Stephenie Meyer owns.

Chapter Three

Hope

Previously:

"Miss, please stop!" I called out to her.

Her reaction was immediate. It was as if my voice had shot an arrow into her back. She stopped, frozen where she stood.

JPOV

I felt hope radiate from the girl before me. I wondered why. I had only asked her to stop. Why would something like that cause her hope?

"Jasper?" the girl asked, barely above a whisper.

How did she know my name? If Maria had given them a name at all it would have been Whitlock.

"Jasper?" she asked again, a little louder.

This time I noticed the sound of her voice. The way my name rolled off her tongue and the way bells seemed to chime. There was only one woman I knew with a voice like that.

But she shouldn't be here. That would be impossible. Still the hope I was feeling from her became my own.

"Bella?"

There was an audible intake of breath. Then slowly the woman in front of me turned her body around. My eyes were locked on her face as it came into view.

Even before I had a full frontal view, I knew it was her. I had studied that profile for far to long to not be able to recognize it.

From her forehead, to the soft curve of her nose, down to her chin. The only thing that was different was the color of her eyes. They were no longer the rich soulful brown I had come to know; they were now a deep crimson; her own blood having changed them.

If I were able to produce tears I know my eyes would be filled with them now. No longer tears of sorrow, but tears of joy.

For the love of my life, my angel was somehow brought back to me. All I could do now was pray that my eyes weren't deceiving me.

"Is it really you?" I asked her.

Her eyes widened and in an instant she was crashing into my chest, her arms wrapped around my neck.

"Jasper!"

I wrapped my arms around her tightly and hugged her to the brink that would crush a human.

I inhaled her scent deeply, familiarizing myself with it, using my new sense of smell. She smelled floral, like freesias.

She pulled back to look into my eyes.

"Jasper, how did this happen? I thought you were dead."

"I had no choice. If I had allowed myself to see you even once to say goodbye I know I would have wanted your blood."

"You could have changed me though, yourself. We could have escaped this mess and been together for eternity."

"I didn't want this life for you. Your heart is too pure to have to depend on human blood to survive."

"I would have done it for you. I would do anything for you." There was a hint of sorrow in her voice and I felt doubt come from her. I knew I had to set things straight before she thought the wrong way.

"I would love nothing more then to live eternity with you Bella, but you know how I am. When it comes to you all I want to do is protect you. I truly didn't want you to have to be like this. I'm disgusted with myself.

"I know you just said you would do anything for me, but I didn't want you to have to. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself. I'm not even sure I would have been able to stop sucking your blood once I bit you. Believe me when I say, not a day has gone by that I haven't thought about you."

"I do believe you and not a second has gone by that I haven't thought about you. When the men came and told me you were missing and chances are that you were dead, I lost the will to live. I didn't know how I was going to go on without you. I wasn't sure I could."

I didn't doubt a word she said. Even without the ability to read her emotions, she was always honest with me. She continued her rant and I let her. It was always better to just let her get all her thoughts out.

"Then those strange men found me and Mary Sue in the woods and brought us here, that woman changed me, I felt all that pain and listened to her speech. I couldn't take it; I ran and now you're standing in front me. Alive."

"Well not technically alive," I tried to joke, my voice gave in.

She half smiled at my attempt, "But not six feet under either."

"True. I do have one question though."

"What is it?"

"Why did you try to run?"

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, hesitating or preparing herself to answer.

"It became too much. That woman told me I was now going to fight in some war and that I was lucky to not be dead. That I owed her for her kindness. She told me I was a vampire and all I could think was 'now I'm stuck living forever.'"

"What's wrong with that?"

She looked directly into my eyes. Her eyes still held the ability to captivate me and make me focus on nothing else.

"Living forever without you would have been a nightmare. It would have been horrible. All I had wanted to do after hearing you were gone was die and then I was told I was no longer able to do that. I could no longer have the simple pleasure of realizing I'm going to die soon and this pain will be taken away from me. That I would once again see you in the afterlife.

"Knowing I was never going to be able to see you again and that I was stuck here on Earth for eternity alone was too much. So I ran thinking 'what's the worse they can do to me, kill me?'"

She smiled then at her joke and I smiled right back at her. Everything she did was contagious for me. If she was happy, I was happy. If she laughed, I laughed. And if she cried, I cried.

She was still in my arms and I had no intention of letting her go anytime soon. Thinking about everything that had happened in the last few minutes made me think back to that one regret I had felt so horrible about since my change. Now was as good a time as any to tell her.

"Bella?"

She had rested her head against my chest and brought it back to look up at me.

"Yes Jasper?"

"There's something I have to tell you."

I felt her emotions go haywire and I couldn't help but chuckle. Leave it to Bella to go straight to the worse case scenario.

Seeing me laugh just confused her but she steadied her emotions a bit.

"Bella, I love you."

Her expression was the one I had always hoped to get. Again, if we were able to cry, I was sure she would have been, so of course I would have.

"I love you too, Jasper."

I smiled at her and watched as she stood on her toes trying to make herself taller, I helped her by picking her up so we were face to face. After the initial shock of me holding her in the air she wrapped her legs around my waist, stared into my eyes for a brief second and then pressed her lips lightly against mine.

I responded to her touch and deepened the kiss. Finally, she was mine again and I had told her I loved her and I was right to have thought she loved me back.

I couldn't have been happier in that moment. With Bella in my arms, our lips together in a passionate kiss and our love tangible in the air, nothing else mattered. That moment was ours.

I apologize for the ridiculous time lapse between this chapter and the last one. I know, I'm horrible. I won't bother giving excuses, though I have plenty. So I'll just say I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I will do my best to update soon. Please review.