A/N: chapter 2 is up quite quick this time!

Crimson Cigarettes

- Chapter 2 -

x

Smokestacks

"Do you really need to pack all those books?"

"Unless they still sell the original copies from 1884 then yes, I do need to pack them all."

Alice gripped the seat nervously, a wide array of emotions running through her as she tried to pay attention to the trees whizzing past outside.

Calm, Alice. Calm, Alice. Calm THE HELL DOWN, ALICE.

"Relax, Al. It's going to be fine."

She couldn't even bring herself to turn to look at Elijah, who had been driving for the last few hours.

The car journey to Wichita started off alright - she was excited to the point she couldn't sit still, gushing on about how she was going to finally find out if human life was really as good as everyone else made it out to be.

"I wonder what my favourite food was...for some reason, I'm thinking sushi. Wait, did they even have sushi in the US back then?"

No less than ten minutes into the journey, bouts of visions begin to hit little Alice, and she had yet to tell Elijah what she saw.

"Alice, please talk to me." He whispered, eyes on the road. The sun was still yet to rise and the roads were empty. Alice was glad, for the last thing she wanted was to be surrounded by humans.

"Lijah," she finally murmured after a few minutes of silence, "are you sure this is a good idea?"

The heavy weight of uneasiness was pooling at the bottom of her stomach, and she actually felt a little carsick.

He creased his brows. "What did you see, Alice?"

She sniffed before muttering, "I see myself screaming. There's a lot of pain in my eyes. I'm on the floor in pain."

Visions of her in various states of depression and sadness flashed before her. She's not sure if she ever remembers being that sad before.

"We can head back if you want. You don't have to do this if you're not ready, sweet."

She thought for a moment before shaking her head vehemently. "No. I have to know." She bit out. "I've been in the dark for way too long. I need answers."

Sure, she could've quite easily gone home and lived a happy life like she had done for the past few decades, but she always felt something missing.

Whether it be reading, watching a film, or even being with Elijah - she couldn't help but feel that something was missing.

This had to be the missing piece.

He remained silent, pulling into a smaller road.

"You know," she began, "I'm not expecting a happy past, anyway."

"And why's that?"

Her eyes moved to the Starbucks that was at the end of the road and watched as the lights turned on.

"I was put into an asylum - I'm guessing it had something to do with my visions."

"Not necessarily, Al," he replied as they drove past a line of shops, "you have to remember the early 1900s was a different time. People couldn't accept anyone that was different."

"Except I checked up on the asylum again fifteen years after my disappearance. The asylum originally told everyone I had killed myself." She lowered her voice and her head. "No one came to ask about my death."

"Oh, Alice..." he breathed, the car slowing down a little. She turned her head away and rested it on the window.

She checked; no one had left a note, a letter, anything.

It was like she never existed.

"I'm ready to see my past however shit it is. I'm strong enough now."

Elijah's silence conveyed a respectful indication that he agreed with her decision, and the remaining hour of the car journey passed relatively quickly. The traffic had just started to pick up and Alice couldn't help but to stare at the other humans in the little cars in envy.

I wonder if I was a nice human... she mused.

Alice smiled when the scent of three familiar vampires and one unknown wafted into the car.

"Think they missed us?" She giggled.

"Well, we're about to find out." He chuckled.

They soon pulled into a familiar cul-de-sac, where they were greeted by four vampires that were already outside.

A 40-something-year-old with curly red hair wearing an orange jacket waved animatedly at them as Elijah parked the car on the sidewalk.

"Alice!" She cried, hugging the small girl as soon as she got out the car, "How are you, my dear?"

Alice laughed, hugging the woman back. "I'm okay, Lily. How have you all been?"

"Very well, dear, although we've been a bit lonely since you and Elijah left."

She looked around to see four pairs of red eyes staring intently at her; Elijah had already gone inside, saying something about hiding from one of the female neighbours that was obsessed with him.

Alice first noticed Lilium looking more tired than usual, but that was nothing new - when Alice and Elijah lived with her, she would spend the majority of the day cleaning and redocorating the house. She was the closest thing Alice ever had to a mother, so it upset her a little bit to see her looking so dishevelled.

Next, her eyes wandered to the young woman standing next to Lilium. Her black hair was tied neatly into a ponytail, and her lips were curved into a smile.

"Emmeline!" Alice squealed upon seeing one of her closest friends (and not to mention, shopping-partner-in-crime) again.

The girls exchanged a quick hug.

"I've missed you!" Emmeline cried, tugging at Alice's brown leather jacket. "Is this new?"

"Yeah, I got it yesterday."

"Ooh, where from? I need a new jacket, I'm thinking maybe wool on the hood and then a dark red on the sleeves, and-"

"Oh, look what's you've started, Alice!" A male voice interjected humourously.

"Freddy!" Alice laughed upon seeing the brown-haired man roll his eyes.

Freddy was Emmeline's mate, and he - like Elijah - just didn't understand their obsession with fashion. Instead, the boys used to play sports and games together whilst she and Em went shopping or to the salon.

"Good to have ya back, squirt." He ruffled her hair. She turned away, and came face to face with a tall Chinese man.

"Um, hello." She began shyly. He was looking at her curiously, and she noted he didn't look a day over 30. "You must be Yun?"

"Yes. Nice to meet you, Alice." He replied back with a bit of an accent. His dark red eyes were smouldering and, had he worn coloured contacts, his tanned skin could have let him get away with passing for a human.

Alice's emotions held a peak of curiosity as she realised that the man stood before hand had the powers to give her the answer to her past - literally. She glanced down at his outstretched hand unseasily and then looked back to him.

"Oh, don't worry about shaking my hand." He laughed, "My powers only work when I want them to."

Sighing in relief, she took his cold hand in hers and shook it.

"Nice to meet you, too."

"Alice," Lilium said, coming to put her hands on Alice's shoulders, "Yun is a very old friend of mine. We met during the English Civil War."

Yun chuckled, his deep voice filling the silence of the early morning. "You're making me feel old, Lily."

"Oh, hush!" She chastened him. "I'm older than you!"

"Only by a few hundred years." He winked.

The sounds of their laughter echoed down the small road, and Emmeline gently placed a hand on Alice's back.

"Let's go inside. I bet Elijah is getting before hiding from Sally."

Alice laughed and internally cringed upon the memory of their last visit, where the neighbour from the opposite house ran up to Elijah and proclaimed "You're hot! Let me have your babies! We'd be the best parents ever!"

Needless to say, Elijah was scarred for life.

"So," Lilium said as they reached the living room where Elijah's was currently reading Wuthering Heights, "I'm sure Elijah has told you about Yun's powers?"

Alice nodded. "Yes, he has. Before that, I didn't know this kind of power existed. It shocked me, to say the least."

Alice had seen her fair share of strange gifts from her 97 years as a vampire - from the ability to bend spoons (shoutout to Louise from New York in 1934, she mentally notes) to the gift of, she shits you not, being able to wrap presents perfectly - Alice had thought no other gift could surprise her anymore.

But Yun's gift was truly special, and she couldn't help but feel grateful that she had Lilium as a connection.

"I was a medium in China during the Han Dynasty," Yun explained, taking a seat beside Elijah on the sofa. "So I've been clairvoyant all my life."

She raised her brows. "Me too. Except, I see the future, not the past."

Suddenly, Elijah's words from the day before made sense: "His gift is of no use to other vampires."

Whilst she could avoid mistakes and create a fortune for herself with the use of her visions, all Yun could do was grant other vampires a peek into their past lives, and most vampires remembered their past lives vividly; Elijah used to always talk about his family growing up in California, Lilium still mentioned her husband now and again, Emmeline loved to talk about how fashionable she used to be in the Edwardian era, and heck, even Freddy sometimes talked about how much he missed his goldfish, Milo.

"Us clairvoyants don't have it easy in vampire life, do we?" He muttered quietly. "The Volturi is always hot on my heels for my gift." He turned to Lilium. "That's why I've been so hard to track down, Lily."

Lilium shook her head. "That's fine, Yun, you do what you have to do to stay safe. You're staying for another week, right?"

"Yes." He nodded. "I'm leaving for Germany in a week."

"Which means Alice, you might not find out everything about your past life in this one week," Freddy said, " but I'm sure you'll find out plenty."

Alice nodded, processing all the information that was being thrown at her. Somewhere deep down in her stomach, there was a niggling feeling that if she didn't want to get hurt, then she would walk out the door and drive back to Forks.

She stumbles back slightly as a vision unfolds.

She's sitting on a park bench, her head in her hands.

"Alice, we can go home if you want. You don't have to do this."

"I have to, Elijah! I have to know!"

Elijah's arms catch her as she blinks and all of a sudden sees five pairs of eyes looking at her.

"What is it, Alice?" Emmeline asked.

Alice swallowed before breaking free from Elijah's grasp and straightening her dress out.

"I just want to warn everyone that I may be a little...upset during the course of unveiling my past," she said, looking at the floor. "I already know it's not going to be pretty. I've seen it in my visions. Whatever my human life was," she takes a deep breath, "it's going to leave me in pieces. But I don't want anyone to convince me otherwise. I want this." She looked up, eyes black with determination. "I want this more than anything."

Silence encased the room as everyone looked at each other nervously. No one wanted to see Alice in pain, but she had made herself clear.

She was going through with this.

"Very well, child," Yun broke the silence and rose from the sofa, "would you like to start the process now, or would you like to prepare yourself?"

Alice was taken a little aback by the question and turned to Elijah. The thought of taking a timeout before this all hadn't even crossed her mind - after all, she had been waiting all her life.

But it probably made sense to do so, as she was certain her life wasn't going to be the same afterwards.

"I think I should go outside for a bit," she mumbled, "just to clear my head."

"You want me to come with?" Elijah asked, squeezing her hand.

She stared up into his eyes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "No. I want to be alone."

Everyone nodded in understandment as she zipped her jacket up and headed for the doorway.

"Take as long as you need," Yun said, opening the front door for her, "and come back when you are ready."

She gave a small smile, stepping out into the fresh air. "Thank you."

If her mind was a blurry mess now, she dreaded to think what it would be when she got back.

She sat in the quiet coffee shop with a hot chocolate placed on the table in front of her - untouched, of course.

It had been a full three hours since she left the house and decided to have some 'Alice-time', but she was finding it harder to concentrate with every minute that went by. By now, she had visited four shops, two cafes, and all five churches the quiet district had to offer.

For once, seconds felt like hours and minutes felt like decades.

She tapped her manicured nails on the table and watched the barista wipe down a table near hers, her wedding ring catching Alice's eye.

Alice looked down at her own promise ring that Elijah got her a few years ago and bit her lip.

Whilst she was sitting in one of the churches she had visited earlier, a thought had occurred to her. A very, very worrying thought.

What if...

What if something she remembered could endanger her and Elijah's relationship?

She loved him, she really did. There was no doubt about it. She felt a deeper connection with him than anyone she had met before, and he was her first partner.

But that's where she's not so sure.

She's absent-mindedly fiddling with her necklace again, a habit she had been picking up a lot in the past few hours.

She glanced down at it for the umpteenth time that day.

"Yours truly, Jazz..."

She had done her research in the asylum years after she was proclaimed dead, under the guise that she was a government official coming to take some statistics. Granted, it was a hard-to-believe excuse, but one sweet smile at the guard was all it took and he was willing to do anything for the pretty pixie girl.

She had searched around and found that, whilst there were no Alices who died on the same day as her in that particular asylum, there was a Mary Alice. She tried to find all she could on this Mary Alice person, and all she found was the name of her parents and her little sister: Harold, Josephine and Cynthia.

No mention of this 'Jazz' person.

She toyed with the idea it could have been given to her by a distant relative or grandparent, but didn't 'yours truly' convey a romantic tone?

"Alice, pull yourself together!" She scolded herself, "Why are you afraid that a dead human who may-or-may-not have had a relationship with you will come in between you and Elijah?"

Or what if her horrible past completely breaks her, and she becomes a broken ghost of who she used to be? Then Elijah would definitely leave her.

"Ugh," she groaned, "stop it, Alice."

She really was overthinking this.

Giving the barista a last glance, she stood up and grabbed her things. She was halfway through wrapping her scarf around her neck before her vision began to blur.

A girl with blonde hair is sitting on the banks of a river, her back turned. Suddenly, a girl with long brown hair emerges from the river in a bathing suit and sits next to her, her hair covering her pale face.

"What about Arvada?" The blonde girl shifts ever so slightly.

"No. They've opened up two new blood banks since we last went."

The blonde sighs and stands up dejectedly.

"Guess we'll have to find somewhere else, then."

"Miss? Miss!"

Alice blinked to find the barista she was looking at before waving a hand in front of her face, her wedding ring gleaming in the light.

"You dropped this." She said, putting Alice's handbag she was holding before the vision on the table.

"Thank you." Alice quickly mumbled, still a little confused about the significance - and meaning - of the vision she just had.

"So," she muttered to herself as she walked down the road, "Jessica is bleaching her hair lighter and Angela is going to go swimming in the river." She held back a giggle at the thought of Angela swimming in the freezing river at this time of year, and wondered why she couldn't just go to a swimming pool.

After a couple of minute of walking aimlessly, she found herself at the end of a familiar street.

Oh.

She had mananged to end up back at the house again.

Elijah was standing by the front door - no doubt having smelt her scent from a mile away - and Alice gladly ran into his arms.

"Lijah," she said through the layers of his clothing, "I missed you."

"Shhh, Alice, I'm here."

They stayed in that hug for a few minutes before Alice realised that she should probably get going inside - after all, Sally was probably watching them.

"Alice, are you ready?" He asked, grasping her head between his hands so that she was looking at him.

She pursed her lips before nodding.

"Yes. Yes I am."

He studied her eyes and smiled gently.

"You're telling the truth."

"Alright," Yun said as he took a seat opposite Alice in the living room, "tell me what you know already about your past."

Alice sighed, feeling everyone's eyes on her in that moment.

"Not much," she said, her hand clasping Elijah's tightly, "I know that I had a sister, and I was put into an asylum."

"And that's all?" Yun asked, rolling his sleeves up.

Alice eyed his hands wearily and began to feel queasy.

No! You are not backing out now!

"That's all." She said sadly, although she realise she would probably wish that that was all she remembered after this.

He seemed to be in deep contemplation for a moment before reaching his hand out across the table.

"My hands have the power to grant you memory stimulation once every few hours - it takes up a lot of energy for me, you see. There's no guarantee how long the memory you see will be - could be a few seconds, could be a few hours. You might see one memory, or a dozen in one go."

Alice stared at his hand, mesmerised. This was finally her chance to find out about her past life.

"Go on, Alice," Freddy nudged her.

Emmeline nodded. "Don't be scared."

Determination written across her face, she placed her hand very gently on his.

She instantly felt an electric shock go through her cold fingers and she had to bite back a gasp.

"Now, count with me," he began. "One...two...three..."

She closed her eyes and waited. It felt as though she was having a vision, but she soon realised it was anything but.

.

The small room is dark. Old wallpaper is coming off the walls and rain is pounding against the dirty windows, There's one single candle on the bedside table and two young girls are lying in a small bed together.

"Alice, I'm scared."

The younger girl is crying and hugging a pillow to her chest.

"Cynthia, don't be. Big sister Alice is here and always been will be here for you."

"But daddy thinks you're insane! You predicted mommy's death before it happened!"

Young Alice's jaw tensed up and tears welled up in her eyes. "It's not my fault he didn't believe me. Mommy could have been saved."

Alice wipes a tear from her eyes and sniffles.

"Ali, promise you won't leave me like mommy did?"

The younger blonde girl breaks out into a small cry and they snuggle closer to each other in bed.

"I promise."

.

She's now in a different room, but seems to be still be extremely young. Maybe 14, 15 at most? There's an older man with brown hair and angry eyes opposite her, clad in a business suit and tie.

She backs into the wall, eyes round with fear. She lifts a bony hand to an old man's face and screams.

"You're planning on murdering me! Your own daughter!"

His brown eyes narrowed and the hatred seemed to be jumping out."Alice, don't be ridiculous-"

"I saw it! I saw it!" She was hysterical. "You're going to murder me just like you murdered my mother!"

"Be quiet, young lady! How dare you-"

"You think I don't know? You think I didn't work it out? You murdered my mother. Your murdered your own wife just so you could marry that woman."

His face paled and his breathing hardened. Very quietly, he took a step towards her and glared at her.

"You have two choices. You will either be put to an asylum and never contact us again, or we will have to get rid of you. Just like I got rid of your mother."

.

The first thing she hears is the sounds of her dry sobs.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

She looked down and realised she had snapped the table in two.

"I...I-"

"Hush, Alice. It's alright. What did you see?"

Her eyes glanced round the room at the five pairs of eyes staring back at her. Her chest, which now felt like it was made of lead, heaved up and down as she tried not to throw up the deer blood she had earlier that week.

"I need a minute," she finally manages to say. Hastily, she got up and rushed to the balcony upstairs.

Venorm pumping through her veins, she gently places her elbows onto the railing and lets out a sigh.

She didn't expect her little sister to be so..so...beautiful. Golden locks adorned her head like a halo, and her round green eyes were so mesmerising. Alice had only seen her for a brief few seconds, but the pain in her chest was growing.

She didn't get to spend more time with he really little sister, playing with her, talking to her, protecting her like she promised. She couldn't even remember her.

And their father...Alice didn't expect that.

And her poor, poor mother...

"Alice."

She doesn't move.

"Alice, please."

"Not now, Lijah." She seemed to almost choke.

He gently wraps his arms and her waist and nuzzles her neck. "What is it?"

A few minutes pass before she breaks the silence.

"It was scary." She mumbles.

Elijah doesn't say anything, and instead lets her think in peace.

"Maybe it's better if I don't see my past," she says softly. "It doesn't look like it's off to a good start."

"The choice is yours, Alice. Don't feel like you're pressured into anything because I don't want you to get hurt."

"I know," she whispers, reaching her hand up to stroke his head behind her.

Another few moments of silence pass. She can hear murmuring downstairs and the occasional whisper from Lily.

"But I have to know, Lijah."

He turns her round and looks at her. "What do you need to know?"

She closes her eyes and sighs. "I need to know as much as I can before Yun leaves."

He nods. "Only I felt you're strong enough."

She smiled weakly. "If I was strong enough to resist Louboutin heels that one time they were on sale, I'm strong enough for this."

Elijah laughs and pecks her nose. "There's still five days before school starts. You can ask Lily if you can stay over here until Yun has to leave."

She thought for a moment before nodding. "I suppose."

Her voice trails off when a vision hits her.

A young man with bronze hair and sunglasses on gets out of a fancy-looking sports car and smiles.

"Looks like our house is exactly the way we left it."

A blonde man wearing a doctor's jacket got out the driver's side, also sporting black shades.

"Furniture might be a bit outdated, though. Can't imagine anyone uses a gramma phone nowadays."

Bronze-haired boy laughed. "Don't worry, I'll go to Port Angeles tomorrow. I need some books, anyway."

"Alice?"

She blinked and shook her head.

Was she losing her mind, or had the past few visions she'd been having been full of people she didn't know? It was Angela and Jessica in her previous vision by the river, right?

Maybe she was so stressed recently that her visions weren't working properly?

Yeah, okay, that should explain it.

"What did you see?" He pressed, still holding her.

"It doesn't matter," she shook her head, "nothing important, anyway."

She figured her visions were just messed up for the moment, and that these strangers weren't in any way related to her.

"Let's go for a hunt," she said suddenly, breaking free from his grasp, "I'm thirsty. I want to be full of energy for my next memory session."

Elijah nodded, and the two ran downstairs.

A/N: hope you enjoyed!