Ok, ok, I know I said this would be coming quickly. Unfortunatly, I tried sending two chapters to my beta at once, but somehow ended up sending her the same (wrong) chapter three times. I didn't realize that until she sent it back a week later. So the next chapter is edited, but this one wasn't. Then I tried sending it again, only to have her not get it because my outbox was full and it never came. Long story short: This took three weeks longer than it should have. Here it is though, and the next one should be up soon, since it's already edited and there is no room for author error!

Emmett's POV

This sucked. I mean, I knew that I was supposed to be being punished and all, but this sucked! I had already watched two episodes of Jerry Springer, played video games, and broken one of the back steps by jumping on it. I was bored to death.

I was the only one in the house, unless you counted Mr. Antisocial, who was still upstairs asleep. Lucky bastard; he was probably the only one who had gotten more than a few hours' sleep last night. Rose had been so upset by it all that she had crawled into bed with me, shaking violently and refusing to be soothed. I had tried everything, from kisses to hugs to making shadow puppets on the wall, but she just trembled harder. I didn't want to be angry with Jasper, because it wasn't really his fault, but I couldn't help but be upset at the thought of my beautiful Rosie suffering.

We had ended up lying together until the sun came up and my alarm started blaring. I would have been content to stay with her even longer than that, considering that I certainly didn't have school today, but she had a morning class that she refused to skip.

If it hadn't been for Rose, I would have wondered if last night actually happened. There was a surreal quality about it all. I mean, it sounded like someone was beating him to death in there, the noises choked and twisted. Noises that I had never heard a person make before, and I hoped I never had to hear again.

But when Rose and I got down to breakfast this morning, everything seemed normal. Edward was pouring syrup on his pancakes, and Mom was checking over Alice's homework from the night before. Dad was nowhere to be found, so he must have had to go to the office early. It was almost enough to make me believe that I had imagined Jasper entirely.

At least until Alice pulled me aside. "Emmett, I need your help."

If it were going to lead to trouble, I was the man for the job. "What do you need?"

"I need you to distract Mom so I can go up and check on Jasper. Mom says to leave him alone, but I have to know that he's all right. Please, Em?"

I could never refuse her anything, a fact that she wasn't above using to her advantage. "Fine, but if you get busted, I know nothing."

"Fair enough." She bolted on impossibly light feet, running up the stairs.

Suddenly, I wasn't sure if I liked the thought of letting Alice go up there. She had gotten way too attached to this Jasper. I felt bad for the guy and all, but not bad enough to let him put his filthy hands on my baby sister.

"Emmett? Honey, where are you?" Mom was calling, so I jumped up and ran over to greet her. If there was one thing I was good at, it was lying to adults.

"Here!" Hurry up, Alice, please!

"Come on into the kitchen; I need to talk to you!" She didn't sound suspicious, but my mother was nothing if not smart.

Mom was loading the dishwasher, so I stood awkwardly until she came to sit across the table from me. "Emmett, I need your help today."

Oh, shit. If she was asking me, things must be really bad. But I didn't have any choice but to agree. After all, I was still in huge trouble from yesterday. "Okay, sure."

She reached across the table to take my hands. "I have to go to the doctor today, so I need someone to watch Jasper. Can you keep an eye on him?"

Like he would come within twenty feet of me. "Sure, I guess." Looked like it was going to be a boring day.

"Be kind to him, Emmett. He's having a very hard time." Damn, she was really trying to hammer this point home. I understood her the first time, jeez.

"I will. I'm always nice." A little overwhelming at times, granted, but nice.

When she gave me that brilliant smile, I felt kinda bad about thinking bad thoughts about Jasper, or anyone else. After all, who else but my mother would give me so many chances, even after I fucked up again and again?

"I know you are. Just . . . try to be a little less enthusiastic, okay?"

I nodded. "You can count on me." Already I was trying to figure out how I could spin this to my advantage. Maybe if I could convince Jasper to do something with me, I could get out of having to do my homework today. A sudden thought occurred to me. "You know, I might want to take Jasper out and give him a tour of the town. Maybe we could go to lunch?" Good, I would definitely need car keys for that!

She wasn't the slightest bit fooled. "Nice try. I have to go all the way to Seattle, so your brother and sisters will probably beat me home. There's a pot roast in the fridge. All you need to do is put it in the oven when I call."

I hadn't really expected her to fall for it, so I wasn't too disappointed. "Fine. I'll be nice to Jasper, and show him around the house instead. Again. Maybe we'll go out in the woods and get lost. Then we could be eaten by wolves."

"I'm sure the pair of you can find something to do right here. Also, I'm pretty sure that there are no wolves in the woods of Forks." She gave me a quick kiss. "Thank you for doing this, Emmett. I'm sure Jasper will appreciate it, too."

He better. While we were having a little brotherly bonding time, I might also remind him about the virtues of keeping his hands to himself. As I was thinking about the best way to accomplish that, Alice reappeared. "Edward and I have to leave for school. Emmett, will you help me with my Social Studies project?"

I wasn't a hundred percent sure what her project was, only that it was huge and looked like a model of some sort of island. She had been working on it for weeks, and it looked fantastic. If I had been given a project like that, I might have actually done it, but remedial students didn't get to do anything fun.

Alice waited until we were out of Esme's earshot before giving me a tight hug. "Thanks for covering."

Like I had had any choice. "No problem, sis. He okay?" I wasn't sure if I really cared or not, but it seemed like the polite thing to say.

"I guess. He was still sleeping, so I didn't wake him up. But he looked pretty comfortable."

Wait a minute; it had taken her ten minutes to see he was sleeping and safe? "It took that long to check on him?"

She flushed. "Well . . . no. I just wanted to watch him for a few minutes, make sure he was okay."

Oh, no, this infatuation she had for him had to end, and quickly. If I had my way, Alice would join a nunnery this instant. "Alice, that is completely creepy, stalkerish behavior. I would expect to see that out of Edward, but not you." Edward, who was already in the driver's seat, flipped me off. I returned the gesture.

She rolled her pretty hazel eyes. "It's not stalkerish. If he's going to be my brother, I should start treating him like one. Wouldn't you want Rose to check on you if you were having trouble sleeping?"

"Rosie's my girlfriend, not my sister. There's a difference between being a good sister and wanting to stare at someone 'cause you think they're sexy."

Her blush deepened. "Oh, my God, Alice! You know what? We're going to have a talk when you get home. You cannot be having feelings for him; you just can't."

She threw herself into the car. "Edward, drive! I love you, Emmett, bye!"

The Volvo peeled out of the driveway before I could say anything else. Great, now I was going to have to seek Jasper out, just so I could warn him to stay away from Alice. How in the world had things gotten so complicated in just three days?

I sat at the table and worked on my homework for about fifteen minutes before I got bored and started poking around again. There was another episode of Jerry on, but a man can only take so many women sleeping with their brothers or screaming about their baby daddies before he starts to crack.

For a few seconds, I even considered waking Jasper up so I could at least have some human company, but finally decided against it. He so obviously needed the sleep that it seemed kind of cruel to bother him. So I sat down in front of the television and popped a game into the Xbox.

I was so involved in blowing aliens up that I almost missed the soft thump, thump of feet coming down the stairs. When I finally heard it and spun around, Jasper froze on the step, never taking his eyes off me.

It was the fear in his eyes that caused all of my previously rehearsed speeches to fly out of my head. I recognized it from pictures of myself when I first came into this family. So, instead of lecturing him on how I would break his fingers (among other body parts) if he dared touch Alice, I gestured for him to come forward and sit next to me. "Want to play?"

He looked from me to the screen and back again. "I don't know how."

Well, if I could do nothing else, I could teach him how to play video games. "No problem, I'll teach you."

He looked down, shifting his weight nervously. I looked back at the screen, doing my best not to make eye contact. He padded down the rest of the stairs and came to sit next to me. "Excellent." I reset the game and handed him a controller. "We'll play as a team for right now. Red button shoots, green button throws a hand grenade, and the arrows move your guy around."

I noticed that he was holding the controller awkwardly, like he had never held one before. "Have you ever even played an Xbox?"

"No." He started to hand the controller back, but I wouldn't let him.

"Okay, we'll start a new game at the first level. Just stay behind me at first." I was a good teacher, at least when it came to this.

It took a while (and my character was shot in the back a dozen times), but Jasper finally got the hang of it. It wasn't exactly bonding, but we were sitting side by side, and technically working as a team, so I figured we were close enough.

It was much more fun to play with a partner, and I was having a blast jumping around and yelling at the screen. Jasper did neither, but he did smile several times, which was more than I had seen him do yet. Time passed quickly, and suddenly my stomach was growling.

I paused the game and stood, ready for some lunch. Jasper gave me a puzzled look, and it occurred to me that he had had nothing since dinner last night. "I'm sorry, dude, I should have asked if you wanted breakfast."

"S'okay." There must be something wrong with Jasper. I'd never in my life seen a guy so disinterested in food. If it's there, he eats, but he never asks for anything if it isn't. If I had been denied food for eighteen hours, I would be pissed. But Japer was acting like it was no big deal. Even Edward, who was skinny as a rail, ate more than he did.

"Well, I'm hungry, so let's get some lunch." Maybe I ought to say something to Dad about his lack of appetite. Wasn't that one of the signs of a serious disease? I should have paid more attention in health.

I opened the refrigerator and poked around. "What do you want?" There were some pot pies in the freezer, meat for sandwiches, leftover chili . . . plenty of choices.

Jasper didn't even look. "Whatever you're having, I guess."

That was it? What if he didn't like what I chose? "You sure?"

"Yeah. You know what we're allowed to eat and what we aren't."

What did he mean by that? Unless Mom was specifically saving something, everything was fair game. Even as I had that thought, I was assaulted by a memory that I had pushed into the back of my mind. At my first house, my biological house, there had been very strict rules regarding the fridge. There was kid food, mostly hot dogs and mac and cheese, and then there was adult food, things like steak and ribs and chocolate. If you were a kid, sneaking adult food was a sure way to earn yourself a beating. Maybe Jasper was used to living under similar rules.

"We can have whatever, except for dinner, but I doubt you want raw, bloody pot roast anyway." I tried joking with him a little, to ease the pressure I could feel starting to mount.

He didn't crack a smile. In fact, I was starting to wonder if he possessed a sense of humor at all. "Whatever you're having."

Like my mother would say, this was not the hill to die on, at least not today. I wasn't willing to deal with sandwiches and all the debate that condiments might bring, so I pulled out two pot pies. "Good?"

He nodded. "Sure."

While the food cooked, I gave Jasper a subtle once over. He looked terrible. Not just in a 'had a really restless night' sort of way, but more like 'had so many restless nights he can't remember what restful feels like.' His eyes were darkly circled, and his skin was just a few shades darker than the white t-shirt he was wearing.

I leaned back against the counter, wondering what it would be like if I were suddenly hurt, hurt so badly that I might not survive, and then ripped from my home and tossed in with strangers. I guessed that might keep me up at night, too. But it wasn't the same. I had a loving home, with two parents who adored me. Jasper had a home, too, but he was living with an unpredictable monster. This was a huge improvement for him, wasn't it?

No, not really. Foster care and then the Cullens' had been a huge improvement over my living situation, too. For the first time, I had food in sufficient quantities, clean clothes, and my own bed. I could sleep at night without having to listening to drunken fights or my mother sobbing. But I would have gone back to that house in a heartbeat. Because they were my family, and I hadn't known anything else. Because, just maybe, tomorrow would be better, and the fighting and drinking and abuse would stop. As long as I remained in the house, there was hope that things would get better. Not only did Jasper no longer have that hope, his last memory of Maria had been of her anger, and nothing anyone could do would fix that. He would forever be the one who wasn't good enough.

These were unusually deep thoughts for me, but they did give me a little insight into Jasper's mind. For the first time, I felt a bit of a kinship with him. "Get some drinks, okay?"

He poured two glasses of milk without comment, never looking me in the eyes. That was cool. I could deal with that. I just had to sit back and be patient. The microwave dinged, and I carefully set the food down on the table. I made sure to set his pie on the opposite side of the table of my own. If he was used to having freaky-ass rules about what food he was allowed to eat, he was probably also used to not getting food when he fucked up. I didn't want him to feel like I was going to take his lunch.

I watched him while he ate, trying to think of something for us to talk about. I knew he didn't play video games, or sports, or do much of anything but try and survive. It was a good strategy, surviving, but it didn't leave room for a whole lot of conversation.

"How come you blew up a classroom?" His eyes were kind of creepy when he trained them on you like that. They were such a light blue that they almost seemed to glow.

I really didn't want to talk about that, but at least he was making some effort at conversation. It was a stilted, socially awkward effort, but still effort. "First of all, I didn't blow up a classroom. I may have caused a lab table to combust into a tiny amount of flames. This may or may not have caused a school-wide evacuation, and the fire department to be called."

"But why?" He seemed genuinely curious, but not the slightest bit upset. "Weren't you worried about getting in trouble?"

Not really. I never worried about little things like getting into trouble or throwing my future away. I was young, I was happy, and the rest of it would fall into place eventually. "Nah. It'll be all right."

He was stunned. "But what about Carlisle and Esme? Weren't you worried about what they would do?"

I was about to tell him that they couldn't do anything that they hadn't tried before, when his actual meaning caught up with me. He wanted to know what he could expect from punishments around here, both in type and severity. After a second's debate, I decided to address the issue head on. "Do you mean did they hurt me?"

Jasper wasn't going to back down, and he met my eyes. "Yes."

"No, they didn't hurt me. They won't hurt you, either, so you can quit worrying so much. They yelled, and I'll probably end up doing some hard labor, but that's all that will happen. They love me, and if you give them half a chance, they'll love you, too."

He looked down at his food, but not before I saw the quick flash of shame in his eyes. They wouldn't love him. How could they? In his opinion, he was completely unlovable. If they pretended they loved him, it was because they wanted something from him. It wasn't true, of course, but it was going to take a lot more than me to convince him of that.

We were quiet for a few minutes, him eating and me watching him. He was the slowest damn eater I had ever seen in my life. Last night, he had cut his food into miniscule pieces, carefully spearing them one at a time and spacing out each bite with a sip of his drink. If he were really food deprived, I would have expected him to be a bolter, eating his food as quickly as he could shove it in his mouth. His extremely controlled eating really creeped me out.

The silence grew uncomfortable, at least for me, and I tried a different tactic. "Do you like dogs?"

He smiled, the first real smile that he had directed at me. "Yeah."

"Me, too." I was already formulating a new plan. "I think we should get together and tell Mom that we want one. She always tells me no, because she says I'm not responsible, but you, my friend, you can get away with just about anything right now." It was absolutely perfect!

"Emmett, that won't work." Jasper spoke slowly, and I could tell he was trying to think of the easiest way to let me down.

"Why not? Give me one good reason."

Jasper swallowed the last bit of his milk. "I'll give you two. First of all, despite what you may think, Esme is not going to be sympathetic enough to give me a dog. Especially since she already told you no. Plus, what happens when I leave?"

"You're leaving? How come?" I had thought Mom and Dad were pretty clear that we were keeping him, but maybe I had misunderstood.

He seemed just as confused as I did. "I'm almost eighteen. Once I have my birthday, they aren't going to be able to keep me anymore."

No, he meant that they wouldn't want to keep him anymore, something I knew wasn't true. But something told me that now was the wrong time to try and convince him of that. Right now, all I could do was be a friend, and maybe a brother, to him and hope for the best.

So I just gave a noncommittal grunt and stood up. "What do you want to do now? We could go outside for a while."

"It's raining." His eyes had turned dark and inward. Unless I did something fast, he was going to go back upstairs and hide. We all had our ways of dealing with stress. Jasper hid, I ignored it, and Rose screamed.

"It's always raining here; you'll get used to it. Come on, I'll kick your ass at games again." I held my breath while he considered the offer. Finally, he nodded, following me into the room and taking his place on the couch.

As it turned out, Jasper was really good at war games. He had a mind for strategy, and seemed to know when to fight and when to just bomb the hell out of the enemy. We were racing through the levels much quicker than I had thought we would.

Then Jasper started to make mistakes. Minor ones at first, like missing a target or running into a wall. Glancing over, I noticed he was rubbing at his face, then massaging his temples. "You okay, dude?"

"Yeah." He sighed heavily. "My head just hurts, that's all."

Damn, I hadn't thought of that. What was I supposed to do? "Do you want some aspirin? Wait, didn't they send you home with some pills?" Or had those been sleeping pills? If they had been, they weren't worth shit.

It seemed to be difficult for him to think, but he finally nodded. "They did, but your dad took them. I don't know what he did with them."

"I'll bet I know where they are. Come on." I pulled him to his feet, noticing that he didn't shy away from me this time.

He followed along until we got to Mom and Dad's doorway, where he stopped. "We can't go in there."

Yeah, because lasers were obviously ready to shoot out at anyone who dared cross the threshold. He seemed kinda upset, though, so I shrugged. "Well, that's where he'd keep stuff."

I waited patiently (more or less) while his fear warred with his pain. If he gave up, I was going in there anyway, but I wanted him to make the choice. After all, a little brother needed to get used to taking his cues off a big brother, right? I wouldn't get him into trouble. Well, maybe I would, but not on purpose, and I would make it very clear that things had been my idea.

"Okay, let's do it." His voice was whisper-soft, as if he thought someone might be listening in.

I grinned. "You're an awesome little brother. Soon you will learn all the ways of Master Emmett, king of not getting caught."

He snorted at that, but I thought I saw a tiny smile. So, yeah, I had technically been caught yesterday, but I still had a pretty good record. Mom still didn't know who had rearranged all of Edward's sheet music (ever hear someone start out playing a sonata, then abruptly break into "Jessie's Girl"? Fucking hilarious!) or how exactly we ended up with a colony of fifty stray cats on the property. (Hint? Feed 'em tuna).

Dad trusted all of us, so the pills wouldn't be locked up. If I knew him, they would be somewhere in plain sight, so he could get to them easily if he needed to. Score! I spotted some orange bottles on the dresser. I picked up the closest one and read the label. Whitlock, Jasper Franklin. Vicodin, to be taken as needed for pain. It seemed a little extreme to give him drugs like that for a headache, and I suddenly felt a little worried. If this were the right thing to give him, how much pain was he in? "Found 'em!"

For a minute he didn't respond, too caught up in staring at the pictures on the wall. I wasn't quite sure what he found so fascinating; they all seemed pretty average to me. I shook the bottle, and the rattling noise caught his attention. "Let's go."

I tossed the bottle at him as we went down the stairs. He managed to catch it, though he did fumble a bit. I made a mental note to work on his catching skills. After all, I wouldn't want my little bro to embarrass me during the annual hospital baseball game.

Jasper got a glass of water and swallowed two pills. Once that was done, he put the glass in the sink and stood there uncertainly, seeming not to know what to do next. After an uncomfortable pause, I took pity on him. "So, movie?"

"Yeah." He followed me out, much closer than before. If I had wanted, I could have reached out and touched him. I didn't, though. If I knew nothing else about him (and truthfully, I didn't), I knew he wouldn't like being touched.

I wasn't sure what sort of movies Jasper might like, but I knew he wouldn't offer me an opinion. I finally picked Shrek. Everyone liked Shrek, right? If Jasper didn't, he gave no indication. He just flopped down on the couch.

I had the drapes closed and the lights off, to try and make things more like a movie theater. The seventy-six-inch flatscreen helped add to the illusion, as did the popcorn and drinks. So what if we had just eaten lunch an hour or so before? We were growing boys. Plus, Jasper looked like he needed to gain a little weight.

He was mostly quiet, chuckling every now and then. About half an hour in, I quit looking at him, absorbed in watching Donkey try and escape the tender clutches of Dragon. Jasper was so damn quiet, that it was almost like he wasn't even present. It was only when the movie ended that I remembered him, and looked over guiltily.

I guess my ignoring him didn't matter much, because he was dead asleep. If it had been Edward, I would have jumped on him and woken him up. Or possibly covered him in toothpaste. Either way, it would have been a nice break in the day. But this was Jasper, so I just found a blanket and covered him up. He didn't twitch, not even when I accidentally brushed his skin.

So today hadn't been the most exciting, but at least one of us had been able to get Jasper out of his room. One of us that wasn't Alice, that is. Which reminded me, I had to have a little talk with him about the proper way to treat my sister. Preferably from at least five feet away.

I moved over to the chair closest to the front door. Rose was due back any second, and Alice and Edward a little while after that. If I could intercept them at the door, maybe I could keep them from waking Jasper up. I would have done it, even if Esme hadn't given me the task of taking care of him for today. After all, what were brothers for?