Previously;

I could not deny myself any more, at least consciously. I am irrevocably and irreparably in love with Isabella Swan. No wonder Alice's touch had no effect, I thought, somewhat solemnly.

My Bella, my sweet, brave, and innocent Bella, can you not see how crazy you are driving me?

Memoirs of Her Scent

Ch22: Never Departing Heart

Nothing was left… but misery and a gnawing void…

No trickle of rain...

No wild fire...

No life...

No shattering of the earth...

No heart...

No warmth...

No sound...

Nothing…

Everything was impassively quiet, until–

The night was breathing, buzzing, and screaming around me, adding to the crackle and sizzle of the burning wood at the heart of the waning hearth. Such terrible sound, like the moaning wails of tortured souls eternally burning in hell.

I couldn't escape it and it lingered, hauntingly vibrating through every connective tissue, every fiber of my sensitive ears and ricocheting. It's echo was my own and my silence it's scream.

With a tremor that ran the length of my vertebra, I held on tight to her broken form, unwilling to accept my reality. Her reality, I mourned.

She's gone… gone. Forever.

My heart was beating, the weight and intensity of its pounding making every sound and every breath muffled to my ears, like any minute my heart might just give out and burst. Still, I heard and felt it all. The despair, desperation, terror, and sorrow racked my body like tidal waves bent on a path of unstoppable destruction.

Will was a matter of strength and fighting spirit, and I had no strength, much less any fight left in me. It was only when my inertia of unchanging grief started to weigh on my shoulders, that I realized I was the one screaming and not the night lamenting. I was the one crying. I was the one pleading.

Please, please... don't go where I can't follow… don't go!

Don't take her...

My fingers moved numbly and tremulously over her now yellowed, bruising, pale, and delicate features. Torpidly my fingers tried and failed to will her eyes to peel open for me with their inept and urgent tenderness alone. If only I could spy those familiar twin moons of gray I had grown so fond of over the past weeks one last time, I would lay down my own life without reservations, willingly. Kissing her cheeks, which now lacked her warmth, I pressed my forehead against hers, and tangled my trembling fingers in her hair until I was able to hold a captive fistful of her tresses.

"Cais…" I whispered, hoarsely."Please, don't go where I can't fulfill my promise to you." My voice broke uneven at the very end and I kissed each of her ever-sleeping lids with wavering lips and, lastly, her temple. Over and over I mumbled these words, like a prayer where even over abundant faith held no gain.

Unable to come to terms with this cruel reality, I continued to pretend a while longer, like before, and held her closer, while I rocked her into the eternal sleep of peace I wished for her. The yellow fever had taken a hold of her in a cruel and slow haste, breaking her body from the inside out, without giving her a chance to fight it. It had all happened within the last two weeks and much too soon. We had already been and endured through so much together.

Not for the first time since she had started to show signs of her illness, did I wonder why I had been spared. I had lived and seen enough, though I was still young and had yet to marry, and settle down with a family of my own. She hadn't seen or done anything. Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn't rescued her in the first place. I regretted the thought as soon as I'd allowed it to cross my mind and poison with bitterness the time we'd spent together. The poignant sting of my new guilt made me feel repulsed and ashamed of myself.

Why was I the one living on when she couldn't? This thought alone plagued and tormented me.

However, the spiraling direction of my own thoughts allowed me to open my eyes and made me see reason. Consequently, I vowed to Cais, my sister, that I would live a prosperous life for the pair of us. Another tremor ran down my spine as my acceptance became undeniable and I choked back a sob.

My tears fell freely.

Sliding down my cheeks, they travel, dangling from the slant of my nose, falling, and splattering a pattern of gliding, glistening salty tears that now covered most of Cais' inert features.

Abruptly, the thought of providing my girl with a proper send off had me moving and into action again. Struggling, like a puppet whose strings had come loose, I managed to stand on shaky feet and tensing muscles. Holding fast to Cais' cooling body and unable to bring myself to let go of her, even for a moment, I purposefully set about gathering more firewood, dry leaves, and grass for a proper bonfire with her still in my arms. As an after thought, I gathered some wild flowers I stumbled upon to garnish Cais' carcass with.

Once I had gathered enough to build a semblance of a small wooden dais or altar, I sank to my knees, exhausted. I was shaking again. In an attempt to distract myself and ignore the tremors the adrenalin of the moment was inflicting on my body now that my purpose had been met, I took in the sight of Cais in my arms one last time.

She was still wrapped up in my heavy coat, which I had lain over her in a feeble attempt to keep the cold from taking a hold of her and seeping through to her bones. Still, I could somehow see her tattered dress peeking behind the thick fabric, clinging to her skin and bones. Remembering her as she was the night I rescued her, alive and well, if shaken, I was able to envision Cais with her rosy cheeks and rounded, childish face with that spark of laughter in her eyes one last time, instead of this broken shell of her I was holding. I promised myself I would remember her like that, with the laughter in her eyes and color on her cheeks, enchanting.

Tenderly, I untangled my coat from her cold frame, letting it hit the dirt, and smiled as I spied a small patch on her tattered dress that had somehow managed to remain spotless, just over her heart. Where her mother had made an addition to a simple, once cream, dress and embroidered a simple yet delicate blue, four-petal flower.

Cais had told me the story, rather timidly, one dreary night when I'd tried to convince her to let me burn the dress and provide her with another. After that, I hadn't pressed her to rid herself of the only connection she still had to her mother. It was her only treasure in the world of despair she'd been forced to face, and it was humbling. Besides, she cherished that small little detail enough to go out of her way to keep it spotless, it would have been too cruel.

On impulse, I searched my pockets and extracted my pocketknife.

Gently laying Cais down at the foot of her burial dais, I made quick work out of opening the knife. Holding my breath and praying that I knew what I was doing, I sliced through the fabric of her tattered dress without cutting through the inner layers of the sheer dress. And careful not to mutilate her body further, I managed to cut a precise square along the surroundings of the small blue flower, removing it entirely and intact from its original place over Cais' heart.

For a long moment, I knelt in absolute silence and stared at the only memento of Cais I would be allowing myself to keep along with my memories.

Something to remember her by and the days we saw raise and fall together. It was small, fitting just at the heart of my palm, but it held a memory of sentimental value of its own that belonged to Cais alone. One she had deemed me worthy enough to share in. It possessed its own silent heartbeat, thanks to the memories attached.

I will treasure this heart forever, I vowed, pocketing my knife and the memento after a final glance.

Standing again, I took a long, dry branch and set it on fire with the remains of the small bonfire I had been feeding earlier to try and keep the cold at bay. Much good it did us, I thought bitterly. Holding the flaming branch aloft, I made myself let go of Cais' body and tenderly laid her onto the makeshift dais I had built for her atop the wild flowers I had picked earlier, trying to make her seem as peaceful and comfortable as if she were merely asleep.

With burning tears in my eyes that I couldn't hold back, I set fire to Cais' dais and watched as the flames licked and ate their way through the wood, grass and dried leaves until they consumed her entirely.

The vitriolic smell of human flesh burning, so sickening to my susceptible nose, became a screed taste at the back of my tongue, imprinted in my memory, absorbed into my skin, and nothing could wash it away…

I remember coughing and choking on the fumes and smoke alone, unable to stop myself from watching or make my feet move to carry me some distance away. With the bile the acrid smell brought growing and burning a path up my throat, I had no choice but to throw up all the contents of my churning stomach on the spot. Still, all I tasted on my tongue was the acid taste of human flesh burning…

I grimaced at the vaporous recollection of my recently reoccurring daydreams. This was beginning to happen much too often now and I had no reference as to what was triggering it. I just wanted the painful memories to stop plaguing me. After all, the one asset being a vampire possessed was the lack of nightmares one brought onto this existence. And now that those lines were being blurred... I didn't know what to make of it.

Honestly, I had enough on my plate to deal with. Alice's reappearance and disappearance left everything in an uproar between Bella and I. Every day that passed and Bella would avoid looking at me or talking to me was torture and I found myself at a loss. It was as if I didn't have a place in the world if she wasn't the one acknowledging my existence. Little by little I felt myself dying inside bit by bit and day by day as each day darkened on notes of antagonized silence. Worst of all, I didn't have the guts to break the silence, afraid of what I might need to bring up in order to severe the accumulating tension.

Bella was blaming me for Alice's second disappearing act, I knew, and rightly so, only she wasn't talking to me about. She was keeping much too quiet, keeping me at arms length, and it was grating on my nerves. It would have been so much better if she had outright called me on it, but at the same time I was relieved she hadn't called me on it.

Because what was I supposed to tell her if she did? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to but Alice forced my arm when she mentioned Edward and my jealousy got the better of me, so with a few threats and a bit of rough treatment, I sent her packing with her tail between her legs? I'd suffer through another infernal change before admitting that to Bella.

She's had enough disappointment for one lifetime, I shouldn't add to it. I sighed in exasperation. Alice had messed everything up by merely showing up and sprouting things she shouldn't have.

Sure, Bella was talking to me again this week, but she was distant. When we talked, she only talked to me about nonsensical stuff that even I could tell she wasn't interested in. It's been frustrating.

I wanted to tell her everything, I wanted to shelter her and tell her nothing. Simply, I was at war with myself, nothing new there, I'm always running in circles. Only, this time I was at war with myself but fighting for someone else -for my beloved, Bella.

My right hand became a fist and I tensed as I felt a warm hand touch my left shoulder, chasing my thoughts away.

"Jasper?" a timid voice asked worriedly. "Are you okay? I've been calling you for a while now..."

Bella.

"God, Bella," I sighed. "Don't you know better than to sneak up on a vampire?" I asked, turning to face her. Looking at her face and seeing the humor in her eyes as she stares back, I find that she's somehow managed to take away the edge off my bite and rethinking my would-be reproachful words, I burry them and find myself smirking at her instead. Like an unguent over a third degree burn, Bella's managed to calm one of my two prowling beasts and set my mind at ease with her laughing eyes.

"Are you sure you're even a vampire?" she challenges, her voice uneven with laughter. "Last time I checked, a klutz of a human like myself couldn't even dream of sneaking up on a vampire."

"Is that a challenge?"I narrow my eyes at her and smile devilishly. Seeing this as my door of opportunity, I seize it. "Why not feel my bite?" I offer. "Maybe then you can see and let me know if I'm vamp enough for ya, li'l lady?" I stalk forward, teasing, a breath away from her torturous, tantalizing warmth. "I've got a bite to be reckoned with, ma'am." Taking a precautionary breath, I bite at the air at her throat, making sure she feels my lips brushing her warm skin. I hear gasp of surprise. I close my eyes and slowly retracting, I inhale her in. Her emotions tell me she's scandalized, distracting me from the sudden want to truly break through the thin, delicate skin and feast. Beast at bay, I smile and make eye contact.

Eyes wide, she scoffs and backs away. My reaction's made her nervous, I observe, or maybe it's my eyes, they've gone black. At the same time, I feel her determination building momentum before she says, "I didn't know vampires could go soft..." Oh... it is on. I breathe her in and as if on autopilot, my pupils dilate.

"Now you see me," I whisper with a low purr before vanishing, "now you don't."

"Jasper?" Bella barely manages to gasp before I'm flush against her, leaving not an inch between her heat and my cool. Using some of my momentum to tumble her off balance, I propel her backwards and we begin to fall. Riveting in her panic the moment it mixes with my mischievousness and enjoying her squeal of surprise as we fall on top of her mattress, I chuckle darkly. Savoring the feel of her weight above me, I make an attempt to remember the way every single one of her soft, delicate curves accommodates to my hard, muscled planes, from her curving waist to her supple breasts pressed against my chest. Taking a moment, I delight in the sound of her stuttering heart, beating away like the fluttering wings of a butterfly trying to weather the wind. It's strong, wet, and pumping fast with mouthwatering blood...

"Are you still doubtful?" I ask of her, this sinfully smelling woman entrapped within my cradling arms. Tilting my chin upwards I smile secretly, noting that her eyes are tightly shut and that if I wasn't who I am, I'd probably would have stolen a kiss from her parted lips without hesitation. But alas, I am. "Open your eyes, Bella," I breathe out invitingly, enthralled by the way her hair cascades around us and creates a fragrant place just for the two of us without meaning to.

"Where are we?" she asks, her eyes still shut tight. I chuckle. She blushes. I hold my breath, too tempting. She frowns, unsure of my silence. I smile. I love her... and it pains me, while it puts her in danger.

"You need to open your eyes to know that, silly girl," I tease, masking my pain artfully thanks to years of Machiavellian experience. Avidly I watch, drinking her every gesture in like a dehydrated man whose finally reached that oasis that moments ago kept going out of reach. She's so imperfect and wrecked that she's stunning, a beautiful mess of a child turned woman through circumstance. I crave her like my demon craves her blood.

Slowly, trusting, her eyes open, she looks down at me, and catches me staring, admiring, and unmasked. "Hey," she murmurs and her eyes catalog me in, searching and taking apart this newly reviled, vulnerable me. I'm terrified of what she might find there or think, but she only smiles again, this time tenderly, and brushes the hair that's fallen onto my forehead to the side before tracing the exposed scar there with her index finger. "I love your scars," she proclaims. "They're like a map of who you are," she goes on to explain, seeing the doubt in my eyes, "showing me the only way to really know you..." My breath catches. One heartbeat.

"I love you, Bella," I whisper, since I've been caught. She blushes and I wait for further reaction. Anything, a disgusted look, pity, sorrow, uncertainty, discomfort, disdain, or even contempt... expecting my deadened heart to burst any moment, but there's nothing.

"I'm sorry," she gushes, embarrassed. "Ignore me, I'm probably talking nonsense." As I thought, my confession was too quiet for her human ears to catch... My mask is back on and I'm berating myself internally, while outwardly I'm smiling. Bella looks away then with a hint of disappointment tainting her emotions. I frown, itching to ask the reason behind this emotion but knowing it'll be unwelcomed and intrusive. I sustain, ruling in my desire to ask and my desire to be closer to Isabella than the clothes between us allows.

She looks about her, still on top of me, and realizes that we're still in her room. She frowns. "We didn't go anywhere," she observes, though it sounds more like she's accusing me. She giggles and my heart swells at her mirth; two heartbeats."You tricked me."

"What better way to demonstrate how much of a vampire I really am than deception?" I counter. Bella rolls her eyes at me.

A long pause in which neither of us makes an attempt to change our current positions takes place and remains until Bella breaks it.

"What were you thinking when I startled you?"

I look away from the weight of her gaze. "So you finally find it in you to ask what you really wanted?"

"You distracted me," she admits. Something strange happens to me at her words, something unexpected. Like the line dividing the demon within from my self has finally blurred and meshed, causing an inane sense of disoriented pride to consume my every being.

Before animalistic abandonment takes hold of me, I shift us and extract myself from Bella and her warmth to somewhere safer, standing be her window. At the price of keeping her safe from myself, I've hurt her yet again. "It was nothing." My words are grave but flat, asking for her not to pursue the subject. But of course, Bella never listens and she won't start listening now. I can tell by the sudden increase of determination coursing through her.

"What are you holding?" She asks, catching me off guard. "Can you tell me that?" I remain stubbornly quite. Perplexed by how observant she is for a human and annoyed by how inattentive she was not to have heard my confession. I know, I know, I'm being irrational. "Won't you let me in?" I catch her saddened words, knowing that I wasn't meant to hear them, but having heard them, and they disarm me.

"It's... a memento," I tell her, now at the foot of her bed. Jumping slightly in surprised alarm, Bella looks up at me in wonder. I smile tentatively and open my palm to her, showing her a well worn four-petal flower that's lost its color over the years. "It used to be blue."

"May I?" I nod. Tenderly, her fingers brushed against my palm as she picked up the delicate fabric and admired it. "I bet it was beautiful..." she marveled, glancing up at me for corroboration.

Again, I nod. "It belonged to my sister, Cais," I explain, glancing lovingly at my memento.

"Your sister?" Bella asks cautiously. I smile at her, letting her know that I'm okay with anything she might want to say or ask. I wouldn't have brought up the subject if I didn't think I could handle it, after all. "I never knew you had a sister..."

"Well, Cais wasn't my sister by blood," I clarify. "But, yes, when I left my family to join the war, I left behind a sister that thought the world of me... Cais... she's my special girl."

"Oh?" Her curiosity has no boundaries, clearly.

"I rescued her from a fire, you see, and after that we formed a special kind of bond..." I began explaining and told Bella everything as she listened attentively to my story. "In the end, she died of yellow fever and I kept this for keepsake," I finished, catching Bella's tears with my thumb and casting them away.

"I'm so sorry Jasper..."

"It's okay, Bella, it happened long ago," I sooth. "My memory about it is kind if hazy anyway, because it's a human memory... like I'm trying to watch a movie through a light fog."

"I know, but you loved her... and you've kept this brittle memory with you all this years..."

"Love," I admit. "Love, present tense... that there memento, it's like I'm keeping her heartbeat alive just carrying with me, that's why." Bella's smiling, admiration pouring out of her and into me. "Like I vowed, I will treasure this heart forever." A rueful smile accentuates my explanation and sincerity. "I've never forgotten her, not once. Even after the inferno of my transformation and being part of Maria's army, I still remembered her and our promise and my vow to her." Because I can't look at her, I stare down at my hands and admit, "Sadly, I still can't follow where she went... And I thought I had been spared," I scoff bitterly, "wondered why it wasn't me instead of her... Only to find out that there was a worse fate awaiting me just in the horizon."

"I don't think..."

"Bella, I don't wish this form of atonement on my worst enemy, can you understand that?" My eyes are pleading with her as I find the courage to look into hers once again. "Eternity is a heavy burden... specially when you remain the unchanging while everything around you evolves and you continue to relieve the obnoxious cycle, subsist, hunger, love, and see those you love die and leave you behind. All anyone sees at the beginning is the chance for eternal beauty without thinking ahead, or of what will become of you when you no longer care for beauty, youth, or power..."

oOo

The days that followed my opening up to Bella were filled with questions and more question, followed by answers and stubborn denial to answer every question asked. Meaning, we've been fighting, like at present time.

"You're so, ugh, aggravating Jasper Whitlock, or whatever you call yourself these days," Bella fumed as I smiled at her cockily.

"My, my..." I clicked my tongue, "what a temper, Isabella Swan. And that would be Hale, for your information." She glares at me. "An eye for an eye," I put in for defense. Protecting the jewels, you know, and I kind of mean that quite literally. I might as well add a smile, it never hurts, and so I smile.

"Well, that's not even playing fair right there!" she argues.

I arch a brow. "Pray tell, why not?"

"For one thing, we're not built of the same stuff, you and I," she points out.

"Oh, no!" I gasp mockingly. "You finally found out I'm a man? Yes, darlin' you're all female and, yes, our anatomy is completely different." And I've been painfully aware of that for two and a half weeks. If looks could kill... 'nough said.

"Vampire," She points at me. "Human," She points at herself.

"Ladies and Gents, Isabella Swan's just been awarded the Nobel Prize!" I holler, "Give it up for Miss Swan! Let me hear ya'all!"

"Stupid vampire!" Just like that, something that's obviously dented now flies my way and hits me on the head. Oh, the trashcan, that's the third one this week, I observe absentmindedly. The girl's an absolute klutz, but she's got quite an arm... hmm...

"Someone needs anger management!" I singsong. Bella blushes madly and if I had any blood in me right now, it'll all be going down south. As it is, I content myself with trying not to breathe the temptress in.

"I'm going to go see Jake," she threatens. Without thinking, I'm moving as she goes for the door, which I close before she's even opened it an inch and growl at her, my eyes darkening at her challenge. "Jasper!" she gasps, heart jack hammering but I detect no thread or scent of fear in her. Actually, she's just fuming.

"No," I demand, "you are not, little Swan. You and I have unfinished business."

"Well, we wouldn't have anything to "finish" if you would just stop being so thickheaded," She points out, scowling."Besides, Whitlock, you do not own me."

The lace of anger behind her heated words and the way she just threw my name in there has me completely distracted and in need to hear it spoken like that again. "I'm sorry, what?" I say sheepishly.

Bella gapes. "You are a lost cause. Out of my way..." She tries the door again, I don't give an inch, of course. "Statue of a man..." Grumble, grumble is all I hear after that, which is quite a remarkable achievement, what with me being a vampire with amazing hearing and all. But I'm sure she's adding more curses to my already cursed existence the longer I leave he mumbling and muttering to herself.

"Look, I'm sorry," I apologize, reigning in my teasing and retracting my influence that's been fueling the tension between us to try and dissuade the situation. Which, admittedly, I had just forgotten all about, until this very moment. The things she does to me. I might just be the first forgetful vampire in existence. Bella glares suspiciously, like she knows what I'm doing. Scary, I tell you, specially for a human. "No, honestly, Bella. I want you to get to know me but I can't just let you see more than a hundred years worth of my personal history after just one conversation. Even Alice, I don't believe, knows everything about me," I explain honestly, hoping she can understand where I'm coming from. "Give me some time? And stay with me today?" I plead to the human. "You don't really want to go see that mutt, do you?" Translation, I don't want you to go see that mutt and have you coming back smelling like him. "That mongrel can wait 'til tomorrow to see you, right?" Or never, much preferable.

"I have no idea why you keep calling him a mutt, but okay." She's agreeable.

"Never mind that," I mutter quietly. I'm beaming.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes meekly, and I know she understands.

"You don't need to appologize, Bella..."

"No, please, it's just, I..." she trails off and I patiently wait for her to pick up where she left off by taking a sniff, still sinful. "I just feel like I need to know you so I can someday repay you for everything you've done for me," she confesses. "Just you being here every day, Jasper... it helps a little. More than a little, actually." She smiles to herself. I want to touch her. It doesn't matter if it's an innocent touch or intimate one, so long as I can touch her. As a precaution, I put my hands in my pockets. "I feel like, maybe, one day the hole in my chest might begin to heal if you stay standing by me."

"Until you tell me to walk away," I remind her. I can't let her words confuse me into thinking that she treats me especially. I don't think I could handle the blow of that not being so. She makes this almost unbearable when she goes off pouring her heart out to me and acting so... cute. Point being, I feel like I don't know myself any longer. Ever since I admitted my feelings to myself I feel like I've been unhinged at the seams of my sagacity, thus, becoming unpredictable when it comes to "rational" behavior. In other words, dangerous. Specially while trying to keep Bella from getting wind of my growing feelings for her. I have to constantly catch myself around her, which means I'm chastising myself more than ninety-eight percent of the time.

"I'll have you for eternity if you keep saying that," she warns. I can only wish and hope that somehow that might become a reality.

"For eternity it is," I vow, she just doesn't realize it.

oOo

A/N: FINALLY! God, this took a long time, technical difficulties. The only thing I'm really sorry about is the fact that it is such a short chapter, when I compare it to the rest. But I really wanted to give you guys something TONIGHT. So here you go! Anyway, a penny for your thoughts?