A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm only making her characters do my bidding 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.
As always, thank you to Shelljayz, Laurie Whitlock, juliangelus and Deebelle1 for betaing and pre-reading. I love you all.
Also, thank you to everyone who has read, followed, favorited and reviewed. I am so grateful for you guys. I do my best to respond to everyone. I wish I could even do that with the guest reviews but with how big my word count in every chapter always is, that isn't possible every time. There was one, in this instance, that I felt the need to say something to.
Hello, LilliC. First of all, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I always appreciate that. I understand your annoyance, I really do. I know you are not alone in it and I thank you for sticking with me in spite of it. I am grateful to everyone that has. However, I believe your annoyance and frustration have blinded you to a few things. First and foremost, ten of the chapters have been outtakes, most from the POVs of characters other than Jasper and Bella. Also, while Longing is primarily Jasper and Bella's story, it is not only their story. It is the story of all of the Cullens, and I am devoting time to developing each of their characters and to give them depth and a meaningful part of the plot. Now, Jasper and Bella may not be where you want them to be yet, but that doesn't mean that a lot hasn't happened between them. They have gone from despising each other to friends who have admitted they have feelings for each other, albeit not to each other. Jasper has even admitted he's in love with Bella to members of the family, which is huge considering his past and the issues he has because of Maria and Savannah. He never wanted to be in love at all, and he may not entirely like it, but he is dealing with it better than expected. They have confided in each other as well. All of that is a very big deal and can be considered a hell of a lot of progress. To me, that counts as much happening, and going at a greater pace would be hugely out of character for the characters I have developed. As for the Cullens not knowing Bella's secret, you have to remember that even though it has been a year of posting, Bella has in actuality only lived with them for two months. That is not enough time for her to have cultivated enough trust to reveal herself to them, no matter how much she has grown to care about them. Just as going at a greater pace would be out of character for both Jasper and Bella, taking that chance so soon would be very out of character for the girl I have developed. I love the characters I have created and intend to stay true to them. Plus, I have always said that I write everything with a purpose. That has not changed. I have very specific plans for both how Bella and Jasper get together and how her secret comes to light. I can say that big things are coming, but if your annoyance is too great to stick around for that, so be it. As I said, I am sure you are not alone and I will understand. I have no intention of changing the plot I've always envisioned. No matter your decision, the support you've shown for as long as you've shown it will always be appreciated. Thank you. :)
Last but not least, this will be my last post of the month because this is the last weekend I have before holiday craziness ensues. Once that happens, it is very unlikely that much will be accomplished on the Longing front. Happy Holidays everyone! :)
And here is a look inside Emmett's head ...
oOo
Tuesday, December 15th, 2080
EmPOV
I was fucking furious. Livid. Enraged. Wrathful. Incensed. I was every word there was to describe pissed to the point of blowing my top.
Gavin Nichols had put his hands on Bella. He had dared to touch her for whatever reason, probably some trumped up, delusional reason he thought gave him the right; but that right was not his. That right was no one's. Bella alone had the right to determine who could touch her in any way, and she sure as hell was selective about casual contact. I could only imagine how much more wary of a more intimate kind of touch she would be, and Gavin had pissed on that. He had taken advantage with no invitation what-so-fucking-ever.
The fact that Bella had put the asshole in the hospital did not make me feel better. It did not temper my anger in the least. Nothing could do that. Nothing … well, nothing but my hands around his throat, his eyes fearful, pained and bulging as I choked the life out of him before I finally snapped his neck, his body going limp as a rag doll. Even then, it wouldn't erase what he'd done or my rage over it. It wouldn't fix the damage he'd done to my little sister. Not all of it anyway, but it would be a start. Everything had to begin somewhere, healing especially, and maybe it wouldn't magically make everything okay, but Gavin's death would jumpstart the process.
But then all my feelings got pushed to the backburner because Jasper lost it. His own rage over the attack on the woman he loved—and he really must love her for him to lose his shit like that—combined with everyone else's pushed him to a breaking point. He disappeared. I saw it, how the life went out of his eyes. They were vacant. He was empty, and yet, he wasn't. There was a darkness flooding into those eyes, and I'm not talking about the shade of his irises but a madness that was truly frightening. It was overtaking him, and one didn't have to be a genius to figure out that if it did, things would not end well for anyone. Everyone knew it. It was impossible not to but none of us knew what to do about it. We weren't equipped to snap Jasper out of it … but Peter was.
He stepped up like he always did and brought Jasper back to himself as much as that was possible; the two of them and Charlotte took off after that. We all knew it was to help Jasper deal with whatever chaos was churning in his head, and as much as I felt for the guy, it didn't change that the chaos in my head was probably just as unbearable. I just had a better grip on my sanity. There were parts of his life I couldn't relate to—I wasn't an empath nor had I fought in a war for the first century of my life—but this particular shitfest was something I could relate to.
My Rosie had endured the aftermath of the actions of sick fucks like Gavin Nichols for more than a century. I had suffered it with her. Now the woman Jasper loved had suffered something similar, if not so violent.
Well, at least not violence done to her, I thought with a smirk as I replayed what Bella had done to that asshole in my head.
My brother and I now had serious camaraderie because of that shit.
Rose and I had left not long after the Whitlocks. The house just felt so confining, suffocating, and I needed to get the hell out of there, so away we went. I didn't even have to say anything to her. She just grabbed my hand and led me away because she knew me that well.
I had taken another cue from Jasper. He liked to hang out around bodies of water and that seemed like a good idea at the moment, so Rose and I found ourselves on a deserted stretch of beach. Aside from the fact that it was far away from where people frequented, it was too fucking cold and dreary for a human to hang oceanside. The assurance of privacy was needed.
I flopped onto my back and burrowed into the sand until the gritty particles brushed the edges of the shells of my ears, and the rest of my body just as deep. For once, my angel ignored her inherent distaste for purposely dirtying herself, settling next to me on her side, head propped on her hand. She reached over with her other one and ran it through my short hair, and as furious as I was, it helped.
"Tell me what's going through your head, baby," she requested softly but evenly.
Part of me felt like I should be the one asking that of her. Seeing Bella, someone she cared about, go through something in the same realm of despicable that she had, would have been excruciating and dredged up memories best left buried … well, as buried as a vampire could, even if the degree wasn't nearly as extreme. But if Rose wanted to discuss her thoughts and feelings about it, she would have brought that up instead of requesting to know how I was handling the whole thing. I would ask if she didn't offer up what was on her mind before too long, but it was always better to let her come to me on her own time.
I debated whether or not to answer her, not because I didn't want to but because I wasn't sure how; but if there was one iron-clad rule of our relationship, it was the promise of honesty. Even if I didn't know quite how to put words to the jumbled mess of my thoughts, I had to tell her that … for the sake of honesty. My Rose would understand.
"I'm not sure," I admitted with a sigh, fisting my hands in the sand and trapping some between my fingertips and palms. My fingernails still dug in to the flesh—with enough force to send cracks through the hard muscle of my hands and send a low keen that got swallowed up by the ocean breeze—bits of graininess getting lodged and trapped in the crevices of them. I did not happen to care. "I can't really wrap my head around all this shit, Rose. We were gone for two fucking days! Things aren't supposed to go to shit in two days."
"I know," she appeased. "They aren't supposed to, but they still do sometimes."
"I know," I echoed her bitterly. Things could go to shit in seconds. Didn't mean I had to like it. "It's just … what the hell happened?"
Yeah, okay, so technically I knew what'd happened, but it was another thing that wasn't supposed to happen. No one I loved was ever supposed to endure any experience even close to what my Rosie had. I had made a vow—I would die before I let anything like that happen to anyone close to me again. If anyone ever attempted it, that person would die, only I wasn't there to stop it. The guilt I felt over that was like a sledgehammer to a human chest. I no longer had one of those, but it felt like I did.
"An asshole got it in his head that he could take advantage and touch someone without their permission and took what he saw as the perfect opportunity to do so," she answered with disgust. "Assholes do what they're gonna do. There's no stopping them from it."
"I know that too," I said bitterly. I really hated people sometimes—and sometimes humans made vampires look like saints.
"But he certainly chose the wrong person, didn't he?" she asked rhetorically, with a brief smirk and chuckle I mirrored before we both turned serious again. "It happened really fast, Em," my Rose told me. Though I already knew that, it was comforting to hear her put it in words. "I wanted to help her. I really did, but I couldn't get to her in time, and I would have killed him if I had."
I didn't say anything to that. She didn't need me to. She knew I didn't disapprove.
"She nearly did," she continued on, unfazed by my silence just as I had known she would be. "She admitted it to me."
"Really?" I questioned with mild incredulity. Things had calmed down between Bella and Rose, but they weren't on good terms by any means. Their relationship didn't fall under the confidante category. "How did that happen?"
My Rosie smiled at me, but there was a shadow to her features I didn't like.
"She was shaken up," she replied with careful, that is to say fake, nonchalance. "So I got her the hell out of Forks to try to get her mind off it. We went to a diner in Port Angeles and the girl devoured three banana splits back to back! I don't know how she managed not to puke her guts up or go crazy from all the sugar."
I couldn't help but chuckle at that. It never ceased to both amuse and amaze me just how much Bella could eat. Her ability to pack it down and keep trim was something I had yet to piece together. "That was nice of you, babe."
She shrugged, again with that mindful nonchalance. "I owed her."
"Owed her what?" I asked, though I kind of already knew what.
"I wanted to make up for treating her so badly," my Rosie responded, dropping her gaze to the circles she was drawing on my chest with her fingers. "It just seemed like a start, that's all." She fell silent after that and I made no move to interrupt the quiet atmosphere. I was proud of her for taking that step and I would tell her so; just not now. Now wasn't the time because she wasn't done with these confessions of hers, and as contradictory as it might be, words of affirmation and encouragement wouldn't help her carry on revealing what was in her heart. My Rosie was a stubborn, unapologetic woman but she wasn't unwilling to own up to her mistakes. Her stubbornness didn't make it easy for her to do it. "I apologized to her."
I turned to look at her finally, noting how her back had straightened as she said the words. Her courage and defiance, her refusal to show weakness, was lending her strength and poise—two things I loved to see. They always inevitably surfaced during moments like these, once she got into the swing of things.
I merely waited for her to continue at her own pace.
"What happened with Gavin just finally snapped everything into perspective, Em," she explained, pupils expanding so there was more black in her eyes than gold. "I already kind of knew Bella wasn't who I initially thought she was, but that just sealed it. It changed everything. I couldn't not apologize and try to bury the hatchet."
I smiled at her but remained silent because I knew she still wasn't done. Instead, I took her hand in mine and laced our fingers together, giving them a reassuring squeeze. My Rose was often a woman who appreciated actions more than words.
"I told her everything," she revealed, squeezing back. "I wanted her to understand. I think she does now."
That both surprised me and didn't in light of the events of yesterday.
"I know how hard it is for you to talk about all that still, babe," I finally said, pride in her evident in my tone. It still wasn't the time to put that pride into words though. "That was very brave."
She smiled distractedly, her gaze fixed on the sea, the rhythmic crashing of the waves against each other seeming to mesmerize her. It was several minutes before she looked at me. "I like her, Emmett. I didn't want to admit it to anyone, especially not to myself, but I do. She's family … not just yours, but mine too."
I grinned brilliantly at her but still said nothing because the same principle still applied. That didn't mean I didn't ache to tell her how happy her words made me, but even though I didn't say it, she knew. She always knew.
"I'm sorry," she muttered minutes later.
My brow furrowed, lips turning down in a frown. "What for?"
"For not trusting your judgment, for not believing in you," my Rosie murmured with regret. "You deserve better."
"Nonsense," I scoffed, gesturing dismissively with my free hand. "You aren't required to share my views on everything, Rose. You had your reservations, and they were justified. There's nothing wrong with that."
"Don't," she snapped. "Don't do that."
"Don't do what?" I questioned, bewildered and my frown deepened.
"Don't just dismiss what I did like I did nothing at all!" she exclaimed, wrenching her hand from mine and scowling.
I opened my mouth to tell her she hadn't done anything wrong, but the ice that flooded her eyes snapped it shut.
"You always do that and it fucking pisses me off!"
"But, babe—" I began cautiously.
"Don't 'but babe' me, Emmett," she growled irritably. "This isn't about right or wrong. It's about faith and support and trust. Those are all things you deserve to get from me unconditionally, unwaveringly, but I didn't give them to you in this. I love you more than anything and I trust you more than anyone, but I still fucked up. Let me own up to that. Let me apologize. Let me tell you how much more, how much better, you deserve from me. Just ... let me."
I nodded. If this was what my baby needed, and she had made it very clear it was, I wouldn't argue. Even if I didn't agree. I would think about what she'd said though simply because I promised with that tiny gesture.
"And for the love of God," Rose complained. "Don't let me just to appease me. Don't just forgive me like you always do. Acknowledge I was wrong and make me work for it."
A lecherous grin stretched my lips. "Oh, I can do that and I think I know exactly how to make you work for it."
She snorted, her expression still disgruntled, but said, "thank you," nonetheless.
Then my mate curled in to my side and tucked her head just beneath my chin, my arms wrapping around her without thought. I loved how she just fit there, like that spot was made just for her. I suppose it was. We lay like that for several minutes before I couldn't keep my mouth shut anymore. I was glad we had cleared things up but my rage over Gavin fucking Nichols hadn't disappeared.
"So what are we going to do about that punk?"
"We aren't going to do anything," she replied sternly.
I sputtered indignantly, arms tightening around her sharply; so much so that she sucked in a surprised and almost pained sounding breath.
"Why the hell not?" I demanded.
"Because we're going to let Jasper take care of him," my Rosie answered. She continued on before I could voice my protest. "She's the woman he loves, Emmett. It's his right. You should understand that better than anyone."
And I did. Truly. Even if I hadn't gotten to take care of Royce and his douchebag friends myself.
"Fine," I huffed with petulance before my tone turned dark and deadly, "but if Jasper doesn't do what needs to be done, I will."
If Jasper didn't kill Gavin Nichols, I would.
My Rosie merely nodded. She knew exactly what I had promised to do without coming out and saying it and I certainly wasn't going to encounter any resistance from her.
oOo
A/N: Duh, duh, duh ... cue dramatic music.
I also need to thank whoever nominated me for the Fandom Choice Awards. Seriously. It is such an honor. Voting is still open, so if you are interested (no matter who you choose to vote for), you can find the link to their blog on my profile.
Take care, everyone! Happy Holidays, again, and for those of you that celebrate Christmas, like me, I will say Merry Christmas! Muah!
