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Chapter Text

Rain patters on her bedroom window. Yellow leaves stick to the glass, slowly sliding downwards.

Bella pushes up from her chair to breathe on the cold pane, drawing random marks with her fingertip. She wipes them off right away, gathering condensation in her palm.

A spark of blond hair flashes through the dark green bedsheets behind her. He’s not asleep, of course, but he likes holding her for hours on end.

He shifts the covers to the side, tilting his head.

“Sweetheart?”

Bella turns, shivering. She could close the distance between them, going back to the warmth of the duvet, the cold of her lover. She watches him instead.

She’s never doubted his affection. It’s clear in his golden eyes, as earnest and solemn in love as he is in everything else. 

Jasper loves her.

***

January 2005

Bella’s first days in Forks were miserable. Her flimsy jacket wasn’t appropriate for Washington winters, and freezing cold water kept leaking into her boots.

Her classmates treated her like a circus animal, funny to point at but pointless to talk to. The typical high school experience, with the notable exception of the strange boy in Biology, who after smelling her, had vanished into thin air.

Bella was not holding out hope for his return. She had the whole desk to herself, and her new lab mate Angela didn’t seem weirded out by the newcomer as much as everyone else.

A week after Edward Cullen's disappearing act, Bella caught a glimpse of bronze hair in the parking lot. As if sensing her presence, he focused on her without hesitation, a deep frown twisting his graceful features. She bent to rift through her bag to avoid his piercing stare.

“Where d’you think he was?” Jessica whispered loudly during Independent Study.

Bella had met her two weeks before, and she already knew nothing would sate Jessica except for some outrageous answer like ‘juvie’, or ‘Alaska’.

She shrugged, shifting her notebook to the side to make space for Mike and Angela.

“And why isn’t he in Biology anymore?” Jessica continued, unbothered by the fiery stares the librarian was sending their way. “Can we just, like, skip it? I hate those frogs.”

Bella mentally crossed her fingers, dragging her feet on her way to Biology and praying Cullen wouldn’t show.

Class was about to start, the cold room slowly filling up after the lunch period. She fiddled with her pencil case, eyes glued to the seat next to hers.

“May I?”

It wasn’t Edward, but his brother who was gesturing to the empty lab stool. She’d seen him before, pushing food around on a plastic canteen tray next to his siblings, but she’d never heard him speak. She didn’t expect the southern drawl, slipping off his tongue like molasses.

Honey blond hair fell in gentle curls framing his face. He was deathly pale, like the others, dark eyebags like bruises under his golden eyes. None of that took away from his peculiar beauty. He would have looked dangerous, if not for the kind tilt of his eyes.

After a silence too long to be polite, Bella remembered to talk.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thank you. Jasper Hale.” He sat at the furthest edge of their desk, but he didn’t look at her with the empty anger of his brother. “And you must be Isabella Swan.”

“Just Bella, please. Am I that famous?”

“Edward might have mentioned you.”

“God, I hope not.” The words escaped her mouth.

“Sorry to disappoint, ma’am.” Jasper’s face warmed with the hint of a smile.

Bella hid into the neck of her zip-up hoodie, trying to discreetly smell herself. Mr. Banner came in carrying an old school projector, and she jumped up in her seat.

If asked, she couldn’t have recounted the topic of the lecture. She couldn’t help but sneak glances at him, every single nerve vibrating at their closeness. She could have slouched a little, and their elbows would have touched.

His posture was elegant, old-fashioned; he probably balanced books on his head in his free time. He nodded along to the slideshow, but he drew in his notebook the whole time, abstract designs intersecting on the white page. She got lost in the rhythmic motion of the dark ink blooming under his hand, of his long fingers around the fountain pen; she forgot to take notes.

A few days later, Forks welcomed its first snowstorm of the year. Bella woke early to white flakes sweeping through the grey sky, snow piling on the truck’s roof in a thick layer.

Her new winter boots were heavy on her feet as she jumped down the stairs. There was a note stuck under the peanut butter jar. She smiled at the smudged print.

“Truck’s chained up. Be safe. Dad.”

She did take her time to get to school. The roads were jammed anyways, and she pulled up to the red brick building with only a few minutes left to spare. Not that anyone seemed to care. The entire student body was still outside, snowballs flying across the parking lot.

She dodged a white bullet, turning to the culprit with a yelp, but they were already lost in the cheerful chaos of the fight. The only students who weren’t partaking in the frenzy were the Cullen-Hales, a few cars over.

The big one and his girlfriend -adopted or not, it was still weird they were dating- were in the middle of a discussion. He looked like he was dying to join the fight, but he let her pull him up to the entrance.

The other two were standing by the shiny SUV, Edward’s rigid back to her, but Jasper saw her, raising a hand in greeting. His curls were dripping in snow, gold turned brown. Edward spared her a glance, then grabbed his bag from the car and slammed the door, rushing up the concrete path to the main building.

Jasper watched him go with a frown, then walked towards her.

“Hello, Bella. Enjoying the weather?”

She adjusted the strap of her ratty backpack. “Hi yourself,” she said, still glued to the side of her truck. The concrete had an ominous shine to it, too icy for comfort. “Do you think you could give me—”

A terrifying screech, then the crash of metal against metal exploded in her ears. 

The frigid concrete dug into her palms. A car alarm went off, blaring in the distance. Concerned voices were calling her name. She blinked once, twice.

“-hear me? Bella?”

Her gaze traveled up to Jasper Hale’s golden eyes.

Chapter Text

March 2005

After the hospital, and Jasper’s cherubic father, and Tyler’s infinite apologies, and Renee’s shrieking phone calls, Bella finally slid into bed, pulling the worn blanket up to her ears.

Her mind kept running back to the indent in the shape of a hand on the side of Tyler’s van; to Jasper’s cold fingers gently shifting hair from her neck to check her pulse.

She took a long time to fall asleep. She dreamt of honey curls wet with snow.

If she was popular before for being the new girl in a small town, she was a verified celebrity after the accident. Everyone wanted a piece of her, requesting every detail of the crash. She evaded them with a half-smile, escaping into toilet stalls and empty classrooms.

After her first day of stardom, Bella started hiding during the lunch period. That Tuesday, she had picked a spot on the steps by the gym’s back door. The awning barely sheltered her from the pouring rain. Still, anything was better than facing the crowd of nosy teenagers in the cafeteria. She could see it across the courtyard, warm light spilling out of the large windows into the grey afternoon.

“Want some lunch?”

She turned abruptly, almost falling down the stairs. His knees were just a couple of inches from the tip of her nose.

“Jesus. Someone should put a bell on you.”

“They’d have to catch me first.”

Jasper grinned, holding out a baby blue plastic tray. Bella studied the banana and the lonely meatball rolling around the plate, then accepted the tray with a grimace.

“Are you a vegetarian?” Jasper asked with cheer in his voice. His designer sneaker tapped the side of her beat-up Converse. “Knew I should’ve gotten the tofurkey.”

She snorted at the word ‘tofurkey’ in his thick accent.

“No. Thank you, I appreciate it.” She took a tentative bite of the meatball. “Are you?”

“What? A vegetarian?” Jasper laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“I guess I am. I follow a very strict diet. Doctor’s orders.” He winked.

“That’s why you never eat in the cafeteria.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t look too appetizing, either.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.” Bella chewed on her bruised banana. “Mhh. Potassium.”

They listened to the chatter and clinking cutlery across the courtyard. Then she asked: “Why did you come here?”

“You’ve been missing lunch.”

“I wasn’t really feeling up to the press tour.”

“Attention makes you uncomfortable.”

“Yeah.” There was something about his soft smile, the golden halo of curls framing his face. She felt the inexplicable urge to trust him. “They want to know about the accident, and I can’t tell them anything because...I don’t remember.”

“That’s normal, I’d say. It was over in a second.”

“You know the only thing I can remember?”

She took his hand. It was frigid, as hard as stone. There were tiny white marks, like insect bites, on the palm and over the back. A distant calm fell over her.

“Your hand on the side of Tyler’s van. How you stopped a car from crashing into us, and yet, it’s not broken.”

Jasper watched her in silence, grin gone for once.

“Bella! There you are. We’ve been looking for you!” Angela burst out of the gym, Eric in tow. “A freshman asked Mike to the Sadie Hawkins, and he said yes, and Jessica’s hysterical. Can you come, please? Oh. Hi, Hale.”

“Miss Weber.”

“Um, just Angela is fine.”

Bella’s mind was still stuck on the fact that she had been caught holding hands with Jasper Hale. Angela tactfully said nothing, but Bella knew she’d want more details later.

Jasper stood, shifting the empty tray in one hand.

“Goodbye, Bella. I’ll see you in Biology.”

“Uh, yeah. See you.”

She rose, following her friends into the dark gym. She paused on the doorstep, looking back from behind her shoulder. He was staring at something in the distance, tray held in a vice grip.

Between Jessica’s troubles and a major AP History test, she couldn’t get a hold of Jasper all week. He seemed to know it too, the bastard, slipping away from Biology as soon as class was over, nodding at her across crowded hallways with a smirk.

She knew the curriculum by heart, so she used up her time in Biology to study the boy next to her. She could have sworn his eyes were a very peculiar shade of gold the first time she met him. They were almost black now, maybe a trick of the light. The bruises under his eyes seemed to be getting darker too.

On Thursday he didn’t come to school, nor on Friday.

That weekend Charlie went on a fishing trip with Billy Black, leaving her with a pat on the head and a twenty-dollar bill.

  She opened the fridge, studying its scarce contents under the buzzing lamp. After calling the pizza place on Main Street, she sat on the couch, waiting for her margherita.

Picking at the worn checkered cover, she found herself thinking of Jasper again. His siblings hadn’t been at school either; they must all have caught a bug or something. But there was something else about them she couldn’t make sense of.

Inexplicable strength and speed.

Color-shifting eyes.

Cold skin, as cold and hard as marble. And as pale as the dead.

A single answer came to mind.

On Monday, the Cullen-Hale SUV was in the parking lot again. Jasper jumped out of the back as Bella fought to get her umbrella to open. He smiled but didn’t approach her; he gracefully waded through the crowd into the brick building, indifferent to the pouring rain.

Bella followed him with her eyes, noticing for the first time his square shoulders, his miles-long legs. She shook her head and trailed after the river of students inside.

Jasper was already at their desk, looking out the window to the rain falling in sheets across the yard. He looked younger in stillness. Then he turned his sharp gaze on her.

She stopped on her tracks. His eyes were back to gold.

“Bella.”

“Jasper.” Her voice didn’t sound as shaken as she felt. “Can we talk about-”

“Hello everyone!” Mr. Banner burst in the room. “I have something special for you guys today!”

He rolled in a wobbly metal cart, small plastic boxes balanced on it.

“Oh, I did this last year in health class.” Angela whispered behind them. “It’s the blood type thing.”

Bella swallowed against a sudden wave of nausea. “Blood?”

Next to her, Jasper went rigid.

 “Yeah, you prick your finger to find out your blood type.” Angela looked at Bella, then added quickly, “It’s just a few drops, don’t worry!”

“I don’t think…I just don’t…”

“It’s quite fun, actually! You know, how it works is that you take a needle…”

She felt faint. Black dots filled her eyes, and all she could hear was the thunder of her heart trying to burst out of her chest.

“Bella?”

“She’s going to pass out.”

“There’s always one.”

“Bella, are you okay?”

“I think she needs some air. Mr. Banner? I’ll take her to the nurse.”

“Alright, Hale. But do come back, you don’t want to miss this one!”

As soon as the door closed behind them, the fog in her head began to clear; her breaths were slowing down. Her dirty gym shoes squeaked on the floor. She was supposed to go to P.E. after biology.

Jasper held her up as he walked them through the empty halls to a bench. He watched her sit, then followed.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She said, lightly pulling on her arm to have it back. “Thanks.”

“No trouble. Do you still want to go to the nurse?”

Bella shook her head. The nausea had passed almost immediately; in its place, an unnatural calm was infusing her limbs like cold water. The only evidence of her panic attack was the sweat cooling on her back.

“You probably think I’m pathetic.” She traced cracks in the linoleum tiles with her sneaker. “I have a problem with blood. I don’t know why; it’s always been this way.”

She finally looked up; Jasper’s eyes were crinkled at the corners. She elbowed him, and found he was as solid there as he was everywhere else.

“Ouch. How are you this built?”

His sharp teeth glinted under the blinking LEDs. “Genetics, mostly. And my diet.”

She considered him, puzzle pieces falling into place.

“Hey Jasper?”

“Yes, Miss Swan?”

She leaned in, and he mirrored her until they were inches apart. This close, she could see darker flecks in his golden eyes; he didn’t blink.

“Are you…on the juice?”

A moment of silence followed, the overhead lights humming in the empty hallway. Then Jasper barked out a laugh, the most ungraceful sound she’d ever heard him make.

“The juice? Really?”

“It’s not funny! I’m serious.”

“I’m not on drugs, Bella.” He was somber again, holding her hand against his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Bella nodded, letting the feeling of his hand around hers sink in. And yet, she didn’t quite believe him. Something was wrong with Jasper.

How else to explain his eerie charm, his uncanny beauty? The shiver running down her spine each time his eyes met hers?

Chapter Text

March 2005

It didn’t take Bella much longer to connect the dots.

In her defense, vampire hadn’t been on her bingo card of possible explanations for the Cullen-Hales’ otherness. After some web-surfing, and quite a few tours of the spiritual section of the Port Angeles library, she felt confident enough in her hypothesis.

She confronted him on one of the few clear days Forks had that March. He drove them to the rain forest in his family’s SUV and led her down a trail to a secluded meadow.

“You’re a…a vampire.”

The word tasted foreign in her mouth, as if it was someone else speaking it in the quiet of the meadow.

“Yes.”

“An actual vampire.”

“Yes.” He sighed, dropping his shoulders. “But we don’t drink from humans in my coven.”

“And…you sparkle?” A thousand other questions were swirling in her head, but in her giddiness, that one had seemed the most pressing.

He looked up, affronted. “Well. I wouldn’t call it that.”

Bella tried not to ruin the moment by snorting.

“I’m sorry. It’s stunning, actually.” She ran a hand down his shoulder. He had taken off his shirt to show her; the afternoon light filtered through thick branches and reached his marble skin, bouncing off in a million shimmering crystals. She whispered to herself, “You’re beautiful, Jasper.”

“Why, Miss Swan, you’re not so bad yourself.”

He smirked, but Bella was staring at the curve of his neck meeting his shoulder. His lean stomach.

“Oh. Thanks.” 

Heat crept up her neck. She bent to grab his shirt from the ground and threw it his way, then she walked back to the trail without checking if he was following.

“You’re not afraid.” His puzzled voice came from behind her. “Why?”

She turned on her heels. “I feel like I’ve known you forever. You’re not going to hurt me.”

“You don’t know. You can’t imagine half of the vile things I’ve done.” 

“Jasper. You’re not-” She moved forward, reaching for him, and promptly stepped on a rock, falling to her hands and knees amongst the wildflowers.

“Shit! Ouch.”

She pushed herself back up, laughing self-consciously. She took a few unsteady steps, coming to rest against the huge trunk of a fallen fir.

Jasper had not moved to help her; he was stuck in the same place at the center of the meadow. His eyes were squeezed shut.

“Jasper?” Bella tried to say, and she was shocked by the sudden burn, a thirst so deep couldn’t breathe. She tried to clear her throat a couple of times.

He was still ignoring her, jaw clamped shut, his neck muscles strained. When he finally opened his eyes, they were deep black coals against his chalky skin.

She looked to her palms, scratched up and a little bloody from the fall, then back at him. He followed her every move, like a predator ready to jump.

“Oh,” she said softly.

Her feet started moving on their own. She edged away from the tree, then before she knew it, she was barreling down the forest path, branches scratching her face and pulling at her raincoat. He could wake from his stupor any time, catch up with her in seconds, and yet she kept pushing one foot after the other without looking back. She tripped on a root and fell again, but she ran through the firs until her legs gave out.

She dropped to the forest floor, wheezing. She coughed, trying to rid herself of the terrible thirst she’d felt in the meadow. As the burning consumed her, she wondered if it was Jasper’s yearning for her blood.

It must be agonizing to live in an eternal fight against his instinct.

If he wanted to come after her, he would have already done so. She rolled on her back on a mattress of wet leaves, waiting for her breaths to slow down. She listened to the distant cries of birds overhead. 

Her heart hurt for the lonely man in the meadow, haunted by his own nature.

His eyes were already on her as she limped back into the meadow. He must have heard her the whole time.

“Hey,” Bella offered.

She stopped at the edge of the tree line, keeping up the illusion of a safe distance, but she couldn’t run even if she wanted to. Somewhere back in the forest, she’d twisted her ankle, and it was already swelling inside her boot.

“Leave, Bella.” Jasper said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t think I will.”

“Go, damn it!”

“I can’t.” She pointed to her ankle. “And better you eat me than some random hiker.”

He didn’t answer, clenching and unclenching his fists. A very distant part of her was aware that he could bleed her dry and leave her between the wildflowers for the foxes to find. And yet, she felt safer with him than alone on the forest floor.

They stood underneath the changing sky, blooming in pinks and purples, before the first evening stars began to rise. So far from town, hundreds of them lighted up the sweet spring night.

At some point she’d started to shiver, and the chatter of her teeth brought them both back from their haze. Jasper was still shirtless, though it didn’t have the same alluring quality as before. He took a cautious breath in, then nodded.

“Why did you stay?” He asked, breaking the silence.

She searched his eyes; they were a dark amber, still wilder than his usual gold. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

He took a few steps, watching for her reaction. He laid his shirt around her shoulders, and she subtly turned her face into it to breathe in his clean scent.

“Can I?” 

He motioned to pick her up, an arm around her shoulders and the other under her knees. She nodded, hiding her face in the crook of his neck.

“Jasper?” Her voice was rough from unuse, from the thirst still burning in her throat. It was bearable now, though still as alien as a third arm. “Is it always this bad?”

He deposited her against the fallen tree.

“At first, yeah. You learn to ignore the thirst with time. But I was always the worst at it.”

“Is that why Edward can’t stand me? He never came back to Biology.”

“He begged one of us to switch places with him. Your blood calls to him like heroin to an addict.”

“Doesn’t sound like fun.”

“There’s also another reason.” He bent at her feet and rolled up her jeans to get a look at her ankle. She hissed when he ran a finger across her swollen skin. “We have gifts, based on our strengths during our first lives.”

As he said it, her pain vanished in a cloud of comfort and safety. She fought against the temptation to curl against him, to close her eyes and fall asleep against his hard chest.

Her eyes snapped open. “You did this before, when I was panicking for the blood test.”

“I did. Though I also wanted out of that classroom for selfish reasons.”

“I bet.” She said, still caught up in the waves of bliss he was sending her way.

She could’ve drowned in them, and she would have died happy. Something was off, an itch at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t care less, too deep in the thick cloud of comfort. Maybe that was how it felt to be high.

She fought the drowsiness to ask: “What’s Edward’s gift?”

Jasper stood, towering over her again.

“He was very perceptive as a human. He’s a mind-reader.”

“Oh.” Her peaceful mood wavered. “I’d go crazy, listening to other people’s thoughts. Now I get why he looks in pain all the time.”

“We’re human-eating demons, and you feel bad for us.” He shook his head, but a thin smile bloomed on his face, and she counted it as a win. 

The pain was gone, but walking on her twisted ankle was out of the question. Jasper lifted her again and carried her close to his chest, the dark woods rushing past in a blur as he ran to the car. The moon had come out, bathing his sharp features in fairytale light.

She curled in the passenger seat as he raced down the winding forest road, feeling light as a feather.

Chapter Text

April-May 2005

After the meadow, a tentative friendship bloomed between them. Once the invisible barrier between vampire and human was lowered, they started hanging out between classes and after school, to the chagrin of his “siblings”.

Often, Jasper would go to the cafeteria and bring a tray to their lunch spot, and they would people-watch while Bella tried to eat whatever he’d picked out that day. She learned he was an avid reader and a bad guitar player, that he knew Spanish, but his French was awful. He held PhDs in US history, and modern philosophy, but he didn’t consider himself much of a scholar.

She learned he’d been married, once.

“So, just to confirm, Emmett and Rosalie aren’t actually siblings,” she said one rainy afternoon in May.

“They’re not.”

Bella chewed on the hot-dog he’d chosen for her that day. It tasted nothing like a hot-dog should.

“Okay, that makes me a little more alright with them being together. Still a bit weird, though, pretending his girlfriend is his sister.”

“His wife. They’re married, you know. Have been for decades.”

“No way!” She laughed, picturing Rosalie forcing Emmett into a suit and tie, Emmett smashing wedding cake in her face. “Then again, what’s marriage next to eternal life. How long have they been together?”

“He was mauled by a bear in the Thirties; Rose found him and brought him to Carlisle. The rest is history, as they say.”

“Death by bear is definitely an Emmet way to go.” She washed the artificial flavor from her mouth with a gulp of soda. “What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you...?”

“Married?” He considered the word for a while, gazing to the empty courtyard. “Not anymore.”

“Oh.” A wave of melancholy came over her, but she wasn’t sure whether it was his or her own. She was slowly getting used to his emotions sometimes bleeding into hers. “What was her name?”

“Alice. It was a long time ago.”

“Okay. Sorry for prying.”

“It’s fine. How’s that tofu dog? Looks terrible from here.”

“Tofu what now?”

He burst out laughing, and all thoughts of past wives were quickly forgotten after that.

On rare sunny days, to Jasper’s disapproval and Charlie’s blissful ignorance, Bella started skipping school and driving to the Cullens’ mansion in the woods. The truck sputtered all the way up the winding gravel road to the house, announcing her presence from miles away.

Jasper was waiting by the front door, arms crossed over his chest.

“What are you doing here, Miss Swan?”

“Don’t act so surprised, you heard the truck from five miles out.”

“Mr. Banner is going to fail you if you keep this up.” His tone was serious, but a smile betrayed him.

“Too bad.” She shook a shoulder. Mr. Banner loved her. “Another old man needs me today.”

“Is that supposed to be me?”

“I heard there’s a senior discount at the movies if you want to go later. Now, if you would be so kind...”

Bella brushed him aside and walked into the foyer, hopping up the glass staircase and past the framed mortarboards. He appeared like a ghost on the landing, reaching for the door to his room and holding it open for her.

The first time she’d come, they had spent hours browsing his wall of bookcases; he’d held her up on his shoulders to read the spines on the highest shelf. That morning, she made a beeline for his carved wooden desk. She pulled her trig book from her backpack and started going over a practice test. 

Jasper quietly took the other chair, grabbing a leather-bound book from a pile in front of him. He crossed an ankle over his knee as he read, the noise of flipping pages the only sound in the house. The open window let in the sweet scent of impending summer. 

Shimmers covered her notebook when he rolled up his sleeves and the sun hit his lithe forearm. The tiny white marks she’d seen on his hand ran up until his sleeve.

He’d told her of his time with Maria; if her senses were better, she’d see hundreds of bites covering his skin. She wondered what his perfect family thought of him; if they still saw him as dangerous and unstable as the Major had been. 

As it was, he looked wickedly handsome to her human eye. She absentmindedly ran her free hand up and down his arm, feeling the raised texture against her fingertips.  

She was halfway done with her test when she noticed his eyes on her. 

“Is there something on my face?”

He straightened in his chair, letting her hand fall to the side. “I don’t understand you.”

“What?”

“Why are you still here? Why do you keep coming around, when you know perfectly well what kind of monster I am?”

“This again? I told you-” 

“You should be running the other way, Bella, not doing your goddamn homework in a house full of vampires.”

Whether his or hers, anger ignited her bones, and she struggled to breathe through it. She slowly shifted her notebook to the side and capped her highlighter.

“Are they here now?” She finally said.

“Who?”

“Your coven, your family- are they in the house?”

Jasper paused in confusion. “No, they left for Alaska this morning.”

“Alright. Let’s do this now, then.”

“What?”

“Jasper…is it so hard to believe that I might enjoy your company?” She sighed. “Or am I bothering you with my slow human brain?”

“You know it’s not about that.”

She gave a short, hard laugh. “I don’t know. Every time I come over, you have this martyred look to you; one starts to wonder.”

“I’m sorry.” He turned away. “These months, it’s the happiest I’ve been in years.”

The raw sincerity in his voice broke her heart a little. 

“Okay. Then stop pushing me away.” The chair scraped the hardwood floor as she dragged it closer to him. She grabbed his face, cheekbones hard as stone under her palms. She waited until his eyes met hers. “I like you. I’m not running anywhere.”

He nodded, still wary; he didn’t believe her.

She raised her arms, telegraphing the movement. He was petrified, book still in one hand. She circled him with her arms until her chin rested on his shoulder.

He didn’t budge; then, his hands started slowly inching up until they were grazing her back. The book fell to the floor with a muted thud.

“I’m here,” she whispered in his ear. “And I really like you, Jasper.”

His arms tightened, holding her in place with the iron grip of the drowning. A flood of emotions rushed through her, safety and gratitude and calm, and she let them in with a sigh. She wondered if his mysterious wife had been the last one to touch him like this, how long ago it had been.

Something popped in her back, but Renee had taught Bella never to let go first; she waited in silence, running a hand up and down his back while the spring sun warmed the side of her face.

Later that evening, when he walked her downstairs to the truck, he took her by the hand; she squeezed back, wondering at the new equilibrium they had reached.

Chapter Text

May-July 2005

It was unusually cold for the end of May. Bella’s Saturday plans weren’t clear yet, but Jasper had mentioned a hiking trail he’d come across on his last hunt. 

Her phone buzzed as she downed the leftover milk in her cereal bowl.

Whenever you’re ready.

She opened the backdoor in her plaid pajamas. Jasper stood on the porch in an artfully faded jean jacket, pushing golden curls away from his eyes. It wasn’t raining yet, but a furious wind was blowing leaves inside the house. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

He tipped an invisible hat. “Miss Swan.”

“I don’t think we should go on that hike, after all,” she shouted over the wind.

He laughed, and she thought someone that handsome had no business standing on her porch on a Saturday morning. “Change of plans. My family plays baseball when it storms like this.”

“What? Why now?”

“Come and see for yourself.” He winked. Bella tried not to find it charming and failed.

“Um. I already see a stray ball going right through me.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” he nodded. “Alright, ma’am, no baseball. What do you propose?”

“What’s your opinion on period dramas?”

She later learned how close she had come to meet another coven that day, to expose the forbidden bond between human and vampire. To damn them all to excruciating death.

Instead, she pulled him inside by his icy hand before shutting the door on the rising storm.

They put on a movie on Charlie’s old TV, and curled up on the threadbare couch while the wind howled against the windowpanes; they had both seen it before, so it was alright if they missed Mr. Darcy professing his love under the rain when she climbed in Jasper’s lap, when she slid her hands in his hair to pull him closer.

He went completely still, but the waves of desire betrayed him; they hit her like tsunami tides, mixing with her own until the fire in her veins was almost unbearable.

She stared into his wild amber eyes, going darker by the second, as the familiar crescendo of piano and strings filled the small living room. Slowly, maddeningly slow, he slid his hands over her thighs and back, coming to rest on her hips.

Finally, she thought, and bent down to kiss him.

On her next breath, she found herself back in her seat, grasping at air. Jasper was standing in front of the window on the opposite side of the room, studying the picture frames propped on the sill.

“Bells? You there?”

She blinked as Charlie walked in, unbuckling the holster from his hip. Charlie. Night shift was over. Right.

“There you are,” he said. His mustache twitched when he noticed Jasper. “Who’s this fine young man?”

Bella cleared her throat. “Dad.”

“Jasper Hale, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Huh. This one’s house-trained.” Charlie seemed to be having the time of his life teasing the hell out of her.

Seemingly satisfied with embarrassing his offspring to a young grave, he patted her on the back. “Well, I’m beat. I’m going to bed.” With one last raised eyebrow, he turned to the stairs.

Bella sighed in relief.

 “Jasper, is it?” Charlie turned on the second step, tapping his fingers on the handrail. “One more thing.”

She swallowed. Jasper’s face, on the other hand, was still congealed on the same pleasant expression.

“Say hi to your father.” Charlie hummed. “Charming man, that one.”

“Of course, sir.” Jasper nodded, but Charlie was already halfway up the stairs.

Bella waited for half a second before bursting out laughing, Jasper following behind. It was rare to hear him laugh out loud, and what a shame that was, because it filled the air with the same tingling music of wind chimes.

“House-trained?” She winced, still laughing. “Someone made an impression.”

“Not as much as Carlisle, it seems.” Jasper grinned. “It’s the hot-young-doctor-who’s-also-a-father-of-four kind of charm. Unbeatable.”

Most of her summer was spent at the Cullen’s. There were hiking trails to follow up the mountain or down the ravine, shallow pools and freezing rivers to dive in, and their meadow, of course, for lying down and admiring Jasper’s hard skin shimmering in the sun.

The house was amazing as well, so quiet it always seemed empty, especially now that the Cullen kids were on summer break and nothing tied them to Forks. Most of them left on long hunting trips up to Alaska, and it was days before they emerged, without a warning, from the thick rainforest, looking wild and sated.  

It was sunny July morning, the third of the heatwave. She had laid down a beach towel on the balcony in Jasper’s room, where she had a bird’s eye view over the green ocean of the forest. The teak was warm and solid under her stomach. She lazily rolled on her back, laying the book to the side and closing her eyes against the light.

Minutes had passed, or maybe just seconds, when Jasper lowered himself next to her, quiet as a mountain lion. She turned her head to face him, and slowly blinked her eyes open. He was wearing his summer uniform, linen shirt and sun-faded jeans that probably cost more than her truck. She shifted closer to him, until their sides were touching from shoulder to thigh. He was pleasantly cold against her skin, and she shivered.

She wanted to ask what he was thinking about, but the distant birdsongs were too sweet to talk over. She waited for him to break the silence, but he kept watching her, as if he had to commit her to memory.

Her hand lifted on its own, tracing his cheekbone and his straight nose, the line of his lips, burying itself in his curls.

As natural as breathing, at least to her, she closed the distance between them and kissed him. His lips were softer than she’d imagined, and she pressed on them lightly.

He shifted back a little, still so close that she could feel the pleasant cold emanating from his skin. “Sweetheart.” He looked at her with such fondness, like the intensity of his feelings pained him.

“I like that,” she whispered. “Say it again.”

He laughed, as if he knew the devastating effect he had on her. And he probably did know; she didn’t have to be an empath to feel the waves of equal excitement and mortification she was broadcasting.

He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sweetheart.”

She was about to catch on fire, and yet she said, “Once more.”

“Alright, my sweetheart.”

She climbed on top of him until there was no square inch of bare skin untouched. After humming a surprised sound, his hands came up to rest at her hips, and she gripped her own over his to make him hold on even tighter.

Then she kissed him with all she had.

Once again, the flood of their combined emotions crashed into her, and she let herself be carried away by the urgency and the sheer strength of them. There was something about being worshipped by the closest thing to a god to walk the earth, she was drunk on it.

She spared the briefest thought to the others who might be in the house, but then Jasper gently rolled on top of her, holding himself up on his elbows, and she closed a leg around his narrow waist, and coherent thought abandoned her.  

She came up for air much later, grinning, sun-burned, and desperately out of breath.

That evening, he escorted her downstairs, as he always did. There were still traces in him of the southern gentleman he'd been, though she had thankfully never met the Major. She wondered if there was a part of him that missed those days absent of guilt, or if even then he had known the wrongness of his actions.

The rusted red truck was an eyesore, parked in the Cullen’s perfectly curated driveway, but Esme didn’t seem to mind. Jasper opened the car door for her, waiting for her to get in before closing it gently. He laid his elbows on the open window, watching her put on her seatbelt and adjust the rearview mirror.

In the reflection she saw a man coming out of the woods. A second later she recognized Edward, quietly gliding up the gravel road. Apart from the blood smeared on his jaw, he looked like he was back from high tea, not from hunting mountain lions with his bare hands.

Jasper had heard him as well, though he probably had known for the last ten minutes. Bella unbuckled and pushed out of the truck, trying for politeness, even though Edward had never been anything more than cold to her. Bloodthirst could excuse only so much rudeness.

Jasper turned to his brother, raising a hand in greeting. “Hey.”

“Jasper. Isabella.” Edward said, though his gaze was locked on Jasper. He furrowed his brow.

“Hi, Edward,” she chimed in to break the weird tension. “How was the hunt?”

He finally looked at her with the same golden eyes of his brother. In the open air, her smell was probably bearable to him. “Fine, thank you.”

She uselessly waited for him to ask her how she was doing.

“Bella was just going.” Jasper said, though he seemed to be having a parallel conversation with his brother. He suddenly turned to her with a gentle smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As an only child, Bella was not an expert in the ways of siblings and their quarrels. Better leave them to it, she thought. “Right. Bye, Edward.”

She climbed in the driver seat again; when she started the truck, a flock of birds flew from the treetops at the bang of the engine. She turned to Jasper, putting the truck in first. “See you tomorrow.”

She was halfway down the gravel road when, in the silent cab, she added:

“Sweetheart.”

Chapter Text

September 2005

Bella couldn’t remember what fall in Forks used to look like in her childhood. Every morning she woke to different colors, wondering at the cool dewdrops on the grass when Jasper picked her up.

By the first week of September the leaves were starting to turn the forest around the Cullen’s place yellow and red, and even down in Forks the weather had gone grey again. When she pulled up to Forks High for her first day back to school, the wind was scattering the first fallen leaves around the parking lot.

She had been anxious about how to behave with Jasper in public, but she had worried for nothing. Jasper wasn’t in the seat next to hers in Biology. It wasn’t sunny, it hadn’t been since the last week of August, but he had put off feeding for too long. He had left for a hunt the night before.

Bella made it through the morning without meeting any of the Cullens.

“Hey Swan!” Eric accosted her in the hallway, linking an arm through hers. “Haven’t seen you in forever.”

She gave an awkward laugh, steering them towards the cafeteria. “Yeah, you know. Lots of tutoring.”

“Hale and his straight A’s needed a lot of help, huh?” Eric jiggled his eyebrows, and Bella wished for death.

“You’re going to need help if you don’t quit it.” Angela joined them on Bella’s other side.

“Weber! Light of my life, fire of my loins!”

“Yeah, yeah. Move it, Eric.”

They led her to their usual table, the one Bella used to sit at before Jasper. She rolled peas around her plate, wishing for one of his weird lunches. The others were exchanging stories from their breaks; a lot of them were from parties and camping trips Bella vaguely recalled being invited to.

The realization she’d spent months in a little sphere away from the real world still came as a shock. She forced herself to join the conversation, but in her head she was counting down the hours until Jasper’s return.

It had been less than a full day since he left, and already she felt a foreign emptiness in her chest.

She looked over Angela’s shoulder, finding the Cullens’ table. Rosalie wasn’t even pretending to eat, staring sullenly at the empty tray in front of her, but Emmet put in a valiant effort with an orange and a can of soda. He was carefully peeling the orange with a dull cafeteria knife, dwarfed by his giant fist.

Edward looked on the scene, a rare half-smile softening his features. His lips moved, but Bella missed the words. Then his face fell, and he looked straight at her. 

Jess threw her head back howling at one of Angela’s dry remarks, and she slammed her hand on the table. Bella jumped in her seat, heart beating out of her chest. She smiled along to the joke and righted her tray. She could not bring herself to finish her lunch after that.

By her last period, senior year was already shaping out to be brutal. Bella went to the library after class, trying to put together a study plan. When she finally unglued her eyes from her notes, the room had emptied; it was almost closing time.

too bad you missed your last first day of high school, she texted Jasper, even though she knew there was no reception in the forest, and he wouldn’t have taken his phone on a hunt anyways. It did make her feel marginally better.

She pocketed her phone and threw her pencil case and her notebooks in her backpack, struggling to fit it all in.

“Cramming already?”

 She turned around, raincoat halfway on and hanging limply at her side. “Jeez. You guys get me every time.”

Edward stood by her desk, running a finger over the scratched yellow laminate. He looked alien without the usual sneer. She could see the youthfulness in his features, noticing for the first time the gentle curve of his cheeks.

“I apologize,” he said.

“It’s fine. At this point I think I’ll never get used to it.” She shrugged the rest of the coat on, still baffled by his presence. “Is Jasper okay?”

“I believe so. He still hasn’t returned.”

That took out the only thing she and Edward had in common. “Oh, okay. Good.” She played with the strap of her backpack, peering into his golden eyes and for once wishing she had his gift. “Do you need anything?”

Edward frowned at her right shoulder. He never looked her in the eye. “Isabella-”

She didn’t correct him, watching him struggle to find the next words instead. He didn’t bother pretending to breathe in front of her, so he looked closer and closer to asphyxiation.

“Please be careful.” He finally uttered.

She was even more bewildered now. “Of what?”

“Vampires are humans’ natural predators,” he said, and Bella tried hard not to let her eyes roll to the back of her skull. “And Jasper is…he is especially dangerous.”

She blinked.

“Is this about the stuff with Maria?” She finally said. It didn’t feel right to discuss Jasper’s past without him. “I know what he did.” I know him, she wanted to add.

Edward’s brow furrowed even deeper, and he finally lifted his eyes to hers.

“Did he tell you about Alice?”

Bella was getting tired of playing twenty questions. She roughly shouldered her backpack, walking to the door. “Yeah. What about her?” She said without turning.

“Ask him why she left.”

Her hand stilled on the brass handle. She thought about turning, letting Edward tell her the sordid secrets of Jasper’s marriage, about goddamn Alice. Then she opened the door.

“Goodbye, Edward.”

She walked along empty hallways under the cold fluorescents, feeling the weight of his gaze on her back.

The next day she woke up to a reply from Jasper.

Guess there’s always next time. Look down.

She threw herself out of bed and opened the window, feeling the rush of cold air on her cheeks.

 Jasper was standing in the yard in a sea of yellow leaves, looking up with a boyish grin.

“Mornin’.” He called. “Don’t rush. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

Bella pulled the first sweater and a pair of jeans from the pile on the chair, shoving her feet in her sneakers. A brief look in the bathroom mirror gave her pause; she had rolled around in bed all night, Edward’s warning bouncing around her skull until it was too painful to think. She spit out toothpaste and stomped downstairs.

True to his word, Jasper was still in the back yard, studying the woods behind her house. He didn’t even have the grace to flinch when she jumped on his back, closing her arms around his neck. He turned her around until they were face to face.

“Hello.” He laughed, filling the terrible hole inside her.

She kissed him, pressing hard against his lips. “Hi yourself. How long were you standing here?”

Jasper eased her to the ground. “Long enough to hear you snore.”

Bella blushed and shoved his hands away, meeting his boulder-like resistance. “That was Charlie. Shall we?”

“Sure. Wouldn’t want to miss my last second day of high school.”

The silver Volvo was parked in her driveway, blocking Charlie’s cruiser. They rolled down the empty road, and Bella wiped the condensation from the foggy window.

“Did you even have breakfast?” Jasper asked as he turned into Main Street. “You came down so fast.”

“Um.” She hadn’t, had she? She’d been so delighted at seeing him again. “I guess I didn’t.”

“Check the glove compartment.”

Bella pulled out a paper bag, still warm. Inside, there were two steaming egg muffins. “You didn’t have to. Where did you get them?”

“I wanted to.” He said simply. The easiness of the declaration, together with the still steaming act of love in the paper bag, melted her heart. “They’re homemade. Esme misses cooking for you.”

“That’s too kind.”

“She loves you.” Jasper stepped on the brake, letting an old woman cross the road. His hand shot to the side, a few inches away from her chest. Bella laughed at the soccer mom instinct. “Anyways, she actually invited you for dinner tonight.”

“I’d like that very much,” she said, munching on a muffin. Then she narrowed her eyes. “What’s the occasion?”

“Oh, someone’s birthday. Can’t quite recall whose.”

Bella gaped at him. “How did you know?”

“School records are worryingly easy to access in this town. But I asked the chief. Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

He leant to the side to plant a kiss on her forehead, and she pushed him away with a laugh. “Pay attention! I want to get to nineteen.”

On Tuesdays she didn’t have classes in common with Jasper, so they only met up for lunch at their spot behind the gym. Jess and Angela gave her a gift card for the book shop in Port Angeles, and she wondered if he had told them about her birthday.

After her final period Bella dragged her backpack, newly filled with library books, to the parking lot, hoping to find Jasper already in the car.

“May I?” A voice came from behind her shoulder.

“Jesus! I swear to God, Jasper-” Bella started, but he quickly kissed her cheek and just as quickly he was back at her side, an appropriate distance between them. She looked behind her shoulder, feeling her face on fire, but the parking lot was empty.

“As I was saying,” he said cheerfully, “can I take your bag?”

“Yeah, whatever.” She tried, but she took his hand when he offered it.

The ride to the Cullens’ was quiet, and Bella found herself dreading the upcoming dinner. She hadn’t come across Edward in school, but he might reasonably be in his own home. His words kept slithering to the front of her brain. The horrible scenarios of Alice’s departure were getting worse and worse.

He turned to her at a red light. “You’re worried about something.”

She felt the pit in her stomach grow into a sinkhole.

“I-” She avoided his eyes. “Look, it’s green again.”

He put the car into first. “Did something happen today?”

“No, I just…” She fell into silence as the dark rain forest rushed past them. She wasn’t ready to ask about Alice, and she certainly wasn’t ready to know the answer.

“You don’t have to tell me-”

“It’s us,” she said, suddenly struck by inspiration. “I don’t know how to tell people at school. What to tell them. What are we? We never really discussed it, and I didn’t want to assume anything-”

“Bella,” Jasper said, killing the engine. They were parked in the Cullens’ driveway.

She felt her face warm up. “Yeah. Sorry.”

He blurred out of his seat and around the car, until he reappeared at her door, holding it open. She took his hand and stepped into the crisp evening. The clouds had turned to shades of orange and pink, strewn like thick paint strokes across the indigo sky.

Jasper ran a thumb across the back of her hand. His skin shimmered faintly in the last evening light. “Don’t apologize. I should have said sooner.”

 “What?” She turned to him, finding his golden eyes already on her.

“I know it might seem early, compared to eternity. And you don’t have to say anything,” he said softly. “My soul was a dry and empty place for a very long time. Then you came along, and this cursed life was worth living again. You gift me life every day, or the closest thing to it I’ll ever get. I love you, Bella. I’ll be by your side for however long you’ll let me.”

“Oh.” She felt wonderfully full again, of love and hope and giddiness. “Will you?”

He grinned. “Hopefully for the rest of said cursed existence.”

“I…” She laughed, taking his hard cheekbones in her hands. “I think boyfriend covers that for now.”

When they walked in, they followed the voices to the dining room. The entire family was there, even Edward, and she wondered if the open windows were for his sake. He didn’t look more uncomfortable than usual, at least.

Emmett was rushing around the table under Rosalie’s strict glare; Bella noticed with a grimace that it was set for one. Carlisle came in from the kitchen, carrying the last plates, followed by Esme.

“Happy birthday, honey!” She said, unlacing her pristine apron. ‘Made with love’ was embroidered across the chest. “You’re just in time. Please, take a seat.”

Jasper blurred to the end of the table, pulling a carved chair out for her. Still overwhelmed, Bella lowered herself in her seat.

The table was laden with trays and plates and bowls, and she made sure to taste at least a bit of everything. Esme must have spent all day cooking for her, and Bella complimented every dish as if it was the most delicious meal of her life, because it was.

She had feared being watched by all of them while she ate in silence, but dinner ended up being much less awkward than she had imagined.

While she chewed away at the delicious food, the Cullens entertained her with tales from their infinitely interesting lives. Carlisle in particular, who had been alive for much longer than the others, still had some stories his family had never heard. Jasper closed a hand on her knee, and the feeling of warmth and belonging inside her grew until she was drunk on it.

After leftovers were put away for Charlie, Esme directed them to the living room. Bella froze to the spot, and Jasper almost walked into her. “Sweetheart?”

There was a small mountain of presents on the crystal coffee table.

“You really, really didn’t have to.” She said, alarmed. “I never got you guys anything for your birthdays!”

“Our own birthdays don’t mean much to us, Bella. We tend to forget them after a while.” Carlisle replied kindly, an arm around Esme’s shoulders. “When Jasper asked us to celebrate yours, we all agreed it was a splendid idea. We never get to throw parties.”

Bella smiled, picturing Carlisle at a rave. “Still…You guys are too nice to me. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You’re eighteen, dude. That’s the big one.” Emmett said from the couch. “Plus, I love birthdays.”

Rosalie rolled her eyes. “Emmett can’t wait for his one hundredth.”

“Only ten years away, babe. Better start planning!”

“We just want you to have fun.” Esme walked to the table, picking the first present from the pile. “Let’s see, this is from…” She paused, then recovered with a sweet smile. “Edward. There you go, honey.”

She handed Bella a small velvet box, a blue ribbon perfectly tied around it.

Bewildered, she searched Edward’s face. He was standing at the back of the room with his hands in his pockets, looking out the windows into the woods. What had possessed him to get her a present, when he could barely stand to be under the same roof as her?

“Thank you, Edward.”

He turned to her, but he didn’t look up. “It’s my pleasure.” He murmured.

The gift came with an envelope, creamy and thick; she traced over the ink and wondered at the old-fashioned handwriting. The cursive sloped and curled on the paper, more elegant than Jasper’s.

For Isabella.

Inside, there was only a line.

We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up.

Was it a quote? She wouldn’t put it past Edward to pull such poetic dedications out of his own mind.

But what did half made up mean? Did Edward feel incomplete? From what Jasper had told her, vampires believed in mates. Did they walk around for centuries with a gaping hole in their heart until they met their other half? What if they never met their mate? Had Jasper’s wife been his mate? Then how could she leave him? Or was it possible that…

“Bella?” Jasper’s worried tone brought her back to the Cullen’s living room.

She blinked. She had crushed the envelope into a paper ball. “Yeah, sorry.”

She carefully untwisted the mess in her fist, then put the card back in. As it slid inside, she felt the sting of a papercut on her finger.

A single drop of blood hung from the tip of her thumb, and she brought it up to her lips to lick it away. It was too little an amount to worry, even in the presence of six vampires.

She lowered her hand, laughing self-consciously, and looked for Jasper’s eyes across the room. He raised an eyebrow at her, smirking at her clumsiness.

“I’m fine. It was just a-”

“No!”

She jumped at Edward’s scream, but he was already throwing himself at her, pushing her backwards. They crashed into the table, and she squeezed her eyes against a shower of crystal shards.

She groaned, as the room came back into focus. Someone was growling.

The vampires had gone as still as statues, half-turned towards her, half to Jasper’s crouched form on the other side of the room.

Edward had landed next to her, and he looked down to where she was cradling her arm; he looked nauseated. Something warm was running down her arm, and in her confusion, it took a while to realize it was her own blood. She gagged at the sight of a shard of crystal embedded deep inside the wound.

“Everyone.” Carlisle’s calm tone broke the thick silence. “Outside.”

Rosalie and Emmett disappeared in a blur; Esme turned to Edward, hesitating for a second before following the others into the dark forest.

Edward had risen to face Jasper. She couldn’t see his face, but she heard the low snarl when Carlisle tried to help her to her feet.

She hadn’t lied in the meadow- she hadn’t been afraid of Jasper. Now she felt cold all over, panic rushing through her veins to the rhythm of her thundering pulse, and her throat was on fire.

“It’s alright-” She tried, but a thundering noise covered her words.

Edward leapt on Jasper, and the two crashed backwards, bursting through the drywall into Esme’s spotless kitchen. Carlisle followed in a rush, leaving her alone amidst the shattered remains of the party.

Bella struggled to her feet, and black stars exploded across her vision. She sagged against the wall, fighting to stay conscious, and edged towards the noise.

She hadn’t moved much, when Edward came flying back into the living room, landing in a heap next to her with a sickening crack. In a blur Jasper was standing over him, baring his sharp teeth. Bella’s heart skipped a beat at his dark eyes, unblinking and cruel.

“Run,” Edward groaned as Jasper grabbed his throat. It was an awful sound of stone against stone.

The thirst was scorching. “Jasper,” she rasped.

He slowly turned his feral gaze on her, then pushed harder on his brother’s neck. Bella saw thin fracture lines spreading over Edward’s white throat, up his jaw and under the collar of his shirt.

“Jasper,” she tried again, more firmly. “Don’t.”

She grabbed his shoulder, and the touch of her bloodstained hands finally seemed to distract him from Edward. He leapt to her and crowded her against the wall. His eyes were fully black, no reason left in them.

He pushed his nose behind her ear, running down her neck. When she tried to take his hand, he grabbed her injured arm, and she almost fainted from the explosion of pain radiating from the wound.

Her breaths were coming faster and faster, and she wished he could use his gift on her to take away some of the pain.

“I’m sorry.” She said, gasping. “I’m so sorry. A stupid cut and now…now you’re going to blame yourself for the rest of time.”

Behind Jasper’s shoulder, she saw Edward twitch. She was so relieved she could cry. Jasper hadn’t killed his brother; she hoped Carlisle was fine too, somewhere in the other room. She wasn’t sure Jasper could live with their deaths. He would only have to live with hers.

Her vision was blurring, and she distantly thought that if Jasper didn’t hurry, blood loss would get her first. She trembled as razor-sharp teeth grazed her skin. She clung to him, grasping at his shoulders and neck with red slippery hands. “It’s not your fault. Please remember. It’s not your fault.”

She took one last breath.

Then, her knees met the floor and she crumpled next to Edward. Jasper was gone.

Chapter Text

September-October 2005

A beeping alarm woke her from a terrible dream. Bella rolled over to turn it off or throw it out of the window, but her fingers felt air where the nightstand should have been.

She opened her eyes, and immediately closed them again when the fluorescents burned white spots on her retinas. She blinked and finally took the room in.

It was not her alarm, but a heart monitor chirping next to the bed. A tangle of cables ran from the machine ending under a lilac hospital gown, and she felt tape pulling at the skin on her chest.

Her left forearm had disappeared inside thick bandages; if she squinted, the shard of glass was still protruding from the bloody wound, Jasper was still growling at her throat.

Where was Jasper?

Bella shifted to sit up and hissed at the sharp pain in her back. She ran a finger under the gown and met the raised texture of stitches. Sighing, she moved the scratchy bedsheets to the side, careful of the IV line attached to her hand.

She gaped at the purple bruises on her legs, interrupted here and there by tiny rows of stitches. Crashing into that table hadn’t been pleasant, but it hadn’t felt as excruciating as the injuries were making it seem. She looked like she’d been run over by one of the logging trucks that carried timber to the Forks sawmill.

An ancient TV was mounted high on the wall, announcing cloudy weather for the rest of the week. In the bottom corner of the screen, she read the time. 2:15 A.M. Her birthday was over, but she hadn’t been out for too long.

Across the room, shadows moved behind the translucent privacy curtains. Low voices were overlapping so quickly, she had trouble understanding the words over the weatherman’s.

“Have you seen her? How are we going to explain this to the Chief?” A woman’s voice.

“We will let Bella decide what she wants to tell her father.”

“This is madness, Carlisle. What kind of accident could she have had? We are going to get investigated,” said another man.

“I have already contacted the Chief; I will handle things when he gets here. Go home, Edward.”

“We should be packing right now. We have to leave.” It was the woman again. Bella finally recognized her; it was Rosalie, voice sweet as honey even when she hissed. “Or the humans will chase us out.”

“I agree, we should leave town. I have been warning you for months that Jasper would lose control. He’s not strong enough.”

“It was an accident, Edward.” Was that Esme? “As soon as Jasper comes back, you and he will smooth things over-”

“What is there to smooth over? He was about to kill her!”

 “You did shove his girlfriend into a glass table,” said Emmett. Were they all there?

“Jasper only lost control after you pushed her, dear.” Esme’s placating tone again. “I think he was trying to protect her.”

“I was protecting her from him!”

Carlisle was calm but firm. “They need me in the ER. Go home, all of you. Or go hunting. Edward, we will talk when I get back.”

In the next second they were gone, leaving a single shadow behind.

She figured it was Carlisle, coming to check on her, but it was Edward who pushed the curtain to the side and let himself in. The last thing she remembered from the night before was his pale, twitching body. Now the perfect column of his neck was unmarred, the fracture lines already healed, as if she had dreamt them up.

He seemed surprised to see her awake.

“I assume you heard all of that,” he said finally.

“For vampires, one would think you’d be stealthier.”

He huffed, leaning against the wall. “When you get used to such heightened senses, you forget that humans have them too. If duller.”

She fingered the papery fabric of her hospital gown. “Why do you hate me so much, Edward?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t. Trust me, I could never hate you.”

Bella was not a mind reader, but he seemed to believe what he was saying.

“Okay.” She said, slowly. “Why did you push me into that table? Jasper wasn’t going to kill me over a paper cut.”

“I apologize for hurting you. But he was.”

“Did you read his mind? Was he thinking about tearing me to pieces like one of his newborns?”

His mouth twisted. “It doesn’t matter. He would have hurt you, today or tomorrow or in a year. Just like he hurt Alice.”

“Oh my God!” The words echoed across the empty room. She winced and lowered her voice. “Can you shut up about Alice?”

“Did you ask him about her?”

“I don’t need to. I trust him.” It was only half a lie.

“They met in the Forties. Jasper manipulated her into believing she was his mate, and it took Alice almost fifty years to notice.”

Bella stared into empty space. Her body was floating on top of the hospital bed, away from Edward’s disturbing words, soaring higher and higher until the conversation was happening to someone else, another Bella who had to deal with the hole in her chest.

Edward was still talking. “She was devastated, of course. Not that it was her fault, his gift is extremely powerful. He managed to deceive even me.”

“Where is she now?” She heard herself say.

“She’s joined the Volturi in Italy,” Edward said. Then he added, “They’re vampire royalty.”

“I see.”

“When he comes back, if he does come back…He will try to use his gift on you. You need to be careful, Isabella.”

The heart monitor pulsed to the same frantic beat of the blood in her ears. Her brain would burst out of her skull if she thought any longer.

“I need some time alone, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry, I tried to warn you about him-”

“Can you leave, please?”

“Isabella…”

“It’s Bella. And fucking leave, I beg you.”

She dropped her face into her hands and waited for him to finally leave the room. His quiet steps faded into the white noise of the hospital machines before she let herself burst into tears.

Charlie took her home the next day, though she would have to go back to get the stitches out. She was still discovering new ones on her battered body; she wished the table had been anything but crystal.

The drive home was quiet, the only sound in the cruiser the low buzz of the police scanner. Charlie seemed to accept her excuse when she told him she had slipped on the carpet and landed on the coffee table, and he even offered to refund the Cullens.

Jasper wasn’t in school, and his siblings avoided her like the plague. Even Edward had seemed to get a clue and had stopped trying to catch her eyes across the cafeteria.

Since she was famously clumsy, no one was surprised or unbelieving at her story of slipping on a carpet. On the third day of Jasper’s absence, Charlie asked where her polite young man was, and she told him Jasper had pneumonia to explain why she had started taking the truck to school again. It was the excuse she’d heard his siblings give to the teachers.

She thought it would be harder, being left for dead by her boyfriend, but the days blurred into one another as she mechanically went through the motions of everyday life. From home to school, from school back home. Charlie would call her down to dinner and she would realize she’d been staring into empty space the whole afternoon.

She wasn’t depressed, though, at least that’s what she told herself and Charlie. There was just a lot to think about.

On the Saturday of the second week, she got a text from an unknown number.

Jasper is back.

A second message popped up under the first, and despite her twisting stomach she smiled for the first time since her birthday.

This is Rosalie. Don’t text me back.

The weak afternoon sun had already fallen behind the treetops, and the headlights sank into the thickening fog. Her hands were shaking on the wheel as she drove up the gravel road, and she wiped her palms on her jeans. She stayed in her seat after killing the engine. After two weeks of thinking, she still hadn’t come up with a plan when she rushed to the truck, guessing she would figure it out once she had Jasper in front of her. She was still wearing a pajama top under her parka.

She had almost gathered the courage to go up to the house, when the wide glass door opened, and Edward walked briskly down the stairs. He was carrying a shiny leather travel bag, and he came to a standstill when he noticed the truck. He must have been out of it not to hear it earlier.

Bella considered ignoring him. At last, his tortured expression morphed her irritation into pity, and she slid out of her seat.

“Hey.”

“Hello, Isa-” He grimaced. “Hello, Bella.”

“Are you leaving?”

“I’m going up to Denali for a while. Carlisle suggested a change of scenery to clear my mind.”

She snorted. “Clear your mind. That’s a funny thing to say to a telepath.”

“I was told my involvement in your relationship might not be appreciated.” He adjusted the starched collar of his shirt, messing it up. “I apologize.”

“It’s kind of overwhelming. I know you mean well, but I don’t need protection. Jasper loves me.”

He stared at the ground. “I know.”

“Did you read that in his mind?” She instantly regretted saying it; it was unfair, accusing him of something he had no control over.

Edward insisted. “Do you love him? How are you ever going to be sure?”

“I don’t know. That’s what love is. I feel it.”

A crow screeched in the distance. Two weeks before she had stood in the same spot with Jasper, but the sky had seemed brighter, full of hope.

I’ll be by your side for however long you’ll let me.

“Is this what you want? You know what he can do, and you will carry the burden of your doubts forever.”

Bella thought better than to deny that. She nodded. “I guess it comes down to trust.”

“Then there is nothing more I can say to change your mind.”

“No. But I hope you find what you’re looking for, Edward.”

“You too, Bella.”

To her horror, he made to move closer, but he froze half-way there, then left without a word. She watched his back disappear into the shaded forest, wondering if she would see him again. It was funny, the mental image of him tearing through the woods with his pristine leather bag. But she couldn’t find it in herself to smile.

When she went to knock, the front door slid open. Esme met her in the entryway.

“You ran into Edward.” She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. Bella wondered just how much she had heard of the conversation, what she thought of the human girl who had brought chaos to their quiet lives.

“Yeah. He just left.”

“Some distance will be good for him. He hasn’t found his own mate yet, this was all quite hard on him.”

Mate, mate, mate. The word resonated in her head, chanted like a spell.

“Honey, I’m so sorry about the other night.” Esme’s voice brought her back to the Cullen’s living room. “I’m not proud of leaving you like that.”

Bella dropped her shoulders. Maybe Esme didn’t hate her for tearing her family apart. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for you guys. But I’m so happy you didn’t leave Forks.”

“I never even considered it.” Esme said firmly. “We’re all glad that you are alright. Human or vampire, you’re part of the family now, and we wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“Thank you.” Bella’s eyes were starting to burn, and she wiped at them briskly. “Listen, is…is Jasper home?”

“Not quite, honey.” Esme reached over and brushed her cold hand along Bella’s cheek. “Emmett came across him in the forest, not far from here. He might feel too ashamed to come home yet. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

“I think I know the way.”

The evening had grown colder while she was inside. Bella rubbed her hands together and left the truck in the driveway, taking one of the many paths that crisscrossed the woods around the house.

It took her longer than usual to reach the meadow. She had gotten a flashlight from the glove compartment, but the forest floor was dark, and she had to feel her way through branches and fallen trees.

“I know you’re here.” Bella tried.

Fallen leaves crunched under her feet, and the wind whispered through naked branches. She felt ridiculous, talking to herself in the woods; Jasper was probably in Canada by now.

She walked out of the forest. The dusk hadn’t turned to night yet, and the weak light bathed everything in blues and greys.

The tall grass wasn’t as thick as it had been that summer, but it still came up to her knees. She almost stepped on him. “Jesus!”

Jasper sat with his back against the huge fallen tree, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was dead. His skin was sallow and the circles under his eyes were darker than ever. She released a breath at the sight of his eyes; she had half-expected to find them red, but they were still golden.

“What the hell, Jasper?” She softly kicked at his shin when he didn’t look up. “Where were you?”

He stared into empty space, and she bent into his field of vision, lifting his chin with a finger.

He shoved her away, as if burned by the contact, and she stumbled into the soft grass behind her. “You shouldn’t be here.” Jasper’s tone was flat.

“Why not?” She said, finding her feet again.

His lack of emotion scared her more than his thirst. She missed the stream of feelings bleeding into hers, mixing like ink in water.

“I almost killed you, Bella.”

She pushed her sleeve up to the elbow to reveal the raised, jagged edges of the worst cut. Carlisle had removed the bandage the day before, leaving the stitches in place. Her stomach turned if she looked too closely. “But you didn’t. And you didn’t almost kill me, either.”

His eyes shot to her arm, then rose to her throat. He shook his head. “I’m leaving Forks.”

“What?”

He stood. “I only came back to get my things. I’m heading down to Texas.”

“Oh, you too?” Bella stifled the spark of rage in her chest. “Shouldn’t you be packing your bags?”

His mask of indifference dropped, and the first tendrils of sadness began to creep towards her.

“Sweetheart, I’m bad for you. Don’t you see?”

“Do you really believe that? Or did Edward put that in your head?”

“Look at what I’ve done.” He slowly stepped forward, as if approaching a wild animal, and turned her arm in his hands, inspecting the stitched gash running from wrist to the inside of her elbow.

She flinched, fighting back the memory of the excruciating pain from the last time he had touched her. “Edward did this! And then you beat the shit out of him because of it. I know you were pretty out of it, but don’t you remember?”

Jasper dropped her arm. “Don’t you?”

He stepped into her space, cradling her jaw with one hand. His head lowered to her neck, and he nosed at the pulsing veins, taking a long breath. When he shifted back, his eyes were dark bottomless pools.

“You’re just trying to scare me away.” She hated that her voice trembled.

“I’m showing you what you want.” His voice was deeper, rougher as he whispered in her ear. “I remember the smell of your blood. Your terrible, delicious blood, and you were covered in it. I would have given everything just to taste one drop. But I wouldn’t have stopped there. I wanted to drain you until my veins were singing with your blood, and for a moment I would have felt alive again. Then I would’ve devoured the rest until there would be no part of you separate from me. That way I would hold you inside me forever.”

His hold on her had gotten tighter as he spoke, and she closed her fingers around his wrist, feeling the raised half-moon bites.

“I got away while every dead cell in me was screaming to go back, to consume you. I ran until my legs gave out.”

“But you came back.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I said I would let you go when you got tired of me.” His hand relaxed, dripping down to the back of her neck. “I’m a goddamn liar, and selfish too. I’m scared of what I’d do to keep you.”

“Good thing I’m not tired of you, then.” She leaned forward, touching her forehead to his. She felt every joint in his marble body melt, and for a moment they were alright again.

Then her arms were empty, and he stood at the far end of the meadow, shaking his head. “You’re not making it easier on me, sweetheart.”

Bella considered the miserable bend to his shoulders. “Edward told me about Alice.”

The air went still.

“Did he?”

“He said you’d use your gift to make me forgive you.”

Jasper’s voice had a hard edge to it. “That’s sure within my powers.”

Bella treaded through tall grass and closed the distance between them. Her pulse beat steady in her ears. “There's nothing to forgive,” she said. “You only hurt me by leaving.”

Jasper’s eyes fell to the ugly row of stitches again. “I could be making you feel like that.”

“No.” She stepped into his space, leaving a few inches between their chests. “I don’t believe you ever did that, not even to Alice.”

“Why?”

“You spent the last weeks running away and rotting on the ground wallowing in self-pity.” She pushed on her tiptoes and brushed a hand through his soft curls. Jasper’s eyes fell shut. “Why don’t you use your gift to make me love you?”

After a moment, she pulled him down to face her, gripping harder than she had ever done. If he’d been human, she would have torn his hair out, but he just looked startled.

“Because right now I hate you, Jasper. I hate that it took you so long to come back, long after your thirst was gone. You told me forever and then threw me away like a toy, your silly human toy to leave behind when you get tired.”

He let himself be pulled around, closing his eyes, a devoted disciple savoring the vicious touch of his god. At his soft sigh she dropped her arm like dead flesh, pushing her head into his hard chest. “I hate that I forgave you before I even walked into this meadow.”

“I love you,” he whispered in her hair.

“I know.” She said, mirroring Edward’s words.

You will carry the burden of your doubts forever.

But forever would be next to Jasper.

Jasper who grinned behind the gym, before handing her a giant bowl of sweet corn; Jasper who wrote in fountain pen in dog-eared paperbacks, frowning with concentration; Jasper covered in flour in her kitchen, making a pizza he wouldn’t eat; Jasper kissing his way up her thighs, smiling under the skirt of her summer dress.

He was the lightest weight to carry. She would do it gladly.

The heavy heart she’d been dragging around suddenly lifted. She smiled, because he must have felt it before she even said it.

“I love you too.”

She opened her arms, blindly, and he was in them, around her, everywhere at once. Pulling him by the hair again, she went for his mouth, but he got to her first.

She knew the shape of his mouth, the smoothness of his skin, the way he licked her lower lip to pry her open. But it was also new, the hunger in his hands, the spark of teeth at the corner of her jaw, the dark territory of unexplored lust they were charting.

She grabbed his shirt and untucked it, frantic fingers creeping underneath to meet scarred skin, not knowing where to touch first. Her quick breaths sounded obscene in the darkness, his touch coming from all directions, unpredictable, igniting her skin and leaving her weak at the knees.

When they came apart, her lips burning a little, the meadow was pitch black. Not even moonlight made it through the thick layer of clouds. She burrowed into his arms, even though his skin was colder than the night.

He brushed a hand on her cheek. “You’re freezing.”

“You’re one to talk.” She felt her way to his wrist, clenching fingers around it with all her might. “You’re coming back with me.”

“Well, since you leave me no choice.” His crystalline laughter filled the night. He pulled her in again, laying heavy arms around her and resting his chin on top of her head. “Never again, sweetheart. I swear.”

She nodded against his chest, leaning heavily on him. Her injuries, the steep hike to the meadow, and the rollercoaster of emotions of the past weeks had left her tired to the bone.

Soon she would need to ask him about Edward, about Alice, about mates. But now she wanted her flannel bed sheets, and Jasper in them.

“Good,” she said. “Now let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

October 2005

Rain beat hard on his shoulders as he scaled the side of the Chief’s house and let himself in. Cold air drifted inside as he swung both legs through the window; the room must have been cold for human standard, though he couldn’t really tell.

Jasper stepped through scattered paperbacks and a lonely sock on the way to her bed. Sleep had gotten rid of the defiance she had shown earlier, leaving behind peach soft cheeks, her lovely mouth. He stood at the foot of the bed, watching her chest rise and fall with each deep breath. She didn’t snore, he had made that up to make her laugh, but her bitten lips were slightly open.

She turned on her back, blinking twice before focusing on him. He felt her spike of fear, before it quickly turned into a small smile.

“Took your sweet time.” She turned over the duvet, shifting to the side to make space for him. “Come here.”

“You’ll catch a cold, sweetheart.” But his drenched coat was already off, and he quickly shed the rest of his clothes, leaving a neat pile on the carpet.

At last, he stood over her, and he almost felt the warmth of her love on his dead skin. He briefly wondered if she would’ve found him attractive in his first, human body.

“Then you’ll have to nurse me back to health,” she laughed softly, grabbing for him.

He stepped out of her reach, bending to search the pocket of his jacket. “Just a second.”

She sat up, blankets pooling at her waist. “What is it?”

He held up the silver-wrapped package. After the meadow, he had gone to his room to retrieve it while Bella drove the truck home.

“Your birthday present. You never opened it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, something else came up.” She weighted the book-shaped gift, passing it between her hands. “I hope it’s rollerskates.”

“That’s right,” Jasper deadpanned, reaching for the present. “I have to take ‘em back now.”

She laughed, shoving him away, though he didn’t move an inch. She carefully pulled at the silver wrapping paper, folding it before laying it on the bedside table.

Her hands dropped to her sides. The first edition of Wuthering Heights sat harmless in her lap.

“Jasper…” She said at last. “I can’t…it’s too much.”

Nothing is ever going to be enough, he thought, but said instead, “It was gathering dust in Carlisle’s office. You’ll appreciate it much more than any of us could.”

“But…”

“It’s yours.” He gently took her hand and rested it on the worn leather cover. “I hope you like it.”

She gently brushed her fingertips over the gold leaf sloping letters, before setting the book to the side. Her eyes met his as she sent him the most delicate smile.

“Thank you, Jasper.”

She curled deep into his embrace, laying light kisses over his face. Her thanks only stopped when she fell asleep in his arms; her exhaustion bled into him, a queerly human sensation that weighted on his eyelids, until they closed for a moment with hers.

He watched a strip of moonlight travel across the room. Her back rose and fell against his chest with each slow breath. All the ways she was human would never fail to amaze him. Every blush was a gift, the way sharing her feelings was a gift he would never stop being grateful for.

The humans he’d killed as the Major, not for sustenance but out of cruelty, the ones he’d murdered even before Maria came along and made him into the monster he was-none of that must have mattered; there must be no God, or if there was, he was a cruel one, to reward Jasper’s terrible deeds with her.

He must have been a saint in a past life, a martyr burned at the stake, to deserve to be a witness to her life. He’d spent most of his cursed existence trying to outrun a guilty conscience; he had never been this close to peace.

There was Alice, for a while, and he’d thought the lukewarm comfort she’d provided was the best he was ever going to get; he’d thought she was his mate. She must have thought that, too. And yet, she had left like the others, and the weight of the world had collapsed on him, because for once he was not the villain of the story, had nothing to add to his endless list of sins.

When Alice’s love had started to wane, when he was no longer impressive and new, she assumed he had influenced her from the start, that they had never had a bond to begin with. She had fled in fear of his gift, putting an ocean between them, and he let her go with the sinking realization that he was alone, again, with the black bottomless void of his conscience.

He graduated, again and again. He pushed himself to live half a life, if that even counted as living, the empty repetition of dull human tasks waiting for a death that would never come. He stayed with the Cullens out of inertia, though some of them believed him to be even more of a monster than he was.

After Alice had left, he’d vowed never to use his gift anymore, though it felt like cutting off one of his own limbs.

But then it was winter again, and the red truck had slid into the parking lot for the first time; Edward’s frightened thirst had reached him in tidal waves, kill, mine, kill. Jasper had pushed calm into him like he’d once pushed rage into Maria’s newborns, with vicious determination.

He’d taken Edward’s place in biology, first out of curiosity for his brother’s newfound mate, then because he knew from her first awkward smile that she could not be Edward’s at all.

The world realigned on its axis on that January day. After that, it became harder not to use his gift.

That first time hadn’t been on purpose. The van had been quick, even to his heightened senses, and he’d acted out of instinct. Feeling her sinking into a panic attack, he’d projected calm into her, and he would have cried if he could; touching his mate’s soul felt like coming home after a long war.

He’d had to force himself to stop and leave her to the paramedics, and he’d felt Carlisle’s concern both through his eyes and his empathy.  

After the blood test, he’d comforted her again, because he couldn’t handle seeing her in pain, and the remedy came so easy.

 Another time when she hurt herself in the meadow running away from him. Through the agonizing burn in his throat, dread had filled every inch of him, because she was finally seeing the monster he was. For a terrible moment, he was alone again.

But she had appeared between the trees, limping yet unbroken. She’d come back, despite his rotten soul, and what could he do if not take away the pain he’d caused.

That spring he’d been born anew, her forgiveness a stronger power than he could ever claim, shaping him into someone worthy of love.

“I love you,” he said.

He felt her heartbeat speed up, and he watched as she hesitated. Her emotions were still a mess of anger and mistrust and affection and hope.

And if he had to remind her sometimes, what a perfect match they were, if he had to lead her away from doubt, well. He would do anything to make her see.

He reached out with his gift, pulling on the loosened strings of their bond. Her brow relaxed and she melted in a soft smile.

“I love you too.”