i. overprotective fool
Eighty years. Eighty years he'd lived as nothing but a soldier, a predator, a ruthless monster. Most of the time he feels ashamed of that number, ashamed of all the actions and choices from that time. But if there's one comfort, one solitary silver lining amid the decades of carnage, it's that he'd learned. Those eighty years turned him into a warrior, a survivor, made him formidable. Those eighty years taught him valuable skills, skills he's used ever since to protect his family and anyone else worth protecting.
But what good is any of it—what good were eighty years of death and destruction and suffering—if he can't protect her?
"There's nothing to be done but wait," says Carlisle, turning Alice's arm carefully in his cool, professional hands. "The pain should subside in a few hours. I'm afraid I have yet to invent a painkiller that works on our kind." He pats her hand gently and releases her.
Alice kisses him on the cheek. "Thanks, Dad."
Usually Jasper can't help but smile at the little burst of delighted pride Carlisle feels whenever one of them addresses him as "Dad." But today not even Carlisle's joy is enough to break through the sullen cloud that surrounds him.
He catches them both staring at him, Carlisle with concern and Alice with apprehension, and turns away.
"Well," says Carlisle in a tone of bracing normalcy, "I'm headed back to La Push to check on Jacob. Call if you need me. Tell your mother not to wait up." It's one of his favorite and longest-running jokes, one they all roll their eyes at.
"Okay," Alice giggles, and Carlisle disappears into the garage.
Edward and Bella are still in La Push. Esme is in her workshop, humming absently to herself as she reorganizes blueprints, wrapped in a haze of profound relief. Rose and Emmett have disappeared somewhere, allegedly to "hunt," which is code for "celebrate their victory in typical Emmett and Rosalie fashion."
Alice doesn't say anything, but flits her way up to their room, confident that Jasper will follow. For a moment he doesn't, thinks about throwing open the back door and running and running until he burns off the anger instead. But there's no point in delaying this conversation.
He lets the door to their bedroom swing closed with a thud behind him, hoping it's the loudest noise Esme will have to overhear.
Alice has peeled off her jacket and is standing in the center of the room, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her emotions are curious, with a quantitative edge, as though she's taking a self-inventory: delicate bare feet sinking into the rug, legs in designer jeans, pale, slender body and perfect face. Aside from the tear in her discarded jacket, there's nothing to suggest she's just come from a battlefield.
Except that, oh, wait, there is. There's the angry red wound on her left forearm, a jagged crescent marring the smooth, lustrous skin. Its shape so commonplace, so intimately familiar to Jasper, repeated all over his own body. But on hers…
Jasper's human memories are threadbare, eroded. He can't recall what it's like to feel sick, except as a secondhand glimpse from the humans at school.
But if he had to assign a name to this feeling, the sensation that sweeps through him whenever he looks at that grisly bite mark—as though all the venom in his body is boiling, curdling—then "sick" feels fairly accurate. The mark is taunting him, filling up his vision. It's all he can see when he looks at her.
Alice crosses her arms, hiding the bite as though she's read his thoughts. "Jazz," she orders. "Talk to me."
"What would you like to hear?" offers Jasper, voice flat.
Alice throws up her hands. "Anything! Anything at all! I keep looking, but no matter what I say to you or how I phrase it, you just"—she gestures at the stiff, aloof way he's holding himself—"like that! So, please. Say something."
Waves of her frustration buffet against him—he ignores them. She can't see his response because he doesn't have one, not for this. This was never supposed to happen.
"You're acting like the world is ending," she snaps. "We're here. We won. What more do you want from me?" She paces back and forth. "You're acting—you are acting like Edward."
It's a low blow and they both know it.
"Fine," says Jasper. "Here it is. I am angry. I am angry with you for rushing into a fight where you knew you would be without your visions. I am angry with Edward, I am angry with Bella, I am angry with Victoria and the Volturi and the wolves, I am angry with every decision that led up to that." He points a condemning finger at the bite on her arm. "But most of all I am angry with myself for letting it happen."
"Ugh," says Alice. "You're—you don't—" he can feel the visions flickering through her mind as she decides and un-decides how to respond. Finally, she pinches the bridge of her nose—Jasper has the brief, vindictive thought now who's behaving like Edward—and takes a deep, steadying breath. Her anger cools into something steely, like a hot poker plunged into a bucket of water.
"Listen," she begins steadily. "I love you, and I always will. But this is not 1863, and I'm your wife, not your property." She holds up a hand to silence his protests. "I know you know that, but when you act like it's your fault I got hurt, it's self-centered and frankly a little insulting. I saw that Jared was in trouble, I weighed the risks, and I made the decision to step in and help him fight off his opponent—without knowing the outcome. Isn't that how everyone else in the world lives?" she demands, throwing up her hands again. She takes another deep breath, eyes sliding shut for a moment.
"Jasper," she sighs, coming to stand in front of him. "That newborn is dead. He can't un-bite me. But you and I are alive, and we can move on. All I want is for you to believe in me and trust me, okay? Trust that I'm not going to do anything reckless, that I love my life with you and I have no desire to throw it away. And trust that I can handle a single bite," she adds. Her tone is sardonic, but her emotions…the anger has begun to evaporate, leaving behind worry and a twinge of genuine hurt.
It's the hurt that undoes him, makes him pull her into his arms without even thinking about it. She comes tentatively, letting him hold her against him and inhale her scent, feel the rise and fall of her back beneath his hands.
They stay that way for a long moment while Jasper turns his words over in his head. By the time he speaks, she's probably already seen what he's going to say.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs into her hair. He pulls away so that she can see how much he means it. "I do trust you, Alice." It feels strange to have to say it aloud—of course he trusts her. "More than anyone. I just wasn't prepared for this." He lifts a hand to cup her face. "You know what my life was like before. The idea that that kind of violence could ever touch you is…unbearable. Seeing you hurt made me feel powerless. Useless."
"And," he adds, taking a seat on the edge of their bed and pulling her with him, "you're so powerful. I've never had to worry about you before," he grumbles. It's not enough to make her smile, but he feels the sharp edges of her hurt and anger soften.
"Jazz," she says, her voice sweet, painful, earnest. "You're not a weapon. Fighting isn't all you're good for. You could never be useless," she insists, and now it's her turn to take his face in her hands. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you! It's a good thing I have eternity to convince you."
"Good thing you always get your way," Jasper agrees, and Alice melts against him with a sigh.
"All I can promise to do is try," he tells her. "I'll try to be more open-minded in the future, if you try not to get into any more werewolf fights."
"I suppose that's fair," says Alice. "Does this mean you'll stop glaring at my arm?"
"Eventually."
"Good," she says. A few watery sunbeams have broken through the clouds to stream into their window, and Alice sticks her arm out, turning it this way and that so it glimmers in the light. "Because I kind of like this scar. Aesthetically, I mean. It's kind of…badass. Maybe I'll get some more and we can match," she suggests, perfectly blasé.
"You will not," says Jasper with finality. He may have conceded the argument, but that doesn't mean he's comfortable joking about it yet. He feels rather than sees Alice's smug grin—she loves winding him up like this.
He reaches out to trace the jagged crescent shape for the first time. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes," admits Alice. Jasper lifts her arm and kisses the bite.
"Oh, well, that's done it. I'm all better now," she teases, and he kisses her lips this time.
author's note: this was originally written as a prompt fill for my 600 follower celebration over on tumblr. come find me (url is also volturialice) and join the fun!