Jasper opened the front door of their new and hopefully permanent home in Ohio and entered the house, followed by his wife, mother and brother. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he could perceive faint voices coming from the kitchen. He wasn't quite sure what was going on or why there was a whispered conversation in an almost empty house, but when he stepped further into the foyer and pulled his shoes off, he could make out single words spoken by his father and a barely audible softly spoken 'Sorry' from Emmett.

The scraps of conversation weren't enough to understand what that had been about, but Jasper figured that Em must have done something silly again and Carlisle just told him to cut it out.

Just before Edward, who was the last person who entered the house, closed the front door behind him, both Carlisle and Emmett emerged from the unlit kitchen and walked towards them. A smile appeared on Carlisle's smooth face upon seeing his family, and he immediately gave his wife a quick kiss on the lips before greeting his children and asking how their hunt had been.

Emmett, however, looked shame-faced and just lifted a hand in greeting before he disappeared upstairs, taking two steps at a time like he was in a hurry to see his wife... or like he couldn't wait to get away from them...

It wasn't the first time as of late that Jasper did not know what was going on around him. After his most recent mistake he chose to block the other's emotions to be able to deal with his own. He just couldn't endure all their heartfelt encouragement and forgiveness at the moment, and so he deemed it necessary to not let their emotions wash away his guilt. He felt guilty for a reason: he had failed them and there was no use in denying it anymore, especially after all these years of forcing them to move again and again.

A low growling sound next to his ear made him glance to the side and into his mind-reading brother's face. The boy was giving him a pointed look and slightly shook his head, just like he had done so many times over the last few days.

Why does he constantly read my mind when he doesn't like what I'm thinking?

"Because you refuse to talk about it."

"Stay out of my head."

Alice quickly got in between the two boys, shoving Edward away from her husband with her shoulder just in time before Carlisle and Esme directed questioning gazes at them.

"Is everything all right?" Carlisle queried, looking in between his three children. He didn't really seem like he suspected anything, he just wanted to help as what Edward had just said sounded like there was some kind of a disagreement between them. Of course he wouldn't get involved as long as they were able to take care of it on their own and it didn't get out of hand - but truth be told, Jasper didn't know what the outcome would be. Edward was always trying to disrupt the time he spent with his Alice, and it was starting to get quite bothersome.

And why Edward wouldn't stop he did not know - he was reading his thoughts after all, and so he should know how he felt about his rude behaviour.

Glancing at his brother, Jasper noticed that Edward frowned at Alice like he was contemplating saying something or keeping his mouth shut. Alice was the only one who looked back at their father and nodded. "We were just about to head upstairs and get changed," she said and her lips formed a pout before she whined, "I have a blood stain on my collar, Daddy."

A chuckle escaped Carlisle and he tilted his head to the side. "It's barely noticeable, honey."

She let out a deep sigh and leaned her head against her mate's upper arm. "But I know it's there... we'll need to go get changed, right now."

Then she pulled on Jasper's hand and ascended the stairs, not leaving him a choice but to follow her.

The petite girl pushed the door to their room open and entered with a skip in her step and a sweet, little smile on her lips. Before Jasper even knew what was happening, Alice had pushed him onto their bed with a soft giggle and started to unbutton her blouse. He gaped at her as her spontaneousness had taken him off guard once again, but before he could help her shed her clothes, she got off him again. He followed her with his eyes, then realised that she was only heading back to the door to close it.

Yes, would have been mighty embarrassing to have the family see...

Letting his head fall back onto the soft duvet, he closed his eyes and waited for his wife to return, but instead of hearing the clicking sound of the door being locked and Alice's soft tripping footsteps, he could only perceive an exasperated growl.

He looked up immediately and detected his Alice with one hand on the wall and the other one on the door, looking at Edward through narrowed eyes.

"How much longer, Alice, huh?" the bronze-haired boy asked and raised an eyebrow.

At hearing that, Jasper shot up into a sitting position. He found it to be incredibly rude of Edward to ask about that. What they were doing in their room and for how long they would do it was absolutely none of his business. And asking a lady something like that was-

Alice just huffed, then threw the door in their brother's face and turned the key in the keyhole before she spun around to face him again, her previous smile back on her lips.

"Where were we?" she asked sweetly and wriggled her eyebrows at him. "Oh right, you wanted to help me take off my dirty clothes."

Jasper and Alice spent the night in their room, trying their hardest to ignore Edward's moodiness and his awkward choice of music. He could always stop reading their thoughts or leave the house if he didn't like what they were doing within the privacy of their room – blaring Bad Woman Blues again and again wouldn't change anything. Well, it only changed his mood as Carlisle told him he could chose between turning down the volume or hand over his record player – Edward had been even grumpier after that and eventually left the house for the night.

It was more or less forgotten the next day – at least it was for Jasper. He didn't want to feel his brother's moodiness on top of his own turmoil of emotions.

But luckily Emmett was back to normal. When Jasper entered the living room, Em was sitting on the ground with his back leaning against the couch and watched commercials – one of his favourite pastimes, it seemed.

"Hey, Jazz," he greeted him and scooted to the side so Jasper could sit down on the couch. The living room in this new house was remarkably smaller than the one in their previous home. Maybe Esme and Carlisle had chosen a house with a tiny living room on purpose, so Em wouldn't spend all day watching TV... it didn't look like it was working.

"Hey," Jasper sighed and took a seat, crossing his legs so Em would have a little more room.

"Shouldn't you be at least a little bit more relaxed than that?" the bulky boy asked and glanced back over his shoulder with a questioning look in his eyes before he focussed back on the little TV screen.

Jasper frowned. "Why?"

"Haven't seen you or Alice all night...," he said and shrugged his shoulders, then looked back at him again and his lips turned into a smirk. "Good for you, brother."

No privacy whatsoever... "And what makes you feel so relaxed today?"

Emmett looked confused. "I'm always relaxed," he replied and blinked at him.

"Didn't look like it yesterday."

"Pfft."

Uh, apparently he was on to something... Em wanted to hide what happened, but since he always tried to coax them into telling whatever it was he wanted to know, he would do the same now. "Did something happen?" he asked casually and 'accidentally' nudged Em's shoulder with his knee.

"Nah," Emmett replied and pushed his brother's knee away. "just got told off."

"Told off?" Jasper queried, but then tensed when he realised how curious and, well, stupid he sounded... like he didn't know what that meant. Everyone knew what that meant... especially when it came to Carlisle. It could literally take hours until he was done telling someone off. It was like his second talent after his exceptional self-control.

Emmett gave him a weird look before he rolled his eyes and snorted. "The old man wasn't happy with me, but he decided to let it slide. Ha, maybe because you came home... you saved my hide!" he laughed.

Saved his hide? So it was a lot more serious than he had anticipated... "What happened?" he queried and focussed on the screen like he was merely making small talk while actually just being interested in watching TV.

He didn't care in the least about Beefaroni and how much protein it contained...

"I should have listened to Rose," Em replied when he was finished singing along to the jingle, "but you know what happens when you feel that something isn't just – especially when it's about your wife. I trust Carlisle, of course I do, but it's incredibly hard to control that urge to keep my beautiful Rosie safe – even if I know that she's not really in any danger."

"Why would Rosalie have been in any danger?"

"No, no, she hadn't really been, it's okay," Em replied absent-mindedly and waved his hand about like he thought it was nothing important... or he just wanted him to shut up so he could continue to watch TV.

The advertisements consumed his brother's entire attention it seemed, and Jasper started to look around impatiently.

This conversation could not be over yet...

"She had been really quiet lately," he remarked and hoped Em would remember that he was still in the room with him. Why would he even like commercials? They weren't human anymore, they didn't eat, drink, smoke or need to shave!

"Just like you, Jazz," Emmett remarked before a gasp escaped him and he stared at the blonde vampire through wide open eyes. "Please don't tell me you're going to blame yourself as well now. Seriously, I'm not going to do that again – this time I would be in trouble, so you can forget that. I'm just glad that Rose is over it now and won't ask Carlisle again to whip her."

He managed to keep a straight face even though he felt like gaping at Em.

So that's what happened.

"I go upstairs and read."

"Aw, come on. Does nothing ever change around here?" Emmett whined and held his hands palms up in a questioning manner. "Loosen up and have some fun!"

Jasper passed him and left the room, then mounted the stairs.

The empath felt a crushing guilt when he heard that Rosalie had blamed herself for his lousy self-control, and that she had sought out their leader to admit to "her" fault and ask for punishment.

His sister had done what she could, just like Emmett and his beautiful Alice. Not a single one of them was to blame for his inability to control himself – it was solely his fault.

If he had only known how much the party had impacted her, then he would have talked to her or at least subtly changed her emotions to more calm and guilt-free ones.

Yes, he knew it wasn't exactly the nicest thing to change somebody's emotions without their permission, but he'd rather feel wretched for manipulating her than knowing she's feeling guilty over something he had done. She wasn't responsible for his actions, so why would she blame herself?

Dammit, if he had only been more aware of his family's emotions instead of being his self-centred self and trying to keep everything and everyone out. At least then he could have prevented poor Rosalie from suffering like that.

But he thanked the heavens for Carlisle who had managed to help Rose see that she had absolutely nothing to do with it and that the mere idea of her being to blame for what had happened at the party was preposterous. Still, he did not understand why their coven leader hadn't come to him afterwards and whipped him for causing his daughter such pain. That's what he would have done if he were Carlisle.

They were supposed to protect each other from harm after all, and as an empath he knew how excruciating emotional pain and guilt could be. So why had Carlisle just let it slide instead of letting justice prevail? Rosalie was innocent in all this and he had allowed for her to suffer... shouldn't Carlisle be furious with him?

He had to be... Jasper couldn't imagine that he wasn't. He was probably only waiting for the right time to let him feel his displeasure.

That was reasonable.

He was giving his anger time to built up to make sure he would leave a lasting expression and Rosalie would be adequately avenged. That's what he had expected to see from their leader for quite a while now... Carlisle was very controlled and over the last few years he had never felt raw anger or blind rage coming from him. But this offence would surely bring out the revengeful leader in him - he knew what was in store for him.

"Jasper?" his wife's sweet voice sounded over to him from the open doorway, cutting right through his musings and making him look up at her and directly in her beautiful face.

"Y-" His voice failed him and so he quickly cleared his throat, then tried again. "Yes?"

She just stood there, staring at him, and he did not know if she was really looking at him and contemplating what to say or just having a vision.

When she eventually drew a breath again and blinked, he relaxed slightly.

Her eyes turned slightly sad, and she stretched out her hand to close the door behind her before she approached him and came to a halt in front of the bed he was sitting on.

"Jasper," she said, "I think I need to talk to you."

He grabbed her hand and gently pulled her towards the bed so she would take a seat beside him. When she did, he shifted to the side a little to be able to fully look at her. "I think I need to talk to you, too."

She frowned at him and the serious tone of voice he used, not having expected him to say that, and all of a sudden her eyes glazed over again. It was so quiet in the room until she let out a loud gasp and covered her mouth with one of her dainty hands.

Her eyes filled with tears and she swallowed heavily before asking him in a voice barely above a whisper, "You are going to leave me?"

A short chapter, yep, but the story isn't over yet.

Thanks for reading and reviewing guys!