A/N Two chapters in one week! I'm having a creativity burst, so you may end up with another one quite soon.

Jasper's POV

Well, less than twenty-four hours, and I had already fucked things up. I knew I shouldn't have said anything at the restaurant, but curiosity had gotten the better of me. Esme had seemed so nice, and she had asked me some personal questions, so I felt comfortable asking one of my own. Stupid. When would I just learn to keep my big mouth shut? All I had to do was keep my head down for the next three months, and I would be on my own.

Now I was sitting on the bed of the biggest room I had ever had (and all to myself, something that had never happened before), waiting for her to come up and dole out my punishment. She had been much more subtle that Maria would have when she was sending me up here, but I had gotten the message loud and clear. Get your ass on up to your room and wait for me. If you don't move quickly enough, I'll wait until everyone else comes home, and punish you in front of them.

I certainly didn't want that, so I had gone up without protest. Only . . . there had been something strange in her eyes. Why did she care if I needed anything? It must have been some sort of trap, some way of trying to determine my weaknesses. I sat on the bed, keeping my back straight. No matter what happened, I would take it like a man.

But she didn't come. The digital clock on the nightstand told me that close to an hour had passed, and still nothing. Maria had never held off on a punishment for this long, and I wasn't sure what to do. I had to pee, badly, but I was afraid to leave the room. If Esme came up here and I were gone, it could only end poorly.

So I sat, and sat, and sat. With one hand, I restlessly stroked the kiwi Alice had given me the night before. Its fur was rough, except for the beak, which was shiny and smooth. The repetitive movements kept me grounded and in the moment. If I wasn't careful, my thoughts could spin off in a thousand different directions, leaving me too paralyzed to do anything to help myself. Pete used to hate it when that happened, said that my eyes scared him because they turned so black. But then, Pete also used to claim that I could space out for hours, when I knew it was no longer than a few minutes.

I felt my eyes trying to close, and stood up to nervously pace the room. If I tried hard enough, I might be able to talk my way into a less severe punishment. It was humiliating, but some well-placed whimpering and the occasional tearful apology could work wonders. If I fell asleep, though, it would all be over.

It was just so hard to stay awake right now. I hadn't slept at all last night, too nervous in this strange house. It was so noisy here, though everyone was trying to be quiet. Well, except for Emmett. I was pretty sure that he didn't know how to be quiet.

Even though there had been lots of kids at Maria's, I had to sleep in the basement, so I wasn't used to hearing them at night. I had started out sleeping upstairs with everyone else, but once I started having nightmares, I had been banished downstairs so everyone could get some sleep. Then there had been that thing with the knife . . .

I shook myself away from those thoughts. That was in the past, and though Maria had threatened to call Social Services that day, I was pretty sure she hadn't, and the incident hadn't made it into my official file. Just Maria's mental file, for whenever she needed justification for some punishment or another.

A sharp pain told me I was biting down on my lip, something I tended to do when I was stressed out. It was good, though — the pain drove away the lingering sleepiness and kept me alert. I wondered if keeping me waiting like this were part of Esme's plan. The longer she forced me to wait, the more worried I would become, until I was punishing myself as badly as anything she could think up.

A few more minutes ticked by, and the bathroom situation was now an emergency. If I were quick, I could be in and out in under three minutes. Two if I didn't wash my hands, but there was something intrinsically gross about doing that. Even if I got caught, which seemed doubtful, I would still probably be in less trouble than if I peed in the corner of the bedroom.

Once I made the decision to move, I did it with a speed and silence that would have surprised any of the Cullens. My foot dragged a tiny bit on the carpet, but I was used to that, and knew how to work around it. I remembered where it was from the night before, and took care of my bathroom business with all possible speed and washed my hands like lightning, wiping them across my jeans.

I had never been particularly lucky, and today was no exception. I ran, almost literally, into Esme as she came up the stairs. Damn it, I knew I should have just gone earlier! Then I could have been back in my bedroom before she had been any wiser.

Esme raked her eyes over my body without speaking. What was she doing? I guessed she was looking for some sort of weakness, so I held my body as straight as I could. Would she remember that I had trouble with my right side, and go for that?

Instead of making any move, she smiled sadly. "You're still dressed. Did you not get any sleep?"

For a second, I had no idea what she was talking about. I wasn't supposed to sleep. I was supposed to be waiting for my punishment. I mentally replayed the last thing she had said to me, trying to make sense of the puzzle. The rest of the kids should be home around 3:30. Why don't you try and get a little sleep?

It had seemed pretty straightforward at the time, but maybe I had made a mistake. Maybe what she had meant was, Go upstairs and sleep, because I don't want you keeping us up all night with your nightmares. I'm getting you up at 3:30 whether you like it or not, so that's all the sleep you'll get for tonight.

My new interpretation of her words bothered me far more than the old one. Being physically punished I understood. Hell, this time I even deserved it, for running my mouth when I shouldn't have. But being denied something like sleep was not a punishment I was familiar with, and it freaked me out. It pointed to Esme being more dangerous than I had previously thought. It made sense, though. All of her kids were really well behaved, and she probably wasn't capable of any sort of physical punishment, so instead she manipulated them mentally.

"I couldn't sleep." I dropped my eyes down to the carpet as I spoke, trying to keep her from seeing the lie. If she thought she had defeated me, maybe she would leave me alone.

"Oh, honey." Her voice sounded pained, but I didn't look up. It was nothing but a trick; it had to be. "Have you gotten any sleep since you've been here?"

"Yes." No. "I slept okay last night." If by that you mean I lay awake and shook all night long.

The disbelief was rolling off of her, but she didn't comment. "All right, then. I brought up the bags of clothing; why don't you put them away?"

She didn't sound angry, just tired and defeated. I felt terrible, like this were somehow my fault, but I didn't understand why. Furthermore, why did I care that I was making her feel bad? She was willing to hurt me, so why wasn't I willing to hurt her back?

It took a minute to gather up my courage, but I managed to meet her eyes. She looked so sad, like it actually bothered her that I wasn't sleeping well. She smiled at me, but that was unhappy too. Jesus, why did I have to make everyone around me feel terrible?

"Do you want me to give you some of that medication?" She seemed hesitant to ask.

Did I? On the one hand, I was completely fatigued. I hadn't slept at all the night before, and poorly for the few nights before that. It wasn't going to be long before I crashed, whether I took the drugs or not. On the other hand, they worked fast, and I would be stuck in a house filled with strangers, having no way to defend myself. I knew Esme wanted me to trust her, but I didn't. I didn't trust any of them.

"Tonight?" It came out as more of a question than I wanted it to. I couldn't control anything but my own body, at least when I was awake — when I was asleep, everything went out the window — and now I was offering to hand that over to her. What the fuck, Jasper? "Tonight." I sounded only marginally more confident, but it was enough for now.

I was bothered by the fact that Esme and Carlisle were the ones that had hold of my medication. I knew that it was policy, and that I was considered a suicide risk by the people in charge, but it still rankled me that at nearly eighteen years old, I wasn't thought of as capable of taking pills when I needed them. I was pretty sure that the nurses were on to my lying about my headaches, and that they had ratted me out to Carlisle. Those medical types tend to stick together. So both my sleeping pills and pain pills were locked up, leaving me to beg for them when I needed to. Like hell I would. I might need the sleeping pills to get enough sleep to protect myself, but my head would have to explode before I pleaded for a pain pill.

They were brave thoughts, but I could remember plenty of times when I had been genuinely afraid that it would do just that. I guessed I could always steal a few of the pills and keep them hidden away in case I needed them, but I didn't know where the bottles were being kept. Somehow, the thought of rummaging through Carlisle and Esme's bedroom was rather distasteful, though I wasn't quite sure why. I had been in and out of Maria's all the time, mostly looking for money. One of the kids always needed something, and she wasn't very good about either remembering it or giving me some money to take care of it for her. I hadn't felt bad about stealing then, when the money had been hers, so why did I feel bad now for thinking about taking pills that were mine anyway?

It was a confusing puzzle, and I was too tired to solve it now. So I nodded again and reached out for the bags. "Tonight." There it was; that was the confidence I was looking for.

Esme gave the bags over without an argument. "Would you like to come downstairs? You could help me with dinner."

"Okay." I didn't really want to, but she seemed to have forgotten about punishments for the moment, and I didn't want to do anything that might remind her.

Tossing the bags on my bed, I followed her downstairs, doing my best to look innocent and sweet. She pulled open the fridge and took a quick inventory. "Would you like pork chops or London broil?"

I wasn't even sure what London broil was. Beef? Pork? Lamb? I didn't want to admit that I didn't know, so I went with the safer choice. "Pork chops." I didn't even like pork that much, but I could deal with it.

The meat was deposited on the counter, quickly joined by some lettuce and vegetables. "Can you make a salad? You can leave out anything you don't like."

Any idiot could make a salad. I nodded tersely and went to the sink to wash my hands. As I stood there, though, I realized something I hadn't before. Esme hadn't been asking if I were capable of making the salad; she was asking if I would make the salad. It was an odd feeling, as I couldn't remember the last time I had been asked to do anything. Maria, the doctors, even the nurses, just told me what to do and when and expected me to comply. The feeling of freedom was both welcome and utterly terrifying.

Esme hummed contentedly to herself as she prepared the meat, a lullaby I dimly remembered from somewhere. I wanted to stare at her, to try and figure her out, but I just turned to the salad instead. With exaggerated care, I shredded the lettuce, making sure the pieces were small. When I had a full bowl, I turned to the counter, looking for something to cut the vegetables with. I found a set of knives in a holder on the counter and chose a small one.

My foster mother glanced over at me when I moved, but said nothing. That cemented in my mind that Maria had told no one about what had happened at her place. If she had, Esme wouldn't have let me near anything shaper than a butter knife. Mindful of her trust, I carefully sliced the vegetables. The atmosphere in the kitchen was a calm one, one I soaked up as much as I could. I hated it when things were tense or people fought. You would think I would be used to it by now, but I had a hard time blocking out other people's pain.

The door flew open with a bang, and I nearly cut myself in surprise. Rosalie came bounding in, asking Esme a million questions while ignoring me. That was fine; I didn't want any of them looking at me or talking to me anyway.

"Anyway, I'm going down to my garage; call me for dinner." Then she was gone in a flurry of blond curls. I listened to her footsteps clattering down the stairs, and then back up. She appeared again in the doorway, giving me a quick look. "Hi, Jasper." Her tone was strange, as if she were surprised I was still here. I was a little surprised I was still here, to be honest.

"Hi . . . Rosalie." I heard the pause in my voice, but I wasn't sure what to call her. Everyone else seemed to call her Rose or Rosie, but those names seemed a little bit too familiar for right now. I ducked my head down immediately, trying not to draw any attention to myself.

"Don't cut any onions into the salad. I don't like them." Rosalie was clearly accustomed to getting what she wanted.

I wasn't particularly fond of onions either, so it wasn't a hard request to accommodate. "Okay."

"Good." She vanished back through the door, her steps fading into nothingness.

"She likes you."

Esme's voice sounded amused. How she had gotten that Rosalie liked me from a thirteen-word conversation, mostly about salad, was a bit confusing. "Huh?"

There was a pause as she transferred the pork chops into some sort of marinade. "Rosalie. She likes you. I can tell."

"How?" I desperately wanted to believe her. I missed my other foster siblings fiercely. We had been bonded in a way that no biological family could be, bonds forged by living together and suffering together and relying on each other for survival. Briefly, I wondered where they all were. I had talked to Pete and Charlotte, but what about the little kids? Would Kate's new foster parents know she needed a night-light? Or that Hannah got sick if she ate any fruit but oranges? What about the baby? Tyler needed someone to rub his back while he was falling asleep, or he would be up every hour during the night.

"She talked to you." The words were so simple that I found myself chuckling for the second time that day. "I'm serious. Rosalie is a good girl, but she can be very stubborn. If she didn't like you, she would have no problem giving you the silent treatment until she either decided that she did like you, or that it would be more entertaining to fight with you."

So, in other words, Rosalie was a bitch. Good for her; sometimes it was the only way to survive. I was interested in her, in what had caused her to become the woman she was, but I hid it for now. "Oh."

"She really likes her cars, knows just about everything about them." Esme turned back to the meat, but not quite quick enough to hide a smile. "You know, if you wanted something to talk to her about."

It was kind of her to offer that up, instead of letting me flounder on my own. Though I was excellent at reading other people's moods, I had never been overly blessed with people skills. Any conversation I tried to have generally ended with me doing a lot of stuttering and stammering.

I finished with the vegetables (minus the onions) and just stood there. I knew I needed that stupid fork/spoon thing that you used to toss a salad, but I couldn't remember what it was called. Salad tosser, salad pincher, salad fork . . . fuck, none of those were right. Ever since my 'accident' (as the doctors and nurses were so fond of calling it, like I had no idea what had actually happened to me), I sometimes had trouble recalling the names for common things. The entire floor had once been subjected to a raging temper tantrum when I couldn't remember the correct word for a visiting canine. Even the two-year-old next door had been able to blurt out, "Doggy!"

"Do you need the salad tongs? They're in the drawer under the toaster." Salad tongs; that was what they were called.

I felt unaccountably irritated with her, at her easy way of knowing what I needed when I, myself, wasn't sure. It's not her fault. Of course it wasn't Esme's fault. The trouble was, I was so damn sick of it being mine.

"Thank you." I picked them up and threw the vegetables into the bowl. There was a sort of a rhythm to what I was doing, and it was intensely soothing. Finally, everything was as close to perfect as I could make it. "I'm done. What else can I help with?"

"Nothing right now, but I might need help with the grill later." She seemed distracted. "Can you call your sis — Rosalie up, please? I need to ask her something."

I didn't think she was deliberately picking on me here. She was just so used to having real kids in the house, kids that thought of themselves as siblings, that she had forgotten I was just a temporary. "Okay."

The steps leading to Rosalie's basement were steep, and I took extra care going down them. I didn't trust my bad leg not to give out at the wrong moment, and I didn't want to end up in a heap on the concrete floor below. Wouldn't that be just my luck: to survive everything I had been through, only to die on the floor of my new foster home due to my own clumsiness?

The basement garage looked even bigger now than it had last night, filled with an amazing array of vehicles. The lights were bright, reflecting off the shiny metal floor and causing me to squint. Rosalie was standing on the far end with a Jaguar hooked to some sort of computer. Her shoulders turned toward me, but she didn't look up from the screen until I was almost on top of her.

"What do you want?" A baseball cap was pulled low over her eyes, but it didn't quite hide the oil smudge that covered her left cheek. Her tone wasn't exactly hostile, but it wasn't friendly, either.

I didn't want to challenge her, so I looked down. "Esme wants you upstairs."

"What for?" She straightened up, surprisingly close to my own height.

"I don't know." The words tasted sour in my mouth. I hated being out of the loop, especially when I had to explain myself to someone else.

She gave an exasperated huff, tossing her blond mane. "Fine. Listen, can you manage to watch this for a few minutes without fucking it up? All you have to do is watch the numbers and not let them go above 500."

"Sure." All it looked like she was doing was fussing with the fuel lines. I had replaced the system on Maria's car twice. Never with such fancy equipment, but at least I wasn't totally clueless.

"Don't touch anything." Her voice was a dark warning, and I cringed reflexively. I had heard that same tone from Maria way too many times, and it usually ended up with me in pain.

Rosalie gave me a strange look, no doubt even more upset with my cowering. "It's not that hard." Her tone wasn't as rude as I thought it would be. She started to reach out for me, but then changed her mind. "I'll be back in a minute."

There was very little for me to do, except sit down on the floor and watch the screen. The numbers flashed by, meaning very little to me. There was something almost hypnotizing about it, and I let my chin fall down to my chest. Damn, I was so fucking tired.

"I'm back!" Rosalie's voice was louder than usual. There was no real reason for it, so I could only assume that she was trying to keep from startling me. It was a sweet gesture. She held out a hand to help me up, her dark eyes never quite meeting mine. "You can stay down here with me until dinner. If you can keep your mouth shut and not touch anything, of course."

I figured that was about as generous an offer as I was going to get from her, so I nodded. Without skipping a beat, she went right back to what she was doing. She didn't look at me, but she didn't ignore me, either. As she worked, she explained everything she was doing, from the tiny computer to the tools. I knew a lot of it already, but I didn't want to interrupt her. I found I couldn't really take my eyes off of her, completely enchanted by the way she spoke and the passion in her words. I wondered if I could ever be that passionate about anything.

At first she interrupted herself to ask a few questions, but by the time we were called to dinner, she was speaking without needing answers. That was good; I would rather listen to her speak than speak myself.

"Here, hold this." She held out something unidentifiable and dripping with oil.

I took it without question. Oil smeared up my sleeve, but it was black anyway, so no one would be able to tell. Rosalie was testing me, and I didn't want to screw it up. "What is it?"

She smirked. "Spare part."

"So why am I holding it?"

The smirk deepened. "I just wanted to see if you would."

Of course I would. I did just about anything that was asked of me without the slightest bit of complaint. She held out her hand, which I noticed was covered with a cloth, and took the piece back. I relinquished it, and she tossed it into a trash box without looking at it. I guessed I had passed whatever test she was giving.

"Rosalie! Dinner. Do you still have Jasper down there?" Esme's voice came booming down the stairs, surprisingly loud. I backed up a little, accidentally wiping my filthy hands on my jeans. Damn, now I was going to have to figure out that intimidating washing machine. It had more buttons and dials than any ten machines I had seen before.

"Yes, but we need to get cleaned up!" She gestured towards a sink along a back wall. "Wash your hands, then go up and get changed."

I liked Rosalie. She gave me straightforward orders and asked no questions in return. I was used to that, and it made things much easier than with the rest of the family, who seemed determined to throw questions at me faster than I could make up answers to them.

She seemed to like me also, and gave me a soft smile. When she looked at me like that, she was quite possibly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. No, scratch that, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen except for Alice.

Not that I thought Alice would think the same about me. I was attractive, I guessed (as long as I kept my scars covered up — nothing attractive about those), but not attractive enough to make up for my personality. Plus, I had already almost freaked out on her last night, so she was probably not going to want much to do with me. I had just seen the lock on the outside of Edward's door and started to panic. One of Maria's favorite tricks was to lock me in the basement for some imagined slight, and my bedroom was much smaller than the basement had ever been.

Alice had been cool about it, managing to talk me down from a full-blown anxiety attack, but I could sense the pity coming off of her. She had probably told Carlisle about it as soon as I went to bed, just so he could know what sort of freak he was dealing with. Still, it had been nice of her to stay with me afterwards, since I was still feeling shaky.

"Your hands are clean, Doofus. Let me have a chance." When I looked down, I realized she was right. Huh, I could have sworn I had just put soap on them. I shook them dry, remembering that my jeans were filthy and I shouldn't use them to wipe, and headed back up the stairs to change.

As I passed through the kitchen, I noticed that the table was already set. Wasn't that supposed to be my job? She had told me to do it last night. Just add 'failure to set table' to my other list of failures since I had been placed with this family.

I went upstairs and changed pants, putting on the only other pair of jeans I had come with. They were old, and starting to form a hole in one knee, but they were mine. As I pulled them on, a flurry of knocks sounded at the door. "Jasper?"

I had only been in the house for twenty-four hours, but I would have recognized that small voice anywhere on the planet. Alice had come up to get me. "Yes?"

"Are you decent?" She always sounded as if she were on the verge of a giggle.

"Yes." Good thing, too, because she was already bursting through the door. She danced her way into the room, her hazel eyes lit with laughter. "How was your first day? Was it horrible?"

As she spoke, she slid an arm around my waist. With anyone else, I would have shied away, but Alice was so tiny that I felt a rogue urge to protect her instead. I was nobody's hero, but I was willing to try. "No, it was fine. Esme took me shopping."

"Did she take you to the mall? What did she get? Let me see it. She did get you something to eat, right?"

I wasn't used to having so many questions thrown at me at once, and I found myself nodding agreeably without having any idea what I was agreeing to. Alice drew back suddenly. "What do you have all over your shirt?"

It took me a minute to remember the oil that had rubbed off of whatever Rosalie had been holding out. "Oil."

"Ew." She reached into the shopping bags, which were still on my bed and pulled out a shirt. "Here, change into this. It'll look pretty with your eyes."

I would have done anything in the world to make her happy, short of this. If I undressed in front of her, she was going to see everything that I had worked so hard to keep hidden. She seemed to genuinely like me now, but as soon as she saw the scars, she was going to run. But if I said no, it would make her unhappy, and I didn't want that either. My mind spun in several directions before finding something. "Fine, but you have oil all over you now, too." Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration. She had a few tiny spots on the shoulder of her blouse.

The look in her eyes told me she wasn't entirely fooled, but luckily she was concerned enough about stains to leave me alone. "Shit! I'm coming back for you, though, so don't think you're going to get out of going down to dinner with me!"

I could live with that.