Lilah didn't know what she'd gotten herself into. Jasper had called her and asked if she'd like to go hiking on her day off. Like an idiot, she mumbled something about having plans to go to the library too on that day. Jasper did not waste any time. He amended his question. He asked if she'd like to go to the library and hiking. She then said that was too much, and hiking would be alright. He laughed, and asked her once again: would she like to go hiking with him?

She said yes.

Because she wanted to. It took her aback just how good it felt to say yes and to mean it.

Now, though, as she waited for Jasper to come pick her up, she realized she had no real clue what was going to happen. A date, she supposed. A date, though that didn't sound quite right, nor did it feel quite right.

She hadn't dressed in a fancy way. She wore what she would've worn anyway for a day off. A pair of orange hiking pants that would induce a panic in Alice if she ever saw them, her old hiking boots, a U-Mass Amherst crewneck, an olive green waterproof windbreaker, a pair of mismatched socks. She'd put her things into her backpack and prepared a water bottle. It was what she would've worn and what she would've done, what she did countless times before, hiking with her family.

That was different. She didn't have the weird feeling that she had to look her best for any of them.

She drew a breath. Tried to calm herself down. She wanted this, after all. She really did. And, if nothing else, hopefully she'd come out of it with some answers.

Lost in thought, Lilah didn't even hear the vehicle pull into her driveway. When the knock on the door came, she jumped. A new wave of nervousness crashed over her and she immediately tried to repress it. Jasper could surely feel that, couldn't he? She didn't need him to feel her nervousness.

She opened the door, and there he was. His arms were tucked behind the back. As soon as his eyes met hers, his face softened into a smile. Otherwise, she supposed, he had quite the severe look, a resting scowl on his sculpted face. She much preferred his smile.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello," Jasper replied. He looked nice, in a crisp gray jacket and straight legged jeans. Her first instinct was to think they were the wrong pants for hiking. On second thought, she realized it probably didn't matter much for a vampire. "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

He stepped aside, making room for her on the small porch. She locked the door behind her and the two made their way to the driveway.

"Your Jeep?" she asked, gesturing to the large red vehicle that was parked behind her Taurus.

"Emmett's," Jasper said. He opened the passenger door for her. It struck her as particularly old fashioned. None of her college boyfriends had ever done such a thing for her. "He was all too happy to let me borrow it for the day…it seemed a better choice to take the Jeep than my motorcycle. More room."

If he was being honest with himself, Jasper would have to admit that the idea of taking Lilah out on his bike, with her hanging onto him as they cruised down the road, sounded…great. But it went against the first principle he'd dedicated himself to when it came to her: anything that did or did not happen between them would be her choice. It struck him as unfair to expect her to hop on the back of his bike on their first outing together. Not only because of the forced physical contact, but also because he didn't even know if that was the kind of thing she was into.

"It's nice," Lilah said. Jasper had gotten into the driver's seat now and she adjusted her backpack on her lap after having buckled herself in. "You'll have to thank him for me, for loaning it out."

Grinning, Jasper pulled the Jeep out of Lilah's driveway. Of course she would be so insistent on thanking Emmett, who wouldn't have even been expecting her to thank him.

"Would you like me to ease any of your nerves for you?" he asked, trying to approach the topic as politely as possible.

"No thank you. I appreciate it, but I'd like to keep my own emotions, whatever they are."

He wanted to make her feel better but he decided to leave it alone. He wanted to help her, but not at the expense of upsetting her. He tried to focus on the road. Tried to focus on driving with all his might, as every sense he had was trying to redirect the focus to the woman who sat to his right. She was fiddling with her fingers, trying to fend off her nervousness, more for his sake than her own. She didn't want him to feel her nervousness. She didn't want to burden him.

"What were you expecting out of today, Jasper?"

She surprised him. She cut through her own nerves and got to the core of the issue.

"To talk to you and get to know you," he said.

It was not a lie, and yet it was far from the whole truth. He inhaled unnecessarily to try to calm himself down, wishing his gift could work on himself as well. He replayed everything he'd talked about with Alice, Edward, and Esme, who had been able to tell something was seriously off with him, and then been let in on what was going on with him. Esme, being the great lover of love that she was, and the only one involved that had experienced finding her mate, had the most pertinent advice.

In many ways, she mirrored most of what Edward had told him. That, even if he didn't care about himself, he should care enough about Lilah to give her all of the relevant information. To allow her to get to know him, to understand the circumstance that had to feel so foreign to her, and to allow her to decide what to do about the potential relationship. But, unlike Edward, she spoke from experience. She knew what she was talking about. And thus, Jasper took her advice more seriously.

Lilah ended the long lull in their conversation, and asked, "Were you expecting to talk about what happened the last time we saw each other? Maybe I'm wrong, but I…I find it hard to believe that I was the only one who felt…that."

Jasper felt Lilah's eyes on him. He felt her explosive anticipation.

"No," he told her. "You weren't the only one who felt that."

Relief. She was glad she wasn't going insane, or otherwise socially inept, and too touch starved, as she'd suspected.

Jasper parked the Jeep at the far edge of the small parking lot at the foot of the hiking trail. There were only a couple of other cars, and no one else in sight. He was grateful. He hadn't had any close calls with humans for, damn, almost ten years, but he still didn't trust himself. Alice said she didn't have any visions of any close calls any time soon, and all of the rest of the family had the utmost confidence in his ability to control his thirst.

He still didn't trust himself. He'd asked Emmett, Edward, and Alice to hike nearby, not close enough to be seen, just within earshot, just in case he did lose control. Emmett would be able to restrain him, Edward would be there as back up in case Emmett's strength was not enough in the face of Jasper's thirst, and Alice would be able to get Lilah out of there before she was traumatized too badly.

"We can talk as we go," Jasper said, giving Lilah another smile. He hoped that it would take the edge off of some of her nerves, since she didn't want him using his gifts. "If that's okay."

She nodded. It was okay. She figured it might be a good idea to have the conversation outside where they could have some space between them. Not sitting in the Jeep.

Once again, Jasper was there as soon as she got out of the car. He'd intended to open the door for her again. She beat him to it, so he did what he could. Close the door for her, flash her a smile, and maintain an appropriate amount of distance from her as she slung her backpack over her shoulders and the two started up the trail.

As soon as they were far enough up the trail that they couldn't see the parking lot behind them, Lilah began to feel better. It was hard not to feel better when so engulfed in the beauty of nature. Fall had come and was just starting to tip toward winter, the thick forest was lit up with shades of red, yellow, and orange against the deep, rich greens that stayed in Washington year round. The air was clearer too, cleaner, and the only sounds accompanying them were that of the birds overhead and the critters scampering around the forest floor.

If Lilah was alone, she would've reaped all of nature's benefits and began to relax. Only she wasn't. There was no pretending that she was alone. It was impossible to ignore he tall, blonde, alluring vampire walking a few paces to her right, arms still folded behind his back, not needing them at his side for balance as she did.

"Please forgive me," Jasper said. He'd seen her start to open her mouth and decided it was best if he was the one to start the conversation. "This…what's happened between you and I, it isn't anything I ever expected I'd have to deal with. This is all as new to me as it is to you. I apologize if I'm not coming across correctly."

Okay, that did make her feel better. At least she wasn't the only one in over her head.

"You must have a better idea than I do," she said. "I get neither one of us quite get what that was, but I think you've got to understand more than I do."

Esme's words echoed in Jasper's mind. Tell her the truth, as gently and kindly as possible. That's all you can do.

"I don't know if your Constance has explained this part of vampirism to you, but we take mates. Partners, in every sense of the word."

Lilah's freckled cheeks were hot pink again. Jasper sensed a different kind of nervousness too. One that, oddly, made him feel more reassured. She was nervous now because what he'd said verified how she felt about him. The tug she felt towards him. The attraction she already felt brewing towards him.

"Romantic partners."

"Yes," Jasper said. "That's a big part of it."

They walked in silence for a couple hundred feet. Lilah's brain was going a mile a second. Jasper could see it on her face, and feel it reflected in her emotions, which kept oscillating through a cycle of hope, fear, worry, excitement, anxiety, desire. She was not, yet, outright rejecting the idea. That gave him a glimmer of hope. One that would surely crash and burn once she learned who he was. Especially who he'd been before finding the Cullens.

"Do we get a choice in this?" she asked. "We're not just subject to some outside source of will on this, are we?"

We. She was thinking about him in this too. He was touched. He didn't deserve such consideration.

"Of course," he told her. "The pull we've felt towards each other indicates that we have the rare high compatibility that it takes to be mates. Esme described it as something like 'the strings of fate pulling us together,' but that we get to choose what to do from there. We can let them pull us together, or cut them off altogether."

Lilah stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him fully. Her hazel eyes were sharp, her cheeks still flushed.

"What do you want to do?"

Jasper wanted to laugh. He stopped short, not wanting to offend her.

"Ultimately, Lilah, I want the choice to be yours. This involves a much bigger sacrifice on your end. You'd have to be around vampires for the rest of your life. You'd have to be around me, and I don't have as good of a history of thirst control as the rest of my family."

"You haven't shown any signs of being dangerous that I've seen."

"No, because you're a witch. Your blood doesn't smell nearly as appetizing as other human's. Carlisle said it's a natural form of protection your kind has developed, to prevent you from being harmed by both our kind and werewolves. But that first night when you came to your house, I didn't trust myself to be around you. That's why I wasn't there at first…I only came because your emotions were so overwhelming when you got upset, that I couldn't stop myself from coming to try to help you."

He watched Lilah's expression. It didn't change much. Gratitude, flattery, desire.

"If I do choose to pursue this," she began carefully. "Do I have to be turned?"

"No," Jasper said. "I never want you to do anything you're not completely comfortable with, especially not being turned. It's not something I expect from you."

That made her feel better.

"So we get to know each other…and see where it goes? That's what you're suggesting?"

For the first time since he'd met Alice, Jasper was overcome with hope. Hope. An intelligent, kind, beautiful, capable woman just expressed the desire to date him. He couldn't contain his smile.

"I am. If that's what you want."

Lilah mulled that over for one excruciating moment and said, "Yes. That is what I want…what I want to choose."

He could've hugged her. He wanted to hug her. To have his arms around her in some capacity, to feel her against him, to hold her and feel as though he could protect her for some short measure of time. It was new to him, wanting that sort of something with someone else. It was hard to resist the urge. He had to, though. If he ever got to do such a thing, it would be when Lilah gave him the consent to do so.

As his hope swelled up, it started to fall again.

"Since that's the case, I only feel that it's fair for me to tell you about my past, so you know everything before you—"

Lilah raised a hand and cut him off, her smile too warm and too beautiful.

"You've fried my brain enough for one day, Jasper. I would like to choose to enjoy the rest of our hike."

Jasper grinned. He couldn't deny her that.