Alice

I gasped as a vision of my husband staring at the drained body of a young girl in an otherwise empty alley took over my sight. Without explaining to the rest of my family where I was going or why, I began to run to the alley that I had recognized in my vision.

There was no chance of me getting there in time to save the girl, but I knew my husband. The second the beast receded he would begin to blame himself. Every member of our family was in pain after leaving Bella, and Jasper was already blaming himself for what had happened.

His empathic ability was a curse as much as it was a gift. Every emotion my husband ever felt was always much stronger because of it. If he put the blame for this on top of every other negative emotion he was currently harboring inside himself...

I was scared of what the result could possibly be.

He was sitting at the end of the alley with his head in his hands. The girl he had attacked was still on the ground next to him. Her neck was snapped and I thanked heaven for small mercies. She would have died instantly, spared the excruciating pain of the venom.

"Jasper."

My husband's defeated position did not change. He did not move or speak. I had never seen him like this before. Even after he had attacked Bella. Extreme guilt and self-blaming was usually what happened after something like this happened.

This time he was just acting defeated. It was as if the whole world had gone up against him and won.

"Jasper, we have to move her. It'll be dawn in a couple of hours."

He stood suddenly, picked up the girl and began to run out to the nearest forest edge. It was hard for me to even keep him in my sights. Jasper was a lot faster than me, being the fastest runner in our family besides Edward. I was one of the slowest, if not the slowest. By the time I finally caught up with him he had already dug a deep enough grave to bury the dead girl in.

I was shocked after my run. His decisions had been so sudden that I had received my visions after he had begun running.

Gently, he placed the girl in the grave, murmured an apology and began to fill in the grave. I began to help him silently, knowing that he would not want to talk for a while.

We filled in the makeshift grave at a human pace so it took us just over an hour. Afterwards Jasper hugged me to his chest, and I allowed him to. Neither of us spoke for several hours, choosing instead to just stay close to one another.

When the sun rose we moved into a more shady grove of trees, but otherwise we both stayed still.

"Are you okay?"

I finally broke our silence with the question that I had been dying to ask for the past few hours.

My husband pressed a kiss against the top of my head before answering my question.

"I have to be, don't I? I just...I hate this. I hate the fact that this darkness has to be a part of us. An extremely active part of us, of me, as I have just proven once again."

I closed my eyes as I listened to him. It hurt me that he was hurting. Jasper was my other half and i hated when he was in pain, especially when it was caused by something like this.

"You can't blame yourself."

"Yes I can, Alice. It's my fault!"

My husband looked at me through eyes filled with self-loathing.

"No, you can't!"

I forced his head up, and made him look straight into my eyes.

"You are a vampire, Jasper. Each and every one of us thirsts for blood. Okay, you slipped up, and a girl died. Her death is terrible and something you should never forget, but you are sorry and you are even blaming yourself! As long as you always react the way you are right now then it will be okay, because it means that you still care.

All of us have a darkness, Jazz. Our family understands that you struggle with it. We all do. "

I lowered my voice to a more intimate level.

"I understand. It doesn't make me love you any less. Nothing ever could, Baby. Ever."

Gently, I pressed my lips to his. He responded instantly as he always had, and as I hoped he always would.

He pushed me backwards so that I was on my back as I opened my mouth to him. I gasped as Jasper's tongue joined with mine and danced. One of us would eventually control the kiss, but for the moment I was just happy to feel and enjoy his touch.

His hand began to slide under my top, and I moaned as he unclasped my bra. My ankles locked around his waist, and my scent filled the air even more with the movement.

"Thank you."

Jasper's forehead rested against mine, and his eyes looked into mine again, in the same way as they had earlier. They were clear of self-loathing, and I smiled at that realization.

"I love you too, Ali."