Disclaimer: I am not Stephanie Meyer, credit for anything recognizable goes to her.
Alice POV:
"Jazz, I have to go..." I reluctantly pulled away from my husband as he continued to pepper my face and neck with kisses. "I need to hunt..." I so did not want to go hunt.
"Do you really need to?" He persuaded "You could stay here with me..." Waves of emotion swept over me, reinforcing his point and making me much less eager to go hunt the unappetizing deer that I had seen would be my meal.
I moaned. "Stop that. Yes. I need to hunt. Today. I've already told you this."
I felt him grin against my neck. "Really?"
I gasped as he kissed me again, slowly, deeply, and very persuasively. "Yes." I told him as soon as my lips were free. "Really." I worked to make my tone sound confident.
"You're emotions say differently." He teased, his eyes glittering mischievously as he looked down at me. I giggled, lightly smacking him.
"Well, what I want and what I need are often two very different things." I informed him. "For example, right now I need to hunt if I want the humans in my classes tomorrow to survive the day."
He sighed melodramatically and pouted, but I could tell by the hint of a smile hovering around his lips that he wasn't actually that put out. I chuckled at his puppy face and gave him one last peck before darting to the door. I glanced back to see him lounging against the backboard of our bed, his jean-clad legs crossed with just the tip of his cowboy boots peeking out. He grinned at me. "Well, if y're just gonna stand there and stare, ya might as well have stayed over here, so I could keep kissin' ya."
I lauged. "I love you." I told him.
"Love you too, Lissy." Even without him saying it, I knew. Our love for each other showed through our every action and words were just redundant. He didn't have to tell me he loved me, because I could see his love shining through to me from his very soul. Nevertheless, sometimes I said it just because I could. Hey, you would too after searching for three decades with your love constantly just out of your reach. Granted, we had now been together now for more than sixty years, but my feelings for him would never fade away. So I would never, ever get tired of saying it.
He winked at me. "If ya keep standing there much longer, then I'm just gonna have to come over there and start kissin' ya again. You know I don't have the best self-control and I'm startin' to feel mighty tempted watchin' ya in those shorts." I glanced down at my new short-shorts. I had just gotten them on a shopping spree in New York and, personally, I felt that they were adorable.
"You like these do you? I thought you might."
"Why yes, as a matter of fact, I do." He pushed himself away from the bed and started towards me.
Giggling, I blew him a kiss and darted down the stairs. "I'm going to hunt!" I called to Carlisle and Esme, who were sitting in the living room, snuggling on the couch as they watched a movie.
"Mmmkay..." Esme sighed as she stared up at Carlisle with goo-goo eyes.
"Be careful." Carlisle was just as preoccupied with his wife as she was with him.
"You're going to hurt that poor movie's feelings, sitting there totally ignoring it," I joked. "Look how hard it's trying to entertain you!" Edward laughed as he walked through the door, probably from stalking the human girl he was so infatuated with. Bella was her name. I had been so excited when they had finally had their first date in Port Angeles. He glared at me. What? I thought innocently. It was almost a date. You took her to a nice restaraunt and had dinner, didn't you?
"Yes, after she had nearly been attacked by those thugs."
You still went, and were together, and talked. And now she's figured out you're a vampire, so you have no reason not to be together. I beamed at the picture I had in my head of our family's future. See, look. Isn't that nice?
"But we're not dating."
Yet.
"Yet." He agreed, to my suprise.
Yet?! So you really are going to stop being so stubborn about this?! Oh, Edward this is wonderful! I squealed out loud. Can I plan your wedding?
"Alice, I haven't even taken her on a date yet!" Edward looked like he couldn't quite decide whether he was scandalized by my assumption or entertained by my persistence.
Yes, you have. In Port Angeles. We've gone over this, remember?
"I didn't actually give her much of a choice; it doesn't count," he argued.
Details.
Edward groaned and turned to look to the top of the stairs where Jasper was standing, looking very amused by our conversation. "Control your wife's enthusiasm please."
Jasper appraised me, one eyebrow raised. "I dunno, Ed. I'm pretty sure that's an impossible feat."
I giggled and beamed up at him, nodding. "Yup."
"Don't call me 'Ed.'" Edward grumbled. Esme finally tore her gaze from her husband and looked over at his words, seeming slightly confused. "Are you all still here?"
I grinned. "Nope." I am so calling dibs on planning your wedding, Edward. It is now official. "Bye Jazz!" I called sweetly.
"Alice!" Edward's annoyed shout followed me out the door and down the back steps. As I gracefully leapt over the river, I could hear Jasper's deep chuckle as Edward continued to bemoan my awesome personality.
I was so happy that he was finally starting to become more comfortable with the relaxed atmosphere of our family. It took him decades to even get comfortable joking around with me. Not that it was his fault, of course. Life with Maria had taught him to overanalyze everything and never insult a lady, even in jest. With Maria, he had had to watch his every word and action, playing life by her rules, which often contradicted each other and rarely made any sense. He had constantly tried to live up to her twisted sense of perfection, practically becoming a slave to her every whim. It was so sad to think about what his time with her had done to him; it made me wish that I had been able to find him sooner, even though I had done my very best to get to him without delay.
But now he was relaxing and having fun. I was slowly starting to see more and more of his smile, his laugh, previously reserved only for me, shared with the rest of our family. I loved watching him have discussions with Edward and have wrestling matches with Emmett. I loved watching his connection with Rosalie (which they claimed was a twin thing) grow as they bonded over their difficult pasts. I loved watching him strive to be worthy of Carlise's pride and bask in the warm glow of Esme's love.
And I especially loved it when he let himself fully relax with me, when we speant hours on end laughing and talking, playing games together, or even just sitting side-by-side, content simply to be near each other.
This, here and now, was my paradise, my Garden of Eden where happiness was abundant and life was perfect.
There was nothing in the world that I could think of that could possibly make my life better.
I sighed contentedly, then grinned devilishly. Faster than the human eye could comprehend, I was off like a shot, running like I could never tire. And, guess what? I couldn't! I giggled just at the pure pleasure of the pumping of my feet, delighting in the feel of the wind rustling through my short hair. The world blurred into a paradoxical juxtaposition of the sharp definition of the objects around me and the speed at which things flew past me. I could take in everything in less than a second: the sound of the creek to my right, the pattern of the trees to my left, the dance of little rabbitts as they flew away from my approach, even the tiny caterpillar on the leaf above my head. But it all flew by in the snap of the finger, the shortest tenth of a second. The contrast was amazing. Edward may be faster, but out of all of us, I love running the most.
I kept running just for the heck of it for a while before finally slowing down and turning to find my meal. I quickly searched through my immediate future in my head. It didn't look like I would have any problems; there was a herd of deer in the meadow just beyond those trees.
I shifted into a crouch and let my senses take over my more civilized nature. Silently, I slipped up into the nearest tree and made my way, branch to branch, to the edge of the clearing. The sounds around me became more defined as I focused in on the deer closest to me; its heart pounding, calling me in closer. My eyes shot around, taking in all possible escape routes along with the position of each deer. I let the fairly unappetizing scent draw me closer and closer. Then, I attacked.
The poor thing never had a chance. As the rest of the herd took off, I swiftly broke its neck and leaned in to place my lips over its aortic vein. My teeth slid through the skin, cutting easily through muscle and tissue as I latched on to my lifesource. Greedily, I sucked the warm, pulsing liquid in huge gulps, relishing in the cooling of the blaze in the back of my throat. It really had been too long since I'd last hunted. As soon as I finished with that one, I took off again after the heard. I ended up draining two more before I was finally full.
As I lifted my head from the last one, I caught a faint scent in the air: vampire. My nostrils immediately widened in shock, my every sense going into even higher alert than they had been in. I glanced quickly through my near future. Not seeing anything threatening, I leaned in closer to smell it again. It wasn't a scent that I knew.
Call me paranoid if you must, but years of living with a former newborn army general had made me a bit leery about meeting strangers all by myself in the middle of the woods where nobody was around. I glanced around uneasily, taking in little details that I had missed in my frenzy for blood. The brush by the stream to my right had been flattened. The ferns and underbrush were looking slightly trampled. There were broken twigs hanging off of trees. Subtle signs, to be sure, but I was getting more and more certain that someone had been there.
To my left, a branch snapped.
I looked up to see a pair of bright red eyes staring back at me.
Instantly, I was on my feet, running in the opposite direction. My breath started to come in gasps as I began to panic; whoever it was was barreling through the forest right behind me. And he had friends. I could hear them on every side, coming in to give my mysterious stalker some backup. I swerved suddenly and ran in a path diagonal to the one I had been taking, trying to get back home. I was still ahead for now, but they were closing in fast.
My legs pumped as I flew through the forest faster than I had ever run before. Was it really only a few hours ago that I had found running enjoyable? Now it seemed hideous to me. This feeling of panic, of being hunted was suffocating me, slowing me down. I fought against it as hard as I could as I came into what Emmett had dubbed the baseball clearing. I skidded to a stop in the middle of the field.
There were more vampires on the other side, leering at me as they started to close in.
I spun around as fresh terror set in. Behind me and on either side were the ones that had been following me. I belatedly realized that they hadn't been following me at all. They had been herding me. I searched my surroundings desperately for a way out as the horrible truth set in.
I was surrounded by hostile vampires.
Well, I wasn't going to go down without a fight. As the first one, the one who had originally been chasing me, reached me, I tried to remember through the paralyzing fear the fighting lessons Jasper had given me. I lashed out at him, hissing. Quicker than I could comprehend, he had ducked under my arm and pulled me into a headlock. Thrashing against him in terror, I felt a spot of pressure behind my ear and cried out.
All I could process was pain, terrible pain.
And then my world went black.
A/N: Hate to ruin the moment, so I'm just going to make this quick. Review, be nice (I like constructive criticism, but don't be mean about it, please), and I've got two other oneshots on my profile that you have a deep longing to go check out. One is called Start of Something Good and it's about early moments in the Cullen relationships. The other is called Stupid Homework in which Alice hates Chemistry. Oh, I guess that kinda was a long author's note, wasn't it? Oh well :) Thank you to everyone who has reviewed my other two stories!
