My recommendations for today are: Immortal Tears by EsmeAnne5981. It's a beautiful, heartrending story you HAVE to read. Don't forget to review!

The Letter by chill-the-beans. It's sad but worth it. I promise.

Bella's POV:

Jasper was shaking. His whole body was wrapped in tremors, and if he squeezed the arm of that chair any harder it would crumble into dust. For a second I forgot my own crippling fear.

"Jasper?" I asked, afraid to touch him. I didn't know how he'd react. "Jasper, are you all right?"

I could see the effort it took for him to unclench his hands as he forcibly stopped the shudders.

"Yeah," he said, voice rough – a major feat for a vampire. "I'm okay. It's okay."

I felt horrible – he was dredging up his own living hell for my sake. What I had suffered was not even comparable with what he had lived through.

"Hey," I said, "we don't have to talk about this."

His golden eyes met mine, and I was shocked but pleased when he reached hesitantly for my hand. "Yes," he said, his voice gaining strength, "we do."
I sensed he was drawing strength from the contact and kept my hand still, as he inhaled cautiously before finishing his story.

With his right hand he pushed up his left sleeve, all the while keeping his left hand firmly on mine. I looked closer at his bared forearm – and gasped at what I saw. Ridges upon ridges of crescent shaped scars marred the skin, overlapping and paralleling each other, there were so many.

With a shock, I realized they were exactly like the one I'd suffered from James last year.

"Battle scars," he explained, with a half-smile.

"After Maria changed me, I became her second in command. She was creating an army of newborns, intended to help her gain and keep territory for herself."

He paused. "My gift was helpful; the newborns were unstable, always fighting amongst themselves. Often manipulating their emotions was the only way to keep them under some semblance of control."

Absently, he rolled his sleeve back down, covering his scars back up. "I deluded myself into thinking I loved Maria. Into thinking she loved me. But she used me. In every foul, scheming way possible, she used me."

A burst of pain invaded my heart, making me gasp with its suffocating weight. Jasper pressed his lips together, and it stopped. "Sorry."

With a flash of understanding, I realized it was his pain I was feeling – he must have been projecting.

"I was responsible for training the newborns she created – an endless task since she never let them live beyond their first year."

I remembered that Edward had told me newborns were the strongest their first year, because their body was still absorbing their own blood.

"It was my job to dispose of them," he went on, nearly whispering now. "I had to look into their eyes as I ended their lives. I felt everything they felt – the terror, the confusion, the pleading…"

A harsh dry sob tore from his chest; it occurred to me that I was probably the only one besides Alice who had seen Jasper this way. It felt wrong – like an invasion of his privacy.

"Finding Alice was the best thing that ever happened to me," he murmured, when he could talk again. "She saved me. But my demons will always haunt me. I will never be able to forget."

He met my gaze, his golden eyes steady. "I don't want that for you, Bella. Because even after what happened…last year…" he hesitated, mentioning my eighteenth birthday. "I only felt forgiveness and love from you. I expected you to hate me. I wanted you to hate me, I thought I deserved it."

"I could never hate you, Jasper."

"I know that," he replied. "And I know I'm lucky to have you as my sister."

I felt my first real smile in days creep onto my face. "I always wanted a big brother – Emmett fills that part nicely, if a little exuberantly at times," I winced as I thought of one of his crushing hugs. "But you…you're the brother I can count on to listen and just be there. Thank you."

"It's not over yet, Bella. Not by a long shot. But maybe we can help each other."

I smiled. "I'd like that."

He tilted his head. "Alice and Edward are coming down the hall – they ditched their last class."

I rolled my eyes. "Edward worries too much."

He rose fluidly from his chair. As if weighing his words, he hesitated, then said, "When it comes to you, little sister, we all do."

He didn't have time to say anything else as Alice exploded into the room, immediately dancing up to him and planting a kiss on his lips. She murmured something too high and fast for me to hear; he replied in kind.

She turned to me. "Are you feeling better now, Bella?"
"Yes," I said, and for the first time in days it wasn't a lie.

"I'll give you some privacy," she winked, and dragged Jasper out of the room.

I tried not to think about what they would be getting up to later, from the look on Alice's face.

Before the suffocating feeling of being alone could descend, Edward was inside, leaning down to press a kiss on my lips. "Hello, love."

"Shame on you, ditching school," I teased him, as his lips moved down my chin and towards my throat.

"Mmmm."

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

He gently eased himself down beside me. "You're not sorry, are you?"

"No," I said, kissing him.

"Jasper helped," he stated, searching my face.

I thought of the horrific things he'd endured and shuddered. "Yes," I whispered, "but it makes me feel so dumb, acting this way after…"

He pressed an icy finger to my lips.

I allowed myself to drift off to the sound of my lullaby, secure in his icy embrace.

As I faded into my dreams, I came to an important realization – Jasper and I could help each other. Though our past lives had been vastly different, not even comparable really, that brief flash of his pain was familiar. It was the same aching, tearing hole Edward's departure had left in me. A pain that had never really gone away, it just lay dormant until it had cause to flare up again.

After we'd been reunited, I'd thought I was whole again.

It had taken this whole incident for me to realize I wasn't.