AN: This is a oneshot, when Alice and Jasper leave during Breaking Dawn. I'm attempting to write in third person! Haha. I might add some other Jasper oneshots to this, but for now I'm considering it complete. Thanks for reading, and please remember to review. They literally make my day so much better!
A Miracle
Jasper needed a miracle. And, this time, he didn't think he would find one.
There had been many times when he had found miracles in many different forms. The army had been his miracle when he'd needed to prove himself. Peter and Charlotte had been his miracle when he'd been searching for an end to the part of his existence which tore at him. Carlisle and Esme had been his miracle when he had–admittedly or otherwise–needed parents to support him. Edward had been the brother he had wished for–and even more loyal than most siblings could be. Emmett had been around to care for him, to find light in even the darkest of situations. Rosalie had been both his twin and his opposite–whichever the situation demanded. Even Maria had been a miracle for him, in different ways and different times. Before he'd understood what love meant.
And Alice...Alice had always been his miracle. She had always given him that tiny nudge in the right direction, the ray of hope he craved. The love to fill up a thousand empty seats in his heart. She could take the place of millions in his heart. She did. She always did. Even when they fought she was still the one he wanted to be around. There was nothing he enjoyed more than her climate when she had won one of their fights. He knew she'd be radiating that beautiful happiness for hours at a time, and that made everything worth it.
But if she knew they would lose everything–lose it all–was she still his miracle?
He thought of her that way, trying to hold onto the hope she had given him for so many years. Hope that there would be a way through this. A way to save the other miracles who had fought their way into his heart as well. He found it hard to believe that there would be no saving them–those who had saved him time and time again, expecting no reciprocation. He regretted now what a burden he had been in the past, how their memories of him might be less than he'd dreamed...
He took a fleeting glance at Alice, knowing already what he would see. He could certainly feel the strong tension in the air, and her darting panic. He could definitely feel her sense of defeat the most, though, and that was what scared him. She never felt defeated, because she never lost. And because she didn't lose, he didn't either.
He could feel the tension more strongly now. Sickening. He hated to feel this, and even more so through her. "We don't have to do this," he said, knowing it was a lie. His little miracle just threw him a backward glance while she continued to pull him away. Away from the house, and away from the people inside it.
She was frozen, and he watched as her hands shook in ways they hadn't for years. She'd told him that it was a defect of the visions playing tricks on her mind. That a vampire's hands weren't supposed to shake. It was only a second before she whispered, "If there was any other way..." and then stopped. He knew the rest. If there was any other way they could survive, she would do it. But there was no other way.
She pulled him to the strangest place Jasper could imagine. Bella and Edward's cottage, where she told him to wait outside. He waited for just a moment before she came out, smelling of musty books and ink, and of secrets. He could feel the deception, tangible on her fingers as she began to take him with her again.
He tried to look away from her as they crossed the river and began to move toward the Quilieute border, but his eyes continued to drift to her face. The same tired, drifting eyes that were there one moment and gone the next. She tried to look away from him, too, but he caught her eyes drifting back and felt her heart swelling with the sorrow as he looked back. It was a doubly powerful pain, and he regretted ever having felt it.
The next time he looked at her, he managed to frame a question, still feeling the strange unsettling insecurity fill his insides. "Why the cottage?" He asked, seeing the wolf leader on the horizon.
"I had to leave a message for Bella," she said, as if her words were filled with complex, important meaning she was begging him to find. It was strange that she had said Bella, he realized, and not her brother. Why Bella? She tried to answer his internal question."For if there is a way..."
He nodded, knowing she wouldn't want to talk with Sam there. There must be some reason for her to leave a message for Bella, and not to Edward. He didn't once wonder why she wouldn't share this with him, knowing she would tell him everything once it was time. Time was always a factor when it came to her visions.
Without hesitation she spoke to the Quileute man who seemed to be waiting for their arrival. "We seek permission to cross your land and go into the ocean. We promise we'll not speak to any of your people or cause any damage-" She sighed deeply- "We just need to go."
She also had the miraculous ability to say exactly what needed to be said, at precisely the right moment. The man—Sam, he thought his name was—agreed to bring them to the ocean, probably for his own benefit more than theirs. He was feeling distrustful, constantly looking at her with those cold, almost angry black eyes. Jasper was instantly protective of his wife, fearing for her. Fearing for everything.
All he could hear was her calm, crystal voice as she explained what she could in an authoritative manner. "I don't know what you understand of my talent, Sam," she said, merely a whisper with the wind blowing against their faces, "but it is very important that you listen to me."
Sam was instantly on his guard, but he nodded cautiously.
"You cannot tell Jacob that I have spoken to you until our family comes to look for us." Her voice shook beneath her calm, and it was a nearly imperceptible difference. Jasper realized that he would miss this, hearing even the fear in her voice. It would be impossible to handle if he couldn't hear her voice again.
"Why?" Sam asked, so defiant it killed Jasper on the inside. Didn't he know his place here? He supposed that he did know his place as a leader of his people, just that he assumed Alice and Jasper were nowhere near the authority of Carlisle among their own 'pack'.
Alice breathed deeply, trying to be patient and failing miserably. "Because," she said, "This is not a joke or something to be taken lightly. You need to think of this as if... as if all of our lives depend on it. Your life, the life of your pack, and the lives of the Cullens, and most of the humans as well."
"I understand," Sam whispered back, and Jasper knew he wasn't lying by the intense feelings running through him. He was full of honour for his people – full of a capability for trust spanning wide beyond what he had expected of him.
Alice took a sheet of paper out of her pocket which smelt of Bella. Lavender, freesia, orange blossoms, soft roses...lilac. The scent which had started this whole madness, that had somehow survived to continue to madden him. It wasn't tempting the way her blood had been, it just was burning, itching under his skin. It made him angry, how one person, no matter what her intentions, was beginning to tear his entire world apart. No matter that he loved her like a sister. No matter how Alice would do anything for her.
She pressed the paper into Sam's palm, and he glanced at it for a moment before solemnly folding it in half. "Are you sure?" He asked her, Sam's words mirroring his own. Jasper would have continued to ask her a hundred times. A thousand. Jasper could guess what the note said. And he could pretty fairly judge what she would give as reasoning.
"I'm sure," she said, with such conviction that he wondered what she was agreeing to. Were they leaving forever? For a few nights? He told himself that he knew what she was doing. That this would not be the end of them. He felt as if they were running away from death rather than trying to save their family.
Sam ushered them forward, and Alice and Jasper moved toward the ocean. Jasper shook Sam's hand before taking off his boots and jacket, wading into the water. He knew how upset Alice must be, because she didn't even spare a passing glance for her new shoes which sat by the coast. She usually tended to attack a lot of memories to her clothing. Now she wasn't trying to hold onto anything.
Except for his fingers, which she grasped like the answer to anything. She waited one moment before ducking under, her eyes turning glassy and frightened before she let out another sigh. He didn't know where they were headed, but he trusted her. She was still his miracle.
They continued to have their silent exchange as they finally began to swim. He felt the touch of her lips once, twice, before they let the current take them. His miracle was taking him somewhere far away – he understood that by the distant look in her eyes.
And no matter how many times he'd told himself Alice would be all he needed, he knew now that it wasn't true. While he couldn't live without Alice and he could survive without the rest of his family, they were just that. His family. He tried to imagine his life without Edward or Emmett, Carlisle, Esme, or even Bella and failed miserably. They were a part of him.
But then he looked to Alice's tiny hand, connected to his beneath the waves. Her dress flowed out behind her, and she looked like some sort of goddess. A tiny mermaid, natural and used to swimming this way. She was his lifeline, pulling him through whatever faced them. A source of light.
She was the only miracle he needed.