A/N: Twilight does not belong to me. I just like to play with the characters. Jasper as the God of War and Peter just knowing shit are ideas that belong to idreamofeddy.
Hi, everybody! I'm back. I want to thank all of you for reading Longing. For those of you that took the time to review, I thank you as well. I love to know your thoughts on what's going on in the story. I want to apologize to the reviewers I didn't get a chance to respond to. I will try to do better in the future.
I want to thank Juliangelus, shelljayz, Laurie Whitlock, and Tammygrrrl for being my awesome betas. I couldn't do this without them.
Well, school is back in session, so my schedule is going to be pretty packed. Unfortunately, that means I won't be updating for a while because writing will be slow going.
oOo
Friday, January 1st, 2081, Morning...
BPOV
The bad feeling that had been steadily developing for days had settled in my gut and festered these past few hours, so much that it was making me queasy. Just before it ramped up to its current nauseating level, there had been a sharp pain in my chest, like someone had stuck a knife in my heart and crushed my ribs. It left me feeling weak and dizzy. The agonizing sensations lingered for several minutes before they settled—I only received a minimal break from the intense pain before the heightened ache in my chest came back, the one that hadn't left me alone for just as long as the feeling that something wasn't right. That and the mysterious itch I could feel down to my bones that I couldn't seem to shake. They were getting more and more difficult to ignore, and with my conversation with Peter on repeat in my brain, I wasn't sure I wanted to.
"...there's a situation at home," he'd said. "One you can't help with, one that's dangerous..."
But how dangerous? Dangerous for a human, sure, but I wasn't a regular human. How dangerous would it be for me?
Did this horrible feeling I had actually amount to something? Was it real or just me projecting my worry? I had always trusted my gut, but was that what this was? And did I trust it this time?
"We were in a bad situation for a long time, Jasper, Charlotte, and I. He had it the worst," the Peter of my memory said, "and I didn't help him."
Peter had been utterly miserable at this admission despite the fact that the circumstances were beyond his control, and over the past few days, I had established that I couldn't leave Forks without knowing the Cullens were okay. So, let's say this feeling of mine was legitimate and the situation with the Cullens was as dire as it seemed to imply. How far was I willing to go to find out? If I showed up at the Cullens' house and they needed me, how far was I willing to go to help? Was I willing to out myself?
Savannah asked me if changing was as simple as not doing things you need to apologize for. I told her it was…
On the other hand, what if my showing up at the house only made things worse? What if the Cullens were so distracted by my presence that they couldn't focus on the danger to themselves because of the danger to me? What if I got one or more of them hurt just by being there? Also, Peter would be pissed, and I didn't want to disappoint him again.
We were in a bad situation for a long time, Jasper, Charlotte, and I. He had it the worst...and I didn't help him.
I honestly didn't know what to do…
"Bella?" Angela's worried voice penetrated my fog of indecision.
"Hmm?" I hummed, still preoccupied.
A hand waved in front of my face, and my own shot out to grip a bony wrist. Angela hissed when I squeezed too hard. Awareness flooded back in an instant, and I let go immediately.
"Sorry," I told her sincerely.
"It's fine," she dismissed, soothing her wrist with light, quick fingertips. "You seem distracted. Everything okay?"
"I don't know," I answered honestly. "I don't know what to do about something."
"Is it a bad something?"
"It could be," I admitted.
"What does your gut say?" Angela asked, eyes intent.
"That's the problem," I said. "I don't know if what I feel is my gut or something else. And if it is my gut, I don't know if I can trust it."
"Always trust your gut, Bella," she said fiercely.
"What if I'm wrong?" I implored her, voice quiet.
"Then you're wrong," she replied, voice equally quiet but intense, "but it's better to be wrong than to be right and do nothing."
"What if by doing something I make things worse?" I worried, agonized by the possibility.
"That's always a possibility, but you can't let that fear get in the way of doing what's right," Angela said.
...you're not the only one who feels like you need to be better.
Well, it's better to apologize afterward than seek permission first. I would head to the Cullens' but stay on the outskirts of a vampire's range of senses. I would just investigate a little, do a bit of recon. If I was really stealthy, no one would even know I was there if there was no need for me to go charging in.
"I have to go," I said, taking care to rise to my feet slowly. I didn't want to alarm Angela by running out of here like the house was on fire.
"Good luck," I heard Angela say as the front door closed behind me.
oOo
I did my best not to speed as I drove, but when I hit two miles from the house, I smelled the sweet stench of vampire venom...a whole hell of a lot of vampire venom. The air was so thick with it my nostrils burned, so thick that I couldn't even rightly tell whose it was. Someone was injured, most likely more than one person. If there was any doubt that the Cullens needed me, it was blown out of the water. I stepped on the gas pedal.
The closer I got, the harder it became to breathe, and when the house came into view, my jaw dropped at the utter chaos. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Half the house was in ruins, part of it smoldering, Esme's perfect landscaping was in tatters, riddled with splintered wood, broken glass, plants and trees uprooted, shingles from the roof cracked and littering the ground. The car that had surely been parked in the driveway lay, warped and twisted, nothing more than scrap metal, gasoline leaking from its damaged gas tank...and body parts. That was what truly horrified me—the body parts strewn in with the wreckage, so many pieces of broken bodies I couldn't figure out what belonged to who. I stopped trying when my eyes fixed on the lone whole figure standing in the middle of it all, utterly, inhumanly silent and still—Jasper. Jasper, whose clothes were mostly intact but sticking to him obscenely, wet with what I hoped was water and not something more sinister. Jasper, who was looming over Peter. Peter, who was on his knees in front of his brother, refusing to look away, and missing jagged chunks of his torso and left shoulder. While Jasper continued to stand without moving, muscles relaxed in a militarily precise at ease position, I couldn't help but get the feeling that his easy stance was a lie; every line of him screamed that he could pounce on the turn of a dime. Peter was very clearly in very real danger.
Without taking his eyes off Jasper, Peter addressed me just loud enough for me to hear, "Bella, I need you to stand very still and be very quiet until I tell you otherwise. There's a fire starting and it needs to be put out before it spreads. If it hits the venom, everything will ignite, and a lot of people are going to die. When I say so, I need you to move slowly and carefully toward the left front quadrant of the house. That's where the fire extinguisher is kept. When you find it, I need you to put out the fire. Then I need you to stand very still and stay as quiet as possible again. I will keep him as distracted as I can for as long as I can."
Already standing frozen at the sight of the absolute destruction, I obeyed Peter without question. For the first time in a long time, following orders seemed like a genuinely good idea. I didn't have the first clue what was going on or how things got this way or what was wrong with Jasper, so trusting Peter and his direction was easy, despite my wondering why Jasper needed distracting in the first place. I had a task to complete, something to focus on. I needed to do this in order to save the Cullens. If I didn't, then they would most certainly die, and it would be final this time. I couldn't let that happen, so I waited for my cue and trusted Peter knew what he was doing.
"Now," Peter said calmly.
I moved immediately, cautiously making my way through the rubble. It was difficult to keep my pace slow when so much was at stake, but I managed it, moving as gradually and silently as I could given the circumstances. My eyes rapidly scanned the wreckage as I went and I kept an ear peeled for Peter. My task wasn't easy. There was a lot of debris to step through or around, sometimes even needing to shift things carefully with my hands instead of kicking it or toeing it aside in order to make as little noise as possible.
There was silence for a good 30 seconds as I trekked along, and I didn't even try to keep the fact that I was tracking what was going on every few seconds discreet. Whatever was happening, I had come wading in when the shit was already neck high, and things were currently dangling on a precipice. Power was radiating off Jasper in waves, thicker than the smell of venom in the air, making him seem larger than life while Peter, still kneeling at his feet, looked small and fragile; small and fragile but determined and far too calm and resigned to his fate.
"Hey, Jasper, hey," Peter began. "It's me. It's Peter."
Turning back to what I was supposed to be doing, I lifted a piece of sheetrock and insulation and set it in a safer, less precarious position and continued on. I was nearly to the left front quadrant of the house.
"I hope you can hear me, brother," Peter said next.
Sifting through the ruins of the house was going to be difficult if I wanted to do it quietly. Also, the fire was steadily growing—if it got much bigger, a fire extinguisher alone wouldn't be enough to fight it—and I needed to move quickly. I wondered how much quicker I could get away with without drawing attention to myself because time was definitely of the essence.
"I hope you can hear me when I say that Savannah is gone," Peter said fervently.
I knew it! I knew Savannah had something to do with this whole bad situation. I shouldn't have let things lie. I should have asked even though I was told I wasn't allowed to.
I swear, if she isn't in pieces yet, I will rip her apart myself.
Distracted by my thoughts of Savannah's destruction, I moved something aside without paying full attention to what I was doing. It was cold and when I looked down, I saw that I was holding a hand, so tiny it could only belong to Alice. Startled, it took a lot of self-control not to cringe and fling it away from me. It wasn't every day a girl handled a dismembered body part, and even I wasn't immune to icky things. Breathing out deeply, I set Alice's hand down gingerly and patted it, silently promising my friend that I would fix this.
Shifting my eyes between the rubble and the fire, I felt the beginnings of panic. I was running out of time.
"I don't know what she did to finally bring this on, but we both know she had it coming, and she's gone now," he repeated.
Despite everything that was going on, all the things I needed to focus on to achieve my goal, it was difficult not to register what Peter was saying. I couldn't help being curious about it.
"She can't hurt you anymore. She can't control you anymore," Peter promised solemnly, "because she's gone now. You can come back to me."
For every piece of wood or glass or metal I moved, it seemed as though there were two more, and two more after that, and two more after that.
"You've got me to come back to. You will always have me and Charlotte to come back to," Peter reminded him. "But it's different now. Now you've got friends and family outside of us. You've got more people to come back to."
Come on, come on... Where the fuck is the fire extinguisher?
I overturned what was left of one of Esme and Carlisle's beloved paintings, canvas brutally torn and expensive frame splintered, and underneath was the fire extinguisher.
Finally! I rejoiced, relief flooding me. One task down, one to go.
"Shit," Peter muttered, clearly dismayed. I snuck a peek at him. The look on his face was grim and stoic, and I could tell that whatever was happening, it was not going the way he'd hoped it would.
Focus, Bella.
I checked the fire extinguisher over for functionality. It was precisely the type I needed, as long as the fire didn't reach the venom. The needle was in the green part of the gauge, which meant it was fully charged and pressurized. That was good. That meant that as soon as I made it within range of the fire, I was good to go. All I would have to do is pull the pin, aim, and squeeze the trigger, but first I had to make it to the flames. I had another obstacle course to traverse before I did.
"It's been a while since we've been here, you and me," Peter began again, his voice a little more formal.
There were maybe fifteen feet between me and the fire, all of it treacherous considering the circumstances. I could see at least two dozen obstacles on the way there.
"Do you remember the last time we met in a situation like this?" Peter asked, tone even.
When and where would Peter and Jasper have been in a situation like this, I wondered, trying to distract myself from the seeming insurmountability of what lay ahead of me without taking my mind totally off the task at hand.
"It was our last battle together," he continued. "I stood at your side just as I always did. Everything was chaos, just as it is now."
Battle? Jasper and Peter were from two completely different time periods…
"My father was a soldier...so I decided that's what I would be…" Peter had said, "...he had no intention of seein' his youngest boy joinin' up...Do you want to know something that actually is funny? I became a soldier anyway…"
That had to mean that Peter became a soldier after he was changed, so if they had been in battle like this together that had to mean Jasper also was a soldier as a vampire, given that he was Peter's sire.
I came to a piece of glass so large, I couldn't step over it, so I had to make my way around it.
"Maria was about to take my head off," Peter said. "You saved my ass. Do you remember that? Do you remember why you did it? I sure as hell have never been able to figure it out. I could use some enlightenment."
Who the fuck is Maria? I wondered, but it didn't matter who Maria was right now. The only thing that mattered was putting the fire out, and I was close to doing just that, slowly bridging the gap between me and my target.
"You and I are good, aren't we? We've always been good. That's why I'm not dead yet, isn't it?" Peter asked a still stock-still Jasper. If I was reading the situation correctly, Peter wasn't really talking to Jasper at all anymore, but that begged the question if he wasn't talking to Jasper, who the hell was he talking to? Where the hell was the Jasper I knew? Something else to put on the back burner until the fire was under control.
"You don't have to do this," Peter said. "You've done your job, you've neutralized the threat. Jasper is okay now, he's safe."
We were in a bad situation for a long time, Jasper, Charlotte, and I. He had it the worst...and I didn't help him.
Whoever this was, had he kept Jasper safe when Peter hadn't? If that was the case, who was he? How much more was there to the already complicated man I knew? Apparently, Jasper had many more layers than I could have imagined.
"You can rest now," Peter soothed him. "Jasper is safe, and we're not at war anymore. There's no more need to fight, do you hear me? You don't need to fight anymore. You can rest now."
I glanced in Peter and Jasper's direction again, finding that nothing had changed—Jasper still looked down on him and Peter was still on his knees, eyes trained on Jasper's face, but I couldn't risk worrying about how foreboding a picture it painted. Peter didn't seem afraid for his life, and even though I had my doubts about his safety, I had to trust in his certainty. The safety of the many outweighed the safety of just the one, even if that one was Peter, whom I adored.
After what felt like an eternity, I was within range, so I pulled the pin on the fire extinguisher. It slid free smoothly, but there was the tiniest click as the end of the metal rod rasped against the edge of the hole keeping it in place. In the unnatural quiet, the sound was deafening. I might as well have pulled the pin on a grenade. After that, everything was motion.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jasper's entire body tense and he started to turn in my direction. Peter cursed again and lunged. I didn't bother trying to track their movement. I couldn't stray from my goal now. The fire was my one and only priority, so I tuned them out, aimed at the flames, squeezed the trigger and concentrated on smothering them. It must have taken a full minute to accomplish this, but finally, the fire was gone. The Cullens were safe.
As good as I was at compartmentalizing, not even I could block out the resonant screech that sounded moments later, nearly stunning me stupid, which meant the fight that had been blurring in my periphery had definitively ended and not amicably. Someone had won and someone had lost, and I knew without a doubt who the victor was.
I was proven right when, in an instant, he stood before me, only a little worse for wear. Jasper. Of course, it was Jasper.
His hands gripped the balls of my shoulders, tight enough to break bone. I could feel the hairline fractures as they formed, the compressed, bruised muscle not enough of a cushion to provide protection from the force of his hands, but it could have been much worse. I ignored the pain. It didn't matter.
Looking up into Jasper's eyes, I understood why Peter failed to reach him. They were utterly empty. He was just gone. Whoever this was, was not the Jasper I had come to know and lo—...not love, like, really really like.
I didn't know what to do. Talking wouldn't work—if Peter hadn't gotten through to him with words, there was no hope that I could succeed where he'd failed. Fighting would be a mistake—if he could tear even Peter apart, there would be no sparing me. I wasn't arrogant enough to believe I could take him in a fight, nor was I stupid. The only way I could win against any iteration of Jasper was if he allowed me to.
So if talking and fighting weren't options, what could I possibly do to keep Not-Jasper from ripping me to pieces like he had the rest of the family? They might survive it, but I wouldn't. As far as I knew, I couldn't regrow limbs, and even if I could, I would bleed out long before my body got the chance to heal itself. I was enhanced, not invincible, and it was a fucking miracle he had let me live this long.
It wasn't often a person could say they'd stared death in the face. I had more than once, and I would be lying if I said I hadn't been afraid in most of those instances. I was strangely unafraid now...no, it wasn't fear I was feeling, not exactly. Did I want my life to end? That was a resounding no. I had no desire to experience Not-Jasper tearing into me, but as I continued to look at him, the more I felt an odd sort of peace. It made no sense. If this had been my Jasper holding me so tightly, there'd be no question as to why I wasn't scared—I knew my Jasper would never hurt me—but this wasn't my Jasper. Whoever this was, he had no concept of friends or family. He seemed impervious to the temptation of an easy kill and the hot blood it promised despite the physiological fact that, for weeks, Jasper had hardly been able to keep down enough blood to slake his thirst. He didn't seem to have any real grasp on the reality surrounding him, nothing at all seemed to faze him. He just seemed above it all with the power rolling off him thick enough for me to choke on. That power was curiously undefined, not any specific emotion but with the potential for all. That lack of definition made me think that, at the moment, Not-Jasper felt nothing at all, but I knew that could change in a heartbeat. His gaze remained empty, passive, fathomless and fully black, a void that sucked me in even though there really wasn't anything there to get lost in. And still, I remained unafraid.
Blinking back from my trance-like state, I refocused on my predicament. I still didn't know what to do, but my goal hadn't changed. I had to think of something to snap Jasper back to himself. If things were left as they were now, I really would die, fear or no fear, and God knows who else would die if I failed.
Come on, Bella. Think! You're smart, you're a good strategist, so fucking strategize. This is not the worst situation you've ever found yourself in. But I wasn't just battling for myself here. Jasper and his sanity were on the line too. I couldn't afford to fuck this up.
Maybe...
What if I tried to startle him out of it? Kind of like a reset.
That could work...
So what could I do that might accomplish that? Singing was too much like talking, but maybe if I hummed? Maybe that could work. I just hoped it wasn't something Peter had already tried with no luck. Either way, I had to give it a shot.
What was that saying—music soothes the savage beast? Not-Jasper didn't look terribly beast-like, but the dismembered bodies of his family strewn throughout the wreckage of the house suggested otherwise.
Sorting through the memories in the Jasper folder I kept in my brain, I chose a melody I once heard him strumming on his guitar. Trying my best not to let my nerves ruin the notes, I went on for as long as I reasonably could, observing its effect on Not-Jasper with laser-like focus until it was obvious this had made not even the slightest bit of difference.
Now what? Would this statue of a man respond to funny faces? Would it penetrate whatever daze he was in and crack him open? I immediately felt stupid for thinking it, but maybe making him laugh could work. Feeling like a fucking idiot and almost, but not quite thankful the rest of the Cullens were in no position to see this, I started by sticking my tongue out at Not-Jasper.
Nothing.
Duck lips and crossed eyes...nothing.
Blowing a raspberry...nothing.
I was unwilling to try anything else because clearly looking and feeling ridiculous was not going to fix the problem, and it certainly wasn't shocking enough to do jack shit.
Reaching up and grabbing Not-Jasper's hand wouldn't help in the way it needed to. It might be enough to provide my Jasper with some sort of an anchor, but that was all, and he needed more than that to come out of this. After all, Peter seemed to be his anchor in everyday life, and Peter hadn't been enough. If Peter wasn't enough, I sure as shit wasn't.
So, back to the drawing board. What could possibly shock Not-Jasper enough to relinquish the reins to my Jasper? What could I do to shock him out of his dissociation?
Unbidden, an idea began to dawn...
What if…
No, no, it was a stupid idea—the stupidest idea. Sure, it would be shocking, but it would also be more dangerous for me. That wasn't the real problem with it though—my safety sure as hell wasn't the most important thing here. If I did this, there was a good chance Jasper would hate me for it when he came back. But could I let that matter right now? It didn't matter because there was no way in hell it would work regardless of the consequences it might have for Jasper's and my relationship. Unfortunately, I was running on borrowed time, had been since skidding into the driveway what felt like forever ago, and I was currently grasping at straws trying to figure this shit out.
It was the only idea I had that didn't totally suck, stupid and risky though it may be, the last and only card I had up my sleeve. If I wanted to get all of us out of this clusterfuck I had to play it.
What the hell, might as well go all in…
Cautiously and minutely I stretched my hands, wiggling my fingers, to get some of the feeling back in them from the reduced blood flow caused by Not-Jasper's hold on me. It wasn't much and it didn't do a whole lot to dispel the numbness. The only thing it really did was shoot flares of pain up through my shoulders and down my arms, but that was okay because it meant I could actually feel them enough to use them.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly, so, so slowly, began to raise my arms from their place at my sides. Not-Jasper's hold didn't ease, causing the fractures in my bones he'd already created to deepen with an audible cracking noise, but he didn't stop me from moving either.
So far, so good.
Carefully, I used my right hand to cup Not-Jasper's face, running my thumb over his cheekbone tenderly.
"Please know I'm not doing this to hurt you," I murmured.
I swept the soft, venom-damp hair out of his face as well as I could reach it with my left hand, carding it through until I was cradling the back of his head.
I looked up into empty eyes, my stomach fluttering with nerves and something else I couldn't rightly name.
Please work, I prayed, rising onto my tiptoes. Not-Jasper's hold moved with me, hands twitching where they gripped my shoulders. He let me tug his face down, my hands gentle as I did so. Please, please, don't hate me.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
Then I pressed my lips to his...
oOo
A/N: I hope you will forgive me for the cliffhanger!
