Thanks to ja4ever and PrettyinBlack8 for your reviews. It means a lot to know what people think of this.
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CHAPTER THREE
On Friday evening Jasper and Emmett and Alice and Rosalie were getting ready for their weekends away when Alice suddenly had a vision.
"What is it babe?" Jasper asked instantly.
"Edward," Alice grinned. "He's coming home."
"Woo hoo!" they heard Emmett scream from his room and they laughed, knowing there was no need for Alice to go tell the others, they had already heard her.
When Edward walked in the front door two hours later they were all waiting for him and he accepted their hugs and greeting with a smile on his face. Emmett and Jasper managed to convince him to go hunting with them and although they invited Carlisle too he opted out, choosing instead to let his sons have some time alone which also meant he and Esme would have the house to themselves.
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Early Monday morning Alice was watching her visions carefully but for once she wasn't watching out for Jasper but Edward. She knew Jasper was relatively okay with his thirst after his weekend away with his brothers but she still hadn't seen anything to suggest Edward would be able to control the temptation of Isabella's blood.
"Gotcha!" Emmett squealed outside and Alice rolled her eyes as she grabbed her school bag.
"Emmett, at least try to act mature," Rosalie giggled as Alice stepped out onto the porch beside her.
Edward had been sitting on a rock in the garden when obviously Emmett had pelted him with a snowball. Alice was about to comment on it when Jasper stepped from the forest, a large snowball in his hand and pegged it with military precision straight at Edward. It hit Edward that hard if he had been human it would have taken his head off but all he did was swipe at the snow dust on his shirt and shrug.
"No fun," Emmett smirked and turned with a gleam in his eye to Jasper.
"Emmett, no!" Alice squealed. "That shirt is…"
Before she could finish Emmett had thrown a large snowball at Jasper and the slushy snow slammed onto Jasper's shirt.
"Ruined now," Rosalie finished for Alice and looked over at her sister and shrugged.
"That's it," Jasper growled playfully and bent down quickly and grabbed a handful of snow and took off into the forest after Emmett.
When the two men finally returned they were both wet and dirty and Edward joined Rosalie and Alice laughing at them. They hurried inside to change and then the group headed off to school.
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When they walked into the cafeteria at lunchtime Rosalie and Emmett went first, almost clearing a path for the others. As they entered the room Alice slipped into a vision and Jasper grabbed her arm and held her firmly, helping her to walk as she concentrated.
"It's going to be okay," she murmured as she came out of her vision.
"Of course it is," Edward grumbled.
"She's not here yet," Alice added. "But the way she's going to come in, she will be downwind if we sit at our regular table."
"Of course we'll sit at our regular table," Edward snapped, causing Jasper to glare at him. "Stop it Alice, you're getting on my nerves. I'll be absolutely fine."
"I think your right," Alice nodded as they sat down at the table.
"Of course I am," Edward muttered and Alice just grinned at him. After a few moments Jasper glanced over at Edward and noticed he had the look in his eye that he often got when he was surveying the thoughts in a room.
"Anything new?" he asked.
"Nothing," Edward shrugged. "She mustn't have said anything."
"Maybe you're not as scary as you think you are," Emmett laughed. "I bet I could have frightened her better than that."
"She's coming in," Alice whispered suddenly. "Try to look human."
"Human you say," Emmett grinned and everyone knew instantly he was up to something. He held his hand up to reveal a chunk of snow he had picked up on the way in and he had now harden with his low body temperature into a rock of ice. He kept his eyes on Jasper but Alice saw a quick vision and knew instantly what he was going to do.
When Emmett launched the rock at her she was ready and lightly flicked her fingers, sending the ice far across the cafeteria to smash against the wall. A few of the humans looked up at the noise but none of them glanced at their table.
"Very human Emmett," Rosalie sighed, giving him a look that told him he was in big trouble later on. "Why don't you punch through the wall while you're at it?"
"It would look more impressive if you did it baby," Emmett smirked.
"Very true," Rosalie grinned.
They turned their attention to playing with their food for a while and then suddenly Alice had another vision and squeezed Jasper's hand. She elbowed Edward and they all sensed Edward and Alice had one of their silent conversations and Emmett just sighed.
"Ease up Edward, honestly," he commented. "So you kill one human, that's hardly the end of the world."
"You would know," Edward muttered.
"You've got to learn to get over things, like I do," Emmett advised. "Eternity is a long time to wallow in guilt."
Alice sighed at Emmett's attempts to comfort Edward, knowing he meant well and she felt Jasper's hand stray across her leg under the table. He pressed the snowball she had asked him to pick up for her into her hand and she grinned at him before lifting her hand and flicking her wrist daintily, the snow flying into Emmett's hair.
He flicked the watery snow from his hair, getting himself into trouble from Rosalie in the process and Alice grabbed the tray that held her and Jasper's food and held it up to stop the water splattering her designer clothes. Edward glanced over and noticed Bella watching them and his thoughts strayed away from his family's antics as he listened to her conversation with Jessica and then began to read other thoughts around the room. He suddenly realised that the cafeteria was emptying but his family made no effort to move. He looked at his family and noticed Alice was flicking through her visions again.
"I think its okay," she mumbled. "Your mind is set, I think you'll make it through the hour."
"Why push it Edward, go home, take it slow," Jasper added and earned himself a discrete elbow in the ribs from Alice when she felt his smugness. He knew it was wrong to be glad that for once the protective focus wasn't on himself but he couldn't help it.
"What's the big deal, either he will or he won't kill her," Emmett shrugged, again trying to be supportive as only he could. "Might as well get it over with, either way."
"I don't want to move yet, I don't want to start over," Rosalie sighed. "We're almost out of high school Emmett, finally."
Alice glanced at her sister, wondering how she could be so selfish. What was a little school, they were talking about Edward struggling with his thirst. Maybe she was being a little oversensitive about it given that she was use to living with Jasper's constant struggle with the thirst but she thought that Rosalie cold be a little bit more supportive.
"No Rose, I think it will be okay," Alice sighed once she had her irritation under control. "It's firming up. I'm ninety three percent sure that nothing bad will happen if he goes to class."
"Go to class," Edward mumbled and got up and walked out of the room.
"Do you really think he will be okay Alice?" Jasper asked worriedly.
"It's getting stronger every moment," Alice nodded. "He's made the decision not to so that helps. I'll see if he changes his mind. I'll be across the campus, I have History."
"If that happens, come get us straight away," Jasper ordered her. "Rose and I have Math now."
"I will Jazz," Alice nodded.
"Even if we are too late to stop him, it might be entertaining," Emmett smirked and Rosalie reached out and slapped him across the head.
"Oww," Emmett complained and held his head as they got up from the table and rushed off to their classes.
XXX
Alice was midway through her history class and trying to keep an eye on Edward and Jasper as well as half concentrate in case the teacher called on her.
"For the rest of the class we are going to look at a case study from the civil war," the teacher said and Alice groaned. She loved correct civil war history and loved it when Jasper spoke about his time in the army but she hated the slanted biased rubbish they fed them at school. The teacher handed a pile of papers to a girl at the front and instructed her to pass them back before addressing the class again.
"Today we are going to look at a case where a Major in the Confederate Army deserted his posting," the teacher continued. "The details are printed on the paper. I want you to discuss your ideas together and by the end of class have a one page written explanation of your thoughts on it. Desertion was not that common at this stage of the war and I want your opinions, was he a coward, a rebel, or maybe he could see what other couldn't yet, that his fight was hopeless."
Alice took the piece of paper from the boy in front of her and she felt a rush of emotions as she looked at the name of the case study.
Major Jasper Whitlock: coward, traitor, or insightful?
"How dare they, how dare they?" Alice's mind raced angrily and she struggled to desperately control her emotions, knowing they were that strong that Jasper would feel them all the way from his classroom. She looked up blankly as the teacher continued to slander her husband, not even registering the fact that the teacher didn't know she was referring to Alice's soul mate.
"Shut up or I swear I will kill you," Alice growled uncharacteristically under her breath.
The teacher continued to drone on and on as she highlighted Jasper's supposed bad points. Alice didn't know whether it was solely her anger or the fact she had been watching both Edward's and Jasper's thirsts for so long but suddenly she could hear the teacher's blood pumping through her body and venom began to fill her mouth.
She glanced around the class mentally calculating if she had time to kill the teacher and then stop the rest of them and kill them before they raised the alarm. The word coward slipped from the teacher's lips again and even though part of her brain was telling her to stop Alice couldn't help herself as she got to her feet slowly, the venom in her mouth pooling quickly. Without another thought she glanced down at the paper on her desk and read Jasper's name again and a red haze came across her as she walked slowly up towards the teacher's desk.
