Wow, I hope you guys are proud of me. I actually updated within a month! Because, I finally figured out an ending! I'll give credit to her at the end, because if I do it now I know some of you will go read the reviews and then everyone will know the ending. Teehee.
So without further ado, I give you.... Chapter the Thirteenth! Jasper POV!
Two weeks had passed since the funeral. Edward called Jacob every day. Intense conversations followed. Tucking himself in a corner, hunching over the phone and begging - flat-out begging - for Jacob to give him what he wanted. Every day. The rest of the family tried to avoid him during these daily conversations. Well, they tried to avoid him the rest of the day too, but when Edward picked up his phone with those burning eyes locking in on the buttons he was pushing, the family cleared out. Fast.
For Jacob, I think the conversations might have scared him a little. Vampires didn't forget. This vampire couldn't forget for even a few seconds what he wanted, what he might have if he could just convince one sixteen-year-old to give him something he had been itching to do for years. Edward could not get it out of his head how close he was to getting what he wanted without putting his family in the Voluturi's bad side for years, millennia maybe.
The only thing that remained in the way was the ever-breaking will of Jacob.
I couldn't help but look back on my last encounter with him with chagrin. I hadn't meant to act so... aggressive towards him. I hadn't meant for Edward to get involved, to defend my actions. I had just wanted to prove my point to Jacob. But he just got under my skin. Arrogant, unable to see the pain my brother was in, blinded by his bias toward Edward personally and vampires generally, I just couldn't talk to him without my anger coloring my vision and tainting my words and actions.
I supposed part of the reason it had escalated to a fight so quickly was because I had let some of my anger leach out to the others near me - namely, Jacob.
So, I hadn't meant for it to get so out of hand. But I knew that it would happen again, just as quickly if we were to meet again. Which severely limited my helping Edward convince him.
On the fifteenth day after the funeral, Edward approached me, just after his daily phone call.
He found me in my bedroom, reading. Of course.
The door was closed. He knocked, softly.
"Come in," I called, thinking it would be Alice. After all, in the fifteen days since the funeral, Edward had started a conversation maybe once. Sometimes, in the first few, we had tried to start a conversation with him, but those attempts were short-lived and nonexistent now. So when Edward ducked through the door it was a shock.
The wave of agonizing, knee-buckling pain that came with him should have tipped me off, though.
"What is it?" I asked him, immediately concerned.
"It's just...Jasper, I don't know how much longer I can handle this. It's been fifteen days already. Jacob is no closer to reaching a decision. The pain gets worse every day. I just keep seeing her on the operating table in Carlisle's study..."
His shoulders hunched and he stared down at the bed he was perched on. Automatically, I try to calm him down, evaporate some of the pain. It doesn't work very well - there's only a minimal difference that I can feel. The pain is like a brick wall. Well, not a brick wall. I could have broken through that. More like something I couldn't stand up against - Alice's will, for instance. Or just so thick that while I pushed it back an inch, it was as long as a football field.
But Edward must have felt something. Maybe he'd been living with it for so long that he could sense every slight change, every turn it took for the better or worse, every time it shifted or roiled on his shoulders like a cloak or low-laying fog.
I was applying such personality to this nonliving thing - Edward's pain - that it was almost amusing. Well, that's what you got when you understood feelings so well they were almost people to you.
Edward smiled dimly, a ghost of a smile. "Thanks, Jasper, but that won't help. It's too strong, even for you."
I frowned; I didn't like to be reminded of what I couldn't do.
"Loathe though I am to go to the Volturi, I don't know what else I can do. I can't live like this for much longer, Jasper. And believe me, I won't try to impress myself on any of the family much longer, especially you. I know how hard it is for you to be around me."
That was true. Even when Edward wasn't near me it was like I was swimming through a pool of molasses. Every motion, every thought was a direct, determined action, designed to cut through the hazy fog of pain surrounding my brain. When he was near me, like now, the molasses in the pool turned to peanut butter and it was all I could do to think, to comprehend, to speak. I could only imagine how Edward had coped for as long as he had.
"Edward..." For a split second I thought of lying, of telling him that his dark moods weren't hurting the family at all. It might even have worked, if I hadn't thought of what I was going to do. But of course, Edward caught the word lie.
"Don't, Jasper. I know the truth, no matter how all of you try to hide it. I know that none of you particularly like having me here at the moment. That's why I think I should go to the Volturi."
I wondered why this time, he was exercising so much caution in involving the Volturi. The last time, he hadn't worried about the lasting implications going to them would have.
"Last time...it was so spur-of-the-moment, I never really thought it through. I'd never experienced anything like the pain I felt then. The only thought in my mind was die. This time, it's not so all-consuming. Well, it is, but I'm able to think around it. I've had to. How else could I have survived anything leading up to what happened? And so I'm able to think of all of you. What the Volturi will do if I force their hand. It was so close last time. The civilians noticed; the police noticed. Volterra became suspicious, even if they had no idea what was about to happen. And if I do it again, there'll be unrest in the town for centuries to come. It'll become a legend, something old humans will tell their grandchildren. The Volturi will be furious. Who knows how they will react? They might take it out on you. They might decide you should all pay for my crime. I can't risk that. Even if they didn't, you all would live in fear of what they might do.
"Which is why I find it so utterly selfish to go to them. That's why I need Jacob to agree. To protect you all. But he's so stubborn!" Edward stood up, paced sharply to the wall. His fist clenched, and for a second I thought he was going to punch through it. No, I willed him silently. Don't. I tried to calm him. This time, it worked. Though it was strong, his anger wasn't stronger than any normal vampire emotion.
Edward relaxed his fist. "Thank you, Jasper. But he won't listen! I'm nowhere nearer to convincing him now than fifteen days ago! He just keeps saying, I'll think about it, I'll think about it. He refuses to give me any definite answer, any clues as to which side he might be leading. Either he's completely divided or lying to me, and without being near him, I can't tell. All I know is I can't wait much longer. Please, Jasper, tell me what I should do. I can't live like this."
I let him rant.
I - I - I stumbled for words in my mind. It was overwhelming. His emotions, my emotions, were overwhelming me. I couldn't speak, I couldn't think, I didn't know. I don't know, I finally managed to think. I - talk to Carlisle. Why are you talking to me? I don't know anything about this. Carlisle. Why didn't you go to him?
I covered my head in my hands, vainly hoping that the physical barrier would prevent the suffering - Edward's and mine - from wrapping around my brain and suffocating it. Where was Alice? I needed Alice.
"Carlisle doesn't want me to die."
None of us do.
"He would be biased. He wouldn't try to be, but he would. He would tell me to wait for Jacob, hoping Jacob would take enough time to convince me otherwise. I know this, Jasper. I need you. You know what I want, how I feel. I need you to tell me what to do."
Why was he relying on me? He had never done so before. He had never needed me. It was always Alice, Emmett, Carlisle, who he sought for advice, a laugh, a game. Never me. Never depressed, scholarly Jasper.
But he was coming to me now. And I couldn't help him. Not like I was, anyway. I couldn't think. I had to get out of here. I would help him, or try to. But not now.
Please, Edward... I called out desperately in my mind. I couldn't speak. I pressed my hands harder to my head in vain. I put my head between my knees.
"I'm sorry, Jasper. I'm truly sorry. I'm sorry for causing you this pain."
In a haze, I stumbled up, crossed the room to the door.
I'll...try to help you, Edward...I promise...I just...need a little...time...
I flew down the stairs, feeling the pressure in my mind from the emotional overload lessening the farther away I got from Edward. I ran out the door. I heard footsteps behind me. I could tell it was Alice. Alice, Alice...
Finally, I collapsed, falling to my knees fifty yards from the house, head in my hands. Alice knelt beside me. I felt her arms go around me.
Alice.
"Jasper, Jasper, it's all right," she murmured. "Calm down now, Jazzy. It's fine."
Slowly the pain in my head receded. I looked up at Alice. My eyes were tortured. I could see my reflection in Alice's golden eyes.
"I don't know what to do...how to help him..."
I couldn't remember the last time I had felt this helpless, this scatterbrained. I couldn't remember the last time I had had to run from a room in pain because of the emotions of those surrounding me. I was strong. I did not collapse.
I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't been able to help someone, help them get their emotions under control. That's what I was good for. The only thing I was good for.
"Shh, shh, I know. I know. You don't have to. Edward expected too much of you. He shouldn't have gone after you like that."
"Yes, he should have...He thought I could help. But I couldn't. Alice, I just feel so helpless...I don't know what to do...I have to help him decide what to do, but I can't. I can't. I can't even be near him!"
"Come with me, Jasper. Get far enough away so you can't feel anything at all, from any of them. Then you can think. You can talk with me. I'll help you. And then we'll come back, and we'll help Edward. Together. I can help you, Jasper. Project what you can't handle to me. I'm strong. Now come on."
"I can't...Edward..."
I still wasn't thinking straight. I could barely understand Alice. All I was sure of was how she was here, talking to me. Her voice was so soothing...I had never heard such a beautiful sound.
But I knew what she was saying. Sort of. She wanted me to willingly give her some of the pain I was feeling, give it to her to shoulder.
I would never do that.
I let her pull me to my feet, grab my hand and start running. Running through the woods, running away from Edward, away from the pain, so I could think.
So I could help him.
*wipes forehead* Whew, that was intense. For me, anyway. Probably not as much for you guys reading it. Jasper had a breakdown! Poor Jasper. I do like him. Note to self: write more Jasper...
Ah, well. Review! We can break 100! I know it!