'Cold feet,' they called it. Bella looked down at her toes crammed into too-small high heels. Who was this person, five inches taller than she ought to be, painted beyond all recognition, dressed in a wedding gown like the most expensive goody-bag at a party? It was a joke for anyone who really knew her.

Bella couldn't help her surprise when she got a look at herself in a mirror. She looked ridiculous! Alice had taken to her with all the expertise of a Hollywood makeup artist. Eye shadow, lipstick, nail polish, the works; though Bella had put her foot down on the fake eyelashes. Edward would simply have to do with staring at her plain little human hairs for a while longer.

Bella sighed. This was her first moment alone in days. The women fussing around her had been bad enough, but then she had had to endure Jake's hurt silence and Emmett's teasing and her dad's awkward attempts at paternal affection, rivaled only by Bella's equally uncomfortable motions to return it. Renée was predictably useless and the room gave a collective sigh of relief when Phil tactfully suggested she help the florists with the arrangements.

Her surrogate vampire family showed little similar consideration for Bella's nerves. The morning had been a continuous revolving door of Rosalie and Alice, poking at her, clicking their tongues and shaking their heads, and making vague comments about the wedding night that Bella only half understood.

Due to some mysterious kindness of fate, Rosalie and Alice had both been called away to attend to some detail of the wedding and left Bella in the room alone. Now's my chance! Bella thought, jesting to herself. But then she wondered why she would have chosen that particular bad joke and felt guilty and a little uneasy. Surely it was common to have doubts?

Surely it was. But at this late stage? At her own question, Bella looked away from the mirror and at her feet again. She wanted to ask someone, but the idea was impossible. She couldn't ask Rosalie or Alice or Esme, all of whom had found their true loves, and seemed so confident in their world and with their men that Bella shrank at the look that would come across their faces if Bella suggested feeling anything contrary with Edward.

Things just seemed so easy for them. Beyond their vampiric gifts, their wealth and refined manners, Bella sensed that something deeper separated them from her. Nothing so simple as predator versus prey. Whatever struggles they had been through - and life had certainly thrown them their fair share - they had come out on the other side whole. They had found their other half, and that completion of their inner self gave them a peace and generosity that they wished all to share.

Bella did not know if Charlie and Renée had experienced something similar. It seemed impossible that that sort of love could wither on the vine the way it had with them. At least, it had with Bella's mother. Bella loved her mother but cherished no delusions about her. Renée was flighty where Charlie was stalwart. Even the words inspired contrasting images in Bella's mind. Renée was something airy and intangible, Charlie a solid oak stump. Bella, who knew very well she took after her father in looks as well as temper, did not like this sudden Renée-like desire to escape.

I just need air, she thought. I need to breathe for a second. She took a few hobbling steps to the door. Alice had made her practice walking in heels with all the discipline of a Soviet ballet instructor and Bella had begun to think she might actually make it down the aisle without falling flat on her face. But the carpet in this room was plush and impossible to walk on in stilettos by anyone but professionals.

Fearing she had only seconds to make her escape, Bella tore the shoes off her feet and padded rapidly towards the door. Her toes curled pleasantly in the thick carpet and she had to force herself not to stop and enjoy it. She hooked her thumb and forefinger around the back of her dress the way Rosalie had taught her and poked her head out the door. The coast looked clear. Faintly, the melodious notes of Chopin wafted to her ears from the chapel.

A lump rose to Bella's throat and for a few terrifying seconds she thought she might be sick. Edward must be somewhere but Bella couldn't think about that right now. Besides, it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. All the more reason to make sure no one caught her.

Bella pushed the door open and hurried across the entrance room, her head ducked down. Artfully disarrayed tendrils of hair stuck to the back of her neck as she began to sweat. Alice would scold her for that.

There was a door to her left that she knew led to an outer courtyard. When she had first seen it Bella had thought she and Edward could walk there after the wedding, but now the idea of being alone with him was the last thing she wanted.

What was wrong with her? This was what she wanted! Well, okay, maybe not exactly. Edward perhaps wanted the wedding more than Bella, but only slightly. Bella wanted to share her life with him, and wasn't that the same thing? Except, in Bella's mind that life was shared as a vampire, herself. But she would become that. Edward had promised, contingent on her becoming his wife. Bella would see this through.

Yes, but, began that voice in the back of her mind, should you really have to make deals with the man you love to get what you want?

It's a compromise, Bella told herself. People make compromises all the time!

But inside Bella knew something was not right. She wanted life everlasting with Edward, not 'until death do us part.'

She scurried across the courtyard and ducked behind the shrubbery. She closed her eyes and tried to still her breathing. Mulch and sharp pebbles dug into the soles of her feet. Alice would kill her if she got this dress dirty. And how would it look if she walked down the aisle with twigs in her hair?

The laughter she heard accompanying this thought made her think she was losing her mind. To her somewhat brief confidence she realized it wasn't hers. The voice was male, hauntingly pleasant to the ear, and made goosebumps rise on Bella's skin. She snapped her eyes open.

Jasper Hale was standing above her, leaning on the shrubbery and looking down at her with such benign indifference that Bella almost wept with relief. Jasper! If anyone was to her find her this way she was glad it was him. Jasper, of all the Cullens, cared for her the least.

Not, Bella sensed, that he disliked her. Rather, he simply did not have an opinion on her one way or another. Having never experienced any overt animosity from him - apart, of course, from the accident at Bella's birthday party, which to her mind hardly counted given it wasn't Jasper's fault - she had also received no great amount of attention from him. Thus, Bella had patterned her conduct on Jasper's and basically ignored him.

She did not know herself what she thought about the other vampire. He was different than the others. Some things about him reminded her of Edward, but then whenever Bella made a real attempt to compare the two she always ended up noting their differences instead. They were both quiet, both intense. There was a darkness in them both that Bella only peripherally saw.

Yet, Edward worked so hard to make sure she did not really know him, whereas Jasper did not seem to care. He didn't seem crippled by his past actions, or awash with guilt and all the blood that wouldn't wash off. It was more like… no one had bothered to ask him. No one wanted to know.

Like all the men Jasper was dressed in a tuxedo, a red rose in his breast pocket. He looked more put together than usual, but his hair was as crazy as ever and for a second Bella was distracted with feminine concerns about his appearance. Alice really ought to have spent less time fretting over Bella's morning cowlicks and a little more time taking care of Jasper, who, vampire or not, was still a man and could hardly be expected to care if he looked like an escapee from the local insane asylum.

Though, if Bella were honest, she probably would not have attempted to tame his hair down, either. Jasper was not the sort who took well to taming. Maybe that was why his presence in the Cullen household always made Bella feel uncomfortable. He was too close to the edge, too fresh from the battlefield and dark alleys with people no one reported missing.

"Hello," Bella tried to sound casual but it came out a pathetic whisper.

Jasper quirked one eyebrow, his lips never slipping from the pleasant, distant smile that he was so seldom without. For the first time Bella saw things clearly and as she stared up at him she thought how unutterably considerate it was of Jasper to wear the masks he did. All day, everyday. Not just for Bella, but for the entire family, for anyone who, for even the slightest moment, might be uncomfortable in his presence. Jasper was always so proper, so calm and still and smiling; it was so easy to forget he was there at all.

Bella swallowed, her heart hammering against her breastbone. She knew Jasper could hear it and hoped he would take it as more human weakness.

"I'm just, um, getting some air," Bella said.

Jasper nodded, not looking particularly curious, and Bella realized she probably could have gotten away with not giving an explanation at all. Bella frowned and slowly straightened from her crouched position behind the shrub. Her cheeks were red with embarrassment and she saw now she had not succeeded in traipsing through the shrubbery unscathed. There was a small tear near the hem, imperceptible to most human eyes perhaps, but not to any vampire's. And most of the attendants were vampires.

Bella's eyes began to sting and she blinked rapidly in horror. Not here! Not in front of Jasper, of all people.

"I should go back inside," she gasped.

"There's still time," Jasper said, "if you want to catch your breath."

His voice was so soft and kind, it was nearly Bella's undoing. She had to jam her palm against her mouth to stop the well of cries rising from her throat. She crouched back down and sat on her heels in defeat.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what's wrong with me today. I - I think didn't sleep well last night."

She stared at Jasper's feet, trying not to hyperventilate like the trapped animal she was. After a moment he crouched down beside her.

He was no longer smiling and there was an unfamiliar look of focus in his yellow eyes. He looks tired, Bella thought in a sudden U-turn of emotion. I'm tired, too. What's wrong with us? She did not feel sad, or scared, she felt trapped. All she wanted, suddenly, was for someone to make the world big again. The way Edward had made her feel when she had first met him, had first typed the word 'vampire' into her computer search engine.

Jasper had never been this close to her except during her birthday party, when he had tried to kill her. Bella knew she ought to feel afraid, but she was not afraid of Jasper for the reasons that made sense. The things that scared her about Jasper were more confusing than that, the sort of fears she harbored within herself.

A sense of calm began to settle on her. She lifted her eyes to Jasper. "Are you doing that?"

He nodded. "Is that okay?"

"I -" Surprised to be asked, she considered the question first before answering immediately in the affirmative. Jasper's ability to manipulate emotions at will had always struck her as more than vaguely sinister. It was a murkier art than Edward's telepathic abilities, which was really no art at all but glorified eavesdropping. Jasper could literally make her feel anything. If he wanted to, he could make her feel so hungry that she would eat raw meat. Or so depressed that she jumped off the church tower. But Jasper didn't look to be in the mood.

"It's okay," she said. "Thank you."

Jasper shrugged off her gratitude. "It's no work for me. You're easy to switch."

Bella tried not to get offended at that. "Because I'm human?" she said. "Or because it's me?" She was genuinely curious. A source of unending frustration for Edward was Bella's immunity to his telepathy. Why was she not also immune to Jasper?

"I don't know," Jasper said in a slow musing voice, as if he had given the matter some thought himself. He started to say something else and then stopped.

"What?" Bella prompted. Her heart, which had begun to calm, began to race again as she took note of the fact she was actually having a conversation with Jasper Hale. There was something exciting about this man and his secrets, and Bella had to admit grimly that she was no different from any other girl in that respect.

Jasper glanced down and picked up a handful of mulch, fiddling it between his fingers. Bella watched as it gradually turned to a fine sawdust.

"It's nothing," he said, and that smile was back.

Bella's heart sank a little, but she knew she had no right to feel disappointed. Jasper had no reason to share secrets with her.

"Well," Bella said, not ready to go back inside yet, "I am glad it's easy for you. I hope when I'm turned I don't get powers like yours." Realizing she sounded a bit tactless, she hastened to explain, "I - I just mean, I don't think it'd be as easy for me. I don't know how you do it. How do you know what you're feeling is real?"

"I don't."

Something in Jasper's voice was off and Bella looked up, her brow knitting in concern. Jasper wasn't looking at her, though, and so Bella was left to flounder in the dark and make her own conclusions. She did not know what Jasper meant but she did know one thing.

"That's terrible," she whispered. "Have you told Alice?"

Jasper snorted. "I don't know why I told you."

"Is that why it's easy?" Bella said. "You don't - you don't feel anything of your own?" Suddenly Bella felt very guilty for every flitting human experience of surprise, anger, fear, and sadness she had ever had in front of Jasper. And yet… wouldn't it also be rather nice not to have these feelings? How much clearer Jasper must see the world.

"Can you, Jasper, can you make people fall in love? Can you make people fall in love with you?"

Jasper's expression was unreadable to Bella. He simply stared at her. "If I wanted to," he said. "Or the nearest facsimile."

"Have you ever done it?"

Something in her face must have given her away because Jasper's mask slipped enough for Bella to see the question had upset him. Guilt poured into her and she had no idea if it was her own or Jasper's.

"I've made people do a lot of things," Jasper said. "I don't know what you mean by love. You're a little girl."

"I mean love!" Bella almost shouted. Flushing at her outburst she pressed her fingers against her lips and said, "Sorry."

"It's okay," Jasper said, and he sounded like he really meant it. Like Bella could scream at him until they called her back inside and it would all be just as it was before, no better or worse. Jasper would always be there, somewhere nearby but never too close. It made Bella so unspeakably sad that she lost all thought of her own troubles.

"I mean," she said, "like the love you and Alice have.

"And what is that?"

She frowned, wondering why Jasper was being obtuse. Was he teasing her? He didn't look like it. Jasper wasn't Emmett. He wasn't even Edward. There was so much in him that had happened that he almost seemed to Bella another creature entirely. Alien to them all. In many ways Bella thought of him as older than the other Cullens, even Carlisle, but in so many other ways he seemed so young. There was so little that he did not know, so much of the basics of normal affection and companionship that had been twisted and used against him. Jasper did not even seem to know that he should be upset for all that unfairness.

Bella could smell Jasper, he was so close. No cologne. She imagined it irritated sensitive vampire noses, but he was not without his own scent. There was nothing specific about it, but it made her feel as though she were remembering something she had forgotten for a long time. Even without him calming her, she felt better for his nearness.

"Aren't you wondering what I'm doing out here?" she said.

"I think that's obvious."

She flinched, but his voice was without reproach. For a few moments they were silent, lost in their own thoughts. The organist inside had changed from Chopin to Mozart.

"I shouldn't have asked you all those questions," Bella said. "They're rude questions, aren't they?"

"I don't mind," Jasper said.

Which did not mean she had not been rude. Bella sighed. What she felt now had to be all her, it was too messed up.

"I'm scared to get married," she said, finally voicing what she knew to be an inevitable conclusion of Edward's manipulation. "I don't want to do it. At least, not right now."

"Why then, darlin', don't."

"Just like that?" Bella paled at the idea of walking back inside and facing all of that disappointment. Her vampire family would disown her. Edward would be crushed. Rosalie would be smug. Everyone would hate her and she would never get to be immortal.

"If Edward loves you, he'll wait."

"Does he?" she asked. "You can tell, right? Does he?"

"I can't tell, Bella."

Bella opened her mouth to argue with him, but stopped as she recalled Jasper's words. I don't know what you mean by love.

Jasper wasn't lying to her.

"Will you walk me back inside?" Bella said. She was afraid to be alone with her thoughts and could use Jasper's calmness.

"I'll do anything you want," he said. He stood up and stretched down his hand to her, pulling her to her feet. "I'm serious. It's my gift to you."

Bella laughed nervously. "'Anything' is a dangerous word, didn't anyone ever tell you that?"

"Once or twice."

Jasper's cool hand lingered over hers, moving it to wrap around his arm. He started walking back towards the church and with each step Bella's anxiety grew like a sprout inside of her, threatening to become a tree.

"Can you make me want to get married?"

"I can," Jasper said. He said no more but the weight of his silent acquiescence, forcing her to confront her own morals, bore down on Bella until she could hardly stand it. She squeezed her fingers into his arm, wondering if he could even feel it.

Disturbed by the concept that so momentous an emotion as love, the stuff of legends, could be so blithely bestowed or taken away by this man, Bella wondered if Jasper ever worried about the moral ethics of his behavior. Probably not. Jasper seemed to go out of his way not to think about much of anything.

"I don't want you to," Bella sighed. No; what she wanted really was to be taken away, for all of this just not to have happened. She wanted to be back in her PJs sipping jasmine tea in bed. What were people thinking of, her a bride? A wife?

"I suppose back in your time people got married at my age a lot, huh?"

"Sometimes," Jasper said.

"I'd probably be considered a spinster by now!"

"I wouldn't go that far."

Bella slowed her steps as they approached the doors and Jasper modified his stride accordingly. "Were you ever married, before?"

She did not know why she wanted to know, other than the idea of being alone in this was too much; she needed to hear that it happened to other people, this sense of her life ending.

Jasper was somewhat older when he had been turned, so it stood to reason he might have had a sweetheart, or two, back then. Jasper was attractive, of course. It seemed to be a prerequisite to vampirism. But beyond the superficiality of his appearance Bella found his company pleasant for its own sake. If Edward was a wildfire, rushing through her and burning her from the inside out, Jasper was the stillness of afterwards.

Jasper took longer than Bella expected to answer; she had assumed it to be a simple 'yes' or 'no' sort of query.

"Marriage wasn't on my mind much," he said finally. "Before or after."

Bella supposed that was true of most guys, regardless of the century. Except Edward's, apparently.

"I ran away," he said, the unsolicited information surprising Bella. "To join the Army. A lot of boys did it back then." He shrugged under her hand. "I don't know why. I guess I thought it was something to do."

Bella could see Jasper back then, a long-limbed, sleepy-eyed second son, very rich and with nothing to tax his brain or body. The War had probably seemed like just the thing to make his own fortune in the world. And then he got turned. Bella only knew minimal details, and all of them from someone other than Jasper. It did not seem right that the rest of the family should have told her details about Jasper's life, and not Jasper himself.

But that was simply how it was in this family. People tended to talk about Jasper, not to him. While Bella had no doubt they loved him, she did sometimes wonder what would have happened had Jasper actually gotten to her at that party. Was it really right, or even logical, to punish a vampire for acting like a vampire?

"You're doing much better," Bella said, trying to smile, "about being close to humans."

"Thank you," Jasper said. "But it doesn't get easier, it just becomes habit. Denial. Once I realized it was the same old song, I got into line."

For a second Bella thought she must have offended him again but then he returned her smile, this one infused with more warmth than his usual polite courtier's smile. "I'll be glad when you're turned, though."

This statement brought Bella back to more practical matters. "Do you think Edward will really turn me, after the wedding?"

"No."

This response, given without even the dignity of a pause, startled Bella so much that she let go of Jasper's arm.

"No?"

Jasper put his hands in his pocket and leaned against a column of the church. "No, I don't. And don't look at me with those doe eyes. You know it too, or you wouldn't be out here, conversing with the likes of me."

"Edward gave me his word," Bella said. Even to her own ears the words sounded childish and naive.

"He doesn't want you to be like the others. Like me. He wants you as you are."

"But I hate who I am!" Bella snapped. "I want to be like him. I want to go on with him for centuries, not a few years. I'll get old and he'll keep looking like that and it'll look all wrong." She wrinkled her nose, imagining a decrepit Isabella Swan-Cullen toddling along beside her grandson-age husband.

Jasper seemed done with the conversation, his expression closing off. "Well, that's just what I think," he said mildly. "My opinion don't count for much these days."

"Don't say that." Bella tried to modify her tone, more concerned about upsetting Jasper than causing a scene. "You know more than the others, except maybe Carlisle. Now, tell me the truth, have you seriously ever seen it work between a human and a vampire without the vampire turning the other?"

"Don't reckon I have," Jasper said. "But don't ask me what's normal. My head was never right even when I lived with my own kind."

What kind was that? Bella wondered. The human-eating kind? She smiled up at him, feeling more comfortable in her wedding gown than she had all day. The absurdity of the situation did not escape her. Here she was, walking with a centuries-old killer and asking him for marital advice. On another killer.

"You say the saddest things, Jasper," she said. "Maybe that's why people don't talk to you." It was cruel and she instantly regretted saying it, but Jasper did not appear to be hurt. Not that he would reveal to her if he had.

"You asked for the truth," he pointed out.

"I guess I did." Feeling a bit reckless, she took hold of Jasper's arm again, steering as much as she was able in the direction away from the church doors. "I'm not ready yet. Walk with me?"

"Like I said. Anything you want."

"Will Alice miss you?"

"Alice is preoccupied."

That was for sure. You would think it were Alice's wedding and not Bella's, given how upset she got when she saw the roses had a slightly more pinkish hue than originally agreed upon with the florist.

They made their way around the weaving path. It was cloudy, as it always was in Forks, but the flowers were in full bloom and their scent wafted over Bella in drunken waves. "What I want," she said, quietly, "is time. But you can't give me that."

"Girl, all I got is time."

An idea began to form in Bella's brain, terrifying in its simplicity. She would not have thought of it without Jasper. Jasper, who was so dangerously accommodating. His indifference to whether he charmed her or not was strangely refreshing. It left their relationship open to a freer trade than she had with Edward. She and Edward were too insecure to enjoy any exchange without a signed contract. Today was proof enough.

"Will you," Bella licked her lips, half-afraid that to voice it was to lose the opportunity, "will you take me out of here?"

They had stopped walking, having reached the middle of the garden. Jasper looked down at her quizzically, head cocked to the side like a dog at an unfamiliar sound. If he had asked her why or had she lost her mind or any other sensible question Bella would have crumpled immediately. She would have pretended this entire conversation had never took place and that Jasper was as memorable as the shrubbery around her. But he did none of those things and Bella could have hugged him for it.

"Where you wanna go?"

"Anywhere but here." Though hardly believing she was doing this, that she could actually reach this height of selfishness and immaturity, her predominating emotion was one of intense relief. She clutched at Jasper's cuff. "Please. Later, I - I'll tell them something later. Just leave with me. They won't be so mad if you're with me."

Jasper laughed humorlessly. "You don't know much about this family, do you?"

At her look of bleak despair he stopped laughing. "All right." He ran his fingers through his hair, making it even more untidy. He looked like Edward Scissorhands' lost twin. "They won't be very surprised that I've abducted you."

"I'll explain it to them," Bella said, allowing Jasper to guide her towards the gated exit. "I coerced you."

Jasper snorted. "With what, your feminine wiles?"

A bit stung, Bella cried indignantly, "I have wiles!"

"You're eighteen."

"So?"

"So I don't care for children."

Fuming silently, it was only when they were clear of the church that Bella realized Jasper might have made his comments for the sole purpose of distracting her. She clung to his sleeves as he escorted her to a nearby car.

With each step the band around her chest loosened. She shouldn't have consented to a church wedding, anyway. Her father was too angry at God to care, her mother too liberal, and Edward… well, Bella had no idea what his opinions were on such matters. Bella didn't think about God enough to have any independent thought of her own about it. Shouldn't she have come to these conclusions before having consented to be Edward's wife? At the time it had all seemed terribly romantic. Now, with her imagination taking her further than the altar, it just seemed stupid. The kind of thing kids do.

"Everyone will be worried," she said, biting her lip.

Jasper opened the door for her, his face blank. "I'm more worried about you. Seen girls get married to men that were all wrong for them, and it never did anybody no good."

Bella ducked her head and slipped into the seat. Jasper's car was nondescript and she could not tell what make or model it was. Smart, Bella thought. If you were a vampire not wanting to call attention to yourself. Which any self-respecting vampire would not. Anonymity had and always would be her friend.

Jasper climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. Always braced for her truck's fanfare of coughs and sputters, Jasper's car of course made no such noises.

She did not watch as they pulled out of sight of the church but kept her eyes straight ahead, her fingers clasped in her lap. It was only then that she realized she was still wearing her wedding gown. God, could she be more dramatic?

"Thank you," she whispered. It was all she managed to get out before the tears started. Jasper said nothing. If he made any attempt to lessen Bella's anguish, she couldn't feel it.