Note: I do not own twilight, though I wish I owned Jasper... Yeah so Please read and review!
She was gone
She was gone. My heart on the floor, had long since stopped beating. Now there was a gapping hole in my chest. No one had suspected it. I knew that she did. It made since she did. She always knew. Always.
I didn't think to much of it at the time. Most couples planned what they would do when they were parted in death. She had told me, 'You need to live after I die, because there is something you are meant to do.' I didn't know what I was needed to do. Just knew that I did. It was foolish to bet against her. Her. My love, my wife, my Alice.
And now here I sat, alone in this house, all the others were gone. I still felt the need to protect them. Bella, Nessie, I could still protect them. As I hadn't been able to for Alice…
It had been swift. A Volturi attack. They had used a half Vampire to sneak up on her. She had known it. She had seen herself dead afterwards. But it was to protect Nessie. Not yet mature.
I decided to hunt. It was something to do, and it was something to calm. Comfort food if you will. As if anything could comfort me.
So I ran. Ran as fast as I could. Until I caught the scent of something much better then animals. Human blood.
So I ran toward it, my hunt changing. The uncontrollable urge. Faster, faster, and then I leapt into the clearing, but then froze at what I saw.
It was a young woman, she was watching me. She was calm, unafraid. She knew she would die. She was heavily injured. It wasn't the woman that had made me stop, it was the small cry of an infant. Rapped in a bloody blanket, a tuft of black hair sticking out.
The woman looked up at me as I was frozen mid pounce. Snarl frozen on my face. I had stopped breathing in that instant. She knew I wasn't human. She had seen the speed of my attack. She had to be destroyed, yet she was already destroyed. She looked as if she had taken a beating. A black eye, a split lip. Bruises on her arms and neck.
Then she spoke. "Take her."
I took a step back, forcing myself away from her scent.
"What?" I asked with the breath I had left.
"You can protect her from him, her father… I am done, but she still has a chance. Please? You can protect her." She was laboring to breath, the last of her strength dwindling.
"I… Can't…"
"Yes you can. It is what you are meant to do." My eyes widened. There is something you are meant to do. "You know it." She smiled sadly first at me then at her child.
"How-" She cut me off before I could finish.
"Do I know? Because you wouldn't be here if you were not. God sent you, I have faith on that fact." She lifted the child toward me. "Go…" And her arms started to fall. I caught the child as they failed. Her finger tips brushing her child as they continued to fall toward the ground. Her last breath had been spent, and her heart had stopped to beat.
I looked at the child in my arms. As it gave a small yawn. A beautiful face. I knew what I had to do, what I was meant to do. And for Alice, I would see it through to the end. I gathered the child up in my arms, cradling it gently, not wanting to harm it. And ran, from the scent of the blood. Not breathing.
I entered the house and unwrapped the child from the bloody blanket. After checking for injury or open cuts. I took the blanket and burned it. I then felt like it was safe to take a breath. The girl (as I had discovered she was) had a very nice floral smell. She smelled very good, but in a non-food sort of way as Bella had described once the scent of Nessie. No one would be home for a few days yet. And here I was with a Baby.
I ran to the kitchen and was back instantaneously before she had moved much. I had brought some baby formula that Nessie had refused to consume when she was a bit younger. She could hunt on her own now. She was probably hungry. She was so thin and frail looking. I sat down on the couch with her in my lap. I gently Placed the bottle's nipple in her mouth and smiled as she began to suck hungrily at the milk.
Soon she fell asleep and I just sat there with her. Not knowing what to do or what to do with her. When she got a bit restless I gently bounced her. I had to call Carlisle soon, after she woke up. I didn't know the first thing about children, but yet, it felt right to hold her. As if I was a new Dad holding his new born for the first time. I knew the emotions well. I had felt them before, through Edward. The over whelming since of pride at his little girl. I loved her already.
--
I had to take her with me to town, but the cloths she ad been rapped in were dirty. I rapped her in one of Nessie's Blankets and then went off too Seattle. It was a good thing that I was a vampire or this venture would have been very difficult. As it was there was only ease driving one handed with an infant on my lap at speeds that would have made Bella freak out when she was human.
I bought all the supplies I believed that I needed. Formula, dippers, new cloths. I hadn't been shopping since the passing of Alice. I couldn't help but smile sadly as I thought of all the things she would have bought for the girl. I opted for green, as that was the color of her eyes. It brought out the color in them, and conveniently hid the color of her cheeks. The last thing I needed was temptation. I smiled at what Alice would have said. You wouldn't of done anything. I can see that. She would have been lying of coarse. She usually was when she said such things. I knew that I had impulses, and they would have been noticed in a vision by Alice, if I didn't control those impulses.
That was Alice. She knew me, and she knew I knew she was lying. I could feel it in her emotions. And I could feel the love behind that lie. Trying to make me a better person. To give me confidence to hold to my decisions. That was Alice's way, and it had been working… no… it DID work. I would never again drink human blood. I would never destroy my Alice's name.
But Alice was dead. The other side of me, the monster in me, said. What could I do to disappoint her now? She wasn't here. I could feed on humans and she wouldn't be able to care. She was dead. I could give up and let the darkness take me. Let my monster take control and give the pain to the back seat.
A small yawn broke me out of my inner war. The girl, the still nameless girl, yawned and then drifted to sleep in my arms. Trusting me completely to not harm her. The monster that I am. And there, in the baby supply store in Seattle, A baby in one arm, the other piled with cloths and booties and dippers, is where I made the decision. I decided that Alice was there. If not in body and soul watching me, her memory. Her memory reborn… into this small child. So small, like my little pixie had been. With a tuft of inky black hair, and a smile that could melt me heart.
"Alice…" I tested and she stirred in her sleep. "Alice," I repeated smiling, gently, and without dropping anything, stroking her cheek with my finger. It fit. She was what Alice had told me to live for, and I lived for Alice. Why not? This little bundle of Joy was the future, and so full of life, even when she for all intense purposes, she should be dead.
We really belonged together. I had lost my wife, she had lost her mother. She slept the whole way home, and as I laid her down to rest in the middle of the large bed that I had once shared with Alice. I hadn't gone into this room since I had last been in here with Alice. Now I was there with Alice again. A different Alice, but in memory of that Alice that I loved. It was still love, just a different sort of love. A love similar to what Carlisle feels for his children. I knew the emotion. He was so proud to call each of us is son or daughter. And to call Reneseme his granddaughter, he was ecstatic. I knew that he would treat this little Alice as he does for Nessie. I would treat her as Edward did to Nessie. With undying love and devotion, and protection, and guidance.
I didn't know how I would do it. She was so small, and so breakable. I would be careful. I would never hurt her. And then another reality hit me. I couldn't hurt her. Like Edward couldn't hurt Bella. Mind over matter.
--
When Carlisle arrived home, As he was first. He had left to go do some volunteer work in Nepal. He found me and Alice on our stomachs facing each other on the floor. Me with a shinny object in front of her (a particularly shinny piece of jewelry that I had found in Alice's stash) trying to coax her into crawling to me.
He tilted his head to the side, (or as I suspected he did as that is usually what he did when he was trying to assess a situation) before asking, "Jasper, is there something I should know?"
I looked up at my father for the first time since he entered. The curiosity and worry evident in his emotions even though his face was flawlessly calm.
I sat up and then picked up my little tiny Alice. Sitting her in my lap. Crossing my legs. Carlisle sat down on the floor across from where I was sitting and leaned forward to look at the girl. I had already decided to call her a nickname. I knew that although calling her Alice brought comfort to me, it might not to everyone. I wasn't looking for a replacement. Naming her Alice was to make sure that Alice's memory would never die. I knew they were different. There was Alice my wife, then Alice my daughter. Like Bella was going to name her baby Edward had he been a boy. A name of high regard and love. But still, I chose to use a nickname.
Little Alice smiled up at Carlisle. Carlisle smiled back and then looked up at me. "May I?" He asked, still not sure what was going on. I smiled and lifted her over to her grandfather for the first time. She giggled.
"Who is she?" He asked calmly, and carefully. He was still worried.
"The reason I am alive." I said. I fully believed that. Alice had even told me so. Carlisle looked confused, but didn't press. He was still worried that I could crack at any moment. I could feel it, though he tried to repress it. I decided to explain."
"I found her and her dying mother while I hunted. Like Elizabeth Mason begged you to save her son, she begged me to save her daughter. To protect her from her father. She told me that God had sent me. Alice had told me something similar before her passing. That I was meant to be there when I was. That this was why I was still alive."
He listened silently. So I went on. "At first I didn't know what to do. But the pride I felt in me can only be compared to what I felt when Edward hold Reneseme for the first time. It was really what he was feeling. I decided to take care of her, and to act as her father. I know that I am a broken man, if you can even call me that. We have both lost someone. But I believe we can heal in each other."
"So you have chosen to be her father then? Do you think that is the best choice for you?"
"It is the only choice. I can't take her back to her real father. The bastard had beat her mother to death. Putting her up for adoption is all well and good, but they would use DNA to match her to her real father if he filed a missing persons report. Somehow, I think she needs me… and for once, I do not feel any urge to feed on her blood. It's odd, but she doesn't smell like food to me."
"Very well. What do you call her?" I hesitated. Should I tell him what her real name is? If I couldn't trust Carlisle, who could I trust?
"Her name… is Alice." His eyes widened. Clearly thinking I wanted a replacement. It was writing all over his emotions. "I call her Ally for short… and so that the family will not feel uncomfortable every time they say her name." Though he controlled his face his emotions were still high. "I am not replacing anyone. I gave her the name of the woman I loved as a constant reminder of why I have to protect her. No one is more worthy to bare the name of my love as my daughter is."
He calmed down significantly but there was still worry. "Are you sure you can handle this?"
"I would be a fool to bet against Alice."