Jasper's POV

The house had been eerily quiet ever since Edward and Bella left. Their argument consisted of hushed words, but each syllable reverberated throughout the house as if they shouted them. The carrousel of their emotions finally stopped, but I could still feel them; they were overpowering – their anger, despair, self-loathing, and the one that lingered behind everything: their love. I allowed the emotions to wash over me until they became faint; their intensity muted by their distance. There was a knock at the door for the second time that day – this knock soft and hesitant like the emotions she brought with her.

"Come in," I called. I was still lying on the bed, in the exact position Bella left me in, my forgotten book by my side. I no longer pretended to read it, instead I replayed the memory of kissing Bella, touching Bella over and over again, bringing a new definition to the term masochist since she was surely making up with Edward right now.

Alice entered the room silently, a sad expression on her elfin face. "Hey Jazz," she said softly. "Are you alright?"

I chuckled for a second. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" I countered.

"You don't have to ask me; you already know," she stated. I nodded. It was true; I felt her emotions clearly since I had been connected to her for so many years.

"I think I will be," I murmured. It was a lie; I had no idea how I would be. If Bella chose to be with Edward, it would be devastating, but I would respect her decision, her wishes. My desire for her to be happy overshadowed my desire for my own happiness.

"Edward will be back any minute," she started, speaking quickly. "I don't know exactly what was said between the two of them – it's none of my business – but she's not doing well, Jazz. She's my best friend, and I can't stand to see her like that. I can't stand to see her so helpless. If you don't go to her, it's going to be terrible."

I picked up the book next to me and flipped through it mindlessly. It was one of Bella's favorite books – Wuthering Heights. It was supposed to be a love story, and I suppose maybe it was – through some stretch of the imagination. "She won't want me to go to her," I said finally. "I am the one who insisted she talk to him."

Alice shook her head vehemently. "You may have wanted her to talk to him, but he made the decision hours ago – before she ever came to your room." The words sank in. Alice had seen what occurred between the two of us. I did not regret it – by any means – but still I felt guilty, felt troubled that I was hurting Alice.

"I'm sorry," I told her softly.

She smiled serenely. "I know you are. Everything will work out – eventually. Don't worry so much."

I nearly laughed. As if I could do anything but worry! The emotional hurricane I experienced in this house made doing anything but worrying impossible.

We heard the door open and slam shut a moment later as Edward entered the house and made his way through to his bed room. His emotions were ten-fold from earlier, the self-blame so thick I felt like I would be drowned in it. Alice rubbed my knee for a moment and stood up.

"I'll talk to him," she said with a sigh. "Not that it will work, that boy is too stubborn for his own good," she muttered.

I nodded. I attempted to send him some calm his way, but when he growled, I quickly cut it off. Perhaps it was better for him to feel that way if what Alice said was true. How many times would he throw away the love Bella offered to him so freely?

"Jasper," he growled menacingly.

Stay out of my head, Edward. I told him.

"Remember what I told you," she said before flitting out of the room.

I don't know how long I laid there contemplating whether or not I should go. I wanted to go, but what if she didn't want me? I wasn't sure I could handle the rejection. The murmur of voice downstairs soon became shouting. I tried to block out their words, but of course, I could hear them. Even if they had whispered them, I would have heard. Alice was angry that Edward had left Bella alone outside. She was a new vampire, anything could happen, but Edward knew Alice would see if anything was to happen. Emmett and Rosalie berated Edward for his selfishness, but he was not the only selfish one. Here I lay in bed instead of going to her!

The arguments were still going on when I emerged from my bedroom, tired of brooding. I was on the staircase when the door opened and she walked in. She was muddy and her clothing was ripped. Her normally smooth hair was tangled, and there was a deep sadness etched on her face. That sadness radiated through her entire body.

I heard Edward's breath catch in his throat as he saw her. "Oh Bella, what have I done?"

She walked past him as if he hadn't spoken to her at all, but I saw him flinch at her unspoken words. She turned to Alice, addressing her for the first time since the morning she awoke.

"Is there a guest room on the second floor? I don't want to be on the third floor any more," she said with a frown as she pulled at her dirty t-shirt.

Alice shook her head. "I'm sorry, Bella, but the only available rooms are on the third floor, but we will be leaving here in a few days."

A new wave of anguish flew off of her as she realized we were leaving. "Leaving?" she whispered. "Forks is my home. I don't want to leave it. Can I say goodbye at least? To Jacob? I know I can't talk to Charlie, but what about Jacob?"

Edward began to shake his head, but she cut him off. "I don't believe I asked for your opinion."

Edward sighed but remained quiet while Alice went into a vision. When it was over, she looked at Bella. "I can't see the werewolves. I don't know what they will do if they know of your change. Perhaps it's better if you don't, but I can't make that decision for you."

Bella surprised everyone when she pulled Alice in for a hug. "Thank you," she told her and left us all dumbfounded in the living room.

As soon as Bella was upstairs, Alice was bouncing around the living room, moving so fast she was a blur. "Rose!" she called. "Come on, we have to go shopping!"

Rosalie appeared a minute later, her hair disheveled. Emmett was behind her, a mischievous look on his face. I raised my eyebrow knowingly. It didn't take an empath to know what the two of them had been up to.

"Shopping? Alice, I think the first step of getting help is admitting you have a problem," Emmett said mockingly.

Alice growled. "I do not have a shopping problem, but we need to get Bella some clothes. We are leaving in a few days, and she has only two outfits. Obviously she cannot go shopping herself, so this task has fallen upon my shoulders."

The normalcy of this exchange was both comforting and frightening. We'd had conversations similar to this before. The bantering came naturally, yet this was anything but natural. There was a pink elephant in the room that I had placed here. Our roles in the family had all been redefined, and Bella was left afloat with no destination in mind. Edward and I both walked to the stairs at the same time, but I moved back and allowed him to go ahead of me. I reached my room, but was shocked to hear the shower in my adjoining bathroom running. In my mind, I knew Bella was in there. I could smell her, her scent nearly as potent now as it was then. My hand was on the doorknob, but I was hesitant to enter. When she began sobbing, however, the decision was made for me. I opened the door as quietly as I could.

The bathroom was full of steam, and Bella was sitting in the bathtub with the water pouring down on her.

"Jasper," she gasped when she saw me. She stood up, and I tried to look away, but her beauty stunned me. There were no words to describe how beautiful she looked right then.

"I-I'll wait outside for you," I stammered after a moment, but I didn't move towards the door. Instead, I found myself moving closer to her, drawn by some magnetic force.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was rude to you before."

I sighed. "It's alright, Bella. I understand. I had no right to force you to talk to him. You were right, that was your decision, and I should have respected it."

"No, you are the one who was right. It was good that I talked to him. At least now I know why he left, so I don't have to blame myself any longer. I don't have to think he left because of something I lack. I needed closure,"

"And did you get what you needed?" I asked warily.

She nodded. "I think so. I won't lie to you, Jasper, there is a small part of me that wants to be with him – desperately wants to be with him. That part of me would do anything it took to ensure that we were together, but I cannot force him to be with me, and it's obvious that he doesn't want to be with me. Whether or not he still loves me is inconsequential because he has decided he does not deserve love or happiness, and I cannot – will not – go through this insanity over and over again. He may be a masochist, but I'm not. I don't want to hurt anymore, Jasper."

She looked at me then, her eyes still so doe-like though they were no longer the chocolate brown I'd grown accustomed to. Her eyes seemed to be pleading with me.

"I won't hurt you," I promised.

She nodded again. "I know you won't. I'm afraid of hurting you, though."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take."

Neither of us spoke for several minutes. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. The lust rolling off of her was unbelievable.

"Will you kiss me, Jasper?" she asked, biting her bottom lip nervously.

I was in the shower with her before she'd even finished her sentence, completely oblivious that our entire family was beyond that bathroom door. I didn't even stop to take off my clothes. I pulled her in my arms and turned around so that my back was against the wall and the water was falling on her. I pressed my lips to her, sighing as her tongue traced my bottom lip.

She pulled away and laughed a little. "I didn't mean you had to get in the shower with me! You do realize you're still wearing your clothes. You're going to be soaking wet," she said tugging on the bottom of my shirt. Her fingers brushed against my stomach, and I shivered.

"Do you want me to leave?" I asked though I knew she did not.

She pulled me closer by one of my belt loops and then she reached up and touched my face as she'd done the night everything had changed. "You look even more like an angel now," she whispered.

"I'm no angel," I muttered. How could I be after what I'd done?

She pushed her hand up my shirt and traced the muscles on my abdomen. She stopped when she felt my body tense.

"I'm sorry; I shouldn't have touched you…" I captured her lips with my own, stopping her words. I slid my hands down her side and rested them on her hips. She pressed herself against me and kissed me back with the same passion she had the other night. She entwined one of her hands in my hair and pulled me closer to her. She pushed the other one back up my shirt, her fingers gliding over the crescent-shaped scars from my previous life.

She pulled the shirt, accidentally ripping it off. "I'm sorry!" she gasped against my mouth.

I broke the kiss and smiled at her. "No worries. You don't know your own strength yet. I went through many sets of clothes when I was a newborn and I wasn't nearly as wealthy then as I am now."

My smile faded when I saw her frowning at my scars. "What happened?" she asked.

"I'll tell you one day, if you want," I said. She leaned over and began pressing her lips to each scar, starting at the ones above my jeans and working her way to my neck. My erratic breathing stopped completely when her tongue grazed my nipple. I tried to suppress a moan, but when she did the same to the other, I couldn't.

"Bella," I moaned. I lifted her up and pressed her against the wall of the shower. The water was cold now, but neither of us cared. She wrapped her legs around my waist, causing another loud moan to escape.

"Shhh," she admonished me, pressing a finger to my lip. "Won't everyone hear us?"

I paused. "Probably. Does that bother you?" My mind was screaming that we should stop. The entire house would know what was going on – if not everyone else surely at least Alice and Edward would know. I tried to convince myself that this was wrong, but how could it be when it felt so right? There was an electric energy flowing between us, a heat that shouldn't be there when her lips touched me, when her body moved against mine. I gasped and pressed against her, desperate to feel her body against mine – desperate to touch her, feel her, have her – when she tightened her legs and trailed her lips along my neck up to my ears.

She didn't answer, only continued covering my neck and face with soft, gentle kisses while her hand slid down my chest and stopped at the top of my now-wet jeans. She hesitated for a second, her fingers dancing around the button. She was trembling, but I could sense no uncertainty from her – only a desire that matched my own. I looked down at her, her skin sparkling slightly from the sun that seeped through the window above us, her chest rising and falling rapidly with air she didn't need. She was biting her lip. I brought my mouth to hers, tracing her full bottom lip with my tongue before taking it between my own and sucking gently, enjoying the taste that could only be described as Bella. She moaned into my mouth and rocked her hips against me. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me closer to her, her finger nails digging into my back as she deepened our kiss, her tongue gently touching mine.

We were both gasping for air when our mouths separated. I brushed the wet hair out of her face and caressed her cheek before touching my fingers to her lips. "Are you sure?" I murmured into her ear. This was the moment I'd been anticipating for months, the moment I never thought would come. This was the moment I needed.

She nodded once. I lifted her with one of my arms and removed my soaking pants with the other. I threw them out of the shower, and they landed with a thud on the floor. I lowered her back down gently, the heat of her, the scent of her making me dizzy. I hesitated once again.

"Bella, are you sure?"

She pressed herself against me again, causing my entire body to throb. "I want this, Jasper. I want you," she whispered breathlessly.

I pulled back and poised myself to enter her. If I did this – if we did this – there was no going back.

"Please," she moaned. Her face was pressed against my chest, her fingers clutching my shoulders. "I need you."

When she uttered those words, something else took over my body. It felt almost the same as when we hunt, but the feeling shocked me. In all the years I'd been both alive and dead, I'd never experienced anything like it. I pushed into her with one fluid motion, silencing her moan with my mouth. In that moment, nothing else in the world existed, but the two of us. I didn't care about the snarls and distant crashes I heard from upstairs. I didn't feel the cold water running over me. Nothing else mattered except that we were together, we were one. There was no bloodlust or broken hearts or mistakes – only the two of us and our desperate need for completion.

I was so afraid of hurting her, even though I knew she was now immortal and virtually indestructible, when she was in my arms so small and delicate-looking it was hard to remember that. I didn't move for a second, just stood there savoring the warmth that enveloped me. It was Bella who starting moving first. Her small hands trailing down my chest and settling on my hips pulling me to her as I caught her mouth for another kiss.

"Please," she gasped as I pulled out and pushed back in at an excruciatingly slow pace, the sensation at once both torturous and pleasurable. She grasped my hips frantically, using every ounce of her newborn strength to pull me to her. I could feel her urgency, her need for me. I ran my hands down her side and up her chest. I cupped her breasts in my hands.

She moaned my name loudly as my fingers grazed her nipples. She rocked against me, meeting my thrusts. She kissed my neck, my shoulder, my lips, anywhere she could reach as we moved faster and faster. With her eyes squeezed shut, her hands wrapped so tightly around me as though I was what anchored her to this planet – not gravity – she'd never been more beautiful. Our movements were wild, frantic, and desperate, but everything seemed to be in slow motion when I felt her clench around me and our worlds exploded. I covered my mouth with hers in a vain attempt to muffle the scream, but in a house with so many sensitive ears and minds, there were no secrets. I lowered us both to the floor of the shower and kissed her shoulders as our breathing returned to normal.

"That was…" she said but stopped unable to grasp the exact words to describe what had transpired between us.

"I know." I replied, resting my head on her shoulders. The completeness within me was remarkable.

"Thank you," she whispered.

I shot her a curious look as a wave of serenity crashed over me. "For what?"

"For making me feel like I was enough."