Eight Seasons - Epilogue
This is the epilogue for Eight Seasons, unless you've been reading it at fanfiction.net , you won't understand this.
**A/N: Ok, so if you're reading this, it means you weren't very fond of my Jasper/Bella ending on Eight Seasons, and I'm sending you the Epilogue I'd originally intended on being the ending. Now, in order to truly and seriously enjoy this ending, you MUST - I repeat MUST go to YouTube and type in "Pieces by Red" and play that song while listening to it. Preferrably the version posted by 'HouseMagician', becuase it includes the whole intro, and the lyrics. Not that you're going to read them, you're going to go start the song, then come back and start reading. Trust me, the song goes with the beginning of the story. Seriously. So go find it & play it....it's ok. Go,....we'll wait....................
Ok, great - now read.**
epilogue
A Passing Storm
Eight Seasons, Alice promised, Edward honored, Jasper accepted and I fought. Eight Season's first enforced, then chosen. Four years afterward, to the day, we drove through the dappled and filtered light of the forest surrounding Forks, WA. We passed the old high school, where another group of confused and mostly ignorant kids milled around the parking lot. They waited for life, realization and wisdom to strike them, like fate's bullet. They knew it would either kill them, or send them hurtling towards another destination.
The sun filtered down through the clouds, and the trees, as we passed Newton's, and the station where Charlie would be sitting behind a desk, milling over paper, or working on taunting his deputy into going on a food run. We wound slowly through the trees to the old familiar break just outside of town. Turning onto the Cullen's driveway I felt a drawing feeling in my stomach, butterflies. It'd been so long since I'd felt anything like it that I didn't recognize it. The car nosed through the trunks of the surrounding trees as we made our way down the driveway to the house.
We pulled up out front, and I sat in the car staring at the front window of the house, it looked much as it had when I'd come here during the time that Edward had left me after my disastrous 18th birthday and all its long reaching consequences. It looked empty inside, and I felt as much like an outsider sitting in the car as I had then. I kept looking at it until Jasper's body blocked the car window and my view of the house. He pulled the door open and stooped down to a crouching position. He took my hand, and held it gently, rubbing his thumb across the tops of my fingers tenderly, slowly. He remained there a moment searching my eyes.
"Bella, I'm still not one-hundred percent sure we should be here for this, if you're unsure too, I think we could easily turn around and head back to Ottawa. It's your decision." He looked into my eyes, his own a deep golden that reflected the shadows of the overcast day. As we remained looking into each other's eyes in indecision, we heard the sound of the front door slowly opening. Jasper stood up, pulling me up with him, and as I stepped around him, he stepped back. Our eyes held one anothers one moment longer. He looked at me questioningly, we both nodded in agreement, and turned. We faced the front of the house as Edward and Alice stepped out onto the patio, and stood at the top of the steps leading down to the driveway.
No one spoke.
____________________________________
The four of them stood there, looking across a few feet of dirt driveway at each other as though they were seeing a physical manifestation of all the days and months they'd spent apart between them. None of them spoke, none of them moved, only their habits of fidgeting proving they weren't statuary. The initial moment extended out into a drawn out cessation of breath. There was no sound anywhere in the house. Esme stood next to me gripping my hand tightly as I held hers between my own. I knew Emmett and Rosalie were somewhere upstairs waiting to see what was going to happen as well.
A breeze kicked up outside, stirring leaves, and dust around Bella and Jasper's feet, blowing Bella's hair away from her face, while blowing Jasper's slightly across his. The sound of it howled through the open doorway, and under the eaves of the patio. A small dirt devil whirled and twisted its way across the driveway and died out as it beat itself against the stairs of the patio. As though its death gave life to the two couples, Jasper dropped his keys and began striding quickly across the dirt driveway at the same moment that Edward glided swiftly from the step to Bella's side. Just as Jasper reached the bottom step, Alice leaped from the top step into his waiting arms. They crushed one another into themselves. Edward had Bella's face in his hand and his lips pressed crushingly against hers.
Esme gasped and turning, leaned against my shoulder and gave in to shuddering sobs of relief. I heard Rosalie laugh upstairs, and Emmett actually whooped.
I heard the back door open and Renesmee and Jacob walked into the hallway. Renesmee stepped in and seeing Esme sobbing on my shoulder froze with a terrified look on her face. I looked at her and recognized her mistaken view of what she saw. I said her name softly, as I shook my head negatively and motioned for her to join us at the window.
Renesmee crossed the living room quickly to stand beside Esme and I at the window, Jacob rolled his eyes and came up to stand behind her. He had his hands on the top of her shoulders, as if supporting her and keeping her together. I looked at him and silently thanked him for keeping these women whole, so they could make my family whole.
*~*~*
I didn't know. For the first time I could remember, for that one moment before Jasper's and my eyes met, I didn't know if it was going to work. I couldn't see it.
There was no way anything could change my love for Jasper, nothing was going to stop it, but once I looked into his eyes I knew we were finished letting anything come between us. Jasper held me tightly against him and carried me to the wall where he pressed me against the front wall of the house and, letting me slide down, kissed me. Our lips hadn't touched in over two years. Not since the last night Bella gave us, when she stayed with Edward before all the mess happened, when Edward had overheard Carlisle talking to Jasper about the Ottawa house and the whole family had gone into a tailspin when my foolish brother had tried again to off himself. Again. It was the kiss of a starving man and a body of water. He broke the kiss reluctantly and stepped back. He looked at my face as if he was remembering what it meant to see me after being blind, which wouldn't have been a bad analogy for how I felt about the last year and a half. After Jasper and Bella had returned to Ottawa, and Edward and I had left for Paris with Renesmee, Charlie, and Jacob in tow, I'd stopped being able to see.
Nothing was clear, and we all suffered from my lack of certainty about the futures I saw.
I looked into Jasper's eyes as I heard Bella and Edward's footsteps ascending the porch steps. Neither Jasper nor I were willing to look away. I was waiting to hear Edward's voice, so I was surprised when it was Bella's that I heard.
*~*~*
As had always been the case, Jasper and Alice were having a moment so private, that it felt almost voyeuristic to be seeing it. For the sake of my own feelings about modesty, I said Jasper's name, hoping it would be enough still, to distract him. I was momentarily pleased to see that it was, but this moment belonged to Alice, so my moment of triumph was fleeting.
"Jasper?" I said quietly, respectfully. He looked up almost immediately and looked at me sadly. For some reason that made no sense at the time, we both laughed. Alice and I got the giggles, and the laughter took over. Looking back on it later, I think we were all laughing in relief. I think all four of us had feared we'd pushed everything too far, moved too far away to ever return to home. Somehow the laughter let us blow it all away. It became a passing storm.
Edward stepped forward and hugged Jasper, they stood with their arms around each other's shoulders and their hands clasped around each other's wrists. Edward spoke first, "Thank you brother, thank you for taking her away and taking good care of her, but most of all, thank you for bringing her back."
"Repay me by never forgetting for one moment of your existence, how special Bella is. I didn't love her by default, there are reasons why I feel it so deeply."
"I won't argue with such sensible recommendations," Edward said.
"Yes you will, but for once I won't let it go," Jasper chuckled.
*~*~*
According to Alice and Edward, Paris didn't turn out as nicely as they had hoped it would. Apparently Renesmee could only keep Edward occupied for so long, and Alice could only take everyone shopping or shop herself so many times. Edward had tormented himself past coherency. After the month with everyone in Paris, Edward had travelled on to other countries in an effort to occupy himself. It hadn't worked out well for anyone. Renesmee had stayed in touch with Edward and Bella both, to her credit she hadn't brought up the split, she still spoke amicably with Jasper, the only one who she seemed resolved on not speaking to was Alice.
Alice hurt every day, now not only because she missed Jasper, who she'd let go of, but now also because Renesmee seemed to blame her for everything. I watched with great sadness the day Edward returned to Forks. He'd come through the front door a shell, he'd returned the greeting Esme and I gave him, but there was no life in him as he did so. He hugged Esme perfunctorily, and she turned to me immediately afterward, her lovely face crumpled in disappointment. He'd said hello to all of us. Held Renesmee for several long moments, nodded to Jacob, ascended the winding staircase, and walking into his room, shut the door on everything.
There was no laughter in my home for several months. When Edward had returned there were still ten months to go, and as each month wore by, at a snails pace, Edward became more reserved, Renesmee more nervous, Jacob less mirthful and Alice's pain seemed to grow tenfold at every turn. I felt a palpable ache when Bella and Jasper phoned, each sounding pleasant and happy, enjoying the life they'd made for themselves in Ottawa far away from the broken hearts littering the various rooms of our home. I couldn't have known then that Bella and Jasper, though content, were suffering from the separation as well. The only difference being that they had accepted that they'd made a commitmet to each other for that eight season term. It gave them a measure of contentment Alice and Edward were missing, also, each of the latter were avoiding seeking any sort of solace in each other. Whenever Alice and Edward started on the subject of Bella and Jasper, they fought. This drove Esme to grief, never had the two of them fought before, Edward and Alice had always been so beautifully connected by their respective abilities.
It was Renesmee, and Jacob, they'd been the ones to pull the pieces of my broken family back together again. While on the phone with Bella, she'd recognized things which led her to know her Mom wasn't being honest about what she felt about the separation, and when she badgered her Dad, Edward, for the reasons behind what had happened, Renesmee had been furious with him. She'd phoned Bella, it was about a month before the last month of the second eight season mark.
Renesmee had told Bella the truth of Edward's mindset during the months apart. He'd been on a hunting trip, so wasn't there to stop her. We all tried to, but too late. Whatever Renesmee said, it had worked. Bella had phoned Edward later that night. Neither would admit what they'd said, wouldn't even speak about it, but Edward's attitude became even more irascible. Alice had come down to talk to Edward about one of the phone calls, they'd gone out front to speak to each other privately, Alice had returned inside and spoken to no one for several days.
Finally the day arrived, the day Jasper and Bella were meant to return to the house following their Bella-imposed eight season mark.
Until the moment Jasper and Alice had embraced, and Edward had more or less glued himself to Bella, none of us had known what the future would hold.
After things were worked out, I was briefly concered that perhaps the tension of the situation would force them apart, fortunately I was most certainly wrong. It seems the situation served to make them all closer. The four of them, Alice and Jasper, Edward and Bella, became a private quartet. Over the years it developed into the closest relationship I've ever witnessed, and I never again saw any difficulties arise agian. Bella and Jasper continued to love each other deeply, but kept it outside the physical realm from then on. Of course, there was once, about four years after the final reunion, Edward told me a story from a few days before.
"We were walking through the meadow on the otherside of the river in the back yard. We were walking in a line, abreast of each other. I held Bella's hand, she had Jasper's, he held Alice's on his other side. Alice was nagging Jasper about needing to buy him a few more pairs of jeans. Jasper turned to Bella, lifted her hand and kissed it, then looked at her seriously and asked, "Since Alice wants to harangue me about shopping all the time, are you ready to take another two year hiatus with me in Ottawa, Bella?" Edward had laughed loudly and uncontrollably when relating this. He said Alice yanked her hand out of Jasper's and hit him so hard in the stomach that he almost flipped, but landed on his back, on the ground instead. She'd stood over him in a green skirt, green top, with little green flats, her hair spiking everywhere, and her hands on her hips. Jasper gasped, "It was a joke, Peter Pan." And they'd all laughed, Alice had walked away arm in arm with Bella, glaring back at Jasper occasionally.
Apparently, Alice didn't see any more visions of Jasper and Bella together, or if she has, she's never mentioned them again.
- THE END -
**A/N: Ok, so if you're reading this, it means you weren't very fond of my Jasper/Bella ending on Eight Seasons, and I'm sending you the Epilogue I'd originally intended on being the ending. Now, in order to truly and seriously enjoy this ending, you MUST - I repeat MUST go to YouTube and type in "Pieces by Red" and play that song while listening to it. Preferrably the version posted by 'HouseMagician', becuase it includes the whole intro, and the lyrics. Not that you're going to read them, you're going to go start the song, then come back and start reading. Trust me, the song goes with the beginning of the story. Seriously. So go find it & play it....it's ok. Go,....we'll wait....................
Click to viewOk, great - now read.**
epilogue
A Passing Storm
Eight Seasons, Alice promised, Edward honored, Jasper accepted and I fought. Eight Season's first enforced, then chosen. Four years afterward, to the day, we drove through the dappled and filtered light of the forest surrounding Forks, WA. We passed the old high school, where another group of confused and mostly ignorant kids milled around the parking lot. They waited for life, realization and wisdom to strike them, like fate's bullet. They knew it would either kill them, or send them hurtling towards another destination.
The sun filtered down through the clouds, and the trees, as we passed Newton's, and the station where Charlie would be sitting behind a desk, milling over paper, or working on taunting his deputy into going on a food run. We wound slowly through the trees to the old familiar break just outside of town. Turning onto the Cullen's driveway I felt a drawing feeling in my stomach, butterflies. It'd been so long since I'd felt anything like it that I didn't recognize it. The car nosed through the trunks of the surrounding trees as we made our way down the driveway to the house.
We pulled up out front, and I sat in the car staring at the front window of the house, it looked much as it had when I'd come here during the time that Edward had left me after my disastrous 18th birthday and all its long reaching consequences. It looked empty inside, and I felt as much like an outsider sitting in the car as I had then. I kept looking at it until Jasper's body blocked the car window and my view of the house. He pulled the door open and stooped down to a crouching position. He took my hand, and held it gently, rubbing his thumb across the tops of my fingers tenderly, slowly. He remained there a moment searching my eyes.
"Bella, I'm still not one-hundred percent sure we should be here for this, if you're unsure too, I think we could easily turn around and head back to Ottawa. It's your decision." He looked into my eyes, his own a deep golden that reflected the shadows of the overcast day. As we remained looking into each other's eyes in indecision, we heard the sound of the front door slowly opening. Jasper stood up, pulling me up with him, and as I stepped around him, he stepped back. Our eyes held one anothers one moment longer. He looked at me questioningly, we both nodded in agreement, and turned. We faced the front of the house as Edward and Alice stepped out onto the patio, and stood at the top of the steps leading down to the driveway.
No one spoke.
____________________________________
The four of them stood there, looking across a few feet of dirt driveway at each other as though they were seeing a physical manifestation of all the days and months they'd spent apart between them. None of them spoke, none of them moved, only their habits of fidgeting proving they weren't statuary. The initial moment extended out into a drawn out cessation of breath. There was no sound anywhere in the house. Esme stood next to me gripping my hand tightly as I held hers between my own. I knew Emmett and Rosalie were somewhere upstairs waiting to see what was going to happen as well.
A breeze kicked up outside, stirring leaves, and dust around Bella and Jasper's feet, blowing Bella's hair away from her face, while blowing Jasper's slightly across his. The sound of it howled through the open doorway, and under the eaves of the patio. A small dirt devil whirled and twisted its way across the driveway and died out as it beat itself against the stairs of the patio. As though its death gave life to the two couples, Jasper dropped his keys and began striding quickly across the dirt driveway at the same moment that Edward glided swiftly from the step to Bella's side. Just as Jasper reached the bottom step, Alice leaped from the top step into his waiting arms. They crushed one another into themselves. Edward had Bella's face in his hand and his lips pressed crushingly against hers.
Esme gasped and turning, leaned against my shoulder and gave in to shuddering sobs of relief. I heard Rosalie laugh upstairs, and Emmett actually whooped.
I heard the back door open and Renesmee and Jacob walked into the hallway. Renesmee stepped in and seeing Esme sobbing on my shoulder froze with a terrified look on her face. I looked at her and recognized her mistaken view of what she saw. I said her name softly, as I shook my head negatively and motioned for her to join us at the window.
Renesmee crossed the living room quickly to stand beside Esme and I at the window, Jacob rolled his eyes and came up to stand behind her. He had his hands on the top of her shoulders, as if supporting her and keeping her together. I looked at him and silently thanked him for keeping these women whole, so they could make my family whole.
*~*~*
I didn't know. For the first time I could remember, for that one moment before Jasper's and my eyes met, I didn't know if it was going to work. I couldn't see it.
There was no way anything could change my love for Jasper, nothing was going to stop it, but once I looked into his eyes I knew we were finished letting anything come between us. Jasper held me tightly against him and carried me to the wall where he pressed me against the front wall of the house and, letting me slide down, kissed me. Our lips hadn't touched in over two years. Not since the last night Bella gave us, when she stayed with Edward before all the mess happened, when Edward had overheard Carlisle talking to Jasper about the Ottawa house and the whole family had gone into a tailspin when my foolish brother had tried again to off himself. Again. It was the kiss of a starving man and a body of water. He broke the kiss reluctantly and stepped back. He looked at my face as if he was remembering what it meant to see me after being blind, which wouldn't have been a bad analogy for how I felt about the last year and a half. After Jasper and Bella had returned to Ottawa, and Edward and I had left for Paris with Renesmee, Charlie, and Jacob in tow, I'd stopped being able to see.
Nothing was clear, and we all suffered from my lack of certainty about the futures I saw.
I looked into Jasper's eyes as I heard Bella and Edward's footsteps ascending the porch steps. Neither Jasper nor I were willing to look away. I was waiting to hear Edward's voice, so I was surprised when it was Bella's that I heard.
*~*~*
As had always been the case, Jasper and Alice were having a moment so private, that it felt almost voyeuristic to be seeing it. For the sake of my own feelings about modesty, I said Jasper's name, hoping it would be enough still, to distract him. I was momentarily pleased to see that it was, but this moment belonged to Alice, so my moment of triumph was fleeting.
"Jasper?" I said quietly, respectfully. He looked up almost immediately and looked at me sadly. For some reason that made no sense at the time, we both laughed. Alice and I got the giggles, and the laughter took over. Looking back on it later, I think we were all laughing in relief. I think all four of us had feared we'd pushed everything too far, moved too far away to ever return to home. Somehow the laughter let us blow it all away. It became a passing storm.
Edward stepped forward and hugged Jasper, they stood with their arms around each other's shoulders and their hands clasped around each other's wrists. Edward spoke first, "Thank you brother, thank you for taking her away and taking good care of her, but most of all, thank you for bringing her back."
"Repay me by never forgetting for one moment of your existence, how special Bella is. I didn't love her by default, there are reasons why I feel it so deeply."
"I won't argue with such sensible recommendations," Edward said.
"Yes you will, but for once I won't let it go," Jasper chuckled.
*~*~*
According to Alice and Edward, Paris didn't turn out as nicely as they had hoped it would. Apparently Renesmee could only keep Edward occupied for so long, and Alice could only take everyone shopping or shop herself so many times. Edward had tormented himself past coherency. After the month with everyone in Paris, Edward had travelled on to other countries in an effort to occupy himself. It hadn't worked out well for anyone. Renesmee had stayed in touch with Edward and Bella both, to her credit she hadn't brought up the split, she still spoke amicably with Jasper, the only one who she seemed resolved on not speaking to was Alice.
Alice hurt every day, now not only because she missed Jasper, who she'd let go of, but now also because Renesmee seemed to blame her for everything. I watched with great sadness the day Edward returned to Forks. He'd come through the front door a shell, he'd returned the greeting Esme and I gave him, but there was no life in him as he did so. He hugged Esme perfunctorily, and she turned to me immediately afterward, her lovely face crumpled in disappointment. He'd said hello to all of us. Held Renesmee for several long moments, nodded to Jacob, ascended the winding staircase, and walking into his room, shut the door on everything.
There was no laughter in my home for several months. When Edward had returned there were still ten months to go, and as each month wore by, at a snails pace, Edward became more reserved, Renesmee more nervous, Jacob less mirthful and Alice's pain seemed to grow tenfold at every turn. I felt a palpable ache when Bella and Jasper phoned, each sounding pleasant and happy, enjoying the life they'd made for themselves in Ottawa far away from the broken hearts littering the various rooms of our home. I couldn't have known then that Bella and Jasper, though content, were suffering from the separation as well. The only difference being that they had accepted that they'd made a commitmet to each other for that eight season term. It gave them a measure of contentment Alice and Edward were missing, also, each of the latter were avoiding seeking any sort of solace in each other. Whenever Alice and Edward started on the subject of Bella and Jasper, they fought. This drove Esme to grief, never had the two of them fought before, Edward and Alice had always been so beautifully connected by their respective abilities.
It was Renesmee, and Jacob, they'd been the ones to pull the pieces of my broken family back together again. While on the phone with Bella, she'd recognized things which led her to know her Mom wasn't being honest about what she felt about the separation, and when she badgered her Dad, Edward, for the reasons behind what had happened, Renesmee had been furious with him. She'd phoned Bella, it was about a month before the last month of the second eight season mark.
Renesmee had told Bella the truth of Edward's mindset during the months apart. He'd been on a hunting trip, so wasn't there to stop her. We all tried to, but too late. Whatever Renesmee said, it had worked. Bella had phoned Edward later that night. Neither would admit what they'd said, wouldn't even speak about it, but Edward's attitude became even more irascible. Alice had come down to talk to Edward about one of the phone calls, they'd gone out front to speak to each other privately, Alice had returned inside and spoken to no one for several days.
Finally the day arrived, the day Jasper and Bella were meant to return to the house following their Bella-imposed eight season mark.
Until the moment Jasper and Alice had embraced, and Edward had more or less glued himself to Bella, none of us had known what the future would hold.
After things were worked out, I was briefly concered that perhaps the tension of the situation would force them apart, fortunately I was most certainly wrong. It seems the situation served to make them all closer. The four of them, Alice and Jasper, Edward and Bella, became a private quartet. Over the years it developed into the closest relationship I've ever witnessed, and I never again saw any difficulties arise agian. Bella and Jasper continued to love each other deeply, but kept it outside the physical realm from then on. Of course, there was once, about four years after the final reunion, Edward told me a story from a few days before.
"We were walking through the meadow on the otherside of the river in the back yard. We were walking in a line, abreast of each other. I held Bella's hand, she had Jasper's, he held Alice's on his other side. Alice was nagging Jasper about needing to buy him a few more pairs of jeans. Jasper turned to Bella, lifted her hand and kissed it, then looked at her seriously and asked, "Since Alice wants to harangue me about shopping all the time, are you ready to take another two year hiatus with me in Ottawa, Bella?" Edward had laughed loudly and uncontrollably when relating this. He said Alice yanked her hand out of Jasper's and hit him so hard in the stomach that he almost flipped, but landed on his back, on the ground instead. She'd stood over him in a green skirt, green top, with little green flats, her hair spiking everywhere, and her hands on her hips. Jasper gasped, "It was a joke, Peter Pan." And they'd all laughed, Alice had walked away arm in arm with Bella, glaring back at Jasper occasionally.
Apparently, Alice didn't see any more visions of Jasper and Bella together, or if she has, she's never mentioned them again.
- THE END -