Four words only: Don't kill me, please?
Eighty-Five Years Later
He was the flash of white-gold and honey blond she had been seeing for over eighty years. He was her silent mirage, the one whose arrival she had both awaited and dreaded for nearly a century now.
Deep red burned into hot amber as their eyes met, and she looked away quickly, afraid to face the distant future that had all too suddenly become her present.
The girl she had also seen, but as one of them, as a topaz-eyed vampire: Arms linked with the stunning blond woman, laying on a couch with the bronze-haired male, arm wrestling with the huge muscular one.
She gripped the hand twined with hers just a little tighter.
"The girl is with us," the leader was saying firmly when she came back to herself.
He then proceeded to introduce them all: Seven of them, neatly coupled off, with the exception of him.
Jasper.
The word sang to her, hummed in her ears.
Jasper.
It was the name she'd been waiting to hear, the one that filled her with hope and fear and a sensation of floating.
Jasper.
Lightheaded and wonderfully dizzy, she turned away as they left, barely having heard a word.
Jasper.
"Yo, Alice! Snap out of it!"
She grinned sheepishly, trying her best to look upbeat. "Sorry, guys. I'm just a little out of it today, I guess."
He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her lightly into his lap. "That's the understatement of the decade," he remarked. "What's got you so distant? You've been like this ever since we met those Cullens. Are you having bad visions or anything?" His tone grew softer at the end, less teasing and more concerned, making her smile just a little.
"Just a few about them," she answered honestly, keeping her voice as level as possible and feigning nonchalance. "I'm starting to think that maybe hunting Bella isn't such a good idea," she added quickly, glad to tell them the truth, even if it wasn't the real reason for her odd behavior. "It would destroy their whole family."
"Isn't that kind of the point?" came the irritated drawl from behind them.
"Shut up, Laurent," the chorused in unison. Then he added, more gently, "I'm sorry, Alice, but that really is the point."
"But they're not just a coven!" she cried, growing agitated. "They're a family, one that this human has become an integral part of. I've seen a bunch of different outcomes. If she dies, they die inside. Edward loses the love of his existence; Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper--" she choked out the name with some difficulty-- "lose a sister; Esme and Carlisle lose a daughter. If we go after her and she doesn't die, you do! I lose you! Don't you see? Everybody loses! But if we leave them alone, no one does!"
She was on her feet at this point, screaming at them, at him. She had seen it, and she couldn't lose him, especially now that she has found him and was thrown all out of sorts. Jasper.
Quickly, he had her in his arms. Cradling her, he soothed gently, "I won't leave you. It'll be okay. We won't hunt her if you don't want to; everyone will be fine."
"I just can't lose you," she sobbed quietly. "It's not worth it; nothing is worth it. Nothing is worth losing you."
"You won't," he assured her softly. "I'm not leaving you, Alice. I'll stay with you."
Attempting and failing to regain composure, she whimpered into his chest, "If you… If I… I couldn't. I wouldn't be able to."
He knew what she meant despite her current incoherence. "I know, I know. I wouldn't either, without you. So I'll stay here, how's that?" He offered a miserable attempt at a smile, and then quoted her. "Nobody loses."
I repeat, no murder for the ridiculous wait, please. I own nothing, as always. And I can no longer wear my James shirt because of the way the picture has peeled in the laundry, if that's any consolation.