"One way or another, I'll get out. . . .And I love you."
Jasper replied in kind, holding the phone to his ear until he heard the click of Alice hanging up on the other side. He flipped his phone shut and clenched it in his hand as he stood there on the steps to their home. His anxiety grew with every passing second.
Alice, his love, his world, his very raison d'etre, was at that very moment being carried away from him to a place where he couldn't protect her, to face the only vampires in the world that made Jasper's own stomach clench with terror. The Volturi. And she was going to attempt a nearly impossible task, one that would likely end with Edward's death, and -
Jasper stopped the thought before he finished, clutching a hand to the pit of his stomach at the emotions that had begun to build there.
He had to follow her. He could not leave her to face them alone. She had never seen them before, never known the horrible things they could do, had never seen their butchery.
He felt a spasm of rage towards Edward, Edward and his weakness, Edward and his impossible love affair with a human, Edward and his stubbornness. If he had simply turned her when he should have – or even more simply, if had he let James's poison work through her veins, he would not now be in Italy, endangering Alice's life. It seemed since he had met this human girl, the lives of all seven of them had rotated around Edward and his problems. Jasper should have killed Bella when he had the chance. But Alice had asked him not to – and his weakness in giving in to her whims may have cost him her life.
He exhaled deeply, a human reaction, as he slipped his phone into his pocket and rubbed his hands together, feeling cold. Vampires did not feel cold, and he knew that this was not a physical reaction, but an emotional one. He was terrified. Not for Edward, who realistically deserved this fate if he was going to behave like such a fool, but for Alice – his beautiful, foolhardy Alice, who was risking her life for a friend.
He strode into the house, grabbed his jacket, and found the keys to Edward's car.
She had promised that she would get out of there alive, that she would return to him. But he was not foolish enough that he had not heard the catch in her voice or the false happiness as she said the words. She was promising something that was not in her power to promise.
And if Alice did not return...
It hit Jasper then, standing in the foyer of their home. The keys dropped from his hands onto the floor. He made no effort to catch them, or pick them up.
If Alice did not return...if the Volturi took Alice...
Never in the long years of Jasper's life had such fear enveloped him. Through human battles, to his years spent as Maria's prisoner, to his decades wandering alone through a dark and empty world – never in all those years had he felt anything like this.
It was as if a weight had descended upon his chest and was suddenly crushing him. He ran both hands through his hair, trembling, knowing in his heart that even now it was too late to follow her. By the time he reached the airport, found a flight to Italy, and reached Volterra, everything would be over.
He could not help her.
His legs gave out underneath him, and he fell to the wooden porch, clutching his stomach and burying his face against his knees. The world seemed to spin out from under him, leaving him floating in an otherworldly sea of fear and despair. He held her voice in his mind, those last precious words, perhaps the last words he would ever hear from her.
His mind traveled back to the first days after their meeting in Philadelphia. They were, without a doubt, the best days he had known in his life. There was hope and joy. There was Alice, who was the incarnation of both. She was an angel who had entered his life and given him once again a purpose and a reason to live. To protect her, to love her, to keep her safe, to see joy in her eyes, these were the only reason he existed.
And he had failed.
He steepled his hands, turning once again to the God who had long ago answered his prayers by sending her to him, Jasper began to pray. He remembered a poem that he had read in a book long ago.
"Dear Lord, kind Lord,
Gracious Lord, I pray
Thou wilt look on all I love,
Tenderly today..."
His eyes stung with pain, and he closed them tightly, knowing that no actual tears could fall. But he sobbed all the same, his shoulders shaking with uncontrollable despair. How could he go on without her? He knew he could not. His life would revert to those dark days before he had met her, and he would become in totality the monster he had almost become then. He could not live without her, could not carry on. He would become like Edward, and throw himself at the mercy of the Volturi, wishing for nothing but an end to his existence.
Jasper would never know how long he sat there, lost in the depths of his despair. It was a timeless terror, where he explored in his mind the darkest corners of life without his Alice. He thought back over every detail of the years they had spent together – the first time he had met her eyes in the crowded diner; the first time he had seen her smile, the first time they had made love in the spartan bedchamber he inhabited, the time they had danced all night beneath the stars to the music in their hearts on the road from Philadelphia to their second home in Cleveland.
And suddenly, he had an epiphany. He knew all at once that he would never be that man he was before he had met her, without hope, monstrous. Alice had changed him, made him better, and even though his heart would bleed and cry for the rest of eternity, he would continue on, because Alice had made him strong. And secondly, he knew that he must exist to keep her alive. These memories that he held inside of him, memories of Alice, and her love, and the beauty of her soul, would die with him. And that could not be allowed. He would live, a testament to her strength, a monument to all that she was, and all that she could have been, a living example of the wonder that had once been a pixie with a heart of gold named Mary Alice Brandon. And he would tell everyone her story, whether they wished to hear it or not. The story of how she had saved him and how she had died saving another. How her heart had been too good, too pure for this dark and cruel world.
Oh, Alice! His heart cried, before he dissolved into sobs yet again.
–
In the morning, when the sky began to warm with the rising sun, Jasper still sat on the porch step. His face was calm, resolved, and very sad.
She was gone.
There had been no news during the night, or Carlisle would have come and told him. Or she would have called him.
His face was blank and accepting, but a light had gone out of his eyes. The world seemed flatter, darker somehow, knowing that Alice was not still in it.
He stood and went inside, going upstairs to the room they had shared. He rubbed his hand gently over the place where she had sat beside him just a day or two before, helping him rebutton a complicated shirt that he had failed at miserably.
The room was full of memories, full of the smell of her.
He went to the closet and took out one of her shirts, pressing it to his face and closing his eyes, heartbroken and empty at the thought that even this smell would eventually fade.
Would he forget?
And suddenly, downstairs, the phone rang.
Jasper's whole body stiffened as he listened to Carlisle's voice and emotions for any hint of what was being said. He raced down the stairs, standing before him as he spoke.
"And you have Alice and Bella both with you, Edward? Good."
Alice. Alice was alive!
Carlisle continued speaking, but Jasper heard nothing else.
His love, his life, his Alice had succeeded in her crazy, impossible task! She was returning to him, and in only a number of hours would be back in his arms. His fears and despair had been unnecessary. The dark night had passed, and with the morning sun, his Alice would return.
And then his own phone rang, and his personal nightmare ended at last.
--
He was dressed before anyone else and was the first one in the car to the airport. He leapt from the car before Carlisle had even finished parking. Racing into the airport, he could barely contain his speed in his reckless joy. He had to see her again. He had to know that she was alright.
He paced outside the security gate, jumping every time he saw someone coming towards them. After what seemed like an eternity, he vaguely noticed Bella and Edward, holding hands as they walked toward them. But his eyes were only for the small dark-haired girl who walked slightly behind them.
He did not know what he would say to her. He didn't know what there was to say.
Alice, you nearly broke my heart.
Alice, don't ever do that again!
Alice, you crazy little freak...
Alice, I love you...
But words were not necessary. Alice saw him, and her trajectory changed, drawn to him almost as a magnet to its mate. She stopped a few paces before him, and their eyes met. In that look, all words were said, all fears expressed, all hurts forgiven.
They stood that way for several moments, until Carlisle's gentle call brought them back to the present. The twinkle returned to his eye, Jasper offered Alice his arm. They walked together from the airport, a single heart, complete once again.