A/N: Exams are over and I'm still coherent enough to whip out a new chapter tonight! Yay! Thanks for sticking with me even through the delay in my writing. I really do appreciate it.

The Inspiration

Chapter 3: Mojo

Bella

I spent four hours that night I came home from the museum cleaning my office. All the discarded pages of paper where smoothed out and read. The ones that were promising or had lines I wanted to save I put in a folder. The completely useless ones went right into the trash can. Unfortunately the trashcan had more than the folder.

The Post-Its that covered the blank wall of the office where arranged into the elements of my story. I had a basic outline of what I wanted to happen now, but still didn't know how I wanted to get from point to point. I guess that's how I wrote a lot of the time though. My writing was really organic and it was hard to explain to people how I worked.

A lot of time I'd sit down and write and write and not even realize what I had put down on the page until I went back and reread what I wrote. And just between you and me, sometimes I even surprised myself with what I wrote.

I kind of went into these zones when I wrote most of the time. Hours upon hours would pass and I wouldn't be aware of anything around me. And it was the funniest thing too that I felt more like I was cataloging someone's life than creating a story about fictional characters. Almost like I was looking in on someone's daily experiences and writing down what they did. My characters sometimes felt more real to me than any person I knew in real life. Perhaps it was because I knew what motivated them. I knew their emotions intimately. I could tell you what was running through their head at any given moment. I could tell you who they loved and who they hated.

Around the end of my fourth hour of cleaning Jasper popped his head into my office.

"Damn, Bee! I can actually see horizontal surfaces in here! You might actually have a real bona fide office one of these days here again," he chuckled.

I glared at him and grabbed one of the still balled up wads of paper, throwing it at him and hitting him in the head. He mocked being hit much harder and staggered around the room pretending to hold his head and moaning.

"You wound me, Bee! How can you do something so heinous to your best friend in the entire world?" he said, clutching at his heart for a moment.

I gently pushed him on the arm and he fell onto the small couch I had put in the room. Just as he was going down though, he grabbed my arm and pulled me down with him.

To anybody watching us it would look like an intimate act. In a way that's kind of what it was. Jasper and I had been so close for so long though that we weren't afraid to do stuff like this and have it be awkward.

We'd seen each other naked too many times to count thanks to having one bathroom in the apartment and prior to that sharing one too many sleepovers.

The first time I saw Jasper's junk I'll be straight up honest with you, I was utterly fascinated. I mean, I'd seen them before but his was just so … nice. I was 16 and the concept of boys as sexual beings was still fairly new to me. For about six point eight seconds I actually lusted after him, but it took one look at to whom the junk was attached for the lust to dissipate.

It was a common misconception actually that Jasper and I either at one point had been together or that we were together. First, we were always in close proximity to each other. Second, we finished each other's sentences quite frequently. Third, we bickered like an old married couple sometimes. And fourth, we really had no boundaries when it came to the physical stuff. He could touch me, I could touch him. Not in that sexual way, but more of an intimate way.

Several times I had received quiet questions off to the side when people first met us asking us if we were together. Mostly women to be quite honest, and mostly because those women wanted to see if it was okay to pursue Jasper. Problem for them was that he had extremely high standards when it came to women.

He liked them smart, well read, funny and caring. And when I say smart, I mean super intelligent. For god sakes, this is the guy who could probably give a several hour lecture comparing and contrasting the coming of age rituals of the central plains Native Americans in relation to the coastal tribes. Granted my eyes would have glazed over after the first five minutes tops, but this was a man who liked his women well read.

Sure he was lured in by flashy gimmicks to start with like any guy, but it took a really special woman to keep his attention for more than an hour tops. He'd had one relationship in college that had lasted for any negligible period of time, a Mexican girl named Maria who had been majoring in combat science. She was some high ranking position in the campus ROTC group and her and Jasper had these really intense discussions about troop strategies before it just became too much for Jasper.

I remember the day they broke up too. Jasper had called me up asking to crash at my apartment that night, saying he needed some "special Bee time." I knew when he used that phrase it meant something bad had happened. I had run out and grabbed a 12pack of his favorite beer as comfort. We'd pretty much gotten shit-faced together and he'd confessed that Maria had gotten too intense too quickly for him.

It was the last time I actually saw him cry, even though it was only a few tears. Maria was more of a strategic planner while Jasper admittedly was more of the romantic. She saw marriage as a contractual obligation to the other person while Jasper genuinely believed in the idea of soulmates. And simply put, he just didn't feel like Maria was his soulmate.

I think that's another reason why he liked moving out to Chicago with me. He'd seen enough of Washington to last him a lifetime and thought that Chicago might hold the key to the next chapter in his life.

"So Bellabee, how was the museum?" he asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.

I turned in his lap and I could sure see why girls found him attractive. His wide smile, dimples and wavy blonde hair were the apple of many a girl's eyes.

"I really liked it, J-bear," I answered, using my childhood nickname for him.

He grinned at me, showing off those Whitlock dimples he inherited from his momma, and I knew exactly what he was going to say next.

"I knew it," we said at the same time.

And of course, the fact that we echoed each other that way set off a fresh round of giggles which lasted until we were both winded.

"Am I that predictable?" he fake pouted at me.

I giggled again and ruffled his ashy blond locks.

"Duh, J. But only sometimes so don't worry about it too much. You're still my best friend regardless. Just because you're predictable doesn't make you any less of that," I soothed him.

He smiled again. "Well good. I don't want my predictability to somehow tarnish that status. I've earned that title by picking up your stinky ass off the floor one too many times when you've been bowing to the porcelain gods after a party. Remember that one time junior year that you swore it was a good idea to see how many Jaegerbombs you could have in a row?" he asked and poked my side.

I grabbed where he'd poked and groaned. "Ugggghhhhhh, that was not a good night at all. Why the heck did you let me do that? I've never been so sick. I swear death would have been better than that horrific hangover."

"Because you needed to learn your lesson, Bee. Don't take on too much that you just can't handle."

I glared at him again. Jasper was always trying to teach me these life lessons he thought I needed. It was one of his faults and yet one of his best traits. Funny enough though, he was more right than he was wrong. Significantly more frequently too. I guess Jasper was just wise beyond his years sometimes.

"Whatever. Just don't ever let me do something like that again, okay?" I asked.

Jasper's face got dead serious for a second before he answered.

"Of course, Baby Bee. I'd never let anything happen to you, hell or high water. You're my best friend and the closest I have to a sister. If somebody wanted to hurt you'd they'd have to go through me first. I'd walk through flames to keep you safe."

I felt this lump grow in my throat.

We didn't often talk about stuff like this, instead preferring to take the route Charlie and I took with each other. We knew how the other felt, so it didn't necessarily need to be voiced. It was more of an innate feeling you had. I knew my father loved me and even if he didn't say it, that was plenty enough for me.

But I guess that's how Jasper was when it came right down to it too. Fiercely protective of what he held close to him. In a lot of ways that's what I loved about him. He'd always be there for me no matter what just like I'd be the same for him.

"Awww, J. You're going to make me cry like a girl now," I fake blubbered to hide the fact I actually wanted to really blubber.

Jasper brought his hand up to his neck, rubbing the skin and stray hairs there. He glanced down at the floor and his cheeks flushed.

"Didn't mean to, but sometimes it just needs to be said."

I wiggled a little in Jasper's lap for him to let me loose and I ended up falling back onto the floor with a thud.

"Ooof!" I exclaimed.

And with that surprise movement, the awkward stillness that had settled around us vanished. Jasper broke into heavy guffaws and was slapping his knee before I had time to pick myself up off the floor.

"Oh very funny! Laugh at a girl while she's down!" I said and threw another wadded ball of paper at him.

"Sorry, Bella Bee. I couldn't help it. You're just too funny sometimes. All sweet and syrupy one second then cracking me up the next. How do you do that so well?" he grinned as wiped away actual tears from laughing so hard.

I shrugged my shoulders at him. "Guess it's just a talent of mine."

"Fair enough. So did you find anything at the museum you want to share with Uncle Jasper? Please tell the audience what you thought of the enlightening experience of the Art Institute," Jasper said and mock pretended to interview me. He was always trying to get me over my inevitable awkwardness when being interviewed. I guess that's another thing I loved about him. He was always trying to make me better at who I was.

"Well, there was this one exhibit by some local artist that was pretty interesting. It was in the far back corner. You remember, the one little one off the Post Modern gallery?" Jasper nodded and I continued.

"Okay well, it was actually a really cool exhibit. This artist, whoever he is, has some serious talent. Pretty much all the paintings were portraits of women and they were all in various states of undress or completely nude."

Jasper's ears perked up at the mention of nude women.

"Nude you say?" he asked and grinned like the Cheshire cat.

"Oh grow up, perv boy," I laughed and rolled my eyes.

He grabbed one of the paper wads I'd thrown at him and hurled it right back at me.

"What? I'm a guy with a functioning cock. Of course you say naked ladies and I'm going to be interested," he exclaimed.

"Whatever. Just keep it in your pants, lover boy. You know how I feel about hearing the dirty deed through the walls."

"Yeah, you said I can do it whenever I want cause it gets you horny," he chuckled.

"Dude. I said that once! And I was drunk when I said it if I remember correctly."

"Semantics," Jasper said and waved his hand dismissively at me. I rolled my eyes again at him.

"So what was so particularly interesting about these naked ladies you're teasing my goods with? Sounds a lot like blown up pages of Playboy if you ask me," he asked, sounding a bit more adult than his previous comments.

I tapped my chin and thought about it for a moment before answering.

I thought back to the biggest painting, the one with the haughty blonde woman. The one who you could tell carried this burden on her back even with the proud look in her eyes. There was a double edged sword to her looks and one that perhaps not a lot of people saw.

"I think it was the way they were portrayed. The artist took care not to just paint their bodies. It almost seemed to me like I could see their very personality in the way he portrayed them. Like he had this personal connection with each and every one of his subjects. Almost like he could read their mind and plucked whatever thoughts they were having from their head and transferred it onto the canvas," I explained, my hands making brush stroke motions as I went.

"Hmmm, sounds interesting," Jasper intoned. "So I'm guessing the sudden urge to detrash the office came from today's events?"

I shrugged again.

"Well I guess. I mean I'm starting to get some of my creative mojo back, but I'm not necessarily sure I'm ready to sit down at this very moment and put together the next Pulitzer winner."

"Pffft. Bee, you have more talent in your little toe than I have in my entire body. All I do is get geeked out over native headgear and tribal dances. You create things that inspire people. I've read your reviews, baby. You're well on your way to actual honest to goodness stardom if you keep this writing thing up. I have complete faith in that," he said and waived off my self doubt with a flick of his hand.

I felt the inevitable blush creeping into my cheeks with his comments.

"Thanks, J. You always know how to make a girl feel really good about herself, you know that?" I said shyly, my fingers curling around the ends of my hair and feeling the awkwardness creep into my body.

Jasper grinned at me.

"Of course I know that. And of course I'm good at making you feel good about yourself. That's what best friends are for," he said and smiled.

"Damn straight!" I giggled.

"Damn straight!" Jasper echoed.

I threw another piece of paper in the trash and surveyed my cleaning job. The surface of my desk could actually be seen. The floor was clear of loose paper. The Post-Its were in an orderly fashion. Pads of paper were stacked up in the corner of my desk waiting to be written on. Pens were all back in the cup right next to the desk lamp. I'd actually accomplished quite a bit for a few hours of work in comparison to how long it had taken me to pretty much trash my office.

"So Bee, when are you going back?" Jasper asked from behind me.

I turned around and looked at him still sitting on the couch, his eyes focused intently on me.

"Going back?" I asked quizzically.

"Well, yeah. The museum was obviously of some benefit to you and if it's helping you get that all important mojo back I don't see why you shouldn't keep going if it's going to inspire you. Go back tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. Why stop doing something that's going to help you?" he asked and leaned forward onto his arms.

"You do have a point …" I said and bit my lip.

Jasper grinned and threw up his arms into the air.

"Of course I do! I'm Jasper, all knowing, all seeing, all believing Jasper! Bow before me and worship me for the god that I am, weakling!" he called out in a voice vaguely reminiscent of a late night television pastor.

I giggled at him and wagged my finger in his direction.

"You may be pretty darn smart, but you're certainly not all knowing. And hell will freeze over before I bow before you, Mr. 'I can't watch Blair Witch without jumping!'" I giggled some more.

Jasper clutched at his heart again.

"Twice in a night, Bee! You wound me so! And anyways, I think you're daring me again. How about we curl up on the sofa, break into that six pack of beer you brought home and I'll prove you wrong on that last bit," he said.

"But I thought you have work in the morning?" I asked.

It was Jasper's turn to shrug this time.

"Eh, yeah I do. But how much brain power does it take to catalog beads of the Hopi Indians? I'll tell you how much: not much at all. So let's throw back a few and I'll prove to you that I'm man enough not to jump at the scary parts of this horrendous movie of yours," he said enthusiastically and motioned towards the door.

I smiled at him. "Sounds like a plan to me."

On the way out, Jasper bumped his shoulder into mine.

"So you're going back, right? You seem a lot happier tonight too, Bee. Less likely to bite my head off for leaving the seat up in the bathroom," he asked quietly.

I groaned.

"Did I really do that?"

He nodded glumly and waved me off.

"Last week you did once, but no big deal, Bee. I know how you are sometimes when you're stressed and how focused you get. Don't worry about it."

I groaned again and rubbed my eyes with my hands.

"Damn, Jay. I didn't realize how shitty I've been. I really am sorry about all that. I swear I'm starting to feel better and I think I might be working up some good writing soon enough here."

Jasper clapped his hand over my shoulder and I could feel the heat of his big palm through my shirt.

"Seriously, Bee. Don't worry about it. Just debut this book at the top of the New York Times Bestseller and we'll call it even, okay?" he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Set the bar high enough for me?"

He laughed a bit harder.

"What? I know you can do it."

We spent the rest of the night clutching at each other between playing the Blair Witch Drinking game. I, of course, got a lot more shit-faced than Jasper did though he jumped more. Yeah, turns out he couldn't watch it without jumping.

I woke up the next morning feeling somewhat like death warmed over and regretting challenging Jasper. I glared at him as he brought some coffee into my bedroom for me, flicking him off as he walked away chuckling.

After several cups of coffee and a desperately needed shower, I felt something comparable to human and thought about seeing if I could bust out some of my writing today.

The problem was that as soon as I sat down at my now clean desk my brain just simply shut down. I must have stared at the blank sheet of paper for a good thirty minutes before I sighed and pushed my chair back.

Stupid writer's block. Always hits at the wrong moment and just when I thought I could perhaps accomplish something today.

I looked over and saw the pamphlet for the art museum tucked under a stack of papers.

Sighing I took it out and turned it over in my hands.

The stark white walls in the pictures called to me, luring me back to the quiet hallways and dimly lit galleries.

I thought about the gallery I'd spent the most time in. The EC gallery. The proud blonde woman in the painting and the way I could almost see something behind her eyes as the painter had portrayed her. It took a lot of talent to make that kind of emotion come across.

Sighing, I knew what I had to do. I had to go back to the museum and see if I could figure out how the artist did that. Learn how to convey emotion with a mere brushstroke, or in my case a few words.

Maybe by examining how another creative person lived and breathed their craft I could push past by own stumbling blocks.

By looking at this artist's works, I also in a way felt I knew a bit about him. He obviously was very sensitive to those around him and could pick up on the subtle nuances of human nature. It took a lot to read into someone the things he clearly saw in his subjects.

In a way I identified with that ability. As a writer it was my job to examine character's motives and try my best to convey them to my reader. I didn't necessarily have to explain everything, but I had to be able to effectively communicate all that the reader needed to know while still maintaining an air of mysteriousness around my characters. That's what made for good writing. Stories that were up for interpretation. Stories that made the reader think and question who they were as a person and how the world around them operated. That's what made a good author, plain and simple.

Words are mere words until a writer takes them and molds them into something beautiful.

I packed up my notebook in my purse and made the trek across the city to the museum, the stone lions welcoming me back as I climbed the stairs.

I bought my ticket and slipped in the exhibits, this time wandering around a bit more. I knew ultimately I would end up right back at the same small gallery in the back corner of the museum, but I wanted to take my time. The sculptures took me about forty five minutes to go through and I saw some of the more famous paintings as well.

I could practically hear the whispering of the small gallery calling to me though and after just over ninety minutes in the museum I finally succumbed to it's calls and found my way back to it's glass doors.

The same sweet older guard was at the door and he smiled at me as he saw me go in.

A few people were mulling around the exhibit as I settled myself into the cushy couch in the center. I angled myself differently today, focusing on a smaller painting of a woman with brown hair and deep soulful eyes that practically begged me to know her. I could hear her talking to me from the canvas, telling me her life story.

It wasn't long before I found myself weaving a story about her daily life and quietly slipped my notebook from my purse and grabbing a pen as well.

Hours upon hours went by as people filtered in around me while my pen continued to flow from line to line. I don't know what it was about that particular painting that was inspiring me to write. Maybe it was the female subject. Maybe it was the passion she was trying to convey to me. Maybe it was something else all together.

And maybe it was being in this place surrounded by creativity.

Art had a way of doing that to other artists. The mediums could be vastly different, but creativity feeds creativity.

Here, in this bastion of creativity, I had seemingly found something to write about.

The day slipped by before I knew it and the guard was tapping me on the shoulder telling me it was time to close up the museum.

He chuckled when he saw my notebook filled with my scrawlings.

"Writer?" he asked and inclined his head towards the notebook.

"I guess you could say that," I answered.

"This place has a way of doing that to people. You know, inspiring. I've seen it a lot in my time here," he said.

I smiled and walked towards the exit.

"So am I going to see you tomorrow as well, Miss …" he said.

"Bella," answered.

"You coming tomorrow as well, Miss Bella?" the guard inquired.

I looked back at the glass doors to the little gallery and the answer that came to me was fairly obvious and easy.

"I think I will. This place is doing something to me. Something good," I smiled.

The guard smiled back at me and I felt warmed from his calm presence.

"I think I'll like having you around. You're a nice one," he answered. He winked at me before continuing. "And you're pretty easy on the eyes too if you ask me."

I felt the blush rising up in my cheeks as I bid him farewell and walked back out into the evening streets of Chicago.

I turned around and looked at the tall marble columns of the Art Institute.

This place was doing something good for me.

It was helping me bring my mojo back.