A/N: Dear anon (well, one of you. Don't worry, kids. You can sign in. I won't bite.) I never said Edward was Jasper's stepbrother. I said Carlisle was his stepfather. For the record: Esme is Jasper's biological mother, Carlisle is Emmett's biological father. Edward belongs to Carlisle and Esme making Emmett and Jasper his half-brothers and each other's stepbrothers. Phew!

Emmett came over alone, and Jasper was glad. He wanted a chance to talk to his family without Rosalie and the kid. Emmett's wife and Jasper had gotten along fine, but Jasper knew her well enough to be able to guess what she might think of what he'd done. As for Emmett himself, Jasper hadn't been able to guess how he would react. He was the kind of guy who let things roll off his back.

His stepbrother was what his counselors would have called an enabler. Whenever Jasper had an episode of drug-addled behavior, he laughed it off or excused it. After all, Emmett had his moments. He'd enjoyed his life to excess at times. Looking back, Jasper knew denial when he saw it. Emmett had never wanted to acknowledge there was a problem so no problem existed for him then.

But Jasper didn't understand how anyone in their right mind could forgive what he'd done. Esme was his mother. Her job was to love him unconditionally, and she was damn good at what she did. Emmett, Edward, Carlisle… they were all different stories.

Carlisle had greeted him with the same unconditional love and support Esme had. He was, as ever, a good father. Still, his parents didn't hide their worry. They had so many questions, most of which Jasper refused to answer until his brothers gathered. In turn, they had danced around answers to his questions for the exact same reason.

When Emmett arrived, he came in the door and stood stock still at the sight of him. Jasper held his breath, but then Emmett crossed the room and folded him into a hug. "You look like shit, bro," he said, slapping Jasper on the back. "What the fuck happened to your face?"

"I, um… It's good to see you too." He pulled back, and the look on his brother's face startled him.

Emmett seemed nervous, which was the first of many things Jasper didn't know how to deal with. If anyone had asked him before, Jasper would have said his big brother-elder by all of two months-didn't know how to look so worried, but there it was. "What's wrong," he said out of force of habit. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

"Oh, man. What the hell kind of question is that?" His tight smile fell completely. "I mean, what the fuck, Jasper? You have no idea…"

Jasper swallowed hard. His heart was beating frantically against his chest, but at the same time, there was some relief to Emmett's words. There was a part of him screaming in his head as his parents hugged him, clucked over him. He wanted to be yelled at. They all deserved to be pissed as hell. "Say what you want to say," he said.

Emmett huffed. "I don't even know where to start. It's bad enough you disappeared like that, but then what? You can't call?" He gestured at Esme. "Let your mom know you're not going to die? You can't even write."

"I did write."

"You sent bullshit photos to Bella."

"I knew she would share them with you."

"She shouldn't have had to."

Jasper bowed his head. "I know that. I do. I just… I didn't have the words. And I couldn't let Bella lose you too. She needed you guys. I don't know. I hoped it would be a bridge for you. Something like that."

"Why the hell would we need a bridge? Bella's my little sister; she always has been. You think we needed more incentive than her and Kaylee?"

"Kaylee?"

Realization dawned on Emmett's face. "Holy fuck…"

Jasper's heart dropped down to his toes. He stumbled backward, his whole body trembling so hard, he couldn't help but sit down on the couch. Hard. "She lived?" His voice shook. "My baby lived?"

"She's not your baby."

Dizzy as he felt, Jasper managed to raise his head. It was hard to breathe through the vice grip around his lungs. "Wait. What? Who's Kaylee then?" His thoughts spun. Of course he would have expected Bella to move on by now. If she'd had a baby with someone else, and his family still accepted her, it was still less than she deserved.

"You really don't know."

"I don't know anything, man." Jasper threaded his hands through his hair and tugged hard. He tugged until the acute pain made him breathe again. He hadn't wanted to do this until Edward was there, because he had no idea whether or not he could say it again. "I couldn't come back. If I came back, I knew I would have fucked up everyone's life. I have no idea what's happened to any of you these last three years. I don't know what happened after that night. I don't. I'm sorry."

"Christ." Emmett sat down in the armchair. Carlisle and Esme came to sit on either side of Jasper.

"And we have no idea what happened to you." Esme ran her fingertips over the scars on Jasper's face. She took his hand and pulled his arm toward her, shoving the sleeve of his shirt up to reveal more scars. Her eyes were tortured as she looked at him. "Where have you been that this happened to you?"

"I…" Jasper closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll tell you. I promise I'll tell you everything. Just… Can we wait for Edward?"

"You say that as if you expect him to care," Emmett muttered.

"What do you expect him to do?"

Emmett looked at Carlisle and Esme before he looked down on the ground. "He's pissed," was all he said.

"Yeah, well. I get that."

Emmett opened his mouth and closed it just as quickly. He narrowed his eyes. "Okay. If we can't ask about the Nightmare on Elm Street look you got going on, what the heck can we talk about?"

"Um." Jasper rubbed the back of his neck. "Well. How are Rose and Henry?"

"Rose is going to have your balls. Other than that, she's fine. Henry's in First Grade now, and he has a little sister. Her name is Vera. She's going to be two next month."

For the first time in the so far tense as hell night, Jasper smiled. "That's amazing. You with a baby girl, that's…" He wanted to joke with his brother, but he didn't know if he had the right. "Anyway. That's great. Do you-"

Jasper cut off when the door opened.

Edward had changed. It had only been three years, but there was something in the way he held himself that reminded Jasper of Carlisle. He seemed older than his twenty-five years. His little brother wasn't at all like Emmett. He'd never had much patience for Jasper's antics. Jasper remembered well his exasperated looks and his constant admonitions. Jasper had dared to let himself hope Edward's reaction to his homecoming would be the same: that disappointed and superior expression. He knew well how to deal with disdain. Instead, Edward's glare was all hostility and fury. It rolled off him, almost visible as heat undulating over pavement.

His little brother hated him; Jasper could see it in his eyes.

When he was in rehab, he'd witnessed countless confrontations between family and the other addicts. Many of them hadn't been pretty. He'd seen children, parents, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands with twisted faces screaming accusations and obscenities at their family members. And that was part of recovering, to hear those things, to accept responsibility for the fact his loved ones had every right to be angry, to hate him because he'd hurt every single one of them.

So though it was the last thing he wanted to do, Jasper stood up. He went to his brother and stood in front of him. "Say it."

"What do you want me to say?" Edward asked through clenched teeth.

"Whatever you want to. Anything. You're not going to hear me argue."

Edward only stood still, seething.

"Edward. Jasper. Come on. We should go sit down at the table," Carlisle said, his voice calm.

"If I move, I'm going to hit him," Edward bit out.

"You can. I swear I won't stop you."

Edward's nostrils flared, and he scoffed. "That's the same promise you made Bella."

"Yeah. I meant that too."

"How good of you."

"Look, Edward. I know Bella is your friend-"

"My friend?"

"He doesn't know," Emmett said, stepping up to his brothers. "He doesn't know anything. He thought Kaylee died."

Jasper sucked in a breath. His stomach churned and he looked to Emmett. "I thought you said-"

"I said she isn't your baby, and she's not. You walked away. You gave up the right to call her yours."

"She's alive? But… Thirty-one weeks. Bella was only thirty-one weeks. She was too little."

"Just under three pounds," Edward said, his voice still laced with venom. "But strong. She's strong and beautiful and fuck you for not wanting her."

"I wanted her." Jasper's voice was raw as the words tumbled out of him. It had never been about not wanting the baby. In fact, it was the opposite. All throughout Bella's pregnancy, he'd worried, he'd known he wasn't good enough. But then the accident, and he was sure his baby girl was dead. "Oh, my god." He sunk to his knees right there on the foyer. So many years of guilt. So much time wasted, time he didn't think his baby girl had. "Fuck. Fuck." He was so relieved he wanted to cry, and yet… "I always wanted her."

"Yeah. You wanted her so much, you walked away from her the second, the second she needed you."

"I was sick."

"You think that's a fucking excuse?"

"No." Jasper buried his face in his hands. "It's not. I know it's not. I just… Bella was hurt, and I… I couldn't face her. I couldn't be the one to tell her our baby was dead when it was my fault. I just couldn't do it."

"Jasper, what are you talking about?" Esme knelt in front of him and took his face in her hands, trying to get him to look up. "The other driver was at fault. He was going too fast. What do you mean it was your fault?"

"I should have seen him coming." Jasper shook his head back and forth, back and forth, the movement nonsensical. "I couldn't think that day. I was…" He swallowed hard. He knew damn well his mother knew what he was, but it didn't make saying the words in front of her any easier. "I was trying to quit cold turkey. I was just starting to go through withdrawals. I shouldn't have gotten behind the wheel at all like that. Fuck, I couldn't even think straight, and I was irritable. I was arguing with Bella. I never even saw the asshole, but I should have. I would have."

He'd gotten out of that accident with scratches and bruises. Bella's leg had been pinned between twisted metal. He still remembered in stunning detail the panic and pain in her voice the few minutes she was conscious. "It's too soon. Please help her. Please. Please don't let this happen," she begged Jasper before her eyes closed and her head drooped.

At the hospital, Jasper had been left climbing the walls alone until Edward showed up. The rest of the family was out of town, visiting friends in their old home town of Forks, so it was just Edward left to deal with Jasper's hysteria. By then, Jasper had worked himself into a state. It had been too long. Too long in a nightmare scenario, with an addict's mentality of escapism as a coping mechanism, Jasper was caught on the edge of a cliff. He knew he should have been the man who could be Bella's rock no matter what happened. He knew he should have been the man who could face what he'd done. But he knew how much Bella already loved their daughter, and how devastated she would be at the baby's death. Jasper was so grief-stricken he could scarcely breathe.

"I can't do it. I can't. I can't be here. I fucked it all up. I can't." He remembered babbling those words at his little brother before he stumbled and ran for the door. "I can't."

Jasper bowed his head so low, his forehead nearly touched the floor. He writhed with the utter disgust he felt for himself. Drenched in his own vomit, pee, and sweat one of the many times he tried detoxing on his own, he hadn't felt this low. "What the fuck did I do?"

"They needed you, and you were too much of a piece of shit to stay."

"Edward," Carlisle warned.

"No," Jasper said. He tried to sit up a little, but the weight on his shoulders may as well have been a thousand pounds. "Let him say it. He's right."

"Bella woke up and she asked for you. You and her baby, and I was the one who had to tell her you were gone. I was the one who had to tell her she couldn't see her baby because Kaylee was fighting for each breath. What were you doing then, Jasper? What was more important than that?"

Jasper couldn't answer. He remembered exactly the first thing he'd done when he ran from the hospital. While baby fought for life, while Bella was in so much pain, he was getting as high as he possibly could, trying to float above the whole situation.

"You're a fucking piece of trash, and I hate that I'm related to you. I hate that you're sitting there right now as if you belonged here. I don't get how Mom and Dad can stand to touch you after what you've done, after what you put them through. Fuck you for coming back. You could have had the courtesy to die alone in an alley with a needle in your arm."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jasper saw Carlisle wince at his youngest son's rant, and beside him, Esme gasped. Jasper wanted to tell them again it was only what he expected, what he deserved, but he couldn't speak. His lungs were shut up tight, a piece of paper crumpled into an unusable ball. Jasper struggled, but after a long minute, he was able to draw in a short breath. His mother rubbed his back, and her touch was more solace than he deserved, though her soft weeping pained him. He closed his eyes and raised his head, trying to get his thoughts to stop spinning.

Low as he felt, as much as his brother's words cut him to the bone, there was something that made it all worth it. "But she lived," he whispered.

Edward let out a ragged breath. "Yes."

Jasper panted and after another minute, he drew himself up straighter. His throat and mouth were bone dry. It took a few swallows before he could summon the volume to speak. "Can I see her? I mean… Do you have a picture? She's your niece, right? You must have a picture."

"Go to hell."

"Come on, Edward," Emmett said. "Mom has a million pictures."

Jasper forced himself to look up. He must have looked pathetic. There he was on his knees with his little brother towering over him, righteous as anything. His was the look of a man who was sure he could never sink as low as Jasper had, could never do the things Jasper had done.

Edward huffed out a breath and dug into his pocket. He pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons. There was a sharp look in his eyes that Jasper couldn't read as he thrust the device in Jasper's face.

Jasper took the phone with shaking fingers. His breath caught as he looked at the photo, and he was struck by a one, two, three sucker punch of equally strong emotion.

First there was awe. The little girl in the photo was the most profoundly beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on. She had his wide grin and his hair with Bella's eyes, nose, and coloring. Her eyes were bright, her hands up as she grabbed at the air and stared at the camera. She was whole and happy and perfect.

Second was the sense of rightness he felt for Bella. It hit him like a punch to his chest because it should have been him to put that smile on her face. The Bella in the photo was happy too. She held the baby girl firm on her lap on the couch of this living room. It was everything he'd wished for her - to be so happy with a baby in her arms and…

There was the last thing, the sucker punch to the gut that left him breathless and at a loss for what to think. In the picture, Bella leaned with her back against Edward's chest. His little brother had his arms around both of them, his smile proud and adoring as he looked on the girls. He was pressing a kiss to Bella's cheek.

Jasper's eyes darted to his brother, and for the first time, he saw the wedding band on his ring finger. He looked up, and he saw by the expression on his face that Edward knew what he'd seen. "She isn't my niece, asshole," he said. "She's my daughter, and fuck you if you think you're getting anywhere near either of them."

With those words, he snatched his phone back and he was out the door, slamming it behind him, leaving Jasper stuck somewhere between unjustified indignation and complete, mind-numbing shock.

A/N: So. That went well. No bloodshed. *cough*. Anyway.

Many thanks to barburella and songster. I'd thank jfka06 but I was only supposed to write a little bit for her and finish the Foolish Hearts chapter. 3,000 words later…

We haven't heard much from Bella to this point. We'll get to hear from her next chappy. Promise.