A/N: Hokay, couple quick notes here. To my dear anon reviewers. A little bit of advice. Don't assume. There are a metric shit ton of issues that have yet to be addressed, some of which I haven't even hinted at yet. Just wait to see how the story plays out, yeah?

"Nothing says you're back from the dead like updating your Facebook page," Jasper muttered to himself. He hesitated with his finger over the upload button. It seemed only right to replace his profile picture first. He wasn't that guy anymore, the one with easy grin and the glint in his eyes.

His parents had insisted on buying him a smartphone since the phone he'd gotten from the shelter was unreliable at best. He'd protested until he realized they preferred him to be accessible. He'd spent his morning getting reacquainted with the fine art of the selfie.

What a difference three years made. Though he still looked like a young man, his face was much older, worn. It wasn't just the scars. He looked like a ghost, a shadow of a person. There was no life in his eyes. His mother had encouraged him to cut his hair, as though a trim could make him a different person.

Jasper pressed the upload button on his phone and turned to the laptop sitting in front of him on the table. His parents had kept his old laptop along with everything else of his. All of his belongings had been in boxes in the garage. Helping his mother go through them, he'd been too ashamed to look at her. He couldn't imagine how painful it must have been for her to pack his things in the first place.

Rubbing his eyes, Jasper got down to the second order of business: culling his friends list. This was part of his recovery he hadn't had to deal with. Those years he'd been a drifter, he'd had no steady friends. He rarely stayed in the same place long enough to learn anyone's name. He couldn't contact most the people he'd met even if he wanted to, and no part of him did.

Home was another story. Plenty of his old crowd had been enablers at best and fellow drug abusers at worst.

Many of his fellow addicts in the clinic had struggled with the idea of letting go of bad influences. It wasn't as simple as it sounded. People who had never experienced the disease of addiction judged drug abusers with a black and white view of the world. They were bad. Wrong. To them, they choices were easy. Don't do drugs. Don't hang out with people who do drugs. If only it were that simple.

An addict's friends were just like anyone else's. For many, their friends were the ones who had been there when no one else was. Like every other human being, drug abusers were nuanced, comprised of parts good, bad, and indifferent. It wasn't easy sacrificing long friendships even in favor of better health.

There, at least, Jasper was lucky. When he ran away from his life, he'd cut ties with everyone. Reestablishing ties with his family was a priority. He didn't have the time or the energy to think about maintaining old friendships, good or bad. With any luck, he could slip out of their lives entirely without them having been the wiser.

Jasper realized his mistake a minute too late. He should have gone on his deleting spree first, before he posted a new picture of himself. Before he knew it, his post had been liked and commented on by a handful of friends. Jasper shook his head hard. He'd been disconnected from the world for so long, he'd forgotten how instantaneous feedback could be on social networks.

Then, his Facebook messenger dinged. Jasper grimaced when he saw the name. Laurent Dumont. He was on the list of people Jasper wanted to delete. He was about to close his message straight away when the words on the screen registered.

Is this really you? I thought I was the only one of our crowd to survive.

Jasper stared at the words for well over a minute without moving. An uncomfortable rock settled in his gut. His fingers shook as he wrote back.

I'm real. What do you mean? What happened to James and Victoria?

Jasper tapped his fingertips on the table, waiting for Laurent's message to appear.

James overdosed two years ago. Victoria lost it after that. She committed suicide six months later.

"Christ." Jasper rubbed his eyes.

Once upon a time, they'd been four fucked up kids who found some solace in each other. Unlike James and Victoria, Jasper had a loving family, but still, not a one of them could understand some of the things he'd been through with his biological father. James's father had been just as big a dick if not more so. Victoria had been abused by both her parents. Like Jasper, Laurent had a support system at home, but seeing his mother die at the hands of an uncle had left him reeling. They were kindred spirits once upon a time.

I don't even know what to say to that. I'm sorry.

I am too. But nevermind that. Where the hell have you been? What happened to you?

Jasper scoffed. Again he wondered if he was doing the right thing. This was supposed to be one of the easiest things he had to do. But a little conversation had to be harmless, right? And now he wanted to know more about James and Victoria. The tightness in his throat told him he wasn't as detached as he'd thought.

Long story really short? I went off the deep end, almost got myself stabbed to death, and I got clean.

That's great. I mean, obviously not the stabbing to death part, the clean part. Me too. First you disappeared and we all thought you were dead. Then James died. I didn't want to be next.

And then a minute later:

Listen, man. I've got to make like a baby and head out, but we should meet to catch up. I'm happy you didn't get dead. You have no idea. My treat.

Jasper hesitated only a moment before he agreed. It seemed like a reasonably safe endeavor. Laurent had been a true friend-the best out of the trio-and if he was clean, it would be nice to have someone else to talk to. As Alice said, as much as his parents wanted to help, there was so much they could never understand.

When Laurent had logged off, Jasper sat back in his chair at his parents' kitchen table. He balled his hands in fists and rubbed his eyes hard. The ever-present tightness in his chest intensified and sharpened into grief. He'd been ready to walk away from his old friends for good, anything to keep his promise to his family, but that didn't mean he thought they were worthless. They'd been worth something to him, and he hadn't been there to save them the way he'd been saved. What made him worth more than they were?

It made him wonder - who else? James, Victoria, and Laurent were his oldest friends but not his only. What had happened to everyone else? How many others were gone?

Jasper pulled his laptop toward him and navigated to his profile. He intended to check his friends list one by one-anyway, he still needed to remove friends-but he was quickly distracted by his listed family members. It was a limited list. His mother, his father, brother Emmett. He was missing two siblings from the last time he'd seen his page. It was only to be expected, but it stung.

He threaded his fingers through his hair and tugged. He had to take a few deep breaths before Facebook came into focus again. By that time he was distracted from his original goal. He didn't even know what his family's life had looked like these last three years. Maybe it was better to start not with his friends but with them. He clicked on Emmett's profile.

For the first time since he'd logged back on Facebook, Jasper smiled. Short videos seemed to have taken over the world of social media in his absence. Emmett's feed was dotted with videos of his kids. Henry was so big, Jasper could hardly believe it was the same boy he'd known. He was still ever the ham, and though his physique already resembled his father's, at five, he seemed to be a fairly talented little pianist. Jasper wondered what Emmett, poor, tone deaf Emmett, thought about that.

And Vera. She was precious. There was a picture of her standing next to Rose looking the spitting image of her gorgeous mother. She was wearing a miniature version of the exact same mechanic's coveralls that Rose was and wielding a plastic purple version of the wrench her mother had.

Jasper's breath caught when he loaded up the next video and Vera appeared holding hands with a familiar, slightly older little girl. Kaylee flashed his grin at the camera and giggled with little girl pleasure. Edward came into the frame and plopped down on the grass behind them. "Kaylee, give your cousin a kiss?"

Kaylee was agreeable. She flung her arms around Vera, effectively knocking both toddlers to the ground. They giggled, and Kaylee pressed a wet smack to Vera's cheek.

Edward scooped Kaylee into his arms. "Now kisses for Daddy," he said and he peppered Kaylee's face with kisses while she laughed and screeched, "Daaaaaaaddddddddyyyyyyyy."

Ever a glutton for punishment, Jasper scrolled on. He found a video from Christmas Day. Emmett snuck into the room Edward and Bella were sharing in Carlisle and Esme's house. He crept in carefully so they didn't wake. "Awww," Emmett whispered to the camera. "How cute is this? Priceless."

Edward and Bella were spooning on the bed. Edward was the little spoon. Actually, Kaylee was the littlest spoon. She was tucked up against Edward's chest the way he was tucked against Bella. It was a pretty picture, and under other circumstances, Jasper would have wanted to do exactly what Emmett did: tease the hell out of his little brother. Emmett climbed right into bed with them, jostling them awake as he tried to spoon with Bella. The camera shook. There was playful shouting and the feed cut off.

Jasper imagined he would have gotten a much different reception if he ever tried something like that.

If it were ever possible.

Would he ever get to the point where he could joke? He didn't know if he remembered how. He couldn't remember the last time he could think past the weight on his shoulders and the vice grip around his heart.

A key turning in the lock at the front door caught his attention, and Jasper looked up to see Carlisle come in the door. As usual, there was that smile of surprise on his stepfather's face when he saw Jasper still sitting there.

"How was your day?" Carlisle asked as he sat across from Jasper at the table.

"Fine. I took the bus to look for jobs. There's a gas station only a few stops up. The owner seemed to like me, so we'll see."

Carlisle seemed confused. "A gas station? Is that really the kind of job you want to look for?"

Jasper traced idle patterns against the tabletop. "I think my main goal right now is to be a contributing member of society. A gas station job isn't going to get me very far, but it'll pay for some so you aren't supporting me completely. And from there I'll figure out what I can do."

"You're a gifted photographer, Jasper. You had a great career."

"One that I can't just walk back into." He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, trying not to be as frustrated as he was. "I burned a lot of bridges, and I have an inexplicable three year gap in employment. I could do freelance work, but that takes networking. I don't have a network."

"I'm sorry. I didn't think."

"Don't apologize. Starting over, right? It's, uh… I mean, I don't like the idea either, but until I figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life, I have to do something. I have to be able to show all of you I'm moving forward. Then maybe Edward will let me see my…" He swallowed hard and flexed his hands into fists. "Maybe Rosalie will be okay with me seeing Henry and meeting Vera."

"Jasper-"

Jasper shook his head, waving off whatever comfort Carlisle was about to offer. Sometimes his parents' compassion was more painful than any condemnation. "Hey, I have a question." His voice was tight, but he pressed on. He turned his laptop around to face Carlisle and pressed play on one of the videos he'd seen. "Who's this guy?"

The video was from Kaylee's third birthday party just a couple months before. It was a family affair, but the video showed a man Jasper had never seen. He was taller than Emmett but not quite as broad, yet he was sitting cross legged at a table obviously meant for tiny people. The table was bedecked with petit fours, tiny sandwiches, a tea kettle, and teacups. The stranger sat still as Kaylee adorned him with a pink boa.

"You're a pretty, pretty princess," Emmett teased the man who fixed him with a slightly exasperated look.

Kaylee glanced up from her work. "You have to have tea too, Unca Em. You can have the hat with the sparkles."

The stranger snickered, and the video cut off.

Carlisle chuckled. "That's Jacob Black. He's Kaylee's nanny."

"Bella was so pro-daycare," Jasper mused.

"Well, we hired Jacob when Edward had to go to work. Bella's recovery was very slow, and she couldn't care for an infant alone on crutches or in her wheelchair. He was half nurse to Bella and half nanny to Kaylee. After that, it just made sense to keep him on when Bella went back to school. He's part of the family."

Jasper hummed his acknowledgment, aching again for too many reasons. He hated that he'd left Bella to care for their daughter alone when she herself needed care. It should have been him there for both them. On top of that, even though it was no one's fault but his, he couldn't pretend it didn't hurt that an outsider had more of a place in his family than he did.

Carlisle cleared his throat. Jasper was afraid for a moment that he was going to ask what was wrong, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he changed the subject. "Your mother asked me to give you something. It's in my office if you'd like to take a look."

Curious, Jasper followed his stepfather to his office. Carlisle rummaged through a file drawer and proffered Jasper an official looking document. It took him a minute to realize what he was holding. It was Kaylee's birth certificate.

His hands shook as he looked over the information. Kaylee Madelyn Swan, two pounds, fifteen ounces. Fifteen and a half inches long. He traced the line with his name. Father: Jasper Whitlock.

"I can't keep this," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Edward and Bella would kill me."

Carlisle hesitated a moment before he spoke. "You can keep it. That birth certificate is no longer valid."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, when Edward and Bella married, they had your parental rights terminated for reasons of abandonment. Edward adopted Kaylee. She's a Cullen now."

Jasper had to close his eyes against the ache at the center of his chest. His thoughts felt thick, and it was difficult to find the right words. Watching his mother fight his biological father for custody of him over and over again, Jasper knew way more than he wanted to about parental rights. The last beating he'd suffered at his father's hands had put Jasper in the hospital, and he'd never had to see the man again, even after he served his far too limited sentence. "That makes sense. But then why the hell is Edward always so defensive? If my rights have been terminated completely, I couldn't fight for her even if I wanted to."

Again Carlisle hesitated. "I'm telling you this because I think the least of what anyone deserves is honesty, no matter what the situation. I asked Edward the same question a couple days ago about why he was acting as though it was possible for you to be allowed visitation with Kaylee legally. He told me he consulted with our lawyers when he adopted Kaylee. He knew you thought she was dead. At the time, the lawyers told him there was a chance you could argue you wouldn't have abandoned her if you knew she was alive."

"I wouldn't have."

"Well, if a judge agreed with you, the adoption would be voided. You could seek visitation."

That admission hung in the air between them, a physical entity added to the weight bearing down on Jasper's chest. He turned away from Carlisle and looked out the window. It was hard to pin down what he was feeling. It was the most helpless kind of hope he'd ever experienced. Not that he wanted to do it, not that he could put his family through that, but that there was some option for him somewhere, a choice in his hands, simultaneously gave him a measure of peace and sent his thoughts reeling into chaos.

"Dad?" He had to swallow several times before he could continue. "If Bella had married someone else, if someone else was keeping my daughter away from me, what would you be telling me to do right now?"

Carlisle took a deep breath. "I think I would tell you regardless that you have a lot on your plate. There are things, in this case, more important to settle before you think about your place in Kaylee's life."

Jasper closed his eyes and tried to reorient his thoughts. Just because he was desperate to meet his daughter didn't mean he was ready.

"This is a complicated situation," Carlisle said. "No matter how this plays out, someday, Kaylee is going to know you're her biological father. You, Edward, and Bella will have to figure out how to navigate that scenario one way or another. I know it's been ugly between you and your brother, but I believe you can both come back from that with time and talking. I would hope you wouldn't consider making it uglier."

"I don't want to make it uglier," Jasper said, his voice low and tired.

"I know. One day at a time, and this will get easier for all of us. For now, you can start with seeing Rosalie."

At that, Jasper looked up.

"She's agreed to come to dinner tomorrow with Emmett, Edward, and Bella. They're going to leave the kids with Jacob for the time being."

"Edward and Rosalie at the same time." Jasper scrubbed a hand over his face. "That's going to be...interesting."

"One day at a time," Carlisle said again.

A/N: Shout out to frostedglaze for putting the image of Jake at a tea party with a pink boa in my head.

Big thank you to everyone who reached out to me about banners. Foolish Hearts got a banner from ShadyPhee and New Girl got a banner from Fallingsnow Winter. Snapshots banner is being worked on by Beegurl, and Kris is a happy person.

Anyway, I meant to introduce Rosalie this chapter but as in real life, I got stuck on Facebook too long. Humph!