Summary.
Alice watches as Jasper gives Renesmee a unique Christmas present. A short, seasonal fluff piece for the Secret Santa Exchange project. Short, sweet, and slightly daft. For Bambino.
Whisper.
Alice.
Christmas Eve.
Renesmee bounced on her heels as I fastened her coat. "Alice," she said impatiently. "Why are you going at human speed? I could do it faster myself."
"Now, now," I chided gently. "Do I have to get Uncle Jasper in here to calm you down?"
Renesmee rolled her eyes so subtly, I almost missed it. "Uncle Jasper's making it worse."
I held out her gloves. "Really? How's he doing that when he's not even here? You know he went hunting with Uncle Emmett."
"He made me excited before he went." Renesmee bounced again. "Now I can't stop!"
I smiled as I got to my feet. It wasn't often Jasper used his ability like that. There was always a reason and I knew I'd have to needle it out of him later.
Not right now, though. My eyes blurred briefly as I saw Emmett and Jasper jump the river a mile away from our home. They'd be here in seconds and we had places to be...places to be and a gift to give.
Even without my extra sight, a tingling in the back of my neck told me of Jasper's presence behind me. A moment later, his fingers curled around mine.
Renesmee was forgotten as my body was drawn towards him, a smile playing on my lips as our eyes met.
It was a moment, a fleeting moment, but with that one glance, every nuance of love he held for me warmed my soul.
"Is it time?"
Jasper broke our gaze to look down at Renesmee. "Are you ready, little bug?"
Edward appeared at the top of the stairs. "She's been ready all day."
I glanced up to see Edward rolling his eyes at Jasper. "For the last time," he muttered.
Jasper grinned. "Just checking."
It was a conversation which had blown back and forth between them for days, since the moment a random thought had become a real idea.
It was a gift for Renesmee; an experience she'd always dreamed of, or at least since we'd moved to our new house in the Pryor Mountains in Western Montana.
Wild horses, she wanted to see them. Unfortunately, her request wasn't as simple as it seemed.
You see, the wild horses of Montana, the real ones, were notoriously elusive...so much so that it took the humans months of tracking to find them.
As Vampires, we didn't have that problem, but our supernatural presence also meant no herd of wild horses would stay close enough for Renesmee to see them.
Or so we thought...
A chance visit from Peter and Charlotte had changed all that.
Jasper wasn't impressed when Peter let slip an extra facet of Jasper's ability we hadn't been aware of. His irritation had escalated when Edward plucked the stray thought from Peter's mind and embraced it as a solution to the dilemma his daughter had given him.
We'd been married for nearly sixty years and I'd had no idea his gift worked on horses, no idea at all. Charlotte told me later Peter had often mused it was because Maria left Jasper to die by his horse, but that wasn't a train of thought I'd wanted to pursue.
Although Jasper's death had led him to an eternal existence with me, I'd never get over the way he was killed.
All morbidity aside, it seemed Jasper was the answer. The only thing left to do was persuade him.
Easier said than done.
What made him nervous was, for his influence on the horses to be effective, no other vampire or human could be nearby. It would need to be just him and Renesmee, something that had never occurred before.
Not deliberately, of course. Simply because, if Renesmee wasn't with Bella or Edward, or Esme or Rosalie, she'd be with Jacob.
Not tonight, though. After much coercion from the rest of our family, Jasper eventually relented. Though it was clear he was still trying to convince Edward to come with us.
Deep down, I knew Edward probably wanted to come, but only to see Renesmee's reaction when Jasper took her up close to the horses. Bella had forbidden it, though. She wanted this to be about Jasper and Renesmee, not Edward.
Renesmee squeezed my hand, reminding me that no one wanted this as much as she did.
"Can we go now?"
Jasper chuckled quietly. "Go say goodbye to your momma, then we can go."
She was back in a flash and, after sparing the briefest goodbye for Edward, we were finally ready to leave.
/W\
Although Renesmee was more than capable of bounding through the mountains unaided, she was still insistent on clutching Jasper's hand tightly in hers. To hide my widening smile, I passed by them and led the way.
It was Jasper's gift that would draw the horses in, but it was mine we were using to find them.
A few miles west of the house my vision blurred and my limbs stilled. It was so fast, even a vampire would have stumbled into the back of me, but not Jasper. The abrupt shift in my emotions would have alerted him to the oncoming vision. He probably knew before I did.
His breath blew over my ear as he leaned over my shoulder. "Where are they, darlin'?"
My eyes closed as I chased the image dancing through my mind. I smiled as the location became clear. "Keep west for a half a mile, you'll run right into them."
Jasper didn't move. I opened my eyes to look at him. Whatever he was waiting for, he seemed to find it. A moment later his lips brushed mine and he was gone.
Alone, I sank down in the snow, my back against a nearby tree. My eyes closed again as I prepared to watch the scene unfold.
Jasper ran with Renesmee until the horses came into his eye line. His footsteps slowed as he eased to a stop, dropping to one knee beside the little girl.
"Can you see them?" he said softly.
Renesmee followed his gaze and nodded, her eyes wide. "I see them," she whispered. "Are we going to go to them?"
Jasper shook his head and held out his hands. When her little fingers closed around his without a beat of hesitation, Jasper gently pulled her onto his knee.
"No, little bug, they'll come to us."
Even though I was aware of the power Jasper could wield when he really wanted to, I was still spellbound as he closed his eyes and began to entice the horses to come closer.
At first, they came one by one, led by the most beautiful silver mare I'd ever seen. She wasn't as big as the horses that followed, but she was so perfect, she was almost mystical.
I was mesmerised by her but, as more horses surrounded Jasper and Renesmee, soon I could no longer see her, even with my peripheral vision.
More and more horses came. At their peak, there were nearly a hundred crowded round the vampire kneeling in the snow with his hybrid niece. I couldn't see them, but I knew Jasper had stuffed his pockets with cookies and carrots for Renesmee to feed to the horses. As the time ticked away, I realised he probably hadn't brought enough for them all.
I could have watched the horses forever; they were so wild and free, untouched by the modern world. Eventually, though, they began to disperse. I could feel the subtle shift in the air as Jasper began to release them.
I opened my eyes and stood to peer into the distance. The horses were gone, but Jasper and Renesmee were nowhere to be seen. Before I could begin to look, they were suddenly right in front of me, Renesmee's hair ruffled from the run.
She giggled as I pulled her from Jasper's back and into my arms. "Did you have fun?"
Her eyes danced as her face lit up. "It was amazing, Aunt Alice. There was a silver horse, she was so pretty. Uncle Jasper let me sit on her back."
"I saw the silver mare," I told her. "She was very beautiful."
Renesmee glanced up at Jasper. "Uncle Jasper said I could name her."
I fought the vision as it tried to break into my conscious mind. "What did you call her?" I whispered, praying she'd tell me quickly.
The short pause was never ending, but as my eyes began to glaze over, I felt her tiny warm hands on my face. "I called her Mary-Alice," she said quietly. "Because Uncle Jasper said she was like you...showing her family the way. You always show us the way."
I swallowed. "Thank you, Nes', that's just about the sweetest thing I ever heard."
Her impish grin broke the heavy air. "Just about?"
I smiled too, chancing a glance up at Jasper who was leaning against the tree, a slightly hazy smile on his beautiful face.
"Yes, just about," I said to Renesmee. "Uncle Jasper has that side of things covered. What did I tell you about him after you were born?"
"You said he was special," Renesmee said confidently, even though she'd only been a few days old when I'd told her all about the man who held my heart.
My smiled widened. "I was right, wasn't I?"
Renesmee nodded, her eyes grave. "He's my favourite Uncle Jasper ever."
END.
Merry Christmas, Bambino! Love, Koko23cat.
There you go, the biggest load of crap I've ever written. Fluff is not my thing...but I sure as hell tried. The best thing about this is the flufftastical banner FrozenSoldier made for it. I'm about to put it up on my blog.
