Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the collective works of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga

All in the Hands

It seemed almost sacrilegious that there was no Starbucks in Forks, which was unfortunate, because the rain had turned colder and promised the arrival of winter, making it the perfect weather for a caramel macchiato. It was the day before Thanksgiving break, meaning absolutely no student at Forks High (Home of the Spartans!) would be doing their homework, giving Louisa the perfect excuse to take Jasper up on his coffee date. After dropping Dottie off at home, Louisa drove over to the diner in town, where Jasper had promised to meet her.

The little bell above the door tinkled as Louisa pushed her way inside, a buffet of cold air close on her heels, causing her blonde hair to whip her face and momentarily obscure her vision. Her entrance caused a stack of papers belonging to the chemistry teacher, Mr Hewitt, to fly off the counter where he was sitting. She tried to tame her hair into a ponytail with one hand while helping the chemistry teacher corral his errant papers with the other.

She didn't know if she felt bad for Michael Hall for failing the most recent test, or Mr Hewitt, for having to grade it as she stacked the papers back into a hasty pile and handed to the man, who waved off her apologies with an easy-going grin.

"You should leave your hair like that," a smooth voice called from behind her. "It looks great."

"What," Louisa replied, turning around to face the speaker. Jasper was sitting in a booth tucked away in the far corner of the diner, his back to the wall. "In my face?"

"Oh, yes," Jasper said, standing as she approached. Louisa was very glad that Jasper couldn't hear her heart beating faster when his fingers had brushed against the back of her neck as he helped her out of her coat. He helped her into the booth, which she found both weirdly old fashioned and incredibly charming. "It's very fashionable."

"You would know," Louisa teased, giving his outfit an exaggerated look. He had on a different shirt than what he had worn in Spanish, a dark purple button-down that contrasted sharply with his light hair and fair skin. The sleeves were buttoned at the wrist, not rolled up like Louisa would expect for someone of his age, giving the impression of a philosophy professor at a college, rather than a high school student. It worked for him.

Jasper smiled, retaking his seat. "I can take no credit," he admitted. "Alice picked this out."

"Alice is your sister, correct?" Louisa asked, recalling the dark-haired girl who was often seen bouncing through the hallways at school, practically vibrating in excitement. "She's in a class with mine, I think." A waitress walked over with Louisa's coffee and placed it on the table in front of her. Louisa thanked the woman, managing to look away from Jasper long enough to give her a polite smile.

Louisa decided that she didn't really care what Jasper was saying, as long as he was saying it. He spoke in a baritone and his words had a charming lit to them— it was unquestionably Texan, but it was subdued as if he hadn't spoken that way in a while. Each word he said was saturated with purpose and importance like he was used to giving concise answers that he expected to be followed. He moved his hands a lot while he spoke, as well, which Louisa found interesting given how reserved Jasper tended to be. The best thing about Jasper, though, was how he spoke to you as if you were an old friend he hadn't seen in a hundred years, and that nothing could possibly be more important than catching up at that moment.

One of Jasper's hands was wrapped around his mug of coffee while the other was propping up his chin as he stared at her. His yellowish eyes were watching her as if he were looking for something, though he wasn't quite sure what. "You went to visit Kelly again?"

"Yeah, she had a dialysis yesterday," Louisa replied. "But that's not what you want to know."

"You are good."

"I try," she responded with a laugh. "Though it helps that you aren't too subtle."

"No, I suppose that wasn't," he agreed. "But I have waited patiently for a whole week to find out your secrets."

"All of them in one date? My, you don't ask for much, do you?"

"I always have had lofty aspirations," Jasper replied, a grin flitting across his lips. "But we are getting sidetracked."

"Good thing we have you to stop that from happening." Louisa picked up her coffee and took a sip, considering the boy across from her. "What do you want to know?"

"You always know more about a person than you should. How?"

"Well, I'm not a mind reader, if that's what you are asking," Louisa replied. "It's not even really supernatural at all, really. I just observe."

His eyes narrowed at this. "I'm observant, and I don't see half of the things you seem to," Jasper argued.

Louisa gave a shrug and took another sip of coffee. "No, you do. You just don't understand what you are seeing."

"What do you see in me?"

"A dashingly handsome man," Louisa replied.

"It came with the package," Jasper said, leaning forwards and resting his forearms on the table. "But that wasn't what I meant."

That was the question Louisa had been dreading. People always asked her to read them when they found out about her talent as if she were some sort of attraction at a circus. The inquiries were usually well-meaning like Jasper's were, but it didn't make it any less annoying to have to prove herself time and time again. "People are rarely happy with what they hear," Louisa said slowly. She placed her cup down on the table and sat back in the booth, the vinyl seat cushions squeaking as she did so.

"I won't be mad."

"You're a horseback rider. Western style."

"Is this your way of saying that you still think that I'm from Texas?"

"You are from Texas," Louisa replied with a raised eyebrow. She wasn't sure why he was so reluctant to admit it, but that was his business, not hers. "Your hands are what told me that you ride horses."

Jasper released his hold on his coffee cup to glance down at his hands, then looked back up at her. "My hands?"

Louisa nodded and held out her own, making grabbing motions so that she could hold onto his. His fingers were cooler than she had expected as he placed them softly in her open palms. Louisa gripped his wrists and gently turned his hands over so that his palms were up, then cradled his hands in hers. "Hands can tell you a lot about a person if you know what to look for." Louisa stroked a thumb stroke over the creases of Jasper's right palm. "You're right-handed," she began, sneaking a glance at Jasper. When he opened his mouth to speak, she cut him off. "And I know this not just because I've seen you write something in class. The veins in your wrists are more pronounced on it— you use it more than your left."

Jasper watched her intently, and she had to resist the urge to pull away. "You keep your nails well-trimmed and maintained. My first assumption would be that you play a musical instrument, but you lack the necessary calluses to play a string instrument, and the muscles of your fingers are not developed enough for a pianist. Therefore, I have to assume that you prefer to keep them this way, which suggests that you do manual work with your hands.

"But these are the most telling," Louisa said, tracing the bumps on the fingers of his left hand and trying to ignore how intimate the gesture was. "Unless they were gloves, horseback riders always have calluses on the pinky side of their ring finger. They come from holding the reins. The calluses on your left hand are more prevalent, meaning you are used to holding the reins in this hand which is common for western style riding. It frees up your dominant hand for other tasks."

Louisa watched Jasper look at his hands in confusion. "You could tell all of that just by a few calluses?"

"No, I made it all up," Louisa deadpanned. "I just wanted to hold your hands."

Jasper looked up at her quickly, a surprised look briefly crossing his face before he threaded his fingers with hers. "I knew you had an ulterior motive."

Louisa tossed her head back and laughed. "Did I pass muster, Major? Or do you need further evidence?"

Major. The title sent of jolt of panic through his body. It was obvious by her smile that Louisa was being facetious, but what were the odds that she had chosen that exact word? He tried to compose himself, hoping that she hadn't noticed his panic. "Only if you want."

Louisa shrugged and extracted a hand so that she could grab her coffee cup again. "Did you have Mr Hewitt for chemistry?"

"Yes," he said slowly, confused by the abrupt change of topic. "Last year."

She watched him from over the top of her cup, her grey eyes narrowed in concentration. "What were his tests like?"

"Long answer, mostly," he replied. "He focuses on theory more than numbers."

Louisa's attention moved to the napkin holder that was sitting on the end of the table as if she were watching something. "Don't make it obvious that you are staring, but Mr Hewitt is sitting at the counter grading papers. What can you already learn?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow," Jasper said.

Louisa's gaze fell back on Jasper. "A man is sitting in a fairly busy diner, grading. Why?"

"He likes the atmosphere?"

Louisa wore a look that was torn between finding his response annoying and endearing. "If you have a lot of work to do, something that requires concentration, where do you do it?"

"At home," Jasper replied. Louisa watched him steadily, and he realised what she was trying to say. "But he's not at home. He's here."

"So why isn't he at home?"

"He's got three kids, I think. He probably needs to focus."

She was shaking her head before he had even finished. "At home, he could tell the kids to shut up. He can't do that here. So why does he come to a noisy diner that he has no control over, instead of putting on a movie for his kids to watch in another room?" When Jasper didn't answer, Louisa gave him a smile and scooted over on the bench, patting the open spot next to her. Following her hint, he rose from his spot and joined her on her side of the table, their knees brushing under the table. She grabbed the napkin holder and positioned it so they could see the chemistry teacher in its reflection. "Watch him, and describe what you see."

Jasper glanced over at Mr Hewitt, taking in his appearance. The man's shirt was rumpled slightly at the back and untucked from his trousers. His dark hair was stuck up at odd angles in the back from running his hands through it, and there was a spot of shaving cream hidden behind his ear. He watched as the chemistry teacher thanked the waiter for his coffee, and then proceeded to stir in eight packets of sugar, barely looking up from his grading. Jasper might have cheated slightly and felt out the man's emotional state, which was stressed and slightly irritated, though he kept that to himself.

"You missed the unmatched socks and the way he is fidgeting with his wedding band, but that's impressive for your first time. Now, what conclusions can we draw from these data points?"

Jasper was at a loss. "He's stressed probably. And he's got a bit of a sweet tooth."

Louisa giggled at this, her amusement so intense that he almost felt high. For a vampire, his mind was incredibly scrambled, and all he could think about at the moment was how he wished he could hear more of that laugh. "A bit? He used eighty-nine per cent of his daily sugar intake on one cup of coffee. What could be a better explanation?"

"Maybe he doesn't like coffee?"

"More likely," Louisa agreed. She had propped her arm up on the table, chin resting on her hand, and she looked at him with a grin. "So why does he drink it?"

Jasper couldn't remember if he ever drank coffee when he was human, but he imagined that he must have because he remembered the sleepless nights he had when leading his company. "He needs the caffeine," he replied.

Louisa bumped her shoulder with his. "See, it's not that hard. It just takes a little practice."

Jasper's lips quirked into a tiny smile. "But I'm sure I missed something."

Louisa nodded. "Yeah, a lot. But it was a good start."

"Define a lot."

"He's going through a rough patch with his wife."

"And how would you know?"

"Is that a challenge I hear, Mr Hale?" Louisa joked. At Jasper's smirk, she looked over at the chemistry teacher who was still hunched over his grading. "She made him sleep on the couch last night. His wife didn't tell him that his socks don't match or about the shaving cream behind his ear, so she isn't talking to him. He's avoiding her after their fight. And the ring he's playing with? It's about ten-years-old and needs to be cleaned. Wedding bands are symbolic of their marital vows, so why does he not take care of it? They've been fighting. For a while, most likely."

"How did you know that he's sleeping on the couch?"

"If he's fighting with his wife, of course, he's sleeping on the couch."

He looked down at her in amusement. "Anything else?"

"He's an avid clarinettist, but that's unrelated," Louisa replied. "Possibly."

"And how do you know that one?"

Louisa let out a dramatic sigh. "Have you learned nothing?" she asked, raising the hand she was still holding and giving it a little shake. "It's all in the hands."

Jasper couldn't stop a laugh from bubbling out of him, and when she started to laugh with him, he found it difficult to stop. He had always thought that Louisa's emotions were cleaner, stronger, than most people's, and sitting so close to her, in a little booth with their knees brushing and their fingers linked and her scent surrounding him… he felt almost intoxicated in her presence.

"I have to admit," he finally said after trying to get his mirth under control. "You're impressive."

A wave of fondness wrapped around Jasper at these words. "Most people find it creepy," Louisa replied. A faint blush had spread across her cheeks, and he doubted that he would have been able to see it had he been human. The sight didn't send venom pooling in his mouth like it usually would have, had he seen any other human do it. So why was she so special?

"Why do you do it?" Jasper asked.

Louisa knew that he was asking from a place of genuine curiosity, and not because he agreed with her. The question was probing, too personal for a first, or even a second or third, date question. It felt like it was asked so that he could understand her on a deeper level, even if that wasn't how he intended it to sound. And maybe that was why she found herself answering him truthfully. Because as attractive and witty Jasper Whitlock obviously was, there was a quiet, gentle something in his person that she wanted to know all of, and for that part of him to know her too.

The only problem, how did she let that happen? How did she even being to answer his question?

"I guess," she began slowly, looking down at their still intertwined fingers, her brow furrowed in concentration. "It's because it's all I know." She extended her free hand and picked up her mug of lukewarm coffee and took a sip as she tried to collect her thoughts. "When I was seven, I fell off a cliff." When she felt Jasper stiffen next to her, she looked up at him, though she couldn't find the ability in her to give him a reassuring smile. "I don't remember it happening. I don't remember most things before the accident, truthfully.

"One of my first memories is actually waking up in a hospital. Everything was so white and my head hurt so much. There was a woman sitting next to me. I remember thinking that she was an angel, as cliché as it sounds. She had long blonde hair and these beautiful blue eyes. She seemed happy to see that I was awake, but I had no clue who she was, where I was, who I was." Louisa fell silent for a moment and Jasper stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. "I learned later that it was my mother.

"No one would explain to me what was going on. I could hear the doctors outside though. Total retrograde amnesia. They refused to let anyone answer my questions, tell me my name even, because they wanted me to remember them on my own. They let Mom see me and told her to read to me, hoping that it would jog a few memories. She had refused to leave the hospital the whole time I was there, but she had apparently found a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Not her first choice of reading materials for her seven-year-old, but it was the only book she could find at the time.

"Not knowing who you are is… horrible. You're confused all of the time, and your body doesn't feel like it should belong to you." Louisa said. "You look for anything that could give you an identity, and for me, I guess that happened to be Sherlock Holmes. He was the only thing in that hospital room that made sense and I guess it sort of stuck with me. I was making deductions like he did by the time they sent me home. I even made a memory attic like he had, so I could never forget anything again."

"Did you ever get any of your memories back?"

"A few," Louisa admitted. "I could remember my parents the best. Dottie was six at the time, but I remembered her as a toddler. I had no clue that I even had a little brother."

Jasper was at a loss for words. He wanted to comfort her, but everything that came to mind sounded empty and hollow compared to the overwhelming shock he felt at her story. So he simply did what he did best, and sent her the emotions he couldn't adequately say. He watched the tension in her shoulders dissipate slowly as his power worked on her. He didn't want to remove what she was feeling, her emotions were hers to feel and completely justified. Instead, he wrapped his support around her, letting it intertwine with her sorrow and buttress her pain so she didn't have to carry it on her own.

"Thank you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She was looking up at him through distant her eyes as if she were looking at something that didn't exist, or maybe did exist at one point but no longer existed.

"For what?"

"For listening, I guess," she replied. "I've never told that to anyone."

He wasn't sure what about that confession that resonated with him. Perhaps it was because he was one of the few people on Earth that could possibly know what she had said. Maybe it was the peace and gratitude that accompanied her words. Whatever it was, it was deep, powerful, intimate. It was a pulsing feeling in his chest where his heart should have been and it was a fluttering sensation across his skin that made him feel, for the first time in over one hundred and fifty years, alive. It scared the hell out of him. And he was pretty sure that he liked it.

And it was all ruined when the door to the diner open, the cold wind pushing the scent of a group of teenagers with it.

Louisa jumped in surprise and turned to face the rowdy boys. She felt Jasper stiffen next to her. He hadn't turned to face the boys, but something in his posture had changed. He had shut down for some reason, and he seemed less confident in himself. It was almost like he was holding himself back. Louisa mimicked his earlier actions and rubbed her thumb across the back of his hand. When he looked back down at her, his eyes seemed darker, more guarded.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Louisa said, standing up. She was about to drop a few dollars on the table but he beat her to it, claiming that it would be rude of him to ask her on a date and then not pay for it. She allowed him to help her into her coat, and she took his arm as they exited the building, the cold wind biting at her face the moment they stepped outside.

"Where do you want to go?" Jasper asked as she guided him towards her car.

"I'm not sure," Louisa admitted, fumbling for her keys. "You just looked a bit uncomfortable in there."

"I wasn't uncomfortable," Jasper replied.

Louisa smiled at him over the top of her car. "Yes you were," she stated. She opened her door and slid in behind the wheel, giving Jasper no choice but to follow her. The tiny Prius was too small for his long legs, forcing him to slide the seat back, but it was full of her scent, which more than compensated for the lack of room.

"It's nothing you need to worry about," Jasper replied in a low voice. "I was fine."

Louisa let out a hum as if she didn't believe him, before starting the car and pulling out of the car park. "I won't pry. It's your business," she said. "But it was entirely selfish, I assure you. Your smile didn't reach your eyes the moment those kids came in. It was bumming me out."

Jasper knew certainty that Louisa had felt no such emotions at any point since she had arrived at the diner but there was no real way for him to tell her this without saying too much about his real nature. Instead, they drove in silence, Louisa apparently not going anywhere in particular. It was comfortable silence, the kind where words didn't need to fill, as if their closeness was enough to fill the space where words could have been placed, but didn't really need to be put.

"You were right," Jasper said.

"I generally am," Louisa replied, taking her eyes off the road for a brief moment to flash him a cheeky smile. "But about what in particular this time?"

"About me, being from Texas."

He wasn't sure what possessed him to say this. Telling her this would ruin their carefully scripted backstory, could endanger his family. Yet he felt the need to tell her something, something truthful after she had been so honest with him. Something personal. He wanted her to know him, the part of him that wasn't Jasper Hale, twin brother of Rosalie, but the part that was Jasper Whitlock. The part of him that wasn't a vampire or a human but was just him.

"What part?"

"Just outside of Houston. My father taught me how to ride a horse when I was about seven." He couldn't tell her more. Partly because it wasn't safe to and partly because he didn't know much more. His human life was a collection of water-damaged photographs at best, the memories faded over the decades, his human senses too dull to properly encode the necessary information and store it in his vampire brain. But it was something. Something that only he knew and could share. And something was better than nothing.

He wondered if she understood how significant such a small detail was. He watched her as she drove around through the tiny, godforsaken, unremarkable town in the middle of practically nowhere. Her lips didn't move up into a smile, but they didn't have to, because when she turned her head for a second, grey meeting gold, her eyes were alive with happiness, with relief. With understanding.

"Thank you."

"The sensible man don't look to confirm what he already knows - he looks to deny it. Finding evidence that backs up your theories ain't useful, but finding evidence that your theories are wrong is priceless. Never try to prove yourself right - always try to prove yourself wrong instead."

― Andy Lane

(A/N: what did you think? I kind of like this chapter. It delves deeper into the psyche of my favourite dork, and kind of gives an explanation for some of the stupid things she does. Not all of them, mind you. That would be a very long chapter. Leave me a comment on what you think! Lots of Love, CheckAlexa )