Peace of Heart

Chapter 1: Speculations

He heard her feather-light footsteps skip across the granite floor tops before she clasped her hands over his eyes. "Guess who?" she cooed in her soft, sing-song voice.

He rattled off names of people he really didn't know, enjoying the bit of frustration she emitted from her body. When he finally whispered her name, she sighed and slumped into the chair beside his at the dinning table. Jasper and Alice were alone for the weekend. The others were off gallivanting for a decent meal in some remote, but still fairly close, forest.

He didn't press her. Her emotions told him she was enthusiastic over something. He knew he'd be told eventually. When she sighed again, this time long and exaggerated, however, he felt boredom and disappointment through her.

"Somethin' wrong?" he inquired, leaning in so that their foreheads touched.

Alice closed her eyes and breathed in his sent. He smelt of gun-powder, sunflowers and some cologne she'd talked him into trying. The gun powder, she imagined, was from the long, hard, agonizing years before they'd met. A time when he was off to war, both as a human and an immortal. He was permanently scarred by the newborns of his second life. And a smell to match the brutal hardship he went through as a human, or at least she presumed. The sunflower, however, she figured, was the mark of his human life, in a land he refused to talk about.

Alice was lost in her own fantasies, smiling as they played themselves over in her mind. She imagined him, lying on his back in a field of wild and sun flowers, gazing at the sun and the clouds. His skin would have been tan, or perhaps burned, from working under its intense heat all day long, on a farm, no doubt. But it wouldn't have sparked like diamonds like it did now, and that thought comforted her. She imagined him. No. Them, human. How she imagined him courting her, delighting her with dozens and dozens of flowers, chocolates, and the finest jewelry from all the closest towns, and some over.

Though it seemed as if they were merely courting today, every minute they spent alone together, she sometimes longed for their immortality to be fake, and that she could feel his soft, breakable human flesh against her own.

She pictured him again, enlisting in the army, at only seventeen, for reasons she could only guess as duty to sustain the southern pride he'd been brought up with. Alice held a hand to his cheek and slowly traced over his features. She pictured him, his stone features and all, tanned, breakable, and clad in a uniform of a Confederate Solider. She'd watch as he'd board a train, or simply climb up onto a horse's back, heading for a base camp, or off to the war itself. But not before he would interlace his fingers with hers, steal a gentle kiss or two, and gently trail them along her hand as well. And he would promise her he'd be back soon.

"Alice," Jasper whispered, ghosting his lips over hers, but not quite touching.

If he would return, she may throw herself at him, glorying in the fact that he'd made it back to her, safe and sound.

"Alice," he sighed again. Though this time there was a note of concern underlying his tone.

He may or may not get down on bended knee and-

"Alice." There was a sense of urgency in his voice now and everything shifted.

Alice stood alongside the rest of the Cullens in a clearing, the same one they had where they had been confronted by the Volturi and had defeated Victoria's army of newborns. Jasper and Emmett stood protectively in front of the others, ready to take the first onslaught if the others needed to get away.

But that was it. That was all she could procure from that flimsy, almost uninterruptible vision. The venom in her veins boiled with hatred towards Jacob Black and his wolf pack. They must be in the clearing for a reason. But she couldn't be sure of that reason because of their interference.

Jasper lightly shook Alice's shoulders and she focused her attention on him. "What'd you see?" he demanded to know. She shook her head and closed the distance between them. But he pulled away from her, for he could read the distress she showed only in her emotions but not her facial features.

She rolled her eyes at his sudden persistence. "The dogs are getting in the way," she told him. Delighted in the way he smiled as he kissed her again.

"Aren't they always in the way?" It was rhetorical. He knew perfectly well they were. Jasper felt the sudden flash of a anger a fourth of a second before he felt her hand crash against the side of his face.

The force she had put behind slapping him had snapped his jaw in half. Thankfully, all he needed to do was right it to fix it. One of the great things about being a vampire, he reflected. Alice stalked out of the room, Jasper followed out of concern for her well being. She never acted like that. Though he was a bit aroused by the sudden change of pace, it unnerved him to know she was unhappy.

Alice faced away from him in the Cullen's living room, her arms wrapped around her tightly, she stared out the window. Jasper crossed to her, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head through her short dark hair. She sighed and relaxed into him, by her own free will. "I say," she started, amusement and sincerity radiating from her petite frame, "we send the dogs somewhere so I can see again…" Her voice trailed off as she contemplated the possibilities. It was clearly meant as a joke, but neither of them laughed, sensing how serious Alice was about it. She wasn't kidding around anymore. "How about Cambodia?"

The Cullens had come home earlier than expected. Carlisle and Esme were outside, busying themselves with plans for where to put Esme's new garden. Rosalie was in the garage, fiddling with the transmission in Bella's car. Emmett, Bella, Nessie, Alice and Edward were also outside glorying in the freshness the spring air brought to the slowly defrosting town of Forks, Washington. They weren't expecting any company, so being outdoors seemed quite alright. Jasper was also there, leaning against a tree on the edge of the wood, sometimes reading the American classic in his lap, sometimes watching over the others.

Jasper wasn't left alone very often. Normally, Alice would insist he participate in anything she did. He was grateful she hadn't today. He felt tired. As tired as any vampire could be, anyway. He was sick and tired of being hounded and followed around like a God-damned dog. Everyone seemed to think he would lash out at the nearest human, given the chance. He wouldn't. He knew he couldn't. He worked way to hard to trip up now. He was sick of Bella and Edward being so lovey-dovey all the time. He wished they would cool it every now and then, knowing he could feel and know what they are feeling, all the time. He was tired of the wolves, screwing up Alice's visions. She was never sure of anything anymore, and it worried the entire family. He was tired of Nessie's questioning, interrogating rather, of his past. She seemed to know he was lying when he'd said he doesn't remember a lot about being human. And, by God, he was sick and tired of Forks. Sick of the dreary weather always causing depression for the locals whilst his vampire family basked in it, happy to be allowed out in the public eye. The mixtures of emotions sometimes got to him and made him feel queasy and uncomfortable…

And speaking of those peculiar emotions, Jasper felt the sudden shift in both Edward and Alice, as if it were him who was seeing the vision first hand.

He rushed to her, gently took the mud covered football from her steal grasp and calmed her down a bit. He smelt essence of dog and groaned in frustration. Carlisle stopped them from coming any closer and sent them back over the Treaty Line; Bella would call them when it was alright to come back.

When Alice exhaled at last, sighing out of relief, she felt anything but. She emitted a bit of fear, a tinge of happiness, and a good measure of curiosity. The happiness did not reach her eyes when she turned to Jasper with an accusing and disbelieving gaze, which he was irrevocably shocked by. She tightened her jaw and turned away from him. "Call the dogs," she demanded. "We're about to get some company."

A/N: This is gonna be the newer, better, refreshed and revised version of Whitlock Pride(which was deleted, and was mine, by the way), for those few that may have read it, you know what I mean. It will have some of the same factors.. Clearly not everything will be the same, but otherwise it's still the same concept.

Disclaimer: I clearly don't own anything but random characters that will be thrown in eventually, the way these words are strewn together, and the plot. Everything else is Stephenie Meyers.

I hope you like the first chapter. Not sure when the next will be up yet.

Reviews would be lovely(: