Oh hey kids! Fancy seeing you here!

I really enjoyed writing this one. There have been a lot of fight scenes lately that tend to take me hours to write, but this is a nice slow chapter that just flowed out. It's also one of the first ones I ever planned, so I hope you enjoy it.

While I have you here I wanted to float out an idea. When Bella gets out of the camp (eventually), I'm thinking I might switch up the POV. She would still be our main protagonist but I think it might be fun to see what her companions are doing every now and then! What do you think?

EDIT

With hindsight, I realised there needed to be an extra little scene between this chapter and the last one. The flow wasn't quite right, yaknow?. So it has been added at the beginning of this chapter, and the amount of time between the last one and this has been increased a little. Sorry about that folks!

Much love, happy reading xx

She wished she could stay numb forever, let her brain shut down so she didn't have to deal with reality. But Jasper sat sprawled in the mud in front of her, pumping this warmth into her and drawing out the emptiness. A dim memory surfaced of her dramatic human years, imagine how helpful he could have been when Edward left her.

"Bella?"

Reality hit her like a freight train. She couldn't escape forever.

"Oh fuck, what have I done?" Her head fell into her hands, nails digging into her scalp.

"You killed someone."

Nothing more had to be said.

He stayed for hours. Peter ran between them and the camp, covering for their absences until it didn't work anymore and Jasper was called away. Thankfully she wasn't needed. She could sit in the mud, where she belonged, and berate herself until the sun rose through the trees and brought her with it.

It would never be okay. She knew she was changed forever, that first drop of blood had set a fire within her that could never be extinguished. She knew what she was missing now.

When she found a quiet moment, Bella took to assessing the condition of her clothes after the fight of the previous day. Her soft cotton blouse had ripped cleanly at the shoulder seam where her arm had been shorn from her body. Its bright white hue had dimmed to brown long ago from the mud and grime she kept finding herself thrown into. Now bloodstains were thrown into the mix. It would never be clean again, but the sleeve was at least fixable. Bella thanked her lucky stars that the delicate brass buttons at the cuff had kept the thing on her arm even as it was thrown away.

Her blouse was fixable, but the scorched fabric at the bottom of her woolen skirts was not. The medium grey was burned an angry black where flames had licked at the hem. Holes littered the area where particularly burned areas had disintegrated into soot at the slightest pressure.

She swung to the top of her tree and sighed as she removed her shirt to assess the damage more closely.

"Irina is going to kill me…"

"Who's Irina?"

Peter ambled up to her tree, leaning on it with one arm and a smirk in his eyes. Jasper followed, hands shoved deep into his pockets and eyes curiously cast upon her.

"Irina is…" Bella hesitated, unsure of how to put it. "A member of a coven closely connected to mine. We've always thought of her and her sisters as cousins, sort of. She sent me off with a mending kit." She laughed, digging it out of her satchel. "Because she didn't want me to have to steal clothes that didn't fit."

"You have a large extended coven then?" Peter asked as he leapt up to his usual branch, close beside hers.

To her surprise, Jasper quietly followed, climbing the tree until he came to a sturdy branch in front of her.

She was strangely struck by a strange feeling of self-consciousness; sitting in front of two men in her chemise and corset. It was very strange indeed, she was still more covered up than she had been in her wedding dress in front of dozens of friends and acquaintances. She realised with a start that the time period she was in had finally started to rub off on her, despite the newborns walking around half-naked a few meters away.

She pulled her hair around to the front to cover some of her modesty and began to thread a needle with clean white thread. "Yes, there's a few of us. My father is staying with our cousins while I'm gone."

"... And do any of 'em drink human blood?" Jasper asked, looking as smug as a man who felt he'd worked something out.

Bella gave him a long look. She decided to finally tell him the truth. "Just one," She replied, thinking of Garrett. "But I have no doubt he'll be convinced to try animal blood soon."

"You all abstain for moral reasons, I presume?" He asked, she nodded in reply. "I sure hope whoever you're lookin' for is worth it."

Bella wanted to tell him that he was, that he always would be, but her fear held her back. Fear that after all this, he might reject her and her family.

"Peter, ya dumb sack of shit! Get over here, boy!"

Peter's eyebrows rose at Anton's screaming. "Well, I s'pose I've been summoned." He hoisted himself off the tree and set off back to the camp. "Don't do anything I wouldn't!"

Bella half expected Jasper to follow him, but to her surprise he just rolled his eyes and turned back to her, his gaze assessing.

Bella squirmed. "What? Why are you staring at me?"

"It's nothin'," He looked straight down at his lap. "Just weird to see you with red eyes."

She groaned. "Ugh, I'm glad I can't see it. Haven't looked in a mirror in a very long time!"

"Me neither," He grinned. "Other than the occasional glance in a pool of water, I've never seen myself. I'm not even sure I know what I look like."

She laughed a little and then fell into silence. It was almost sad to think of; how isolating this place was that he didn't even know his own face.

"... Was this the first human you've ever killed?" He asked.

She swallowed the shame that pooled in her throat, then winced as Jasper grimaced when he felt it.

"No." She croaked out, even quieter than the way they usually spoke. "I've killed before."

She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to think about it. But Jasper looked at her like she had to keep going and a part of her couldn't refuse anything he asked.

"I'd been turned about a year and a half. We went on a hunting trip in Canada. Looking for bears." She smiled a little at the ridiculousness of something so lighthearted. "I was chasing one, but then I smelt a hiker that had gone off-trail. I didn't even have time to think about what I was doing before I'd tackled him. His head hit the ground and he died on impact…"

She looked up at Jasper, whose face was remarkably blank. "I didn't taste his blood though." She said. "My brother pulled me off him before I could."

"You have a brother?"

"Yes…" She sighed. "I have a brother. Emmett."

Jasper frowned and was silent for a moment. "Why would he stop you drinking?" He asked. "That man died for nothin'."

"Because he knew that once you have drunk human blood it's harder to resist." She sighed.

"But now you have."

"Yep. Now I have." Her voice cracked. "And now I can't imagine never having it again. And that's so God damn scary I don't know what to do with myself."

They fell quiet again, neither knowing what to say. Bella hadn't expected to have opened up so much to him. Somehow, despite their surroundings and the hostility and distrust, she felt just as close to him as she always had.

"... What's a hiker?" He finally asked.

Bella snorted, taken off guard. "It's someone who walks in the woods for fun."

"Why would someone do that?!" He exclaimed, prompting a giggle out of her. "The woods are dangerous! Are all people in the North stupid? How in hell did they win the war?!"

Her giggles transformed into full-on belly laughs, only quelled when she saw the strange affectionate smile on his face.

"It's good to see you laughin'." He said. "Didn't think I ever would again after the way you were the other day."

"Mm," She agreed. "I never got to thank you. For pulling me out of that."

"I'm not even sure what I did," He replied. "I pumped that feelin' into you but I don't know what it is. You project it sometimes when you look at me and it always makes me feel better. I just intensified it and sent it back to you. I dunno, I can't place it. It seems too light for a place like this."

He reached out and laid a hand softly on her wrist where it held the tattered sleeve. A feeling of warmth flooded through her chest, not quite happiness but close. If she were to give it a colour it would be gold. She could feel it swimming through her veins and filling her up with light. Her chest felt like it could burst, her head loose on her shoulders.

"Do you know what it is?" He softly asked.

She wanted to tell him. She really did. But how could she explain something like that? How could she possibly justify the love she felt when she saw him? The affection that came from years of shared experiences. There was no way that wouldn't arouse huge amounts of suspicion. So she sucked it up and lied.

"No. No idea."

His eyebrows scrunched together and he looked like he was about to say something, but Peter made a running leap into the tree; upsetting the branches and sending loose leaves flying in all directions.

"Sorry about that," He said. "Maria said she wanted you next, Major."

Jasper grunted and dropped from the tree. Bella shook herself, the feeling of intimacy with him shocked away.

"What did she want?" She asked Peter.

"To interrogate me, about how much time I spend away from the camp." He looked worried and jumped to a branch closer to the camp. "C'mon, I want to keep an eye on things."

Bella got up and sprang along after him to the top of a much closer tree where they had a view of the camp below. Jasper was walking remarkably slowly past the trees, his gait smooth and hands nonchalantly in his pockets, no haste whatsoever. He had looked almost relaxed, lounging in the tree with Bella, and he seemed to keep some of that energy.

Yet as he got closer to Maria's tent, his posture changed. His back straightened and went rigid, his hands lifted from his pockets and formed fists at his sides. Maria glanced through the entrance and his speed doubled. He ran to her and clutched at her hands, practically fell at her feet. She smirked and patted his hair, before leading him backwards out of sight.

Peter frowned. "That was strange."

"You've never noticed it before?"

"No…" He replied. "I've never looked. I'm always on the ground with him. Why? Have you noticed?"

"Sometimes." She pulled him away and out of view of the others. "Sometimes you two get the oddest looks on your faces when you get close to her. Jasper more than you. It's strange how much she has him wrapped around her every whim."

"Yes, come to think of it, it is…" He contemplated for a moment. "Bells. You couldn't extend your shield over me for a moment, could ya?"

Bella did as he asked. The second he was protected, he changed. He deflated like a balloon, his eyes shot wide open and clarified like fine wine. He breathed in deeply and a snarl spread across his mouth.

"That fuckin' bitch." He growled.

"Who?" Bella asked, shaken at his sudden turn.

"Maria." His lip curled. "How I've felt about her has always felt sort of distant from me. Detached but affectionate, y'know? But now…"

"How do you feel about her now?"

"I hate her!" He snapped. "I could rip her limb from limb! The horrors of this place! The pain and the killin'! It's all that fuckin' bitch's fault!"

"Shhh!" Bella grabbed his arm. "Don't let anyone hear you say that!"

He snarled and fell back against the trunk of the tree, sitting with his arms crossed over his chest. "It's like… comin' out of the fog." He said. "Usually I feel a lot more clear when I've been runnin' outside the camp, but I'm more in control of myself now than I ever have been. I'd always assumed it was just the fresh air."

Bella shrugged. "I guess it must be someone's ability. Probably Maria's."

"How come your shield never took it off me before?"

"It won't have protected you before if this is Maria's doing. She's always been under it too." She looked more closely into Peter's eyes. That spark of life in them that she had assumed was dimmed by their surroundings was back, just like in her time.

Peter sighed. "I'm sorry for gettin' aggressive, doll." He said. "I have been here for seven years, and my thoughts 'n feelin's haven't been my own this whole time."

"You'd think you'd be used to that with Jasper around!" Bella tried to joke. He smiled weakly at her efforts.

"There's gotta be something better than this." He mumbled. "Or what's even the point of carryin' on?"

"There is," She whispered. "Peter, the rest of the world is so much better than this. Trust me."

He looked up at her, his lively eyes coloured to dull rust.

She grabbed his hand and held it between hers. "Come with me! When I leave here, come with me. Join my coven, be my family. Help me break you and Jasper out. Please?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I had a feelin' that whoever you were lookin' for was closer than we expected… Am I wrong?"

She shook her head, he absolutely was not wrong.

"Look," He said. "I need you to promise me somethin'. You can be pretty mysterious at times and that's fine. But if you want me on board then you have to promise not to keep anything from me. I wanna be in the loop. Okay?'"

Bella bit her lip. She never wanted to hide things from Peter, and she intended to tell him the truth as soon as she could. What if she told him about the time travel and he freaked out? He didn't have the time or space to process something like that in the camp. And she didn't have enough to prove it to him without Jasper. One bad reaction could be the end of her, she had to wait until they were safe to tell him.

With nothing else to say, she nodded.

"Well then," He linked his fingers with hers. "If this 'outside world' of yours is as good as you say it is; I'll follow you anywhere, sis'."

Despite the setting and their impending doom, Bella couldn't help smiling a beaming grin. It felt so good in this empty hellscape, to finally have family, affection, love. A lantern guiding her out of this place, a glimpse of hope for the future.

"Listen up!" Jasper yelled.

Peter pulled Bella down from the tree and led her back into the camp where everyone else was gathering. Jasper stood in the centre of the crowd, his height and dirty golden hair setting him apart from the others like a halo. The crowd of newborns was rowdy from them all being so packed together; but then a wave of spine-chilling fear flooded through and they all quieted. Despite knowing it was the artificial variety that Jasper could put out, Bella couldn't help but stand a little closer to Peter.

The crowd settled further when Maria stepped out of her tent and came to stand by her Major, Anton flanked her other side. Despite her short stature, her presence carried as much weight as either lieutenant. The newborns seemed to sigh at her presence, Bella even saw smiles touching the lips of a few of them as they gazed at her. It seemed ridiculous that she and Peter hadn't figured out that something was up before.

"It has been brought to our attention that there are some in this camp that feel they can come and go!" Maria announced. "Let me remind you of the rules!" Her eyes locked on Peter and Bella. "Anyone caught missing from the camp without permission will be killed. No warning. No mercy."

Well shit. Maria was on to her.