Chapter Two – Married

Jasper lay with Bella in his new bed. With an electric blanket under her and a warm quilt over, she needed only a thin blanket between her skin and his to keep her warm. He would've preferred to feel her naked body against his skin, but the bliss of holding her while she slept was more than enough. He especially loved being able to feel her emotions while she slept. They had agreed that she would stay awake all night to avoid dreaming of her nineteenth century wedding, but as she drifted off he realised he could simply wake her when her emotions developed the clarity he felt during her dreams of the past.

For now Bella's emotions were muted but pleasant, so Jasper simply enjoyed lying with her. He closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like to truly sleep with her. To drift off into that dream-state with her in his arms and to wake with her in the morning.

Instead of dreaming, he found himself reliving the most pleasurable experience of his life. Making love to his fiancée, for the first time.

Of course, it was a pleasure laced with apprehension to begin with. A woman's first time almost always included pain, not to mention blood. As if his fear of hurting her through his own lack of control wasn't enough. But that particular fear had proven largely groundless.

Earlier in the afternoon, after Carlisle and the rest of the family returned, Jasper had taken the doctor aside and asked his opinion on their evening's plans. He was concerned that Carlilse wouldn't approve, and without his blessing he'd have to disappoint Bella. But after asking how well Jasper had managed his control while kissing, Carlisle was reassuring. He agreed with Bella that Jasper would never hurt her. He did advise using condoms.

"Just to be on the safe side," he'd said. "It's not as though you need contraception, but I'm not sure how the venom in your ejaculate might affect her."

Alice in her usual irrepressible manner had breezed into the room while Bella was eating dinner, and handed Jasper a full box. "I didn't know it would be tonight but I knew you'd be needing these soon," she said, grinning at him. "The rest of us will be hunting tonight," she added. "Carlisle and Esme will take first watch, close enough to help if needed but far enough to give you some privacy. Edward and I will hunt first. We'll swap with Carlisle and Esme halfway through. The wolves will watch out for Charlie tonight."

Bella had blushed adorably when she realised what Alice was talking about. But she had been grateful.

She'd also blushed when he took her upstairs and she'd found the room lit by candles. He'd wanted to make everything perfect.

"You're already perfect," she told him. "I don't need anything else, but this is beautiful, thank you."

Her first time hadn't been perfect, he knew, in the strictest sense of the word, despite her protests to the contrary. It had hurt her a little, and though they both expected it, it still upset him. And the bruises he'd left on her hips, when he'd gripped them to lift her to his mouth, upset him even more. Though she had undeniably enjoyed that part of the evening, and insisted that the bruises were well worth it.

He couldn't deny feeling a little smug when he remembered the explosive orgasm he'd given her, using only his tongue, his lips, his fingers.

And then later, when he was moving inside her, his own climax had been like nothing he'd ever known. And only the pillows had paid the price for the intensity of his passion. She had bled, a little, but her blood hadn't affected him in the slightest. And while she admitted to a little soreness afterwards, she assured him he hadn't really hurt her, and her pure joy, as she gazed into his eyes, belied any fear he may have had.

She sighed, and rolled over in her sleep, pushing her bottom against the part of him that was already swelling again with desire for her. Her emotions were still the slightly muted ones of normal dreams, but they were becoming more interesting. Where there had been a general sense of happiness, he now detected a combination of true joy and rather delightful lust. She moved against him and moaned quietly.

He hadn't planned to wake her unless her dreams became unpleasant, but now he couldn't resist lifting her hair off her neck and nuzzling her pulse point.

She turned in his arms found his lips with her own.

"Mmm," she hummed, without opening her eyes. "You taste good. Wait—why is there a blanket between us?" She pulled back a little to look at him.

"You were gettin' cold," he said.

"I fell asleep?"

"For a little while," he said. "I figured I'd wake you if your dreams turned nasty."

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By Monday night, Bella was utterly exhausted. Esme had brought her home that morning as promised, and then stayed with her for most of the day. Charlie had already left for work, but a note on the bench told her he'd be coming home to check on her at lunch time.

"Jasper would have stayed if he could," Esme told her.

"I know. I understand why you need to keep up appearances," she said, although she did wish Jasper was there. Having spent the night with him, alternating brief snatches of sleep with increasingly delirious but still wonderful periods of making out, it had been almost a physical pain to part with him this morning.

She had no regrets though. Making love with him had been even more than she had imagined. More intense; more wonderful, more connecting.

She knew that when she slept properly, she would take on the memory of her first wedding night, but nothing could now change or detract from her first time in this life being with Jasper.

She'd spent the day forcing herself to stay awake, reading up about oesophageal cancer and its treatments on the internet, chatting to Esme, and, once school ended, snuggling with Jasper on the couch. She'd dozed a little, once he'd arrived, but not enough to dream, or to affect her sleep that night.

Esme had insisted on staying to cook dinner for her and Charlie—really, it was amazing how good a cook she was, considering she said it all tasted like cardboard to her—but then she and Jasper had left to give her some time alone with her father.

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The rest of the week passed in a blur of bad dreams and medical appointments, interspersed with making blissful love with her fiancé. Having succeeded the first time, Jasper expressed no qualms about doing it again, although they never had the same privacy again. Each night Jasper would spend some time outside taking a "guard shift" or away hunting, but most of the night he would spend with Bella. But there was always someone outside, and of course her father across the hall.

Saturday night found her lying in bed waiting for Jasper to reappear. She was determined to be awake when he arrived, as she'd slept through the last two nights.

A lot had happened in the week since her cancer diagnosis. Emmett and Rosalie had returned, she'd had her first appointment with the oncologist and got the full results from her testing. Her disease had reached stage four, as it turned out. She wasn't especially surprised, despite Carlisle's cautious optimism. Not when she considered how quickly her nineteenth century counterpart had died, even though she still didn't feel especially sick herself.

The oncologist, Dr Simpson, agreed with Carlisle that she should have a stent placed to open out her oesophagus and allow her to take in more nutrition, but she wanted to start her on some kind of internal radiation therapy to shrink the tumour first. That, unfortunately involved her spending two days in hospital in Sequim, about half an hour past Port Angeles, as the Port Angeles centre didn't have radiation facilities. So she'd be heading there first thing Tuesday morning. Then Carlisle would place the stent on Thursday, and only after she'd had a few days to recover would they start the chemotherapy.

At least, that was Dr Simpson's recommendation (though she would have expected to place the stent herself). She'd explained that Bella's scans indicated the presence of cancer in distant lymph nodes and also the liver, although it appeared the damage to the liver so far was minimal. Without treatment, given her age and general health, she felt that Bella might possibly live for a few months, though she stressed there were no guarantees.

With treatment, she was hopeful they could extend that to more than a year, possibly longer. That treatment though involved almost six months of chemotherapy, the side effects of which sounded awful. There was a small chance that she could go into remission, but the five-year survival rate for her form of the cancer, diagnosed at her stage, was less than three per cent.

She still hadn't decided what she would do.

Charlie, she knew, wanted her to have the chemo. So did Renee, who had been calling every day since Charlie gave her the news.

And really, if she didn't have another option, she thought she probably would go that route. Six months of abject misery in exchange for another six months and possibly significantly more of decent quality of life. And a chance, however tiny, of remission. Compared to the alternative—being dead in less than six months—that sounded reasonable. Although it was also true that the chemo would knock around her immune system pretty badly, and some people died from complications resulting from that damage, before they even finished the treatment.

But she did have another option. Though the wolves complicated things, Jasper assured her they would find a way around them if and when they needed to. So it was a matter of how much extra time she could buy to spend with Charlie, and whether the misery was worth it—to either one of them.

Jasper had suggested she try one lot of chemo and decide from there, which seemed a reasonable compromise, and was probably what she would do. Dr Simpson had explained that different people reacted to chemotherapy in very different ways, and they wouldn't know how her body would handle it until they began.

Sue had offered to help Charlie take care of her, if she did decide to go the chemo route. Renee had said she'd fly up the next week after the radiation was finished, but Bella was hoping she wouldn't stay for the chemotherapy. She loved her mother, but she had no illusions about her abilities in the sick room. Bella would end up feeling like she had to take care of her mother, as usual, and from what Dr Simpson had said, she would be in no state to do so, even in the best-case scenario.

Both Sue and Esme had offered to stay with her during school hours over the past week as well, but Bella had told them she needed time to be alone and come to terms with everything. She would need enough help if she went through with all the treatment, without burdening them now. Quite aside from the burden of guarding her from vengeful nomadic vampires.

"What are you frowning about?" Jasper's voice penetrated her ruminations before she even realised he'd arrived.

"Nothing, now that you're here," she said, smiling.

He laughed, and slipped onto the bed beside her, his right arm sliding under her to draw her against him. He leaned over and her breath caught in anticipation, all unpleasant thoughts banished. His left hand came up to gently brush a strand of hair from her face, and he leaned down until his lips connected with hers, his fingers threading through her hair.

Her own hands came up to hold him against her, as she opened her mouth to him, and he sucked on her lower lip. She moaned against him, and tried to pull him closer.

He resisted though, slowly pulling away until he could look into her eyes.

"As pleased as I am to be here, darlin', you were definitely frownin' about somethin'," he drawled, cocking one eyebrow at her in question.

She reached up to smooth his eyebrow back down with her fingers. "I love how your accent creeps back when we make love," she said, ignoring the content of his speech in favour of appreciating the sound of his voice, and the feel of his skin under her hand.

"Mmm," he replied as she ran her fingers through his hair. "Ah cay-yun fetch it all back ifin' ya want. Ah did jus' drop it t' feeyt in and soun' like Rosalie, us bein' twins an' all."

She laughed again. "I think that's even stronger than it is in my dreams. Or—was, I mean."

It was Jasper's turn to frown now. "Your family never did have quite as strong an accent as mine. And I suppose your big shot husband is the same."

She sighed and looked away. She hated thinking about her husband. She'd dreamed about him several times this week, although if Jasper was there when she started dreaming about the past, he woke her up. But he hadn't been there every time. She knew Edward had been there for one awful dream, because he'd sent Alice in to wake her, but he'd promised her, the next day, that he would never repeat the dreams to Jasper. "I can't give you complete privacy," he'd said, "but I'll never share anything I hear in your mind, without your permission."

Jasper groaned. "Sorry!" he said, flopping down onto his back and pulling her to rest against him, his arm curled under her and her cheek against his chest. "I didn't mean to ruin the mood. I know thinking of him is even worse for you than it is for me. Much worse, I suppose, although that's hard to imagine."

She nodded against him, knowing he'd feel the movement.

"I hate dreaming about him. I hate knowing that he ever existed, that I ever allowed him—" She broke off, not wanting to even think about what she'd "allowed" him, not that she'd had any choice in the matter.

"Shh, I know. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought him up."

"In just two more weeks, those dreams will stop," she murmured. "And then he'll be gone, truly gone, from both our lives."

"He will," he agreed.

"It's kind of freaking me out to think about though," she confessed, without moving her head.

"What? Why?" He moved her back onto the bed and leaned back up over her, to make eye contact. "Why would you say that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not him being gone, silly! Me being dead. I mean, past me. I've been dreaming about that life for the whole of this life. The idea of that just—ending. It's weird. And, kind of scary."

"Why scary?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"Just that—we know both my previous reincarnations died around the same time as Isabella. I mean, the same age. What if I'm not meant to live past this age?"

His frown deepened. "I hadn't thought—I'm sure that's not going to happen. But I'll ask Carlisle. We don't know exactly when they died. I'll ask Carlisle to look up the dates."

"Thanks," she said. "I know I'm probably just being morbid. I just can't help thinking about it."

"Of course," he said, "but Bella, nothing is going to happen to you. I won't allow it. And—she died, you died, twenty-two days after the wedding, on the thirteenth. So I will be staying with you all day that day, okay darlin'? I won't be letting you out of my sight, not even for a minute."

She laughed. "I might want to go to the bathroom on my own, at least."

He growled, but smiled at her. "I might allow that," he said. "Maybe. We'll see."

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Author's Notes and Recs (down the bottom):

This chapter is unbeta'd, but in honour of Green Eyed Lana Lane, I did delete several instances of the word "that" on re-reading. Pleas 4give eny typoes thut mae of slippd throo,

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Reviews/Comments are like Christmas Presents!

Sorry I haven't replied to the reviews on the last chapter. I do read and LOVE every one of them. Seriously, I am so grateful for all the positive feedback I have received on this story. I hope you continue to enjoy reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it.

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Chapter 23 Word Count: 2711 ; First Published about 8:10pm, 19/Dec/18, AEDT

And as always, thanks to Ms Meyer for permission to play with her characters and mess up her sand pit.

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Recs:

I'm trying to get this up quickly and then put my girls to bed, so you'll have to look them up this time. Both of these are Bella/Jasper stories that readers reminded me of recently, and both set partly in 1860s Texas!

"Lifetimes Spent Loving You" is a Jasper/Bella pairing, and also James/Victoria. When I first read it was a few months after I started writing this, and at first I thought maybe someone else had already had my idea! But, no, it's quite different, although you'll see the similarities. It's a one shot, but novella length. Definitely worth a read. edited to add /s/12568976/1/Lifetimes-Spent-Loving-You by Kaialuna

"History of the Forgotten" is also Jasper/Bella. To be honest I can't actually remember much about this story or whether I loved it, but it's an interesting premise. Aro sends Bella back in time to the Civil War (in Texas, of course!), instead of letting Edward and Alice take her home. edited to add... /s/11391800/1/History-of-the-Forgotten by bluesands22