empathy

ONE

Sitting against the headboard with Jasper's head in her lap, Anastasia lightly combs through his hair, braiding a few of its strands as she goes.

"Feeling better?" she asks him after a few minutes of laying in silence. "I'm rather perfect, darlin'."

His eyes open to look at her. Black meeting red. "Major," she observes plainly, offering a small smile. "Jasper needs to rest," he points out, closing his eyes again. "Hm," she hums.

They talked about the Seattle situation earlier and his family was hell bent on having him take charge. Because he knows what they'd be dealing with should it come to an attack, he'd know how to defeat them should the Cullens attack them.

Jasper agreed, of course. He wouldn't leave them on their own in a situation like this, but it doesn't stop the memories from surfacing.

"Can I ask you something?" she looks down at him. He hums, quietly giving her the go. "You told me about Maria once. About how she used your love for her to control you."

His eyes open and he sits up, fearing this might be a more serious conversation than he would've liked. But he also gets where she's coming from. Plus, he prefers her asking him rather than Jasper, he prefers her asking him now when he's already not feeling perfect about it rather than when he's in a good mood.

"I used to believe that, yeah," he nods. "It's how I surfaced," he adds. "Used to?" Ana frowns, repeating his words.

"I used to think I loved her and maybe at one point I did," he points out, taking her hand to breathe a kiss to her wrist. He doesn't like how sad she gets whenever they talk about his past. It doesn't happen a lot, but every now and then Jasper lets a detail slip.

"But in hindsight, it's more the intensity of everything. I was attracted to her, and my newborn brain confused it with something stronger. I was grateful and confused at the same time. I felt like I owed her for giving me immortality. And at the same time, I felt every intense emotion of every newborn around me," the major trails off. "I still have trouble distinguishing my own feelings from others today, but back then, it was all there but none of it felt like my own. Maria used that. She used my naivety, my confusion and my mental overload to rope me into being her little marionette. The... sexual motivation only really became that once I realized what she got me into. But at that point it was already too late, I was too far in to get back out."

"But I doubt that's what you wanted to ask me, darlin'," he adds when she doesn't respond for a moment. "It wasn't, no," she shakes her head after another second. "But I honestly forgot what it was I wanted to ask."

He chuckles at that and lays back down into her lap. Like hell will he ever admit to anyone how putty he is in her hands. How weak she makes him. Not to her, not to Jasper, probably not even to himself.

"Well, ask me if you remember."

She goes back to coming through his hair, not even bothering to try and remember. She never does, it's like everything goes blank when she tries. It didn't even get better after she turned into a vampire.

"But, until that happens..." he smirks, although his eyes remain closed when she slaps his chest and the suggestive tone. "May I ask you something, my love?" "Course you can. I'll decide whether I'll answer later," she shrugs.

"When you were... stabbed," he grits out. "What happened that day?"

Anastasia tenses up immediately, knowing fully well what he's talking about, remembering way too closely, way too detailed. Her fingers tighten in his hair, and he finally opens his eyes, looking at her.

"My father," she eventually replies, ending the conversation.

Grabbing his head, she heaves it up and gets up before putting it back onto her pillow.

The major sits up, his eyes flickering golden as he lets Jasper regain control.

"I'm sorry. The major didn't mean to upset you," Jasper quickly gets up behind her, pulling her into his chest before she has the chance to pull her drawing pad out of the bottom drawer of her desk. "No, it's alright. I'm bound to tell you eventually. Just not today, please," she pulls out of his arms to hand him the pad. "Here."

"What is it?" he takes it, not yet opening it. "I started it a few months after Antonina was left with us. It was oddly... therapeutic."

Jasper sits back down on the bed, opening it. The first drawings are hard to decipher, she wasn't pretty good at it and with no information whatsoever, he can't make out what it's supposed to be. But it gets better with every drawing. The pad as such ends before the drawings get skilled and the rest is just loose papers.

"Are those...?" his voice is tense and Anastasia nods. "Most of them show my father. Some show Antonina after..."

He pulls her on his lap before going through the rest of them, his arm almost squeezing her waist to the point of breaking it.

Her father looks mad, his face is always pulled in an angry grimace, some show him with his fist raised. Although, surprisingly, it's the ones that show him calm that make him feel most unsettled.

"I'm sorry," he means quietly, his voice a small whisper. "You didn't deserve this."

"Well, he's dead now. There's no point in feeling sorry anymore," she shrugs, her expression empty as she turns to kiss his temple.

"Keep it," she means when he goes to take it back. "I have no use for it anymore."

"Do you have more of those?" he asks just to change the subject.

She smirks a little at that and nods. "I have one I think you'll love."

Walking back over to her desk she pulls it out and throws it at him. Jasper easily catches it and looks through it. "You draw me?" he smiles, loving it indeed. He stops at a picture of him holding Antonina and his smile only widens.

"You still manage to amaze me; you know that darling?"

Pulling her back onto his lap, he swiftly turns them around, kissing her as he slowly climbs over her.