A/N: All right, so this is my first time ever writing a fanfic based on my favorite book series. Please go easy on me! I haven't read the Twilight books in a while, so bear with me if the plot is inconsistent. This is for the Jasper and Alice Role playing Lemon Contest. Here goes! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Twilight series; Stephanie Meyer does. Enough said.
Solar EclipseChapter 1: The Eclipse
The images were fuzzy . . . the faces were warbled masses of color. Alice was having a vision.
The sun was a bright, cheery object overhead and its rays reflected off the surface of a lake. She could see herself taking in the comforting warmth of the sun and she was subconsciously aware of Jasper's presence nearby. Images of Jasper—a beastly figure—stalking the shadows of the forests, hunting the weak-willed and unsuspecting flashed across her mind. This was how she found him—a mere husk of the human he used to be prior to his change.
Images of the past became distorted then, dissolving into a myriad of colors like that of water washing over a freshly painted wall. The sun-warmed images of the lake, with the sun overhead, flooded her mind and she suddenly became aware of a darkness that had overtaken the breathtaking scene; flashes of the darkened sun intermittently disrupted the picturesque scene of tranquility. Then Jasper was suddenly by her side; his touch invoked a burning sensation and her vision ended with a piercing stab of pain in the back of her mind.
******
Alice opened her eyes with a painful gasp that stung entering her lungs. She took a few moments to orient her thoughts and make sense of the images that had appeared in her vision, but they were quickly edging their way out her mind even as she struggled to grasp the last few fleeting strands, which still remained. After a while Alice gave up, deeming her attempts to be futile and forced herself out of her meditative stance, lightly stretching her body in a cat-like fashion. Quietly exiting her bedroom, she made her way into the hall, approaching the first door she came across, which happened to be Edward's.
He came to the door before her knuckles could descend upon it, face stoic, as was his usual expression in the morning, except when he was around Bella. His eyes searched her face and she could feel the stirrings in the back of her mind as he rifled through her mind, attempting to sort out her thoughts. She knew he was probably picking up on the distressing signal her thoughts were giving off, but she was careful to give nothing away about her vision.
"There's going to be a solar eclipse tomorrow. We can't be in school."
"All right . . ." Edward says quietly, eyes still searching her face as if her thoughts were displayed across her features in plain sight.
Alice smiled briefly before flitting down the hall to Rosalie's room, then Emmett's, then Carlisle and Esme's. She saved Jasper's for last, wishing to divulge the contents of her vision, which concerned the both of them within the privacy of his room. Alice knocked politely on the door to his room and Jasper flung it open silently, his hair immaculate as ever since he never slept. Neither did the rest.
"Good morning," she chimes, forcing out an unnaturally thick coating of faux cheer.
"Good morning," he mumbles.
He could easily sense, from her emotions alone, that there was something wrong—that she was concerned about something of great importance. And though he could not read her mind, he could easily pick up on the distraught mess her emotions had found themselves in. Her emotions enticed him, distracted him—attracted him to her. He had never met anyone in his lifetime that had been able to affect him in such a way, simply by the fluctuation of his or her emotions. He direly wanted to reach out to her and touch her, if only briefly, but he fought the notion down, instead, leaning against the doorframe.
Alice's lips lifted in a half-hearted smile and Jasper's mind reeled with the desire to manipulate her emotions—toy with them—coaxing out the boundless joy that lay dormant within her. He wanted to make her laugh—a beauteous sound of unadulterated bliss—but he didn't.
"Would you like to come in so we can talk," he asked quietly, his eyes searching the hallway. Just as he had suspected, Edward was down the hall, pretending to reenter his room. Jasper knew Edward had been spying on them, but ignored his presence tactfully. Jasper makes a mental note to shield his thoughts and he hopes that Alice remembers to do the same in order to maintain their privacy.
Alice nodded silently, happy to oblige, and he stepped aside to allow her access into his darkened room. Once she had settled down on the sole piece of furniture—a cushioned hard-backed chair—Jasper shut the door and made his way over to his bed. He sat down facing her, waiting for her to share what had her emotions tied in disconcerted knots. For the longest time, Alice kept her eyes downcast, but at last she swiveled her gaze to meet his, worry shining vividly within her gloriously golden eyes.
"What's wrong, Alice," he asks when she had remained silent for far longer than he could stand. She sighs, a sound he very rarely witnesses, escaping the usually bright and cheery woman before him.
"I don't know . . ." she pauses for a moment and Jasper motions for her to continue her monologue.
"I had a vision about the solar eclipse tomorrow. The eclipse seemed to have some connection to us because images of us together kept being overshadowed by the appearance of it. I don't know what it means, but I have a bad feeling about it."
Jasper was overwhelmed by the anxiety that was pouring off Alice as she relived the remnants of her ambiguous vision laced with a tinge of uncertainty. "Or maybe it's a good thing," he said, attempting to cheer her up. When his words did nothing to lighten her mood, he tried to assert his control over her emotions.
"Quit it Jasper," she hisses in frustration rather than true anger. "I don't want you toying with my emotions like that . . ."
"Sorry," he whispers, shrinking away from the underlying ferocity in her tone.
If he wasn't certain before, he could be certain now: Alice was well and truly upset.
After a pause he says, "Don't worry too much about it Alice. I'm sure everything will be fine."
Alice smiles at his attempt to be encouraging. It is very rare that he is the optimist of the duo and she could tell he was struggling with his newfound optimism.
"Why don't you get ready for school? I'll meet you downstairs in about fifteen minutes," he says to relieve the tension that was building from the undue, eerie silence.
"Sure," Alice says, getting up gracefully to leave.
As an afterthought, Jasper adds, "Want to cut after lunch and meditate? It'll make you feel better and clear your mind of its anxiety over this vision."
"I'd like that," she says with a smile before gliding over to the door and opening it to find Edward lurking outside in the hall, trying his best to look inconspicuous, but failing miserably; his look is curious and Alice wonders what he heard that piqued this amount of interest in him.
"'Morning Eddie," Alice chimes, miraculously regaining her vibrantly exuberant cheer. She reaches up on her tiptoes to rifle his gelled hair before twirling down the hall to her room.
******
Thirty minutes later, Edward, Alice, and Jasper pile into Edward's Volvo and they speed off to another day of school. Alice and Jasper are squished together comfortably in the back seat, for they never had issues with close contact with each other; it just came naturally to them, much like breathing did for humans and animals. Outside the foggy window, the lulling scene of endless trees, wet pavement and mossy green foliage whizzed by in a multitudinous blurb of monotone color. The speedometer leapt to 100 miles per hour in minutes, but neither of them was alerted to the rapid acceleration; the tranquil scene outside the nearly stifling comfort of the car entranced them. When at last they entered town, Edward eased up on the gas in order to be courteous to the more speed conscious drivers of Forks.
The instant Edward parks the car Alice and Jasper get out on their respective sides, slamming their doors shut in unison before they began to trek towards the main entrance of Forks High School. They walk alongside each other with Edward a few paces behind them. While beside her, Jasper is alerted by the distressing nature of Alice's thoughts and her troubled emotions begin to distract him immensely. He is tempted to reach for her hand to ease the turmoil of her thoughts using his gift of emotional manipulation, but doesn't, for fear she may be driven away again. Alice is oblivious to Jasper's struggle to comfort her the only way he knows how, for she is ensnared in the sticky web of her disconcerting thoughts.
Like a pinprick in the back of his skull, Jasper can feel Edward forcing his way through his mind's shields and sifting through his thoughts. The instant he realizes that his mind has been infiltrated, Jasper turns to Edward and glares at him full force without losing pace with a genuflecting Alice beside him. That one glare is enough to drive Edward to leave his mind and leave him alone—for now. Jasper knew that somehow, someway, Edward would get answers; Jasper just wasn't willing to give Edward those answers at the moment. At last they arrived in the halls of their high school and went their separate ways to attend their morning classes.
******
Before long, lunchtime rolls by and Jasper and Alice meet in one of the vacant staircases of Forks High School and easily slip out of the school building undetected. They take a back road that leads away from the school and into the forest that frames the wet pavement of the road. Once they are far enough away from Forks High School and the prying eyes of Forks' inhabitants, they glide and leap lithely through the surrounding forest in search of the perfect place to meditate. Alice and Jasper soon find an open clearing fringed by majestic oaks and pines and they settle down there to take in the fresh air and placid, lulling noises of the surrounding forest.
"Thank you so much for coming here with me, Jasper; I appreciate it. You always know what I need."
Alice smiles at him and closes her eyes, taking in a deep cleansing breath of the scent of pine and damp soil. She is unaware of the smile that graces Jasper's lips as he watches her settle into a meditative state; Jasper follows her lead and shuts his eyes, drowning out all distractions but the subtle sounds of nature around them. They sit for hours amongst the canopy of foliage overhead and the natural comfort of a living breathing forest sheltering them from the outside world. Soon, however, it grows dark and they are forced to head home where they are sure to be met with speculative glances and worried visages. As soon as they step over the threshold, the rest of their family is waiting for them, all except Esme who was more than likely having her daily motherly anxiety attack.
"Where have you been," Carlisle asks. "Your mother has been sick with worry. Have you been getting into trouble?"
"No," they answer in unison.
"Well then, Edward told me that you two disappeared after lunch and that you didn't show up in the school parking lot after your last class," Carlisle intones with a tinge of accusation hidden within his usually friendly voice. "So what have you two been doing all afternoon?"
"Meditating," Alice simply answers.
"Why?"
"Because . . ." Jasper begins, but is tactfully cut off by Alice.
"Because Jasper needed to relax a bit after a trying day with the humans."
Jasper gives Alice a quick, speculatively confused glance—barely discernable by the naked eye—before he says, "Yes . . . the scent of so many humans and their emotions weakened my constitution and nearly brought me to the brink of an overwhelming blood lust and Alice noticed this right away during lunch. So afterwards, Alice took me away for awhile to calm me down and prevent a prospective disaster that would have jeopardized our lifestyle here."
Carlisle gives them a skeptical look, but drops any further questions when he hears Esme's distressing sob from the top of the stairs.
"Well, next time it happens, try to do it the right way. Just go to the nurse's office and have them call me so that I can have you both pulled out of class for the rest of the day. I don't want you two failing your classes because of a tarnished record dotted with recurring cuts." With that said, Carlisle leaves to comfort a distraught Esme. Rosalie and Emmett follow soon afterwards, heading to their respective rooms.
A discomforting silence settled in the room afterwards once they left, leaving only Alice, Edward and Jasper. All the while, Edward continued to stare at them with curious eyes, before breaking the silence.
"So what's the real reason why you cut the rest of the day," Edward asks.
"It's like we told Carlisle; Jasper wasn't feeling well." Alice smiles warmly and speeds towards the top of the stairs with Jasper in her wake. Once they arrive in front of her bedroom door, she opens it and ushers him in, shutting the door behind them, before leaning her back against it.
"Why didn't you tell Carlisle about your vision," Jasper asks quietly.
Alice sighs, for she knew Jasper was bound to ask such a question and she wasn't as entirely prepared for it as she originally thought. "I didn't want to worry Carlisle over nothing. Besides, my visions are subjective; they can always change, so I'm not going to worry about it and neither should you," she says after a brief pause.
She pushes away from the door and eases past him silently to situate herself on her mat to meditate for the night. "Goodnight Jasper," she says from her perch on the floor.
"Goodnight," he mutters before exiting her room without a sound.
As her makes his way down the hall to his room, he can't help but be disturbed by Alice's nonchalant attitude towards her vision. He could discern from her emotions alone that she was giving it more thought than she was letting on. One thing was absolutely certain: he was not going to drop the subject easily; he would bring it up again later. Jasper enters his room with the stealth of a predator and settles down to meditate until morning.
******
The next day, clouds hang overhead, serving as a superficial blanket that shelters the sun's face and blocks its warmth, but the warmth that peppers the air is a prelude to the warm temperatures that are sure to warm the Earth. Alice is roused from her meditative state by a tentative knock on her door.
"Come in," she chimes.
Edward opens the door a crack and peeks his head in before stepping inside the quaint, neat perfection of her room.
"I'm going out to the meadow with Bella, he says. After an awkward pause he asks, "Have you had any recurring visions about Bella and I . . ."
"No . . ." Alice says with a serious note to her usually cheery voice. Edward makes a move to leave but halts when Alice calls out to him.
"Oh and Eddie. Do refrain from eating her, all right? She is the first girlfriend you've had for years," Alice says with a giggle.
"Shut up," Edward hisses, before haphazardly tossing a vase full of flowers at her head, which she lithely avoids. The vase smashes against the back wall in a rain of porcelain and moist soil and Edward leaves, slamming the door in his wake and rushing out to his car.
Not long afterwards, Alice hears the revving roar of the Volvo's engine outside and the squealing of tires as Edward guns the engine and speeds towards Bella's house before the sun peeks out from between the patches of clouds. Alice once again settles down on her mat to meditate, but is soon disturbed by another knock on her door.
"Come in," she says in the same chime-like tone as before, eyes never opening to acknowledge her newest visitor.
Jasper enters the room and shuts the door behind him silently, before crossing over to Alice and sitting down before her on the mat. "Are you all right?"
Alice opens her eyes in shock. "Oh it's you Jasper. I'm fine. I was just toying with Eddie."
Jasper laughs at this and smiles at the comforting sensation that settles within him when he releases his tightly wound emotions. Part of being able to control his emotions meant keeping close tabs on his own and focusing in on others' emotions. His laugh sends chills of joy down Alice's spine and she wonders if Jasper's laugh also allows him to manipulate the emotions around him. She pushes this speculation aside however; she likes it when he laughs, because it puts her at ease. Alice closes her eyes in concentration once again and focuses on clearing her mind.
After a while, Jasper reaches out to touch her and she jolts from the contact, but her eyes still remain closed.
"Hey . . . Alice . . ." he whispers to her.
"Hmm . . ." she murmurs nervously, trying hard to ignore the cool pressure of his hand on her arm.
"Do you want to hang out somewhere and watch the solar eclipse? Everyone else is out of the house."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Jasper says matter-of-factly. "Carlisle and Esme went to go spend time together, Rosalie and Emmett went to their favorite spot—the creek—and Edward went to go spend time with Bella for the day. I was thinking we could go hiking together and locate our own spot to spend time."
Jasper's hand trails up her arm and she shivers lightly. "Umm . . . Sure," she intones barely above a whisper.
She finally opens her eyes to find Jasper, leaning precariously close to her face; his cool breath was fanning her face and a drowning intensity was shining in his eyes.
"Well . . . I-I better get ready then . . ." Alice stammers, pulling her arm away from his idle caress and leaning away from the intimately close proximity of his face.
Jasper rises fluidly without a word and stalks over to the door, shutting it tightly behind him. Alice breathes a sigh and lurches to her feet in a most eloquent and enviable way, stretching her stiff muscles lightly before she glides over to her closet. She pulls out a pair of jeans, a thick, black long-sleeved sweater and a plain, white short-sleeved shirt to go on underneath in case the atmosphere heats to an unbearable crescendo. She quickly changes into her handpicked attire and stuffs her dainty feet into a pair of hiking boots. She grabs a blanket from the top shelf of her closet and then swiftly leaves her room and bounds down the stairs to meet Jasper.
Alice pauses briefly at the foot of the stairs to assess Jasper in his tan sweater rolled up at the sleeves, his black jeans and his hiking boots, which complete the outfit. She had to admit that despite how many times she had seen him, he somehow managed to grow more and more breathtaking by the day.
"Shall we," she says with a smile, gripping his hand in hers.
Jasper returns the gesture and encases her dainty one in his own before they exit out the front door casually. Their boots are silent as they stalk across the smooth pavement of the front drive towards the ever existent forests, which surround their home. Soon they enter the looming vastness of the forests, boots crunching over dry leaves and squishing through moist soil. They hike for several hours, hands still intertwined warmly; finally they discover a spot near a lake. There is a stony precipice that extends over the water and Alice and Jasper gravitate over to it and settle down to rest. The halcyon scene before them is a paradise in itself; there is nothing but the whispered voices of the trees as the wind blows through the leaves and the settling sounds of nature all about them.
"This is perfect! It has its own quaint, complacent feel; it'll be perfect for meditation! Thank you Jasper."
Alice turns to him, eyes shinning with pure, childlike joy, before turning away to continue to peruse and admire her surroundings. Jasper watches the play of emotions upon her pixie-like features as Alice flits around excitedly, before settling down beside him once again. She lays down the blanket and removes her sweater to soak in the sun's rays, before tumbling backwards onto her back gracefully. Jasper follows suit, laying down silently beside her, a rare smile of contentment gracing his lips. He takes in the exuberant high Alice's elevated spirits invoke in him while the sun's rays warm his exposed arms and the clothes that cling snugly to his body.
As Alice rests underneath the caressing blanket of heat that the sun's rays emit, she wonders if the sun's rays playing upon her cool skin is similar to what it feels like to be alive—to be endlessly warm. In the back of her mind, she longs to be alive once more; to be able to sleep, eat and behave like a normal teen would be worth more than superhuman strength and immortality combined. Now Alice understands why Edward was with Bella; the collective warmth of a living being is comforting and more than likely reminds him that he wasn't always a monster and that he too was once that warm and vibrantly alive. Jasper picks up on the bittersweet tang of Alice's emotions and he reaches out blindly to caress her outstretched hand to comfort her and ease her mind. Her emotions immediately respond to his touch and he feels that he has never been happier to be with someone in his entire life or death.
They remain silent for a while, hands brushing against each other lightly as the clouds ease across the sky in an endless track of cotton-like shapes. Alice's laughter drifts teasingly to his ears, disrupting the complacent silent that had settled over them. Jasper turns his head in question to discover what has drawn out such a joyous response from her. A streak of red dashes across his peripheral vision and attracts his attention; Jasper turns his eyes skyward and spies what has caught Alice's attention—a lone red balloon, gliding across the sky on a gentle, encouraging breeze. Alice laughs again, the sound bubbling up from the endless conglomeration of her pent-up joy.
"I wonder what happens when it reaches the atmosphere," she asks rhetorically.
Jasper rolls onto his side and props himself up on his elbow so that he is leaning over her prone form beneath him; their faces are inches away and their breath mingles intimately between them. Alice's eyes hold undying joy and she seems to welcome and embrace his undue close proximity to her, for she reaches up to caress the smooth pallid expanse of his left cheek. Jasper's long-forgotten human instincts are unearthed and overwhelm him with the feral need it invokes in him. He suddenly begins to crave the taste of Alice's sun-warmed lips and the press of her falsely warmed, iridescent skin.
Alice blinks slowly and smiles brightly. "The solar eclipse," she says with pure glee permeating from her every pore.
Alice sits up in a blur of speed and Jasper is forced to move away. They remain silent as the sun's rays are obstructed by the moon and the halcyon scene about them in is engulfed in shadow. All is still and silent as time ceases to continue onward and the entire world halts to watch this rare phenomenon. The silence is nearly deafening, but Alice and Jasper sit through it calmly, awaiting the return of the sun's face amongst the darkened clouds. Before long the eclipse ends and the world resumes its usual continuous motion, sound returning in a piercing rush to the Earth.
"Wow . . . that was . . ." Alice utters, but the rest of her words die in her throat as an odd, tingling—nearly burning—sensation courses through her body in convulsive waves. No sound escapes her as she collapses onto her side; the sensation is nothing like the piercing ache that oftentimes accompanies her visions—it's ten times worse.
Jasper scrambles to her side and cradles her convulsively, thrashing body in a hope to ease the apparent pain that has overtaken her senses. Alice soon fades into unconsciousness, the pain subsiding as the remnants of reality blur in abstract colors and shapes.
******
Alice awakens what seems like hours later, disoriented and with a dull ache throbbing at the base of her skull. Jasper becomes aware of Alice shifting in his arms and directs his attention to her as she struggles to piece together the events that led up to her easing into the dark clutches of unconsciousness. Relief was apparent in Jasper's dark eyes as he eased Alice to a sitting position, but she could see an underlying hint of worry there as well.
"Are you all right," he asks, surveying Alice for any sign of harm.
"Yeah . . . I don't know what happened . . ."
"Was it a vision?"
Alice began to nod, but decided against it when her vision began to swim in swirling dark spots and objects began to gray perceptibly around the edges. "I don't think so . . ." she whispers, her hands going to her temples to ease the nauseous ache that was plaguing her mind.
"We better get home before Carlisle and Esme begin to worry," he says after a pause. "Can you walk?"
Alice slowly clamors to her feet, lacking her usual eloquence, and unintentionally nods, which sends the world spinning about her. Alice begins to teeter off balance and Jasper catches her before she can fall onto her side, carefully scooping her into his arms so as not to aggravate her already disoriented sense of balance. Alice leans her head against Jasper's chest, taking comfort in being in his arms and shuts her eyes, focusing on the feel of Jasper's well-sculpted body underneath his clothes and the late afternoon sounds permeating the eerie silence that had settled over the lake and forest during the solar eclipse. Jasper can sense Alice's anguish and pain as he walks through the forest with her, and can't help but wonder what the solar eclipse has to do with Alice's strange behavior.
******
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next one is on its way and I should have it posted by today or tomorrow. Thanks for reading! Remember to leave me a review!
Silver Moon Vampiress