The Poet and the Pendulum

Parts: Interlude I [ lost in the darkness ]
Rating: pg13
Pairing: Jasper/Jacob
Words: 3 295 words
Disclaimer: The Twilight series and its characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, who I am definitely not. This means that I don't own the characters or anything but the strange circumstances that I slap them into. I'll put them back once I'm done with them, promise.

Interlude I
. lost in the darkness .
I wasn't completely comfortable with working with dogs of all things, but from a purely military and strategical standpoint, it was a good idea. Also, it gave us a very nice advantage over when those newborns and their 'leader' decided to make their appearance. But that was me thinking about this from a purely tactical standpoint; I couldn't afford any personal reservations on them or their race.

My duty, something that I prided myself on, was my ability to be objective in any situation.

Though, even I felt a little unease in the hours approaching our meeting with the wolves. Alice was keeping her distance from me, and I felt something that felt oddly like resignation coming from her in waves with a feeling of almost... I think it might have been relief, but mixed in their with, oddly enough, joy as well. Not a lot was making sense.

To occupy myself, while Carlisle lectured Rosalie to behave herself, I thought of everything that I had learned in the near-century which I'd spent in Maria's service. Memories that should have been left undisturbed were tormenting me on the edge of my conscience, showing me things that I'd done. I had to grit my teeth, and I had to shove them back behind the dam I'd created to keep them from my mind.

Thinking about battle plans, tactics, and experience kept me largely from having to sink back into those dark times where my undead life had been nothing but blood, death, and fighting to stay alive.

"Tonight, everything is going to change."

Alice had startled me out of my thoughts, and I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn't noticed her when she'd come in. My head snapped around to look at her; she'd opened the large windows which led out onto the balcony that wrapped around the back of the house. Her eyes were staring up at the sky, and she seemed distant; almost as if she was talking to herself, and not to me at all.

"What do you mean Alice? Did you see something?" Her head snapped around suddenly, and there was a strange fire in her eyes.

She seemed... hesitant, almost afraid to say whatever it was that was hovering on her mind. But then, slowly, she spoke, "It's not what I've seen... but what I haven't seen."

And with that, she left before I could question her any further. This was odd, Alice never hid anything from me, no matter how upsetting it might be, no matter what it was, she would tell me. My stomach twisted, and that feeling of unease intensified, only this time it was mine instead of others.

What was it that Alice hadn't seen?

.:-o-:. .:-o-:. .:-o-:.
When the time came, we all assembled in the clearing; waiting for Edward to finally arrive with Bella. I didn't understand why she had to come, since she couldn't really benefit from this. But Edward had said that she had felt a duty, a responsibility, to be there since she felt such immense guilt about bringing this down on us. And no matter what any of us told her, she refused to let go of that feeling of remorse.

There was nothing that she could have done, and this vendetta was entirely Victoria's doing; none of us could have stopped it. After all, the only way that we could stop it was to kill the female vampire behind it.

We waited in the clearing, with Carlisle at the front, with the rest of us grouped loosely around the clearing behind him. Somehow, I was tucked behind Emmett's bulk; blocking off my view of the wolves when they finally arrived. Though he couldn't block out the scents.

The wolves had very difficult scents to place, but they were unpleasant in how... I was not sure how to describe them, but it made my nose wrinkle with how strong they were. Too much like the forest, and not in the pleasant way; like a freshly cut pine or just pine altogether; it was a very earthy smell that had been intensified to the point where it burned. But I couldn't put the scents to the individual wolf that they belonged too.

Edward and Bella had been the last of us to arrive, and they stood a little separate from the rest of us; Bella had Edward's arm around her shoulders protectively, and he was telling her that it was alright if she fell asleep during the meeting. She nodded before looking over to the wolves and offering a small smile.

My eyes followed the path of the smile, and I saw the large, russet colored wolf who she was looking at. He was nearly the same size as the big wolf who I was assuming was the alpha, the one Bella said was named Sam, which was surprising. Though, this wolf seemed much leaner, less bulk, then the black wolf. I was surprised at that, I wasn't expecting them to be so lean. I'd been expecting big and bulky creatures, looking like wolf versions of Emmett.

An amusing idea.

Alice was still avoiding me, and I noticed there was also a distant look in Edward's eyes as well. I realized that they both knew what was going on, which made me feel even more confused because now, I was beginning to believe that it just might have something to do with me. Or was it possible that it had something to do with the wolves? After all, Alice couldn't see them. Her words from earlier came back to me.

"... what I haven't seen."

What could it mean? I was being left with no answers, something that I had very good reason to be worried or nervous about. It meant that there was quite possibly something bad that would happen, and there would be change. Permanent change. Though whether this change would be for the good or for the bad was still very much an open issue.

Chasing possibilities around my head was not working, I didn't have enough information to make any very accurate guesses. I would need to know more.

Carlisle and Alice were quick to explain the basics of what was going on, and what I would be teaching them tonight. Already I had my entire lesson planned out and ready to go, I knew what I would show them, and what could wait for another night. The wolves would most likely be getting much more out of this then any of us probably would have liked, but it was a necessity.

It was when Carlisle stepped aside and I came forward that everything went straight to hell. I was running my eyes over the wolves, trying to get a feel for what their personalities were, and then trying to draw conclusions on what their type of fighting style would be. My eyes were brief to settle on the russet wolf at the end, but it was something that happened just before that which changed everything.

One of them had just simply frozen. I was nearly overwhelmed at that moment by this flood of emotions that I could never recall having felt before, and it was only by sheer force of will and years of military training that kept me on my feet. The feeling that world had just very suddenly stopped and that everything had shifted reached me, leaving me struggling to just remember who I was.

Then, there were several other feelings that had washed over me, each one more positive, more passionate then the last; the almost shocking part was that I actually liked it. More then that, I was actually yearning to feel more of that, it gave me a sense of safety and security that I hadn't felt for such an achingly long time that my own still heart felt like it might start pounding in my chest before leaping straight out.

Even though I knew that these feelings had to be coming from one of the wolves, I couldn't find the necessary parts of me to feel disgusted. It was almost as if something inside of me had been changed, twisted, leaving me incapable of experiencing the hated disgust that I should have. But then, a small voice in the back of my head told me that nothing had changed, I had just become all too painfully aware of it.

It all disappeared suddenly. Leaving a hollow ache in my heart, and then a twinge of guilt that was not mine. Shortly thereafter, the russet colored wolf left, and I was left with a very hard realization that I now knew the source of the strange rush of emotions that had swept through me. And even though that was there, and now I could feel the appropriate guilt, there was this inexplicable urge to chase after him, to bring him back. I wanted to better understand them, to know them, and that was the purely innocent part of it.

There was a much... darker, more lustful side to that strange string of plain want and need that had suddenly grabbed my still heart and captured my mind.

But then reality crashed back down on me with Edward's strangely echoing voice.

"Don't worry about Jacob, he'll be fine. Please continue."

It was Esme who seemed worried, her mother-like nature coming out, "Are you sure?"

"Yes. This is something that he needs some time to deal with, but I'm sure that already one of you knows completely what is going on."

I turned, my eyes meeting Edward's, and I knew that he knew precisely what was going on and was very much aware of the strange tangle of thoughts that had rushed through me mere moments before. With a little tilt of my head, I could see Alice at his side, she gave me a small smile, but the quiet, soft love I normally felt there was gone. Now, it was more of a... familial type of love, and it left me completely dumbfounded.

What had changed?

"We're running short on time, so please, continue." There was a silent exchange between the others, and I felt suddenly very left out of my own family; like I was an outsider peering in.

Carlisle nodded, "Jasper, please go on. He's right; we don't have very much time to prepare for the newborns, and they'll need to get as much experience as they can in such a short period of time." I gave a quick nod before I began.

"Newborns are relatively easy to predict combat-wise. Expect them to make quick moves that are designed to strike at the vital points; the neck, the chest, the head. While they aren't too strategic or relatively smart in this sense, their real strength lies in the pure brutal physical power they have. Since they're still under the one year mark, this strength won't have faded; their human blood is still in their veins, slowly being absorbed. It's this which makes them so difficult; they can easily overpower even the most ancient of vampires."

I shifted so that I was half-facing the wolves, and gestured for Emmett to come forward, "Emmett will demonstrate."

He grinned savagely at me, the cocky arrogance rolling off of him made me roll my eyes. This would be much too easy, but it would make for a good distraction.

And that is precisely what I needed.

.:-o-:. .:-o-:. .:-o-:.
It seemed to me like our first meeting with the wolves had been successful. But still... I had that feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that refused to let me believe that all was right. As well, my family telling me that they needed to have a 'private' discussion didn't sit too well with me either; especially because they had requested that I stay in the field while they went to have this discussion far enough away that I wouldn't hear them.

Of course, it was simple luck that Bella had fallen asleep during the meeting itself; I think that the movements that she couldn't follow had made her eyes tired, and she had eventually just given in to the seductive wiles of sleep. It was almost enough to make me feel jealous, but that was something that was very easily squelched.

Rubbing my temples, I tried to fight back the tension and confusion that was threatening to over take me. If I wasn't dead, I was quite sure that my head would have been throbbing and I would be feeling like absolutely terrible at that moment. But I wasn't human, and I wasn't quite dead either, so nothing really came out of it but my mind hurting from running in the hamster wheel of circling thought that it was taking.

But right then, the wind shifted. I took a deep breath in, attempting to calm myself.

And then all of the tension, the confusion, just flew right out of me.

I felt completely relaxed, and I inhaled again, just so I could once more fill my being with that delicious scent that had just then made its appearance. My entire being suddenly felt almost like it was floating, like it was intoxicated with the scent, but the grounding of my feet on the ground and the scents of the wolves and the smell of the forest mixed in, it wasn't as potent as it could be.

A quiet hum slipped past my lips, and I continued to breathe deeply, just so I could continue to fill my lungs with that potent scent of pomegranate and blackberry.

There was a difference though, with this scent I didn't feel the nearly overpowering need to hunt, to drink, that I felt when I scented a human who had such a delectable scent. All I wanted right at that moment was to race to the side of whatever beautiful creature possessed that scent and wrap myself so tightly around them that I would be permeated with that scent.

"Jasper, we need to talk."

Alice startled me out of the almost disturbing (and very adulterous I might add) thoughts that I had been stewing in while the rest of our family had been speaking. I smiled at her, "About what?"

"About you and I, and what is going to be happening." She stopped me before I could ask her precisely what she meant. "Jasper, I know that you may not want to hear this, but... I've always known, even before we met, that I was never what you would always need."

I wanted to deny it, to tell her that she was all I'd ever wanted; and more then I'd ever deserved, but I couldn't find my voice. The words wouldn't come, and that pesky little voice was back, and telling me that I couldn't tell her something untrue. Especially now.

"I didn't know when it would happen, but I knew that you would eventually leave me. Once you were ready, and that person came along, that you would be prepared; you wouldn't feel any regret. Because I knew with everything in me that all I could do for you was help you to heal, to trust and learn to love again." Her eyes were painfully wide and honest.

Somehow, though, knowing all of this didn't hurt me as I felt it would if she had said this just a few hours earlier. But I knew, and she knew, that when I'd met her I had been lonely. I had been feeling unworthy, I didn't trust, and I didn't believe that I would be able to love again. For so long I'd been nothing more really then a tool, an instrument of death, that I had long forgotten the pleasures of emotions; of the joy of being in love, and having that love returned.

"When I first saw you, when I brought into this life and shown that vision of you; I somehow knew that it would be my job to take that handsome and lonely man, and build him back up into the person who he might have once been. And I would do all of that because I knew that, one day, there would be someone out there who would be able to love him more then I ever could.

"It made me happy. Happy to know that for whatever short time I could have with you, that I would be giving you something that would one day give you that eternal happiness that we could all strive for. And I knew that I loved you, but that I could never give you that all encompassing and deep love that you really needed. The most I could do was piece you back together and open your eyes to the world and its endless possibilities."

I couldn't deny it; the waves of happiness, tinted with even just that little touch of sadness made me realize that she was letting me go. Alice was telling me, in that strange way of hers, that I was free now; that the one person who could complete me was out there, and she wanted me to go find them. My heart twisted in a very painful way, realizing that she was right; she had fixed me, and now I was ready for whatever conflict of the heart would be thrown my way.

"And now, what I knew would happen has. Only within few days have I seen your future disappear from me, but I knew that it didn't mean your life had ended. No, I knew, and now with what I know of the wolves, I know what's waiting for you."

"... you... do?"

She nodded, her voice was softer now, and it very nearly broke my heart, "It's called imprinting. When a werewolf imprints, it means that they've found their soul mate; the only one who they will ever be capable of loving with every fiber of their being. It's the one who makes them complete, the one who they need in every manner of the word; the one they would do anything for, even die."

And I knew, I knew what had happened.

"One of the wolves imprinted on me."

It all made sense. The feelings, the intensity of them, that feeling of the world shifting to focus on a single person and then that indescribable warmth. Passion, desire, and love all mixed in there to form a blanket which could suffocate you, but you would never complain; because isn't it still incredibly romantic to die for love?

"Yes."

I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling very at peace with myself, before I asked the question which would change everything for me.

"Who is it?"

"Jacob, Jacob Black."