When I wake up some four hours later to Emmett unceremoniously dropping a takeout bag next to my pillow, I have no idea of the drama that unfolded while I was asleep.
While I was dreaming blissfully, Jasper returned from his hunt, walking into the garage with a half-full jerrycan of blood.
CLANG
Rosalie dropped a wrench she was holding on the floor when hit by the pain he unintentionally projected.
"Jasper, what the hell happened to you?" She rushed over and wrapped her arms around him.
"Alice...", he managed to croak.
"What did she do?", Rosalie asked. "What did that bitch do to you?"
Jasper hung his head and turned away in shame. "She left me. Properly. Wants a divorce and everything."
"Why? Why now?", Rosalie wondered. "She has been treating you like crap since Bella's birthday. What changed?"
"This experiment of course. Turns out she and Edward aren't exactly fans. Edward was spouting some shit that suffering the pain of bloodlust is atonement for the sin of being a vampire. And Alice thinks I'm taking the easy way out."
"Do they even know what they are talking about? Did Alice see us working on this machine?"
"No, I think our decisions so far were too impulsive for her to see. Until I decided to be your test subject, and she and Edward came to confront me."
"Well what on earth is her problem? She should be glad you are taking measures to not eat the girl she claims is her best friend!"
"That's what I thought, that she would finally be proud of me. But she said I was weak. That I disappointed her because I do not have enough control of my own to not harm Bella."
"Bullshit! Do you even hear yourself talk?"
"No Rose, she has a point. I fought in a damn vampire war for nearly a century and go ham over a papercut. You have to admit that is pathetic."
"Jasper, we are not having this conversation again. You told me once that I was not weak for failing to fight off seven grown men as a human. I needed to hear that and I believed you. Why won't you believe me when I tell you that you are not weak either?"
Jasper nodded at her resignedly.
"Okay, let's park her point that I am a weak loser. It is not her only grievance."
"Are you going to go on about how useless she considers you again? Think where we would be without you. You are our protector. James would have eaten Bella because Edward is too much of a pussy to fight properly. We would have been discovered ages ago because you are the only one pragmatic enough to do a good cover up when one of us slips. None of us would have been able to be part of society because you are the only one who knows how to get reliable fake ID's and birth certificates. Carlisle may be our leader, but he delusions himself into thinking that he is leading a family rather than a vampire coven. You catch his slack and without it the Volturi would have long since come to take us down." She was properly worked up now.
"And why should you need to be useful to be part of this family? I look pretty and am decent with cars. I do not even have a gift like, I don't know, insanely powerful empath abilities or something. If this was about utility they should be booting me out of the coven. If they want to call this a family it should be about love, and you are the only one of my siblings that I actually love like one."
At that, Jasper started to smile a little.
"You make a good case sister. And I KNOW you love me." He projected some sibling love back at her with his gift to emphasize the reason for his certainty. After decades of pretending to be twins they were very close.
"By the by, how exactly is she expecting this to work? ", Rosalie wondered. "You are mates, she has to know she will hurt herself as much as you by kicking you out. The bond makes it impossible for you to remain apart."
Jasper sighed. "She wants us both to keep living here, just not to be together as a couple."
"Well that's just cruel. What do you want to do?", Rosalie asked.
"I don't know. Part of me wants to say screw it all and go stay with Peter and Charlotte for a while, no matter how much it hurts. But I don't really want to leave. Not when we just started this whole blood processing project. It is so odd how unfazed I was by the blood I was just collecting, and that after I only drank a small bottle of the dehydrated stuff so far. I really think this will work, and much better than any of us could have anticipated." He sighs. "I just don't see how I can stay around Alice and Edward after the stuff they said to me."
Rosalie wrapped her arms around him for another hug. "Don't let them get to you.", she whispers. "Emmett and I are with you. Esme and Carlisle too, though they will pretend to stay neutral. And best of all: Bella. You should have heard her defend you yesterday night. She is on your side and Alice and Edward won't be able to stand it."
When I come downstairs into the living room munching on my burrito I am blissfully unaware of the drama that went on during my nap.
Jasper is on the phone, quietly muttering something about assets and paperwork to someone he addresses as Jenks. His tone is rather sinister.
Alice is resolutely not looking in his direction, but she has not publicly shown him any affection since he nearly took a bite out of me at my birthday party so this does not particularly confuse me.
Edward is clearly gearing up for lecture mode, probably to provide me a treatise on the disadvantages of staying up late, why I should not eat Mexican food for breakfast, or the many idiocies of our brilliant blood dehydration project. Guess I better finish my food quickly and head home.