I'll pull the sheets
When it's cold on your feet
Cause you'll fall back to sleep
Every time
Grow old with me
Let us share what we see
And oh the best it could be
Just you and I

Grow Old With Me – Tom Odell

His hands moved softly against her back, lips pressed to her neck as he buried himself as deep inside her as he could go. She sighed gently, one hand settled in his hair, the other pushed against his chest.

Later, when they both were sated, she curled up against his side, his arm thrown around her, her mouth pressed over his heart. Jasper held her as tight as he dared, the sweat on their skin mingling together; and in this heat our two salts mingled be.

Bella stirred, pushing the thin sheet further down the bed and raising her arms above her head. Jasper's eyes couldn't help but be drawn to the way the motion made the dusky pink of her areolae rise up her chest.

Pulling the sheet around her shoulders she stood and padded softly across to her bedroom door, gesturing for him to follow. He did as she bid, grabbing his boxers as he made his way across her room towards her. She entwined her fingers with his as he reached her, tugging him gently towards the kitchen.

Later, when she had french toast sizzling on the stove and coffee making the steady drip into her mug, a glass of lemonade sweating heavily in front of him, she turned to face him.

"I think you should talk to someone," she held up a hand as he protested, "I'm not suggesting you seek medical help or anything, just that it might be therapeutic. It might help sway a judge if you ever wanted to seek custody."

Jasper regarded her for a moment, ducking his head to avoid her gaze as she turned back to the pan on the stove.

"I'm afraid," he said softly, fingers drawing patterns in the condensation on his glass, "what if they say it shows I'm unfit, what if I lose any chance I have of getting her?"

Bella abandoned the toast on the counter and turned to rest her hand gently on his back, stroking through his flinch softly.

"Jasper, your father is a convicted child abuser, they're not going to favor his custody above yours."

"But they might favor Esme's." he muttered, one hand snaking out to catch her around her waist.

"And if they do then you know you did all you could, that Rose is safe and happy, and that you can continue to have a relationship with her. Neither of you are ever going back to your father, Jasper."

"I don't think he was a bad man, you know," Bella looked up from her book at this admission, "Something Charlotte said at our session yesterday. He was dealt a bad hand in life and dealt with it poorly, he wasn't inherently evil."

Bella put her book down.

"And I think, I know I won't turn out like him now."

Bella smiled and went to wrap herself around him.

"I know you won't either.

September came and it brought with it a letter from Rosalie; she had settled into her first year of high school and had her first boyfriend. It took Bella half an hour to convince Jasper that driving to Jersey and reading the fourteen-year-old boy the riot act was a bad idea.

The leaves were falling off the trees but the increase in rain turned the grass in the town square a lush green, the fresh, dewy smell permeating into the businesses surrounding it. Bella spent her days at the diner inhaling deeply as she passed each open window.

"You're drooling you know," the comment brought Bella back to earth; she leveled a glare at Jess.

"I am not drooling, Jessie-Lou," she grumbled, turning her back on the view of Jasper working shirtless across the road, "I am merely appreciating the site of my boyfriend working hard."

"Working shirtless, you mean," Jess snickered, turning to continue refilling the sugar dispensers.

Mike came in for lunch alone that day, the other boys working through the break, pressing a kiss to Jess's cheek as Bella smirked in the background, drying a coffee cup for a minute too long as she watched her two best friends flirt.

Jasper stuck his head around the door midway through the dinner rush, snatching Bella for a brief hug, and a promise to be over later that night.

"You better be, Cowboy," Bella smiled, "Making fajitas especially."

Jasper made an exaggerated smacking noise with his lips as he turned to leave.

October found Bella stepping off a plane in Seattle, one hand in Jasper's and the other clutching her rucksack strap so tightly her fingers were turning white. Renée saw Bella before her daughter had seen her and rushed at the two of them, engulfing Bella in her arms, chattering rapidly at Jasper as she did so.

Phil was calmer, shaking Jasper's hand with a wary grin, hugging Bella briefly before slinging her bags over his shoulder.

The drive to Forks passed quickly, Renée gossiping about inane things that had happened in Fork over the year and a half Bella had been gone – "and Lauren's married that Sam boy, oh her mom's not pleased about that, not at all" – while Phil interjected with questions about Bella's life in Ohio.

Bella's childhood room fascinated Jasper, pictures of a young Bella with a boy – he presumed to be Jake – perched on rocks on a beach, or sat around a campfire. The dream catcher nestled above her bed was frayed, the beads starting to slip off, a few scattering across the pillows below them.

Bella started the car nervously the next morning. Jasper had gone with Phil to Safeco Field and her mom was also at work. She glanced in all her mirrors before pulling her old high school car out onto the street.

Humming along softly to the radio, Bella tapped her fingers against the steering wheel as she drove along the familiar streets. Taking a sharp left next to the sporting good's store, Bella pulled into a small drive, a lovingly restored classic car sitting proudly in front of her.

Bella took a deep breath and steeled her nerve before opening the car door. Her hands trembled as she walked the short path to the front door, but her knock on the peeling front door was firm and sure.

She soon heard footsteps approaching the door and almost turned tail and fled, but instead made herself stay.

"Hello Jake," she said as the door swung open.

Bella was fiddling with a loose button on Jake's faded couch when he cam into the room and handed her a mug of hot tea. She smiled her thanks at him and blew on the scaling liquid, a steam cloud rising up and temporarily blocking her vision.

"So uh," Jake scratched awkwardly at his head, "what brings you back to Forks?"

"My mom," Bella answered, "she's still here. Brought Jasper down to meet her and Phil."

At the mention of Jasper Jake cast his eyes downwards, toe scuffing at a mark on the wooden floor. Bella cast her eyes around the familiar sitting room, not much had changed since she'd last been there over a year before.

"How's Billy?" Bella broke the awkward silence, placing her mug down on the coffee table and leaning forwards.

"They reopened the case," Jake said, eyes meeting hers, "but he's ok."

"I didn't know they opened it again," Bella shot a questioning glance at Jake, her brown furrowed.

"Yeah I guess when you went digging last year someone else decided to have a look at the files too, something didn't add up or something, I don't know."

"I'm sorry," Bella murmured, "I didn't mean to stir up old history. I just had to know, y'know?"

Jake nodded, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," the corners of his lips drooped down, "I was scared, I didn't know how you'd take it."

Bella laughed bitterly, picking her mug back up and taking a drink to still the cruel words lining up on her tongue.

Bella lay in Jasper's arms that night, relaying her conversation with Jake to Jasper, tears glistening on her eyelashes, some spilling down her cheeks faster than Jasper could wipe them away. He shushed her and gathered her to him tighter, landing butterfly kisses over her face.

She closed her eyes, her face slackening in sleep.