A/N: Okay, I've been reading and reviewing forEVER, but I've finally decided to post one of my own. I'm working on a longer one, but I don't want to post any of it in case I decide not to finish it, so here's a little Jasper/Alice shortie for you :] Read and review, please and thanks!
-Ana

I walked down the boardwalk slowly, wondering somewhere in the back of my mind where I was. The rain pounded on my shoulders, but I could barely feel it. I barely felt anything anymore, really. The depression that had set in when I was still with Maria had been so bad that my weeks simply ran together and after every hunt, I felt like I was losing more of what little humanity I had left. What could I do, though? I had to kill to survive, and there was something always present in the back of my mind that told me I had to survive. It was as if someone or something was waiting for me, and I couldn't let them down.

It was irresponsible of me to be in public in the daytime when I so needed to hunt and I knew it, but there was something drawing me where I was headed. Philadelphia, my brain told me as I passed a sign for Philly's best restaurant, that's where you are. Nodding absently at myself, I began to remember crossing the line into Pennsylvania not that long ago, so it made sense that Philadelphia was where I was. Realizing I was rambling to myself, I tried unsuccessfully to turn my brain off. Suddenly hit with the lust of some crazed human woman sitting at a picnic table with her date who apparently thought I was what she wanted, I turned to the source and quirked an eyebrow, looking directly at her with my deadpan expression. My red eyes were darkened with thirst as well as shielded by my disheveled blonde hair, so I wasn't worried about her noticing anything weird about me. I hoped only to deter her from approaching me.

Sure enough, seconds after I turned my attentions to her, she ducked her head and went back to listening to her date. It was my appearance, I knew, that so attracted her and women like her. My apparent unobtainable nature was what kept them from speaking to me, and I hoped to keep it that way. I could feel all of their emotions, leading me to wonder what my own were. I felt the ever-creeping depression, surely, and paranoia that Maria and her gang would come for me, but other than the two emotions I held constant, I felt nothing.

My feet were carrying me to the door of a diner claiming to have a world famous cup of coffee. I had seen too many of those signs to believe any of them anymore; not that I even drank the rancid shit. The smell, I admit, was heavenly and although Maria could never figure out why, I would often find myself in a coffeehouse when we stopped somewhere semi-permanently, just to take in the smell. The taste however, was much too bitter, even when I was a human. I opened the door to the tiny diner to find it sparsely populated. I wasn't surprised, though, seeing as it was storming heavily and humans usually hated to be caught in storms like this. I looked around the room, still standing by the doorway.
I felt positive emotions coming strongly from the counter in the middle of the diner and I looked to see who could have caused them. I found a gorgeous, porcelain-faced pixie sliding her tiny self off of a high bar stool seated at the counter and heading straight for me. My entire body tensed as she headed toward me, despite the big smile on her face. I knew immediately that she, like me, drank blood to keep sustained. The only contact I had had with our kind- besides Peter and Charlotte- was that of a negative nature, so I didn't know what to expect with this beautiful woman heading toward me. My dead heart ached unexpectedly at the thought of her being an enemy, but as she reached me, all fears dissipated.

"You've kept me waiting a long time," she told me with a gentle scold to her angelic voice. Not knowing what to say, my Southern roots began to betray me.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," I drawled lightly, dipping my head in slight shame. Had she still been alive, my mother would have been upset at the thought of me keeping such an amazing woman waiting.

"I'm Alice." My angel's voice brought me out of thoughts of my late mother and I smiled at her.

"Jasper Whitlock, ma'am." She cocked her head to the side, still looking up at me.

"I know," she said simply, still smiling. Alice held her hand out for me to take, and before I could think about why I should do it, I found that I had already placed my hand inside her much smaller one. She smiled up at me, staring straight into my eyes, and in that moment the depression started to fade and replacing it was something I hadn't even spared a dream to feel for the past hundred years: hope.

I let my tiny angel lead me back out the front door of the diner and was content to just listen as she told me of her plan. She spoke energetically of her visions, telling me about the family she had seen and how she knew we were to meet them. She stopped talking suddenly, staring back up into my eyes.

"Your eyes are much too dark," she noted. "Should we eat?" I'm sure my face twisted at the thought because Alice's eyebrows knitted suddenly and she looked concerned. She didn't ask me any questions, but I knew she wanted an answer. Barely knowing how to respond to her, I ran a hand through my wayward blonde hair.

"I hate hunting," I admitted. Alice's face didn't change expressions and I knew by her curiosity that she was waiting for more. "I lose myself a little more every time I kill someone," I told her, my voice low and hollow. Alice's face finally smoothed and her eyes brightened.

"Well that's okay," she said. I finally stopped walking and just looked at her.

"That's okay?" I echoed. She nodded.

"Haven't you been paying attention?" she asked with a hint of a tease in her voice. "This family we're going to meet, they're vegetarians." My brows furrowed.

"And how exactly are they vegetarians?"

"Animal blood," she said. "They hunt animals, not people." My frozen heart soared. Would not hunting humans restore my humanity and keep me alive? I wanted to try, not just for me, but for my angel, too. Alice watched me as I thought, but her eyes weren't on mine like they had been before. Now, they wandered over my face. I tensed as I readied myself for her terror at what Maria's newborns had done to me, but it never came.

"You're scarred," she murmured as she gently touched the one just over my left eye. I dipped my head to avoid her eyes, but she folded herself into my body, molding perfectly into my embrace.

"We're all scarred," she said after a few minutes' silence. "Not all of us have to wear them for the world to see, though. That makes you stronger, braver than those with internal scars." She said nothing about her own scars, but I wondered if hers were internal since I saw nothing marring her glorious body. She bumped my shoulder with hers lightly as we resumed walking.

"Come on," she said suddenly, her eyes alight. She held her hand out again. "I'll steal us a car and we'll get out of here." For the second time, I took her hand and let her lead me headfirst into the hope I had so longed to feel.