Chapter Seventy Seven

The Major

Suddenly as I thought of those words all the memories came flooding back to me and they were more than I could bear. I found myself on my knees as the weight of grief and shame knocked me from my feet. I saw Mary and Amy, my sisters, playing with the rag doll Mary had just sewn for her. Samuel leaning heavily on his crutch begging John to lift him into the tree to join us. My father sweat stained after a long day in the fields, my mother brushing loose hair away from her face with the back of a floury hand as she baked. The dogs in the yard scuffling over a bone, the sound of the family's voices raised in prayer before a meal. All the beautiful things I had long forgotten, pushed out by other darker images.

The row of graves unmarked and now long forgotten, Samuel's twisted body hanging from that same old tree. The smoke from a thousand burning vampires. Blood drenching my face and hands from humans I had fed from and others I had tortured and killed just for the pain and terror it produced that I also fed on. So many faces I was dammed to see over and over, so many lives cut short, so many strangers I killed without a single question or regret until now.

What would my gentle mother say about all my crimes? Would my father look on me proudly knowing the crimes I had committed? Would my sisters come running, arms outstretched in welcome if they knew the blood that stained my own? I heard a noise as if from a distance and realized it was me, I was crying tearlessly for those I had shamed more than those I had murdered.

Bella

Somehow I knew he was afraid of the things I'd said but I knew he felt it and I knew only he could make the decision to take that first step. Then he fell to his knees and I heard a heart wrenching sound, he was sobbing and all I could do was kneel beside him, hold him and let him feel the grief he had hidden for so long.

When he finally became silent I got up stretching and brushing grass off me then looked down but his head was bowed, I couldn't see his face and had no clue what he was thinking. I stretched out my hand to him,

"It's getting cold out here. Will you come back to the cellar with me?"

At first I thought he hadn't heard me but then he shook his head,

"You go back. You're better off without me. I'll stay here awhile and think. Peter and Charlotte shouldn't be too long then we can decide where you can go that will be safe."

I sighed and retook my place beside him,

"I'd rather stay with you and I don't mean just until the others arrive. Jasper I think our futures are linked, where you go I go."

He swallowed convulsively and shook his head again but I needed to see his expression, I wanted to know what he was thinking and feeling so I put a hand under his chin and slowly lifted his head till I could see his face.

I don't think I have ever seen any eyes filled with so much pain before and I certainly hope I will never see such an expression again. He was a soul in torment and I could see he was lost in the turmoil his memories had stirred up. Somehow I needed to reach him through it all so I brought my head close and kissed his cold forehead then leaned mine against it. He tensed but I sensed it was in shock more than anything.

"Jasper a lot has happened since you went off to war as a boy. You have done some great things and some truly dreadful things but all that matters is right now. You can choose your path for the future and I will be here with you to help you. You aren't alone any longer and you don't have to be ever again."

The words came tumbling out without conscious thought but they were no less true for that.

The Major

If only I could believe those words, believe that there was something for me to live for, to fight for, but my life had been bleak and sterile for so long I dare not hope for anything so I sat silent as the sun set and the temperature dropped expecting Bella to leave with the sun's warmth.

An hour later she was still sitting beside me, her warm human hand wrapped around my cold inhuman one. She had begun to shiver slightly but she didn't complain, in fact she didn't speak at all yet I could hear her emotions as if they were spoken. She hadn't lied about her feelings or the choices open to me.

Bella Swan meant every word she had spoken and the warmth that I had felt wrap around me when we met was growing in intensity as we sat together.

"You..."

I couldn't force words out through my emotion clogged throat,

"You should go inside, it's getting cold."

"Only if you come with me."

I sighed and suddenly I felt unutterably weary,

"This is a mistake Bella, one you will live to regret in time."

"Then that's my choice to make surely?"

Bella

Finally he stood up and I grasped his hand more firmly, afraid he might take off again but he just trudged beside me back to the root cellar which was as well because I could never have found it by myself in the dark. He pulled open the door and stood back but I was wary,

"Oh no, you first."

With a humourless grin he went down the steps and I found him waiting at the bottom for me. He took my hand again as if the connection gave him the energy to continue and we seated ourselves on the undamaged bed base. He pulled off his jacket and draped it round my shoulders, an unconscious gesture that told me so very much and gave me the courage to go on.

"So what do you plan to do next? The Volturi aren't going to allow you to just walk away and if they find out I'm still alive they'll be looking even harder for you."

"The Volturi don't scare me Bella, the future scares me."

"But together we can make a new life...Together we can go away somewhere, anywhere they can't find us. I promise I will stay with you for as long as you need me"

"The Volturi would track us down eventually, they have Demetri and he always finds his man in the end. Would you have me kill him in front of you? It would be the only way to keep you safe and they would send another and another and the killing would go on and on. How long before you decide you couldn't take any more? How long before you left Bella?"

I moved away to look into his face once more,

"I will never leave you Jasper Whitlock its the only thing I am sure about any more. I care about you, and if we have to run for eternity then better that than watch you return to the horror's of The Major."

"What about your father? And the Cullens? Do you think the Volturi will be the only ones looking for me? We can't tell them you are still alive without risking the Volturi finding out, you see Bella, there is no future with someone like me."

I touched his lips with mine lingering for a few seconds,

"We'll find a way, there's always a way if you want it enough."

"I can almost believe you Bella. I want to, God I want to but fate has never smiled on me, I think she hates me too."