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Alice

It is a mental institution. Well, technically, it was a Relaxation and Rehabilitation Center for Troubled and Traumatized Youth -RRCTTY for short. Nevertheless, it was much easier -so much easier- just to say it was a mental institution, so that's what Alice did. Because Alice, despite being a fairly complex person, likes things to be simple.

Speaking of the fairly complex person, she was currently staring out one of the vast sweeping windows on the west side of the 'center' watching the river in the distance curve and twist among the bright green trees. She loved the calm and the quiet despite the lack of civilization and the probing analysis. It's almost worth coming here for this view. In all her eighteen years she'd never seen something quite as beautiful as the forest that surrounded Forks and the small 'center' that was just a few miles outside of the tiny town.

"Alice, tell me again about these… visions." The doctor's calm and soothing voice floated into her bubble. Alice sighed -the sound like wind chimes.

"I've told you. They come and they go. There's no rhyme or reason." her voice is weary; she doesn't want to talk to someone who just thinks she's crazy. Alice knows she's not crazy.

"Who are they about?" he asks in that same practiced voice, compelling and curious. She's not fooled. She knows that he thinks of her as a lab rat, something to be scrutinized and studied. It's almost as if she has her adoptive bother's 'problem' for a moment.

"Mostly about people I know. Family, and more recently, friends." Alice tries to match his level of calm but cannot manage it. Her knowing gray eyes flicker to the man in the white coat. He's a pudgy man whose gray hair is thinning out. His small wire glasses -bifocals, she notices- are perched on the end of his nose. His puddle-water eyes are fixed on her. Alice returns her gaze to the forest and it's an everlasting beauty -that's what she loves about it, time will never fade its wonder. Alice knows all about what time will do.

Unknown to Alice, the doctor's stomach twists a little. She has this effect on people sometimes, because, despite her size -pixy-like in the extreme and rail thin from years on the streets- she's a little intimidating, especially when she's irritated.

"More recently as in… when, Alice?" His pen is poised on the paper, awaiting her answer.

"Since I've come here. I didn't have many friends on the streets." Her tone is light because the subject really doesn't bother her. The past is the past and there's nothing she can do to change it. Alice is a girl who's more concerned with the future.

"What about the visions that aren't about people you know?" He couldn't hide the fact that he thought she was hallucinating these things - it was easily noticeable in the slight disbelief and condescending way he said 'visions'. To believe that she was truly physic was something that was out of reach for his narrow-minded sense of reality.

She shrugs, because she doesn't want to tell him about the horrible things she sees. Things like murderers stalking young girls, crack addicts overdosing, and gang members being shot. However, those aren't the worse ones. The worse ones are of mother's losing their children, women drowning, young girls slitting the skin to feel, and a tall blond boy.

Once Alice thought of the tall blond boy, he stuck in her mind. It happened often really, some days she couldn't stop thinking about him. Her visions of him were always the most frustrating -popping up at the most inconvenient times, always so vague. Alice didn't even know his name, though she wanted to. She wanted to know everything about him.

Her brow crinkles and she presses her forehead against the glass searching for answers, asking for a vision of him.

The vision doesn't come. They never come when she wants them to.

"I'm tired," she announces. "Can we continue this later, doctor?" She's really not tired; she just wants him to go away.

"Of course." He nods though he wants to continue, forcing himself to slip his ballpoint pen -very fancy, Alice notes- into his breast pocket before closing his notebook and standing up. He smiles at her but she ignores him, distracted by thoughts of the boy.

He's tall, and not just compared to her -she is very short-, she remembers, calling on the dredges of her memory -trying vainly to gather up a proper image of him. It never works quite right, no matter how often she sees him; she can never manage to get it just right. His eyes are blue, very, very blue. Neither ice, nor swimming pools in summer. It somewhere in between the two. They're dark around the edges and lighter toward the pupil. His hair is blond, and fairly long, reminding her of surfer boys she's seen on television. He's beautiful, she knows despite the fact that she has no complete face to go off.

She's only heard his voice once, whispering another girl's name. Someone named Maria. Alice cannot help the pang of jealousy that shoots through her as she remembers it. The way he had seemed to roll it around on his tongue, savoring it in his charming southern drawl. Something in her gut -the little feeling that had never been wrong before- told her that it wasn't right, that he should be saying her name instead. Not Maria's.

Groaning, she leans back in her armchair exhausted by her attempts at remembering- and that's when it happens. A vision flashes before her eyes quickly. Her vision tunnels black until she comes to a room where a copper haired boy is walking in behind a small black-haired girl looking out the window. It fades quickly and she comes back to the present, just in time to greet the boy she knows is behind her.

"Hello Edward." She grins as she speaks, turning to look at her adoptive brother's reflection in the window. Already the memory of her vision is slipping though the cracks like sand, like a dream. It only goes to show how much she covets her visions of the tall boy.

"Hello Alice, thinking of The Elusive One I see." Edward says as he moves to sit next to her in the chair her doctor -therapist, she mental corrects herself- was just sitting in.

Alice wrinkles her nose. "You know I don't like it when you call him that."

Edward rolls his eyes at her and ruffles her short hair, his green eyes bright with amusement. Alice notes his good mood.

"You've been talking to Bella I see." she smiles and swats his hand away. Looking at them you might guess that they've always known each other; that they've always been this close -instead of only have met two sort years ago.

"Seen or seen?" He raises an eyebrow at her, still amused.

She giggles. "It doesn't take a physic to see that she makes you happy."

Edward shrugs, trying to brush it off with nonchalance but his cheeks tint the lightest shade of pink. Alice giggles again, her tinkling laughter filling the small room, and Edward smiles crookedly.

"And how is our darling Bella?" Alice asks.

"Alice you know. She's your roommate." Edward leans back in is chair looking out the window.

Alice shrugs lightly. "I haven't seen her since this morning. Something could have happened; you know how things are in this place."

Edward sighs a little, because he does know how things are in this place. He's been here the longest out of everyone, followed closely by Alice.

"Relaxation time is almost over." Edward comments, before asking, "Are you ready to head to the cafeteria for lunch?"

Alice really doesn't want to. New kids come on Mondays and Fridays -today is Monday- and they always like to ogle her. The freak among freaks.

"It won't be so bad. Emmett said he'd cause a scene if anyone says anything." Edward reassures her because he knows what she's thinking.

Tricky mind reader.

"I heard that." he smirks. Alice sighs, but stands and Edward follows in suit.

She quickly makes her way down the halls, almost skipping to keep up with her sibling - adoptive as he might be; he's the closest thing she has since Cynthia died. Alice frowns thinking of the sister she doesn't remember. She doesn't remember a lot of things. Alice doesn't even remember why she can't remember. It's all very confusing so she shakes her head to forget.

Edward distracts her. "Did you hear that Paul tried to pick a fight with Emmett?"

Alice nods. "I saw it."

"What else have you seen today?" Edward inquires as they round a corner, cafeteria doors in sight.

"The usual." she winces a little. The usual usually involves people dying. "Leah got into another fight with Emily… or, she's going to."

"Should we tell someone?" he asks, brow furrowing.

"I'm not going to. It's going to be a great fight. Besides, they need to get past all those 'unresolved emotions'." Alice chirps, quoting Dr. Cope.

Edward chuckles and pushes at the gray metal doors that lead to the lunchroom. The windows in them contain chicken wire, as if the person who built this place expected to have mass riots where the staff would have to seal off rooms to contain rouge patients.

Pointless, Alice thinks, the only person who could get through those doors anyway would be Emmett -or Paul, she adds thinking of the steroid enhanced time bomb- and Emmett's in no condition. Not when all his scars still aren't healed.

Of course, most eyes in the cafeteria shift to the two siblings like moths to a light. Edward raises his chin, as if daring them to say something and Alice flickers her intimidating eyes across the room before dancing over to sit next to Bella. In doing this she successfully -not to mention subtly- hides herself behind the hulking bulk of flesh that is Emmett McCarty.

"Hey Alice." Bella greets her best friend with a smile, tugging on the sleeves of her shirt.

"Bella." Alice smiles easily at her friend before turning her gaze to Emmett, who was grinning at her, his shoulder still heavily bandaged under his RRCTTY t-shirt. Alice notices the empty chair beside him, but makes no move to look at it. "Hey Em, where's Rosalie?"

Emmett frowned. "She wasn't feeling well today." Here, not feeling well meant 'emotionally distressed', as Dr. Cope liked to put it.

Bella and Alice nodded, they'd all had days like that -well, with the exception of Emmett, someone who never seemed to have a bad day- Rose just tended to have them more, but that was understandable. Alice can't imagine it's easy to be raped -especially by your fiancé and his drinking buddies. Bella shuddered, unable to repress hers as Alice did.

Edward joined them, two trays in hand and Bella brightened a little. The corner of Alice's mouth twitched as she tried to contain her smile. Because, in a place like this. You take all the happiness you can get. You learn in the first week that dwelling on the negative won't make you any better. You took smiles when they came and coveted laughter for a reminder in the darkest hours of the darkest days that there was something to hold on to.

Sanity in here was different for everyone. For some it was schedule. For others it was the tranquility of the forest.

Sometimes it was finding someone who understands because they've been there before. Sometimes it was finding someone whose smile brightens your day.

For Emmett, it was Rosalie. For Rosalie, it was Emmett.

For Edward, it was his sister and her roommate. For Bella, it was her best friend and Edward.

For Alice, it was always her visions of a blond haired boy with a southern drawl and her friends.

Because, in a place like this -a place filled with haunted people- you couldn't ask for anything better.