This one is really long, so does it make up for the wait? I like Carlisle's POV.

Carlisle

This was going to be a great party. It would be a small one, with just the immediate family and Bella, but that was all right with Alice. The entire dining room was decorated in silver and blue, her favorite colors, with streamers and balloons hanging everywhere. Jasper and Esme had done a wonderful job planning while the rest of us were busy at work and school.

Speaking of Jasper, where had he vanished to? I could have sworn he was at my side just a few minutes ago, but when I tried to say something to him, he was gone. His behavior for the past day or so had been odd, and I kind of wanted to keep him close.

"Jasper? Will you come back in here and help me hang the banner?" I tried not to shout, since Esme was upstairs resting, but made sure I was loud enough that he could hear me in the next room.

He appeared almost instantly. "Sure."

It all seemed very normal, except it wasn't. He was just . . . lifeless. Even when Jasper was at his most withdrawn, there was still a spark there, a tiny ember that could be revved up into a burning fire. Now there was nothing. "Are you feeling all right? You're very quiet."

"Yeah, I'm fine." No enthusiasm in his voice. I put a hand on his forehead, but he wasn't running a fever. "I'm just kind of tired, that's all."

That surprised me, since he was doing much better with his night disturbances, even well enough that he was back to sleeping in his own room. Maybe he was back to having nightmares, just not the sort that woke the rest of us up. "Did you sleep poorly last night?"

He shrugged. "I guess. I don't remember waking up, but I don't feel like I slept well. I have kind of a . . ." He trailed of, gesturing vaguely around his face.

"Headache?" I cursed myself as soon as I opened my mouth. I was always after the rest of the kids not to put words in Jasper's mouth, and here I was doing exactly that.

"No, not really. It's more of a . . . pressure? Not really that, either. Just a sort of fullness. It doesn't hurt, but it's a little uncomfortable. I'm okay, though. It's probably just a bad night's sleep."

Maybe that was all it was. After all, he had been almost as excited as Alice about this party, which we had been planning for weeks. Edward had taken him shopping for a gift, an excursion filled with enough secrecy and snickering (I had been informed rather forcefully that boys did not giggle) to rival any girls' day out. I still hadn't seen the present, which he insisted was a surprise, but knowing Jasper, it was something Alice would love.

Or I guessed it could be allergies. There were none listed in his file, but minor seasonal allergies weren't something most people thought to list. More likely, someone had just given him a Benadryl and called it a day. Either way, it wasn't something to worry about unless he got worse.

"Okay, you stand on the back of the couch, and I'll take the chair."

He leapt up without the slightest hesitation or stumbling. It was amazing to see the transformation that had happened in just two months. He still limped a bit, worse when he was tired, but he was at least ninety percent improved. I gave the credit for that to his brothers, who didn't even realize they were doing it. They just included Jasper in everything they did, whether it was baseball or soccer, or just running around in the woods. If he really needed help, one of them would give it, but only after he had tried for himself. Because it was coming from his contemporaries, not some adult whom he didn't trust, he went along with their suggestions and wasn't afraid to try and fail. Sure, they might rag him about it later, but it was all in good fun, and he knew it.

"Carlisle? The tack?" He had one hand extended for it, and I hurried to hand it over. "Is it straight?"

I told him it was, and he carefully took my extended hand to help himself down. His grip in mine was sure, and he allowed me to take part of his weight as he came down. He didn't meet my eyes, but then, he seldom did lately. That was new. Usually when he took my hand, he would allow me to guide him, but he remained entirely contained and untrusting, never letting us support any of his weight. Every day now he was showing us some new behavior, something that gave Esme and me hope.

"It looks good, right? You think she'll like it?" He was studying the banner with a critical eye, his head cocked to the side.

"It looks fantastic. I had no idea you were artistic." It had come as a surprise to all of us when Jasper had brought the banner down last night, lavishly decorated. Colorful, fancy letters spelled out the words "HAPPY 17th BIRTHDAY ALICE!" each one hand-drawn with excessive care. Surrounding the letters were tiny pictures, each one skillfully rendered. The Cheshire cat lounged on the cross of the H, while a white rabbit peeked out from around the '1', his watch clutched worriedly in one small paw. The detail in each drawing was amazing, pulling you right into the scene.

He flushed, still unsure of how to take my compliments. "Yeah, I like to draw."

Now was the time to back off a little, before I overwhelmed him. "It's very nice, and she'll love it."

He gave me a tiny smile, but didn't take his eyes off mine. He seemed to be waiting for something, and I cast about desperately, trying to think of something else he might need. He was showing more and more interest in me, and wanting to do more father-son activities again, and I desperately wanted to encourage him. I had paperwork to do for work, but it would be there later. Jasper might not be. "Do you want me to help check over your homework?"

"I guess. I'll go get it."

Jasper had made the unfortunate mistake of whining about how bored he was last week. In my opinion, if he was bored, he needed something to occupy his time, so I had arranged for the tutor to start coming now, as opposed to at the beginning of the summer. He had accepted it with good grace, and was doing fairly well. Right at the moment, he was reading Hamlet, and suffering his way through Algebra II.

He was a good reader, and seemed to sympathize with Hamlet's plight. I loved Shakespeare, especially his tragedies, and enjoyed hearing someone else's interpretation of his work. Jasper was quite intelligent, and once he determined that I really did want to hear his opinion, he could lay out a logical argument and defend his points well. I was coming to like this side of Jasper, the interesting, sweet side that had been repressed for way too long.

Math, on the other hand, was a bit of a challenge. That had actually come as a surprise, despite the grades faxed over from his previous school. Jasper was such a logical, pragmatic person that I expected math would be a strong point for him. The answers were concrete and unchanging, and you always got them the same way. That should have come as a comfort to someone who had been yanked around as much as Jasper had.

Should have, but didn't. He struggled with math, and struggled hard. He had been frustrated to the point of throwing things on several occasions, and given up entirely on others. No matter how gently you tried to correct him or offer help, he just wasn't prepared to accept it. Even the smallest mistake could send him into a sulk that lasted a day or more.

Alice had done her best with him, even though she was still in Geometry and couldn't do much but try and calm him down. She would never betray anything Jasper confessed to her, but she made a few oblique comments that made me think that someone, at some point, had either said or done something to him because of his grades, and it had traumatized him. She never said what happened, and certainly didn't name names, but I wasn't stupid. Was Jasper never going to be free of what Maria had done to him?

I recognized Jasper's tread in the hall by the slight hesitation on every other step. He walked fine when he wasn't thinking about it, but once he got a little self-conscious, he would have done Igor proud. He crept inside the room, holding a short stack of papers and his math textbook. "I'm done with English, and most of the way done with math."

I looked over the outline for his essay on Hamlet's tragic flaw. To my utter shock, he had chosen Hamlet's inability to trust others over the more obvious choices of pride or mental instability. "Really? Give me your logic."

I had told him over and over that no answer was wrong, provided he could back it up with textual support. Jasper had taken that almost as a challenge, trying to find the most off the wall theory he could, then twist the text to support it. He's gotten kind of sassy, though in his own quiet way.

His grin made me think he had chosen this topic exactly so we could have this discussion. That was his other new behavior. He liked having my attention, but he was still a little too unsure to flat out ask me to do something with him. So he went the long way around and chose a topic like this, or came to me with a medical question that had nothing to do with him and his various diagnoses. "Well, Hamlet doesn't seem to trust anyone's opinion but his own. He hears there's a ghost, from his best friends no less, and he's not satisfied until he's checked it out for himself. Ophelia tries to set him straight, and he doesn't believe her, either. Everyone who tries to help him, he just pushes them away."

I could have gotten all this from his outline, but I loved watching him when he was passionate about something. His eyes lit up, and he lost that habitually nervous look he seemed to carry all the time. He stood up straighter and looked like he was in control of everything. If I could get that side of him to become dominant, he would be able to do anything in this world. I decided to give him a nudge. "Is that Hamlet being untrusting, or Hamlet being too full of pride? No one does it better than Hamlet sounds more like hubris to me."

He didn't miss a beat, something else that I was enjoying. At any other time, he would have backed down and agreed with me any time I challenged him. "No. If Hamlet was that arrogant, he wouldn't question himself. He would just think that everything he did or thought was perfect. Plus, arrogant people don't commit suicide. At least not alone. If they plan on killing themselves, they take someone else with them."

I tried to steer the conversation back to less morbid ground. "Do you think Hamlet committed suicide? I thought it was more of a last stand."

"Of course he did. He broke into the castle, armed to the teeth, and charged the king. When you do something like that, even to avenge someone, it's suicide. He had to know he would die going in."

I had to concede the point. "I hadn't looked at it like that, but I can see what you mean. Just make sure you put your definition of suicide in, just so you're clear to the reader. I think you have a good outline here, and an interesting idea. Now let's see your math."

He was a little more hesitant here. With a steadying breath, he opened his textbook and held out a piece of paper. It had been folded and reopened a bunch of times; I could see smears all over it where he had erased things over and over. "Uh, I tried really hard."

"That's all I can ask for." I looked over the paper, even though I had no idea what he was doing. I vaguely remembered taking Algebra II myself, but I was pretty sure that I hadn't used any of this stuff since high school. I wasn't about to tell Jasper that, though. If he found out he would never need to use it, he wouldn't put forth any effort to learn it. "How long did this take you?" I had strict rules about no more than two hours of homework a night. Any more than that and it just wasn't fair on the kid.

"Hour and a half. Mostly on the math though; the English was easy." He smiled a little. "Do you need anything else?"

"No, you can go on. Ask Rosalie to help you with your Algebra. She's always gotten straight A's in math." I didn't want him to feel pushed out, but he was clearly getting eager to leave.

"Okay." He stopped for a minute in the doorway, seeming to work up his courage. "If I, uh, need help with my essay later, will you help me?"

Tears actually formed in my eyes at his whispered question. Finally, finally, he was asking me for something. Not just an object, but for my time and attention. He was actually choosing to spend time with me. "Of course."

"Good." There was that quirky little smile again, the one that showed a flash of his dimples. "I have to go get ready for the party."

In other words, he was going to go take a shower and fuss with his hair for an hour. He had actually gotten in cut last week, much to my unending shock. His hair had been too long since he had arrived at our house, but the thought of someone holding scissors behind his head had been too much for him, and he had nearly gotten sick with nerves every time I brought up a haircut.

In the end, I had let the subject drop. Hair was nothing for me to get bothered about, and there was no point in making Jasper upset. Then, one day last week, Alice had shown up with one of her fashion magazines, and pointed a male model out to Jasper. "He's so handsome. I'll bet you would look great with your hair cut like that." Then she had been off and chattering about something else, her mind working at a thousand miles an hour.

We had been at the salon the next day, making Jasper look like he did in her fantasy. No fuss, no getting sick and no trauma involved. He had simply made the decision to do it, so he did. I hoped that the experience would give him the confidence to face and take control of some of his other fears. He was tougher than he realized.

It wasn't until I sat back down that I realized he had left his homework on my desk. Instead of setting it aside and doing some paperwork, I picked up his outline and read over it again. I focused in on Hamlet's fatal flaw, his inability to trust. Was Jasper sending me a message here? Was this essay a warning that he was like Hamlet, unable to trust or bond in any real way with us? Or was he telling me that he had been like Hamlet, but he wanted to try and trust us, to avoid the prince's fate? Or was he just doing his homework? Maybe I needed to stop thinking so much.

Trying to figure out how to bond with Jasper, or really any child, was probably the most difficult part of fostering. When you had been abused by some adults, abandoned by others, it was hard to open up to a foster parent. No matter how hard we tried, most of the children were temporary placements, and they knew it. Why bother bonding with us at all, when they would be moving on in a matter of weeks or months?

Jasper was more difficult than most. This had as much to do with his age as with his experiences. As a late teenager, his mind and body were getting ready to move beyond a mother, father, and siblings. It was almost time for him to start thinking about having a family of his own. To suddenly get a new pair of parents was confusing for him. I couldn't expect him to figure out in just a few months what he had never had in a lifetime. All I could do was lay a foundation, and hope that he would stick around once he turned eighteen.

The abuse he had suffered didn't help matters in the slightest. He had been lacking in normal relationships with adults for at least five years, maybe longer than that. He could spend hours watching the rest of the kids, noting the way they interacted with us and their lack of fear, but that didn't mean much to him. He could logically understand how a family ought to function, but he was still incapable of putting that understanding into action. He was trying, though, and that was all I could ask.

I took the papers with me when I went to go check on Esme, leaving them on the hall table. Jasper wouldn't come into the office if I wasn't there, despite my telling him that he was welcome to borrow the computer in there if he needed it. He was the same way about bedrooms, and the second basement, which he seemed to perceive as belonging to Rosalie only. Respecting other people's personal spaces was a big deal to Jasper, though he didn't really seem to expect his to be respected in turn.

Esme was awake when I peeked in, but not moving. There was only one reason she would be lying in bed on a day this important: she couldn't get up. I felt like crying. Here I was, a strong doctor, head of surgery, and I couldn't even help my own wife. "Esme . . ." I trailed off there, because, really? What was there left to say?

As always, she tried to hide just how poorly she was feeling. "Hey, baby. Is everything ready for the party?"

The fact that she had left Jasper and I to do the setup, not even coming down to supervise, should have told me right away that something was wrong. Esme was a perfect decorator, finding the correct spots for everything, right down to the last silver balloon. I held my voice steady, knowing that pity was the last thing she wanted. "Yes. You should see the banner that Jasper made. It's gorgeous, an Alice in Wonderland theme. We got the balloons blown up and pretty much covered the floor with them. Can I get you anything?"

What I really wanted to do was rush over there and gather her into my arms, to cry and rage about all the things that we couldn't change, but I didn't. Part of our unspoken agreement was that we would treat this like any other illness, like a temporary thing. Maybe it was unhealthy, but it worked for us. To draw attention to the fact that she might never be able to chase after her grandchildren seemed cruel.

"No, I've already taken what I need. Right now, I'm just going to rest for a while, so I can be at my best for the party. Can you ask Jasper to take care of the cake for me? It should be cooled right now, all he has to do is frost it. If he wants to do more, you know where the supplies are."

That cemented in my mind that things were bad. Esme always decorated the kids' cakes. They were a labor of love for her, each shaped perfectly for the theme of the party. In the past, there had been dog cakes with piped-on fur icing, an octopus cake for Emmett, whose sense of humor had always been strange, a castle cake when Rosalie wanted to be a princess, even a caterpillar one made up of a dozen cupcakes. For her to surrender this one (which was shaped like the Cheshire cat) to Jasper's inexpert hand showed a much greater level of exhaustion then I had seen before. "Are you sure?"

She frowned sadly. "I think it's for the best. Alice will understand, and no one has to know it was supposed to be the Cheshire cat. We can just pretend it's a normal cake, frosted like a white kitty."

None of the kids would be fooled, except maybe Jasper, but none of them would draw attention to it either. Esme was right; Alice would understand. They were all old enough to understand that there were limitations to what Esme could do, and those limits might increase over the years. "I'll go find him. Are you sure I can't do anything else?"

"No, but be sure to tell him think you." She accepted my kiss, and the unspoken apology that went with it. She knew that, deep down, I would never forgive myself for not being able to cure her, just like I knew that she would never forgive herself for allowing our biological baby to die. We both bore the ridiculous guilt for things we had no control over, things that no one was blaming us for but ourselves. With a heavy heart, I left her, looking for Jasper.

I found him sprawled out on the couch, a book in one hand and Alice's iPod in his ears. I made sure to come around in front of him, so he could see me, before I made any move to touch him or get his attention. Even with my precautions, he startled when I touched his book, his body going tense.

I hated to see him like that, but I also knew that I deserved it. We had taken a huge step backwards the day of the trial, when I had scared him into tears, and we were still trying to get back on totally level ground. Jasper didn't forgive easily, and he certainly never forgot. I was going to have to earn my way back into his good graces, something that might take a while. I tapped my ear and he responded by taking the ear buds out. "Yeah?"

"Esme wants to know if you'll frost the cake for her. She isn't feeling well today."

He stared. "Esme always frosts the cakes. Alice told me so."

"Yes, usually she does. But she wants to know if you'll do it today." I spoke slowly and deliberately. Sometimes Jasper will zone out and need to hear things more than once. Whether it was the result of small seizures, or just an intense focus on the book he had been reading, he didn't seem to do it on purpose, so there was no point in being upset.

"But Esme always does the cakes." His eyes dilated with nerves.

Something was going on here, something more than just cakes. "Yes, but she doesn't feel up to it today. What's worrying you?"

"I don't want Esme to be sick." He chewed on his thumbnail while he spoke. "She always does the cakes, always. Alice said to keep an eye out for the cake, because it would look just like a professional did it. If she's too sick to do them . . . I just don't want her to be sick."

Because this had all happened to him before. His mother stopped being able to do things she had previously loved. Then she stopped taking care of his needs. Finally, she had disappeared altogether. Consciously or not, Jasper was relating this back to his own mother and her illness. He was afraid that the pattern would repeat, and he would lose another person who was important to him. The question was, how could I bring this up to him? "Jasper, it's very nice that you're worried about Esme, but she's going to be fine. Sometimes her condition flares up a little, and when it does, it isn't fun for any of us. But if she rests, she should feel better in a day or so, all right? This doesn't mean that she's going to keep getting worse."

He shook his head, his face turned from mine. I couldn't tell if he was denying my words, or if he was responding to some private thought. That was another thing about Jasper: He had been isolated from proper human contact for so long that he had picked up some very strange habits. One of the odder ones was talking to himself, a continuous, quiet, monologue of everything that went through his head. This came complete with gestures, such as the head shaking or nodding, and, like many of Jasper's quirks, could be quite endearing once you got used to it.

I waited until he turned back to me. "Do you want to talk about this?"

This time the head shake was definitely directed at me. "I'll take care of the cake for her. Is there anything else I can do?"

He was completely transparent, but I let him get away with it. I knew that by trying to take care of the cake, and anything else that might possible help Esme, he was hoping that he could make her better. He felt like if he had done all the right things with his mom, she wouldn't have been so overwhelmed, and might have been able to hang on. He was trying desperately to break a pattern that didn't exist. "No, that's more than enough. Thank you, Jasper. I'm sure Esme is grateful also."

I led him into the kitchen, pointing out the frosting and showing him where the extra decorating supplies were. I made it clear that he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to, but I was pretty sure that he would want to. This was Alice, after all, the apparent love of his life. He would do anything to make her happy.

Jasper got to work right away, carefully arranging the different jars of sprinkles and edible glitter. His soft chattering started up again, and I knew I was a good as forgotten. I had to admit, I was more than a little curious about what he might be able to do, especially after seeing the banner he had made earlier, but I knew enough to know he wouldn't appreciate an audience. "I'm going to run out to the store. Do you want anything? Or would you like to go with me?"

"No, I need to get this done. Could you get some popcorn, though? All that's in the kitchen is that nasty kettle corn stuff."

"Of course." There didn't seem to be anything else for me to do, so I left him there among the icing. The entire ride to the store, I turned Jasper's words over and over in my mind. He was afraid he was going to lose us. No, scratch that, he was afraid he was going to lose Esme. I fell quite a bit lower down on his scale of affections at the moment. Probably somewhere between Bella and Edward. He liked me, but in a cautious way. He had been more giving before the trial, but I guessed I understood why he acted the way he did now.

I kept thinking as I chose four flavors of ice cream and some extra soda for tonight. It really wasn't long before his birthday now, a matter of weeks as opposed to months. Even now, I had no idea how he was going to react when it happened. Legally, he could walk out of our house a free man, and I could do nothing to stop him. He could vanish right off the face of the earth, and I would never know if he was all right. Was he hungry? Afraid? Doing drugs or selling himself?

I didn't think he would go to those extremes. At the very least, he would stick around for Alice. Whether or not he would be living with us, he would be close, just so he could be near her. There was quite a bit of money in the account I had set up for him, so it was unlikely that he would end up on the streets.

At least, not due to lack of money. Unfortunately, Jasper was still showing signs of emotional trauma, and that would hamper him far more than money issues ever would. He was wary of strangers at best, downright rude at worst. He had made huge strides since arriving at our house, but it wasn't enough for me to consider him capable of living on his own. Even though those of us who lived with him saw improvement, anyone outside of the family would still see a freak. It hurt me to ever think of him using that term, but I knew that other people wouldn't be as understanding as we were. Anyway, he had just found a loving, supportive family, and I was in no hurry to push him back out of it.

I was nearly to the checkout before I remembered the popcorn, and hurried back to find the brand he liked. It was a little thing, but I was still trying to apologize to him for my terrible behavior a week and a half ago. Yes, I had been afraid and trying to protect my family, but that was no reason to intimidate a child who had already been through far too much in one day.

The kitchen was empty when I got home: no Jasper, no cake. The only sign that either had ever been there was a few scattered sprinkles. That was odd; I would have expected him to leave the cake on the counter. Maybe he had taken it to the living room, where the rest of the party stuff was. Nothing. "Jasper?" He didn't respond to being called, either.

Maybe he was up in his room, though that didn't explain the disappearance of the cake. Still, it was as good a place to start as any, so I went upstairs to check. I never even made it to his room, however, because I clearly heard him in my own bedroom. He spoke, the words indistinct, then laughed.

My hand hesitated at the half-closed door. It was my room, but I still felt like something private was going on in there. I knocked lightly, and immediately heard two voices. "Come in!"

The pair of them were on the bed together, Esme propped against the headboard, and Jasper sitting next to her. He had brought up the card table from the basement, and laid it, the legs still folded up, over my wife's lap. Jasper had carefully balanced both the cake and the decorating utensils on the little table. What had been a vaguely cat-shaped cake an hour ago was now a work of art.

The cake had been frosted white, but one of them had used the red sugar sprinkles to create a bright tabby pattern, the contrast startling. The eyes were golden glitter, and the grin hysterical and mocking. It might have been the best cake Esme had ever created. "We're all mad here. Esme, this is beautiful, you outdid yourself."

She smiled. "Sorry, babe. Credit goes to Jasper this time. He did all of the actual decorating."

Jasper cringed down under my sudden scrutiny. "Not really. Esme showed me what to do and how to use all the different stuff. I just did what she told me to."

Behind him, Esme was shaking her head, but her eyes told me not to push the issue. "It looks wonderful. Jasper, even if you just followed directions, it's better than I could have done. I'm not even allowed to frost them anymore, not after I tore up one of Edward's cakes. I didn't realize you had to wait until it was cool before you frosted it."

He smiled at me then, the first real smile I had seen since the trial. "Will you carry it down? I'm afraid I'll drop it."

Now was not the time to point out that he had carried it up here with no problem. Esme smiled at us both. "I'm going to take a shower and get ready; the rest of the kids should be home any minute."

I set the card table and decorating supplies on the floor by the bed. I could get them later. The cake was the important thing. Jasper was in front of me, which made it easy to see him stumble badly into the doorframe.

It really shouldn't have been that big a deal. He had stepped poorly on his right foot, and the lingering weakness there had thrown him off balance. He picked himself back up immediately, continuing on down to the kitchen, and seemed just fine. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but it was. Jasper had adapted to his limp extremely well, and it had been weeks since I had seen him stumble like that. Alarm bells rang louder in my head. Something was wrong with him, and I had no idea what. "Honey, are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"No. I don't know what's wrong. I don't feel sick, I just don't feel right." He laid his head on the table. "It's like . . . I don't know."

More than ever, I wished I had the answers for him. That anyone did. "Why don't you go rest for a little while? You've already done far more than you needed to, and you're obviously tired. Maybe all you need is a nap."

He shook his head. "No, it's not that. Maybe you could . . ." He trailed off there, unable to force himself to finish the sentence. He just looked hopelessly at me.

"Maybe I could what?" Anything he asked for right now, I would give him. Food? Drink? Some affection? All he had to do was speak the words.

But even with my prompt, he couldn't do it. "Nothing."

I left him then, giving in to his obvious wish to be alone. He retreated back to the couch, picking up his abandoned book and staring at it. I noticed that he chose a chair facing the front yard, so he could see the rest of the kids (Alice especially, I'm sure) as soon as they pulled up.

There wasn't much left for me to do, so I went back upstairs instead. Jasper needed me, but he refused to accept that fact. Esme also needed me, and she would allow me to comfort her. As much as it bothered me to abandon a child in need, I needed to do what I could.

Esme was up and waiting for me, already dressed for the party. I kissed her neck. "That was a good idea, having Jasper bring the cake up here."

"Oh, that wasn't my idea. He just showed up, dragging that card table with him." She frowned. "Do you think he's all right?"

So I wasn't imagining things. "You saw that too, huh?"

"Yeah, he's acting very strange. It was like he wanted me to touch him, but then he didn't. He's anxious as heck, and I can't figure out why. Do you think he's upset about this party, because it's getting so close to his own birthday? He has to be worried, no matter what we tell him."

"Maybe." I wasn't too sure about that. I knew he had to be worried about his upcoming birthday, but I couldn't help but feel there was more to it. He was just so distant, even more so than usual. "I've been watching him."

She looked at me for a long minute. "Keep watching, Carlisle. This is the calm before the storm, and it's going to be a hurricane."

It never failed to surprise me when Esme put my thoughts into words like that. Her theory did make sense. Jasper was worrying over something in his own mind, and he wasn't going to share it with the rest of us until he was good and ready. Still, the thought of him suffering in silence put a knot in my stomach. "Well, we got almost an entire two months before he flipped out, so that's better than Rose or Alice." I tried to have a sense of humor about this now, because there was going to be nothing funny about any of it when he finally blew.

"All we can do is pick up the pieces afterwards and try and put him back together. No use in worrying about it right now. Right now, we have a party to celebrate and Alice to focus on."

That was true. It was so easy to get caught up in Jasper and his needs that we sometimes forgot the others, and that they needed us just as much. "They should be home pretty soon. I'll start the grill."

We were going to be celebrating really early, but I had to be at work by eight and I didn't want to miss my Alice's party. I had made sure there was plenty of food, since Emmett could qualify as a professional eater, and Jasper wasn't far behind him. At least, he usually wasn't. His appetite had been a little off the past few days also. Not enough that it would have meant anything by itself, but added to everything else, I worried.

Jasper was in the kitchen when I got there, working busily in his notebook. The spiral-bound book had been Felix's idea, a place for Jasper to put down all of his thoughts without worry that any of us would bother it. Some days he would carry it all day long, making little notes and sketches, then I wouldn't see the thing again for weeks. Lately, it had been his constant companion. He didn't look up, but he did incline his head in my direction slightly, so he was aware of me.

"Do you want a hamburger or hot dogs?" I was less interested in his answer than I was in gauging how much attention he was paying.

"Hamburger." I should have guessed that he was hyper-aware of every move I made. "No, cheeseburger. Please." Even though he was responding to me, he never stopped writing.

"All right." As I was speaking, his head snapped up and he vaulted to his feet. He vanished so quickly it was as if he had never been there at all. I stood there for a few puzzled seconds, before I heard the engine of Emmett's Jeep. The kids were home.

Even though I knew it was wrong to spy, I couldn't help but peek out the window as they unloaded themselves from the vehicle. Alice leapt out, her backpack falling to the grass as she hurled herself into Jasper's waiting arms. He lifted her easily, laying his chin on top of her head. For a single second, he looked perfectly content, as if all was right in his world.

He wasn't nearly as affectionate with the rest of them, but he did speak. He even nodded at Bella, which was progress. She had been over to the house enough that he was used to her, and was almost always polite. Sometimes, he was downright friendly to her. I wasn't sure exactly what Edward had told her about Jasper, but she seemed to take his quirks in stride, never giving any indication that she finds him anything but normal. It seemed that Edward's worries about Jasper scaring her off had been entirely unfounded.

Alice managed to move around so that she was perched on Jasper's back, her arms secure around his neck. Her lips moved, and I could only assume she was telling him to giddy-up. He bounced her twice and started coming back towards the house. I smiled as I watched his head continue to nod as she spoke. I would have thought he was tuning her out, but the relationship was still new enough that he thought every word out of her lips was pure poetry.

As soon as she saw me, she vaulted off of his back and into my arms. I hugged her tight. "Happy Birthday, sweetie."

"Thank you. Are we going to start soon? Please, please can we start soon? I know it's early but we all skipped lunch so we could eat as a family. Then we can do cake and presents and sing, all right?"

It wasn't about the presents to her, though I was sure she was looking forward to them. It was more that Alice reveled in having us all together, and if there was cake involved, it might be her definition of a perfect day. "Sure. I have hamburgers and hot dogs, what does everyone want?"

The orders were shouted at me so quickly that I had trouble distinguishing one from the other. As near as I could tell, I needed to make eight hamburgers, not including Jasper's, and five hot dogs. Add in a few extras for Esme and me, and I could have been feeding a football team.

The conversation was light and fast-paced, mostly revolving around school. This teacher sucked, that teacher was easy. It was almost as if the adults in the room were invisible. Emmett was regaling Bella with the tale of the exploded lab table, making it sound much more dramatic than it really was. She was giggling, and things seemed to be going very well.

Which was why it was such a shock when things suddenly went very wrong. Jasper was standing up and holding his plate out for another hamburger when he accidentally let it dip too close to the candles I had set up. The paper caught fire, causing him to yelp and drop it to the table. I jumped to my feet reflexively, intending to check if he had been burned.

I never got the chance. Before my very eyes, Jasper changed into someone I didn't recognize. His pupils blew, turning his eyes from blue to black in less than a second. Without warning, he jumped to the side, slamming into Bella and sending them both crashing to the ground.

Everything started happening quickly then. Both Esme and Edward went for Bella, while Emmett and I lunged for Jasper. Rose took Alice, and tried to keep her out of the fray.

Both Jasper and Bella were struggling to get themselves untangled and bolt in opposite directions. They might have managed it, too, if Emmett hadn't reached out and grabbed hold of Jasper. At the realization that a stranger had grabbed him (and I didn't doubt that, right now, we were all strangers to Jasper), he lost it completely and started screaming hysterically.

It took both of us to wrestle him out of there and into the living room. Jasper was a skinny little thing, but muscular, and he had the strength that comes along utter desperation. It was easiest to just collapse into the big chair, pulling Jasper down with me. He didn't really fit in my lap, he was too long and too heavy, but I figured that this way I had the best chance of keeping a hold on him.

Emmett looked into my eyes for a second before nervously releasing his grip. Jasper still struggled, but he couldn't break my hold. Since I didn't think he could understand me, even if I did speak, I addressed Emmett. "I need you to get your mother and tell her to call Felix now. Then keep everyone else under control and out of this room, understand? You're the oldest one here, and I need your help."

He must have understood the seriousness of what was happening, because he nodded tersely and left the room. I started to turn my attention back to Jasper, only to have pain explode in my chest as he head-butted me. I managed to twist so the second smack hit my shoulder instead, as did the third and fourth.

Logically, I knew there was nothing personal in the attack. Jasper didn't see me as his foster father, or even as a person. I was just an object right now, something to vent his terror on before he exploded. If I hadn't been holding him, he would have just as easily slammed into the wall or floor. At the moment, physical pain meant nothing to him. He was too busy suffering mentally.

When he paused to take a breath, I twisted him around so his shoulder was against my chest, and he couldn't get any power behind a fifth hit. Sweat made him hard to hold, but he seemed to have lost the will to fight free. This reality no longer existed for him.

At least until I tried to put an arm around him in a vain attempt to offer comfort. As soon as I touched his upper arm, his back arched up and he started screaming again. I dropped my hand instantly, my worry increasing. After he settled, I tried again, this time sliding my hand up his side and not touching his arm at all. He remained tense, but didn't scream again.

After a few minutes he started to tremble, then mutter, but I couldn't make sense of his words. I whispered to him, but he didn't react in the slightest. He seemed to have lost awareness of me again.

He wasn't totally out of it, though, because he started slamming into my shoulder again as soon as Esme tried to enter the room. He was in a world of fear right now, and unable to recognize her as anything but a threat. The blows didn't hurt, at least compared to before, but I saw tears forming in her eyes. "It's all right, just talk from where you are. I think he feels crowded."

The longing to touch Jasper, to comfort him in some small way was written all over her face, but she stayed in the doorway. "Felix said that we have to trust our instincts here. If we think he's dangerous or suicidal, to call 911 and have him committed."

Jasper continued to shiver, making low whimpering noises, but gave no indication that he understood her words. "I don't think he is."

She nodded. "He thinks Jasper might be having a flashback. He was fine until the fire jumped up at him, so that was probably the trigger. Felix said that we could try putting some ice on him or making loud noises, anything that might shock his body back to reality. If that doesn't work, to just wait and see if he comes out of it on his own. He thinks it's better for Jasper to stay here, where it's familiar and he feels safe, than to have to go to the hospital again. He did say if Jasper wasn't any better in the morning to take him to the hospital. Do you think I should get some ice? It sounds kind of cruel."

From where she was standing, she couldn't really see him shake or hear his cries, otherwise she would have found it far more cruel to leave him like he was. "Why don't you get some ice?"

Normally we would have discussed this together, but this was a crisis, and I needed to make a fast choice. "Just put it in a baggie and toss it over, all right? I don't want to get him all upset again."

She nodded and left. "Well, Jasper, you certainly know how to make life interesting." His hair was matted with sweat and hanging in his eyes, so I brushed it away. His eyes were half open and looking right into mine, though there was no connection between us. The dead doll stare was enough to make me wish I had never touched him at all.

"Here." Esme tossed the baggie at me. I missed the catch and it hit the back of the chair, close to Jasper's left ear. He didn't jump or acknowledge it at all. "Edward took Bella home. I'm going to leave you two alone and deal with the other kids."

I wished that it was her with Jasper right now instead of me. Not because I was eager to get rid of him, but because he loved and trusted her more. I couldn't imagine what it was like to suffer the way he was suffering, and not have a single person around that you trusted. I put the baggie against the back of his neck. "Come on now, wake up for me."

He didn't. At least not totally. Both the muttering and shaking ceased, but he showed no further signs of awareness. His only movements were slow blinks, as his eyes continued to stare vacantly. Unable to bear that strange gaze, I shifted him against me, tucking his head underneath my chin. "It's okay, Jasper. No one's mad at you, and I'll stay here as long as you like."

Esme reappeared only long enough to tell me that she had called the hospital and told them I wouldn't be coming in. Jasper didn't react to her this time, but she still kept her distance. None of the rest of them came in; Esme must have warned them to stay out.

Time passed, and it got dark outside. The only light in the room came from a lamp on the opposite side of the room, casting the pair of us into a gloomy half-dark. I kept on talking, telling him anything I could think of to try and get through to him. There was a red spot on the back of his neck, from where I had been holding the ice, and I focused on it, just so I wouldn't have to look at the rest of him.

After what felt like an eternity, I felt his icy fingers at my neck. Ever so softly, he curled them around the collar of my T-shirt. He didn't look up, didn't speak, and didn't otherwise move, just held on. Jasper was back.

I didn't want to spook him, so I never paused in my telling him about meeting Esme. When I was done, I looked down at him. I could see an angry-looking mark on the side of his hand. He had been burned after all.

Slowly, I slipped my hand under his and raised it up off my chest. His grip on my fingers was no tighter then it had been on my shirt, just tight enough to hold on. He allowed me to raise his hand to my face and look closely. "Oh, honey, why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"

Sure, when did you think he was going to do that? In between the screaming fit and shutting down, perhaps? I hadn't been expecting a reply, so I was surprised when he whispered "I didn't know."

"Why don't you let me take care of that? It must hurt." I started to ease him off of my lap, so I could stand up and get some burn cream and fresh ice, but he refused to move. His hand returned to its original spot against my neck and he held on tightly. I hastened to reassure him. "It's all right, I won't move if you don't want me to. Would it be all right if Esme came in and helped out?"

He nodded once against my chest, though I could tell he didn't really like the idea. His back was against my chest again, and I could feel his heartbeat grow faster. "Esme? Esme?" She didn't reply, so I reached for my cell phone. She picked up on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's me. Listen, Jasper's hand is burned, but not badly. Could you get the cream out of the bathroom, and some more ice? Come on in, he says it's fine."

She must have run, because she was there in less than two minutes. Jasper turned his face away from her, but he didn't tense. Esme took his hand. "Let me see."

I got nervous when she touched him, waiting for him to freak out again, but he didn't. She treated him quickly, her hand lingering in his. "There you go, all fixed up. Here's some aspirin for the pain."

I hadn't thought of that. For the first time since she came in the room, Jasper looked at her. He treated her to a quick smile, one that caused her to squeeze his uninjured hand. "How are you feeling?"

He shrugged. "Okay. My head kind of hurts, though." His voice was slurred and defeated.

That didn't come as any surprise. "The aspirin should help with that, too. Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"NO!" His voice was unexpectedly loud, causing us all to jump, but there wasn't much power behind it. He was totally hoarse, no doubt from all the screaming he had done earlier. Once the word was out, he cringed back against my shoulder.

"Okay, okay. You don't have to say anything. I just thought you might want to. You can go on up to bed if you want, or you can stay here with me, your choice."

Abruptly, he seemed to register the position that he was in and squirmed to get free. I held up both arms, releasing him to stumble to his feet. Even though I had expected that reaction, and was actually surprised he had let me hold him as long as he had, I still felt a tinge of disappointment. I wanted him to be comfortable with being held, I really did.

He wavered a bit on his feet, and for the first time since this started I got a clear look at his face. It was tired, but totally dry. Had I not seen him cry the day of the trial, I might have thought him incapable of actually producing tears. He shuffled nervously from side to side before giving us the most pathetic look I had ever seen. "Uh, I don't want you guys to be mad or anything, but . . . would it be okay if I slept in Emmett's room again tonight? Please?"

We exchanged puzzled looks. "You can sleep wherever you want to, Jasper. Why do you think we would be mad?"

The carpet must have been rather intriguing tonight, because he couldn't seem to take his eyes off of it. "I just thought that, well, you two were so happy when I went back in my own room, that maybe you wanted me to stay there this time. You fixed it up really nice, and all I'm doing is taking over Emmett's floor."

I had to handle this rather delicately, as Jasper tended to have a bad issue with twisting Esme's and my words around. "I was happy when you started sleeping in your own room again because I thought that meant you were sleeping better overall, and you didn't need Emmett around for comfort. I want you to be getting a good night's sleep, whether it's in your room, his room or the living room. As long as you're okay with it, and he's okay with it, I don't care if you sleep on his floor until both of you go to college."

That earned me a wobbly smile. Looking at it, I wondered just how well he had been doing in his own room after all. I had assumed that no news was good news, and that he would tell me if he was having troubles, but he hadn't. His relief at being allowed back into Emmett's room was almost palpable. "Thank you."

I didn't want to say the next part and risk destroying the moment, but I didn't want him to feel betrayed later, either. "I want you to know that you have an appointment at nine tomorrow to see Felix. You don't have to talk to us about what happened tonight, but you do need to talk to someone."

He was very quiet as he digested this information. "I want to. Tell you. But I can't. I can't. I'm trying." The words came out in staccato jerks. "I can't. You'll . . . I can't."

After the scene earlier, I didn't want to do anything to upset him. "It's fine. You'll be able to do it when the time is right and there's no sense in pushing if it isn't. You can go on upstairs and I'll see you in the morning." I tried to stop the last part from coming out, but found myself unable to. "I love you."

His eyes took on a strange green shade in response to my words, but he was unable to reply. His lips moved, forming words that I couldn't understand, and he took a few steps backwards. Then he turned and fled up the stairs.

We both listened as he thumped up the stairs, his steps growing fainter and fainter. Once she was sure that he couldn't double back and hear her, Esme turned to me. "Carlisle, what just happened?"

What had just happened was that Jasper had proved himself to be more disturbed then I had previously believed. "Felix will be able to tell us more in the morning. Maybe I should call Eleazar. Didn't he have that kid who had flashbacks? Greg or Gary or something?"

"Garrett, and you're right. I'll bet he'll know what to do." She didn't seem particularly happy about it. Instead she looked as sad as I had ever seen her.

I didn't want to ask, but I had no choice. "Esme, are you still sure about him? His problems are more than we thought they were." It would kill me to give Jasper up now, but I wasn't going to sacrifice the rest of the family for him, either.

"Of course I am. If he needed us before, he needs us even more now. I can't give up on him, Carlisle, not yet."

That, of course, was the crux of the matter. Despite the appearance of new quirks and problems, Jasper really was trying. He wanted to get better, and most days I felt like he wanted to be part of this family. Maybe not a full part, but he seemed reasonably content here.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't want to let him go, either. Better or worse, he's ours now. We'll call Eleazar first thing in the morning, then we'll figure out how to get through this together."

All the rest of the night, I kept returning to the barely-there feeling of Jasper's fingers curling around my shirt. No matter what he might claim, clearly some part of him found me comforting, and desired my company. He was placing his trust in me, and I somehow had to come through for him.

Even though my father had been a preacher, it had been a long time since I had seriously prayed for anything. I had just seen too much of the horrors that people could commit on the smallest and most vulnerable of us, and it had jaded me. But I needed help now, even if it was just to cast the words into void.

Please, God, please help me with Jasper. Please show me what to do for him, and make me strong enough for both of us. Please give me a chance to save this one. I'll go to the ends of the earth for him, if you'll just help a little. Give him the strength to face whatever is coming and survive it. Please God, make me strong enough to help this one heal. Amen.