Disclaimer: The Mediator belongs to Meg Cabot.

Rating: T – Just in case.

Summary: Jesse/Suze POV. Set after Twilight. There's a new threat coming for Suze and Jesse, but this time it's one that Suze can't punch her way through. A threat that is going to test Jesse's strength and their love . . .

A/N: I know I should be updating 'Finding What Is Lost' and replying to reviews. But I can't do either of them until I get this uploading and out of my mind, because it's been bugging me for a very long time. So hopefully now I can get back to my other important projects. :) I don't really know what to say about this story other than; I hope I don't screw it up, haha! This was a rushed choked out chapter because I needed to get it out so I apologise for any mistakes. They'll get better...I hope! :) Enjoy everyone, reviews are always welcome!

A Veiled Threat

Slipping my hand around the back of Susannah neck, I pulled her closer, deepening our already dangerously seductive kiss.

Her lips parted with a gasp and I took advantage to taste her further, my heart full in control and ignoring how my mind roared at me to slow down and not be so stupid; to remember to be a gentleman and curb my desires. But I found it to be incredibly difficult as Susannah's small soft hands ventured beneath my jumper and t-shirt and began to roam across my hot skin. I groaned against her mouth, wanting desperately to continue my kiss with her, to allow my hands to roam across her sweet, soft skin. Explore her in ways a man should not do until his wedding night.

"Jesse," Susannah murmured, trying to press herself closer to me.

Her murmur of my name carried on a desperate plea snapped me out of my passion hazed stupor and I quickly released Susannah from my hold; taking an abrupt step backwards. She wavered in front of me for a second, confusion and surprise criss-crossing her green sparkling eyes. She blinked several times, seemingly trying to clear her own fog before she sighed and visibly deflated. "This is so unfair," Susannah groaned. "I hate it when you do that."

"I'm sorry," I smiled, truly meaning it. I do not like to have our encounters get so heated, and I verbally and mentally berate myself for being so careless with Susannah. But I am determined to stay true to my beliefs and my love knows this. Albeit unhappily. Stepping forward I took her back into my arms, but with a more respectable distance between us. "Goodnight Susannah," I murmured, smiling against my loves full, sweet lips that smiled back at me as I physically and mentally pulled myself away from her mouth again. Her fruitful perfume invading my senses as the wind blew it in my direction, floating around me asking me to go back to her. My dark eyes settled on her soft green ones, chuckling at her pout.

Groaning, Susannah reached out for me again. "Oh come on, just five more minutes?" She suggested, trying unsuccessfully to sound seductive, though it did stir something inside me none-the-less. I have come to notice that a lot recently too; that it does not seem to matter how or what Susannah is saying or doing, I find that dormant side to me being rustled and disturbed from its slumber more and more. Her hands reached out to stroke down my chest as she so loves to do, but I took another step from her reach, determined. "Jesse!" Susannah pouted again, her eyes shining with happiness despite her contradictory sulk.

Laughing I kept backing down the gravelled drive to Susannah's family home.

"I will speak to you tomorrow, querida. Have sweet dreams," I said as I backed further and further away. "I love you."

Rolling her eyes, Susannah crossed her arms over her chest, the closest she becomes to admitting defeat to me, albeit begrudgingly. "I love you, too." She called out, turning on her booted heel and stomping her way up the porch steps and through her front door; sending me one last dazzling smile before she closed the door against the world. Yet I still remained where I had stopped, my eyes drifting up to stare at her bedroom window, half expecting to see her light come on and her head lean out of her open window. But I also knew she would have been delayed downstairs by her mother and stepfather, so my eyes drifted over the rest of the renovated boarding house that once upon a time, housed my murder.

As if some unseen force had reached down deep inside my soul and wrenched it from my sub-conscious, the flashbacks of a terrifying, repeated nightmare I have been suffering from since first waking in the hospital alive, came to live vividly and shockingly in my mind. I stumbled a few steps forward; the intense emotion and guttural dark prescience almost making me fall to my knees. With it came a strong sense of foreboding, settling heavily upon my shoulders, making me shiver and moan. It only took a few seconds for me to regain control of myself and my mind, but the moment had lasted for what felt like minutes.

Raising a hand to my head in confusing, I pushed the memory of my nightmare away, refusing to acknowledge it. I have yet to tell anyone I have been suffering from it, and I plan to keep it that way. My beloved pet cat, Spike is my only confident about it and that is simply because he has been present for each one. Hissing and spitting at me before running away to return later as though nothing had happened. My memory is always hazy when I wake in a cold sweat from the dream, but I cannot piece together the fragmented images. Just try my best to shake off the dread and dank darkness that envelope my dream and my mind after like a shroud.

Glancing back up at Susannah's home, I wonder what triggered my memory to appear like that . . .

It has been a very, very long time since I looked at Susannah's house and associated it with my once demise; long before Susannah had arrived, though I know she doubts me when I say that. She just cannot understand how I could possibly have 'got over it', as she says. But when you have been dead as long as I had, you have a lot of time to think and as strange as it sounds, move on. Of course coming face to face with my murderer did bring back many, many emotions, fury being the ultimate one. But I soon laid that ghost to rest in the proper way and finally released one of the last burdens of my past along with him that night. The boarding house had been my home for a hundred and fifty years; its bare, decrepit walls had grown on me and comforted me many times.

So to look upon it now and feel something . . . strange made me curious.

Turning away at last, I finally started my walk home to my small, comfortable apartment and Spike.

It has taken me longer than I thought it would to get used to be corporeal again. I still find myself picturing where I want to be and expecting to just arrive there sometimes. Susannah often looks at me strangely when I do, though I have not told her what I am thinking, no matter how hard she tries to get me to talk. In the beginning I still jumped slightly when people other than Susannah and Father Dominic addressed me by name. But the overwhelming joy of miraculously being alive and free of my spiritual chains and able to love and be with Susannah has far out-weighed any kind of frustration I have had at learning to live and operate in the modern world. I have been given a second chance and I do not plan on allowing that to go to waste.

Though I have found it to be unfortunately very tiring.

Susannah often questions why I walk her home long before her given curfew and my honest answer is that I am tired. I stay up too late most nights reading all the medical science books I can find in preparation for my studies. I work long hours at the museum, giving talks and tours to tourists on Salinas County, my knowledge and passion to remember my past keenly noticed in my voice and gestures as I tell tales that has my audience riveted. Just as Susannah does, I get woken in the night by spirits confused and lost that I do my best to help along their way. And of course it can be quite exhausting to try and keep up with Susannah and her social life that she insists I be included in now.

"No more staying in and watching films, Jesse," She has said to me on many occasions. "We can go out and do normal couple stuff, because people can actually see my date now!"

Chuckling to myself I tucked my hands into my coat pockets and said another prayer of thanks that Susannah was sent to me.

She has certainly been making up for lost time when it comes to not being able to be a normal young woman at high school and enjoying all the things she has always wanted to do. Because of course now she has me who not only knows of her gift, but also shares it too; allowing me to take the weight and pressure and giving her more freedom and assurance to have a 'normal' life. Each time I see Susannah, her eyes shine with happiness, her demeanour stands straighter. I have even noticed a slight change in her relationship with her mother. Though I know her parents both disapprove of our age difference, I also get the sense that she is relieved that her daughter seems to have turned a corner at long last.

I swell with pride when I think on this.

Yes, a lot has changed since I found Susannah sobbing in a hospital room next to my prone, somewhat soulless body. But not once would I say that it has not been for the better. I have Susannah and Father Dominic to thank a lot for. They have both given me so much, but now I am ready to stand on my own two feet and become as independent as possible. Although Padre has let me do this, Susannah still clings on to me slightly. I know that her behaviour is in part because she fears that now I am alive, I could possibly find someone of my own age and move on to, "bigger and better things,". Only time and my constant reassurance of how much I unconditionally love Susannah will heal her of this fear.

I am more than willing to take it upon myself, along with anything else Susannah fears for us. Because nothing, and no-one will come between us or have me taken away from her. We have both waited far too long for each other, to allow anything to happen now.

Nothing will stand in our way . . .

xXx

The first thing I did when I got into my bedroom was head for the window to see if Jesse was still standing outside. He wasn't of course, it was just my wishful thinking that he would be standing down there, calling his undying love to me and that he wants to come up to my room and continue where we left off. It's not as if I would have said no to that of course . . . because I definitely wouldn't. Sighing I moved away to the bed and collapsed on my back with another heartfelt sigh. This one was all about how giddy Jesse makes me. His kisses are so . . . hot! Whether he means for them to be or not, they're knee-jarringly good and it never gets old being able to hold and kiss him alone or in public (when he lets me), and show him off.

Makes me want to go back to New York with him on my arm and say to all the assholes back at my old high school, "Look at me proving you all wrong!"

Yeah ok, that sounds childish and patronizing. But come on! Everyone - but Gina - thought I was crazy and was the one girl in school most likely to land in prison from an early age. Or in a gang, according to Sleepy. And if I'm being honest, I could see why they'd all think that too. Yes I broke into places. Yes I skipped school - a lot. Yes I liked to punch people in the nose. But I had really good reasons for all of those and only one person, my best friend, suspected it might be something supernatural based. If I'd told my counsellor at school that my reason for truancy and acting out is because I see ghosts, I'd be locked up quicker than anything. And then I'd just be proving everyone right that I am crazy and would amount to nothing.

But boy has my life turned around in the last few months!

My grades at school, probably for the first time ever, are steadily starting to raise again, thanks a little to Jesse. I don't have as many ghosts to deal with because I've got Jesse, Father D and sometimes even Paul to help me out. This means no breaking and entering, no school skipping and no grounding from my mom. I'm starting to really forge great friendships, so my circle of friends doesn't consist of one. But best of all, I feel like I'm actually managing to be a 'normal' teenager since . . . forever? Because I have the most sexy, handsome, jaw-droppingly good looking boyfriend that I know has people like Kelly and Debbie drooling with envy. And even better than that . . . he loves me. Jesse is alive and as head over heels in love with me, as I am with him.

God it feels good to know that! Pining wasn't doing my complexion any good.

Smiling up at my dark ceiling, I just lay on top of my bed and thought about that amazing kiss goodnight we shared out the front of my house. I can't get enough of Jesse. I just want to be touching him constantly. Not even in an 'I-want-to-rip-your-clothes-off' kind of way. I just want to be close to him so our thighs are touching. Or to just rest a hand on his arm or leg. It doesn't matter, just so long as I have contact with him, so I won't keep looking at him, trying to blink my way out of my daydream. I just have to keep re-telling myself he's alive and he's here . . . alive. For so long I bitched at Karma for dealing me a bad deck. But it has definitely made up for it now and then some.

My mom's a smart woman; even she's noticed I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm sure it hurts her a little to think that that happiness didn't come easily to me, like she probably hoped it would starting over in Carmel. I didn't make the transition here easy for both of us, though I did try to protect her. But since Jesse's been here and able to sit at a family dinner and see how I practically dance around the room, she's lessened the parental, 'Isn't he a bit old for you, Susie?' speech. She knows that this isn't something that'll have its day and I'll move on. She see's true love when it's right in front of her and if anything, we've even gotten a little closer because of it.

Rolling on to my side, I clap to turn my bedroom light on so I can see the formal picture of Jesse and I on my bedside table. Not a miniature portrait from when he was alive in 1850, normally tucked under my pillow in secret. But a real up to date, right there next to me glowing with happiness, picture. It only takes seconds for my smile to reach across my face as I think about that photo being taken in my living room. How that night was the first time I truly felt like I had a family . . . a family Jesse is steadily being accepted in to.

Restless I swung myself off the bed and sat down by the open window, the breeze rustling my loose top. It felt strange to not have Jesse sitting opposite me. But the feeling didn't stay around for long, because I would easily take Jesse alive, than ghost Jesse haunting my room where a future wasn't possible. I never looked ahead to far into my own path; I never had any reason to. I knew I'd still be kicking ghost butt, but back then I thought I'd be doing it alone. But then even knowing Father Dom was a Mediator too, I still didn't think too hard on it. After-all, what kind of future did I have, being in love with a Spanish ghost I could never be with? Any remote ambition I might have had wasn't worth it, because I was just going to be alone.

But now . . . now I have to start thinking about what I want to do and where I want to be. Simple answer to that is, so long as it's with Jesse, then I don't care! If anyone deserves a new chance, it's Jesse. I'm happy to just go along with the ride.

Stifling a yawn I pulled the window shut and padded to the bathroom, getting ready for bed, absently wondering if Jesse's tiredness was rubbing off on me. I was contemplating how exhausted he looks as I got into bed and clapped off the light. He wasn't Superman when he woke in the hospital bed for the first time since I jumped back from the past. But he wasn't exactly a weakling either. I guess dragging someone's soul forward a hundred and fifty years is pretty tiring, because Jesse looked like he just wasn't getting enough sleep recently.

"Who cares," I yawned again, snuggling deeper into my covers. "At-least he's alive."

Little did I know that if I could have known what the future really had in store for Jesse and me, I wouldn't have been so casual and careless . . .