Author's Note: Getting to a really huge confrontation coming up, i promise the bracelet was not forgotten, and Lettie may forgive some, but she never forgets...tune in...

TEN

Three days.

It was an agonizing three days. The first day was picking up the broken pieces, literally and figuratively. I was lucky that Jared and Embry were there, they helped me gather Jacob into the Rabbit and they drove off to the reservation. The house was eerily quiet after that and I couldn't bring myself to put music on. I cleaned the house from top to bottom. And needless to say when Charlie got home, he imploded, there was a lot of yelling, scolding, and disappointed scowls and all of them aimed towards me.

Why didn't I try and stop her?

Why didn't I do anything?

It wasn't a pretty sight, I stayed up in my room the remainder of the day, and I didn't even come down for dinner or even breakfast the next morning. Part of me did feel it was my fault. I should have done more, I should have done something else. Charlie had left for work, leaving me alone in that empty house with thoughts to myself. I gazed to towards the kitchen, knowing I needed to eat something but felt none of the desire to. I wasn't sure if it was because I had nothing to do or if it was because I needed to something to do I cleaned some more, re-organized things and put things away that had been left out for far too long. The only rooms I didn't venture into to clean were Bella's or Charlie's.

Bella…I was still angry with her, terribly so. She broke Jake's heart, without even thinking about what it would do to him. Jake was so very much in love with her, and the moment that there was a glimmer of hope for her to be with Edward, she dropped Jake like a rock and darted off to his rescue. I tried texting and calling Jake, but there was no response, perhaps even my last name on his caller id was too painful of a reminder. That broke my heart to have our friendship end because of my sister's stupid selfishness.

As my mind began to wander, my gaze would drift to the drawer by my desk, the one I kept locked up.

Would the rest of the family come back?

Struggling with my internal battle, I gave up and unlocked the drawer. The little black lock box sat at the bottom of the drawer. Picking it up I sat in the middle of my bed and opened it. Before long pictures were scattered among the bedspread. Most of them were silly candid shots from Emmett of the entire family. There were a few that warmed me. One was Emmett picking me up by surprise, my face radiating gleeful surprise. Another one was of me and Jasper, on my birthday, we had stolen away for a moment before Bella and Masen's arrival, we were foreheads together, eyes closed, just enraptured with one another in our little bubble. I hadn't realized anyone had snapped a photo. But I was insanely happy they did. The scrapbook also held photos they had sent me, post cards, handwritten notes, and the letters from Jasper sat at the bottom of the box.

I packed everything away, memory by memory back in the box, my fingers lingered on the photo of Jasper and I. that one I kept out, and set it on my desk next to my computer monitor. Returning to my bed I lay back and stared at the ceiling, it had been a hell of a year, frowning, I hoped the excitement would return to normal. I wasn't sure if I could handle another shouting match from Charlie, although Bella would be getting one of from me.

Charlie came home that night, he still wasn't talking to me, I felt my heart sank, how much longer would he give me the silent treatment? His face was in tight in irritation. While his dinner was waiting for him at the table, he didn't say a word to me, just ate in silence, not able to table the silence. I placed the leftovers in containers, and went back up to my room. I cried, but even then, crying didn't seem to help at all, it just made me tired and mentally exhausted. I must have fallen asleep at one point, because when I woke next it was to Charlie leaving for the day to work. I felt weak and exhausted.

I managed to get myself up and into the shower, for the first good ten minutes I stood under the spray, not moving, just pouring over me like rainfall. My body felt overheated and even turning the water down to cool, it didn't seem to help. After getting out of the shower and back in clean clothes my temperature revealed why I felt overheated, a fever. Grabbing the Nyquil and a dosing cup, I took the recommended dose, and crawled back under the covers and fell back asleep. When I woke up next I felt hands brushing gently through my hair, a soothing motion, opening my eyes, Jasper was sitting beside me book in his hand, and the other absently playing with me hair.

"Am I dreaming?" I murmured.

"Is it good dream?" He asked.

I snuggled closer, putting my head on his lap. He chuckle softly.

"Don't wake me up if it is."

I must have dozed off again. When I woke again, it was mid-day. Jasper looked down at me as I looked up at him.

"More coherent this time?" he mused teasingly.

Sitting up I looked at him fully, he looked the same as he did when he left, his hair maybe longer and a shade darker, and his eyes golden butterscotch. He wore a dark green button up shirt, dark-washed jeans, and boot socks on his feet. The bed bowed at his weight, he was really here. I felt tears well up in my eyes and I hugged him close. He hugged me back just as fiercely, he breathed in my scent, holding me close I sobbed into his shirt. He whispered words in languages I couldn't understand in my ear, smoothing the hair back from my face, kissing my forehead. When the tears dried up, he didn't release me, he held me to his chest, I closed my eyes listing to his breath flow in and out of his lungs.

"Apologizing seems so inadequate," he said brokenly.

"You didn't have to leave," I said sadly.

"I know…maybe it was loyalty to the family, loyalty to Carlisle for taking me in…I don't know. It won't happen again, you are my only priority," He vowed.

"Why did you stop writing?"

Jasper's eyes grew dark.

"Masen found out that we had been emailing you, he hacked out accounts and erase everything, your address, photos, emails, phone numbers…everything. It took everything in me to not track him down and rip him apart."

I was quiet for several moments.

"What happened here?" He asked.

Slowly I told him what happened in the months that he left, from Bella's recovery, to discovering Jacob was a werewolf and everything in between. His eyes were dark when I mentioned the McCullough boys were back in town, and of the incident in the market.

"Jasper?" I asked when he had gone still.

He looked at me, his eyes the darkest I had ever seen them.

"They won't touch you," he vowed.

I nodded snuggling into him, I had gone nearly six months without him, I almost couldn't get close enough to him.

"I owe Peter my life," I said after a few moments.

"That makes two of us," Jasper mused.

Jasper had told me how he had rescued Jasper from Maria's clutches before, if he hadn't I'm not sure if Jasper would be with me today.

"What did you think of him?"

"I like him," I admitted.

"Good," He said simply.

He lifted me easily from my spot on the bed and onto his lap so I straddled him, he looked me over.

"You haven't slept very well," he noted looking at the bags under my eyes.

I grimaced and ducked my faced into the crook of his neck hiding.

"I didn't sleep well, too many nightmares. This is probably the first time since you left that I've slept without them,"

"I keep the monsters away?" he teased.

"My own dream catcher," I quipped.

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me, kissing the side of my head.

Jasper hung out at the house with me, most of the time just cuddling, and breathing in my scent, rememorizing me. He sat me down at the table around lunch time and fixed me something to eat. I hadn't really realized how long it had actually been since I had eaten, two grilled cheese sandwiches later I had eaten all I could. We sat on the couch, and Jasper got me up-to-date with what was happening with my sister and the man she went off to save. Apparently they had all been very careful about their thoughts regarding me, although Jasper was quite certain that if the Volturi had found out about me, they wouldn't dare trying to after me the way they were trying to with my twin. They were on their way back.

"Charlie is going to be furious," I murmured.

"He isn't upset with you, not really," he said softly.

"You didn't see his face," I said brokenly.

He lifted my chin with his fingers.

"It always seems worse when someone you love yells at you, Charlie was scared and he was hurting. Your sister was and is being incredibly selfish, you said so yourself. Charlie lashed out the only way he knew how."

I nodded, I didn't feel any better about the whole situation and it still hurt that Charlie lashed out but I'm sure that it wouldn't be the first or last time especially if my sister continued her selfish ways.

Jasper had left a little over an hour ago to help the family get the house back in order, I saw watching some weird show on the TV. I wasn't really watching it so much as background noise to break up the unnerving silence. The front door opened, and I half expected it to be Bella and Edward sneaking into the house, but was pleasantly surprised to see Charlie. He looked tired.

"Can we talk?" I asked quietly.

His eyes softened and he rubbed his hand through his hair as he hung his belt and gun up and toeing off his steel toes by the door. Once the bomber jacket was off he sat in his usual armchair.

"I'm sorry Lettie, I shouldn't have yelled the way I did at you," he said after a few moments of silence.

"I tried, I really did. It all happened so fast, and Jake was there…" I said quietly.

"Billy said he was a mess,"

I winced.

"He hasn't been returning my calls, I feel so bad." I whispered.

"Hey, hey, it's not your fault." He said softly.

"I should have done more to keep her here…"

Charlie sighed and pulled me into a hug, like he used to when I was little.

"You did all you could give the circumstances, Billy said Jake did say you helped him, and I think they'll both be forever grateful for that."

"I don't want to lose my best friend over this,"

Charlie frowned.

"You won't, Jake's not a kid now, he's likely got to sort stuff out on his own first before everything else. Your sister hurt him pretty bad, hurt all of us pretty bad." Charlie said with a frown.

We stayed and talked for a moment he looked down at the ring I always wore.

"You take good care of that don't you?" He mused.

"Of course," I said smiling at it.

"Jasper left too, you're not so upset." He said carefully.

"Jasper is loyal to his family, if the family needed him to leave, he would go, but he's not like Edward."

Charlie shook his head.

"No, no he's not. Jasper's been good to you, real good. I'm glad you found someone like him. But you're not at all upset he's away?"

I shrugged.

"I am, they sent me pictures and stuff while they're away, it's hard to be apart – but I'm sure we'll see each other again."

"Is that why Bella tried upending your room?"

I shrugged.

"Possibly, I don't think she knew I was still talking to them."

Charlie tilted his head.

"She definitely was not in the right frame of mind," Charlie mused.

I didn't answer, I didn't need to, and silence was comfortable. We chatted a little more, and things seemed to meld into how they were before. Charlie ordered pizza for dinner and we sat around watching whatever sports was on TV. I'm not certain what it was, my mind kept drifting to Jasper. As it was getting late I headed back to my room I noticed it was not empty. Jasper looked at me from my bed as I shut the door behind me. he pulled me into an embrace, his head resting on my stomach.

"Everything ok with your daddy?" he asked accent thick.

I nodded playing with his hair.

"We talked, it seemed to help."

He smiled softly, eyes closing at the feel of my hands through his hair. We sat there for a few moments until Jazz cocked his head towards the front of the house.

"What is it?"

"Your sister seems to have arrived home, Charlie's cursing up a storm at Masen." His eyes were dark but there was a smug smirk on his face.

As they got closer and closer into the house I could indeed hear Charlie yelling, and footsteps on the stairs and into the hall. Moments later there were two other pairs of footsteps retreating back downstairs.

"If YOU EVER step foot on my land again I won't hesitate to arrest you for trespassing!" Charlie bellowed slamming the front door.

Then it went quiet.

"Did my dad just BAN him from the house?" I asked shocked.

Mischief littered Jasper's eyes.

"Of course he did. Not that Masen will adhere to it," Jasper muttered.

We both knew of Masen's midnight sleepovers with Edward in her room. I'm sure if Charlie was made aware he'd blow a gasket. Although I wasn't one to talk, Jasper had frequented both my room and my bed more times than I could count. Nothing more than our heavy petting and making out sessions happened, but another thing that Charlie didn't need to be privy to. Jasper collapsed my legs and had me straddle his lap, one arm wrapped around my waist, the other fisted into my hair at the nape of my neck before lowering his lips on to mine. My memory hadn't done justice of kissing him, it was more. I wasn't sure if was my own feelings or Jasper projecting himself, but I felt heat flood my body from head to toe. My hands slid up his arms and around his neck, melting into the embrace. Finally when I came up for air, he nuzzled our noses together and place his cool head on mine.

"Lord knows I missed you," he murmured, his eyes dancing around my face, as if to memorize it.

I felt whole again, Jasper was back at my side, but there some other things that needed to be address, sooner rather than later. And that was going to open a whole new can of worms.

Isabella slept like the dead, while she slept I was at least partly productive. I made Charlie breakfast, and Jasper 'stopped by'. While Charlie was extremely upset with Masen, he was happy to see Jasper, and probably happier to see how happy I was to see him. Jasper told him what they were up to while they were gone, apparently he had interned with Carlisle for a few months while doing online classes, he and Charlie got on real pleasantly – joking and smiling. You could almost not tell Charlie was seething underneath his skin. Charlie had to go to work, so he left Jasper and me to hang out at the house, we spent a majority of our time either in the living room or in my own room cuddling talking, and looking through the pictures he and his family had taken.

Apparently I had more photos to add to the photo albums I had stowed away. Both he and Rosalie had taken pictures of places while they were gone. They were gorgeous of course and colors were rich and vibrant, almost leaping off the page.

"What do you want to do after you graduate?" Jasper asked.

"I'd love to travel," I admitted.

Jasper hummed, almost a purr, as he inhaled my hair.

"Where?" he murmured near my ear.

My train of thought was momentarily lost as I felt his breath on my neck and ears.

"Um…anywhere, aside from Mexico, I've never been anywhere else."

We chatted a bit longer, and headed up to my room, Charlie arrived home some time later, I realized it wasn't his full work schedule, I suspected to make sure that Bella didn't take off again.

"Bella still sleeping?" He asked peeking into my room.

I saw him with an amused look in his eyes as he saw were just lying on the floor going through photos.

"I guess so, I haven't heard her move around," I admitted.

Charlie frowned looking towards Bella's room.

"Charlie, would you mind if took Lettie to my home, Esme misses her," Jasper asked.

Charlie smiled and shook his head.

"Of course not, if you stay over just let me know," Charlie said.

I smiled and nodded, he headed back downstairs.

"He's a lot friendlier with you than he is with Masen," I mused aloud.

"That's because your daddy likes me darlin'." He teased.

I couldn't argue with that.