A/N: Hello, lovelies. I hope life is treating you kindly.

Edward grimaced as he lay in bed listening to the sound of his wife retching. Helplessness wasn't something he handled very well, especially when Bella was suffering. He'd tried to stay with her but had been vehemently banished back to the bedroom. He'd brewed a serving of ginger tea. It was rapidly cooling on the nightstand next to her side of the bed.

After an age, Bella shuffled into the room looking haggard. He sat up, pulling the covers back for her. She sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him. Edward moved slowly, giving her the chance to rebuff him if she didn't feel like being touched. When she didn't protest, he moved to sit behind her, his legs around hers. She leaned back against his chest, eyes closed and face pale in the dim light of the room. "I don't like this part," she murmured.

Edward didn't say anything. He brushed hair off one shoulder, so he could press soft kisses to her clammy cheek. She sighed, relaxing further against him as he wrapped his arms low around her. He began humming in her ear, a sound tuneless at first. Slowly, as he stroked his hands over her still-flat belly, the song took shape, and he began to hum Sweet Child of Mine.

Bella stiffened and pulled away from him. "Don't. Don't sing that. I don't want to hear that. Jasper-"

They both froze, the mood of the room shifting from intimate to awkward in a heartbeat. Edward closed his eyes and took a deep breath, tilting his head to rest against hers. "Jasper sang it to you when you were pregnant with Kaylee," he finished for her.

She nodded. "I'm sorry."

Edward took another few minutes before he answered, so he could be sure he would mean what he said. "You can talk to me about anything that's bothering you."

"You shouldn't have to hear these things. It isn't fair."

"It's not unfair. It's isn't easy, but it's not unfair." He drew his fingertips along the line of her shoulder. "This is what real life looks like. Maybe it would be nice if it was only ever you and me, but it wasn't. That's life. It's not smooth and neat. So tell me."

Bella shifted, and he followed her movements until they were both laying back down, his chest still pressed to her back. She sighed before she spoke. "Sometimes I think it's weird. All those clichés talk about cherishing the good times and forgetting the bad times. The problem with that is the good memories hurt the most."

Edward stayed quiet. He ran his hands under her nightshirt, not to titillate but to assure her with an intimate connection.

"I've never been more terrified in my life than when I was pregnant the first time. I didn't feel old enough to be someone's mother. I still don't. And then Jasper… Looking back, it's obvious I shouldn't have been with him. I knew he was an addict, of course, but when I was with him, it never seemed that bad. He never seemed that bad. Not like you see on television. He was never violent. He never stole my things or did anything so crazy when he was high."

"He's a highly functional addict," Edward said, his tone wry. It was one of the reasons Edward was still so surprised when he went so far off the deep end, abandoning Bella and Kaylee the way he had, disappearing for years. It was an extreme action, and even though they'd all known Jasper was in trouble, they'd never known him to go to extremes.

"Yeah," Bella said. "When I was with him, I never realized how bad it was until I knew I was going to have a baby with him. Like it wasn't that big of a deal that my boyfriend was on drugs, but it was horrible when he was my baby's father. I was alone, guilty, and scared out of my mind.

"But then Jasper was… He was great. He really was. I was an awful coward about being pregnant."

Edward snorted. "I doubt that."

"Well. I was so weepy I annoyed myself. He was patient, though. He said all the right things." She breathed deep. "And he was so cute about the baby."

Edward had noticed that when she spoke about her first pregnancy, she never called Kaylee by name. The pregnancy had belonged to her and Jasper. Kaylee had always been Edward's.

"He would sing in my ear, like you did," she said. "Sometimes, he would sit on the floor with his guitar so he could sing to my belly."

A memory hit Edward, and he spaced out for a moment. He remembered sitting on the piano bench, alternately flustered and pleased. Jasper sat beside him, facing the other way with his guitar. He would patiently pluck out four or five notes on his guitar and wait for Edward to follow on the piano. Over and over until Edward had learned a whole song. He didn't remember what that first song was, but he remembered playing it for his parents and Emmett. While he received pats and accolades, Jasper stood off to the side, smiling proudly but quiet.

"That's why the good memories are harder, I think," Bella said, bringing him back to the present. "He gave me such hope. I know, after he found out about the baby, he tried so hard to get clean. He was always with me or at work, so I thought he was. He told me he was okay, and I believed him. I guess I wanted to believe him."

He kissed the top of her head. "I always did, too." He hesitated. "Bella?"

"Hmm?"

He tightened his hold on her and nuzzled the back of her head with the tip of his nose. "Are you ever… Do you resent sometimes that it was me you fell in love with? As opposed to someone who wasn't Jasper's brother?"

She stiffened and wiggled in his arms until he loosened his hold. She turned and rested a hand at his waist. "What a bizarre question to ask."

"Is it? He broke your heart. If I wasn't Jasper's brother, you wouldn't have to see him all the time."

Though it was dark, Edward thought he could feel Bella's exasperated expression.

"Edward, the only thing I resent you for is the fact that sometimes, when I look at you, I get a crappy country song in my head."

"What?"

She kissed the tip of his nose. "God bless the broken road that led me straight to you." She sighed. "You were right about what you said before. This is what life looks like. You don't get it right on the first try, and it's always messy. You can't get away without some kind of mess, and my messes are why I have you, better or worse." She pressed a light kiss to his lips. "I wouldn't trade you. Not for anything. And I love your parents, too. See, I was screwed anyway because even if I wasn't in love with you, I never would have taken Kaylee away from her grandparents, or you, or Emmett and Rosalie for that matter.

"And then what? I would have had to put up with Jasper regardless. That's what happens when you have a baby with someone. You're tied to them forever. If it hadn't been for you, I might not have thought to sever Jasper's parental rights. Then when he came back, he could have filed for custody whenever he wanted to. Right now, as terrible as it is that your parents are walking the line between being there for you and being there for your brother, all of their resources would have been his.

"But we did have Jasper's rights severed, and your parents have promised that, if it ever came down to it, they would help us not him. This isn't a competition, or it shouldn't be, but to answer your question, no. I don't resent you. I couldn't."

The end of her sentence cut off in a yawn. Edward closed his eyes and brushed the tips of their noses together. "I'm sorry, love. I'm being a bad husband. You need sleep."

"So do you." She kissed him. "I love you."

"I love you."

~0~

A morning meeting at work ran late, and as a result, the higher-ups decided work was done for the day. Edward found himself driving toward his mother's office. There, he discovered she was away from her desk. He settled down to wait, sitting behind her desk like he had when he was a teenage brat.

Esme's office was decorated mostly with pictures and some of her sons' more artistic projects: various bits of artwork from Edward, wood projects from Emmett, and Jasper's more artistic shots. Many of the pictures of the family were Jasper's work. He had a knack for capturing people, their essence and emotion, so well.

There was a picture of Edward with Emmett he'd always loved. He was perhaps two or three and perched on his big brother's shoulders. Emmett's head was tilted up, looking at his little brother with a patient smile even though Edward's hands fell haphazardly over his face. Edward was looking out, at Jasper behind the camera, his mouth open with whatever he was babbling at his blond-haired brother.

Jasper's talent had showed itself early. There was another picture, one of Esme's favorites, that Jasper had taken at eight-years-old. In it, Edward was so tiny, he must have been brand new. He rested, asleep, on Esme's chest. Her head was tilted on Carlisle's shoulder. He had one arm around her, his other hand over hers on Edward's back. They were both staring down at their baby son with awe and adoration.

What had it been like for Jasper taking this picture, Edward wondered. Was there a picture like this of Jasper with his father and mother looking down in awe and reverence at the life they'd created together?

Jasper hadn't taken all the family pictures around the room of course. He was in a fair amount of them. Edward had just picked up a frame from her desk—in it all three brothers had fallen asleep sprawled on the floor of the living room in front of the TV, Edward draped over Jasper's chest—when Esme came in.

"Oh." She put her hand to her heart. "You scared me."

"Sorry." Edward stood and wrapped his mother in a tight hug.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, rubbing his back.

Edward blew out a long breath and released her. "Nothing," he said as he sat down on the right side of the desk.

"Are you sure?"

Edward shifted his weight. There was no good way to segue into this conversation. He chuffed and dove in. "I don't understand how you can blame yourself for everything Jasper did. I'm sorry," he said at her quick intake of breath. "You're my mother too, and you're a good mother."

"I was a good mother to you," Esme said, interrupting the tirade of words. She settled back in her chair with a troubled expression. "I've been very honest with you about how I grew up."

Without love and affection. With coldness and expectation. Edward nodded, his throat tight, and Esme fixed him with a sad expression. "What makes you think Jasper grew up differently than how I did?"

Edward started "You're nothing like Grandmother and Grandfather."

"Not to you." She rocked slowly, not looking at him as she spoke. "I never wanted to be like my parents. That much I knew, that they'd done wrong by me, and I knew I never wanted my babies to feel like they'd made me feel.

"I was eighteen when I met Charles and nineteen when I gave birth to Jasper. I thought Charles loved me. He knew how to love, or so I thought, and I took his lead when it came to Jasper. He made so much sense to me back then." Her fingers drummed restlessly on the desk, a disturbed tattoo. "Charles said if you expected the best from children, if you hold them to a high standard, they would be good; better than the brats other people raise. I wanted very much for my baby to live up to his standards. I always wanted to please him and that extended to Jasper. He deserved a good son.

"So I was demanding of Jasper because Charles was demanding of both of us. He expected too much and gave too little affection. Because we didn't deserve it, you know. We were never good enough, and I thought that was my fault."

She paused and smiled though the redness in her eyes told him she was close to tears. "Your father was a revelation. He loves without condition or expectation." She finally looked at him. "Why is it you think you and Emmett are happy, confident men, hmm? There is a line between guiding a child and crippling them that isn't always clear. Your father taught me how to love in every sense of the word. Or maybe he just gave me permission to. It's hard to say."

"But Jasper had Dad since he was very little."

"Yes, but it took me a long while to unlearn the way I had come to interact with Jasper. By the time I met your father, even though I'd run from Charles, I was already set in my ways. I was used to handling Jasper a certain way. I had to work very hard to try to be the mother he deserved, that you all deserved. There was so much about myself I had to fix… not so unlike what Jasper is doing now. And even when I knew what I was doing, it took a long time to rewrite old, bad habits. It didn't help that Jasper was used to my… rougher ways. He didn't know how to respond, and it made him nervous, angrier, harder to handle.

"Then, of course, I had to send him back to Charles for days and weeks at a time." The drumming against the table became rough again, and Esme stared away sightlessly. "He had no chance. My poor boy."

"That wasn't your fault. You did the best you could."

"Edward, you can't hold Jasper responsible for every wrong move he's made and not do the same for me. I know from experience what it's like to think if your parent can't love you, how could anyone else? I know what living with that does to a person. I should have known he would find a way to escape. I did. I found Charles, and look where that got me."

She shook her head hard and her look was more soft when she met his eyes again. "Carlisle is there in him though, you know. He had some effect.

"When you were born, Jasper watched Carlisle so carefully. I think he imitated the way your father was with you. He was so gentle, more gentle than I'd ever seen him. He would sing to you and stroke your hair and tickle you. He liked to hear you laugh, and he always tried to soothe you when you cried." Her breath hitched with the memory, but she was smiling. "And when we let him hold you, he would coo at you. 'Good boy. You're such a good boy.'"

Her eyes closed and a tear spilled down her cheek. "You know, I don't think anyone ever told him the same thing."

~0~

Two weeks after Carlisle's birthday, visiting with Kaylee and Bella, Edward watched his brother watching his daughter. His jaw was, as always, tense. He watched Jasper like a hawk as usual, waiting for him to step out of line.

He never did. He was always very careful about how he interacted with Kaylee. The look on his face was always one of unadulterated longing. He wanted to kiss and cuddle her; Edward could practically feel the strong urge that emanated from his brother. He didn't, though. He stuck to the rules Bella had set down the first time. He never interacted with Kaylee unless the little girl came to him first.

Of course, much to Edward's irritation, Kaylee liked Jasper. She'd accepted his presence without hesitation and would often clamber up onto his lap. Jasper was, after all, an attentive audience. He never seemed to get bored of her rambling or nonsensical babbling. He was patient and, to Kaylee anyway, almost as hilarious as her nanny, Jake.

Edward got to his feet. He wasn't even sure what he was so angry about. He hated seeing Jasper touch Kaylee, but what sense did that make?

He was so sick of being angry all the time.

"Jasper." The word came out as a bark, and Jasper and Kaylee both looked up, wary at his tone. Edward forced himself to take a deep breath. So far, Kaylee had been oblivious to Edward's tension, and he intended to keep it that way. He swallowed hard. "Why don't we have lunch. You and me. Out at the diner."

Jasper's eyes went wide, and Edward couldn't blame him. He was surprised himself. His brother didn't have to ask which diner. It was one Jasper had taken him to many times as a big brother treat after he had his own car. "O...okay."

On the way to the diner, neither of them spoke. Edward had too many things running through his head, and he didn't know what was going to come out first. He wasn't even sure he could keep from yelling except that everything he had to say, every accusation he wanted to make, already hung like pollution in the air between them.

Angry though he was, it gave Edward no satisfaction to observe, for the millionth time, just how conquered Jasper was. Sitting in the diner across from him again was surreal. When Edward had first sat there, his big brother was like a demigod in his eyes, all awe-inspiring and awesome because he had freedom and confidence. Now, he sat with his shoulders hunched, his eyes mostly stuck on the tabletop in front of them though he did dart nervous glances up at Edward now and again. From the way he shifted restlessly in his seat, Edward wouldn't have been surprised if he bolted for the door.

More than anything at that moment, Edward found he hated the Grand-Canyon-sized chasm between them. He resented Jasper for it. "I want to know why," he said, breaking the silence.

Jasper eyed him, his expression resigned. "Why what?" he asked in a tone that suggested he knew damn well where Edward was going with this.

"You grew up hearing the same stories I did about drugs. Addiction I get. Clinically, I get it. What I don't understand is how you started."

With a shrug, Jasper looked back down at the tabletop. "I'm not going to make excuses. I-"

Edward banged his hand down on the tabletop to stop his brother's rote response. "No. No bullshit, Jasper. I want to know the real reason." He took a deep breath, willing himself to find calm again. He had questions, and he knew he needed to keep his cool if he expected Jasper to answer honestly, without being defensive. "I'm going to listen, and I won't argue. I just need to know. Why? We're a good family. You had two brothers who loved you and parents who would have done anything for you. Why choose the drugs?"

Jasper hesitated and picked up his napkin, worrying it between his fingers. He closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath before he started.

He told Edward about how he'd always felt different, separate from the family even when he was with them.

Edward had to protest. "But that was in your head. No one ever treated you-"

"You said you were going to listen," Jasper said, staring back with mild reproach.

Edward sat back with a huff and motioned for Jasper to continue.

He did, methodically ripping his napkin into tiny shreds as he spoke. "It was different for me. Mom was different with you, and I thought… maybe I still think it was because of me. I was bad somehow."

That was how it felt, Jasper told him; that there was something very wrong, intrinsically off-kilter about him. He was like a defective electronic; he just never worked right.

"It's like poison," Jasper said. "You feel it in your blood, this ugliness right under the surface of your skin. It's always there, and you can't wipe it off."

Edward was smart enough to recognize Jasper's use of the third person as a distancing coping mechanism. He could see how hard this admission was on his brother, and it tempered some of the accusatory things that were on the tip of his tongue.

"I don't know. The wrongness was always there, but the poison… I don't know when that started. All I know is it started to get worse. Heavier. Impossible to ignore. It was so real to me it might as well have been a physical thing, and sometimes it could choke me.

"I don't know if you remember, but I started to struggle a lot when I got to middle school."

Edward nodded. "I thought later it was the drugs."

Jasper shook his head. "It wasn't. Not then. And it wasn't me being an obstinate teenager like Mom thought either. I wasn't trying to cause trouble. It was just physically difficult to get up in the morning. And when I went to class, I don't know, I was in this fog all the time. I couldn't think at all. I hurt all the time for no reason. And I was such a little bitch back then. One minute I'd want to cry, the next minute I'd be so angry. I got in a lot of fights at school. And then some days, even on weekends, I had no energy at all. I slept all day long, not because I was lazy, but because I couldn't get up. I just couldn't."

Depression, Edward thought inwardly, and when he thought about it that way, all of his brother's early actions, the ones he'd eventually chalked up to drugs, made sense.

His brother took a deep breath. "Anyway. So… here come James, Laurent, and Victoria. Bad news. I knew it. The other kids gave them a wide berth and snickered behind their backs.

"I honestly don't remember why we started talking. The thing was… they were like me. Off. Like me. Wrong. They got it. Without me having to say anything, they got it.

"At first, I would opt out when they got into the drugs. They teased me, but like you said, I grew up with the same propaganda you did. Just say no, right?"

He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, reminding Edward of their mother as he continued. "But then James started to get mad. Then suspicious, like I was going to narc them out or something. I didn't… They were the only ones who understood. They just got it. I couldn't lose that, them. I couldn't."

"So I tried it. I figured just once and then I could tell him I didn't like it. Like you know when Mom made us take a bite of brussel sprouts before she would let us refuse them outright. I would just tell them I didn't like it…

His head was tilted all the way down now, his shoulders slumped so far forward, Edward thought for a moment he would fall on the tabletop, into the pile of tiny bits he'd shredded his napkin into. "Thing is… I did like it," he admitted in a small voice. "I really did. Not so much the stuff… It was … It's not so much that it made me think clearly. Obviously it didn't. It was just… before, the hurt was the loudest, and I couldn't think of anything else. I couldn't shrug it off. That's what made me so angry. All the time I was angry. Angry or tired and in pain. Well, on the stuff… I wasn't. I had energy, my body didn't hurt anymore, and my head was fuzzy, but it wasn't cloudy." He looked up, his eyes desperate, pleading for understanding. "Honestly, Edward, I'm not saying they were a good thing, but I think the drugs were the only reason I got through high school. I could function better with them. I felt better. God, I know how stupid it was. I know. Cerebrally I know, but I'd felt so bad for so long. I kept telling myself to stop, but it was hard to give it up. It was hard to give up the only minutes or hours I felt… whole."

Edward was quiet, trying to sort through the myriad reactions that all threatened. Accusations, admonitions, they would have been easy. Edward liked the word Jasper had used. Cerebrally. Cerebrally he could try to wrap his head around the idea his brother had been, essentially internally tortured, battered at the soul level by both his parents and physically by Charles. Cerebrally he could see how he would do anything just to alleviate that kind of pain for a few minutes. The practice of it, though, wasn't as simple.

Hadn't he known then there were other ways? Drugs? Why drugs? How could anyone be that stupid?

But then he thought again about his earlier amateur diagnosis. Depression. Bad brain chemistry triggered, in this case, by trauma, physical and verbal abuse.

Jasper had been sick for a long time, Edward realized then; it just wasn't always the same illness.

Edward understood depression like he understood addiction. It was a disease, and it warped the brain, changed it. A normal, healthy brain likely could have made a better choice, not done the drugs in the first place, but a diseased brain?

He had to swallow several times, processing it all. He thought about all the pressure Jasper was under, and the constantly exhausted, drained, defeated slump to his posture. "Do you feel the same way now? I mean. Do you feel like you did before the drugs?"

Jasper stared at him for a long time before he answered. He pushed the bowl of soup he'd ordered, long since gone cold, away, likely as uninterested in food as Edward was at that point. He sighed "It's worse now."

Edward's throat tightened. A minute passed and then another. "I'm sorry," Edward finally said. He had no idea what he was apologizing for. An 'I'm sorry' of sympathy and pity? He definitely felt pity, as wretched as Jasper looked right about then. Or maybe it was an I'm sorry because he'd realized abruptly just how heavy a weight he'd put on his brother's already taxed shoulders.

Maybe it was both. Maybe it was everything.

Jasper looked up and blinked. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, barely there. "Thanks."

A/N: SO! That happened.

Many thanks to songster, jessypt, and barburella. Jfka06 - I LOVE YOU...js. Ty too.

How we doing, everyone?