A/N: This is my first ever story that I have posted online so I hope you enjoy it. This is something that has been floating around in my head for some time now. I plan to expand it in time my class schedule is just ridiculous right now though.. end of the quarter hell. I really hope y'all enjoy it though, let me know what you think.. thanks

I own none of these characters.. I only have what the WONDERFUL Stephenie Meyer provided for us. As most of us do, i adore her and her work. this is just something that I have always wanted to hear more about.. I love Edward and Bella, don't get me wrong.. but Jasper and Alice are my favorite couple in the stories...

Peter left. When he came back 5 years later, he told me that there was more out there, more than this endless, mindless war. I had options, I wouldn't have to kill my own kind anymore... I was tired, I needed out…

When I woke up to this new life, I woke to more war. I had always wanted, more than anything, to be a soldier. In my old life I was promoted though the ranks of the Confederate army very quickly; I became the youngest major in Texas, if only they had known my real age. In that old life I was very charismatic, something that carried over into this new life in a very strange way. I found out very quickly that I had been changed for that reason; she thought I could be useful.

When I first saw her, my first instinct was to run, I could sense the danger. However, I had been raised as a good southern boy, so I felt the need to protect and help her and her friends. The three girls looked like angels incarnated, more beautiful than any person I had ever seen in my 17 short years. Before I really knew what was happening I felt my body begin to burn. It was so intense that I was certain she must have set fire to me. I tried to focus, to find where this burning was coming from; the more I searched the more I realized that it was everywhere.. I was burning from the inside out. When I finally woke a few days later, I learned what had happened. I came to find that the three angels were named Maria, Nettie, and Lucy. Maria was my mother, my leader, my everything for so long. I fought beside her and for her. I did as she asked. I trained newborns, killed our own kind, and fed whenever I wanted. That was my life for more years than most can fathom. I lived with Maria for decades, endlessly fighting.

Something else that was new to me in this life was my ability. I had been charismatic in my old life, I could read other peoples' feelings and knew how to get what I wanted by using that. This carried over. When I woke, I found that I could not only read peoples' emotions but actually feel them and even manipulate them. I could make anyone feel whatever I wanted them to feel. My ability came in very handy when training the newborns. It was easy for me to manipulate them and make them do what was needed to win. This ability, however, was not always something I enjoyed. Being able to feel what your prey is feeling makes it hard to separate from them and see them for what I needed them to be. I felt the shock they felt when they first saw me, the fear that followed, and the absolute terror when they realized what was happening. Even though I had lost nearly all of my humanity in the decades since I had become a vampire, I still felt a twinge of remorse every time I had to feed. I slipped into a severe depression.

When Peter returned and told me of his new life, I left with him without a backwards glance at Maria. Being away from her and the violence made things a little easier, however, I still felt that guilt and depression every time I fed. I soon left Peter and Charlotte because it was becoming harder for me to be with them. I venture out on my own. I traveled. I crossed the country in a near constant depression, feeding only when absolutely necessary. I tried to abstain altogether but I always gave in at some point. I had lived a life of violence and it was hard for me transition into a more civilized world. I stayed away from big cities as much as I could because it was hard for me to be around such a large population and not satiate my thirst. Years began to pass with nothing but emptiness. I wandered alone as the days and nights became months and years. I always felt as though I was searching for something, what this something was I didn't know.

I saw the entire country, watched as things changed. I hadn't realized that so much had changed in the decades since I had. When constantly consumed with violence you don't take much time to look around you , the only thing you take notice of is the advancing enemy. The world was not like I had once known it. I learned many new things. I watched as the country slipped into a depression and saw the way we fought our way out. I lived through another war; saw the millions going to fight in other countries. I watched as these men and boys returned to a new life, a life that I would never know, a life of love and a life of happiness. How I longed to be able to have that; to have someone to share this life with. I saw the movement begins, I watched as Martin Luther King Jr. and thousands of others changed the world. It was amazing for me to see that something that had started so many years ago was finally ending. Something that I given my life to fight for was now over. It was soon after his assassination that I found myself in a storm in just outside of Philadelphia.

I had traveled for so long and it had been a long time since I had fed. I went to the city for a conquest, to feed my thirst then to leave. However, as I stood outside the city I felt a strange pull towards it. I traveled through the city at night, searching for the perfect woman; I would have my way with her then feed. I was outside of a diner when I caught her scent. It was familiar, it had been a long time since I smelled something like this, but this was a scent I would never forget, there was another of my kind in there. I can't explain why I felt the need to be near whoever this was, but this need quickly overpowered my need to feed. As soon as I pulled the door open, her emotions hit me like a brick wall. There were so many at first, but the one I picked up more strongly than any other was love. This emotion was hard for me to understand, I had felt love before, but nothing like this. I watched as she got up from the stool she had been sitting on at the counter and walked over to me. As she walked to me I searched her emotions, there was excitement, relief, happiness, but still overpowering them all was love.

As she approached, she smiled. When she finally got to me I looked down at her. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She was so tiny, her short black hair curled to frame her face. I looked down into her burning eyes; they were a colour that I had never in my one-hundred and some years seen. I had become so accustomed to the deep red of our kind so her gold eyes took me by surprise. I had no clue who she was or what she wanted, but I knew that I was home, where ever she was is where I wanted to be.

When she finally spoke, her voice sounded like bells.

"You've kept me waiting a long time" she said.
I tipped my head to her and said, "I'm sorry ma'am."
She held out her hand, and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing.
For the first time in almost a century I felt hope.