L'Etre et L'Ame CHAPTER VII A Twilight Fanfiction
A/N In this story, the “Alpha” leader among the werewolves/shapeshifters does not wield incontrovertible power over the pack. This is more in keeping with most native traditions-a chief is not a dictator, he governs by persuasion, not fiat. Furthermore, (and more selfishly), my story works better this way.
CHAPTER VII
Jasper cursed himself for not getting his pilot license when Edward had. He deplaned at Sea/Tac, brushing past the faceless, staggering travelers with fussy children, wishing he could throw caution to the wind and simply sprint down the terminal. When he finally escaped the airport, Jasper pulled a car heist worthy of his mate, and sped his way toward her.
Alice’s voice had trembled over the phone line. Actually trembled, and it twisted Jasper’s guts to remember.
“It was stupid,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”
Jasper’s head practically spun. Carlisle’s name had been the one to appear on the phone’s screen, and that was his first inkling that something was very wrong.
There had been two attacks that day, Carlisle explained. The first was on a human, a hiker near Weyforth’s Bend.
“A nomad?” hissed Jasper.
“Looks like Victoria. The Quileute apparently caught Laurent several days back. . . .” Carlisle let Jasper’s imagination fill in the details. “So the tribe was even more anxious to have us leave. They think our presence is just bringing in more of our kind. They’re probably right,” he admitted wearily. Carlisle’s was careful as he spoke, thinking through his words. Too careful.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“The Quileute thought one of us had done it-had killed the hiker. Or at least, one of the pack boys did.”
“And?”
Carlisle’s voice grew thick with emotion. “Alice went to Charlie’s tonight. I had no idea--”
“Is she okay? Let me speak to her!”
“She’s here, Jasper. Hold on.” It felt like an eternity as the phone changed hands; Jasper’s insides twisted as if he were being wrung out. He heard Alice’s soft pant of breath across the miles as she put the phone to her ear.
“Alice? Darlin’? Are you okay?”
“Jasper!”
“Hon, what happened? Are you ok?”
“I’m sorry. It was stupid. I went to Bell-Charlie’s,” she began. “I wanted to get some things for her. It was going to be a surprise. I could practically see how happy it would make her-to have some mementos of her human life. Charlie was on patrol, so I didn’t think it would be a problem.” It was a blur of words, and Jasper couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Alice was impulsive sometimes, in spite of-- or perhaps because of her “gift,”-- but this went beyond the pale.
“Alice?” He felt his temper slipping. It was easier to deal with anger than fear, now that he knew she was safe, and not somewhere reduced to a smoldering pile ashes and violet smoke. “What happened, Alice?”
“He was there waiting when I came down from the window. The wind was blowing the wrong way, so I never even caught scent him,” she explained hurriedly. “He thought I was fair game after the killing. . .”
“Alice!”
“My. . . arm,” the word was barely a sigh, dropping from her mouth like a smooth pebble. “I got away, but the wolf. . . he took my arm.” This time, he heard the sob.
Jasper’s perfect legs gave out on him, and he crashed to his knees.
“Hon. Are you. . .in pain?” He dreaded the answer. Everything in her voice said she was hurting, but Alice lied.
“It’s not too bad, Jasper. I promise. Everything is going to be okay, I don’t want you to do anything rash!”
The weight of it poured over him, knocking the air from his lungs as if he were thrown beneath Niagara Falls. There were so many things he wanted to ask her: how she had gotten away; what had been done with her arm, if she knew--but he couldn’t bring himself to articulate the questions to her. She was alive, and she had come so close to leaving him.
“Hon, I’m coming to you right now.”
“No! There’s nothing for you to do here, we’re trying to work it out!”
“You stay there. Don’t do anything! Please, darlin’. Let me talk to Carlisle.”
“No, you talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. You should be out of there already. Now, let me talk to Carlisle!” he commanded coldly.
Jasper could imagine the shock on her face. He had never spoken to Alice in such a tone, but he had never been so frightened before either. There was a growing ache in his gut and he pressed a fist to his belly. He asked the question as soon as he heard Carlisle draw breath on the other side.
“She didn’t see it coming?”
Carlisle’s words were heavy with regret and reluctance when he finally replied. “She can’t see anything, Jasper; not about the wolves.”
Jasper clenched his fist so tightly it would have broken bones. Alice hadn’t told him that. She hadn’t given the faintest inkling that her vision was limited in that way, and the anger that had been simmering under the surface of his fear boiled over.
“And you didn’t tell me?” he demanded. “What the hell have you been doing down there all this time, Carlisle? I can’t understand half of the decisions you’ve made over the last year, but I’m damn sure you made the wrong one in not letting us kill Bella at the outset. None of this would have happened-none of it!-if you’d done the rational thing instead of pulling the higher-angels-of-our-nature-shit you like so much.” Carlisle didn’t try to interrupt, and Jasper gave him no opportunity to respond. “I’m coming right now, and I’m getting Alice out of there! You can do whatever the hell you like.”
Jasper was good as his word. It wasn’t two minutes later and he was speeding his way to Fairbanks in Irina’s Audi, watching the speedometer needle twitch at 110.
He realized too late he hadn’t told Alice he loved her. But on second thought, Jasper was glad he hadn’t; it might have sounded too hopeless, like he didn’t expect to be able to say it to her again.
* * * * *
There wasn’t a way to get there fast enough, but the time on the road gave Jasper some thinking room.
He still couldn’t understand Carlisle’s choices of the last year, but he regretted speaking as he had. As deeply as he felt toward the other members of the vampire clan, Jasper did not have a maternal and paternal love toward Esme and Carlisle. Alice had been young and lost, and desired the mother and father she couldn’t remember, in addition to a soul-mate and lover, but Jasper had been a soldier, and a grown-man-or close enough that it made no difference. He was the oldest member of the coven, save Carlisle, that would have been difficult if the de facto Patriarch hadn’t been the leader and decent man he was.
Yes, there was a love between the two men, and a careful respect as well. Jasper played son for the sake of appearances, but couldn’t feel the role. At times he wished he could, if only to resolve some of the dissonance of the relationship.
Now, he was glad he couldn’t. It would be easier to do what he had to do without a crippling sense of familial obligation. If the Carlisle and the Cullens wanted to stay and work out with the humans and the wolves, they’d be welcome. All he had to do was get into the house, get Alice and then get away. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep the wolves completely at bay, but he might be able to keep tensions low enough that it wouldn’t come to a fight.
He drove with the window down, testing the air continually for the oppressive, fusty scent of werewolf. Two miles from the house, the air was saturated with the scent, and Jasper understood that the house was under siege.
A sharp corner at the end of the drive forced him to slow to 30, and an enormous shadow appeared suddenly in front of him. He slammed on the breaks, but not soon enough to keep the front-end from crunching against the wolf’s side. From the trees on the driver’s side came the form of a tall man, and Jasper blinked. The wolf in front of the car bristled, but did not attack, and the man beckoned for him to step out of the car. Jasper could feel hostility and a cool anger, but there seemed to be no fear of immediate violence. Not from this man at least. Out among the hissing tree was where the threat truly lay. Jasper had no idea how many wolves were hiding in the darkness off the edge of the road. The numbers alone made him second-guess his ability to control them. He wondered which had taken Alice’s arm, and had to repress the sudden surge of violence that rose in him.
Easy now, he told himself. There is no room for carelessness here. There will be no quarter if things fly apart.
The man on the road spoke without raising his voice. He must have known Jasper would not need to be yelled at, even seated inside of the vehicle.
“I want to speak to you, standing face to face as men. No one will hurt you as we speak.”
After another long moment, assiduously testing the man’s mood Jasper swung open the door. He rose slowly from his seat, physically sizing up the young man now, taking in the broad shoulders and serious eyes. Jasper stood with the door open, backed up against the car. He had never met Sam Uley, but it was easy enough to match the name from Alice’s letter to the man standing before him now. Jasper had the feeling that the man facing him would have been just as confident and calm had he not been backed up by who knows how many of the other Quileute men. He also wasn’t sure he liked what that meant for him, but Jasper had to respect Sam’s demeanor and well-fitting authority.
“You’re the one who killed Bella.”
There wasn’t a good way to answer that. Jasper gave a slow nod, but said, “Bella is in Alaska. You can speak with her if you like.”
“It was her choice, to be a vampire?”
“She wanted to be with Edward.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “She wanted you to kill her?”
Jasper bit back a denial. “I was out of control,” he admitted. “It was unintentional, but the fault still lies with me. No one else.”
Sam seemed to be looking through him. “I spoke with Bella several hours ago.” It took Jasper by surprise, and Sam continued. “We have every right to kill every last one of you, but as you say the fault for her death lies on you. . . .” Jasper wondered if Sam expected him to simply lie down and let the pack tear him to ribbons, and he tried desperately to gauge the man’s emotions. It was apparent that Sam’s goal would not be ruled by his spleen, though, and he wasn’t going to be emotionally manipulated. Instead, Jasper focused his skill on the invisible wolves in the bushes, and a shaggy rust colored beast that had appeared further down the drive.
Sam crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing Jasper with increasing suspicion. “Bella also gave me a very passionate argument for not killing you,” he said.
“Oh.”
Jasper had been doing his best to dull everything inside of him save the necessity of getting to Alice, and it surprised him how powerfully the feeling came upon him when Sam mentioned Bella’s name-a fierce protectiveness and fondness that did not rival those he felt for Alice, but strong, and all the more profound because he hadn’t expected them. Then, for some reason he was unwilling to examine, Jasper pushed down and locked them away.
“We have killed one of your kind already. The Cullens say his name was Laurent, and they claim that this Laurent and Victoria were the one responsible for the recent killings. We’ve been tracking the both of them for several weeks.”
That took Jasper by surprise. How many killings had there been? How much had Alice been keeping from him?
“We spotted Laurent several times before actually destroying him. We’ve never even caught sight of this Victoria.” Jasper could feel how hard it was for Sam to admit this, and he saw a glimmer of hope, not just for freeing Alice, but perhaps for restoring her as well.
“She may be gifted. A talent for evasion,” Jasper offered.
Again, there was a very faint nod, and something like a smirk twitched on Sam’s lips. “A talent? Like yours.”
Ah, thought Jasper, so Sam wasn’t oblivious to his effect on the rest of his pack.
“I have experience tracking and killing our kind,” he said. “I could help you track her-Victoria, if you’ll allow me to. Then we’ll leave.” This earned him an angry snap from the wolf at the front of the car.
“Why would we want your help?”
“I mean no disrespect whatsoever,” Jasper said, “but you haven’t even seen her yet.” And why would you have offered this information if you hadn’t had similar thoughts? But Jasper wisely held his tongue.
The large black wolf bristled, and the rust-colored wolf lowered his head in a stalking posture.
Sam spoke a sharp syllable Jasper didn’t recognize and the wolf stopped growling, though the threatening posture didn’t ease.
“Do you think you can catch her?” Sam asked him.
“Yes,” he said, careful to mask any of the doubt he felt from his voice. He had a head for tracking and hunting, but the bagging of prey was never a sure thing. “What about . . . my mate.” Try as he might, Jasper wasn’t able to keep the hitch from his throat. “She said, she was. . . wounded.”
The black wolf made a whoofing noise that might have been a snicker, and Jasper wanted to tear into him so hard, a red haze filled his head. He knew that control was vital now, if his slipped, so would that of the Quileute. Sam snapped his arm angrily toward the wolf, who turned his head away, rebuffed.
"Forty-eight hours. That’s it. If you’re able to help us kill this Victoria, your mate will have her arm back, and you’ll all leave. Immediately.”
Jasper knew better than ask what would happen on the flip side of that coin. He also wondered whether or not this had been Sam’s plan all along.
The damage to the front of the car was minimal, and Jasper was aware of the heavy, lurking shadows of several wolves as they escorted his car to the house. Everyone was waiting for him in the living room, Edward, Carlisle, Esme and Alice, whether forewarned by Edward’s mind-reading or hearing the car rumble down the drive, he didn’t know.
But Jasper had eyes for Alice alone.
She seemed smaller than he remembered her, and frightened and fierce as a cornered badger. Her black hair contrast starkly against the white of the couch, and her eyes flashed gold and ebony as he ran to her.
She threw herself into him, and Jasper gathered her close, careful not to pull her off balance, as she adjusted to the new balance of her body. He felt her tiny cry against his shoulder.
He breathed her name into her hair. “Alice.”
“I’m all right. I’m all right now that you’re here.”
* * * * *
There was no such thing as a private conversation in the Cullen home. Not with vampire hearing, or Edward within a three-mile radius. So members of the Forks family gave space when it was needed, looking away or ignoring intimate moments that couldn’t be avoided, or simply accepting a certain amount of intrusiveness of everyday living. And though Alice and Jasper weren’t often physically demonstrative around the others, there wasn’t anything normal about what was going on right now.
Jasper held Alice on the couch for as long as he was able, breathing her in, rememorizing the familiar sound of her breathing, the smell of her head and baby-soft whisps of hair at the nape of her neck. These were as familiar to him as his own skin, but his heart torn at the new strangeness of her body. The way she sat heavily against him, pitched slightly to her left side, as she had not yet learned to compensate completely to the lightness of her right.
Eventually, she tucked her head under his jaw, and pressed her lips to his collarbone, and Jasper forced himself to look into the rest of the room. The first face he saw was Edward’s. He was standing several feet from the end of the couch; his eyes were dulled, but fixed upon the couch arm. When they finally flickered up into Jasper’s, Edward spoke with an effort.
“How is Bella?” he asked softly.
“She’s well. And she misses you.”
Edward’s eyes pinched closed, and he slumped against the wall behind him, overcome with. . . relief? Jasper couldn’t fathom it. He often found Edward’s brooding tiresome, as much as he loved his little brother. It wasn’t healthy how he obsessed, but did he really doubt Bella’s love for him? Edward was more of a mess than ever, not only emotionally frayed, but physically as well. His hair was a mess he hadn’t deliberately created; there was too of the disheveled in the chic-but-disheveled look he tried to cultivate. How long would it take for him to snap totally?
“And they’ve all treated her well?” Edward asked, opening his eyes. Jasper knew he was asking mostly about Tanya, but was tactful enough to couch it. He tried to snag the memory before it surfaced, but Edward had plucked it from his head as if he hadn’t even made the effort. Edward sucked in a pained hiss and rubbed an angry hand through his hair.
“How?” he hissed, face contorted with grief as well as anger. “How could Tanya do such a thing?”
“It doesn’t matter now, it’s done. And Bella’s fine, Edward.” Better than Alice, he thought. He placed another kiss on her brow and let himself be distracted for the moment by her nearness and the weight of her in his arms.
“But you left her there?” the question was unwelcome, but Jasper tolerated it.
“You didn’t really want me to bring her into this, did you?”
Edward looked away and wiped his hand over his face. “No. Thank you.”
Jasper laid his cheek against Alice’s. “I’ll have go for just a little bit,” he said softly to her ear, but she pulled away to fix him with her eyes. “I know. I would come too, if I could.”
“I know you would,” he said, brushing a hand through her hair. His Alice would have hunted Victoria, pain or no, missing arm or whole, but the scent of the venom might well have driven the young wolves completely wild.
“I’ll come too. Just tell me what you want me to do,” Edward said flatly.
“As will I,” Carlisle said. He was turned away from them, staring out the picture window. His arm was above his head, braced along the window frame, his eyes on the distant silhouettes of wolf forms slinking through the trees.
Jasper blew out a long breath, again regretting his earlier outburst in this cooler moment. He knew Carlisle’s offer wasn’t based on guilt. As much as he abhorred violence, he knew where the field lay, and Carlisle would have made the offer even without the upbraiding Jasper had given him.
Nevertheless, for a fleeting moment, Jasper wanted to throw in back in his face. It was this sort of sensitivity and weakness, (for sometimes he wondered if it was) that had got them into this situation. It was a sore temptation to refuse help for the sheer, bitter spite of it. It would be stupidity though, and Carlisle’s life depended on these two days' work as much as anyone’s.
“Whatever they’ll stand for,” Jasper said, tossing a glance to the window. “It’s all up to what the wolves’ll accept, but I’ll be glad for the help.”
“I want to help, too,” Esme said. She slipped arm around the small of Carlisle’s back and she leaned against him, offering him the comfort and support of her body.
“You can,” said Jasper. “The best way for you to help is to stay here with Alice. She can’t be here alone, it leaves us too spread out.”
For the first time that night, Jasper’s and Carlisle’s eyes met, and it was a small look of gratitude that passed from the older vampire to the younger, and something else that he didn’t have a word for.
Jasper wished Rosalie and Emmett were there, and Alice was making wishes of her own.
“I’d give. . .my other arm to see something,” she said, trying, in vain, to make light of her hurt. “I hate this! What if it’s some sort of trap?”
All heads turned to Edward.
“They just want to be rid of us,” he said. “And they want Victoria dead.” The sneer as he said the name proved that Edward’s desires and those of the Quileute were perfectly aligned on this point.
“Then we’ve got forty-eight hours to make it happen,” Jasper said. Before rising, he let himself savor one final moment with Alice pressed against his breast, her hair tickling his throat. He wondered if he were feeling the same imbalance she was.