Gray morning light creeps into the room when Bella finally collapses, exhausted and replete. She gives one satisfying hum before her eyes flutter to rest over still-bright cheeks and she turns onto her side, hugging herself into a coma-like torpor. Her heartbeat thumps steadily, no longer a frantic drum roll of panic and demand.
Jasper lets his head rest on her thigh. He can still feel where she pulled at his hair and the back of his neck with her nails, needlelike sense-memory pricks of heat. Riding the downward fall of adrenaline rush, he's lulled into the closest state of unconsciousness he's been able to achieve since dying. Sometimes, when things get bad, he'll let go entirely and just… drift. If he's around Alice it's usually a safe enough diversion. She doesn't try to manipulate her own emotions to control him. Not yet, anyway.
Soft. He's getting soft here. The illusion of sanctuary will get him killed.
He accepts the hypocrisy of his self-possessiveness. So adept at yielding others to his persuasion, he has an abhorrent intolerance of anyone attempting the same on him. Nobody grasps the immutable cacophony that assaults his senses, nobody except, perhaps, Edward. Jasper's never asked him how he deals with it; the answer he suspects is somewhere between 'badly' and 'not at all.'
As a byproduct of his own gift, Edward is deeply mistrustful of all. Not only of humans, whom he scarcely condescended to notice before the earnest Miss Swan stumbled into his midst, but of his own kind, as well. People lie to him without meaning to lie, and because Edward either can't or won't ignore the secrets of others as any decent vampire would, he's condemned himself to a lifetime of second-guessing.
You would think Bella's immunity to his telepathy would be a godsend to him. Then he could actually get down to the business of getting to the know the girl through traditional channels of conversation, like everybody else. But no. Bella's reticence drives him to distraction. She's not a girl to him but a puzzle, one that, having figured out, will no longer retain his interest. If Bella was more aware of her own power to disarm she could use that to keep him. She does not, however, strike Jasper as the sort of femme fatale capable of such deception. You have to have confidence for that, and a certain disregard for your own humanity.
Jasper can still taste her. Such a sweet, crazy girl. He wouldn't think the less of her if this whole ordeal sent her straight into never-never land for good. Then she could really call herself one of the family.
He wants nothing more than to leave the room, which now smells like sex and girl and is distracting Jasper more from any attempt at more refined sensibilities. The whole thing was not terribly sexy on any level, but there's no denying Bella possesses a redoubtable attraction for their kind. She's meantto be one of them. Though he doesn't want to trench into the murky realm of Alice's, he would even consider using the term 'destined' for it.
The girl has everything going for, a loving if unsure father, a bevy of friends and admirers, enough intelligence to make it in this world - hell, she has her own damn truck. That she still weighs those as less than an uncertain fate with Edward Cullen is testimony enough.
Edward says she's not capable of making such a decision at her age, that she's not informed. Jasper's response to that, if nonverbal but still heard, was 'Well, then, fucking inform her.' Take her on a hunt. Show her the slums in Seattle where cast-out vampires rely on equally strung-out human junkies. Let Carlisle tell her a few bedtimes stories about the Volturi. But give the girl some idea other than vague testimonies of damnation and the preserving of one's hypothetical soul. Who's to say as a human you were any saintlier? Jasper's seen children try to kill each other in the streets for a piece of sewage-sopped bread. And the tall people just keep walking.
Besides, Bella is seventeen. In Jasper's day that was old enough for marriage, motherhood and widow's weeds. When the War came there were plenty of girls who experienced all three in a year, and they could still smile and dance for the soldiers at a ball.
Times are different.
Bella frowns in her sleep, giving a sharp head turn to the side as if trying to avoid a bothersome fly. She does not look peaceful. This one's been through the wringer tonight and she looks it, but she's never struck Jasper as being a generally peaceful person. Most teenagers are an insecure, hostile bundle of nerves, and Bella's certainly that; but she's also curiously subdued. Keeps her cards close to her chest.
Jasper's never liked her eyes. Too big. And she's too quiet. It makes for a bad combination.
He props his head up on one hand and travels his gaze the length of her body. Bella starts to snore. "Got me in the trenches this time, don't you, darlin'?" he murmurs. "Just when I was figuring I'd about outstayed my welcome."
The idea of leaving the Cullens was one he entertained with no shortage of focus or creativity. Some days he visualizes just walking out the front door with nothing on his back but a glare, other days he imagines laying waste to the whole forsaken town. Either due to foresight or her own feminine intuition Alice had sensed this notion from him shortly after Jasper had been put on probationary status as a member of the Cullen clan. 'Promise me you won't just leave? Can I have that from you, at least?'
That and everything else he owns, but it won't keep him.
Downstairs, the sink rattles. Sometimes it will make a sound like a great sea creature gulping and Jasper imagines it is indeed alive, or that a goblin lives within the detergent-limed depths. Scientists can't determine if a virus is a living thing or not and there's amoebas on Mars. Is Jasper alive? There are criteria to classify life from not, and by their standards he is not. But the rules of science change with the men who make them.
Physically, he has done very little exercise tonight. Bella was literally begging for it, and he did no more than provide her with enough stimulus to satisfy the spell's demands. No more. That is his mantra. Just this much and no more. The self-delusion of addicts everywhere.
The rest of the family has gone from the house except Esme. How they managed that without his noticing Jasper will attend to later. In a dream state, Bella, while not calm, is less of a distraction. Helps that she's not walking around waving her scent in his face and giving him those doe eyes. She always looks at him like she's expecting an answer. Only Jasper has no idea what she has asked him.
Jasper gets up from the bed and goes downstairs. His shirt's askew and he discovers, thankfully before reaching Esme, that Bella had somehow managed to unbuckle his belt and his Levi's are in danger of slipping. Did she use her feet?
Esme is puttering in the kitchen, as usual. She's either to be found there or in the east wing where Carlisle's set up a kind of indoor greenhouse for her. She seems to enjoy the playacting of domesticity. One and all, the Cullens miss their humanity to varying degrees. Emmett is the most well-adjusted but that's Emmett, easy to please and just as generous in return.
Jasper doesn't miss his humanity. If Maria hadn't killed it she would have killed him. Permanently. He regrets what he has done - not all of which was in the name of victory - but he does not apologize for surviving. Nobody asks him if he would do it the same if he had the chance.
Esme stops her attempts to fluff up a wilting orchid and smiles at him. It always startles Jasper with how genuine her smiles are and he has to fight the urge to glance behind his shoulder to see who she's directing it at.
"Is Bella well?" she asks, as though it were any other day.
"For now." Jasper sits at the counter and for a moment they both stare at the orchid. A deep purple hue with vibrant pinks exploding from the middle. "Where did you get this one?" he asks.
"Carlisle stopped at the nursery and picked it up for me. Isn't it the loveliest color? I don't know why it insists on struggling on so."
Jasper sees no point in theorizing on the obvious. "Perhaps it's not the time for it," he says, softly.
Esme is a true lady in the grand tradition of ladies. Unfailingly thoughtful, gentle, and so bland as to fade into the wall, she is the least offensive to Jasper's sensibilities. But then he has no strong opinion of her, either. Her mothering attempts make him uncomfortable - his own mother was no great arbiter of the maternal image - and to her credit she ceased in such overtures at once. Since then they have found an accord more like that of peers.
Forks in all its peculiarities keeps Carlisle busy and Esme, naturally shy, does not make easy friends. But she gets lonely. Jasper provides enough of a diversion with no untoward exertion on her part.
And Esme has never projected anything but aloof kindness towards him, so it's an even exchange.
She plays with the orchid before letting her hands come to rest on the countertop. "I am sorry, Jasper," she sighs. "Poor girl."
Wordless, Jasper nods. "Do we know who did it?" Might as well get to brass tacks. Retribution is required. Bella is considered by majority vote to be an honorary Cullen, and any hit on the clan is a hit on them all. Any sign of weakness and the wolves will come out looking for blood. And not necessarily from La Push. Anyway, it'd be a happy diversion for Jasper.
"No, I'm afraid. I have my own theories," she smiles diffidently as if to apologize for her presumption, "but nothing concrete yet. Carlisle's gone to Calgary for answers."
"And what the hell do you think he'll find in Canada?" Jasper says. "He's needed here. This isn't an accident, it's premeditated and by someone with connections."
"Yes," is all Esme says.
His outburst had startled her. He sighs.
"Sorry." Running a hand through his hair, he says, "It was not a good night."
Esme makes an aborted attempt to touch his arm before thinking better on it. "Yes," she says again. She curls her fingers into a loose fist and contemplates the grain on the countertop. "I think," she starts then stops, biting her lip. Then, "I do think this does not have to be the disaster we are all expecting it to be. Bella is a strong girl. She can have a life after this. She -"
Jasper makes a noise of disgust. "There is no 'after.' It's permanent. And unpredictable. Magic," he says, doing nothing to alleviate his tone of contempt, "you don't play around with that unless you got no options left, or you're crazy. Even people who know what they're doing mess it up."
"And you know much about this sort of thing, do you?" Esme asks curiously.
Oh, he's not going down that road. "Maybe." He shrugs. "Once upon a time."
Proving herself more sensible than her ill-gotten kin, Esme lets the matter drop.
"Bella will be hungry when she wakes, I'm sure," she says, perking up. Galvanized into action, she reaches for a pad and pen. "I'll just run to the market and get a few things for her. What do you suppose she'd like?"
"I haven't the slightest idea, Esme."
"Well, what do they eat at the school?"
"I try not to focus on it."
Esme makes a 'hmm' noise and taps the pen against her chin. "Perhaps some fruit? Yes, she seems like a girl who enjoys her fruit."
Jasper almost asks her what made her come to this conclusion but realizes he does not in fact care. Still, she's not got a bad idea. "Maybe something a little more substantial," he says. "Protein."
"Ah, yes, yes." Esme's pen scribbles across the page. "I'll make a real meal of it. Some dessert, too. A nice black German chocolate cake. She's too skinny. Her father probably doesn't know much in the way of cooking." Pleased to have something to do and doubtless a reason to escape Jasper's morbidity, she tears off the page and exits in a flurry of cardamom and orchid.
She doesn't need to write anything down to remember it. Is the whole house mad?
Jasper closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. His hands smell like Bella. He made her come with his mouth and, when that wasn't enough, with his fingers. After a while he'd wondered if that really wasn't going to satisfy the spell and he was going to have to do what he knows he'll have to, anyway.
He tries not to give more than he has to, as a rule.
Upstairs, there as an explosion of fear, pain, and lust. Then the crying starts. Bella is awake.