A/N: Hello my darlings! I was going to say something about something but I can't for the life of me remember. Anyway. Onward.

It had been weeks since Jasper reconnected with Laurent on Facebook. It was clear his old friend was eager to see him, but Jasper was reluctant.

"I don't get the holdup," Alice said, exasperated when Jasper told her he'd made excuses for yet another of Laurent's invitations. "You need a friend who understands."

"You understand."

"I'm not there, and I don't understand everything. I would think that he understands a part of you no one else would."

At that, Jasper was quiet. He and Laurent had been idiot children together. They were two lost boys desperate in their own ways to be led by someone who might approve of them. They'd both found James. He'd given them approval, love-twisted and marked by his own demons though it was-and an alternative to the aching emptiness inside them. Those were things Jasper had trouble making his family understand, because it all sounded ridiculous when he put it into words. With Laurent, he wouldn't have to.

Jasper sighed. "He was my excuse for a long time. I knew I was fucked up. Of course I knew that. But I took some, I don't know, pride in the fact I wasn't as bad as he was. I wasn't as bad as any of the rest of them-James, Victoria, Laurent. I got through school. I had a job. I didn't do the things they started to do when they couldn't afford their habit.

"But then, when I ran, that all changed. By the time you found me, I'd sunk to levels I'd never seen the others get to." He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, ashamed and self-conscious even though he was alone in his room, and Alice had already seen him at his worst. "This is petty of me. It's messed up, but I don't know if I can see him as better than me. I don't know what his deal is. He says he's clean. I know he has a job, a girl."

"Well, I'll tell you something, Jasper. You're doing a hell of a lot better than James."

That was a point. Jasper tapped his fingers against the bed in a staccato rhythm. "That was luck. It could have been me." He tilted his head against the wall and stared up at his ceiling. "I think… for a long time, I wanted it to be me. I think that's what I was really trying to do for two years. That's… that's pathetic, Al."

She took a deep breath and her voice shook when she spoke again. "Being suicidal isn't the same thing as being pathetic. Jasper, I thought you were seeing a therapist."

"I am."

"Then you should know this already. You're not pathetic."

Jasper gave a dissatisfied grunt. "She wants me to take pills."

"Well, yeah. That seems like a pretty rational thing."

"How is that rational? Trading one dependency for another? Isn't that how I got into this in the first place?"

"You got into this because you self-medicated. Don't pretend antidepressants are the same things as street drugs. This therapist you're working with deals primarily with addicts. She's not going to prescribe you something that's only going to drag you deeper. It might help. It might-"

"I'll think about it," Jasper snapped. He knew she was only trying to help, but he'd heard the same speech from his parents ad nauseum.

Alice could take a hint. "So have you told her about Laurent?"

"Yes."

"And?"

Jasper rubbed the back of his neck. "Could go either way. If he's really clean, you're right. It might help to have a friend who understands where I came from. If he's not as clean as he says, it's a temptation with an added bonus of potential peer pressure."

She made a dissatisfied clucking sound but didn't say anything. Jasper nodded, agreeing with her though, of course, she couldn't see him.

"I hate this," he murmured. "I want one easy choice. Just one. I'm so sick of feeling like every tiny choice I make is going to destroy my life." He rubbed at his eyes. "I'm sorry. Don't listen to me. I have no right to whine when I have it better than a lot of others like me."

"I want you to do me one favor," Alice said.

Jasper sat up straight on his bed. "Yeah, anything."

"Don't ever apologize to me for needing to complain a bit. It's called venting, and there's nothing wrong with it. I'm your friend, and this is what friends do."

"What have I done to deserve friends, huh? Or more specifically, what have I done to deserve you? What do you get out of this anyway? What the hell did you ever see in me?"

"Well, the first thing I saw was a man bleeding to death on the street," she said, her tone dry. "Not for nothing, but I would have helped Hitler out of that mess. That's just how I roll. But beyond that, since I know you're not ready to hear what a good person you are, let's just leave it at this: you're an investment. I don't regret helping you, and I'm your friend. Everyone deserves a friend."

"Yeah, well, I'm glad you think so."

~0~

Laurent had changed. It was unreasonable to have expected him to remain the same young man he had been when Jasper had seen him some years before, but the difference was jarring.

Gone was the sloppy, eccentric style Jasper had associated with him since they were idiot teenagers. Everything about him was neat and orderly now. His hair was cropped short. He wore a button down shirt and jeans with nary a hole in them. Even the watch he wore was plain. It was as though he'd wiped away a huge part of his personality along with the drugs.

Jasper understood that only too well. More than once, when his hands and mind weren't occupied enough, he struggled with his self-identity. Who was he when he wasn't taking drugs? He filled his time, but he wasn't sure he'd figured out if he was really living or merely surviving the time between the next challenge.

Laurent offered his hand but rather than shake, he pulled Jasper into a back-slapping hug. "Sorry," he said, releasing him. "It's just so good to see you in one piece." His eyes flitted to the scars on Jasper's face. "Relatively. "

"Relatively," Jasper said as he took a seat across from his old friend.

They got through the usual pleasantries as they perused menus. How they were feeling and the like. After they ordered, an awkward silence came over them. There was so much Jasper wanted to ask, but he wasn't sure what was off-limits. It was strange how little he knew about Laurent considering they'd been friends for nearly two decades.

Laurent laughed. "Are you wondering if we have anything in common without drugs?"

Jasper's lips tugged up. "Yeah, that's one way to put it." He met Laurent's eyes, seeing the same exhaustion he felt in the slumped set of the other man's shoulders. "It wasn't all the drugs, was it? Us, I mean. We were friends before I started."

"Yes," Laurent agreed. "I thought so. But to be honest, I don't really remember much about high school." He scoffed. "Where did my twenties go, man?"

"I wish I knew. I haven't got much to show for myself."

Not much and yet everything. The only thing he had to show for his entire life was a beautiful little girl who had only recently stopped calling him Mister Man in favor of mimicking her older cousin in calling him Uncle Jay.

"You have a degree," Laurent said.

Jasper shook his head. "I have a degree in an island surrounded by burned bridges."

"Ah, burned bridges. Familiar with that." He tapped the table. "Well, you're still one up on me. It's an open door you earned yourself. I've had a job, a steady job for the last year, almost two. It's... interesting, working. Surprisingly enough, I'm happy to be a productive member of society, but I can't say I earned it.

"See, there's a girl. Kate. She's amazing, and she believes in me. God only knows why she loves me, but the fact remains she does. Her mother owns a business. Kate put in a good word, and here I am."

"That's good. That's not bad," Jasper said.

"Not bad for me. It works for me in more ways than one." He tilted his head. "I got clean for myself, because I got scared after James overdosed. I don't want to die. I don't want to be the way I was before, but sometimes..." He shifted, searching for words. "It's not enough."

Jasper's throat tightened and he nodded. He understood that feeling. Death alone wasn't a big enough deterrent, not when need burned in his veins. A man on fire would jump into a vat of acid to put out the flames.

"On the worst days, potentially dying isn't enough," Laurent said. "But Kate is. On the worst days, it's the combination. I don't want to die, and I don't ever want to disappoint Kate. Everyone else... That ship has sailed, you know? Who haven't I disappointed? But Kate? I won't do it."

"Incentive. I can dig it," Jasper said. "So tell me more about Kate."

~0~

It was late when Jasper got home. Lunch with Laurent had turned into coffee and that, eventually, had turned into dinner and then more coffee. He'd known for a while he could use a friend, but he hadn't known just how deep the need went until one was there in front of him.

For the first time in a long time, when Jasper walked in the door of his parents' home, he didn't feel beaten. He didn't feel tired. He was invigorated. Laurent was a halfway friend. He understood where Jasper came from and yet, he was a normal friend too. They had talked about their struggles, of course. They would always have common ground there. But Laurent talked about Kate and Jasper told him about Kaylee. Laurent became the second person, one of only two people in the world who would always know Kaylee as Jasper's daughter. It was a comfort, because Laurent was one of only two people who would ever see this side of Jasper: Proud Papa. He showed off pictures of her, particularly the one where she was obviously giggling at the camera, at him.

They talked about plans and futures they might want to have. And then they talked about nothing. Bullshit. Complete fluff. They talked about baseball teams, and ridiculous weather, and despite living in Seattle, the fact neither one of them had been to the top of the Space Needle at night nor been at Pike's Place early enough to see the fish be tossed. Frankly, Jasper didn't know if he was actually interested in any of the things they talked about. He sensed too that Laurent was acting, playing at normalcy, but for the space of a few hours it worked.

Maybe, someday soon, Jasper would fill in those bits and pieces of inane conversation with things he actually liked, cared about. Maybe someday he wouldn't have to act like he was normal.

"Where on earth have you been?"

Startled, Jasper jumped. "Mom?"

His mother came at him with a quickness that caught Jasper off guard. He actually took a step backward as she reached for him. "Where were you?" she asked again.

"I… Out," he said dumbly, trying to read the expression on her face. She was radiating displeasure, and he was having flashbacks to disappointing her as a teenager.

"Don't play that game with me. Where were you and with who?"

Jasper wrested his arm out of his mother's grip and took another step back, frowning at her. "I was with Laurent having coffee."

"You were supposed to meet him for lunch."

"I did meet him for lunch."

"And you expect me to believe you were with him all this time? Doing what?"

Jasper's heart was pounding, hurt and fury mingling, leaving a foul taste in his mouth and a tightness in his throat. "We were talking."

"Tell me the truth. You-"

"Mom, look at me!" Now it was Jasper who grabbed his mother's shoulders. "Look me in the eyes. Do I look high to you?" He let her go and shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it to floor. He held his arms out. "You want to see for yourself? No fresh track marks. Is that what you were thinking? That I was out getting high again? You want to smell my breath? You want me to pee in a cup? I know you have them. I saw them in your bathroom months ago."

By the end of his rant, Carlisle had made an appearance at the bottom of the steps. He looked between his son and his wife but said nothing. He stood quietly off to the side, shoulders tense.

Esme's eyes had filled with tears, and her voice was tremulous as she spoke. "Then where were you?"

"I told you."

"You were with Laurent." She sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes narrowing. "I don't want you to see him again."

Jasper tilted his head, staring incredulously. "Is that… are you telling me not to see him?"

Esme said nothing but stared at him, not taking it back.

"Or else what? Are you going to threaten to kick me out again?"

"Again?" Carlisle echoed, looking at his wife.

"She told me if I drank again like I did that one time, she wasn't going to watch me do it. And I get that. I deserved that." He hadn't taken his eyes off his mother. "I don't deserve this. It's been months that I've been in this house and a year before that, and I haven't gotten high. Not once."

"And think how easily all that progress could be thrown out the window," Esme said, her voice rough.

"Laurent is clean."

She scoffed.

"I haven't been out with a friend in years. Years. You think I had friends when I was living on the streets? Or in the clinic? You think any of us were really friends there?"

"Make new friends. You've always been good at making new friends. You should have better friends."

Jasper turned and drove his fist into the wall. Esme yelped and Carlisle said his name. He turned back to them, full of vitriol. "Better than what? Better than an ex-junkie? Better than a guy who's mostly dependant on someone else? Better than a thirty-something-year-old man with not a damn thing left to be proud of, not a thing left that's really his?"

"Jasper," Carlisle said.

His father reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but Jasper curled backward. "If he's not worth knowing, neither am I," he said. Then he turned and darted up the stairs.

He slammed the door to his bedroom, not giving two bits of hell he was being immature. He was too angry for maturity. Angry and betrayed and sick of the guilt. He threaded his fingers through his hair and quickly regretted it. He was this close to destroying something, and he was so maddened he wouldn't have put it past himself to rip his own hair out of his skull. Instead, he threw himself face down on his bed and tried to remember how to breathe.

As much as the anger made him writhe in his skin, made him crave violence and chaos, he clung to it. He clung to it because it was better than the emotion simmering right underneath it. He beat the bed with his fist because what he really wanted to do was weep. He was so close to blubbering like a baby.

All he had done was stay out late with a friend. He was thirty-one. It was ridiculous that he couldn't do that without his parents being suspicious. His mother had obviously waited up, worried, convincing herself he was making all the wrong choices. She trusted him that little.

It seemed like she and Carlisle had just been waiting for the inevitable day Jasper would fall, would fail.

That was the worst part, not because their lack of trust was unfounded but because there was every possibility they were right. Hadn't Jasper admitted as much to Alice, that seeing Laurent was a risk because he was susceptible to peer pressure and will power wasn't his best trait? Beyond that, how indignant could Jasper really be when the itch was back.

He twisted his fingers in his comforter, positive for full minutes that he was going to get up and run out the door and walk to the wrong part of town where the wrong people would have everything he needed. The backscratcher that reached the impossible itch. Salve on an open wound. The oasis in the middle of the desert.

God, he wanted it so much.

There was a knock at the door, and Jasper growled. "Go away!"

Yeah. He was seventeen all over again. Nothing to show. No progress for the last fourteen years. He'd been an angry, bitter young man with a drug problem and an attitude. Now he was an angry, bitter, not-so-young man with bad chemicals in his brain that made him crave something that could kill him, something that could rip his family apart, something that could destroy him all over again.

He reached back to pull his phone out of his pocket. A glance at the screen told him what he'd suspected. There were around a billion missed calls and texts. He'd had his phone on silent. Wiping them away, he dialed Alice. He woke her in the middle of the night again. And again, she told him not to apologize. Again she listened while he rambled, and she waited patiently until the need to self-medicate, as she had put it, faded to a dull want.

"That's it," she said. "I'm visiting."

"Alice-"

"Whatever you're going to say, don't bother. Your parents love you and they're supportive, and that's all great. But they're also your third biggest trigger. You need a break. You need a safe place to go to that isn't their house, if only for a couple of days.

"So I'm going to come out to see you, and you're going to come stay with me in my hotel room. That's that."

Jasper opened his mouth, ready to argue. She shouldn't be wasting her precious time off on him. But fuck, he wanted it. He wanted her and what she was offering. A respite. Just a chance to breathe without worrying every minute that he was going to disappoint someone.

"That would be really great," he said.

A/N: The author now realizes that next chapter is Edward's PoV and she may have written herself into a small corner. Hmmm. WELL, we'll see how that goes.

Many thanks to my jessypt, barburella, and songster. I loooove you. MWAH.

And youz guyz. How we doing out there… for those who keep asking, this story is almost done. AT MOST five chapters left.