A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just playing with her characters. Jasper as the God of War and Peter just knowing shit are ideas that belong to Idreamofeddy.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my prereaders Kayozm and Juliangelus. As always, their support amazes me and they help to take my writing to another level. I'm truly grateful for them.
So… For a long time, I was dead set on posting all of Week 5 together as I have with the other weeks Jasper has been gone. However, recently I started thinking about the length of each scene that makes up Week 5 and realized that by the end, the full chapter would end up being 25k+ words, and while I don't mind posting long chapters and have in the past, that's a bit long even for me, lol. Also, that means you get new content to read a little faster than it would have been if I had kept all of the scenes together, and I don't like keeping you guys waiting even though you're always patient with me about it. I hope you can forgive me for there being more chapters than I promised before we reconnect with Jasper.
Anyway… I hope you enjoy!
oOo
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2081
EdPOV
"Why are we here, Edward?" Rosalie asked, a softer request when before she would have simply demanded.
Here was very far away from both the house and from where Peter and Charlotte were keeping Savannah, while still being in Cullen territory. Their presence wasn't necessary and nor was Bella's—their opinions on the matter I wished to discuss were well-established and we didn't need the more than likely passionate interruptions they would insert into this very important conversation.
"It's time we talk about Jasper," I replied easily. The whole family was here and no one so much as batted an eye at the mention of his name which was a good sign.
There was no uproar over my simple statement, just thoughtful silence, which I honestly didn't expect no matter how different things might be.
"We've all had some time to process what happened, we've felt our feelings, and we've put our thoughts in order. I know it, and in this instance, I won't apologize for having read your minds. It was important, it was Jasper, and he's still just as important now as he was before all of this," I continued. "Maybe more, in fact, but how specifically important is not the issue."
Everyone just continued to listen without comment, hearing me in a way that made me more than a little pleased.
"We need to share how we feel now so that we can try to get on the same page," I said. "I'm not trying to rush anyone, but this is paramount to our family's well-being. We need to prove to him and to ourselves that we're not just a family in name but in action, that it's possible for us to fight without permanent consequences, that we are capable of working through it, getting to a place where we can offer forgiveness, and then move forward—"
"Jasper doesn't need forgiveness," Emmett proclaimed fiercely, eyes narrowing as he met the gazes of those of us he could see. At the seriousness in his voice, we all paid close attention to what would surely be an impassioned speech. "He didn't choose to do what he did. It took me a bit to get over my anger, which was directed more at myself than at him once I could think about it with a cool head, but he's not responsible for what happened…"
Emmett trailed off then, but it was obvious not just to me, but to all of us, that he had more to say and that he was having a hard time with whatever it was. We let him have the time he needed to compose and then steel himself before he spoke.
"I had a conversation with Bella the other day and it got me thinking about everything that happened. For a long time, all I could think about was what happened in the minute or so it actually occurred. But that conversation got me looking at it in a different way which morphed into something else that I'm not sure anyone has considered before." He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. "Because of the chaos and pain of those few minutes, what happened right before he attacked faded so far into the background I practically forgot, but when I went back over what happened yet again, it hit me like a sledgehammer… Jasper shouted 'no' so loudly before everything went down that I heard it through the soundproofing. Savannah did something to him, something more than what she was already doing, and he said 'no!'..."
I cringed internally at the reminder of what it was that Savannah had done in those few moments before the God of War made his appearance. What that dreadful woman had done was reprehensible, the prelude to what could have been rape, and that was a secret I would take to my metaphorical grave; there was no way Jasper would want anyone to know that and even if he surprised me and decided to reveal that experience to the others, I had no business even entertaining the idea of it being me sharing his circumstances with them. I couldn't let on that I knew Emmett was traveling along the right track.
"...The God of War may have torn all of us up, but what if he was protecting Jasper when he did it? What if Savannah hurt Jasper so badly that he needed the most dangerous part of himself to come out, not to rip us apart, but to keep himself safe. Maybe the God of War didn't go after us out of malice. Maybe he was taking out anything that could have been perceived as a threat even if we didn't pose much danger to him at all. I don't think that mattered—all that mattered was eliminating every single thing that could have caused Jasper harm, big or small. That's what I think anyway, and if I'm right, how can we fault him for doing what he had to do to protect himself? How could anyone possibly be mad about that? So I say fuck forgiving him. There's nothing to forgive."
It was quiet for a long time after that, all of us rooting through our memories to find that single shouted word and put what it meant into perspective. We were all taking the time to contemplate it and give the circumstances the gravity they deserved—Jasper had been hurting since Savannah showed up, he'd been hurting for so long we'd almost stopped noticing it, and none of us had been able to do a damn thing about it.
"I agree that there's nothing to forgive, whether you're right or not, Emmett," Carlisle said firmly because the reason the God of War had come calling really was irrelevant, "but Jasper won't see it that way. If I know him half as well as I think I do, he will insist that he has something to be sorry for."
"But if he asks for forgiveness and we say we forgive him for his own peace of mind, we may as well be telling him that we're ignoring what happened to him and that it was his fault he lost control of himself and his ability to choose. It would be as if we're placing the blame for Savannah's actions on him," Esme argued. "We can't do that."
"Maybe he'll surprise us," Alice spoke up. "He's been aware from the moment Savannah showed up that she's been screwing with his mind and making him react in ways he wouldn't normally, which means that it's possible he won't see it that way. Also, he tends not to let what he did in the Southern Wars drown him in guilt because he knows he didn't have a choice, just like he didn't now. Maybe he'll let himself off the hook more quickly than we think he will."
"It's different," Rosalie contested. "He has an easier time of not wallowing in the guilt of it because everyone he killed was nameless, maybe even faceless. He didn't know them. This time it was us, it was family. It won't be as easy for him to dismiss."
"That's true," I agreed. "No matter what, no matter how he's processing what happened, we have to put our heads together and figure out how to convince him not to hold himself responsible if that's how he feels. Right now, I'm not sure how to do that, which is one of the reasons I requested this meeting. None of us have come up with the right thing to say, yet, so we need to get to thinking about it and then meet again to discuss strategy, and we need to do it quickly. Peter said that Jasper will be home soon but he doesn't know the exact day or date. That means we have to have this figured out as soon as possible. We can't let him believe we hold him responsible or that we're angry, and we need to go about this cautiously. It's a situation that could go wrong at the drop of a hat, and we can't afford for that to happen."
"I absolutely agree," Carlisle replied. Everyone nodded, everyone but Emmett, who was frowning.
"I don't know that it's possible for us to figure that out on our own," he said. "I don't think we'll be able to know what to say until we talk it through with him. There's a lot we don't understand about what happened, not even including what I mentioned earlier, and he's the only one who can give us those answers. The way he answers those questions is the only way we can assess his state of mind and decide how to convince him he's not responsible, and it's going to be damn difficult to do simply because he's gone through more shit than any of us ever will and his trauma is magnified by a thousand or more in comparison to ours. We have to go about it respectfully because this is a delicate situation, and while we may need answers to give us a clue on how to handle the conversation we need to have, we can't push him, at least not hard enough that we might trigger him because it's possible. We don't know what his triggers are, and the last thing we need is a repeat of this shit situation. If we're lucky and we play our cards right, maybe he will tell us what his triggers are so we can go about all future interactions without accidentally bringing out the God of War. Peter and Charlotte will probably help with that if we ask them.
"But it's not just about that," he continued. "It's not just that we need to convince him he's not responsible, and we don't just need to know what his triggers are to keep another situation like what happened four weeks ago from happening again. We need to know so we can be supportive of him, and that's what's even more important. We've got to show him that we can accept all aspects of him and be there for him no matter what he's going through. I know he has Peter and Charlotte to help him when he's going through a rough time, but he needs to know that Peter and Charlotte aren't the only people he can turn to when things get rough. We have to make him see that he doesn't have to disappear every time the hard stuff tries to kick him in the ass. We not only have to convince him that we don't hold him responsible but that he doesn't have to hold himself separate from us the way he's done because of his past since he met us."
Emmett was right, of course, but that didn't mean we couldn't go into it without some sort of loose game plan, and I said as much. Agreement on that went without saying.
None of us immediately left the company of our family to mull over the situation and come up with potential resolutions in solitude. Most likely we would separate into mated pairs to brainstorm ideas but right now the comfort of the six of us together was too powerful to lose.
Rosalie broke the silence all too soon. "Isn't anyone going to acknowledge the epic elephant in the room?"
Her words brought us all out of our musings in an instant, and a little piece of Emmett's mind immediately closed off to me, not unlike a door slamming shut—the family couldn't block me fully the way that Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte could, but they were able to lock parts of their minds away if they chose to. If I pushed hard enough I could break through but I never did. Most of the time, it was none of my business, and I just didn't want to know, the absence of those thoughts more a relief than anything else. But this wasn't normal circumstances, and this time, I admitted, I really did want to know. However, despite my curiosity, I let it go. Emmett could keep his secrets if he felt he had to no matter how curious I was.
Carlisle was the one to answer her question though we all knew what she was referring to. Everyone had been thinking it, coming to the same conclusion at varying times over the last weeks, and it would be nothing but good to say it out loud.
"Bella and Jasper are mates," he announced with certainty.
"Could be mates," I corrected. Even though the evidence strongly suggested that Carlisle was right, it was hard to be one hundred percent sure just yet.
Rosalie snorted. "They are," she disagreed. "There's more evidence for it being true than not, and that evidence is so overwhelming that whatever doubts we may have might as well not even exist, like the fact that Bella isn't dead. That says everything, don't you think? And we all know it. The question is: do they?"
"Bella doesn't," Alice said. "Not consciously."
"Alice is right," Emmett told us. "She's confused about her feelings for Jasper but I don't think she can deny that they exist anymore. She's sure as hell not willing to admit to herself what they mean and I'm just talking about love, never mind all the mate stuff."
"What about Jasper?" Esme wondered. "Do you think he knows?"
"We definitely know he didn't before," I said. "Whether or not he knows now is a toss-up, but I'd say it's more likely than not that he does."
"Why do you think Peter and Charlotte lied to us about it?" Alice asked no one in particular. The looks on Esme and Carlisle's faces showed that they had no idea what she was talking about—they hadn't been with us at the time. She noticed and elaborated, "At the winter formal, they said that Jasper's mate wouldn't be coming along for another 154 years."
"I don't know," I admitted. Peter and Charlotte always did things in their own way on their own time, and they always, always had Jasper's best interests at heart, and that was what mattered. "It might be worth asking about it again though. It's possible that whatever kept them from telling us initially may not be valid anymore which means they might be willing to talk about it now."
"I don't personally care why they did it," Rosalie offered, which was surprising—Charlotte was her best friend and the idea that she might have lied to her ordinarily wouldn't have gone over well. "I don't think it matters. Peter just knows a lot of shit but he sure as hell didn't see Savannah coming, which means he didn't see the God of War paying us that little visit. He couldn't have foreseen that that experience would open all of our eyes and ruin whatever plans they might have had for the whole situation. I don't think we should push it. They've got other things to deal with at the moment."
Peter and Charlotte were still spending most of their time with Savannah, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be much longer before her life reached its end.
"Okay, so they're mates," Emmett said, bringing us back to the matter at hand. "What do we do about it?"
"Nothing," Esme said. "They are what they are. What is there to do about it?"
"You're right," Carlisle agreed, looking over at his wife and smiling. "There's nothing that can change it."
"It's not our business anyway," Emmett pointed out.
"Not our business?" Rosalie challenged incredulously. "They're our family. Of course it's our business!"
"It's between Jasper and Bella," Carlisle declared unequivocally, looking into each of our eyes and pausing extra long on Rosalie and our mother figure.
"Really, Rose," Emmett carried on. "How would you have felt if someone tried to interfere with our bond?"
"And really think about it," Alice added. "Think about Bella and Jasper as people, their personalities and history specifically. In this case, we can't lead the horses to water, they have to find it on their own if we don't want disaster to strike. And I don't know about you guys, but the last thing I want is to mess with their destiny. This must be exactly why Peter and Charlotte asked us not to get involved in their relationship, even if at the time we didn't know they were mates, considering how much better they know Jasper than we do. We can't screw this up for them."
"Fine," Rosalie grudgingly acquiesced, huffing in annoyance.
"So we know they're mates," I recapped, "and we do nothing except observe. Agreed?"
"Agreed," everyone echoed.
And that was that...or so I thought.
"Do you think we should be worried about Bella?" Alice piped up. "No one knows a whole lot about how the mating bond works, at least not how it's sealed. Most mated couples that meet as vampires end up with a bond that's sealed almost immediately, but the process of sealing it is still kind of a mystery. I can't even imagine how different the process of sealing a bond between a vampire and a human might be. Carlisle, do you know if it's even possible to seal a bond like that? Do you know anything about any of it at all?" she directed at our father, whose background as a doctor may provide some insight.
This wasn't a topic we'd ever discussed before because there had never been a need to, and I found myself very interested in it now that there was a need.
"Nothing conclusive. What I do know from a scientific perspective is that mating starts with attraction. The attraction is physical, and that doesn't necessarily mean sexual, and is what draws you to your mate in order to begin establishing the emotional aspect of a soul bond. Attraction is a chemical process in the brain, so biology and body chemistry do play at least some role in bringing mates together, no matter how big or small, and in completing the bond. It's not necessarily rare for a vampire to find a mate in a human, but it is rare for the human half of a vampire-human mated couple to choose to remain human for any length of time after the pair meet or for the vampire to have the self-control not to turn their human mate almost immediately. However, I have heard of cases where the bond has been fully sealed between a vampire and a human, back before the Volturi law of concealment was enacted. I believe that while the difference in the biology between humans and vampires is enough for us to be considered separate species, we're not so different that chemistry wouldn't be a factor in completing the mating bond. I also believe that there is a mystical component to the bond, Fate or whatever one may choose to call it, and that it's a combination of both the physical and the mystical that seals the bond, but that's just my opinion."
"This isn't really a matter of how the bond is sealed though, is it? It's about how the bond itself is affecting Bella just by existing," Rosalie added. "I know she's feeling it at least a little and has been for a while if the way she's been rubbing her chest is any indication. It's been happening more and more the longer Jasper's been gone, but we don't know what it's like for her. It could just be a constant, insistent ache in her chest the way it is for me when I'm separated from Emmett, but she's human. It could be causing her genuine pain for all we know. Or she may not be feeling it much at all just because she's human."
Carlisle pursed his lips, and I saw a flash of the diner Bella worked at, her sitting across from our father in one of those red vinyl booths in his mind before he shut me out lightning quick. "She's not likely to admit she's in pain, especially with what's been going on. Even if we ask her directly, she would probably lie about it, and without confirmation from her, there's no way to know for sure. This isn't the type of ailment I can detect through my preternatural senses and my experience as a doctor."
"Why are you so sure she would lie though?" Esme wondered.
Carlisle looked grim as he answered, "She's too caught up in everyone else's well-being since what happened with the God of War. If I had to guess, I would say that she wouldn't want to add her own suffering onto any of our already full plates. If that's true, she's trying to protect us, but more than that, she'll do anything to protect herself."
From the little I knew about Bella and her past, I couldn't argue with Carlisle's assessment of our human family member. Most of us could do nothing but concede to whatever it was he knew that we didn't, and those who doubted decided it wouldn't do any good to drag this particular topic out, especially since it was a digression from the very important subject we'd already been discussing and needed to get back to.
"What do you remember about what it was like to be a human mated to a vampire, Esme?" Emmett asked, moving on and getting back on track.
Esme's eyes drifted to a far away place, a different time. She let herself be swept away as she searched for the cloudy remains of her human life in her enhanced vampire memory, vast, eidetic, and sometimes terrible as it was.
"Meeting you, dear," she began, looking to Carlisle and reaching for him. She laced her fingers through his and squeezed his hand with affection, "is my clearest human memory, aside from when I lost my baby." Then she returned her attention to the rest of us. "I remember feeling an instant connection and thinking he was the most handsome man I had ever met, but if memory serves, there was no pain once he was gone. I think, around that time, I started to feel a fierce sense of restlessness, but that may not have had anything at all to do with the mating bond."
"It makes sense that you didn't," Carlisle said. "If my theory about attraction and the mating bond is correct, then a strong connection wouldn't have developed immediately. You were too young for there to have been any kind of attraction between us when we met. I think if you had been just a year or two older that may not have been the case, but as it was, you weren't. So while I did feel an especially strong connection to you, it was neither sexual nor romantic, and my time with you was brief, certainly not long enough to really do much in establishing a soul bond. It wasn't until I found you again when you were older, so near to death, that I truly felt the pull of the mating bond. I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from turning you even if I'd wanted to. I do believe that even though the bond wasn't established fully during our initial meeting, it definitely affected me. I stayed in Ohio for many years after I met you, having no desire whatsoever to relocate even if my continued presence was dangerous to my human cover. The only real reason I eventually left was when the Spanish Influenza pandemic struck in 1918."
Carlisle looked at me and smiled at the mention of his reason for being in Chicago that led to him changing me. It was a dark time for me but everything ended up working out for the best; it had just taken a long while for me to come to that conclusion.
"Well," Emmett said. "Attraction is not an issue at all for Jasper and Bella, and they've spent quite a bit of time together, so a soul bond should definitely have started to form between them, which definitely could mean that Bella is in some kind of pain with Jasper gone. She could be suffering in all kinds of ways we don't know about."
Alice sighed. "So what do we do? We know Bella could be in pain but we can't know for sure unless we ask her, and if Carlisle's right—she won't tell us the truth."
"Even if she told us the truth and admitted she's suffering, there's really nothing we can do," Carlisle responded. "There's nothing medical that will help with any symptoms she might be experiencing from Jasper's absence. All she can do is endure until he comes home."
"I know I'm the one who brought it up, but is there a chance we're overthinking this?" Rosalie asked. "If she really is suffering, wouldn't it be hard for us not to know? I mean, she could lie, but how much could she really hide from us? We basically live in each other's pockets and other than rubbing her chest and eating less she hasn't shown any sign of being sick."
"You would be surprised," Carlisle muttered without elaborating. "All we can do is be there for her. We have to make sure she's being properly taken care of because if she is sick from this, she won't understand what she's feeling other than that it's unpleasant. It's not our job to enlighten her about her mating bond, that's between her and Jasper, but we can at least ensure that she's as well as can be, even if there is nothing we can do to alleviate the symptoms. Jasper will be home soon, hopefully very soon, and once he does the symptoms should ease. There's no question that if Bella is suffering as a result of their bond, he's suffering as well and probably in a more acute way."
The idea of Jasper suffering any more than he already had been was horrifying and that echoed in the thoughts of all of us.
"As long as we pay attention, I think we can help her, but she won't like us hovering so we have to be subtle about it. The last thing we need is for her to get pissed off and shut us out," Emmett said.
"Yes, absolutely," Esme agreed, as did we all.
We may not have had a game plan for when Jasper came home but at least we had one for this. That was better than nothing. The question now was whether or not we could pull it off.
oOo
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2081
BPOV
As Peter and Charlotte approached the trailers after emerging from the trees, I marched up to them, ever more determined.
"I want to see her," I flat out demanded of Peter, who was still in charge of everything Savannah.
He sighed heavily, clearly done with me and my quest.
"Bella," he said wearily, "you already know my answer."
It was at this time that Emmett spoke up loudly from where he was sitting across the yard, "What would be the harm in it, Pete? Savannah can't get loose and you can chaperone, besides. She can't hurt her."
"I'm not so sure it's a good idea," Rosalie argued, abandoning the bottle of nail polish she was applying meticulously to her nails and focusing on the three of us.
"No, Emmett's right, sugar," Charlotte added, disagreeing with Rosalie. "Bella has a right to see her," she said, her tone and expression full of some hidden meaning I couldn't suss out, "same as everyone else."
Peter groaned, aggrieved, noticeably irritated with his mate and surrogate brother for ganging up on him. I tried to hide my smile at their interference and almost failed to manage it. He sighed but considered them gravely before turning to me. "Bella," he began seriously. "...why is this so important to you?"
And this time, I finally had an answer for him. "Because I have questions for her, and I want to look her in the eye when I ask them. I want real answers, and she's the only one who can give them to me."
…And I want to see the misery she's been put through these past weeks the same way I saw Jasper's.
Peter stared at me hard for a long time. "I will take you tomorrow at first light. Get a good night's sleep."
I didn't say thank you, just gave him a fierce nod of gratitude. I was sure he understood.
oOo
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this peek into the Cullens' mindset on everything. How do you think the meeting between Bella and Savannah will go? You will find out after we see a scene from Peter's perspective. ;)
Take care, everyone!
