A lot of love and thanks go out to my betas, Beth and Sarah, for being so unbelievably fuck-awesome.

Mucho amor para las mujeres en el doble-u; ustedes son el viento debajo de mis alas.

Stephenie Meyer owns the Twilight characters and all that jazz. I own Franny, the Biloxi crew, and a cup of cheesecake ice cream from Cold Stone.

Prologue

August 2005

Lots of people have never heard of Pearlington, Mississippi. It's a tiny place, not too far from Biloxi, with only a thousand residents. It doesn't even have a mayor to call its own, a fact eighty-five-year-old Franny Marchland was pissed off mighty fine about. "Not even a mayor," she'd mutter from time to time. "Not a damn city official."

Hardly anybody ever passed through Pearlington either, the town was that dead. Most of her days, Franny had nothing to do, so she would sit out on her porch for hours, where she kept the old rocking chair her late husband had built for her. She had nursed all six of her children in that rocker and could never bear to part with it, even when its white paint peeled, revealing the unfinished splintering wood beneath. Next to the chair she kept an old folding table, just big enough to hold her favorite glass pitcher, whatever book she was reading, and her glasses. She never complained, not out loud, but honestly? She was bored almost to death.

If she were younger, Franny would get someone to drive her to the shore to eat at the crab shack or maybe go to one of the fancy casinos that had taken over the Mississippi coast like weeds. Yes, that would be nice. Franny would paint up her lips red, put lotion on her lightly tanned skin, and pinch her cheeks 'til they blushed something fierce. Forty years ago, maybe. Now there were wrinkles instead of blushes, varicose veins instead of fishnets, and when John died…well, she was young at heart, but her heart didn't feel so young anymore. That's why Franny was going through her days, resigned nothing exciting would happen to her anymore. Then she met him.

He appeared out of nowhere near the end of dusk, standing at the edge of an overgrown field across from her house. I heard him approaching, Franny told herself later, but truthfully all she remembered was pouring herself some sweet tea and, when she looked up, there he was. He was young, twenty perhaps, about six feet tall and wearing a white collared shirt and blue jeans. He was light-skinned, paler than anybody from around Pearlington. A large cowboy hat sat on his head, covering his face. Definitely not from Pearlington, Franny thought. She could tell he was looking at her, though. She blinked a few times and then, when she saw he wasn't moving, crossed her legs at the ankle.

"If you're fittin' to rob someone," she yelled, "you've got the wrong house. I don't have not a penny."

The young man shook his head. "Ma'am, I would never do such a thing." Though he was yelling a bit so she could hear, his voice was rich, southern, old. This young man, Franny mused, didn't sound like he watched CW or whatever the daggone kids liked to watch these days. He had manners. "I'm not here to cause any trouble," he finished.

"Well, if you're looking for a hot date, you've definitely got the wrong house," she mused quietly. The young man took a step forward, then changed his mind and took the same step back. Fanny quirked an eyebrow and took a moment to sip from her glass. She had finished half of it and the man still hadn't said anything else. Someone's awfully quiet.

"Are you going to tell me what you want or are you just gonna wait 'til I get more wrinkles?" She set down her glass. "I get them awful quick these days."

"I was just wondering…are you Francine Coutu?"

Now this was a bit of a shock to her. "Francine…I always hated that name." Franny smacked her lips and cocked her head. She wanted the man to come closer so she could see him. "No one here knows me as Francine Coutu."

The young man nodded and took a step closer. This time he didn't move back. "You used to live in Biloxi, correct?"

There was a pause. "Who did you say you were again?"

"I didn't say who I was." Franny already knew he hadn't and she pursed her lips.

"Ma'am, I just wanted to know--"

"Who are you?" Franny cut him off in an agitated tone. She was surprised by her own discomfort and pressed her lips together. The silence was deafening; not even birds could be heard.

The stranger adjusted the hat on his head and took another step. His mouth began to move, almost as if deciding on a name, Franny mused. He set his shoulders back and clasped his hands. "My name is Jasper."

"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" The old woman wrinkled her nose and leaned back in her rocker. "What's with the hat, Jasper?"

The question seemed to throw the young man off and, after a moment, he let out a laugh. "It is a bit much, isn't it?" He didn't move to take it off, regardless.

Franny gave a grumble and put her hand on her hip, though she was sitting. "Where did you come from anyway? I take it you didn't walk all the way here."

"I've been looking for you."

"Yeah, I figured that part out. The question is why you've been looking for me."

At this, Jasper seemed to frown. "Because you're from Biloxi and I think you knew my…I think you knew my family."

Franny's lips pursed. She knew a lot of families, that was true. But she didn't know the man standing in front of her, not one bit.

The young man hesitated a moment before walking across the road and standing at the edge of Franny's porch steps. His hands twitched, as if he wanted to climb up her steps to get closer. He didn't.

"I was wondering if you remember the Brandon family."

Franny's breath caught and she felt her chest constrict. She wheezed a bit and gulped the remainder of her glass, coughing and sputtering until the sticky syrup at the bottom coated her throat.

"Oh, my." She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. Jasper hadn't moved from his spot.

"Are you alright?" he finally asked.

Franny nodded and closed her eyes for a brief minute. The Brandons. Memories came to her, flickering like an old TV set, with the images feathered around the edges. Some of them were of a family, some of a white house just out of the heart of town, a few even of a little girl smiling. But most of them…most of them were of her.

"You want to know about Mary."

Jasper stiffened at this, his spine going ramrod straight. Franny could see him better now; he was pale, translucent and glowing, his lips set in a thin line, a bit of blond hair peeking out from his hat. He spoke before she could note further. "How did you--"

"If it wasn't about Mary, you would have searched the records or asked the family themselves. Cynthia's daughter, Merna, still lives in Biloxi, but I doubt Cynthia ever breathed a word to anyone about her sister. You know, I used to get a postcard from Cynthia every Christmas until she died of cancer…" She trailed off before taking a deep breath. "No one talks about Mary. Not anymore."

"But you will," Jasper amended. Franny paused for a moment, trying to decide if the young man was threatening her. Deciding he was just being persistent, she sighed.

"I suppose I could tell you the Brandons and my family were neighbors. When I got older, I even took care of their little one—that was Cynthia. I left when she was twelve though…" She stopped to clear her throat. "I was ten years younger than Mary, so truthfully I don't know much."

"Can you tell me what you do know?"

Franny motioned to the front door of her house. "Why don't we go inside?" The young man slowly shook his head. He must be tired if he walked from town… She asked again and Jasper refused once more, seeming to plant his feet firmer on the ground. He's not tired?

"Please, ma'am," Jasper pleaded. "Just tell me what you know about her."

"Okay," she finally said.

Franny leaned back in her chair once more and rocked herself slowly. She took her time remembering; She wanted to get it right and the young man at her stoop seemed to be in no rush. Ten minutes later, she began to speak.

"At one point, everyone in Biloxi knew the story of Mary Alice Brandon. She was Marianne and Jimmy's oldest child, born in the fall of 1910. She was a tiny little thing, shorter than I am now. She had jet black hair that went down past her shoulders and I was told her mama brushed it until it shone. She had these stunning grey eyes that were too big for her head." Franny placed her hands over her eyes, mimicking goggles, and began to laugh. "Personally, I remember she was an excitable one, always seeming to keep something childlike about her even when most of us were dying to grow up." Franny's laughter faded and a sad smile spread across her lips.

"Things weren't right with her, though. It wasn't anything you could see right away," she clarified, shaking her head, "but something was just never right with her. She was smart enough, don't get me wrong. She wasn't like the Thomas boy who was dumber than a box of rocks. It was just that sometimes, Lord as my witness, sometimes Mary would look at you and she was seeing through you. One time she made Christopher Liddell cry, she scared him so much. Things like that made people talk. They said awful things."

Jasper leaned in a little, his indifferent mask falling away to curiosity. "What sort of things?"

"She brainwashed people." Franny played nervously with the hem of her dress. She cocked her head to the side suddenly. "That's what they said anyway. A part of me knows it's nothin' but crazy talk but another part of me wondered. Her eyes, son, they saw through you. Saw things no one else was seeing. I always had a sense of that and it's probably why I remember her. I've got ex-lovers I can't recall a lick about, but Mary…she's too special to be lost. I know that truth in my bones." Franny stopped to pour some more tea. She silently offered her glass to Jasper but he just shook his head.

"So what happened to her?"

"Oh, that poor girl!" Franny exclaimed in response to his question. She put her glass back down and pressed her hands together. "Apparently she started having these seizures when she was about eight and she stayed so weak and frail because of them. She wasn't able to leave the house much; her mama didn't let her outta her sight. Right after her seventeenth birthday, she caught pneumonia and died not more than a week later." Franny felt that familiar constricting of her chest she felt whenever she thought back to Mary's death and held her hands tightly together.

"Pneumonia?"

"Pneumonia. That's what my mama told me. Mary's parents were heartbroken and I barely saw them for a while. Then, six years later, they had Cynthia and things seemed all right again. That's all I know about Mary." The older woman wound her story down abruptly. The silence lingered between the two strangers until Franny looked up to see the first stars beginning to come out.

"You must want to get inside." Jasper followed her gaze to the sky.

"I am getting a bit tired. You'll understand when you're my age."

Jasper opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He tried again a minute later.

"Francine--"

"--Franny."

"Franny. Thank you for telling me the story."

Franny nodded and stood up from her rocking chair, grasping the arms. She grabbed her pitcher and turned around to walk in her door. Give him something, Franny. He's been waiting...

The glass pitcher fell on the wooden porch, making an awful racket. Franny didn't pay it any mind, turning as quickly as she could to look at the young man again.

"Jasper?" He was still at the stoop and lifted his head slightly at the sound of his name. She could see his eyes now. They shone as the dusk settled in around them; gold, amber, topaz…Franny let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"You called it a story and I think you're right." The words rushed out. "I don't think there were no seizures, no pneumonia. I don't know the whole truth but everyone only thought they knew the story of Mary Alice Brandon. I don't think we knew nothing at all." Franny took a deep breath and squeezed her hands into fists.

More silence.

He finally spoke, his voice soft and pained. "Were her eyes really grey?"

"They were. Jasper, she was so beautiful."

The young man gave a smile then, a real one that made Franny's heart beat a little faster. "Thank you, Ma'am," he said. "You gave me more than I was hoping to find."

With a slight tip of his hat, he turned and walked away, going up the road; towards what, Franny didn't know. She waited until he was just a flicker on the horizon before turning around. She quickly stepped over the shards of glass and shuffled through her door, closing it behind her. She didn't bother going to her bedside; instead she dropped to her knees right in her foyer and began reciting the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Apostle's Creed and any string of words she could remember from Sunday school. She ignored the ache in her knees and the sharp pain in her hips because, Lord, she finally had an answer.

A young girl was leaning against the porch railing, head resting on her arms, her grey eyes glazed over. "Fran," she whispered. "He's waiting for me to turn his eyes to gold."

"Who is?"

"I don't know his name but...he'd wait for me, wouldn't he? For a little while?"

Oh, Mary. Jasper would wait forever for you.

Franny now knew that truth in her bones.

A/N:

Now we get to the nitty gritty; a look back at how Mary Alice Brandon came into existence and how she, eventually, becomes Alice Cullen.

The next chapter won't include Franny or Jasper at all (womp womp) but they'll be back, I assure you.

Reviews are better than a glass of Franny's sweet tea.