Seeing the future was enough to drive even the sanest person a little... well, you know. Especially when you desperately wanted what you were seeing, what you knew was coming, were already so familiar with the future you could see that you could taste it. You already loved it. Really loved it.
Patience was not so much a virtue as survival.
That doesn't mean Alice was terribly good at it. Especially when the future flitted and flexed and shifted at the last minute. At least it kept her on her toes. Not much could.
It had been her clearest vision of him yet, and she was ready for it, this time. She all but shimmered and sparkled and vibrated on the barstool in the little diner, the only patron through no doing of her own, and watched the door. Counted down the seconds.
Any moment now, as the seconds dragged like rusty gears and her fingertips drummed like a hummingbird's wings. Soon she'd be nearly complete.
It's nonsensical to do this. It's nonsensical to test himself like this, push whatever limits he's already uncovered, it doesn't make any damn sense. He doesn't need to live like one of them. He doesn't need to be out during the day, doesn't need to be able to walk through town unnoticed, and yet here he is, hands in his pockets clenched tight, shoulders bent, supposedly against the rain but in truth bent against the layered emotions sliding over him and clinging like spider's webs. He tells himself he's not sure if it's easier or harder to endure than the scent, but of course that's a lie.
His eyes are dark, less noticeable than the red of satiation, but it means he's thirsty, and he hasn't got any business here, and it doesn't make any damn sense, and he keeps going.
He picks the diner because it's a quiet patch, a little oasis of apprehensive excitement in the midst of the worry worry worry everywhere else. The slam of the door behind him breaks the silence, and he's barely two steps inside before he scents her and looks up, sharp and wary, to see a pixie of a vampire girl perched on a stool at the counter. Oh, hell. At least there's almost no one else here, no one except the people in the back, if it comes to a fight.
The diner had a few more wet and weary drifters in the minutes that followed, her attention evenly split between the door and the clock. And maybe a little more internally, too. Just checking. She was already sure.
The little string of bells above the door chimes again, and this time it gives her wings.
Alice hops off the barstool in fluid motion, her smile a little brighter than any stranger deserves, but she can't contain her joy. The object of her entire focus is just as beautiful as she knew he'd be. Which reminds her, sets her expression a little more wry as she approaches him, her steps following her own trilling cadence as if to spite the crawling seconds she endured while waiting for him.
She feels as though she's done this dance a thousand times when she holds out her hand and greets him formally.
She's getting up. She's getting up, her eyes are fixed on him, she's absolutely tripping her dainty way across the floor to him, but he doesn't bolt and he doesn't square up for the onslaught because she's so happy. Every little flicker of apprehension/anticipation/worry has coalesced into happy and excited and good-nervous.
Her voice is like a bell, like laughter, it slips into him and roots him to the spot, it pushes everything else behind her out of focus until her face is all he can see. The big band music on the tinny radio seems to fade out of his hearing as the rain hammers the windows, and just for a moment it's a century ago and he's no murderer but only a man who's disappointed a lady by keeping her waiting.
He ducks his head, drops his eyes, finds himself somehow fighting a smile. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, because what else is there to say? He doesn't know her, but she says he's kept her waiting, and he isn't about to doubt the word of a lady. It's an ungentlemanly thing to do.
It's barely a moment later before he's reached out to take her hand, chill and somehow familiar, and he only looks up again once her slender fingers are curled around his. He ought to say something more, introduce himself properly, but nothing comes to mind, nothing to push out the faint but distinct glow of hope.
"Well, it's a pleasure to finally meet you, Jasper," she informs him, as if this is hardly their first meeting, as if he's already introduced himself. It doesn't feel like a first meeting. Maybe it's that she's seen it happen so many times over that makes her so familiar. No, that's definitely it. But she can already feel the pieces sliding into place, the thoughts with the blurred edges, the holes she prods at when she has nothing else to hold her together, nothing to keep her focused. It's something like finding her footing while flying and she almost hopes she never gets used to it.
It's a near thing that stops her from reaching up to his face, from following the impulse to trace the scars above his eye, along his jaw, the infinite stories and the only proof of so many existences. Instead she takes his hand in both of hers now, drags him into an empty booth just behind her, near the door, backs herself up against the window so he won't feel boxed in beside her. "I'm Alice," she remembers to inform him suddenly, her expression a little apologetic for the first time.
"I have so much to tell you," and she can hardly hold back from the visions that spill over her lips as she holds his hand in her lap, curled on the seat so she can face him, and tells him everything she's seen for them. That there's a better life and she's seen them in it, together. There's a coven just waiting for them, they just don't know it yet, but everything is falling into place so perfectly and permanently already there is no doubt in her mind, in any fibre of her being.
But even in her giddiness, in her certainty, she waits. Waits for him to absorb what she's just dropped on him. For the first time she didn't worry before she shared her... gift. Her sight. Her very soul.
He seems like he has broad enough shoulders to handle it.
In all his years walking the dust, he's certain not one person has looked at him like this. He'd been the solution to Maria's problems, but Alice (Alice—he repeats it to himself a few times, Alice, Alice) looks at him like he's the answer to her prayers. No...she looks at him like he's the beginning to something, and he's never been anyone's beginning before.
It makes his fingers tighten on hers as he follows without protest and sits beside her, a little ramrod-straight maybe, in contrast to her comfortable curl. It's difficult to follow what she's saying and how she's saying it. There's a certainty to her, a little calm center he can feel expanding as she squeezes his hand and waits for him a little longer.
"We haven't met before," he says slowly, and it isn't a question. He knows he'd remember. "I can imagine there's quite a lot I don't yet know, Miss Alice."
Her smile only brightens and she winks, taking permission from the fact that he's still here, that he seems ready to listen.
"Good thing we have plenty of time," she assures him. She has no intention of keeping anything from him. She knows her honesty, her full disclosure, is the key to the future, their future, this beautiful thing she's already so very in love with.
"What if I told you I've seen our future?" she tells him conspiratorially, like it's not a terrible overused flirtation she's heard so many times it's now a cliche. "That there's a coven waiting for us, to welcome us, and there's a better way to live?" All morbidity and technicality aside, they were living. And she wants to live it to the fullest. And now they can. She can feel her impatience bubbling to the surface, but not towards him. Her impatience is wholly her desire to be experiencing this life she's seen. It's so close she can taste it.
"I sometimes forget we don't already know each other," she admits, gives in and strokes a particularly raised scar on the back of his hand, while she's already holding it captive.
For the first time since he'd taken her hand, his eyes slide from her beautiful face, down to their hands. She isn't afraid of him, he thinks, he can feel everything she's feeling, a whirling exciting tangle of anticipation and joy and not one thread of fear. He watches the way her fingers trace over his scars for several silent moments before he drags his gaze back up to her face.
"Your eyes...I've never seen eyes like yours," he says instead. It has nothing to do with anything she's saying, but it's true, Alice's eyes are a burnished amber, almost glowing in the subdued dusty light. It seems like the right thing to do now to reach out and brush back a lock of short dark hair, and to tip her chin back up to see them more clearly.
"I don't think I'd object overly much to a better way of anything," he adds in a whisper, and the hand at her chin almost trembles before he drops it to cover her other hand, suddenly holding on tight enough to injure any ordinary human. He's at the edge of some precipice he hadn't seen yawning open in front of him, and he doesn't know if she's there to hold him back from it or to jump in with him, but he knows, he knows he doesn't want to let her go.
She can't help but bat her eyelashes a moment playfully when he finally mentions the unusual color of her eyes, both for a human but especially a vampire. She's been waiting for it, but not because she's seen any snippet of that conversation. It's just something that tends to come up. Her gaze is locked on his face, a little wondering. 28 years of seeing his face and she's still absolutely certain she'll never be bored of it. His future golden eyes will be all the more compelling along with his lovely shade of honey blonde.
"Part of the deal," she explains while batting those amber eyes. "There's a bit of dedication involved," she adds a moment later, frowning slightly. It's a hard sell to some. But it's a way to fight back.
She squeezes his hand in hers, even as his overlap her much smaller hands, and she smiles warmly as he all but clings to her. While she would much prefer to jump in beside him, always beside him, she's not opposed to dragging him along if he needs the motivation. She has the utmost faith in him.
She feels something bind in all the right ways, something shift just a little tighter into place, and she can't help but sneak a peek into their future for the thousandth time. Her expression blanks for just seconds as she calls forward just what she needs. Then she blinks and everything clicks.
It's not on purpose, the way her certainty and hope and anticipation flow from her, how she all but radiates it as if it's multiplied.
"Can I get you kids anything?" The bored, disapproving feeling comes from behind him, from where he's left his back open, voice and feel exactly matching. The diner waitress, finally emerged from the back. He's been so focused on Alice, he hadn't even noticed the approach.
It takes effort, a monumental effort, but he fights back the first instinct to turn and spring at her, and his hands are still locked in Alice's when he does turn, menacingly slowly, to stare up at the woman. Alice's sensations haven't fluctuated much at all, she isn't anxious or worried, and she isn't hungry either with a human this close, and that's a curious thing.
The woman takes a reflexive step back at the flat black stare. She doesn't know what he is, not really, but some part of her knows she needs to stay back. "Apologies, but we were just leaving," he says, remarkably evenly considering a moment ago only the cool, firm hands within his had prevented an atrocity here.
The waitress doesn't wait, doesn't even answer, just disappears back into the kitchen. Jasper watches her go, and the smell of fear turns his stomach. He's never in his life let someone go like that. If Alice wasn't with him, he'd be latched on to that woman's scent, waiting somewhere nearby—in a cellar, on the roof—for as many hours as it took before he could get her alone. It'd be fast, he always moved as fast as he could, but they always knew. There was always a sick twist of terror before death, always because of him.
"Tell me about the deal," he says through clenched teeth as he stirs to rise, as well as he can without letting go of her hands. He'd said they were leaving, after all, and he doesn't want to take any bets on how long he'll last once the dinner rush starts filling up the place.
She's so proud of him she can't help the affection in her smile as the woman flees, frightened, and rightly so, but otherwise unharmed. That couldn't have been easy. But he's trying. He's already trying. Tiny, strong hands hold his tight, though they might be cool to the touch of those that burn hotter, his are perfectly warm to her, and she slides delicately out after him, as if nothing is amiss.
"Seems like you figured part of it out already," she tells him, gazing up and up into his dark eyes and smiling encouragingly.
Without ever releasing his hands she twirls, sets his arms around her as she fits against his side, and with a little maneuvering they're out the door and into the rain. No one is paying much attention to them, there's enough to worry about for most humans. Her voice is quiet, but she knows he can hear her just fine.
"Being so thirsty will probably make this easier," she continues, nonchalantly, completely undeterred by the rain, though she makes a little effort to keep them under the eaves and awnings they pass under, even as those become more scarce as they head for the edge of the city, a little quicker here and there if they are able to avoid notice.
"It doesn't satisfy everything, not really, but it sates the thirst," she explains. "And elk are definitely prolific in this area."
He stares down at her, uncomprehending, and his head turns again to watch the doors where the woman had disappeared, he can almost see the trail of her scent, but Alice is in his arms and slipping with him into the cleansing rain before he can even begin to rethink his choice.
The movement of the water dulls the smell of blood pulsing beneath skin by heightening the smell of everything else, and he's able to let her draw him along the streets, ducking under little patches of shelter here and there. To anyone looking, and no one's looking anywhere they don't need to be in rain like this, there isn't much of anything strange about the quick-moving couple.
His hair is plastered flat by the time they leave the pavement behind, walking lightly and easily over a mud-slicked vacant lot at the edge of the city. She hasn't once let go of his hands, and he hasn't made a move to draw away, keeping her snug against his side every moment since she'd put herself there. "Elk?" he repeats, frowning in confusion as he tips his head to look down at her.
"Been bringing down a lot of elk?" he can't help but add with a little quirk of a smile. He hasn't much felt like smiling in a century or so and it feels out of place on his lips, but he's picturing this diminutive pixie launching herself at an enormous animal, and it's all too easy to see, as it happens.
"Not a lot," she hedges playfully, looking back up and him instead of where she's going, feigned innocence an obvious mask. Diminutive pixie, indeed, but her prey wouldn't stand a chance even without her Sight. "They're out of season, after all," she continues, as if the rules actually matter to any other predator.
"But I happen to know of a herd that will be in the forest to the northwest if you'd like to join me," she continues. It's rather nice to have the future available to point you in the right direction. They're close enough to the edges of the city, to the wilderness remaining, that they could take off running without attracting any attention at all. But first Alice slips into the future for a moment, checking, confirming.
Everything is still falling into place even more clearly.
She's heard it once or twice that the way to man's heart is through his stomach, and she giggles to herself a moment as she comes back to the present, gaze and smile turned back up to Jasper's face, knowing he couldn't have missed her slipping off like that.
Indeed he hasn't, and there's a perplexed little furrow between his eyes when she looks up at him again. He's never really been in contact with another vampire for so long without striking, no one except Maria, but she'd been...different. He'd been her conquest and her puppet, even if she had had some small genuine feeling for him. He hadn't ever been first in her heart, he'd never taken the place of her thirst for territory and power.
There's a little twist of nervousness in Alice's heart, weaving its way through her excitement and her happiness, but most of her is just joy and relief, anticipation. He's never felt someone like her before, and it's because of him, and he doesn't understand that yet, but he can already tell he's leaning close to those bright feelings of hers, like a man walking from the night desert to a bonfire.
"Where do you go off to when you do that?" he murmurs, loosening his arms automatically so she can pull away from him, easier to run that way, but he isn't letting go of her hand, not until there's no other option. "What are you seeing?"
"I wasn't joking about seeing the future," she tells him, matter-of-fact and light. "Or seeing yours, mine, and ours," she continues, her smile a little teasing, a little encouraging as he pulls away and yet remains in contact with her. It's hard to remember she's still a stranger to him. That he doesn't already know her like she knows him. Or would know him.
"But just now I was making sure I knew where we were going," she admits, and it's the truth. Though she was checking the elk just as much as the more distant future...
He makes her feel so grounded she could sing. He's given her direction for so long without even knowing it, and now that he's found her, she's just as loathe to let him go as he seems to be.
As if there's music only she can hear she starts to move, dancing steps toward the unpaved roads and forest ahead, not too far, just a matter of tens of miles, backwards at first as she tugs him along, gently, just in case.
"Trust me," she instructs as much as asks, bright eyes open and honest, and then she turns to run, his hand still tightly grasped in hers.
He doesn't answer, he just nods, secure in the knowledge that he already does, and that somehow she knows it. As she turns away from him toward the forest, he lifts her hand to press a light kiss to the back, something far overdue when meeting a lady, in the old days. Something about Alice lets him relax back into those old-fashioned habits, the echoes of his mortal self.
Seeing the future, he thinks a little dizzily as they both lope forward, the trees blurring past them as they hop and dodge together through the undergrowth. Seeing their future. He hadn't really given much thought to having a future at all, but here's this girl (pixie, fairy, angel) seeing a whole tapestry laid out, and brimming over with happiness because he's finally stepped out of her mind and into her life.
How could he do anything else but trust her?
"How long exactly have I been keeping you waiting?" he asks as they both leap neatly over a rushing creek brimming with floodwater draining from the city they're leaving behind them.
Her lips purse together as his touch her hand and she doesn't turn, but if she was capable of flushing, she would be, as a complicated longing rolls over her, unexpected. So she still has much to experience, after all. The thought warms her, in a way.
But she holds tight and flies through the woods, leaving not a trace, barely making a sound, absolutely certain of her direction.
She laughs, a little like singing, when he asks, and she never pauses in motion, just squeezes his hand minutely. They're almost there.
"As long as I can remember," she starts, her laughter still in her voice, even if really it's not very humorous. "28 years," she clarifies honestly. And while she's never been a patient woman, as far as she can tell, these past 28 years being all she can remember... he's worth it.
He was her very first vision. One of her first memories.
Twenty-eight years, and she can't be more than twenty. How long has she been turned? He feels almost weak at the idea that she's so much younger, still so fresh from her human life, and he's going to ask but then the wind carries the scent of the herd down the valley and his head snaps around.
There's blood on the air. He can't tell from what, he isn't much use at reading wild animals, but they're wild animals, there might have been a scuffle or a mishap. It's more than enough to get his attention, as hungry as he is, and he's almost surprised to hear a low growl.
He'll ask her more about that twenty-eight years later. For now, he stops short, crouching and tense behind a fallen tree, still upwind from the herd. He's never hunted before, not like this, not like an animal, but there's an instinct to all hunting. Humans become animals when they know they're being hunted, and he knows how to keep one from spooking, even without his abilities.
For the first time since the diner, he squeezes Alice's hand and lets go. "Ladies first?" he asks with a faint smile, even as he's eyeing the herd, picking out the weak. They're fast enough to match any animal there, and the thrill of it runs through him again like a little shock. He's never enjoyed being a predator, even when he's picked his human victims carefully, but animals don't feel the same terror that humans do. Maybe he can do this.
Alice scents the blood as Jasper does, grateful for it, that he's not repulsed yet. This is going to work. It's really going to work.
"Don't wait too long," she concedes.
She smirks up at him then winks and vanishes into the pines above them.
It's only a matter of seconds before she drops from her concealed position in the trees onto one of the average-sized cows and snaps her neck with a loud crack. The herd, in delayed panic, disperses. But she's given into the hunt, it's the only way to get any real enjoyment out of it, and she does her best to convince herself this is filling, this is all she needs, this is life.
It's so much easier when she doesn't have to watch the future snuff out with the blood still warm on her tongue.
"Aerial attack," he murmurs as he watches her with fascination, noting how easily she moves with the animals, clearly well-accustomed to the practice. Even the increased scent of the blood as she feeds isn't quite enough to stir him for a few long seconds, but finally he launches himself up and over the log he's been crouched behind.
His target is a small bull, not because he feels any need to show off but simply because that's the source of the blood-scent that had first caught his attention, a long wound along its neck. He heads for it straight on, and it must be pure animal instinct when the thing nearly skewers him as it fends him off with its rack. It's not enough to stop him, of course not, he speeds around to its other side and leaps, arms around its neck in the blink of an eye, not even enough time for it to struggle before Jasper has crushed its spine. Not clean, not like he might have wanted it, but he's too hungry to do anything more about it.
The scent of the animal is everywhere, attractive and repellant at the same time, as he tears open the neck and drinks, eyes closed, fingers fisted tight in furred skin, in pelt. It...works...somewhat. He's full when he finally moves again and lifts his head to look around him. The herd is long gone now, the clearing silent, and he's not satisfied, but he's not thirsty, and he hasn't felt the panicked terror of a life lost. Is it enough?
He sits back, letting the animal slide from his arms, wiping blood from his lips and turning his hand to watch it drying against his skin. Is it enough? It's enough for Alice, he thinks, and she's said it's enough for him. She thinks he's strong enough for it.
She's careful to keep her movements obvious, though it takes some effort. It comes naturally to flit between the smaller spaces, to skim the surfaces, just a flicker of light like a glimmer of jewels as she dances. But she reigns it in, moves slowly, purposefully, til she's seated cross-legged on a fallen log within Jasper's view, watching him. Waiting. She knows better than to intrude physically, just yet.
"I did say it took dedication," she says finally, breaking the unnatural silence that always seems to fall through the forest at a presence like theirs. Like life actually flees them all on its own before they've even consciously posed a threat.
Her smile is just as proud and inviting as it's been since he finally walked through the door, accompanied by the chime of little bells.
----------------------------
Months later and in some ways it's easier, so much easier. And in some ways it's harder. They're not perfect, no one is, no one can expect perfection, and no one can beat himself up harder for falling prey to his own nature than Jasper, Alice has decided. But she sticks by him, supports him, and finds all the pieces of herself she's been missing along the way.
It's a strange thing, feeling complete. Balanced. She didn't even realize she wasn't until he was finally a physical presence in her life.
They travel frequently, before they can make too much of an impression anywhere, before they get too comfortable. She's still eager to find their family, the Cullens, but neither of them are truly ready. She hadn't quite expected how much she'd want to keep Jasper to herself for a time. And how much that feeling would be mutual. As it stands, every time she decides to push, a quick glance at the future shows it's still not the right time. She's getting impatient.
She's never been terribly patient. But it keeps her focused, having to practice at it.
They're hand in hand in the middle of nowhere, small-town Montana somewhere, mountains and trees and overcast skies. Suddenly she laughs, turns to him with a grin and shakes her head.
"That's not very original, you know," she tells him. "If you're not ready yet, just tell me, you don't have to distract me."
He's never met anyone like this. It's such a simple statement, and it thoroughly fails to capture the way his wonder grows a little every day, but he could be alive a few more centuries and still fail thoroughly at that. Most of their kind, they slink through the world, but Alice dances through this existence of theirs, alighting only long enough to close her eyes and look at a scene that hasn't happened yet and then flitting off in that direction.
And wherever she goes, she draws him along in her wake. Like this talk of the Cullens. She's seen them there, she knows that's where they'll end up, but he isn't so sure they need it. He isn't sure he wants to join some clan of animals-only vampires, living like them, pretending to be human. Just being with her, the two of them moving through the world, it's already more than he'd expected, or suspects he deserves. It's still difficult, it's difficult every day to scent a human from far off and go in the opposite direction. There are times when he's whip-tense, when he's snappish, when she snaps back and he wonders irritably if it's really worth all this trouble, just for a heart at peace.
Then there are times, more and more now, when he can't keep his eyes off her. Even in the presence of humans, when their scents should be jerking his attention this way and that, Alice is in the center of it all, his focus, his compass point. He'd tried to tell himself at first that it was survival keeping him at her side, that he'd wanted to find a new way of doing things and she'd given him one, so it was only right and proper he stay with her for a time, as a protector and a fellow traveler. He is both of those things, but it's more than that, it had been ever since he'd first taken her hand.
Privately, though he hasn't changed a thing outwardly, he's stopped thinking of when it might be time for them to part ways. He doesn't want to leave her side, not ever, not even for a moment. She already knows they'll be together, she's seen it, but there's a substantial part of him that still needs to do this the right way. This won't be like his so-called relationship with Maria. This is love, it's real, and it's settled into his bones.
Trouble is, it's difficult to court a woman who can see the future. "I might like distracting you," he points out as he lifts his hand and twirls her around twice before stepping into her and swinging her into a music-less dance on this Montana mountainside. They could be anywhere in the world and it wouldn't matter. "It's a challenge. I wonder that you didn't think of that, Miss Alice."
It's a blessing and a curse, really, the fact that Alice can't remember what it was like to be human. It's liberating to be unbound by her old nature, whatever it was, free of traditions and obligations, free to make her own, choose her own. Naturally, that meant she found her fate intertwined with a very traditional man who had a century to formulate and solidify his own morals and traditions.
Sometimes it makes her laugh with genuine pleasure, and sometimes it makes her want to crack the mountainside open with her own forehead. He means well, the charming, traditional creature she's already woven into her life. But he's right. She hadn't quite seen it the way he does, not really.
As far as she was concerned, everything was already set. Why waste time on the preliminaries? Apparently she had that much more patience to acquire.
And she hardly considers herself a challenge.
She falls into step with him easily, as if now maybe they both can hear the same music, and she can't help but laugh, lightly. He's given her something to think about.
"Oh, now I see," she jests. "No wonder you're so good at it," and it isn't a lie. She can't imagine anything or anyone holding her attention quite so easily and completely. Short of maybe one thing, every now and again.
Her smile goes just a little bit wicked. "So you like the challenge, is it?"
Jasper's arm cinches tight around her waist as he lifts her and carries her high, racing up the muddy path to an overlook unoccupied by any humans today. It's cold and wet, they have the mountain to themselves today, and the whole array of the valley spread out below them. "I might just," he says as he sets her down again and twirls her again, ending up standing against her back with his arms around her waist, looking out.
Growing up, he'd watched eagles soaring over the flatland and had wondered what it would be like to be up there, light as air, untouched and untouchable. This isn't quite the same, but it's close enough.
"I do apologize for keeping you waiting," he says quietly as he watches the tiny specks of gulls circling over a river miles away. "It's selfish of me, I know."
Well, he'd surprised her with that, just a little bit. He was getting better at last minute decisions, she had to give him credit where it was due. And his decisions were never meant to harm her, so she found herself looking forward to them, now that he had given up on any fantasies of finding a way to leave her side someday. Those moments had hurt in ways she didn't even have words for.
His plans had a much different color, now, and while he was somehow keeping the bigger picture hazy enough she couldn't quite grasp it, she had an idea or two. He was a bit of a hopeless romantic, she decided. What luck that she was, too. However difficult she might be about it. What woman wouldn't want to be courted? If she thought too hard about it, she might come to resent her Sight, her actual inability to be properly surprised.
So far, however, it had only served her well.
Her feet touch the earth again just moments after he's crushed her into his arms, like she was something to be protected and cherished, and then spun at the top of the world like a ballerina. She could get used to this. She hopes she never does.
She laughs again, softly as his apology, and reaches up to set her hand against his face as she takes him in, ignoring the scenic view in favor of what she'd rather see. "You don't have to keep apologizing," she tells him, having lost track somewhere along the way, whether he'd uttered the apology a thousand times or she'd merely understood it to exist in the quiet between them.
"I know you'll make it up to me." There's a little bit of possession underneath the playful, airy tone.
He's starting to learn the trick to her, to keeping himself a step or two ahead of her premonitions. It's difficult for him, he's always been a strategist, a planner, but he can't be a planner with her surprises. Surprising her needs to be as much a surprise to him.
The touch against his face has him closing his eyes and exhaling slowly. His breath doesn't plume into the chilly evening, nor does hers.
"Every day," he says, pressing his cheek into her palm and meeting her beautiful golden eyes, his own the same hue as hers now. Before he surprises himself by leaning down to press his lips against hers, delicate, as if he isn't certain how it will be received. This isn't the right way to go about things, not according to the way he was raised a century ago, not the way she was, but she hasn't seen this coming, and that makes it worthwhile.
She's not sure if she says it aloud or if her surprise only floods through her mind, but oh, he couldn't have surprised her better. And such a gentleman about it, too.
They have all the time in the world, in that moment, and she wouldn't dream of breaking the spell. Her hand remains, caressing his face as she pushes into the kiss just enough that it has to be obvious she's a willing recipient and participant. As if the surge of emotions rolling over her weren't evidence enough.
Whether it makes it past her lips or not, he can feel the lifting wave of surprise that pours from her, and he allows himself a moment of giddy triumph. He'll spend the rest of his life, the rest of eternity, trying to bring about that silvery feeling.
They're dangerous, powerful, and the kiss still stays delicate and careful, only sips instead of anything larger. He doesn't need more than this, he doesn't want it in this moment. It had just been the right time.
When he finally pulls back, it's hardly at all, and he brushes her lips with a second barely-there kiss, like an afterthought or a signature. There's still a little urge to apologize for his being so forward with her, but he's felt her impatience often enough to know he doesn't need to. And if the sharply flavored tangle of emotions inside her is anything to go by, she'd really rather he not apologize.
"We'll go find the family," he whispers, nosing along her cheek with a quiet smile, "but I'm still feeling a mite selfish."
Seeing as he's already just apologized for keeping her waiting, apologizing for finally kissing her would be unnecessary and redundant. She might have even slapped him, without even a blip in her excellent mood.
She gasps, quietly, before he's even finished his statement, and it takes her just a moment to find the words to go with her smile. Meanwhile her hand has slipped down to his jaw, his throat, to the back of his neck, fingertips just beginning to weave into his hair.
"What a coincidence, so am I," she says just as quietly, still smiling at the joke of it, though she knows these feelings are entirely her own. She's still eager for their new life with the Cullens she's seen in her visions... but she's not about to rush through and waste the time that just the two of them have. The least she has to offer him is time.
She'd give him anything he asked for.
It's the waiting for him to ask that will be the truest trial.
The corner of his mouth is already raised in a devilish little half-smile, and it only grows as she agrees. Selfishness isn't all bad, it turns out. He lifts one hand from around her waist and tips her chin up, eyes roving her lovely face as if he needs to learn it, as if he hasn't already memorized every line and curve, but there's always more to learn, isn't there?
Every day, he watches her, too intently for any human to tolerate, and every day he wonders at her patience in waiting for him to appear in her life, and her patience in waiting for him to grow accustomed to this new lifestyle of theirs, one that doesn't revolve around fear. He is ready to look for them in earnest, to stop distracting her, although he'll still follow her lead as they move through the world, tracking the course laid out in her visions.
There's more purpose to it when he bends to kiss her again, but it's still soft even if it's deeper. They've both led their own hard lives. He'll be soft with her every day, into forever.
She's been doing some watching of her own, and biding just as much time. They're equally matched in their extra senses, in so many ways. Though she can see the future, see the outcomes of his decisions as he makes them, he knows her every mood better than she does, able to discern her emotions to the point of making her wonder if maybe he can read her thoughts, in his own way.
If it was anyone else in creation it might be annoying. Instead it feels something like having found her soulmate.
A soulmate that took months to kiss her for the first time because he's a perfect gentleman. Oh, well.
But a win is a win is a win and she's kissing him back without pushing, just letting him lead and memorizing every new sensation in turn. She takes the opportunity to trace his jawline, his throat, feather light touches, waiting for his reaction. She's memorized his every scar in all but touch. Every scar he's shown her, anyhow. She knows there are more. And some that will take much more than her fingertips to light on.
They shouldn't have gone south, Jasper thinks later. It's a month after their first kiss, and they've shared plenty since then as they've kept moving, through the Appalachians toward the plains to the west. It's almost like a sightseeing tour sometimes, the two of them hand in hand, walking through fields and along the edges of dirt roads, and finally leaving footprints in sunset-painted sands.
Alice had never seen the desert and Jasper had spent several rainy days talking about it, and about the wars. It had taken some doing, but she'd finally convinced him to turn south, not all the way to the border, just the northern edges of the deserts, across the Texas panhandle and into New Mexico. Jasper had been worried despite Alice's assurances that they wouldn't run into anything more threatening than the odd scorpion, but of course she'd been right. There hadn't been a hint of any territorial vampires looking to defend their claims, and then they went north again, racing into the Rockies, free and clear.
He'd let his guard down after they'd left the desert behind, he'd thought the only real threat would have come from running into a rival, but the need to stay low during the day and slip about at night, the old habits that had come back to him so naturally after barely a decade gone, they'd seeped into him in ways he hadn't realized, until it was too late. They didn't always hunt together, sometimes they each ran alone and found each other again later, and so when the trap snapped shut on the poacher's leg and his yell of pain split the afternoon and the scent of his blood flooded the forest air like spilled wine across a white tablecloth, Jasper acted on instinct. The old instinct.
The man was dead only seconds later, before he'd even had time to examine the damage done to his leg. Jasper descended on him from behind and snapped his neck, as he'd always done to try and lessen the inevitable terror, and drinking from him was like surfacing from deep underwater. Jasper didn't stop until he was full, overfull, and it takes a blessed few minutes for his guilt to catch up with him, but when it does, he doesn't stay. He bolts.
It would be a long time before she forgave herself for it, if she ever did, this lapse. Maybe she'd been lazy, complacent, relying too much on her sight, her ability to predict a little further based on her visions. They should have been fine. But they weren't. Something slipped through the cracks.
Alice didn't particularly enjoy hunting and so often Jasper just needed the release, the violence it provided that they would part ways for an hour or two, here and there. But always they would find each other again.
Which is why it feels something like being punched in the chest when she sees his decision to run. She missed something. Something big. She can't see what he's done, what he thinks he's done, only that he's going to choose to run from her. She's missed something.
She's never run like this before, almost blindly. He knows her so well, too well, he's just running, no clear destination in mind other than away from her. It's too long before she catches sight of him in her mind. Heading south. Back toward the desert.
His head start and knowledge of the area are in his favor, but she chases him all the same, using what little she can glean, her stride never faltering, her anger banked and smothered in worry. She has enough time to put together the pieces.
It's nearly dark before she catches up to him, in another forest, pine and dirt, dry heat and silence. He doesn't make a sound.
Neither does Alice until she collides with him, forcefully, fully knowing this could be a fight she might not win.
Somehow she ends up straddling his chest, pinning him as best as she can, bodily and visually, her wide eyes locked on his, and she lets all the hurt and worry and stress into her gaze, holds back nothing, clothes herself in her emotions. She has no time to fight fair.
He can feel her when she gets close, but he'd expected she'd call out first, try to talk to him as they're running together, he hadn't expected her to just tackle him to the ground like that, and it's that moment of surprise that gives her enough advantage to pin him down. He pulls against her grip, but the magma flow of emotion pouring off her is more than enough to keep him in place, overwhelming his guilt and his shame.
The smell of that human's blood must be all over him, he hadn't had time or inclination to be tidy about his kill, and he'd fed so much, he'd be surprised if his eyes hadn't gone straight back to ruby red as he stares up at her, helpless to fight back with her looking and feeling like that.
"Yes," he manages at last, barely above a whisper. "I'm leaving. I'm going back south. I'm no good at all for you, Alice, you're strong, you can survive without me, go and find your family."
Surprise is Alice's best tool against him, aside from her entirely unfair use of emotion, and she isn't pulling her punches. He can't leave her. He won't. She won't let him run from a single, solitary mistake. An all too understandable lapse.
"I don't want to," she says slowly, almost petulant, a little anger finally leaking through, past the hurt, past the adrenaline. But then a flurry of things happen at once. She sees his resolve to return to Maria just as she finally scents the blood, dried but potent, soaked through his shirt, and Alice bares her teeth in a snarl.
Quicker than anyone with lesser sight and strength could see, she tears Jasper's shirt off, balls it up tightly in knots, and throws it as hard as she can downwind.
It's entirely too long before she realizes what she's just done.
"Well, you can hardly run off and leave me looking like that," she says lightly, her tone masking her feelings a little too well, thanks to her own surprise at herself.
But he couldn't possibly miss the hurt that still lingers, the concern, even shrouded in something a little more possessive, fluttering to the surface. She'd only just found him, they haven't had nearly enough time. There was still so much more time.
He could imagine quite a number of outcomes to this encounter, some of them favorable, a lot of them less so, but it's clear from the look of bewildered shock on his face that he hadn't expected that. He should have, perhaps, he hadn't exactly been tidy about his table manners, but it's over so quickly, he doesn't even have the chance to protest. She's still looming over him, hurting and angry and fearful for him, and something newer and darker now rising to curl through everything else.
He's felt that before. He'd felt it from Maria whenever she'd watched him training the newborns. But it's different from Alice, this feeling of possession is twined in and around all her other feelings for him, deep and true, and he can't shy back from it. "Interesting strategy," he says after a few moments, unable to keep a little smile off his face despite everything, and then he twists and suddenly she's the one staring up at him as he leans over her, knees on either side of her hips, hands planted on either side of her head.
Like this, there's no hiding the expanse of his scars, the semicircles running up both arms and across his torso. He knows what he looks like, he's terrifying, but she's never been afraid of him, and he stares down at her now and searches for the slightest thread of fear. It must be there somewhere, it must.
Or some other kind of play, maybe. Definitely not fair.
She's much more surprised than she should be, all things considered, and she gasps when her back hits the earth, though not from pain. It doesn't even enter her mind that he could be trying to frighten her, that maybe she should be frightened of him. That small smile is still in her mind, the ghost of it lingering in the corners of his lips in spite of his intensity, in the way he watches her, searches her. She can't help but wonder what he sees.
Because he's absolutely beautiful. And it would take her breath away if she needed to breathe at all. She's not sure she doesn't, for a moment, something tightening in her chest as she gazes up at him. Without giving any consideration to the warnings in the far back of her mind she places her hand against his chest, where she'd be able to feel his heartbeat if he had one. She makes a circle of a scar there, tracing the raised, somehow even smoother edges with the tip of a finger.
Her smile grows slowly as something like warmth spreads through her from the inside out. Something like desire. Desire she's held in check unsuccessfully but at least managed to bank. She knows now that this wasn't his intent, knows he might even bolt when he realizes he's had exactly the opposite effect on her.
The knowledge doesn't stop her from dragging her gaze slowly from where it's been roaming his chest and shoulders, slowly memorizing, back to his face, to the intensity of his gaze.
It's not there. It's not there. The fear just doesn't exist. He can feel everything that's there in its place, the love, the open admiration, the new warmth of desire that...no, it isn't new, he realizes with a jolt, she's just kept it hidden from him until this moment. Maybe she hadn't wanted to frighten him off with it.
His sharp stare softens gradually as her fingers explore his scars, still fearless as she looks at the marks of most of his life. For a moment, he feels ancient, crouched in the shadow of her boundless curiosity and wonder, but it passes quickly as she looks up at him again.
Abruptly he moves, sliding down to curl into her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her tight, tucking his head beneath her chin. They haven't done this much, there's been no reason to when they don't need to sleep and don't need to stop moving, but he needs this. She's his anchor.
"A poacher," he whispers. "Caught himself in his own trap. I'm so sorry, Alice."
She wraps around him without a conscious thought, holds him tight and close while he curls into her, and waits. It's possible he'll never stop surprising her.
"Shhhhh," she's breathing before he even manages to finish his apology, she won't call it unnecessary if it's what he needs, but he doesn't owe it to her. "I'm sorry," she murmurs into his hair, holding him tight against herself. "I didn't see it," she continues, brow furrowed, darkness creeping into her voice, into the woods around them. "I should have seen it." Barely a whisper, hardly enough sound to stir the air.
She failed him, this time. If only she'd been closer, looked harder...
Her palms press flat against his scarred back and she places a gentle kiss into his hair, sighing.
It's tempting to stay there forever, just breathing in the scent of her as she slowly moves back toward his center, but he can't have her hurting like this. He's angry at how much stronger he feels as he lifts his head and shifts to set one arm beside Alice's head again, trailing his fingers—still stained at the fingernails, dirt now driven deep—along the line of her jaw.
"You can't see everything," he says, quiet but insistent. "It was too fast, it was seconds. If it's not my fault, it's not yours."
But it's happened, and now what? Starting again? It had been so easy to break away, there hadn't been a thought in his head to stop him, and now a man's dead. Again. Another to add to the tally. How can he let himself be around someone like Alice? No, he thinks, he can't.
"Nobody's perfect," she tells him softly, not releasing her hold on him, only shifting as he does so it's less awkward. She doesn't trust herself to have her hands free, exactly, her emotions still a bit of a paradox. Pain and desire and need to comfort and need to be assured.
Goodbye is still in his eyes and she's not having any of it.
"We'll be more careful," she continues, resolving not to stray her gaze from his eyes, for now. His lovely eyes still amber, if darker. Only a small step backward. She wouldn't spare a moment of pity for the man, just yet. Jasper would do more than enough bearing the burden of a life taken.
"We can do this." Because there's no more singular for them. They will do this. They'll fight their own natures, together.
There's the briefest moment of panic, a wash of worry that her words might not be enough, that he'll leave her anyway, and she's not sure she'd survive it. It's such a selfish thing, quashed back as quickly as it rushes to the surface, but she doesn't want to do this without him. She could. But reliving the future without him would be even emptier than the memories of her past. A void.
"Please trust me." If you run I'll only chase you.
He almost flinches at the shock of panic that moves through her, a bright splash of red against the twisting anxiety and the constant thrum of her need for him. He'd done that, he'd put that there. It's his responsibility to banish it again, to soothe her back to her calm blues and greens.
His fingers trace her face, slide into her hair, and he leans down to press his lips to her forehead, closing his eyes, and then dusts her face with more light kisses, barely-there brushes of his lips.
"I trust you," he whispers. "I trust you, Alice, I trust you more than anyone I've had in my life before." Any intentions he'd had of slipping away from her again, of making her chase him again, he pushes them away, ruthless and stern. That isn't who he is. He isn't that puppet in the South, he isn't going back to that. He isn't going back to Peter and Charlotte. He isn't going off on his own again. He's here. He's staying.
Finally, he opens his eyes again, looking down at her. "You are my future, Alice."
Jasper has a way of touching her with purpose and promise that she's absolutely certain is unique to him. While she'd already known of his abilities, the way he understands and can manipulate emotion, it had taken her far too long to realize he didn't use any extra ability on her. Of course he could read her, there really wasn't a way to turn that off as far as she knew, but he never tried to control or alter her emotions, not unless she asked. It was embarrassing to realize the courtesy he was showing her, in that way. She wasn't always easy company, she was certain.
But he had a way of touching her that spoke volumes, that calmed her and grounded her. His hand in hers, his arms around her, the way he fit into her shadow and matched his breaths to hers. She should have realized his kisses would be an even deeper connection yet. Still it takes her by surprise, his careful affection, this intimacy. Every time.
She can see his face so clearly she doesn't realize she's closed her eyes until he ceases his barrage of kisses and speaks once again and her eyes flutter open. Her hands are suddenly holding his face in place as she leans up to kiss just the tip of his nose.
They make progress after that. Their course is still meandering, but each movement gets them just a little closer to the when that Alice has seen in her visions. It's nearly a month later and they're leaving twin rows of prints in the Great Salt Flats—running flat out in full daylight, relishing the freedom of this strange place where no human can really trust their eyes—when Alice brightens so much Jasper can almost see her excitement. He pulls her to a stop, spinning her around in the sparkling sunlight.
"What is it, Alice, what did you see? Is it them?"
It's a moment before she focuses on him, before she reaches up and cups his face in her hands, and she laughs like crystal bells, can swear she hears it ringing across the flats.
"It's time." It's all she needs to say, knows he understands, that he's been waiting with nearly as much anticipation as she has. And now it's the perfect time to arrive.
They have very little time to spare.
She shares the details on the way, that they're obviously not expected, but the ones that might've picked a fight before listening are out hunting, the few that remain will welcome them, and every once in a while some muttering about what may or may not be interior design and wasted space and ideal lighting.
Barely hours have passed when they arrive in rural Montana, heading for new construction of glass and stone, nestled into the mountain range, a house of vampires. Alice is nearly a blur of excitement, unable to contain herself, a litany of it's time it's time it's time rolling around in her mind, bouncing off every wall and corner.
Naturally she's determined to just waltz up to the house and knock.
Now that it's time, Jasper's military demeanor emerges again, the planner who takes all the available information and puts it to good use. Unfortunately there isn't much to plan here, and unlike Alice, he's more than a little wary about this entire idea. He's had two years to get used to it, but he's also had two years to get used to just the two of them, moving together like they were made for each other. He isn't certain he'll ever be truly ready to surrender that.
And what would any self-respecting vampire, vegetarian or otherwise, be doing letting someone like him close to his family? He can't help fearing this isn't going to go at all the way she's seen it.
But he trusts Alice, Alice is his future, and it's impossible not to smile at the waves of pure joy and excitement radiating off her as they finally come into view of the house. As she walks right up to the house and knocks on the door, he laces their fingers and holds on tight as he reaches out for the little bright spots of emotion inside. He can only feel three people. Two of them are calm, contented, the third is more complex but there's contentment there too. No fear among any of them, but he feels three spikes of surprise as Alice knocks.
"Three of them," he murmurs, "like you said," as the most settled, the one with the least amount of surprise of the three, starts moving toward the door. It's a human pace, and Jasper needs to suppress the urge to bolt when the door opens and he gets his first look at the man Alice has been seeing in her visions for decades.
He watches as the man—Carlisle Cullen, it must be—assesses the both of them in a fraction of a second, and his amber eyes linger on theirs for a little longer. What conclusions is he drawing? There's still not a hint of fear despite the impression Jasper knows he gives off, but Carlisle's curiosity has skyrocketed, and is that a little excitement mixed into it?
"Good morning," he says, soft-voiced and curious, nodding first to Jasper and then turning his attention to Alice. "May I help you?"
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♥~
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Patience was not so much a virtue as survival.
That doesn't mean Alice was terribly good at it. Especially when the future flitted and flexed and shifted at the last minute. At least it kept her on her toes. Not much could.
It had been her clearest vision of him yet, and she was ready for it, this time. She all but shimmered and sparkled and vibrated on the barstool in the little diner, the only patron through no doing of her own, and watched the door. Counted down the seconds.
Any moment now, as the seconds dragged like rusty gears and her fingertips drummed like a hummingbird's wings. Soon she'd be nearly complete.
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His eyes are dark, less noticeable than the red of satiation, but it means he's thirsty, and he hasn't got any business here, and it doesn't make any damn sense, and he keeps going.
He picks the diner because it's a quiet patch, a little oasis of apprehensive excitement in the midst of the worry worry worry everywhere else. The slam of the door behind him breaks the silence, and he's barely two steps inside before he scents her and looks up, sharp and wary, to see a pixie of a vampire girl perched on a stool at the counter. Oh, hell. At least there's almost no one else here, no one except the people in the back, if it comes to a fight.
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The little string of bells above the door chimes again, and this time it gives her wings.
Alice hops off the barstool in fluid motion, her smile a little brighter than any stranger deserves, but she can't contain her joy. The object of her entire focus is just as beautiful as she knew he'd be. Which reminds her, sets her expression a little more wry as she approaches him, her steps following her own trilling cadence as if to spite the crawling seconds she endured while waiting for him.
She feels as though she's done this dance a thousand times when she holds out her hand and greets him formally.
"You've kept me waiting a long time."
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Her voice is like a bell, like laughter, it slips into him and roots him to the spot, it pushes everything else behind her out of focus until her face is all he can see. The big band music on the tinny radio seems to fade out of his hearing as the rain hammers the windows, and just for a moment it's a century ago and he's no murderer but only a man who's disappointed a lady by keeping her waiting.
He ducks his head, drops his eyes, finds himself somehow fighting a smile. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, because what else is there to say? He doesn't know her, but she says he's kept her waiting, and he isn't about to doubt the word of a lady. It's an ungentlemanly thing to do.
It's barely a moment later before he's reached out to take her hand, chill and somehow familiar, and he only looks up again once her slender fingers are curled around his. He ought to say something more, introduce himself properly, but nothing comes to mind, nothing to push out the faint but distinct glow of hope.
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It's a near thing that stops her from reaching up to his face, from following the impulse to trace the scars above his eye, along his jaw, the infinite stories and the only proof of so many existences. Instead she takes his hand in both of hers now, drags him into an empty booth just behind her, near the door, backs herself up against the window so he won't feel boxed in beside her. "I'm Alice," she remembers to inform him suddenly, her expression a little apologetic for the first time.
"I have so much to tell you," and she can hardly hold back from the visions that spill over her lips as she holds his hand in her lap, curled on the seat so she can face him, and tells him everything she's seen for them. That there's a better life and she's seen them in it, together. There's a coven just waiting for them, they just don't know it yet, but everything is falling into place so perfectly and permanently already there is no doubt in her mind, in any fibre of her being.
But even in her giddiness, in her certainty, she waits. Waits for him to absorb what she's just dropped on him. For the first time she didn't worry before she shared her... gift. Her sight. Her very soul.
He seems like he has broad enough shoulders to handle it.
She knows he does.
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It makes his fingers tighten on hers as he follows without protest and sits beside her, a little ramrod-straight maybe, in contrast to her comfortable curl. It's difficult to follow what she's saying and how she's saying it. There's a certainty to her, a little calm center he can feel expanding as she squeezes his hand and waits for him a little longer.
"We haven't met before," he says slowly, and it isn't a question. He knows he'd remember. "I can imagine there's quite a lot I don't yet know, Miss Alice."
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"Good thing we have plenty of time," she assures him. She has no intention of keeping anything from him. She knows her honesty, her full disclosure, is the key to the future, their future, this beautiful thing she's already so very in love with.
"What if I told you I've seen our future?" she tells him conspiratorially, like it's not a terrible overused flirtation she's heard so many times it's now a cliche. "That there's a coven waiting for us, to welcome us, and there's a better way to live?" All morbidity and technicality aside, they were living. And she wants to live it to the fullest. And now they can. She can feel her impatience bubbling to the surface, but not towards him. Her impatience is wholly her desire to be experiencing this life she's seen. It's so close she can taste it.
"I sometimes forget we don't already know each other," she admits, gives in and strokes a particularly raised scar on the back of his hand, while she's already holding it captive.
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"Your eyes...I've never seen eyes like yours," he says instead. It has nothing to do with anything she's saying, but it's true, Alice's eyes are a burnished amber, almost glowing in the subdued dusty light. It seems like the right thing to do now to reach out and brush back a lock of short dark hair, and to tip her chin back up to see them more clearly.
"I don't think I'd object overly much to a better way of anything," he adds in a whisper, and the hand at her chin almost trembles before he drops it to cover her other hand, suddenly holding on tight enough to injure any ordinary human. He's at the edge of some precipice he hadn't seen yawning open in front of him, and he doesn't know if she's there to hold him back from it or to jump in with him, but he knows, he knows he doesn't want to let her go.
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"Part of the deal," she explains while batting those amber eyes. "There's a bit of dedication involved," she adds a moment later, frowning slightly. It's a hard sell to some. But it's a way to fight back.
She squeezes his hand in hers, even as his overlap her much smaller hands, and she smiles warmly as he all but clings to her. While she would much prefer to jump in beside him, always beside him, she's not opposed to dragging him along if he needs the motivation. She has the utmost faith in him.
She feels something bind in all the right ways, something shift just a little tighter into place, and she can't help but sneak a peek into their future for the thousandth time. Her expression blanks for just seconds as she calls forward just what she needs. Then she blinks and everything clicks.
It's not on purpose, the way her certainty and hope and anticipation flow from her, how she all but radiates it as if it's multiplied.
"Come with me."
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It takes effort, a monumental effort, but he fights back the first instinct to turn and spring at her, and his hands are still locked in Alice's when he does turn, menacingly slowly, to stare up at the woman. Alice's sensations haven't fluctuated much at all, she isn't anxious or worried, and she isn't hungry either with a human this close, and that's a curious thing.
The woman takes a reflexive step back at the flat black stare. She doesn't know what he is, not really, but some part of her knows she needs to stay back. "Apologies, but we were just leaving," he says, remarkably evenly considering a moment ago only the cool, firm hands within his had prevented an atrocity here.
The waitress doesn't wait, doesn't even answer, just disappears back into the kitchen. Jasper watches her go, and the smell of fear turns his stomach. He's never in his life let someone go like that. If Alice wasn't with him, he'd be latched on to that woman's scent, waiting somewhere nearby—in a cellar, on the roof—for as many hours as it took before he could get her alone. It'd be fast, he always moved as fast as he could, but they always knew. There was always a sick twist of terror before death, always because of him.
"Tell me about the deal," he says through clenched teeth as he stirs to rise, as well as he can without letting go of her hands. He'd said they were leaving, after all, and he doesn't want to take any bets on how long he'll last once the dinner rush starts filling up the place.
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"Seems like you figured part of it out already," she tells him, gazing up and up into his dark eyes and smiling encouragingly.
Without ever releasing his hands she twirls, sets his arms around her as she fits against his side, and with a little maneuvering they're out the door and into the rain. No one is paying much attention to them, there's enough to worry about for most humans. Her voice is quiet, but she knows he can hear her just fine.
"Being so thirsty will probably make this easier," she continues, nonchalantly, completely undeterred by the rain, though she makes a little effort to keep them under the eaves and awnings they pass under, even as those become more scarce as they head for the edge of the city, a little quicker here and there if they are able to avoid notice.
"It doesn't satisfy everything, not really, but it sates the thirst," she explains. "And elk are definitely prolific in this area."
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The movement of the water dulls the smell of blood pulsing beneath skin by heightening the smell of everything else, and he's able to let her draw him along the streets, ducking under little patches of shelter here and there. To anyone looking, and no one's looking anywhere they don't need to be in rain like this, there isn't much of anything strange about the quick-moving couple.
His hair is plastered flat by the time they leave the pavement behind, walking lightly and easily over a mud-slicked vacant lot at the edge of the city. She hasn't once let go of his hands, and he hasn't made a move to draw away, keeping her snug against his side every moment since she'd put herself there. "Elk?" he repeats, frowning in confusion as he tips his head to look down at her.
"Been bringing down a lot of elk?" he can't help but add with a little quirk of a smile. He hasn't much felt like smiling in a century or so and it feels out of place on his lips, but he's picturing this diminutive pixie launching herself at an enormous animal, and it's all too easy to see, as it happens.
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"But I happen to know of a herd that will be in the forest to the northwest if you'd like to join me," she continues. It's rather nice to have the future available to point you in the right direction. They're close enough to the edges of the city, to the wilderness remaining, that they could take off running without attracting any attention at all. But first Alice slips into the future for a moment, checking, confirming.
Everything is still falling into place even more clearly.
She's heard it once or twice that the way to man's heart is through his stomach, and she giggles to herself a moment as she comes back to the present, gaze and smile turned back up to Jasper's face, knowing he couldn't have missed her slipping off like that.
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There's a little twist of nervousness in Alice's heart, weaving its way through her excitement and her happiness, but most of her is just joy and relief, anticipation. He's never felt someone like her before, and it's because of him, and he doesn't understand that yet, but he can already tell he's leaning close to those bright feelings of hers, like a man walking from the night desert to a bonfire.
"Where do you go off to when you do that?" he murmurs, loosening his arms automatically so she can pull away from him, easier to run that way, but he isn't letting go of her hand, not until there's no other option. "What are you seeing?"
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"But just now I was making sure I knew where we were going," she admits, and it's the truth. Though she was checking the elk just as much as the more distant future...
He makes her feel so grounded she could sing. He's given her direction for so long without even knowing it, and now that he's found her, she's just as loathe to let him go as he seems to be.
As if there's music only she can hear she starts to move, dancing steps toward the unpaved roads and forest ahead, not too far, just a matter of tens of miles, backwards at first as she tugs him along, gently, just in case.
"Trust me," she instructs as much as asks, bright eyes open and honest, and then she turns to run, his hand still tightly grasped in hers.
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Seeing the future, he thinks a little dizzily as they both lope forward, the trees blurring past them as they hop and dodge together through the undergrowth. Seeing their future. He hadn't really given much thought to having a future at all, but here's this girl (pixie, fairy, angel) seeing a whole tapestry laid out, and brimming over with happiness because he's finally stepped out of her mind and into her life.
How could he do anything else but trust her?
"How long exactly have I been keeping you waiting?" he asks as they both leap neatly over a rushing creek brimming with floodwater draining from the city they're leaving behind them.
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But she holds tight and flies through the woods, leaving not a trace, barely making a sound, absolutely certain of her direction.
She laughs, a little like singing, when he asks, and she never pauses in motion, just squeezes his hand minutely. They're almost there.
"As long as I can remember," she starts, her laughter still in her voice, even if really it's not very humorous. "28 years," she clarifies honestly. And while she's never been a patient woman, as far as she can tell, these past 28 years being all she can remember... he's worth it.
He was her very first vision. One of her first memories.
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There's blood on the air. He can't tell from what, he isn't much use at reading wild animals, but they're wild animals, there might have been a scuffle or a mishap. It's more than enough to get his attention, as hungry as he is, and he's almost surprised to hear a low growl.
He'll ask her more about that twenty-eight years later. For now, he stops short, crouching and tense behind a fallen tree, still upwind from the herd. He's never hunted before, not like this, not like an animal, but there's an instinct to all hunting. Humans become animals when they know they're being hunted, and he knows how to keep one from spooking, even without his abilities.
For the first time since the diner, he squeezes Alice's hand and lets go. "Ladies first?" he asks with a faint smile, even as he's eyeing the herd, picking out the weak. They're fast enough to match any animal there, and the thrill of it runs through him again like a little shock. He's never enjoyed being a predator, even when he's picked his human victims carefully, but animals don't feel the same terror that humans do. Maybe he can do this.
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"Don't wait too long," she concedes.
She smirks up at him then winks and vanishes into the pines above them.
It's only a matter of seconds before she drops from her concealed position in the trees onto one of the average-sized cows and snaps her neck with a loud crack. The herd, in delayed panic, disperses. But she's given into the hunt, it's the only way to get any real enjoyment out of it, and she does her best to convince herself this is filling, this is all she needs, this is life.
It's so much easier when she doesn't have to watch the future snuff out with the blood still warm on her tongue.
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His target is a small bull, not because he feels any need to show off but simply because that's the source of the blood-scent that had first caught his attention, a long wound along its neck. He heads for it straight on, and it must be pure animal instinct when the thing nearly skewers him as it fends him off with its rack. It's not enough to stop him, of course not, he speeds around to its other side and leaps, arms around its neck in the blink of an eye, not even enough time for it to struggle before Jasper has crushed its spine. Not clean, not like he might have wanted it, but he's too hungry to do anything more about it.
The scent of the animal is everywhere, attractive and repellant at the same time, as he tears open the neck and drinks, eyes closed, fingers fisted tight in furred skin, in pelt. It...works...somewhat. He's full when he finally moves again and lifts his head to look around him. The herd is long gone now, the clearing silent, and he's not satisfied, but he's not thirsty, and he hasn't felt the panicked terror of a life lost. Is it enough?
He sits back, letting the animal slide from his arms, wiping blood from his lips and turning his hand to watch it drying against his skin. Is it enough? It's enough for Alice, he thinks, and she's said it's enough for him. She thinks he's strong enough for it.
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"I did say it took dedication," she says finally, breaking the unnatural silence that always seems to fall through the forest at a presence like theirs. Like life actually flees them all on its own before they've even consciously posed a threat.
Her smile is just as proud and inviting as it's been since he finally walked through the door, accompanied by the chime of little bells.
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Months later and in some ways it's easier, so much easier. And in some ways it's harder. They're not perfect, no one is, no one can expect perfection, and no one can beat himself up harder for falling prey to his own nature than Jasper, Alice has decided. But she sticks by him, supports him, and finds all the pieces of herself she's been missing along the way.
It's a strange thing, feeling complete. Balanced. She didn't even realize she wasn't until he was finally a physical presence in her life.
They travel frequently, before they can make too much of an impression anywhere, before they get too comfortable. She's still eager to find their family, the Cullens, but neither of them are truly ready. She hadn't quite expected how much she'd want to keep Jasper to herself for a time. And how much that feeling would be mutual. As it stands, every time she decides to push, a quick glance at the future shows it's still not the right time. She's getting impatient.
She's never been terribly patient. But it keeps her focused, having to practice at it.
They're hand in hand in the middle of nowhere, small-town Montana somewhere, mountains and trees and overcast skies. Suddenly she laughs, turns to him with a grin and shakes her head.
"That's not very original, you know," she tells him. "If you're not ready yet, just tell me, you don't have to distract me."
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And wherever she goes, she draws him along in her wake. Like this talk of the Cullens. She's seen them there, she knows that's where they'll end up, but he isn't so sure they need it. He isn't sure he wants to join some clan of animals-only vampires, living like them, pretending to be human. Just being with her, the two of them moving through the world, it's already more than he'd expected, or suspects he deserves. It's still difficult, it's difficult every day to scent a human from far off and go in the opposite direction. There are times when he's whip-tense, when he's snappish, when she snaps back and he wonders irritably if it's really worth all this trouble, just for a heart at peace.
Then there are times, more and more now, when he can't keep his eyes off her. Even in the presence of humans, when their scents should be jerking his attention this way and that, Alice is in the center of it all, his focus, his compass point. He'd tried to tell himself at first that it was survival keeping him at her side, that he'd wanted to find a new way of doing things and she'd given him one, so it was only right and proper he stay with her for a time, as a protector and a fellow traveler. He is both of those things, but it's more than that, it had been ever since he'd first taken her hand.
Privately, though he hasn't changed a thing outwardly, he's stopped thinking of when it might be time for them to part ways. He doesn't want to leave her side, not ever, not even for a moment. She already knows they'll be together, she's seen it, but there's a substantial part of him that still needs to do this the right way. This won't be like his so-called relationship with Maria. This is love, it's real, and it's settled into his bones.
Trouble is, it's difficult to court a woman who can see the future. "I might like distracting you," he points out as he lifts his hand and twirls her around twice before stepping into her and swinging her into a music-less dance on this Montana mountainside. They could be anywhere in the world and it wouldn't matter. "It's a challenge. I wonder that you didn't think of that, Miss Alice."
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Sometimes it makes her laugh with genuine pleasure, and sometimes it makes her want to crack the mountainside open with her own forehead. He means well, the charming, traditional creature she's already woven into her life. But he's right. She hadn't quite seen it the way he does, not really.
As far as she was concerned, everything was already set. Why waste time on the preliminaries? Apparently she had that much more patience to acquire.
And she hardly considers herself a challenge.
She falls into step with him easily, as if now maybe they both can hear the same music, and she can't help but laugh, lightly. He's given her something to think about.
"Oh, now I see," she jests. "No wonder you're so good at it," and it isn't a lie. She can't imagine anything or anyone holding her attention quite so easily and completely. Short of maybe one thing, every now and again.
Her smile goes just a little bit wicked. "So you like the challenge, is it?"
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Growing up, he'd watched eagles soaring over the flatland and had wondered what it would be like to be up there, light as air, untouched and untouchable. This isn't quite the same, but it's close enough.
"I do apologize for keeping you waiting," he says quietly as he watches the tiny specks of gulls circling over a river miles away. "It's selfish of me, I know."
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His plans had a much different color, now, and while he was somehow keeping the bigger picture hazy enough she couldn't quite grasp it, she had an idea or two. He was a bit of a hopeless romantic, she decided. What luck that she was, too. However difficult she might be about it. What woman wouldn't want to be courted? If she thought too hard about it, she might come to resent her Sight, her actual inability to be properly surprised.
So far, however, it had only served her well.
Her feet touch the earth again just moments after he's crushed her into his arms, like she was something to be protected and cherished, and then spun at the top of the world like a ballerina. She could get used to this. She hopes she never does.
She laughs again, softly as his apology, and reaches up to set her hand against his face as she takes him in, ignoring the scenic view in favor of what she'd rather see. "You don't have to keep apologizing," she tells him, having lost track somewhere along the way, whether he'd uttered the apology a thousand times or she'd merely understood it to exist in the quiet between them.
"I know you'll make it up to me." There's a little bit of possession underneath the playful, airy tone.
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The touch against his face has him closing his eyes and exhaling slowly. His breath doesn't plume into the chilly evening, nor does hers.
"Every day," he says, pressing his cheek into her palm and meeting her beautiful golden eyes, his own the same hue as hers now. Before he surprises himself by leaning down to press his lips against hers, delicate, as if he isn't certain how it will be received. This isn't the right way to go about things, not according to the way he was raised a century ago, not the way she was, but she hasn't seen this coming, and that makes it worthwhile.
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She's not sure if she says it aloud or if her surprise only floods through her mind, but oh, he couldn't have surprised her better. And such a gentleman about it, too.
They have all the time in the world, in that moment, and she wouldn't dream of breaking the spell. Her hand remains, caressing his face as she pushes into the kiss just enough that it has to be obvious she's a willing recipient and participant. As if the surge of emotions rolling over her weren't evidence enough.
It's unlike anything she's experienced to date.
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They're dangerous, powerful, and the kiss still stays delicate and careful, only sips instead of anything larger. He doesn't need more than this, he doesn't want it in this moment. It had just been the right time.
When he finally pulls back, it's hardly at all, and he brushes her lips with a second barely-there kiss, like an afterthought or a signature. There's still a little urge to apologize for his being so forward with her, but he's felt her impatience often enough to know he doesn't need to. And if the sharply flavored tangle of emotions inside her is anything to go by, she'd really rather he not apologize.
"We'll go find the family," he whispers, nosing along her cheek with a quiet smile, "but I'm still feeling a mite selfish."
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finallykissing her would be unnecessary and redundant. She might have even slapped him, without even a blip in her excellent mood.She gasps, quietly, before he's even finished his statement, and it takes her just a moment to find the words to go with her smile. Meanwhile her hand has slipped down to his jaw, his throat, to the back of his neck, fingertips just beginning to weave into his hair.
"What a coincidence, so am I," she says just as quietly, still smiling at the joke of it, though she knows these feelings are entirely her own. She's still eager for their new life with the Cullens she's seen in her visions... but she's not about to rush through and waste the time that just the two of them have. The least she has to offer him is time.
She'd give him anything he asked for.
It's the waiting for him to ask that will be the truest trial.
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Every day, he watches her, too intently for any human to tolerate, and every day he wonders at her patience in waiting for him to appear in her life, and her patience in waiting for him to grow accustomed to this new lifestyle of theirs, one that doesn't revolve around fear. He is ready to look for them in earnest, to stop distracting her, although he'll still follow her lead as they move through the world, tracking the course laid out in her visions.
There's more purpose to it when he bends to kiss her again, but it's still soft even if it's deeper. They've both led their own hard lives. He'll be soft with her every day, into forever.
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If it was anyone else in creation it might be annoying. Instead it feels something like having found her soulmate.
A soulmate that took months to kiss her for the first time because he's a perfect gentleman. Oh, well.
But a win is a win is a win and she's kissing him back without pushing, just letting him lead and memorizing every new sensation in turn. She takes the opportunity to trace his jawline, his throat, feather light touches, waiting for his reaction. She's memorized his every scar in all but touch. Every scar he's shown her, anyhow. She knows there are more. And some that will take much more than her fingertips to light on.
Until then, they have this moment.
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Alice had never seen the desert and Jasper had spent several rainy days talking about it, and about the wars. It had taken some doing, but she'd finally convinced him to turn south, not all the way to the border, just the northern edges of the deserts, across the Texas panhandle and into New Mexico. Jasper had been worried despite Alice's assurances that they wouldn't run into anything more threatening than the odd scorpion, but of course she'd been right. There hadn't been a hint of any territorial vampires looking to defend their claims, and then they went north again, racing into the Rockies, free and clear.
He'd let his guard down after they'd left the desert behind, he'd thought the only real threat would have come from running into a rival, but the need to stay low during the day and slip about at night, the old habits that had come back to him so naturally after barely a decade gone, they'd seeped into him in ways he hadn't realized, until it was too late. They didn't always hunt together, sometimes they each ran alone and found each other again later, and so when the trap snapped shut on the poacher's leg and his yell of pain split the afternoon and the scent of his blood flooded the forest air like spilled wine across a white tablecloth, Jasper acted on instinct. The old instinct.
The man was dead only seconds later, before he'd even had time to examine the damage done to his leg. Jasper descended on him from behind and snapped his neck, as he'd always done to try and lessen the inevitable terror, and drinking from him was like surfacing from deep underwater. Jasper didn't stop until he was full, overfull, and it takes a blessed few minutes for his guilt to catch up with him, but when it does, he doesn't stay. He bolts.
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It would be a long time before she forgave herself for it, if she ever did, this lapse. Maybe she'd been lazy, complacent, relying too much on her sight, her ability to predict a little further based on her visions. They should have been fine. But they weren't. Something slipped through the cracks.
Alice didn't particularly enjoy hunting and so often Jasper just needed the release, the violence it provided that they would part ways for an hour or two, here and there. But always they would find each other again.
Which is why it feels something like being punched in the chest when she sees his decision to run. She missed something. Something big. She can't see what he's done, what he thinks he's done, only that he's going to choose to run from her. She's missed something.
She's never run like this before, almost blindly. He knows her so well, too well, he's just running, no clear destination in mind other than away from her. It's too long before she catches sight of him in her mind. Heading south. Back toward the desert.
His head start and knowledge of the area are in his favor, but she chases him all the same, using what little she can glean, her stride never faltering, her anger banked and smothered in worry. She has enough time to put together the pieces.
It's nearly dark before she catches up to him, in another forest, pine and dirt, dry heat and silence. He doesn't make a sound.
Neither does Alice until she collides with him, forcefully, fully knowing this could be a fight she might not win.
Somehow she ends up straddling his chest, pinning him as best as she can, bodily and visually, her wide eyes locked on his, and she lets all the hurt and worry and stress into her gaze, holds back nothing, clothes herself in her emotions. She has no time to fight fair.
"Going somewhere?"
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The smell of that human's blood must be all over him, he hadn't had time or inclination to be tidy about his kill, and he'd fed so much, he'd be surprised if his eyes hadn't gone straight back to ruby red as he stares up at her, helpless to fight back with her looking and feeling like that.
"Yes," he manages at last, barely above a whisper. "I'm leaving. I'm going back south. I'm no good at all for you, Alice, you're strong, you can survive without me, go and find your family."
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"I don't want to," she says slowly, almost petulant, a little anger finally leaking through, past the hurt, past the adrenaline. But then a flurry of things happen at once. She sees his resolve to return to Maria just as she finally scents the blood, dried but potent, soaked through his shirt, and Alice bares her teeth in a snarl.
Quicker than anyone with lesser sight and strength could see, she tears Jasper's shirt off, balls it up tightly in knots, and throws it as hard as she can downwind.
It's entirely too long before she realizes what she's just done.
"Well, you can hardly run off and leave me looking like that," she says lightly, her tone masking her feelings a little too well, thanks to her own surprise at herself.
But he couldn't possibly miss the hurt that still lingers, the concern, even shrouded in something a little more possessive, fluttering to the surface. She'd only just found him, they haven't had nearly enough time. There was still so much more time.
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He's felt that before. He'd felt it from Maria whenever she'd watched him training the newborns. But it's different from Alice, this feeling of possession is twined in and around all her other feelings for him, deep and true, and he can't shy back from it. "Interesting strategy," he says after a few moments, unable to keep a little smile off his face despite everything, and then he twists and suddenly she's the one staring up at him as he leans over her, knees on either side of her hips, hands planted on either side of her head.
Like this, there's no hiding the expanse of his scars, the semicircles running up both arms and across his torso. He knows what he looks like, he's terrifying, but she's never been afraid of him, and he stares down at her now and searches for the slightest thread of fear. It must be there somewhere, it must.
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Or some other kind of play, maybe. Definitely not fair.
She's much more surprised than she should be, all things considered, and she gasps when her back hits the earth, though not from pain. It doesn't even enter her mind that he could be trying to frighten her, that maybe she should be frightened of him. That small smile is still in her mind, the ghost of it lingering in the corners of his lips in spite of his intensity, in the way he watches her, searches her. She can't help but wonder what he sees.
Because he's absolutely beautiful. And it would take her breath away if she needed to breathe at all. She's not sure she doesn't, for a moment, something tightening in her chest as she gazes up at him. Without giving any consideration to the warnings in the far back of her mind she places her hand against his chest, where she'd be able to feel his heartbeat if he had one. She makes a circle of a scar there, tracing the raised, somehow even smoother edges with the tip of a finger.
Her smile grows slowly as something like warmth spreads through her from the inside out. Something like desire. Desire she's held in check unsuccessfully but at least managed to bank. She knows now that this wasn't his intent, knows he might even bolt when he realizes he's had exactly the opposite effect on her.
The knowledge doesn't stop her from dragging her gaze slowly from where it's been roaming his chest and shoulders, slowly memorizing, back to his face, to the intensity of his gaze.
"I learned from the best."
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His sharp stare softens gradually as her fingers explore his scars, still fearless as she looks at the marks of most of his life. For a moment, he feels ancient, crouched in the shadow of her boundless curiosity and wonder, but it passes quickly as she looks up at him again.
Abruptly he moves, sliding down to curl into her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her tight, tucking his head beneath her chin. They haven't done this much, there's been no reason to when they don't need to sleep and don't need to stop moving, but he needs this. She's his anchor.
"A poacher," he whispers. "Caught himself in his own trap. I'm so sorry, Alice."
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"Shhhhh," she's breathing before he even manages to finish his apology, she won't call it unnecessary if it's what he needs, but he doesn't owe it to her. "I'm sorry," she murmurs into his hair, holding him tight against herself. "I didn't see it," she continues, brow furrowed, darkness creeping into her voice, into the woods around them. "I should have seen it." Barely a whisper, hardly enough sound to stir the air.
She failed him, this time. If only she'd been closer, looked harder...
Her palms press flat against his scarred back and she places a gentle kiss into his hair, sighing.
"It's not your fault." Conviction. Apology.
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"You can't see everything," he says, quiet but insistent. "It was too fast, it was seconds. If it's not my fault, it's not yours."
But it's happened, and now what? Starting again? It had been so easy to break away, there hadn't been a thought in his head to stop him, and now a man's dead. Again. Another to add to the tally. How can he let himself be around someone like Alice? No, he thinks, he can't.
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Goodbye is still in his eyes and she's not having any of it.
"We'll be more careful," she continues, resolving not to stray her gaze from his eyes, for now. His lovely eyes still amber, if darker. Only a small step backward. She wouldn't spare a moment of pity for the man, just yet. Jasper would do more than enough bearing the burden of a life taken.
"We can do this." Because there's no more singular for them. They will do this. They'll fight their own natures, together.
There's the briefest moment of panic, a wash of worry that her words might not be enough, that he'll leave her anyway, and she's not sure she'd survive it. It's such a selfish thing, quashed back as quickly as it rushes to the surface, but she doesn't want to do this without him. She could. But reliving the future without him would be even emptier than the memories of her past. A void.
"Please trust me." If you run I'll only chase you.
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His fingers trace her face, slide into her hair, and he leans down to press his lips to her forehead, closing his eyes, and then dusts her face with more light kisses, barely-there brushes of his lips.
"I trust you," he whispers. "I trust you, Alice, I trust you more than anyone I've had in my life before." Any intentions he'd had of slipping away from her again, of making her chase him again, he pushes them away, ruthless and stern. That isn't who he is. He isn't that puppet in the South, he isn't going back to that. He isn't going back to Peter and Charlotte. He isn't going off on his own again. He's here. He's staying.
Finally, he opens his eyes again, looking down at her. "You are my future, Alice."
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But he had a way of touching her that spoke volumes, that calmed her and grounded her. His hand in hers, his arms around her, the way he fit into her shadow and matched his breaths to hers. She should have realized his kisses would be an even deeper connection yet. Still it takes her by surprise, his careful affection, this intimacy. Every time.
She can see his face so clearly she doesn't realize she's closed her eyes until he ceases his barrage of kisses and speaks once again and her eyes flutter open. Her hands are suddenly holding his face in place as she leans up to kiss just the tip of his nose.
"I love you, too."
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"What is it, Alice, what did you see? Is it them?"
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"It's time." It's all she needs to say, knows he understands, that he's been waiting with nearly as much anticipation as she has. And now it's the perfect time to arrive.
They have very little time to spare.
She shares the details on the way, that they're obviously not expected, but the ones that might've picked a fight before listening are out hunting, the few that remain will welcome them, and every once in a while some muttering about what may or may not be interior design and wasted space and ideal lighting.
Barely hours have passed when they arrive in rural Montana, heading for new construction of glass and stone, nestled into the mountain range, a house of vampires. Alice is nearly a blur of excitement, unable to contain herself, a litany of it's time it's time it's time rolling around in her mind, bouncing off every wall and corner.
Naturally she's determined to just waltz up to the house and knock.
So she does.
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And what would any self-respecting vampire, vegetarian or otherwise, be doing letting someone like him close to his family? He can't help fearing this isn't going to go at all the way she's seen it.
But he trusts Alice, Alice is his future, and it's impossible not to smile at the waves of pure joy and excitement radiating off her as they finally come into view of the house. As she walks right up to the house and knocks on the door, he laces their fingers and holds on tight as he reaches out for the little bright spots of emotion inside. He can only feel three people. Two of them are calm, contented, the third is more complex but there's contentment there too. No fear among any of them, but he feels three spikes of surprise as Alice knocks.
"Three of them," he murmurs, "like you said," as the most settled, the one with the least amount of surprise of the three, starts moving toward the door. It's a human pace, and Jasper needs to suppress the urge to bolt when the door opens and he gets his first look at the man Alice has been seeing in her visions for decades.
He watches as the man—Carlisle Cullen, it must be—assesses the both of them in a fraction of a second, and his amber eyes linger on theirs for a little longer. What conclusions is he drawing? There's still not a hint of fear despite the impression Jasper knows he gives off, but Carlisle's curiosity has skyrocketed, and is that a little excitement mixed into it?
"Good morning," he says, soft-voiced and curious, nodding first to Jasper and then turning his attention to Alice. "May I help you?"