4. Redemption For A Monster

Slowly things were getting easier. I would never stop missing my family and particularly my Alice, but I had found that while not preferable, it was possible to survive without them. I even had brief spans of time that were almost what you would call peaceful. This was a beautiful parcel of land that Ginny lived on and there were times that it felt almost magical in it's simplistic beauty. When I first came to live here, I couldn't see the beauty for the pain, but like I said, things are slowly getting easier.

Time began to pass much more quickly after our first hunt together. In our discussions I had learned that the forest preserve actually belonged to Ginny. She had come to the area during the great depression and bought up large portions of land giving the people far more money than the property was worth at the time trying to give them a chance to improve their lives. She paid to have the houses and roads that once crisscrossed the area destroyed, thus providing jobs for many individuals out of work in the area and had it proclaimed national preservation land to keep hunters and hikers from being able to invade the area. Her home was the only one on the entire parcel of land that stretched nearly 150 square miles.

We had taken a break the past couple of weeks on the memory lane trips. We discovered that if we did too much memory retrieval in a short period of time, it had a disorienting effect on the both of us. So we took a step back and focused on the present and sharing our own stories instead of bringing up the visual memories using her gift.

One day last week we began talking about some of the individuals in our past and while she had photographs of most of the people that she knew and interacted with, I did not, so instead I set out to draw pictures. One of the other perks of being a vampire is a photographic memory and the physical control to be able to replicate images from our memories in nearly flawless relief. I had worked all week in a sketchbook to create images of Maria, Peter, Charlotte, some of my best warriors in Maria's coven, as well as some of the Volturi guard members, which she had never met. I finished the last of them and made my way down to find her in the living room where she spent the majority of her free time. Once again she was typing furiously on her laptop.

"So are you ever going to tell me what you're writing on that thing?"

She looked up and smiled turning it so I could see, "Well it's not a big secret. The computer age is such a wonderful thing. I can keep up with my descendents across the globe and never leave this room! Right now I am responding to Brigitte, she's fourteen and lives in France. She's one of Aaron's line."

I furrowed my brow examining the response written in perfect French and smiled. "How exactly do you start a relationship like this? How do you know that they're your family."

"Oh, well, I set myself up as pen pals or find ways to meet up with 'em in chat rooms. It's really not that difficult to search people out if you know what you're doin'."

"Do you ever use this thing for anything else?"

"Oh sure, I do research and I write my novels on it."

"Novels?" I was confused.

She laughed, "You mean you've lived here for nearly four months and never knew I write novels for a living?"

I shook my head and frowned. Was I really that out of it? "Yeah…I mean no, I didn't know. Would I have read any of your work?"

She shrugged, "Possibility I guess, I've been writing for well over a hundred years under various pennames. This decade I've been writing under G.S. Benjamin."

Now my eyes grew wide, "G.S. Benjamin? I've been living with THE G.S. Benjamin this whole time and never knew it? Your writing is amazing! I've never read such accurate depictions of civil war fiction. Of course, I guess that would make sense now wouldn't it?" We both laughed.

"Wow…that's amazing." We sat for a few minutes I silence. "Well, I better let you get back to your email. I just wanted to let you know I finished the drawings if you'd like to see."

Her eyes lit up. "Oh, I was almost done. Just wait two seconds for me to finish this up and hit send and then you can show me."

I smiled and watched and she furiously typed for a few more seconds with a look of extreme concentration on her face before she hit enter a few times and then closed the laptop sitting it aside and turning back to me with a wide smile on her face. I moved closer so we could look at the sketchbook together and I flipped it open.

"This was Maria. To this day I'm not sure I've met a person with a colder harder heart than Maria. She was the matriarch of a major southern coven and she was the one who ordered my change. For a long time I just assumed that the life I lived with her was the way all vampires lived. I served her for over seventy years, but it was a difficult life. I didn't know then that my ability was a lot of my problem. I could feel the emotions of my prey and it depressed me."

"Finally, my friend Peter," I flipped the page to show Peter and Charlotte, "suggested that I should seek life outside of the coven. He saved me in almost every respect by convincing me to take that step. You've seen the physical results of my life there, and it shakes me to the core to think that if I hadn't left, I never would have met my Alice and had the beautiful life with the Cullens otherwise. The lady is his wife Charlotte"

I flipped one more page to reveal Max, my second in command in the coven. He had been one of our best recruiters bringing in newborns from all across the south to join our fight. He had strangely disappeared on one such trip and never returned. I didn't get a chance to give any details on Max though because the second I flipped the page Ginny gasped and tensed next to me and I felt an overwhelming surge of fear and anguish wash over me. I looked over to see Ginny staring with wide eyes and a horrorstruck expression on her face.

"Ginny dear, are you okay? What's wrong?" She just stared still as can be; a tear slowly rolled down her smooth cheek.

"Ginny? What's the matter Ginny?" I tossed the book haphazardly to the floor and reached out to put my arm around her shoulder comfortingly. Finally after what seemed like an eternity she began to whisper.

"Jasper? Jasper? Tttthhh…that's him Jasper! That's the man wh…who ch..ch..changed me."

My breath caught in my throat as the realization hit. I felt her begin to shake in my arms as the increasing terror rose in her body and the single tear transformed into a torrent of wet sobs. I pulled her closer trying to push a sense of calm toward her in attempt to assuage her pain. She turned and buried her face in my chest wrapping her arm around my waist as her sobs grew louder and I was ripped with a throbbing guilt in my core. This was my fault. She was like this because of me. I sent him out repeatedly to transform and recruit newborns. That's why he took her to the barn and allowed her to change, she was going to be a recruit, but before he could go back and retrieve her something happened to him and he never came back. Oh God! This was All My Fault!

If I could cry, I would have been. I tried to put a stop to my guilt so that I could help her calm down and relax, but I couldn't. My power was useless at the moment, so instead I just pulled her closer and stroked her soft hair and whispered words of consolation in her ear. "I'm so, so sorry Ginny. I'm so sorry. I never dreamed, how would I know? I'm so very sorry. This is all my fault."

In a sudden move she sat up and looked at me. I expected fury and anger in her eyes, but instead there was confusion and compassion. "How would this be our fault Jasper?"

"He worked for me. I sent him out to recruit and transform newborns for the cause. That's why he left you to burn, he planned to come back and retrieve you and take you back to Houston to join the coven. If not for me, you would have stayed with your children. You would never have had to endure what you have endured. It's all my fault."

She sat up and turned grabbing my face between her hands. "No, don' you go blamin' yourself. If it hadn' been you leadin' that army, it would've been someone else. Don' you go blamin' all the woes in my life on yourself…Don' you dare!"

"But it's…"

She covered my mouth with her hand, "No Jasper Whitlock, it is not nor shall it ever be your fault so stop!" She slowly removed her hand and I didn't attempt to speak, but it didn't stop me from feeling the pain. I felt myself falling into my depression again. I wasn't a help to anyone. Maybe I should just go back to the Volturi because surely she wouldn't want me here now.

"You stop that right now Jasper! I mean it!"

"What?" I asked feigning innocence.

"You forget that when you're feelin' somethin' strongly that you send it right back out of you and right now all I can feel is guilt, remorse, defeat, and I'm guessing that's a decision to return to the Volturi in there somewhere too? No way, you're not bailin' out on me now! You've come too far. Look me in the eye. I do not blame you, and you are always welcome here. Got that?"

I nodded more than a little taken aback by the fact that she pretty much nailed every thought I'd had over the last five minutes on the head with frightening accuracy. I guess we really were getting to know one another. After a few minutes of her staring me in the eyes as though she were forbidding me to think any of those thoughts again, she finally reached down and grabbed the sketchbook off of the floor and studied the picture of Max for a moment more before turning the page to another member of the coven and asking me for more information.

We went through the remainder of the pictures I had drawn before she thanked me for sharing my past with her and excusing herself, she disappeared to her suite and stayed there for the rest of the day. Occasionally I would walk by and test the emotional environment of the room. Her emotions were mostly fluctuating between confusion, anger, sadness, longing, and love. I was confused for a bit by that until I realized that she probably kept pictures of her husband and children in there and was probably looking at them to help her deal with her pain. Three hours later, the emotions seemed to calm and stayed focused around love and longing and so I left the house and took a run in the woods to give her a little more space assured that she would be okay and would probably not be needing me now.

I ran faster and faster wishing I could escape the inevitable guilt that I was the one responsible for sweet Virginia Benjamin's transformation. I stole her away from her children when they were only four years old. I stole her life at the young age of twenty-four. I was once again face to face with the fact that I was and always would be a monster. I stopped dead in my tracks and dropped to the ground in a clearing as dry sobs shook my body.

"Why Alice? Why did you encourage me to stay alive to come here and find out that I ruined even more lives than I ever knew…innocent lives? Why would you want me to suffer like this? Didn't you love me enough to want me with you wherever you are now? Oh Alice!"

I don't know how much time passed as I sat there feeling the overwhelming guilt over the pain my existence caused for such a kind and caring person. Even once she was changed and had the bloodlust running through her, without any guidance from anyone else, she managed to rein in her desires and never feed on a human. I've only known one other person to accomplish such a task without guidance and he was the best man I had ever known. Carlisle…oh did I ever miss Carlisle's guidance now. I missed them all so very much.

The day turned to night and finally I had wallowed in my guilt until it had diminished to a dull ache in my chest and I got back up and returned to the house. I walked in to find a worried Ginny pacing the floors. When I walked in she ran to the door and threw her arms around her neck with tears pooling on my shoulder.

"Oh Jasper! Oh thank God! I was so worried that you left and went back to Italy! I'm so glad you didn'! Please, please don' leave me alone again! I've been alone so long and now I finally have a friend again. Please don' leave!"

My heart sank that I had terrified her like this. I actually hadn't even truly considered going back since our conversation, despite my impassioned pleas to Alice as to why she sent me here, I had wished she had never led me away from their doors, but I hadn't planned to return.

I wrapped my left arm around her waist pulling her close and ran my right hand through her hair. Her desperation was like a tidal wave crashing over me. "I'm not leavin' darlin'. I'm sorry I scared you. I promise you, I'm not goin' back now." I couldn't help but notice that my southern drawl seemed to have come back thicker than ever when I let the statement escape my mouth. I focused on sending peace and calm to her and finally her breathing slowed and the tension in her arms slowly released.

She slowly pulled back and looked at me with embarrassment in her eyes and in her emotions. "Oh, I'm sorry Jasper." She took a step back. "I shouldn' have done that. I shouldn' make you feel like you can't leave. It's always your choice, I just wanted you to know that I didn' want you to go. I'm sorry." And with that she disappeared back up to her room, the door slamming behind her.

I stood there a while bewildered by the events that just transpired. Then it hit me, the answer to my questions in the woods. Why had Alice sent me here? To right a wrong, to reconnect with my past, and to give a lonely woman who had spent the last 150 plus years alone thanks to me a little companionship. She's giving me a chance to make a positive difference in a life I helped to ruin. Thank you Alice. Thank you for showing me a reason to continue. Thank you for giving me a chance at redemption.