Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its wonderful characters.

Blind Hope

Alice x Jasper

- -

I find myself to be a sore thumb in the family.

My self control is rather weak and I had spent nearly a century feeding on human blood whenever and wherever I wanted to.

I am one of the oldest members of my family, second only to my "father", and have lived in an army, a small coven, and as a nomad.

The temptation of human blood is equal to me—I cannot particularly discern the varying tastes and flavours of human blood.

And, something that I find makes me—but not my wife—different from the rest of the Cullens is the fact that I simply waltz into the family instead of being "born" or brought into it.

Every now and then, I also find myself to be an oddity in my relationship.

I am officially 57 years older than my wife, give or take a few months, and have lived five completely different lives in the 105 years before I met her.

This feeling of imbalance doesn't change when you compare our sizes. I am well into the 6 feet range, 6'3" to be exact, while my wife stands at less than 5 feet.

Although our physical ages are nearly the same and she's seen things beyond her years—literally—just as often as I have experienced things, I can't help but sometimes feel like I've taken advantage of her; her youth, her brilliance, her beauty, her innocence, her love.

Everyone tells me otherwise, especially my wife herself, but it doesn't change the dark path my thoughts sometimes lead me down.

Of course, I'd never willing leave my wife. Even unwillingly, it would be extremely difficult—perhaps even impossible. I don't even want to fathom a life without her now that I've been able to bask in the light and warmth she provides me with.

But these thoughts, these doubts, they always worm their way in. Most of the time she's there to banish this darkness, but sometimes the thoughts creep up on me—usually during my most lonely hours.

And in those few times of loneliness I dwell on the thoughts so long that the light she delivers me is blinding. Blindingly lovely and absolutely warm. She can feel and see my discontent and comes running immediately—whispering her assurances or playfully flicking my chest and telling me that there's no way she'd ever love anyone but her disheveled old vampire—me.

At the exact moment these words are uttered, and sometimes beforehand, I wonder how those thoughts ever came to my mind. Why I ever doubted. I had never felt love emanate from a being as strongly as it did from her—just for me. The love, the youth, the brilliance, the innocence, and the beauty; always for me and only for me.

"Jazz…"

I looked up from the book I wasn't really reading when she floated in—gliding across the floor as though the essence of life from everything around her couldn't bear to have her touch the floor. I smiled at her, hesitantly, for she knew that I had been letting myself think the unthinkable again.

She clucked her tongue disapprovingly at me before sinking into my lap and burying herself in my chest.

She sighed, absolutely at peace. "I love you, Jazz."

And, as I wrapped myself around my world, I felt my vision slip away into her blinding essence—seeing nothing but her, following nothing but her, and hoping for nothing but her.

When I had been blindly fumbling in the dark, she brought me into the light. And, although this light also took away part of my vision, I never mourned the loss. Not once, not ever. For, in all of my darkest thoughts, I never once imagined not having her, not seeing or being with any other but her.

No matter how greatly I regretted the inadequacies I presented to her, I never once regretted my love for her or the love she felt for me, and I hoped against all hopes that she felt the same lack of regret towards me.

It was a blind hope, but a hope all the same; one that only she could provide me with.