DISCLAIMER: I do not own nor do I lay claim to Twilight or the characters therein.

A/N: I did not forget. I never forget. I just hibernated for the winter. And spring. But hey! Summer's a fun season. One-ish, two-ish more chapters, and then you're rid of me.

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Chapter 21: Three Roads Diverge

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Jasper:

"Hey."

If I hadn't been nervous when Jasper kicked his family out of the house, I was now. He seemed distracted and antsy and…

Human.

I don't think I liked it. I was allowed to be self-conscious and worried, but Jasper? He was my rock. He was as impassive and silent as stone, and that's how I liked it.

How should I respond? Sarcasm? Humor? Seriousness? Like I had a choice. His nervousness just took my nervousness and amped it up to an insane degree. I could feel my palms start to sweat. I swiped them on my jeans before responding.

"Hey." I didn't need vampire hearing to catch the shake in my voice. Jasper immediately stopped fidgeting and looked at me as if I had just popped up out of nowhere.

"Did I frighten you?"

What? I must have looked completely taken aback because he amended his question.

"Your emotions, you are nervous to be alone with me. When I was talking to everyone, I was—harsh. Did that… did I frighten you?"

I burst out laughing.

"No!" I said when I caught my breath. "You are one of the least intimidating people I know!" I relaxed into my seat.

"I don't know how I feel about that." Jasper said, although the smile on his face made it very clear that he didn't mind. "I'm ex-military. I think that should, at the very least, make me a little frightening?"

I tried to take the question seriously. "I suppose, to someone else that is, you could be intimidating. I mean," I tugged at the hem of my shirt and picked at a loose thread as I tried to figure out a decorous way to phrase my thoughts, "you look as though you could seriously hold your own in a fight. And like you've had to, on occasion. But you could never hurt me."

"You can't rely on your newborn strength forever, Bella—"

"You don't understand." I cut him off. "I'm not saying I could take you. I'm not saying you couldn't overpower me. I'm saying you could never hurt me. I just don't think you have it in you."

Jasper rocked back, like someone had physically shoved him. His knees slowly bent and her sank down to the ground, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around them. I must have been rubbing off on him, because it was a position I always went to when I felt like I needed to be more grounded.

"You can see that?" He said.

I pushed myself up and sat on the floor next to him. "Of course. It's in everything you do." The conversation was rapidly steering out of control. I was afraid that any encouragement would send the words I had been trying so carefully to protect bubbling out like uncorked champagne. I realized I had been leaning in to him, the intense eye contact reeling me in. I deliberately looked away and slid my hands under my butt to kill any temptation to touch.

"You're my best friend."

Even as I spoke the words, one of my damned human blushes rose on my face. The heat burned against the vampire chill and it felt like Pop Rocks and Coke were sparking against my skin. Even as my mind raced with the promise of the moment, the possibilities, Jasper growled low in his throat and clenched his fists till my sensitive hearing could detect the groan of tendons against bone.

"Best friend, Bella? I don't want to be your—" In a flash, he was up and pacing the room. "Damn it." I heard him mutter.

I was floored, unable to move from my seat. I had hoped that he had finally finished maintaining the quiet and reserved front he had built around himself. I had hoped that this conversation meant—

I had hoped this conversation meant many things, none of which I could bear to name, even to myself.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Jasper had resumed his curled up posture on the floor next to me, though now his eyes were fixed straight ahead.

"I'm honored you would consider me your best friend." It wasn't only the reversion to his southern civility that chilled me; the words themselves were cold and distant. The voice came from his lips, but it didn't sound anything like the Jasper I had come to know…

…and love.

I forced myself not to feel the pain. I pushed past vulnerable, hurt Bella and settled on pissed as hell Bella. I could almost see the moment when Jasper felt the outrage I had to be pulsing with.

"What the hell is that nonsense?" I was up and nearly shaking. "What is that? You barely talk to me, barely look at me for weeks! Then I try and open up to you, something you have not, I might add, earned. And what do I get? Cold, repressed Jasper. Well guess what? I'm over it. I'm over wondering what I've done wrong and how I could be better. I'm done thinking about you all the time, against my will. I'm done caring about how you feel and tormenting myself about how I feel."

I was storming, ranting. My eyes were squeezed shut and my hands slashed through the air as I spoke. Even running blind, I remembered the room and turned instinctually before I smashed into a wall. So when I whirled about, ready to stomp back across the floor, I was stunned when I smacked into something that wouldn't budge, even under my strength. My eyes flew open and before I could take a step backward, Jasper's hands banded around my wrists and pulled them to his chest. I couldn't stop myself from spreading my fingers across his shirt.

I'm gonna be honest. I swooned a little. For once I was grateful for my clumsiness. I could pass my weakness off as klutziness.

"Say that again." Jasper's voice was back to the low growl, but this time it wasn't to intimidate. My weak knees weren't helped as the low tone resonated through me, making me buzz like a radiator.

"I'm over it?" My anger had dissipated, leaving only vulnerability. I almost rolled my eyes when I heard my voice. Breathy and insubstantial. God, pull yourself together.

"That's not what I meant." His hand brushed away a piece of hair from my face, and his fingers grazed my bottom lip. Damn it if the pop rocks weren't back, sparking the trail left by his fingers.

There was no way he was getting anything coherent out of me. Even if I had wanted to give him a straight answer, the feel of his skin grazing mine had ruled out the possibility. Besides, I was fairly certain I had said something regrettable.

"You said," Jasper slid both his hands behind my neck and leaned his forehead down to mine, "something about feelings."

"Maybe." I had pushed against the filmy barrier of our relationship. It was solidly his decision whether or not to break through or retreat. I had given more of myself than he deserved, although if I was being honest, I never gave more than I wanted him to have. That was the trouble. I wanted him to have all of me. And I was afraid he wanted none of me.

Jasper's fingers wove into the short strands at the base of my neck and lightly tugged. I looked up at him, but his eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed. He looked like he was concentrating, trying to remember song lyrics he'd forgotten or attempting to figure out a complicated puzzle that…

My hands turned to fists. "No. No. No cheating. No getting out of this by taste-testing my emotions." I shoved him away and crossed the room with angry strides. Although I still hadn't figured out how to clamp down on my feelings, as soon as I thought about Jasper feeling everything I was feeling, embarrassment usually became my overwhelming emotion. I could tell by Jasper's frustrated face that I'd foiled his attempt to read me.

He gave a half smirk. "You were the one who brought up feelings in the first place. Okay, okay." He held his hands up in surrender before I could respond. "It's just that…so,…okay—" He leaned against the wall behind him. "We are at a crossroads. Agreed?"

All right. I nodded.

"And there are three distinct paths that I see. The road I want, the road you want, and the road we take. I'm hoping that all three of these roads lead to the same place, but I'm afraid," And he looked at me. Not even at me, in to me. He looked at me like a blind man given sight. "I'm afraid that my path leads somewhere you don't want to be. And I can't bring you there if you don't want to go and the minute, the very second I step onto that path, I can't turn around. And Bella," His voice was tragedy itself, "I don't know if I could survive it."

"But you'd have Alice."

I wanted to clamp my hand over my dumb mouth. Like a bitter child who wasn't getting a toy, I'd just voiced the fear that dogged my every move. Jasper was claimed. Every day dream, every longing I had were for someone else's husband. Someone I had never met, fine. Someone who clearly didn't appreciate what she had since I hadn't seen her in all the time I'd lived here, maybe. But I wasn't the type of person who could callously and purposefully hurt another human being.

Another being, anyway.

A look of hurt crossed Jasper's face before he locked his emotions away.

"Bella, Alice and I divorced."

I shouldn't be pleased.

"We got divorced a few weeks ago."

I shouldn't be pleased.

"I think she saw how important—I think she saw us heading in different directions."

"More paths?" I asked.

"Very different, very separate paths."

"The kinds of paths that dodge and weave and always end up crossing again?"

He smiled. "Not even a little bit. Straight as arrows and pointing in opposite directions.

I shouldn't be pleased.

"So…what?" I asked.

He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He was very still, except for the fingers of his right hand, which danced back and forth, tapping his thumb in a complicated rhythm that I couldn't unravel.

"So how do I choose which move is right?" he asked.

"You don't cheat." My body was thrumming with the anticipation of the moment. "You just make the move that feels right."

And then he was in front of me, holding me, pulling me closer, and then we couldn't get closer because we were together, so closely together that I wouldn't have been surprised if our lines were blurred and we twisted together like sun-starved vines, and then his hand was on my neck and then my hand was on his cheek.

And then he was kissing me.

Sometimes people talk about fireworks. They say lights explode behind your eyelids and the pulse of them rock through you and your heart beats fast and your head gets dizzy—

There were no fireworks. There were no fireworks because there was no sky. There was no sky, no earth, no sound, no light—nothing beyond his lips on my lips and everywhere we touched. There was no thought, no movement—nothing beyond our kiss.

It was everything.

And there was nothing else beyond it.

Eventually the floor returned. As he pulled away and my senses returned, so did the room and the lights and the gentle buzz of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Jasper didn't let me get far. He tucked his head over mine and nuzzled my hair.

"That move felt right," he said.

I smiled and snuggled against his chest.

"The view from this path looks really nice." I said.

His arms tightened around me and he was spinning me and it was like a bad eighties movie and I loved it. He set me down and grabbed my hand and we were running, out of the house, into the woods. We eventually slowed down, and I could smell the edge of humanity and hear the sounds of the town we were close to, but they had no pull for me. Nothing could have dragged me away from his side in that moment. In fact I was so wrapped up in him and myself and us that I didn't even notice where we were until I saw the tree with a person sized indent.

More precisely, an Edward Cullen sized indent.

We were in the meadow where Jasper had saved me.

I tried to pull, not necessarily away, but into myself. I tried to retreat, but Jasper wouldn't let me.

"No, listen to me." He sat down and pulled me onto his lap, cradling me so my knees were pulled up to his chest and his hands wrapped around me and his lips grazed my hair.

"I want to make new memories with you Bella. And I think that means rewriting some of the old ones. I know it's asking a lot of you, to move on, to…to forgive, but I want you to know that, for what its worth? It will probably be harder for me to move past. You've always seemed to be better at staying… clear headed about tense situations. I want you to know I'm going to try to let the past go. For you. Not for that dumb-ass self-centered—"

I had to laugh.

"Jasper! And you were doing so well."

He smirked and I just had to kiss him again. When we parted he looked at me with a promise in his eyes.

"I'm going to be good, Bella. I'm going to be good for you."

I looked at him and answered honestly.

"I know."

He laughed. "Smart-ass." He pushed me off his lap, but before I could protest, he was leaning over me, his hand leading my head to the springy grass behind me. He bent down, his elbows caged beside my head and one of his legs, thrown between mine. As his lips met mine, the world drained away again. The wind stopped, the birds stopped, the buzz of distant humanity stopped. Everything slipped away except the two of us. He pressed closer and closer, until my chest was pressed against his, then he pressed closer still.

And then his heart beat.

It only beat once, just once, but it was enough to send him staggering back, clutching his chest.

"How did you…?"

What? Me?

"'How did I,' nothing! That wasn't me. I have no idea what just happened. There is no way I was responsible for that. I couldn't have and even if I could have why would I have? I wouldn't so… yeah." The more I babbled, the more I was sure I had done it. I didn't know how, but I had a sinking feeling that Jasper was right to look at me like he was, like something slimy the teacher pulls out of a bucket in biology and hands to you with a scalpel and a pat on the back for luck.

Right before Jasper's heart beat, the focus of our kiss had become so singular I had completely stopped thinking. Right as I had lost all hold on myself, I had felt this pulse rock through me. And a second later…

One heartbeat.

Jasper was at my side, the look of shock on his face almost gone.

Almost.

"Bella, don't apologize."

I hadn't, but his words immediately prompted a stream of gushing apology.

"Shh, Bella. I'm not angry or upset. I was just startled. Really, Bella. That felt—" He struggled for words.

"Bizarre? Alien? Unwelcome? Disturbing?" I rarely struggled for words.

"Magical." I gaped at him (unattractively, I'm sure), and he was quick to kiss my disbelief away.

He pulled away and grabbed my hands.

"Bella, you are magical. In so many ways."

I was about to protest, when he shifted slightly into a ray of sunlight that was filtering through the trees. His skin shimmered and his hair refracted the light into a golden halo. He was my savior all over again, and I had a feeling he always would be.

"Jasper, you are my angel."

He held me like he'd never let me go.