Disclaimer: I do not own twilight or any of its characters.
(A/N: I've always wanted to know what Alice went through when she left in Breaking Dawn. How did she bring herself to abandon her family? How did she know what she was looking for when she couldn't see it? How did she cope with the constant visions of her family and friends been torn apart and destroyed? It couldn't have been easy, and I don't think it was. I don't think she was ever given enough credit for saving the day at the last moment. So this is a story of Alice's 'Trials and Tribulations'.)
The Forthcoming Darkness
There was some area of my mind that was aware of the glass vase in my hands that was suddenly very loose in my grip. There was some area of my mind that heard the air woosh as the vase passed through it. There was some area of my mind that was aware of the splintering sound of glass as it smashed into the floor beneath my feet. But it was miniscule and completely irrelevant compared to the image that was swarming the rest of my head.
Shadows looming, coming forwards, towards us.
Red eyes and pale faces looking out from deep, dark hoods.
Some faces I didn't know. Faces who shouldn't be there.
Some faces I did recognise. Faces I never wanted to see again.
My family gone.
Perished.
Dust.
Nothing.
My family!
I spun around hoping to see them, but I couldn't. I couldn't see anything but from the hideous image clouding every area of my thoughts. Like ink that was pouring from its container, the dark force seeped forwards. Unstopping. Absorbing. Destroying.
"What?" Someone asked.
I tried to bring myself back into the room. Back in to the present. But my eyes couldn't refocus.
"What Alice?" The smooth but fierce voice said again.
I could feel two pads of pressure on my arms. The touch was foreign and familiar at the same time. But I just couldn't concentrate on who the touch belonged to.
A cold shiver went down my back as my vision zoomed in to the pinnacle of the battle.
Bella trying to fight off a handful of guards, but her newborn instincts couldn't match their centuries of training. Jane took the final fatal blow, ripping her head from her body.
Esme, Carlisle, Rose, all being floored by the now victorious Jane.
Ripping.
Tearing.
Burning.
Edward screaming. Roaring. Trying to protect his Bella. Too many guards. Too good. Bella's gone. He's gone.
Emmett and Jasper doing their best. Doing so well. Rose dying. Emmett distracted. Emmett gone.
Jasper fighting. Too many. Too many.
Jasper.
My Jasper.
"What is it?" But he wasn't gone. Not yet. He was here. With me. Of course only Jasper would be able to bring me back.
"They're coming for us." I managed to whisper. Edward's voice was speaking with mine. "All of them."
"The Volturi." The word made the venom pool in my mouth, but it tasted sour and bitter as I imagined vomit to taste of.
"All of them." Edward repeated.
I shook my head. My family needed me now. We were clueless, confused, alone. Only I would be able to find some answers. I needed to focus now.
"Why?" I asked to no one but myself. "How?" Nothing made sense.
"When?" Edward questioned.
I looked at the scene the vision was set in.
Snow was all I could see.
"Why?" Esme begged, changing the course of my thinking. I wanted to answer that question more than anything.
"When?" Jasper growled in my ear.
The words echoed in every fibre of my being and I was suddenly back at the clearing. Inspecting every detail of the snow around me. It was the only clue. Powdery. Soft. The first falling of snow. A few inches thick. Two, three days after the first day of snow this winter.
It wouldn't be a matter or days, nor would it be a matter of months.
One month. Five weeks.
Too soon.
My mouth hung open in horror.
"Not long." I said. Edward joining me again. "There's snow on the forest. Snow on the town. Little more than a month."
And suddenly our living room was buzzing with questions, emotions… and fear.
"Why?" Carlisle asked.
Esme was going to speak next. "They must have a reason. Maybe to see if Bella has been changed." She was going to say.
"This isn't about Bella!" I breathed before she had even spoken Bella's name. "They are all coming – Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guards. Even the wives!"
Jasper's voice rang coldly around the room. He, Edward and Carlisle were arguing, discussing, trying to think of any reasons why.
Why Alice? Why? I begged. Looking for reasons. I had been watching Aro's decisions so closely, that was what confused me the most. He hadn't actually made a decision yet. Not consciously. But someone had. Someone had made a decision that would lead to this! But who?
"Go back Alice. Look for the trigger. Search." Jasper instructed.
I tried. I tried so hard. But I couldn't find anyone. It didn't come from Aro. It didn't come from Caius or Marcus or even Jane. There was no reason.
My shoulders slumped in failure. "It came out of nowhere Jazz. I wasn't looking for them. I wasn't even looking for us. I was just looking for Irina."
I had finally found her wondering around an unknown landscape. Not somewhere that I recognised easily. Definitely not in America. Europe possibly? I had no idea what she was doing there.
"She wasn't where I expected her to be…" I could hear my voice drift off into nothing as my mind finally caught up. I watched as she carried on walking through the dark night – the same image as I had before, though now it was her immediate future. But the vision started to shift, rotating around her. It was now looking over her shoulder, facing the way she was walking. I finally saw her destination, where she was headed. She was walking up the same road Bella and I had driven up almost nine months ago. The small town on the top of the hill was all too familiar.
She decided to go to Volterra.
"She decided to go to them." I finally managed to spit out. "Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And then they will decide… It's as if they were waiting for her. Like their decision was already made, and just waiting on her…"
Waiting on someone, anyone… anything. Anything to give them reason! That's why a hard, clear decision to come here wasn't made. Because they had no reason to do so. But they will… soon. But why? The question was still not answered. Why would Irina do that? To her family. She had no reason to. Because she saw Bella with a werewolf? Did she really hate them that much? Really hate us that much?
"Can we stop her?" Jasper asked me.
"There's no way. She's almost there." I replied timidly.
"What is she doing?" Carlisle asked, echoing my thoughts.
"It's obvious isn't it?" Emmett bellowed. "She's got some beef with the werewolves and she's dobbed us in it! An illegal alliance or something?" Maybe –"
"Think of what she saw this afternoon." Bella's soft voice interrupted, obviously coming to a different conclusion. "To someone who'd lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would Renesmee look like?"
Oh Bella. She was so right. And Irina was so wrong.
"An immortal child." Carlisle spoke on all our behalf's.
Her words made me relieved that we finally knew why things were happening, but at the same time even more grief stricken with the fact that those monsters were out to kill Nessie. My beautiful, intelligent, one of a kind niece.
"But she's wrong. Renesmee isn't like those other children…" Bella continued.
No she isn't, but that wouldn't make any difference. Not in any version of events did the Volturi stop to hear our case, stop to hear her beating heart or to witness her growth.
"But they're wrong!" Bella cried.
"They won't wait for us to show them that." Edward replied, regrettably, picking at the vision from my head.
"What can we do then?" She asked, though her words were lost in her own pessimism.
Nothing.
We can do nothing, but wait.
"We fight." Emmett said as though he was talking about a casual Sunday evening with Jasper.
"We can't win." Jasper replied, now holding my hand. He could feel my doubt rolling through every inch of my body and knew there was no hope for us.
"Well we can't run. Not with Demetri around." He rolled his eyes, appalled by the idea of turning his back on someone who wanted to hurt us. If only we all felt as invincible as my bulky brother. "And I don't know that we can't win, there are a few options to discover. We don't even have to fight alone!" He added.
And with his words the vision changed. We were there still, awaiting the onslaught, but now we weren't alone. The vision moved back, allowing me to see more. My family stood in the middle, now with Tanya's coven behind them. More faces appeared, more friends. But more shredding, more burning and more loss.
"… Aro knows about our alliance with the pack now too. But I was thinking of our other friends." Emmett was still pleading his case.
"Other friends we don't have to sentence to death." Carlisle whispered downheartedly but honestly.
"Hey," Emmett shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant fashion. "We'll let them decide. I'm not saying they have to fight with us."
With every word he said this new vision became clearer and clearer.
"If they'd just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate. Bella's right, after all. If we could force them to stop and listen. Though that might take away any reason for a fight…" He smiled, and it almost made me want to smile.
A glimpse. I got a glimpse of halted troops. Just one. But that ounce of hope spoke volumes to me. Though it got washed away quickly. We would still die. Just more of us would die now.
Esme, Rose and Emmett were discussing his idea when the vision finally cemented itself. It would happen.
But we were all overlooking something…
Irina was not the only one who would believe that Renesmee is an immortal child.
"We'll have to ask them just right."
A different vision entered my mind. It was very welcome after the last few minutes. Tanya, Kate and Eleazar all screaming. Trying to get away. Don't want to get involved. Carmen: interested, hopeful… trustful.
" They'll have to be shown very carefully." I explained.
Ok Edward? I asked him, showing him how to do it. You have to do it exactly like this. It won't be easy, but it will work. How could they turn their back on that beautiful girl? I added looking at her.
As I looked up I caught his eye and he nodded carefully, showing me he understood. It's our best shot Edward… It's our only shot. I kept repeating the miniscule image of the Volturi stopping in front of us. It didn't even last half a second, but it was there, in some form of future. But his downturned face only highlighted the fact that the other images looked so more certain.
"Shown?" Jasper asked, confused.
We had little time and Edward was the only one who needed to know. The important thing now was finding witnesses to show.
Who would help us? I tried feebly to pull the faces of the people who would help us – and who would burn along side us – into my mind.
"Tanya's family." They were all there, Irina included, though she was not burning on our side, I didn't have enough time to delve into the meaning so carried on searching. "Siobhan's coven". I recognised the red tight curls of Maggie's hair dismembered from the rest of her body. "Amun's". Though Amun and his mate were not present in this disgusting image, his Benjamin was crying over his mate Tia in the pile of smouldering ashes. "Some of the Nomads," I watched a snap shot of Garrett bellowing to the halted troop of Volturi Guards. "I came to witness, I stay to fight… they seek the death of our free will." Halted troops! Halted troops! They did stop… they will stop! "Garrett and Mary for certain. Maybe Alistair." His face was much more distant to the others.
"What about Peter and Charlotte?"
I looked deeper, searching the faces. I finally spotted theirs, through the smoke. They were not burning…they were watching, from a distance, with saddened faces… worried faces. "Maybe." I said.
"The amazons? Kachiri, Zafrina and Senna?"
I had only met Carlisle's tall – and frankly, scary – immortal friends once and so I tried harder to locate their faces. But the scene shifted suddenly, taking me somewhere completely different, into a blur of vivid green… it was the rainforest and I was running, with Jasper by my side and one of the amazons in front of me, guiding me. Guiding me where? I took a sharp intake of breath when suddenly the bright, emerald scene was lost in a sea of darkness. But for some reason I welcomed it, as though I was hoping for it…
"I can't see." I breathed. The darkness completely cleared my sight, and for the first time in the last few minutes I saw the room in front of me.
"What was that? That part in the jungle? Are we going to look for them?" Edward asked before I had time to think about what the vision even meant.
I wanted to look again. Something was telling me that all the answers were in that vision – if only I looked harder. But there was a part of me that was screaming at me not to. It wasn't a conscious thought, it was completely instinctual. Was that vision not safe? Not safe from Edward…
Another vision: Edward's hand touching Aro's in the middle of the snow covered clearing.
…or not safe from Aro?
"I can't see." I repeated again, harsher – hoping he would pick up on my tone. I needed to get away from him quickly. I stepped to the left, trying to avoid eye contact. "We'll have to split up and hurry – before the snow sticks to the ground." I spoke so quick even I could hardly understand what I was saying. "We have to round up whomever we can and get them here to show them."
One thing still bugged me. Even if they would stop to listen to us, listen to our evidence that no-one could deny, the vision still ended the same way. Did that mean that even if we proved that Renesmee wasn't an illegal aspect of our species then they would still attack? But… but why?
Another vision: Eleazar's knowledgeable eyes with answers within them… "I could only think that the reason Aro had decided to come himself, to bring so many with him, is because his goal is not punishment, but acquisition…"
And then a picture entered my head, but it was something I had seen before – the same vision I had had nine moths ago in Volterra. It was me – standing beside Aro in the blackest of coats, the same shade as his.
I didn't understand. The only way the two visions would be linked would be if Aro was coming here for me. But that was ridiculous! He had heard my thoughts for himself. He knows that I would never leave my family. So he would take them away from me?
Guilt flooded over me, almost knocking me to my knees. All of this was my fault. My family, my friends, Renesmee, would all die because of me!
It had only been a second and a half since I had last spoken, my mind was so busy that I doubt anyone could have kept up. Edward's tense, screwed up face confirmed my thoughts.
"Ask Eleazar. There is more to this than just an immortal child." I spurted out.
And I was once again abruptly taken back to the rainforest. Running, searching, returning. But something was slowing us down! When I turned to face the unidentified object, everything disappeared, as it had before. "But we can't stop! We don't have enough time!" I cried to Jasper.
Not enough time. Whatever it was we all needed to do, would take all our effort and all our time. Too much to do. Not enough time.
"There's so much. We have to hurry." I spoke quickly.
"Alice that was too fast – I didn't understand. What was –" Edward begged. He hated not knowing everything. Didn't he understand that he couldn't know this? For all our sakes! I had to get out of his proximity in order to process this influx of information.
"I can't see!" I almost spat. But then a deep, dark calm washed over me. Not jasper – he was too wrapped up in his own turmoil to produce an atmosphere strong enough to calm any of us down. It was a werewolf for sure. He cleared my mind so much that it was almost peaceful. "Jacob's almost here." I continued.
"I'll deal with –" Rose said, probably hoping to take out some of her anger on the un-expecting dog.
"No, let him come." The tension was starting to build inside of me again. I would not be able to sit beside Jacob and just relax for a few moments – we just didn't have the time. I had to think, I had to understand what this vision meant. And why couldn't I see the answer?
I grabbed Jasper's hand. I didn't want to be alone, and if this rainforest vision was anything to go by he would have to be with me anyway.
"I'll see better away from Nessie too." I said honestly, though it also gave my absence an excuse. "I need to go. I need to really concentrate. I need to see everything I can. I have to go." I kept on speaking so I wouldn't think. "Come on jasper! There's no time to waste."
I looked into my immediate future, but I couldn't see myself returning here… not for a long time. It appeared as though Jasper and I were leaving tonight.
"Hurry! You have to find them all!" I called over my shoulder, hoping they would hear the urgency in my tone. We all had our parts to play and every element needed to come together.
Rose and Em would search America for nomads and Esme and Carlisle would travel to Europe. Bella and Edward would stay with Ness and wait for our friends to arrive. That left me and Jasper to find this mystery ingredient in our redemption.
I ran in silence focussing on Eleazar's face, trying my hardest not to think about the rainforest. Jasper ran in silence as well, until he knew we were well out of Edward's range.
"Alice what's going on? What was with the hasty exit?" He begged, following my every step though he didn't know where we were going.
I hoped that saying it allowed would clear the thick haze that was clouding my mind. "I had a vision… I had a lot of visions…"
"Of the Volturi coming here?" He assumed.
"Yes of course. But as soon as Carlisle mentioned The Amazon Coven my mind shot somewhere else. I saw us both there, trying to find something… trying to find someone?" I asked myself. "Whatever it is, it will be the solution to this problem. I can feel it. It could save us."
I was bombarded with another onslaught of images. Running. Five sets of footsteps running. Not in the Amazon… but here, in Forks! Running through the forest, with whatever is was that we found in the Amazon. Running to get somewhere, faster than ever before, harder than ever before. Running to the battle. The battle that had already started.
It hit me then – we were not going to return before the fight. We would not be able to. Because whatever it was that we were looking for would have to remain secret, from our family, from Edward, from Aro.
But the vision hadn't stopped. We were still running, until we saw smoke emanating from the horizon. Too late. We were still too late.
"What if it doesn't work?" I whispered to myself.
I skidded to a halt.
Jasper was on guard again. "What is it Alice? What has changed?" He was confused. I wasn't answering any of his questions, I was just giving him new ones.
"Nothing… yet. I need to do something in case this doesn't work."
"In case what doesn't work Alice? You're not telling me anything! What are we going to find?" He cried though it seemed like a distant whisper in my ears.
Every time I looked at the vision it ended in the same way, but I couldn't help fight the feeling of hope that the rainforest vision gave me. I had something that would save our family and our friends, but it was useless because we were always too late.
But there was a missing piece, something big was going to make a difference just before we returned… but I couldn't for the life of me work out what it was. I tried to look past it, look past whatever it was that had not yet even begun to happen. I tried to convince my mind to just accept it so I could see the result of it. All I got was one flash of an image. Bella. Bella's fierce face. She was the key. She always has been.
I shook my head vigorously as though I was trying to shake away all the questions. I hoped it would work, this impossible mission to the Amazon, looking for something that I couldn't see, looking for any hope at all, looking for something that I only think will save us all. I hoped it would work, but a part of me couldn't deny that it wouldn't. Either way, all bases needed to be covered. If it didn't work then Nessie would have to be safe. Out of all of us, she would have to be safe. But how? She would need to run, she would need to escape… cars, planes… Passports.
"Passports!" I sang delightedly. A completely different image filled my head. Not a vision, but a memory.
Myself and Rosalie had been taking hundreds of photographs of Nessie, trying to put together some form of photo album in case anybody ever asked to see one. There was one picture I took of her and Jacob that I knew instantly Bella would need. I didn't know what for, but I knew it was important. Only three days ago I gave it to her and I told her to keep it safe in her purse, which she did.
"Jenks." Jasper offered. "But we've got plenty of documents at home, plenty of passports. We don't need anymore."
"They won't be for us. Bella needs to get them… for Ness." I whispered.
"Alice…" He sighed, comprehending what I was suggesting. "Even if Ness managed to get away from what is coming, she won't be able to run for long."
"That's why only Bella can know. At least that will give her a head start." I replied.
"Which means Edward can't know about it. We'll have to tell her about Jenks subtly." Jasper exhaled and paused, looking at me deeply and lovingly. "So don't give Bella his office address… You don't have to be able to see the future to see her stumbling in there and asking for illegal documents from the top of her newborn lungs!"
I laughed gently, feeding from the hope Jasper was sending me. "Bella doesn't stumble anymore…but you're right."
"111, 27th Street, North Hill, Seattle. Technically the address doesn't exist. Maybe Bella will understand the message enough to be discrete about it."
"It will work." I promised seeing an image of my beautiful sister sitting across a table from a bald, slightly chubby human male who I assumed was . At least that was one thing down.
"How are you going to get a message to Bella without Edward seeing it?" He asked suddenly, making me realise that nothing was solved at all yet. "Edward will not leave her side from now on, I'm sure."
Very true. But Bella was smart. She's been a part of our world for long enough to understand the importance of secrets. And more importantly she's known me for long enough to know when I need her to do something.
"Jazz, stay here for a sec." I said quickly.
He groaned loudly. "Alice… I don't think I can do that."
I looked at him confidently in the eyes.
"Be quick." He moaned. "If you're not back in exactly one minute, I'll come and get you myself!"
I ran quickly, my feet not really hitting the ground. Bella and Edward's cottage was not far from here.
In the morning they would all come looking for us. They would follow our scent and Bella would understand that she would need to follow my scent and come here by herself, as I did.
I opened the door quickly and headed straight for one of Bella's books. The Merchant of Venice… very convenient, I thought.
DESTOY THIS, I wrote first of all. Underneath it I wrote the address Jasper gave me.
I turned the page and ripped out a piece of the paper large enough to leave my message to them all.
I took a deep breath and steadied my shaking hand as I began to write.
Don't look for us. There isn't time to waste. Remember: Tanya, Siobhan, Amun, Alistair, all the nomads you can find. We'll seek out Peter and Charlotte on our way. I wrote, hoping that those words would give them hope. My eyes began to sting and my breath stuttered as I continued. We're so sorry that we have to leave you this way, with no goodbyes or explanations. It's the only way for us. I knew that they would assume that I meant Jasper and I when I referred to 'us', when really I was referring to us all. But I needed them to believe that.
I knew what they would think as soon as they would read this, but it was the only way. They – Aro – needed to believe that there was no hope, that there was no alternate ending, that there was no escape. He couldn't know that we had a trick up our sleeve, if anything that would only hasten proceedings.
I would have to face the month without my family when we were in our darkest hour, I would have to face telling Jasper of the hideous journey ahead of us and that we would have to leave our family to do so, I would have to face the vision of my family believing we had abandoned them – that we didn't love them anymore… and I would have to face the fact that this might not work, and that me and Jasper would be safe while our loved ones perished.
We love you. I wrote honestly. I would miss them so much and just hoped that there would be a day when I would see them again.
With the book back on the shelf and the note in my hands I ran for the door. I saw that Jasper was planning on coming to get me a few seconds sooner than our agreed time.
I checked my vision of Bella walking in, by herself. I sighed in relief. But just as Jasper was coming to get me, Edward would follow as well. She wouldn't have enough time to get rid of the book. So I turned my back and lit the fire to my left, giving her a quicker means of destroying it.
I ran quickly, meeting Jasper about 50 seconds after I had left him.
"Any particular reason why you had to do that by yourself?" He asked.
"Because Bella has to do it by herself." I replied simply.
He smiled carefully. "Of course. What now then Alice? If we're heading to the Amazon surely we need to go now in order to get back here before the month is over." He added taking my hand as we ran off into the forest again - the hand that happened to have the note in it. He looked at it confused and read it quickly. "Alice! We're not going back? We can't just leave them to fight for themselves!"
I snatched the note back off him. "We have to."
"They are our family! We will not abandon them!"
"Jasper, we are not. This is just a distraction… a clue to the message I left for Bella, and only Bella." I waved the note in front of him, it looked like I would have to tell him now of the shameful plan I had formed, but at least we were running at the same time. "We need them all to believe that we have left them, Jazz. That there's no hope left!"
He breathed out one careful and heavy breath. "You mean we need to keep it from Aro." He assumed correctly.
I nodded slowly.
"I don't like it." He was even more ashamed than I was.
He would be the one that our family would look up to, the one that would teach them how to defend themselves. Poor Bella, she would know nothing. Just an easy newborn target. The Volturi would be able to handle her with their eyes closed.
An image of Eleazar suddenly began to swirl around my head, though I had no idea why. Perhaps it would be him they would all look up to now. His knowledge of the Volturi's inner workings would prove most useful.
"But I'll do anything for you Alice. You know that." Jasper continued. He regained my full attention when he sharply swallowed his breath, though it looked as though he was swallowing his pride. "Now I assume we can't go back home to get our passports, and we don't want anyone following us, so I guess that leaves us one option." He started running west, towards the ocean.
I pulled his hand, leading him North-West instead. "We just need to make a quick stop on the way."