A/N: Edwards POV is probably the most difficult to write, which is why this chapter took so darn long. I have no idea why this should be so, but it is. Enjoy this one, and hopefully the next one will be up soon.

Edward's POV

E flat, G chord, crescendo to the end. I performed the tasks without conscious thought, my fingers automatically finding the correct positions. I've been composing for a few years now, but nothing of this magnitude. It wasn't just that this was the most complex thing that I had ever written, but that it was for Bella, and it had to be perfect.

When I finished, I was so nervous that I couldn't even look up. Did she like it? My family claimed to love everything I wrote, but they had to say that; they were my family. Bella was under no obligation to spare my feelings.

She was smiling. Not a big one, but one of those soft smiles you see in paintings. The kind that suggests not joy, but a certain utter contentment. "It's beautiful. You really wrote that for me?" She didn't sound as though she could quite make herself believe it.

I slid the CD case out of my backpack, where I had been hiding it all day. I had thought about giving it to her at school, but whether she liked it or not, music sounded better when it was performed live. The rest of the family had scattered, so it was just Bella and me in the house. Dad was at work, Mom was at the doctor's, and Emmett and Alice had gone out for ice cream. Considering there was still snow on the ground, it was a rather transparent excuse, but I appreciated the gesture. Rosalie had taken Jasper to his therapy appointment, and vanished afterwards. She might have gone to class, or she could be down in the basement. I didn't really care where she was, as long as she wasn't here to make a scene.

I wasn't quite sure why Rosalie disliked me so much, any more than I knew why I disliked her. I had resented Mom and Dad bringing her home at first, I would admit to that. She was noisy and abrasive, throwing any affection she was offered right back in our faces. Unlike Alice, who slid effortlessly into our family, Rosalie fought and screamed, refusing to surrender even a tiny bit of her independence. Despite my parents' assurances that she wouldn't be like that forever, I quickly became fed up with her and her dramatics. After all, what was the point of trying to deal with her? No matter what we tried, this would never be the life or family she would have chosen for herself, and she was determined to make us suffer for it.

As the years had passed, Rose had mellowed and come to first accept, then eventually love us, but I could never quite forget the way she had nearly caused our family to implode. Things improved rapidly when Emmett was placed with us, but there was an underlying hardness to Rosalie, something not quite right. Alice swore I was imagining it, but I just didn't trust my older sister. She was like a perfect statue of a woman: tall, beautiful, and utterly cold.

Yet she had taken right to Jasper. Maybe it was because they had both slipped through the cracks (okay, the big gaping holes) of the foster care system. Maybe it was because they looked so much alike that people frequently asked if they were twins. Or maybe it was just that, like Emmett, Jasper didn't talk back to her. Whatever the reason, I couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous.

"Edward? Is that for me?" Bella's voice was still soft, but it was enough to draw me from my thoughts.

"What? Oh, yeah, it's for you." I was aware that my face was flaming red, a fairly common occurrence around Bella. I held out the CD, which was simply labeled "Bella's Lullaby."

She traced the letters through the clear case. "It's for me." Her arms came up to wrap around my neck, her lips pressed to mine. "I love it."

Nothing she could have said would have made me love her any more. Except maybe when she smiled again. "Play it one more time?"

I would have played it a million more times if she had asked. But before I could even sit back down, I heard voices from downstairs. The volume level told me that Alice and Emmett were home. Sure enough, impossibly light feet came clattering up the stairs and Alice tossed herself through the door. "I thought you guys were up here! Hi, Edward." She barely spared me a glace before giving Bella a hug. "Bella, how have you been? You smell good; is that a new body spray? Come talk to me, I'm dying for a little female companionship."

Bella gave me one last look and a quick 'what can you do?' shrug. Alice was Alice, as unstoppable as a hurricane. But she was also sensitive and a good sister. She wouldn't have stolen Bella without a good reason, and she would bring her back as soon as she was done. Of course, according to Alice, lip gloss was a good enough reason to steal Bella.

Emmett was at the kitchen table, laboriously plodding through his homework. He had been making a real effort lately to get his work done on time. I strongly suspected that this had less to do with a sudden interest in scholarly matters, and more to do with trying to ease some of the strain Mom was under. Though we had yet to have a family discussion about it, it was common knowledge that she was going to have to take Jasper to the police station so he could make a formal statement against his old foster mother. Less common was the knowledge that he might end up in court, called as a witness. I wouldn't have known about that, except I had overheard Dad on the phone last night.

Emmett looked up when I came into the kitchen, obviously glad for the distraction from the tedium of Algebra II. "Bella still here?" His smirk suggested that he thought she might be frantically redressing.

"Alice kidnapped her to talk about lipstick or something." I retrieved two Cokes from the fridge and tossed him one. "Pervert."

He laughed. "Nothing wrong with acknowledging that you're a man, Edward. She's fucking hot."

Bell was hot, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, but I would never defile her like that. With a girl as special as she was, you had to wait for marriage. Not that I cared what Emmett did with Rosalie; it just wasn't right for Bella and me. To do anything less would be disrespectful. "Worry about your own girlfriend and leave mine alone."

His eyebrows rose. "Ooh, hit a sore spot there? I'm sure I could give you a few pointers if that's the problem."

I was deeply afraid of any pointers that Emmett might give me. "I understand how it works, you moron. Bella just isn't ready for sex, and I respect that." That was much less likely to lead to merciless teasing than admitting the truth, which was that it was me who wasn't ready.

He nodded serenely. "That's good. You always need to respect them, Eddie."

There was no point in telling him not to call me Eddie. He knew how much I despised that nickname, but if nearly six years hadn't stopped him, nothing would. "I know that, stupid."

The phone rang before he could think of a scathing reply. I hopped onto the counter and snagged it out of the cradle. "Cullen residence, Edward speaking."

A warm voice greeted me. "Hello Edward, this is Chief Swan, Bella's father. She and I have been invited to see an old friend out at the reservation, so I'm going to need her home by six. Is that all right?"

I was a little disappointed, but I knew that Bella would be thrilled to see Jacob. She was always complaining how hard it was to get their schedules coordinated. "That's fine, Chief Swan, I'll be glad to give her a ride."

The line beeped, telling me I had another call, but really? Scoring points with my girlfriend's father was a little more important. It kept on beeping while I kept talking to the Chief, before abruptly silencing. Almost as soon as that happened, Emmett's phone began to vibrate across the table. Oops, it must have been one of the family members. I quickly said my goodbyes and hung up.

Emmett grabbed his phone. "Hey, baby! . . . Really? How come? . . . No, I can't, you took the engine out of my Jeep, remember? . . . Hang on, I'll ask Eddie." He covered the mouthpiece with one hand. "Jasper's done way early at the shrink and Rose won't get out of class for an hour. Can you go get him? My Jeep is down and it sounds like he needs someone now."

Having to get Jasper would mean I would have to leave right now in order to get Bella home on time. I hated to lose even a minute of time with her, but on the other hand, Jasper so seldom seemed to require anything from any of us that I knew I couldn't refuse. This might actually be the first time he had needed anything from me, or even the first time we would be alone together. Emmett raised his eyebrows, still waiting for an answer. "Yeah, I'll go get him."

He relayed the message back to Rose, while I went upstairs to find Bella. She and Alice were sitting together on my bed, deep in discussion. "So, do you think I should go for it? Rose says yes, and Mom says yes, but I can't help but feel like Jasper is saying no. If he says no, does it matter what anyone else thinks?"

No to what? It was wrong of me to eavesdrop, but Bella spoke before I could make my presence known. "He's saying no with his mouth, but men lie. You said he has expressive eyes, so what are his eyes saying?"

No matter how badly I might want to know what they were talking about, I forced myself to step into the room. Alice smiled at me, but it was a sad smile, before turning back to Bella. "They say 'help me.' But I don't know how to help him. I can barely help myself."

I could only assume they were talking about Jasper, whom Alice had developed quite an attachment to. "Bella, your dad called, and he wants you home so the two of you can go out to the Rez today." Bella gave an excited squeal and leapt off the bed. "We have to leave now, though, because I have to pick up my brother at the . . . doctor."

Hopefully she wouldn't notice my slight hesitation on the last word. Being in therapy wasn't anything to be ashamed of, but it was Jasper's own business, not Bella's or mine.

If she did notice, she gave no indication. "All right. Bye, Alice, I'll think about what you asked me."

She reached out and took my hand as we went down the steps. "So, are we still going to the movies tomorrow?"

"Of course." I was up for doing whatever Bella wanted to. The Volvo clicked as I unlocked it, and I hurried around to the passenger side so I could open her door for her. "I'm going to swing by and get Jasper first, so he's not left waiting, all right?"

I was afraid to leave Jasper alone there for too long. He was supposed to be with the doctor for another hour, and the fact that we had been called early was troubling. It meant that Jasper, for whatever reason, had been unwilling or unable to continue his session. He was probably upset, and would do better in the quieter environment of the car, with just two people to deal with.

Bella fiddled with the radio before settling on something soft. A thought occurred to me, and I absently brushed her hair back. "What did Alice ask you? Or is it something I don't want to know?" If it was about tampons or chick flicks, or just how cute Orlando Bloom was, I could probably pass on knowing.

Her dark eyes met mine. "She asked me if blood doesn't make a family, and love doesn't make a family, what does make a family?"

It almost seemed like a riddle, the kind that would have a funny ending, except she had asked me the same thing yesterday. "What did you tell her?"

"Nothing. I didn't know what to say."

I hadn't, either. But we were pulling up in front of the psychiatrist's office, and if anyone knew what was happening, it would be Jasper. A light rain had begun to fall, so I parked and walked up the stairs. The place was familiar, as he had all been here before, both individually and as a family. Felix, as the doctor preferred to be called, had seen us after Rosalie's adoption, in a futile attempt to smooth things out, and briefly after Emmett. He was a no-bullshit kind of guy, so if he thought Jasper had had enough, he was probably right.

Sure enough, Jasper was sitting quietly in the lobby, looking like he was about two seconds from either throwing up or passing out. A magazine was open in his lap, but he was mostly just staring off into space. His glassy eyes rolled over mine, showing no sign that he recognized me.

I started to go over to him, but was distracted by the receptionist signaling me over. I went over to her and leaned against her desk. She sighed softly. "Mr. Whitlock passed out during his session. He was only out for a few seconds, and he seems fine now, but make sure he gets something to eat, and keep an eye on him this evening."

Great. I schooled my tone to be as gentle as possible before approaching Jasper. "Okay, then. Jasper, are you ready to go home? We have to take Bella by her house, but that shouldn't take too long."

He rose up quietly, carefully closing the magazine and replacing it on the rack. He didn't smile at me or even make eye contact, just slipped past me like a wraith. In the space of just one therapy session, he had regressed to being worse than when he had arrived. I followed him, mimicking his silence and giving him some space.

We were almost to the door before he spoke. "Thank you from coming to get me, Edward. I know you were busy with Bella."

Guilt rose up that he had seen through me so easily. "No problem. Family first, right?"

He shrugged, leaving me with the impression that I had somehow said something wrong. This wasn't going well, and it was going to get worse when he was faced with the stranger in the Volvo. "Are you feeling all right?" He sure as hell didn't look all right.

"I won't puke in your car." Jasper tipped his face upwards, seeming to enjoy the rain on his pale face.

I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. I didn't care about the car. If he started to get sick, I could pull over and let him out, or clean the seats later. I was much more concerned about Jasper's mental state. "I just meant you look really pale. But you know your own body best." I kept my tone light, no criticism.

Bella was still in the front seat, singing cheerfully along with the radio. Jasper looked at her for a few seconds without moving, his face unreadable. Then he opened the door to the backseat and slid inside.

I decided to give them the first nudge myself. Jasper couldn't do it, and I could already tell that Bella was intimidated by his staring. "Jasper, this is Bella, my girlfriend. Bella, this is Jasper." Again, I wasn't sure how to introduce them. Referring to Jasper as 'my foster brother' seemed sort of rude and would raise unnecessary questions in Bella's mind. On the other hand, I didn't think Jasper would appreciate 'my brother,' either. His behavior became uncomfortable whenever he was referred to as a member of the family. He didn't believe the words, no matter how well intentioned they might be.

"Hi." Bella's voice was timid, and she raised her hand in a slight wave.

Jasper caught her eye in the rearview mirror and held it, working his jaw in silence. He wasn't being deliberately rude or intimidating, despite appearances. He just tended to get stuck for words, and sometimes needed a few seconds before he could get the right ones out. Dad said it was from having his brains rattled (he put it in a much nicer way, of course), and that it would hopefully resolve itself in time. In the meantime, we shouldn't baby him or put words in his mouth. He would get it eventually on his own, without our help.

After fifteen seconds or so, he released a breath. "Pleasure to meet you, Bella." When he spoke, he treated her to onc of his particularly sweet smiles.

Bella relaxed immediately and smiled back at him. I had noticed that when he was working at it, Jasper had a real way of putting someone at ease. It didn't seem to work on his own self, but he was great with other people. It cost him, though, I could tell. "Would you rather sit up front?"

"No, lady's choice." He didn't hesitate this time.

The rest of the ride was quiet. Bella was still a little too shy to say much in Jasper's presence, and Jasper seemed lost in his own world. I tried several times to engage one or the other, but neither one took the bait. I wished that I had brought Alice along. She might not have been able to get Jasper talking either, but at least she would have filled the silence herself.

By the time we got to Bella's house, I was ready to be done with this day. Jasper appeared to be sleeping, his head cradled by the seatbelt. He wasn't supposed to sleep during the day, but I just wasn't up to fighting with him. I left the engine running so he would have some heat, and walked Bella to her front door. She gave me a kiss. "So, that's Jasper." She smiled at me. "He's sweet."

It hadn't really ever occurred to me that Bella had been curious about my reluctant foster brother, though it did make sense. She had met the rest of my family, and I had met Charlie. She must have wondered if we were hiding Jasper from her, and what our reasoning might be.

"Yeah, he's a nice guy." I didn't bother telling her that the sweetness wore off pretty quickly. Whether he was upset by his pending trip to the police station, or still unsettled from being in the hospital, he had had all of us up every single night with his screaming. Tuesday, he had managed to get us up twice. Don't get me wrong, I felt bad for the guy and all, but the lack of sleep was getting to us all. But I wasn't going to tell Bella any of that. No point in letting her know that, in some ways, our family was as weird as everyone said we were.

It wasn't until she was nearly inside that I remembered something I had wanted to ask. "Mom wants to know if you and Chief Swan would like to come over for dinner next Friday. You know, the whole embarrassing 'get together and share humiliating stories about our kids' thing."

She laughed. "You can go ahead and call him Charlie; I do. We'll be glad to come."

One more kiss and she went inside, my CD still clutched in one hand. I stopped on the porch and waited for a bit, just until I saw the light go on her room. Now that I was sure she was all right, I went back to the car. Jasper was still asleep, and for a minute I debated whether I should try and wake him or not. In the end, I thought I might get in trouble if I didn't at least try, so I reached into the back and gently shook his shoulder. "Hey."

He snapped awake with absolutely no warning and seized my wrist, bending it back almost to the point of breaking it. Shock caused me to lose my voice, and for a minute I actually thought he might come over the seat and attack me. I forced my arm to go limp. Fighting with him now was only going to make this worse. Jasper was running on pure survival instinct, and I didn't want to do anything to incite him. Stay cool, Edward, calm and collected. "Jasper, it's me."

My voice seemed to break through to him, and he released me immediately. "I'm sorry."

"S'okay." I rubbed at my wrist; wincing at the finger shaped bruises I could already see forming. "Do you want to come up front?"

His eyes narrowed for a second before he nodded and got out of the car. I knew what that look meant. It meant that Jasper didn't trust me, that he thought he was in trouble. Even now, he didn't trust us, didn't trust that we lacked some ulterior motive for being nice to him. His foster mother must have terrorized him.

The passenger door opened and Jasper climbed in. He looked a little better than he had at the clinic, but not much. He always came home from these sessions pale and moody, and would either cling to Alice like a lost puppy or retreat to his room. He never looked unburdened or uplifted or any of the things you were supposed to look like after a long session of purging your demons.

Now that we were in the front seat together, I had no idea what to say to Jasper. He didn't seem to have anything to say to me, either, but Jasper was most comfortable in silence so he wasn't the slightest bit disturbed by this fact. I wanted to say something comforting, to let him know that I wasn't angry and that our family would stand behind him no matter what. But in the end, I said nothing. Jasper believed in actions, not words, and I had done nothing to earn his trust.

I turned the radio on in a desperate attempt to fill the silence. I had no clue what type of music Jasper liked, or really much of anything else about him, so I turned it to a classical station. By the time we made it to the house, Jasper was listening intently, staring at the speakers as if he could actually see the notes pouring out.

"That's Bach." My voice surprised both of us and successfully brought Jasper's attention back to me. His eyes asked me for clarification. "Cantata 105. It's one of his later works."

"I know this song. I don't remember where I first had it, but I know it." He looked into the distance, and I couldn't tell if he was pleased or disturbed by that fact. "Can you play it?"

For the first time, I felt like we were actually bonding. "Yes, would you like to hear?"

His troubled eyes met mine, clearly weighing his options. Finally, he must have decided it was worth the risk, because he nodded. "If you want." His tone tried to be casual, but something about it told me how very badly he wanted me to.

"Sure, I can do that." As strange and stilted as this conversation was, it was at least a real conversation, with some give and take involved. The composition ended, and I killed the engine. "We're home."

Rosalie greeted us at the door, something that irritated me. The community college was within blocks of the therapist's office, so she could have easily gotten Jasper herself. "I thought you had class."

She gave a disinterested shrug. "I did, until Dustin set the engine of his Coupe on fire and we got dismissed early." Her voice was the same as it always was when she spoke to me: haughty, as if I were the worst sort of inconvenience.

"I'm sorry, Jasper. If I had known I would be getting out early, I would have come and gotten you." Translation: Edward is an idiot who absolutely cannot be trusted to do anything right.

Jasper must have sensed my growing anger, because he gave her an uneasy smile. "It's all right. If I had known I was going to be done so early, I would have made other arrangements. Do you need any help with dinner?" He rubbed at his eyes again, obviously worried.

I wasn't about to let Jasper become a tug toy in the middle of the never-ending battle between Rose and me. He was so anxious already that I could easily picture him having some sort of nervous breakdown, even before this whole trial thing started. So as soon as she shook her head, I gave him a nudge towards the stairs. "Do you want to go now?"

He would understand what I meant, I was sure of it. Jasper had a very one-track, very focused mind, and he had probably thought of nothing else since I had agreed to play for him.

"Sure enough, he nodded in recognition. "Yeah."

I very seldom had visitors in my room, but luckily it was still clean from Bella's visit. Jasper didn't sit on the bed or futon; instead he stood stiffly by the piano. He was here on a mission, not for a social visit. "Like I said, this is Cantata 105."

For a horrible minute, I thought I wasn't going to be able to play at all, that Jasper's presence would get me so stressed that I would choke and miss the notes. Then the moment passed, and I was playing smoothly. I had learned this particular piece years ago, and was thus able to watch Jasper instead of a musical score. He didn't move, didn't blink, just watched my hands as I played.

It was eerie to sit like this, the setting sun the only light. Jasper gave off a strange sense of nothingness, as though his body were only a paper cutout, and would disintegrate as soon as I was done playing. I wondered where he was mentally right now, but I just kept playing. A soft smile played around the corners of his mouth, making him look not happy, exactly, but at least content.

I let the last notes die out slowly, my fingers still pressing down the keys. Once the last tones had faded, our eyes met. "My mom used to play that song. Not as fancy as you do it, but she would play it at night."

I strained to remember the last time Jasper could have seen his mother. She had died back in 1998, and I knew he had been in foster care for a while before that. I also knew that she had been a good mother to Jasper while she was able to be. Dad had been a little vague about what had actually happened to her, just saying that she hadn't been able to take care of him. Us kids had discussed it to death among ourselves, and concluded that she had gone crazy, but I would never bring that up in front of Jasper. "Do you remember her at all?"

"Not really. I was only five when Social Services came. I've seen pictures, though, and I look a lot like her."

I wasn't trying to be mean, or push him too far. I couldn't remember either of my birth parents, something that made me a bit of an oddity among the Cullen kids. As far as I was concerned, Carlisle and Esme were my real parents, but I couldn't help but be curious about Elizabeth and especially Edward Senior, for whom I had been named. In that way, Jasper and I were very much alike. We had both been wanted, loved, and nurtured through our first few years. I had just been luckier than him when I entered the system.

"Could you teach me how to play that? By my birthday, I mean."

He sounded so hopeful that I didn't have the heart to tell him no, even though it was an extremely difficult piece and I had never taught anyone before. "Maybe. There are things you have to know first though, the keys and how to read music — "

"I can read music!" The fact that he had been brave enough to interrupt me was a pretty clear indication of how badly he wanted to hang on to this memory of his mother. "I used to play guitar."

"How come you stopped?" It would be nice to have someone else in the family who appreciated music.

Jasper immediately turned cagey. "Oh, you know, the guitar I had was really old, and it got broken. By then I had a lot more responsibility with the little kids and I just never scraped up the money to have it fixed."

I wondered if that guitar had had a little help breaking, possibly from an enraged foster mother. I knew that if I asked, though, all I would get would be evasion and lies. "Well, if you can already read music, it helps a lot. It's a really hard piece, though, and I don't know if you can learn it in just a few weeks. But we can try. Even if you don't get it by your birthday, it shouldn't be too long after. Any particular reason why you have to know it by then?"

He gave me a tentative smile. "I guess not, if you're willing to keep helping me afterwards."

It was then that the penny dropped for me. Jasper wanted to be sure he learned the song, because he still didn't believe he had a chance of staying here once we were no longer legally responsible for him. "Sure, I'll help you for as long as you need it."

Considering how motivated he was, it shouldn't take long. I hoped he could hear the undercurrent in my words, the one that suggested I would help with more than music, if only he would ask me.

Whether he did or not, Jasper remained as mysterious as the Mona Lisa, unwilling to give up his secrets. "Good."

Anything else he might have wanted to say was cut off by Mom calling up the stairs. "Edward, dinner! Do you have Jasper up there with you?" At my affirmative, she called again. "Jasper, time to eat!"

As we walked down the stairs together, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of hope. Slowly but surely, Jasper was coming out of his shell. We had actually had a real conversation, and that meant a lot. Plus, he had given me a good suggestion about what to get him for his birthday.

Just before we got to the kitchen, he met my eyes. "Thanks, Edward."

"You're welcome."