AN. Ola! Only two days late... so progress hey! he he! I got a little squirely wanting to make sure this was ok, so feel free to kick my ass if you so wish! Not too hard though... i like my ass! I do gay assed squats in the gym to firm that bitch up!

Couple of tings of note... there was this little contest called the Round Mound of a Beehound... did you go look at it? *narrows eyes at you* Hmmm... well... Lacym3 and I won! Eeeeeeeeeeeeep! *sheds a 82% vodka based tear* Massive thanks to anyone who read, voted, or had their minds scarred by our fuckery during the contest - Lacy and I would love to give you all a massive hug with some inappropriate groping as thanks! Come find us on twitter and we'll hook you up lol! If you didn't managed to stumble across the contest whilst it was running, all the stories are posted under the username Round_Mound_of_a_Beehound which is on my favourites list on my profile - there's some hilarious stuff in there so go have a sneak and peek! Big love goes to missmaj & addictedtotwilight79 on their category wins too! I've also got a piece entered in the crapfic gawdawful contest that's posted on my profile here - because it was too amusing to pass up and I had a cheeky idea coming out of the cinema after watching New Moan... I've turned into a whore with all this shameless self promotion, I know. But it's in Mike POV and it's shitaliciously hilarious! Don't worry though, it's TLM only for a while now, so I'll be all dark and twisty again soon!*broods in the corner and growls at you demanding you bring me caffeine and booze*

I'd like to pimp someone else's words too though - Unfathomable Bonds by Zaytyll (bella/japser - great set up & i'm jonesing for the next chapter lady... wink wink) Go have a look and lick the words on the screen, they're tasty, and her story idea is unique and features some hot men from the Volturi! mmmmm!

L x

p.s feel like i'm at the oscars here - gwyneth paltrow style (if you haven't seen that shit youtube it... it'll automatically make yourself feel like less of a spaz on a bad day!) - so i'd like to say thanks to all of you for taking the time to read and review. I'm still amazed that people are reading my crazy - but if i can make you laugh in a good way then i'm glad it's bringing you some giggles.

Now.
Enough of the fuckery.
Let's get on with it!

Where we left off with Bella...

I gestured to my arm, stroking the wrist he was going to bite back in the truck. I do understand. I'm just not sure what I want to do yet. I pat him on the leg and walk out through the doors to the veranda outside. The sun is setting again, and the clouds loom tower-like from the mountain tops.


BPOV

I was ready to die, prepared, accepting even.

This... this had fucked with my plans.

I stared at the darkening clouds as they drifted in; stared at the mountains, stared at the wooden railing, tracing the whorls engrained there with my eyes, my pupils circling their pathways with a fanatical fury. I stared at a butterfly traversing the edge of the beam, conquering new land with every step, stared at anything, anything to stop the roaring buzz building from the recesses of my mind. I stared at anything to stop the whispers of possibilities, of failure, of hope, of abandonment, of confusion, of a chance at something indefinable.

I should be in goddamn Mexico running up the largest hotel bill known to man, before taking myself out of the game in a method of my choosing. Downing a fuckton of pills had looked good. That shit was cheap down there and I'd saved asshole psychiatrists hospital ID to acquire what I needed.

My choice. My decision. My ending. My way.

It was something I'd been fighting for, control and a choice.

Now I had one.

A new one.

A 'plan B' I hadn't seen coming.

Fuck! I hadn't seen any of this coming. Screw the only bitch that might have.

The familiar anger burned up my spine at the thought of her. I hated this reaction. Hated that I cared enough to feel this rage, this anger, this burn deep inside of me! They weren't worth anything I had left to give. Damn it!

I sucked the heavy air between my teeth, fighting back the rage that threatened to consume me. I couldn't factor them in to this. They weren't a good enough reason. This would be forever. That last mile had just opened up, the end limitless, and firmly out of sight around the bend.

I could have that.
I could make that choice; take the new hand that had been offered to me.

My fingernails dug into the railing, carving out half moon crescents in the soft fibre. Permanent marks now embedded on the surface. Final and everlasting. No take backsies allowed. Extracting them, I turned my back on the majestic scene that was overshadowed by the mountains rising up in my mind, and leaned back against the rail, feeling its edge sharp against the protruding bones of my spine. The contact grounded me as my fingers ran automatically over the scar at my wrist.

I stared down at it, transfixed.

Did I want to add more scars; mental and physical?

Did I want to add them with these people?

There was something here with them, underneath the jokes and the fuckery. It was a sense of belonging I hadn't felt in a long time, something I couldn't label or peg in a box. It was nice. They sparked something inside me, smoothed the holes, and soothed the rough harshness that crept around the edges of my thoughts. I could be here. I could be happy, maybe. I'd have a shot. If not, well, I could always run when I wanted. If I did this I'd need help to begin with, I wouldn't want to take a person's life. The thought of playing games and God with strangers was too similar to my own story, too fucking close. I couldn't inflict that on anyone, could never make that choice if there was another way.

Did I trust them enough to help me with that? Could I trust at all?

Jasper. I could trust Jasper. After hearing his story, his struggle, I could trust him with that. His strength was astounding. He was astounding. His quietness, his stillness, was all a front for the man that crawled every inch over burning coals to be standing where he is today. I could admire that, understand that. I could aspire to that.

I wouldn't be giving anything up I hadn't already lost. My family was gone. My dreams and hopes shredded on the floor like discarded tissue paper. Nobody would miss me or cry for me; nobody would make calls to explain my disappearance from the world. I wouldn't be missed. The issues that had plagued me back when I'd begged for this opportunity were irrelevant. Children were out of the question even if I'd wanted them. The cancer treatments and the experimentation by the doctors scrambling for a cure had been so aggressive that children would never be an option. Not that I would have wanted to bring an innocent person into my downward spiral. I could never be that selfish, would never inflict that on someone else.

Not like Renee.

My breath caught in my throat at the thought of her name skating across the surface of my mind. Scenes were recalled with gut punching vividness. The red voraciously bloomed like roses, their thorny stems strangling the air from my lungs. I stumbled forward into a porch swing that loomed out, previously hidden in the shadows of the house.

Tears ran unbidden down my face. I didn't know how there were any left.

I could have saved her. If I had been strong enough, if I had been able. I could have stopped THAT. I could have saved Charlie.

But, I had been weak.

Mortal. Imperfect. Frail.

It was no more ever apparent than here in this moment, as I flailed childlike in the sea of cushions that muffled the shrieks and moans from my throat, as the memories crawled their way out of their hiding places, racing and swirling like dervishes around me, disorienting me with memories that no longer seemed like my own, as they pealed back layer by layer through my life.

Amongst those ashes was a gift. My father. He was brushing down my scabbed knees as tears tracked rivers through the dirt encrusted on my face. A tiny bike lay on the ground, wheels spinning at odd angles as I sobbed in frustration at my ineptitude.

"Bells..."

His rough calloused hand diverting and damming the tears. I whimpered and leaned into the warmth.

"Don't cry sweetheart."

His face was patient. Doting. Calm. Wise with years and life. Strong.

"You don't always get it on the first try. Nothing worth doing is easy. You can do this. I know you can."

Determination. Strength. Belief. I could do anything. Hell, I would do anything because of him. He taught me everything he knew. Even in the short amount of time we spent together he was imprinted on my heart, in my life, in my every action and inaction.

I didn't know where it came from, this jewel in the mire of filth. I didn't know if it was even real. I didn't care. For a few precious seconds, I had him back. He was my father again in that moment, and he was telling me what I needed to hear, what I already knew but rarely really saw, like he always did. He was my dad. That's what he did.

The choice was never really a choice. I'd already made it when I decided not to run from here on the first day. I made it time and time again with every step I took with them. With every casual touch and remark. With the ease at which sleep finally came to me here, surrounded by mystical beings that would cause others to run screaming into the night.

The revelation was blinding and startling, and sucked the wind from my sails, as it truly hit me.

I didn't have to die.

I didn't want to die.

I didn't have to be alone.

I wasn't alone.

I wasn't going to die.

I could start again.

I wanted to choose this.

My eyes refocused on the darkness that had settled like a blanket around me. The stars blazed in the sky, burning at me, their brightness untainted by city lights and life, dazing me as my senses rushed back to me. The muggy warm air buzzed with crickets and nature, with life. Even here in the dark I wasn't alone.

Movement stirred in the blackness, startling me.

Jasper.

My eyes meet his. They pulled me in like beacons lit in the blackest of night, signalling I am here, you are not alone. Their infinite golden depths glittered, even here in the shadows, pulling me from the emotions that threatened to swallow me whole, as I gasped at the air, trying to regain myself, trying to share the words that would bind me to this. Whatever this would be.

"Jasper..."

Gasp.

Breathe Bella.

"...I don't..."

Gasp.


You have to get this out.

"...want to..."

Gasp.


You have to make the choice.

"...die."

Every word broke ripples across his face like a pebble thrown into a still pond. I'd never seen someone so alive and so still, as each one hit him.

My body sagged at the effort as the last syllables fall from my lips.

I was suddenly surrounded by steel arms instead of slumped in a puddle of exhaustion across the cushions. They wrap around me, holding me together as my body shook and shuddered under the explosive end effects of this moment. I felt nothing but his strength as he drew me into his body, nothing but security as he melded the two of us together in the darkness. Cool hands ran up and down my spine, soothing the wracking shudders as Jasper tucked my head beneath his chin, my lips meeting his cool skin with every heaving breath I took.

I leaned into him, absorbing his strength as my own.

We sat there in the silence, both of us relaxing inch by inch with every breath taken. He would breathe out, and I would breathe back in. My mind was both racing and empty as we held each other together in the dark. I'd never focused on it before, but the heady scent of Jasper, leather and mint, and just man, swirled around me, intensifying with his every exhale as it would spill over my hair and down my face.

I couldn't tell you how much time had passed. It felt like a lifetime and a moment all at once, but I found a piece of myself there in the night, and tugged it back into place in the shattered wall of my heart. It grounded me and gave me the strength to pull myself back together. I pulled my head out from beneath his chin and looked up into his face, in awe of the strength that radiated out of him in that moment, at the regal lines of his face as the curls swayed in a light breeze that chased across the veranda.

I could see him on the battlefields in this moment, leading. How could anyone miss this? I would let him lead me.

My lips parted, dry and cracked, but the words were sure and steadier than I believed myself capable of.

"OK, I'm in Jasper"

I think I'd always been in.

JPOV

Thank fuck we were sitting down, because the look in her eyes would have knocked me on my ass and had me bowing down at her feet. My mind spun with a thousand questions, but every single one of them was answered there in her eyes. She was completely sure. Strong and fearless in this moment, even with her tear stained cheeks and red rimmed eyes. She was beautiful and broken all at once. One hand reached out and gently wiped the remaining moisture from the curtains of lashes that framed her eyes; her face leaned into the coolness of my touch.

I had to ask anyway.

"You're sure?"

I knew the answer. She needed to hear it again out loud.

"Yes."

Her eyes flicked to the ground and then pinned me again.

"I don't want to kill anyone, Jasper. I trust you to help me with that."

I wanted to run from that responsibility, rage at her for trying to burden me with that request, but the belief in me that I saw in her face, deep down inside of her, struck like a lightning bolt through myself. She trusted me with that, trusted that I would look after her, in that moment I felt a thousand feet tall. I could do anything with that kind of belief.

I nodded, unable to speak back.

I could feel Peter and Charlotte on the periphery before I heard his whisper of approval. We were all ready.

Bella pulled back the curtain of her hair, revealing the creamy expanse of the left side of her neck. I caught her arm with my hand as she moved to lay it back by her side, and brushed a stray piece of hair back with my other hand, her body limp and secure against my torso.

"Well, I'm not getting any younger here..."

Her joke fell flat, but was full of meaning. I didn't want to waste any more time either. Who knew if she had time to waste?

I raised her arm upwards slowly to my mouth as I leaned down slightly, shifting her in my lap, my eyes locked with hers as my teeth parted over the skin of her wrist. The scar on her other arm clearly visible as her skin tightened as the tendons beneath it stood up in protest, as she gripped the fabric of my shirt in her fingers. Seeing that ugly mark from that bastard triggered something dark inside me, the need to claim her for my own, to mark her.

I struck without hesitation; the muscles in my body sprang like a trap, my mouth tearing into her soft luscious skin as my teeth embedded themselves into their prey, the blood pooled hot, heavy and metallic in my mouth as my throat convulsed in readiness for what it was about to receive.

Her whimper drew me from the haze that had descended on my mind, threatening to break me in two on the rocks.

I'd hurt her.

I hadn't needed to and the selfish need I'd reacted to had caused her pain.

I felt sick with myself. Not enough to stop though. I would fix this.

Tears welled at the edges of her eyes, a single blink would of broken the tension on the liquid there and sent them cascading over her cheeks. But her eyes remained locked on mine, watching, and waiting, her breath shallow pants that roared in the thick air.

I pushed as much venom as possible into the wound I'd inflicted there before carefully withdrawing my teeth; I lowered my jaw slightly to allow my tongue to snake out between my lips, and dragged it across the deep gash. I could feel the jagged edges of the bite; feel every skin cell rasp against the buds of my tongue, as my mouth exploded the cacophony of flavours from her skin. The air shifted with the intimacy of the moment, heady and spellbinding as her body spewed forth clouds of chemicals in response, as she watched my tongue coil back into the recesses of my mouth.

She drew in a heavy laboured breath, as her bottom lip caught between her tongue and her teeth.

She had scarcely blown it back out before I lunged for the throbbing vein calling me in her neck. My teeth latched onto it with pinpoint accuracy, the movement practiced and controlled by a thousand previous deaths all for this moment. The sharpest edges of my teeth pierced and sliced the smallest of necessary holes, opening the lifeblood of her to me in offering, as the glands in my neck pumped with a fevered ferocity, the efficiency and speed of the cut reducing any pain to the bare minimum.

My nose pressed up against the skin of her neck, was flooded with her warmth and scent. I was drowning in her, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be pulled from the water. I could taste her, the tiniest of particles filtering into my system as my tongue held back the high pressure spray that pulsed against it in time with the beat of her heart. Underneath the chemicals and the death was a pureness unlike anything I'd ever tasted. I didn't know if it was the years of abstinence, or if I'd never come across anyone like Bella before, but she was the 100 year old whisky you revered and never opened. I wouldn't be drinking it today either. I breathed deep through my nose, trying to clear the heady effects on my system, recalling her faith in me, and forced the pooled venom into her bloodstream.

The impact was auditory as the two substances fought and battled inside of her; her muscles spasmed as the venom raced through the central nervous system, her body attempting to jerk hard in my vicelike grip in response.

Her eyes were still locked into mine, wide and dark in their intensity and the brown startling against the whites of her eyes, which were tinting pink as the tiny veins popped under the strain of pressure. I could feel her pulse speeding beneath my skin, as her temperature rocketed in response to the mass invasion that was taking place.

There would be only one winner.

It was just a matter of time now.

I shifted her carefully in my arms and retreated back into house towards her bedroom. Peter and Charlotte gently reached out and touched me as I passed, barely aware of the cloud of pride and love, and excitement that threatened to swarm me.

I was only focused on the woman in my arms, watching the battle rage, and the smoke curl in the storm of her eyes.

BPOV

There was pain. I was used to that. I wasn't used to the rush of heat as his tongue had traced over my wrist or the intimacy as he latched onto my neck. It was foreign and crackled electric through the shock that raged through my system, as I felt the venom snake out and spread.

This was it.

I felt nothing but relief.

It was selfish, but I wanted to let go of all the horrific memories that I'd born witness to in my short years. I wanted to put 'old Bella' to rest, and come out the other side, shiny and clean, and unscarred by the fuckery of my life.

My eyes closed shut, almost in witness to the metaphorical chapter I wanted to seal shut and bury.

The last thing I saw was Jasper, before I let myself sink under the crashing waves of black, and I was swallowed whole into the belly of the burning beast.

I only felt relief as my mind folded in upon itself and I continued to sink.

I fell forever.

I didn't want to resurface as myself.

JPOV

I sat on the edge of the bed, my hold on her tiny fingers grounding me, stopping me running from the whimpers and moans that crawled unbidden from her mouth. So quiet in comparison to the changes I'd seen before, but no less brutal. I could remember every moment of mine, could feel the flames licking across my skin as if it were hers. I only had the memories to go on. I still couldn't feel anything from her. I hated it and cherished it all at the same time.

Charlotte came in to change her at one point, with Peter nearly having to physically wrestle me from the room. I stayed just outside the door, pacing, my fingers tracing the lines of the wooden panels as though the millimetres I was gaining in proximity to her by compressing the fibres there would make a difference. I nearly knocked Charlotte down when the door finally opened.

I hadn't moved from Bella's side since.

I sat, and stared, and waited.

Absorbing everything but seeing nothing.

Time was broken by the appearance of one of the others, by a cup of cooling blood placed under my nose.

The sun rose and fell, the shadows looming and shrinking as it blazed a trail across the window.

Still my eyes didn't move.

My mind catalogued all the things I would teach her, her first hunt, control of the instincts that would otherwise rage uncontrollable; the delicacy needed in a simple touch. She would be mine to look after, to guard, to protect. The idea stewed hot and raw inside of me.

Her scent was slowly changing, the smell of flowers weakening. I had to lean in and pull a breath in deep before my mind agreed, because the light sickly flowers were blooming into the heady scent of peaches – the same smell of peaches that clawed memories of my human life from the depths of my mind.

And chocolate.

Bella smelled like fucking peach pie and candy. It brought the first smile to my face since I bit her, allowing me to finally focus and look beyond the skin matted with sweat and hair, at the woman emerging from the pyre on which she burned.

She was without comparison.

Her withered limbs had grown strong from the poisonous venom that chased through her veins, killing and feeding every cell as it flashed and then slow burned beneath her skin. She no longer radiated heat, but a luminosity that would make the sun shy away from the day and fall in love with night. Every harsh edge of bone that had protruded out had softened, smoothed, and lengthened. Her lashes had thickened and swept downwards to rest of pronounced cheekbones that arced strong and graceful, pointing down to cherry red lips that pouted in repose. She was a marble statue reclining for all whose eyes fell upon her to worship. My eyes did. She was mesmerising.

Only the speeding of her fluttering heartbeat broke the calm facade.

It surged.

Beating out a frantic tribal rhythm that had no definable pattern.

Peter and Charlotte crept into the room.

It was time.

A final stutter and whir crashed through the air.

We sat like stone.

Waiting.

Limbs twitched in the folds of the white sheets she lay on, before a deep sigh tumbled from her mouth. Every muscle rolled and roiled in unison as she rolled onto her side and stilled. Face buried in the white cotton.

We waited.

She was still.

A hum of contentment rumbled out from the bed, and then stopped.

She shifted.

Wide eyes framed with a sea of black lashed flicked open and met my own.

I was lost in the red.

Ooooooooh! Bella's getting her vamp on! Giggidty, Giggidty, Giggidty! Al-right!

Love it? Hate it? Want to track me down and kick my ass? Psssh! Bitch please! I'm scrappy, I could take y'all - plus I've NCChris in my corner! She'll cut a ho! lol!

Seriously though, reviews make my day - even constructive criticism (yes gasp!) - hit me with your thoughts, and your rhythm sticks... HUH!