Foreword: Here is the second chapter, I hope you will enjoy it!

Beta-reader for french version : KillerNinjaPanda, no beta for this version ;)

Feel free to share your impressions in the comments ^^

The Saint and the Assassin

Because Carlisle, to answer your last question, the one you had decided to ask before changing your mind. It's thanks to you. Thanks to you, we no longer kill humans and feed on animals. You taught me the vegetarian lifestyle through my visions, which allowed me to introduce it to Jasper. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.

«But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is being a man.»

The Plague – Albert Camus.

Alice's gentle words echoed in the afternoon silence, each Cullen turning the words over in their minds. The two nomads were peculiar but surprisingly peaceful and sincere; they were vegetarians "thanks to Carlisle," and the girl had an absolutely incongruous gift. She had claimed to have been observing their family for years through her visions, and she and her companion seemed eager to join them permanently. Her companion, covered in scars, Jasper, who was as frightening as hell despite his apparent courtesy. It was a lot of information to process, and the overall situation was quite unexpected. The Cullens had yet to figure out how to handle this major disruption to their routine.

Carlisle's mind was already racing at the prospect of welcoming the two unknown vegetarians into his clan. It was a very particular way of life, and practicing it while constantly wandering must be terribly complicated. Alice's words about her involvement in her dietary choices had delighted him beyond measure: that visions of their lives and choices could guide her, while she was alone, amnesiac, and without a creator, to respect human life enough to turn away from her nature and teach it to Jasper, who had fed on humans for nearly a century... it was incredible, and it made him prouder and happier than he could express. Almost ecstatic, in truth. His instinct screamed at him to accept them immediately among them, but he forced himself to remain cautious for the sake of his family. The girl was adorable, and her story fascinating; the boy was undoubtedly dangerous, but there was something about him, a buried sweetness, that intrigued Carlisle and made him want to reach out to him. He glanced at his wife, and he instantly knew from her affectionate smile that she was already won over by the lively Alice and perhaps even by the curious but polite manners of Jasper. She wouldn't oppose the installation of the two nomads for a second.

The idea was risky, though, and Carlisle expected frank hostility from Rosalie and Edward if the question of their integration were to be seriously discussed. They weren't at that stage anyway; Carlisle still needed multiple insights into the two strangers before inviting them to stay permanently. Even though his instinct told him that they would eventually open their door to them in one way or another.

"Edward, I want to invite them for at least a few hours to get to know them better... what do you think?"

Edward shrugged, uncertain but a resigned smile playing on his lips; he knew that Carlisle was asking for his opinion rhetorically. He had already seen in Alice's mind his father's decision a few moments earlier, and she was eagerly waiting for him to say the words, her expression overflowing with anticipated joy, Jasper by her side displaying a strange smile as if he were infected by his companion's enthusiasm. Inevitable. To be honest, Edward was somewhat charmed by the seer's character and fascinated by her power. A part of him wasn't entirely opposed to his father's inclination to open their door to them. Jasper was a whole different problem, his appearance always bristling Edward's instincts in the wrong way, and the incomprehensible litany filtering from his mind was already giving him a severe headache.

"If you don't mind, let's go inside to continue this discussion," Carlisle offered in a friendly tone, turning to the open front door to indicate the Cullen mansion.

"You can't be serious," Rosalie muttered, shaking her head, still tense since her almost altercation with the nomad.

"Don't forget your sense of hospitality, my dear," Esmée murmured gently but firmly. "Jasper and Alice have apparently come a long way to meet us. We can at least offer them some of our time and welcome them properly."

There was a moment of hesitation where Jasper seemed to be leading a brief but intense struggle with himself to decide to cross the patio and thus turn his back on Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett. But he eventually did, following his companion quietly, who was already hopping in Carlisle and Esmée's wake inside the Cullen home.

A few seconds later, they were all settled in the living room, Alice sunk into the plush couch that Esmée had designated for her, looking around with an amazed expression, while Jasper seemed confused and nervous about the attitude to adopt. His gaze scanning the corners of the room, frozen next to the couch in an incredibly rigid posture, as if he were unable to bring himself to sit and assume a position of weakness but didn't want to risk offending the hostess by expressing a clear refusal. There was something strange in his attitude that didn't quite seem to match that of a wild nomad of a hundred years, and the thought suddenly struck Carlisle that the man's way of being was more that of a military man. A human military man in hostile territory.

"You don't have to sit if you don't want to," Carlisle said calmly, sitting himself in one of the armchairs facing the couch.

The nomad shook his head, shrugging, and one corner of his mouth twisted into a strange contrite smile as he joined Alice on the couch with a sudden graceful and inhuman movement.

"All my apologies, Sir. You have a very beautiful home, and we are truly grateful for your hospitality. Please forgive my lack of manners; it's been a long time since we've met so many other vampires and been in... a confined space."

"What a charming boy, so polite... and he seems so young when he smiles. I wonder who could have hurt him so much and given him all those scars. Poor thing."

Edward stifled an incredulous chuckle at his mother's thoughts. Trust Esmée and her tender heart to be filled with solicitude in just a few minutes for a vampire with a purely deadly appearance.

"Don't worry," said Carlisle with a slight laugh. "One of my old friends never even wanted to set foot inside a house with me, and we've known each other for over two hundred years. I don't know how much information Alice's visions have given you about us, but if you're interested, I can share a bit of my story with you.

"I was probably born around the year 1640 in London. My mother died in childbirth, and I was, in a strange twist of fate, the son of an Anglican pastor who specialized in eradicating dark creatures... He and his friends practiced exorcisms, hunted those they thought were demons, tracked down werewolves, witches, and vampires. He was a narrow-minded and angry man who threw himself into a quest for divine justice, and I fear he never eliminated a single supernatural creature during his tenure. However, he and his fellow preachers did a lot of harm to many innocents, torturing or killing humans they believed to be "possessed." When I turned eighteen, he asked me to succeed him. I was quite critical of his activity, and at the time, I wasn't even convinced of the existence of the monsters my father was hunting. Nevertheless, I accepted, whether out of weakness or filial piety, to take on his mandate. During the first three years, I found no trace of demonic magic or witchcraft in the contemporaries sent to me for exorcism or who were supposedly supernatural creatures. I tried to limit the damage caused by other preachers by performing fake exorcisms and pretending to "cure" the "patients." At the time, I already sensed that these were people suffering from yet unknown illnesses. I discovered years later that my intuition was correct, and most of the "exorcised" people of my time were actually suffering from epilepsy or mental illnesses.

Carlisle sighed before continuing his story, saddened by the damage some of his contemporaries had inflicted in the name of "faith."

"My father's beliefs caught up with me, though. While studying local legends and delving into crimes and oddities, I stumbled upon a real supernatural creature in 1663: a vampire wreaking havoc around Whitechapel. Of course, I had no idea how to kill a vampire. With my congregation, we organized a hunt and tried to trap the vampire to eliminate it by throwing holy water. As you can guess, it was a disaster: several men died, and I was accidentally bitten and left alive. I managed to crawl and hide in a cellar just before the burning transformation consumed me completely. When I woke up, I was terribly thirsty, I knew what I was, and I didn't want to hurt anyone... I was desperate. I don't know how I managed to get away from the city center without committing murder or feeding, but I did. Once in the forest, I tried to commit suicide, but I had no idea how to proceed.

Carlisle's voice was low and somewhat distant, as it always was when he shared this part of his story. He let out a joyless laugh.

"I tried to stand in direct sunlight, chant incantations in Latin, and stab myself with a crucifix, but it turned out to be miserable failures. I eventually ventured as far into the forest as possible, hoping it would put enough distance between me and potential victims. I hoped to starve if I refused to feed. I stumbled upon a herd of deer by chance and, in a bloody frenzy, I attacked them. When I finally realized what I had done, I also realized that the thirst had almost disappeared. That's how I discovered the possibility for a vampire to be vegetarian, so to speak. I stayed alone for a few years after that, feeding exclusively on animal blood. I tried to improve my control enough to be able to be around humans again. After a few years, I had mastered my blood thirst sufficiently to return to civilization without risking hurting anyone, and I was able to attend various universities over the years, studying theology, chemistry, philosophy, and finally, medicine. During my studies in Italy, I happened to meet the Volturi clan and discovered the existence of vampire laws. They were intrigued by my lifestyle and invited me to reside at the court for some time.

Jasper's hands twitched at the mention of the Volturi. Even though he tried to maintain a neutral expression, Edward and Rosalie didn't miss the movement. The man was indeed a criminal.

"The Volturi were charming hosts to a certain extent. They were scholars; they appreciated art, literature, and had accumulated a formidable amount of knowledge on various subjects. I could pretend that I thought I could transform them from the inside and convince some of them to try my lifestyle, but after just a few weeks in Volterra, I admitted that they would never change their perspective on our nature and would never have more regard for human life. I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but in hindsight, it was my inability to bear loneliness and my epistemological drive that pushed me to stay with them for nearly two decades, even though I disapproved of their methods and way of being. I was tired of their constant attempts to make me taste human blood, and I finally left Volterra in 1716. I lived alone for more than two centuries, just making friends with some nomads and clans I met during my travels. In 1918, I met Edward while practicing as a doctor. He was dying of the Spanish flu, and his mother seemed to understand that I wasn't really human. She begged me to save him. And I couldn't resist the temptation of having a son, a friend, by my side to face this immortal existence that was becoming far too lonely.

Carlisle's gaze lit up, and Jasper could feel all the affection and pride the man felt for his son.

"In 1921, I found Esme while she was dying. I had already met her when she was a teenager, and a strange attraction had occurred then, but our paths had separated. When I met her again in tragic circumstances, I transformed her on impulse... we quickly realized we were companions and fell in love. We got married in 1923. My path crossed with Rosalie's in 1933; she couldn't be saved by medicine, and I chose to transform her. In 1935, Rosalie found Emmett after a bad encounter with a bear; his injuries were also too severe to be treated, and Rosalie asked me to transform him... the attraction link between companions must have already been at work there too. They quickly fell in love and got married in 1936. That's how our family was formed. Despite my chaotic entry into the immortal life, I am more than happy with my fate today, and I couldn't have hoped to meet better people to share this long existence with. And now, here you both are with this strange story of premonitions and destiny... it seems that immortality still has some surprises in store for me!"

There was now a gentle smile on Carlisle's face. The love the man felt for his so-called family was truly sincere, and Jasper looked at him with a vaguely incredulous expression. None of Alice's assertions had prepared him for this. A vampire who had never fed on humans even though he woke up in the midst of London in the 17th century? A bustling, swarming, overcrowded city that, in the mid-17th century, undoubtedly teemed with wounded street children, molested prostitutes, and beggars with purulent wounds. All the ingredients for a massacre were present, and Carlisle had managed to avoid it, God knows how, simply by his will not to harm anyone, by his innate kindness. And he had spent twenty years among human blood drinkers without succumbing to the temptation to consume them himself.

This man must have been some kind of saint.

And he was definitively an assassin.

Jasper didn't really see how the future Alice had seen could materialize. He had blind trust in her and her visions, and he would follow her to the ends of the earth or even to Volterra if that's what she demanded. He had never doubted her since their meeting, his undead heart warmed by the warm light she had flooded into his existence. When she had told him the story of the extravagant Cullen clan on a rainy night in Philadelphia, he couldn't help but be charmed by the tale she offered. "A family" of vegetarian and pacifist vampires living in harmony with humans, who would welcome them into their home and allow them to join for an eternity of peace, without wars, torture, or blood baths. He had let himself be lulled like a child by the sweetness of her hope, absorbing everything she promised and making it his own.

When he met Alice and she first talked to him about the possibility for a vampire to feed on animal blood, he was amazed. The relief this perspective brought him could have brought him to his knees. Since leaving Peter and Charlotte, the depression caused by the memory of the massacres he had committed, the murders he continued to perpetrate, and the terror he felt from his victims every time he had to feed had never stopped growing. The pain was dull but permanent, and it was gradually driving him insane. Peter hadn't lied: life was much sweeter in the North, with no constant battles, and everything should have seemed peaceful to a vampire who had deserted the wars of the South. Life was pleasant but not for him; despair, anger, and fear followed him like a shroud wherever he wandered aimlessly. The emptiness of continuing a painful and meaningless life while endlessly adding to the list of his victims weighed on him. Every minute of freedom turned into torment. He had played with the idea of suicide for a long time but had ultimately been unable to act on it.

His existence seemed even more unbearable than what he had experienced in the South, where battles and strategic planning occupied most of the days. Where all that mattered was surviving one more day and where there were few opportunities to indulge in states of mind. Where the thirst, hatred, terror, and diffuse exaltation of the newborns always filled him with a confused maelstrom of emotions not his own, making him forget who he was. Where the lust, greed, and hatred of Maria left him in a fog of sensations that allowed him to be the shadow of himself and feed without great remorse or existential questioning.

Between 1947 and 1948, Jasper had played with the idea of going back to end his agony. To go back and beg Maria to take him back or to execute him. Some shreds of honor and the vivid memory of the screams of pain and the metallic sound of the bodies of the newborns tearing under his hands had prevented him.

And he had finally met Alice on a stormy evening in Philadelphia where she had picked up the crumbs of him to make him look like the man he had been nearly a century before. Offering him an emotion he hadn't felt in over ninety years. Even before his transformation into a vampire, even before engaging in the Civil War or throwing himself headlong into a night of endless battles: hope.

But as they approached the promised dream and found themselves finally in the Cullen mansion after nearly two years slowly coming back to life with Alice and training on the vegetarian diet, he didn't see how he himself could fit into the final picture. He didn't want to ruin Alice's chances of joining this family she had longed for so long. Alice deserved the world, but he wasn't sure he could offer it to her. Especially when she had demanded that he be honest when telling his story. Because there was no doubt in Jasper's mind that it was his story that Carlisle was waiting for to know whether or not it was appropriate to allow them to join his family. And really, what could Jasper Whitlock, of all people, say honestly to Carlisle Cullen? He couldn't feel more inadequate than the scarred body wearing dirty clothes in the middle of the elegant and very civilized Cullen living room. He couldn't feel more unworthy, after decades of killings, than facing the smile full of compassion of a man who had never ended another life.

He tried to absorb as much as possible of Alice's happy confidence, remembering the promises she had whispered to him the night before.

"Don't worry, you just have to be completely honest when you talk about your past, and everything will be fine. Trust me, even if the beginnings are tough, they will all end up loving us, and you will love them too. It will be really good.

"And what if y'all are wrong? "

"You would be wrong to bet against me, Jazz. I never make mistakes. But if I'm wrong, if just once in my life I make a mistake and they reject us or we're not happy with the Cullens... if you're not happy, then we'll leave and just stay together. And we'll be happy because we'll be together. Because you're the only person I really need by my side, Jasper, and I will love you until the end of time."

Until the end of time.

After his escape from the Southern wars, Jasper was looking for a reason to live; Alice had given him the most beautiful one: to love her until the end of time.

So, for Alice's wild hope, for her desire for a family, and for her undeserved love, he would do what she had asked. He would be completely honest, and no matter where it led them, he would. He stroked his companion's hand and tried to instill as much calm as possible in the room, knowing that the climate would become chaotic, whatever happened, as soon as he started his story.

He looked Carlisle straight in the eyes and tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

"Thank ya kindly for sharing your story with us, Sir. I reckon it's only fair, considerin' you opened your door to us, that I do the same. As you might reckon, this ain't no easy-goin' story, and it's a mite complicated for me to share it without losin' my way. Before I begin, I'd like you to give me your word that you'll let me speak without interruption until I reach the end"

Carlisle nodded solemnly, a peak of curiosity and concern taking precedence in his emotions.

"I'd also like your word that, no matter what I might say, you won't try to attack Alice and me. We have no desire to fight. If you want us to leave when I've finished tellin' you my story, we'll do it immediately, and you'll never have to cross our path again."

Carlisle's concern rose another notch, even if he didn't show it, nodding with a new movement of his head. The sincerity emanating from him was absolute.

"I give you my word. Whatever you may say, no one will attack you in this house."

Jasper exhaled and retreated to the back of the couch, moving slightly away from Alice, to whom he had been glued until then. He swept the room with his gaze and then focused on an invisible point. The next words would cast a pall over the living room.

"I've killed 29,173 people…"

Ending notes : Compared to the ultra-pacifist side of the Cullen clan in the saga, one can still wonder how the integration of Jasper and Alice could have happened, considering Jasper's very particular past. I had fun doing a quick calculation, and if we estimate that vampires feeding on humans make at least two victims per week (which doesn't seem at all excessive given the habits of nomads and non-vegetarian clans encountered throughout the saga), Jasper would therefore have had more than 7500 human victims before meeting Alice. Adding to that the fact that he participated in the Southern wars for eighty-five years with battles every week, as he tells Bella in the book (I assumed he killed an average of 4 enemies per week) and executed herds of 10 to 20 newborns every year during this long period (I split the difference and opted for 15), we quickly reach an absolutely staggering total of victims (without even counting the people he might have killed as a human during the two years he participated in the Civil War). In short, with the few elements given in his history, it is suggested that Jasper is one of the most dangerous and murderous vampires in the Twilight universe. I find it interesting to have him land at Carlisle's (the sore spot of pacifism), but it still deserves a bit of melodrama and reflection on how he and Alice were truly received and accepted into the Cullens in 1950 when Jasper had been a vegetarian for less than two years and had thousands of victims to his name... Very grateful for feedback and see you soon ;)