A/N:

This chapter is one of the heavier ones. It deals with Jasper's human past and includes his former prejudices and harmful beliefs about a person's worth based on the color of their skin.

I have not and will not shy away from the fact that Jasper was a racist and pro-slavery. That's the background SM gave him. I'm just fleshing it out.

Title: Origins: Living in my Future

Author: MarieCarro

Beta: Alice's White Rabbit

Pre-reader: BitterHarpy and brierlynn03

Genre: Supernatural/Mystery

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Mary Alice Brandon had always been different. She seemed to know things that had yet to happen, and the people in town avoided her at all costs. But the cries of 'Witch' or whispers of 'Changeling' wasn't her biggest concern. Someone much closer to her than the townsfolk couldn't accept her differences, and it put her in life-threatening danger.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

CHAPTER 32

THURSDAY, MAY 23rd - WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28th 1963

"You're welcome to come along with us and meet the others," I said as we approached San Francisco, the city our family had taken up residence in since Jasper and I left five years ago. "I know Emmett, Rosalie, and Edward won't mind, and Esme and Carlisle would both love to meet you."

"I don't see why not," Charlotte said with a smile, much more eager to meet new vampires after having traveled with someone other than Peter for a few years.

"Could be fun," Peter agreed. "I'd actually like to meet the famous Carlisle, who began this odd philosophy of yours." He glanced at Jasper with amusement, but all he got in response was Jasper rolling his golden eyes.

I was so proud of my mate for having stuck with our diet almost the entire time we'd traveled with his former brother. He'd had a small snag in his resolve at the very beginning when the other two came back from a hunting trip smelling of fresh human blood, but that had been expected. After that one slip and being reminded of how he'd felt in the past after hunting, he stayed firm on only feeding on animals with me.

Peter and Charlotte accepted and respected that and were extra careful to wash off any blood spatter or to run an extra mile away just to get rid of most of the smell, and it helped. Both Jasper and I appreciated the effort and showed our gratitude by spending some money on them, legally replacing their clothes and shoes and booking a hotel room so they could have a nice, hot shower.

They were both in excellent control and had no issues being around humans as long as there wasn't fresh blood in the air.

Even without already knowing the address and having seen the house in my visions, the second we reached the sparse neighborhood our family had moved into, it was easy to find which house was theirs since every vampire scent trail led to the one house. Our companions were in awe of the luxury Jasper and I had gotten used to and took it all in with wide eyes.

"Jay, this is unreal," Peter said. "How is it possible you can all live together in this way? So out in the open?"

"Humans tend to accept oddities in a person if they have money," Edward said as he and the rest of the family came outside to greet us—the day was overcast and would stay that way, so the daylight didn't worry us. "Wasn't that what you told me, Carlisle?" he asked and turned to our mentor, his eyebrow raised in mutual amusement.

"I certainly did," Carlisle confirmed and stepped forward to shake Peter's and Charlotte's hands while Esme pulled both me and Jasper into her motherly embrace to welcome us back home. "It's nice to meet a couple of amicable people from Jasper's past."

Peter snorted. "Yes, I heard you had a run-in with our creator. She's definitely a character."

"That's one way to describe her," Emmett said with a shake of his head. He would never forgive Maria for having threatened his family. Even if she would convert to our diet and open an orphanage, she was forever on his blacklist.

"I doubt you'll have to worry about her again though," Peter said with a casual shrug. Much like Emmett, other than his tall frame, he rarely allowed himself to be prematurely bothered. "The last thing I'd describe Maria as is stupid. And she saw for herself that Jasper's moved on. She won't try again."

"That sounds promising. Let's hope for that," Carlisle said, then gestured for them to feel welcomed to enter the house.

"You probably already know, Alice, but your room is the third door on the left side," Esme said with a smile, and since I did know, all I did was give her a nod and grateful smile back as a reply.

"I definitely wouldn't mind a change of clothes," Jasper said. "It's been a while now."

Peter's laugh could be heard from inside the house. "The settled life has definitely tamed you, brother!"

"Nothin' wrong with bein' clean. You should try it some time," Jasper shot right back, and it was immediately answered with both Peter and Emmett's laughter.

"I like you," Emmett said.

Jasper and I ignored them both and headed to our new room where all of our belongings had been lovingly arranged in the same style I would've done it in, proving how well Esme knew us both, and I opened up the closet to inspect what we had to work with.

"I'll definitely have to update some of these items. They've gone horribly out of fashion since we left," I said, holding out a particularly full skirt I'd never quite enjoyed wearing. The fullness and length had always swallowed my frame and made me painfully aware of my short stature, so I was more than excited for the straight mini-skirts currently in style.

After removing quite large sections of the fabric and shortening it, I had a rough version of what a skirt was supposed to look like now and modeled it for Jasper, whose eyes were taking in my bare legs appreciatively.

"Don't I look positively scandalous?" I asked and laughed. The straight silhouette was quite similar to how the dresses looked the first decade after I woke up. It was the length that was the biggest change and shock to us, who were used to being covered almost from head to toe.

"Scandalous. Sinful. Stunnin'. You take your pick," he said, his eyes blazing with desire. He approached me and took me in his arms, ready to ravage me on our bed, but we were almost immediately interrupted by the conversation below.

"Whoa, I'd forgotten how intense things get around here when Jazz is feeling raunchy," Emmett said, garnering another laugh from Peter. The two of them had definitely hit it off, but it was yet to be determined if that was good or bad for us.

We'd had years away from the family, never having to worry about other people being around and listening to our intimate moments because it was easier to coordinate privacy when only sharing it with another couple.

Now, we'd have to start to adapt back into how it was before, and that was going to be hard.

Jasper reluctantly stood up with a frustrated sigh and pulled me with him off the bed. "Welcome back home, my darlin' Alice."

{=LMF=}

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest—quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

"And so, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

I hugged my legs even closer to myself as every word rang through me and pulled at me to do something, and yet, I had no idea what I could do. Other than to show compassion and treat every human, no matter the color of their skin, with dignity and respect, I had no power in the human world.

Long before I'd stepped inside that laundry in the early '40s and worked with women like Elaine, I'd been aware of the overt discrimination against black people, and I was certain I'd witnessed it as a human as well. It was simply impossible to live in the modern world without seeing it unless you deliberately placed a blindfold on yourself for fear of seeing the uncomfortable truth.

Unfortunately, I could already see the road ahead was long and winding without a visible finish line. There would be small victories, but the issue would remain.

And the man on the TV, their leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would go down in history as an inspirational figure, but he would meet his untimely end much too soon to see any real change. I couldn't say exactly when it would happen, but the vision was unusually clear for one involving humans, so it was inevitable and couldn't be changed.

"How can anyone see this as threatening in any way?" Esme asked, as close to tears as was possible for a vampire. "I genuinely don't understand how humans can deny other humans a right to exist."

"Unfortunately, it's nothing new, and I'm certain it will continue to happen in the future. Fear has always driven people to extreme evil," Carlisle said, and we all knew it to be true.

Emmett gestured toward the TV in unmasked frustration. "But what reason do they have to fear people of a different skin color? What could they possibly do that warrants that kind of fear?" While he had no personal connections to the black community, Emmett had a personal history with being an outcast in his own hometown because of his Irish descent, so I was certain he could, on some level, relate to the people protesting at the Lincoln Memorial.

"Fear is irrational." I turned to look at Jasper when he quietly spoke up, and I felt my insides tighten uncomfortably. Naturally, he would have personal experience with standing on the side of the active oppressors. It was a part of his past he'd never denied. He and I had only skirted the subject when we first met because he'd vowed he wasn't that man anymore, and I had trusted that.

The years we'd spent together, I'd witnessed that myself, and I was happy to know my mate and husband no longer upheld racist beliefs. But that didn't mean his past wasn't a sore spot for both of us.

"It cannot always be explained," he continued. "Fear of the unknown is powerful in itself. Amplify that with the fear of what you don't understand ..." He trailed off because we didn't need him to spell out his meaning.

Carlisle nodded, his expression drawn with understanding and sympathy. "That is very true. However, racism, or any kind of prejudice, is rarely rooted in fear only. I was already a vampire by the time the first British Empire expanded through the colonization of smaller nations. It wasn't about fear then, more a false sense of superiority and self-importance. This very country was built on the backs of indentured servants, and racism ran in the blood of many for a long time. Some would even argue and say it's an American right."

Carlisle quieted down for a moment, but I wasn't even looking at him. My entire attention was on Jasper, and with every word Carlisle uttered, he sank deeper and deeper into himself, no doubt feeling the choking of his own guilt, but no one in our family appeared to notice.

"We live in the 20th century," Carlisle finished. "This shouldn't be a problem now."

"Are you okay?" Edward suddenly asked, and I knew he'd also noticed Jasper's demeanor.

"Yeah," he said in a poor attempt to appear unaffected, but I wasn't fooled, and I left my seat to climb into his lap. I hoped my physical touch would provide him with the same comfort it had in the past. I was relieved when he didn't push me away and leaned his forehead against my shoulder.

"Jasper?" Esme's voice was soft and filled with empathy, and I knew he wouldn't be able to deny her.

"I'm not that person anymore," he said in a low voice, reiterating what he'd told me. "But listenin' to this brings back memories of a time when I wouldn't have given a damn about those people." He lifted his head and stared at the TV screen, refusing to hide from his own accountability anymore. "All they want, all they ever wanted, those men and women, are basic human rights, yet we started a war because we wanted to keep them in chains, and—" He stopped himself to shake his head, and I felt a shudder run through him. "I can't help but feel ashamed of my past, that's all," he finished in a whisper.

Esme walked over to where we sat and took a gentle hold of his shoulder. "We're all aware of your past, Jasper. We know what side you fought for, but you said so yourself—you're not that person anymore. Your past doesn't define you. If it did, all of us here would share equal blame. Just because the Union army fought for their liberation didn't mean life became sweet-smelling roses for black people in the North."

"Maybe not, but it doesn't change the fact that I was that person for a very long time," he said, but he still appreciated her words. "Even years after I was changed."

That was news to me as well, and while my first instinct was to react, I quickly swallowed down my judgment until I knew the whole story.

Jasper looked at each member of our family, and from their discomforted appearance, I could tell he was struggling with keeping his emotions to himself. I was so used to being attuned to his emotions that I rarely reacted when they intensified, but the others rarely experienced it. Then, he glanced at me. He wanted to confess, and I held myself open to him.

"I never told you, but I had Maria dispose of several newborns just because of the color of their skin. I absolutely refused to train them if they were former slaves. Not until Maria threatened to demote me did I even attempt to change my mind."

I tensed, and he felt it. He couldn't stand my uncontrolled disapproval mixed with his own, so he stood up.

"What strikes me most now is that, at the time, I didn't see those values as a problem," he said. "Everyone I grew up with, everyone I knew, thought the same. It was normal, and that's why there was no question in my mind that I'd join the army. It was even expected."

"You can't take on all the responsibility for that. We're all from different times and backgrounds. We were naturally raised into the prejudices of our time," Carlisle said, and the tightening knot in my stomach loosened ever so slightly.

Without my own memories, it was often difficult for me to sympathize with the evolution the change brought to us. I was relieved we had our family, who could all give different perspectives and tell of lived experiences in a manner I never could.

Carlisle continued.

"In my time, only men of a certain status and age had the privilege to have their say about society, and not even at the time that I changed Edward was that any different. Emmett's family were outcasts because they were part-Irish, and Rosalie grew up in an area where your value as a person was determined by the size of your bank account." He stood and faced Jasper. "What I'm trying to tell you is that you couldn't control when and where you were born any more than those people gathered in DC. The only thing you can do now is to continue striving toward being better than you used to be."

"And no one can say you haven't changed," I said, fully shedding any lingering disappointment because Carlisle was right. Jasper couldn't control the time or place he was born, and his deep shame proved he saw things differently now. That was all I needed, and when he met my eyes, I pushed my love and support his way. I was still there. I still loved him. Perhaps even more now that I knew the entire truth. "I saw the person you were before Peter got you away from her," I reminded him. "The difference between that man and the man I see standing before me now is nothing short of amazing. You should feel proud that you've come such a long way."

He smiled with relief and reached out to trail his fingertips down my cheek. "Thank you," he whispered. I reached up for his hand and entwined our fingers while he turned to our family. "Thank you, all of you, for believing in me."

I glanced back at the TV at the man who had so much support and spoke so well for himself and others and felt the guilt that comes with knowledge of tragedy. For a moment, I wished I didn't know he'd get shot by those who still harbored unjustified hatred in their hearts since there was nothing I could do to change it.

A/N:

There are people who will protest and try to claim that Jasper had other reasons to join the army, but I have a hard time believing an underage boy, born and raised in mid 1800s Texas, who rushed to join the confederate army and quickly rose in ranks to become a Major wasn't a racist.

That's my opinion, and it's how I've chosen to write Jasper. Alice only got to know him after he'd changed his views, so she's only seen his good side.

Tomorrow's chapter will cover a large chunk of time, and we'll even see the simmer of what we already know is coming ;-)

Until then,

Stay Awesome!