I felt my phone buzz in my pocket as I strode down University Avenue.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Alice, it's Royce." As if I couldn't tell from your name and number flashing on the screen. "What is your work schedule like the rest of the week?"

"I'm kind of busy," I said through gritted teeth. "I'll be in prison for burning down a frat house."

I hit the end button even though I could still hear him asking something. He would be able to stop me from killing Emmett right now. I was nearly to the house by now, and that fucker would PAY! I would rip them apart. Every single member of that frat would be unrecognizable when I got finished with them.

I didn't really have a plan. I probably would have kind of a hard time taking out everyone in the frat, so maybe I should just start at the most culpable and move down from there.

First would of course be Emmett. Then I suppose I would want to get Jasper and Edward, even if they weren't really in the frat. After that, I should just get whatever guys were in leadership positions, if I could.

Oh, who was I kidding? I'd manage to get in one good hit on Emmett, if I was lucky. I practically ran up the wooden steps. Right before I knocked on the door, I heard a bang from an open window. I went ahead and took out some of my rage on the door anyway.

"Listen," I heard Emmett's voice drifting out of the open window. "I need to go get the door."

"Don't fucking walk away from me!" I heard Jasper snarl. "I can't believe you would do this! This is fucking stupid, even for you!"

I moved away from the door, hoping to get a better view of the kitchen as I waited. "What the fuck are you so upset about Jasper? It isn't like Bella cares." I heard Emmett's clomping footsteps heading toward the door and realized that I was more interested in hearing this conversation than I was in punching him in the face. I quickly ran to the edge of the porch and jumped over the handrail.

Oh crap! Fuck fuck fuck. Maybe that wasn't the best. I had landed in the largely bare branches of some bush. A few of the branches had cracked when I landed on it, and more snapped as I half waded, half rolled, back to the ground. If Emmett had been at the door, it was all for nothing and they would find me. But he didn't seem to be reacting yet, so I quickly pushed myself against the porch right where it met the ground. I noticed a beer bottle right by me. I was lucky that I wasn't trying to kneel in a pile of broken glass. That stupid plant had scratched me up plenty any way.

I heard the door open. "Hello?"

Emmett walked out a couple feet, judging by the way that the porch creaked, but he didn't come looking around for whoever had knocked on the door.

"No one there," he muttered as he trudged back in again.

"Don't try to change the subject, you douche bag. How could you do this? She was our friend, Emmett!"

"Yeah, was, Jasper! And now that stupid little pipsqueak is pulling some cute little stunt to get us shut down. She nearly got you arrested, man. I mean, fuck, are we supposed to just take that?"

"So you're having this just to get back at her?"

"Yeah. I'm trying to cover your ass, because you won't do anything to get back at her," Emmett shouted as Jasper's footsteps headed for the door. "Jasper!"

I heard the door open, and the lighter step of Jasper's feet shifted the porch as I pressed against it. He came into view, looking as perfect as ever in jeans and a button down shirt. I knew that it would be open and he'd have a t shirt under it.

"Jasper!" shouted Emmett again from the porch. "Are you still coming to the party?"

And Jasper turned around. I was so screwed. His eyes flicked over to where I was crouching against the porch, and I desperately tried to sink farther into the dirt. If only I could will myself through the ground, that would have been perfect.

"Fuck you, Emmett," Jasper offered back. He turned back around and continued walking down the street. Emmett started to say something else, but the words seemed to die on his lips, and instead he just sighed and headed back into the house. As soon as I heard the door close, I shoved out of the stupid bush. I didn't even care if he saw me out of the window. I wasn't going to pay any attention to him anyway.

I started down the street, watching Jasper ahead of me. Jasper who hadn't ratted me out about spying on him and Emmett. Jasper who had been telling Emmett off for this party, which was apparently a deliberate retaliation for the sweetener incident.

There was a reason that I had been infatuated with Jasper all those years. Besides his looks, I mean. And that he was smart. I mean, I wouldn't have liked him as much without those, but Jasper always seemed like he was a leader. He always had stuck to his principles and had always had a kind word for everyone.

My gaze drifted down to the sidewalk, tracing patterns that my feet danced around as I walked, while my mind drifted.

It had all seemed to change after Bella. All of them had closed off to me, and I just assumed that Jasper had grown out of the good aspects of his personality. That he'd turned into the dumb frat guy that Emmett had always been destined to be. But maybe I had misjudged the whole thing. Had I forced Jasper to make a choice, and he had just stuck with his principles, like he always did?

I had to stop that train of thought. Not that it wouldn't be nice to imagine Jasper was still the amazing guy he had always been, and I really was that fucked up. No, I had to stop that line of thinking because I just crashed right into him. Not that it did much to move him.

"Still letting your mind wander, Alice?" He didn't really smile when he said it. That was good, I suppose. I shouldn't want to see him smile.

There are some relationships, where you are so familiar with the person that you just don't need to say most of the flippant little polite remarks that most people would. There was no reason for me to pretend that I needed to say sorry to Jasper, or for either of us to say hello. Even after a year as sworn enemies, he still probably knew me better than anyone else in the world.

"Yeah, just a bit." Neither of us said anything for a moment. He had said he would get me back for what happened last week, but now he seemed like he was sort of championing my cause to Emmett.

"Thanks," I finally said. "For not ratting me out. And for..."

For telling Emmett off for being a prick. For being something like I had always thought you were.

"You don't need to thank me," said Jasper, suddenly seeming more flippant. "I know I said I'd get you back, but I realized something this weekend."

He did smile now, and every bit of its emptiness and falsehood was for me. "You have nothing else. You aren't even worth defending myself against, because you really are nothing. All you are is this stupid grudge that, well, I don't care about anymore."

I gaped at him. I don't know what I had thought, what I had expected, but it wasn't this.

"Good bye, Alice," Jasper said, that empty smile still plastered on his face. He turned and walked up the sidewalk.

Where were all my witty comments? Or at least that overwhelming anger that had driven me for so long? Something, anything, to shout or scream or throw at him.

***

The posters had become too prevalent around campus to tear down all of them. I wondered if most people got the joke that Emmett was making. Maybe it all really was in my head. Maybe most people didn't equate me and Bella and Edward and all of them with what had happened anymore.

"Hey Alice! You going to your friend's party?" I heard someone shout. Snickers broke out in the area around where it had come from. Apparently it wasn't all in my head, but I just didn't feel like I had the energy to fight today. I trudged toward Carly's office after having spent my entire afternoon class letting my mind wander.

"Hi," I said as I walked in. I guess I said it a little too dully, because Carly gave me a funny look. "What's on the plate for today?"

She didn't say anything as she handed me a stack of files. The one on top seemed to be about some student organization that someone thought was having a bunch of it's budget embezzled. I figured that I would get started on that one, and opened up the folder about the model united nations club. Nerdy they may sound, but they were massively influential also, with a yearly budget in the tens of thousands. They travelled across the country for competitions, and threw a huge competition themselves at a fancy hotel downtown once a year for high school teams.

Brent Collinsworth, president.
Charlene Williams, vice president.
Navin Sarin, treasurer.
Kaitlyn Prentice, secretary.

Apparently Mr. Sarin was finding a lot of inconsistincies in the finances, looking at the money that had been left over last year and what they had to work with this year. Two of the officers from this year had been in leadership roles last year, and could have had access to the accounts that he was worried about. I'd probably have to call him first. Or maybe I should start with the actual faculty sponsor of the club. That must be on this page somewhere, right?

"Go home."

"What?" I said, looking up.

"You heard me. You've been on the same page of that folder for ten minutes. Do you have any plan of what you are going to do yet? Have you looked at any of the information Mr. Sarin submitted or any of the counter claims?" Carly looked somewhat sympathetic as she said it, and I had to glance back down to remember which one Sarin was.

"I just..." I just what?

"Have you eaten today?" she asked. What kind of question was that?

"Of course I've eaten. I..." Ok, I didn't remember what, but eating was part of my usual routine and I must have eaten.

"How about this," Carly said, sighing. "If you can tell me what day of the week it is, I won't make you take the rest of it off."

That was easy. I'd just gotten out of an afternoon class. It was a lecture, class, right? Which meant that it was...

"Wednesday?" I asked. Carly shook her head.

"Get out of here, Alice. Go have fun. Have a life. And don't come back until next Monday."

I had been really out of it since my, well, confrontation, I suppose, with Jasper on Monday night. I guess I just hadn't realized how out of it. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok, Alice. We all need some time every now and then," Carly said, waving me off. She had already gone back to reading some file or other.

"Even you?" I asked, as I headed out the door.

"No, not me," she said, standing up and stretching her arms above my head. I almost chuckled as I walked out. What time was it? I pulled out my cell phone as the door clicked closed behind me. I heard a sudden flurry in the office, then the sound of the deadbolt going home. I glanced down at my phone. It was only a little past five.

"Hey!" I shouted, turning around to bang on the door. "It is Wednesday!"

"And that should tell you something too," Carly shouted from the other side of the door. "You're no good to me if people can pull that kind of thing on you."

"I'll be back tomorrow!" I shouted, kicking the door.

"It'll be locked then too," she shouted back. "I'll only be opening it to people who aren't Alice Brandon. Now go to the moives or something."

"You'll rue the day you crossed me, Carlisle Cullen!"

"Better, but I'm still not letting you back in."

I huffed and finally headed out. What was I going to do now, with all this spare time? I guess I'd have to start with heading back to my apartment and figuring out if I had eaten or not. Judging by how hungry I was, she might have been right. I put the Cure on my ipod as I headed bac, humming along with Just Like Heaven as I danced aroudn the cracks in the sidewalk. It was only two songs before I got to the door of my apartment building. I turned it off before unlocking the door to the building and shoving it open. Stupid heavy door. The door to my apartment was easier to open, practically swinging open on it's own as soon as I had it unlocked.

"Hello? Anybody home?" I called as I headed to my sun room to toss down my stuff.

"I'm here," I heard Keith call from the back of the apartment. My room jutted off from the tv room that was to the left of the door. There were two more bedrooms at the front of the apartment, then a long hallway with a bathroom, the dining room, and another bathroom on it, before you hit the kitchen. Keith's room was by the kitchen, placing it farthest from the bathroom and a mile from the rest of us. "Everyone else is out."

Keith was a nice guy. He had fair hair, and was a little pudgy. He and my other two roommates, Jake and Lianne, were all from southern California. I generally tried to stay out of their hair, especially since it was obvious to me that both guys had a thing for Lianne. I did head back towards Keith's room to make some food. Our fridge was kind of sparce. We didn't really have anything that I wanted, and eventually I decided to poach some mushrooms and make pasta. It would be a start at least.

I considered my phone as the mushrooms simmered. I could actually call someone and do something with all this spare time. I could call Royce and see if he wanted to hang out.

Or I could call one of the numbers that had been stricken from my phone. He said that he wanted to get past it, and maybe I should try to also. Maybe there could be something.

I dialed Royce's number.

"Hey, Alice."

"Hi, Royce. Sorry for acting so weird this week."

"It's ok. Your weird is interesting."

"Thanks," whatever that means. "Listen, I have some time this week. Do you want to do anything this Friday? Go to a movie or something?"

How lame was it that I was forced to fall back on Carly's suggestion to come up with something recreational to do? "Sure. What do you want to see?"

"I don't know. What's out?" He started to answer and I cut him off. "You know what, just tell me a time and a place. Surprise me."

"Alright," he said. "How about we meet at the Reg at 5:30 on Friday. We can get dinner downtown too."

"Ok, sounds like fun." I clicked the phone shut, needing to douse the mushrooms in something. Balsamic vinegar, that ought to work.

Wait a minute, did I just ask Royce out on a date? I mean, he wasn't ugly. And I couldn't even claim that he wasn't my type. I just had never really had a type. I'd spent so much time chasing after Jasper that I'd never really had any sort of boyfriend. And then I had sort of been a social pariah.

This didn't seem like it necessarily had to be a bad thing, right? Maybe we were just going as friends. Friends went out together, I was sure of it. I'd had friends who were boys that I didn't have a romantic interest in. I just had never gone out to dinner and a movie with only them. But this was me moving on, and adding things to my life, right? Jasper had been right, I needed to do more with my life than hate people for what had happened. This could be the start of that. This could-

"You're going to burn those," shouted Keith from his room.

"Oh, shit," I said, shutting off the stove. They looked like they were still edible.

Author's Note: Yes, I noticed that there was no episode issue for Alice to solve this time. I only have three that I am completely prepared to write, and thought that I might be able to fend you off with this chapter. I assure you, Alice will return to being an investigator next chapter.

Speaking of next chapter, you can get it sooner, if you want. Alice's favorite college football team was off this past weekend, which means they have only had one game so far this year. If this chapter gets as may reviews as points have been scored against her team, I will update before Alice's team of choice finishes it's game this coming Saturday. And still update on the 29th like normal.

There, that's my attempt to coerce reviews.