Chapter Six: Finding Hope

Jasper didn't leave the room until well after dark, he didn't want to be seen. He felt a strange sense of accomplishment that was only slightly dimmed by the guilt he felt for taking another life. Jasper consoled himself with the reminder that she would've only done the same to him had he been any other man. He consulted the map he had bought from the coffee shop and found that he was only a few miles away from Tennessee. Jasper didn't realize he had travelled that far already. He supposed it helped that he didn't need to sleep. He pocked the map, and picked up his bag of goods. At some point, he decided, he would discard them and get new ones, but it didn't have to happen right away.

You've finally made it to another place. You're far enough from Maria now that she'll probably never find you again. All you have left to do is find others like yourself; that are seeking another way of life. Jasper was glad to see that his little indulgence had not changed his mind about what he wanted to do -- he was still set on changing his feeding style. He took a left at the end of the road, and headed towards the fast road that would finally take him to the East Coast.

He came to a place called Nashville, and decided this is where he might find what he was seeking. He had the sense that there might be a few of his kind hiding amongst the kind humans that greeted him as he entered town. He smelled them throughout the crowd. Apparently, he wasn't the only looking for a vampire or two. Just before sunset, as he was walking through the shade to avoid attraction by others, he felt someone's eyes on his back. He turned, growling in automatic response.

"Easy there. I mean y'no harm."

Before Jasper stood a kind faced man, who could've easily been twice Jasper's age. He wore a cowboy hat on his head, it shaded his burgandy colored eyes from the public. Though, Jasper thought, any one of us could have easily picked them out.

"You ain't from around here, are you?" the vampire said.

"Nope," Jasper replied easily casually. He had very few dealings with other vampires since he had left Maria's territory. He had his guard up.

"Where'd you come from?"

"Texas, mostly." It was the truth, though Jasper had been other places before.

"Wow. They're comin' from everywhere these days, it seems."

The stranger smiled broadly at Jasper. "Whatcha lookin' for around these parts? A quick bite? I wouldn't go looking too long. Most of this place is claimed already, my friend."

"It's fine," Jasper replied. He didn't know if he ought to bring up the fact he was looking for something all together different or not. As it turns out, he didn't have to bring it up at all. The one who had greeted him spoke again.

"Though it appears you're not here for that. If you're looking for work to sustain yourself, there are better jobs up in the Pennsylvania area, around Philadelphia."

Jasper nodded. "Thank you. What is your name kind sir?" Jasper wanted to remember all of those who were kind to him.

"Jack Stephenson, " he tipped his hat to Jasper, "and yours, fine young man?"

"Jasper Whitlock."

He had long since stopped referring to himself as a major, he noticed. He wondered when he had stopped, though he guessed it had probably been soon after he left Peter and Charlotte. He shook his head. It wasn't the time to think of the past. This was his future.

"What sort of jobs are they giving out?" he asked to distract himself, more than to keep a conversation going.

"Many kinds, I'd presume. There's a train leaving tomorrow, if you're interested. I'm staying here. There's a lot more here for me than there." He tipped his hat again, and was on his way. Jasper watched after him. Had Jack known that he was looking for something different? Jasper shook his head, and began to look for a place to relax. He noted that his stomach, which he'd kept moderately full by way of some dead animal or other, was churning again. Maybe Peter was right about not being able to keep full on just animal blood. It would probably take some getting used to, but at least now he was experimenting. He found a small inn at the end of the street, and walked in.

***

This inn, unlike many he'd been in before, was fully booked. The clerk was proud to announce that Jasper had gotten the very last room available for the night. Jasper smiled at his fortune, and the clerk's good mood. He found that he himself was in a pretty decent mood. For the first time in a long time, he didn't feel so desparate for anything. He decided to take the time to reflect on his past, his present, and his future. He had the feeling his future would be found to be brighter, once he got on that train to Philadelphia. He wasn't sure why he felt that, but he did, and Jasper wasn't one to question a good thing, so he didn't.

Later in the evening, Jasper felt his hunger churning. The smell of alcohol and violence just about overwhelmed him. He forced himself to stay in his room though, remembering his promise to himself about overinduldgence. To curb his appetite, he captured an innocent rat that had been making itself at home in the corner of his room. He didn't find it very appetizing, but it took the edge off of his hunger. He paced after that, thinking about how disgusted Peter would have been, if he could see him like that. He had to smile. Peter and Charlotte would never be able to tame their inner animal. Jasper, on the other hand, was determined to do so.

Just before daylight, the vampire decided it was time to head to the train station. He was careful to discard his many snack corpses. They had seen him through his first full night without human blood,a nd he found, with satisfaction, that he had no desire to eat now. He was more interested in getting to where his future wanted him to be. He changed clothes, though. He'd found a laundry basket down the hall from his room, and carefully picked through it, taking items that he thought might suit his needs. Now he dressed in a tee-shirt and a pair of jeans. He checked himself out in his room's mirror, and thought he didn't look half bad, even if the jeans felt odd, after the combat gear he generally had worn for centuries. It was a sign of the times, he guessed.

***

Finding the train station wasn't that hard. The station turned out to be just down a ways from the Inn. The ticket operator eyed Jasper skeptically, before very suddenly deciding that he had just the right amount of change to give Jasper back for the ticket. Jasper got on the train, and sat silently in wait. He realized for the first time he was going to be traveling in a vehicle. It made Jasper just a little bit nervous. He couldn't believe that he, one who had killed so many, and in turn, caused so many to fear him, was nervous over such a silly thing. Yet, he was that, and anxious to get moving at the same time. Jasper occupied his time by trying to imagine what it would be like, actually trying to find a job. He imagined he'd probably have to get a night job to keep from drawing attention to the fact that he wasn't like normal humans.

When the train finally began to move, Jasper had to work extra hard to keep himself centered. There were a lot of emotions swirling in the air around him, and he had to work at keeping himself in check, especially after a man that didn't particularly look kind sat down a seat away from him. He turned himself to face the window, unintentionally sending out a vibe of calm to the man. He was relieved to see him relax. He leaned his head back against the headrest, and closed his eyes, to focus more on what his intentions were once he got to to where he was going. If he focused on that, the rest of what was going on around him wouldn't bother him as much, he figured.

When the train stopped hours later, Jasper stirred from his inertia, and looked outside. There was activity bustling around the train, and Jasper found that he was caught up in all the excitement as well. He smiled, as he stepped from the last step of the train to the platform. A little boy was greeting his father. He thought sadly of his own father and mother. They never got the chance to greet their boy after war. He turned away from the scene, pained.

"Are you goin' anywhere in particular, sir?" a friendly attendant at baggage claim asked him.

"Not yet, I don't think. I came here, hoping to find some kind of night work. You see, I do my best work then." Jasper found that it wasn't really that far from the truth, if he thought about it. "Jobs were lacking down South." He added this for good measure, being sure to make it clear that's where he was from.

"Ah, yes. Well. There are a few places looking for good workers, but I'm not sure many of them are hiring for at night. Most of them are shop owners." He handed Jasper his duffle bag. "I wish you the best of luck here in Philly."

"Thank you."

Jasper found the news that he had been given very disheartening, but he wasn't going to give up. He would look anyway. Jasper wandered away from the train station, and began to take stock of his surroundings. By far, Philedelphia had to be the biggest place he'd seen besides his home in Texas. The Southern vampire figured he probably stuck out like a sore thumb, especially since he hadn't thought to bring a jacket. It was colder there. Not that Jasper himself noticed cold. He couldn't, but judging from the coats and hats worn by the humans in his presence, he guessed it must be ither autumn or winter. He really wasn't sure anymore. He had long since lost track of the seasons.

***

Jasper tired of wandering the large city quickly. It was apparent to him that the climate of emotion in the cities were amplified versions of those he'd been feeling all along. Some of the emotions were reminecent of those he'd felt on the battle field during the war. He shuddered subconsciously at the memory of it. His feet finally led him, to his disdain, to a tavern. He wondered for an instant why he kept winding up at these types of places. He blinked then, noticing the Help Wanted sign. It looks as if this wasn't a circumstance of chance this time. He entered the tavern, and looked around for the person in charge.

"Can I help you, Sir?" a friendly young waiter asked. His name tag said his name was Blythe.

"Looking for the person in charge," Jasper grunted. He was already feeling the emotions of the atmosphere. There was nothing more difficult for him to resist than so many humans in one room, hot, drunk, and angry. He was beginning to have second thought about working in such a crowded place, but he decided to just find out what the job was first.

"Carl's over there," The young man pointed in the general direction of the bar. He was giving Jasper a doubtful look. "You're not planning to go out for the bartending position, are you?"

Jasper shrugged casually. "It can't hurt, I suppose." He made his way through the crowd of boisterous drunks, waiters. He found the man with the name tag that said Carl on it easy enough. "Excuse me. I'm here 'bout the bartending job...."

Carl gave Jasper a once over. "Any experience?" He didn't look too interested in the job interview. He looked more like he wanted to get home. This relieved Jasper. He could probably lie his way through, just to get a place to say.

"Some, yes." Jasper offered cautiously. "Anything I don't know, I s'pose I could learn on the job." At this, he offered his most charming smile. He gave off a wave of reassurance. Bartending might not have been his first choice, what with all the heavy emotions that were associated with drinking, but it was probably the best night job he was going to get at the moment. He'd have to take it.

"Sure, sure. Job's yours. You can start right now. Free room and board." Carl mopped the sweat off his brow. He was ready to get out of there, and if some stranger, randomly off the streets wanted his job, so be it. "Call Lou if you get into a jam. He knows every concotion in the book." He threw his bar towel at Jasper, and disappeard before the vampire could ask anything further.

***

"Hey! Get me some gin on the rocks, wouldja?" Jasper sighed to himself as he poured the request, and slid it down the bar to the customer. The night, which had already been loud and angry when Jasper first got there, was turning out worse. He turned his attention to the young girl sitting alone. She was sipping a margerita, which she had told him the combination for. She had beeng giving off vibes of depression, and sadness all night. Jasper took a deep, centering breath. His thousandth for the night. He was impressed with himself. He had been able to control his urges, even when it got more crowded only minutes after he'd begun fumbling his way through his new job for the second night. When he opened his eyes again, he was able to focus. He tried to send happier feelings towards the young woman.

"Can I get you anything else, Miss?" He wiped up some spilled ice into the ice bucket, and put it back.

"No, thank you ..." She took out a cigarette, and lit it. "Tell me something ... how is it a well dress young man like yourself, is working in a place like this?" She was eyeing Jasper with a look of someone who felt as though she could afford to scrutinize. She herself was only dressed in long business dress with a matching head scarf.

"It fits me, is all," Jasper offered her a genuinely kind smile. "Now let me ask you somethin', miss. How is it someone like yourself is drinking alone in a place like this?"

"S'better than home," came the reply. She stood up, and laid down some cash. "Thank you, Sir, for the kindness." She walked out of the bar without another word. Jasper wondered what she meant by that, but he didn't get a chance to mull it over.

A big fight was starting at the far end of the tavern. That particular table had been rowdy all night, and try as he might, there wasn't enough calming waves in the world to sooth that bunch. He withheld a growl, as a chair suddenly went flying.

"Alright, that's enough," he called out a warning. He noted that his voice rose to the specific pitch he had once used to command an army of newborns. His instincts caused him to flinch, as the venom in his mouth rose for the thousandth time that night. Hold it together, Jazz. It's almost closing time. You can do it. He clenched his fists tightly, trying hard to ignore burning sensation in his throat.

"Hey, who do you think you are, telling us what to do do, huh?!" an Asian man, clearly drunk beyond his senses, got up in Jasper's face. "You're not even the manager here!"

"Yeah!" the rowdy crowd chorused, as fists began to swing, and knives were brought out.

"I said that's ENOUGH!!" Jasper bellowed. He was standing atop the bar now, glaring dangerously at them. He was at the very end of his self-control. Blood had been spilled in the far corner. He saw the same Asian knelt over another man, knife at the ready to stab him again. "If y'all can't drink properly, get out! This isn't a fighting ring here!" As he spoke, he sent a more powerful flow of relaxation and calm over the gathering crowd. To his surprise, this time, it worked. The crowd calmed, and the Asian went to a payphone to call for assistance. Amid the chaos that erupted, Jasper quietly slipped out the back doors, wanting to get away from that which tempted him so badly. Without thinking, he grabbed a nearby cat, and drained it quickly, disposing of the corpse in a dumpster. He threw his apron, and his towel into the kitchen, before walking down the street. He was furious with humanity right now. So much anger, violence, depression. How did they all continue to live like that? He wouldn't be able to, if he didn't have the curse immortality. He was sure of it.

"Just stop it, Manuel. Don't you dare!" Jasper blinked. He knew that voice. It belonged to the pretty girl that had been sitting at the bar all night. He heard glass smash. He guessed it was about five yards away. He stepped out of the back alley, and looked around. Save for a couple of homeless folk, who weren't really sane to begin with, Jasper saw no one that would be suspicous of him. He raced at his normal speed to just right before he reached where he believed the glass to have shattered.

"Y-you ... asshole ..." The woman was sitting in a pile of shattered glass. "Wh-what were you trying to accomplish ...?"

Jasper saw now that she was not alone. Beside her, close to her body lay a young man that could not have been more than twenty at best. Blood was seeping, snaking around the glass shards. Jasper glanced up, and saw that a window was broken maybe three floors up.

Suicide. What a horribly selfish thing to do ... Now he understood the woman's feelings earlier, and why she had not wanted to go home.

"H-help me, Sir, please. We've got to stop the bleeding ..." She had noticed Jasper just now, and she reached a blood covered hand out to him. "I c-can't live in a world where he doesn't exist ... please ..."

Jasper took a step or two back. Bloodlust was filling him again. He felt the urge, becoming stronger, as the flow of blood snaked closer to his feet.

"I can't help you ..." He sent feelings of calm out to her. He didn't want her to do anything irrational, like to try take her own life. His efforts would've been wasted then. He swallowed hard, watching her pick up one of the longer shards of glass. "Please, don't. I don't s'pose he'd want you to ..." He made the mistake of moving closer, meaning to take it away from her.

"How would you know ..?!"

Her face was a picture of torment, pain, fear ... all things that caused Jasper's urge to rise steadily. The blood now pooled at Jasper's feet in a pothole. It was slowly sinking into the ground below to the sewer. He lunged at the woman. Those were the last words the woman spoke. The kindly bartender was the last face she saw before she died.

***

He buried them discretely in a dumpster. The morning felt bleak, and Jasper felt weak. He was disappinted in himself, for not being able to contain his urge. Though he had done well with such a huge crowd, two individuals that had been alone, had died. Granted, one of them had already been dead by the time his lips touched his blood, but that didn't make Jasper any less guilty. He hadn't wanted to take the life of the woman. That had given her the easy way out, and life wasn't about that. He knew that the hard way. He stood outside the tavern, slowly going over the events of the night before in his head. Of course, he hadn't slept. He had spent the remainder of the late hours of the night pacing outside the aparments where the police cleaned up the bloody mess. He explained what he had seen, though he admitted to not knowing where the two victims had disappeared to. He sighed deeply, and turned from the tavern. He didnt' have the heart to return there anymore.

He wandered aimlessly for hours, it seemed, trying €to keep away from as many people as he could. He knew now that he had failed in his mission to find others like him. There were none. His kind were meant to always feed on humans. This thought made him sad. Innocents were always going to die at either his hands, or someone else's. It wouldn't matter the reason, or the excuses he'd come up with for his actions. He put his face in his hands, as he sat down on a bench alone, under an overhang, and out of the rain. So your long journey over these last few years has been for nothing, huh? We should've known things were going to end badly. It might have been better to just stick with Peter and Charlotte after all ... His wallowing was interrupted by the sound of people gathering at a nearby diner. He blinked, and wandered over in curiosity. It was a new diner, it appeared.

"What's the great adventure here?" he asked someone randomly.

"Oh, it's nothing really. Everyone gets excited when a new steak sandwich place is opened around here. You can go in, if you want to. Get yourself out of the cold." The girl who had answered his question was about the age of Annabelle. Jasper felt a pang for the lost child he'd killed. He went into the diner, and looked around. The place was crowded, save for one area of the place. He went to the back, wanting to get away as quickly as possible. It was only after he had settled down at a booth that he noticed her. The girl had short black hair, worn in a pixie cut. She was eyeing him. He fond that he was strangely drawn to her. Then he noticed the more important thing. She was a vampire, like himself. She sat daintily in the booth adjacent to his. She wore a kind smile. Moving towards her, he took the hand she held out to him.

"You've kept me waiting a long time ..." the girl smiled, and suddenly, Jasper felt something he hadn't felt for centuries. For the first time, he felt hope.

(A/N:This concludes "Lost and Found". For the record, I AM planning a sequel, but it will not be started for a bit, until I finish my other two fics. I would like to take the time out to thank Iris Messenger for the amazing work she did on this fic, and all the support she gave me throughout. I am sad to say I won't be able to work with her for awhile. She will be missed!! Also, the line, "You've kept me waiting a long time" does not belong to me. It comes from Eclipse , page 301.)