Not quite a normal Authors Note: Lucy, this is for you, my darling, dearest little sister. For putting that little advert for Seventh Year on your profile, for practically dragging me through several periods of writers block, for the cheeky grin that gets you previews of all the things that I put up on here. For not telling you every day how much I love you, and how much I miss you. And you know how much Jasper freaks me out, with his strange ability to manipulate emotions. But I equally know how much you love him despite that. Almost as much as I love you. So enjoy, little monkey.
Jasper Hale loved Alice Cullen more than he loved life itself. Of course, this wasn't saying very much, as both of them were about as dead as it was possible to be, but there wasn't really any other phrase in the plethora of human languages that conveyed his emotions as well as this one did.
And, secretly, the irony made him chuckle just a little bit.
He couldn't remember what it was exactly about Alice that he had fallen so madly, irrevocably and deeply in love with.
It wasn't as if he'd ever had the experience of waking up next to her, or feeling her heartbeat beneath his palm.
He'd never really understood what humans found so appealing about either of those things anyway. Not everybody could be gifted with the ability to sleep, or a functional heart.
He had always wondered whether the attraction could be called magnetic. After all, he had travelled on a complete whim to a place in Philadelphia that he'd never been to before where she was waiting for him, even if she hadn't quite been patient. They'd have to be pretty strong magnets, he mused.
Anybody who could see good in him, even after his brutally violent past had to be an angel, surely? No, that wasn't a logical explanation. If that had been the case, then why didn't he love Carlisle, Esme, Edward, Emmett, Rosalie and now Bella and Renesmee with the same burning passion? The sort of burning that was constantly competing with the heat in his throat, and was one of the main reasons that he was able to bear (just about) his vegetarian existence. No, that couldn't be it.
Then what?
It certainly wasn't just the fact that she was pretty. Well, he said pretty, but Alice's looks were about as difficult to convey in words as was his love for her. She was so perfect in formation, so delicate, with a contrasting sense of inner strength. The world would probably judge Rose to be more attractive, but Jasper never would.
Her grace? Her quick wit? Her dedication to fashion without being in the least bit shallow?
No, no and no again.
It was quite unfathomable.
Something less tangible perhaps?
Maybe, the light in her eyes, even when she was at her hungriest. Maybe, the curve of her mouth when she smiled (which was so very often.) Maybe, the way she wrinkled her nose when she got too close to human food.
Jasper came very close to deciding that it was all of these things combined that were his reasonings behind loving her so much.
And then she took it away from him.
"You'll figure it out on the 15th July 2015" Alice informed him from the other side of the sofa.
"Pardon?" His southern twang was evident whenever he was confused, at times such as this.
"July 15th 2015" Alice reiterated, turning back to her magazine.
Jasper turned his head to Edward, to see if he could shine anymore light on the situation.
"Why you love her like you do" Edward supplied helpfully, smiling kindly.
"2015?" Jasper spluttered, leaping from the sofa in indignation.
"Yes" Alice confirmed, humming absentmindedly to herself.
Why had she had to tell him this? He'd been perfectly content to think that it was an amalgamation of all those reasons he'd just thought of.
Alice's tinkling laugh rang throughout the room, brighter than a light bulb.
And then it hit him.
It was that laugh.
That tantalising laugh, so reminiscent of a bell.
"I knew you'd get there eventually" she told him, "I just needed an excuse to laugh, the look on your face just then was more than enough."
And then she kissed him sweetly and softly on the lips and flitted elegantly from the room, the ghost of her laugh still haunting him.
Mary Alice Brandon. Alice Cullen. One and the same. And all his. For the rest of eternity. Without limit, without end. The thought made him laugh too. The most happy laugh ever heard.
P.S: Although it wasn't written for anybody else, and although I actually find Jasper very difficult to write for, I hope anybody else who happens to have stumbled across this likes it too.