was doing until the pin in the lock clicked in the groove for the first correct number in the combination.

"What the hell, Bella?" I demanded in astonishment. I was surprised, but it was hot as fuck.

"What?" she said, her tone blasé. "I'm a woman of many talents, and you need a shirt, so unless you want to walk the halls of Forks High half-naked for the day, which all the girls at this school certainly would not mind, suck it up and quit bitching."

I grimaced at that thought. I wouldn't mind her seeing me shirtless but the rest of the girls here … fuck no. I crossed my arms over my chest and glowered in spite of the fact that I was seriously impressed.

"I feel like I need to take a long, hot shower and scrub until my skin comes off," I informed her with another shudder.

"Oh, poor baby," she mocked, patting me on the cheek like an infant before returning to the task at hand.

My eyes narrowed, but when she popped the lock open just a second later, my annoyance and revulsion were overshadowed by admiration.

She noticed. "You should see the things I can do with a bobby pin," she bragged with a smirk that had my dick twitching in my pants.

"Given all the things I do know about you and especially the things I don't," I said, "I really don't find that surprising, sugar."

"You don't know anything, and must you always call me that?"

I grinned at her, slow and lazy. "I know plenty about you," I insisted, though not in taunting. My next question, however, was. "And what should I call you?"

"Oh, I don't know," she snapped sarcastically. "My name?"

"Technically, I was callin' you 'sugar' before I knew your name, so really, to me, it might as well be," I responded smugly, leaning casually up against a locker.

"If you want to get technical about things, Texas," she pointed out as she clicked the locker door open and rummaged around in it for a second before coming out with a Forks High School Physical Education Department T-shirt in her hand. She tossed it at my head. "Emmett named me 'Storm' before you ever started calling me 'sugar.'"

Even though I'd known what she was doing, had already seen her pop the lock, I was still so surprised she'd actually done it that I didn't bat the shirt away before it hit me in the face.

She laughed at me, and I liked that it made her smile.

"Yes, but 'Storm' is a stupid name," I said.

"Are you going to put that on or what?" she asked impatiently, gesturing at the shirt as she shut the locker and re-locked the lock.

I smirked. "So eager to get me out of my clothes, Bella?"

She rolled her eyes. "Right, it has always been my goal to get you shirtless. I staged nearly getting hit by a van just so I would have a reason to do exactly that."

I shrugged out of my coat, scowling all the while, and pulled my long-sleeved shirt over my head as I advanced on her, getting in her face so that we were almost nose to nose.

"Don't you fuckin' joke about that!" I growled menacingly.

I expected her to glare right back at me, but she didn't. Her face remained stoic. "Please end your foray into exhibitionism before someone comes in here and catches us. I'm not sure using the 'nearly getting crushed to death' card will get me out of hot water for breaking and entering."

Bella wouldn't get caught for that. There was no proof she'd done it, and we were both ridiculously good at talking our way out of things, so we could easily explain away our presence in the locker room. Did she not like seeing me without a shirt on? That thought was disheartening.

She turned her face away, and I slipped it over my head. I tried not to feel bitter about it but failed miserably.

"Come on," she said as she headed toward the exit. She didn't reach for my hand this time. "There's only ten minutes of class left."

I felt better now that I would be with Bella for the rest of the day. It was going to be boring as hell, but as long as Bella remained fine, I had to admit that I was glad to be staying at school. It would give me a chance to think things over. I needed to come up with a strategy on how to handle Rosalie when we got home, not to mention come up with how I would explain all this shit to the family, which was going to be difficult seeing as how I wasn't entirely sure of what had happened. I could theorize all I wanted about how they would prefer to handle the situation now that Pandora's box was open, but guessing was never a good idea, especially when you didn't have to. I was sure Carlisle had been making plans for it since before he'd brought up the prospect of Bella living with us, but he hadn't shared what those might be. We needed to have a family meeting and with Bella having to work a six hour shift directly after school, which I was certain she would steadfastly refuse to miss, we'd have the time for it. She hadn't asked any questions yet, but she would, and we needed to be prepared. Who the fuck knew what that girl would throw at us?

oOo

A/N: The Cullens' secret is out! Well, it almost is. Bella and Jasper yet again engaged in a verbal sparring match, but really, he was attempting to force her in to going to the hospital. That's a serious no-no for her. They still bonded over some breaking and entering. Is their relationship taking a turn? We shall see ...

Thoughts?

Take care until next time. :)