Alice POV.

We are pretending to be sophomores. We can pull it off with my help of course. There is some make up and clothes and hair that needs to be fixed but by the time I am finished we all look like we belong at the school as sixteen year olds. Really I am three years older than that as are many of my adopted siblings. The only one close to sixteen is Edward at seventeen. The second class of the day is History. The beginning of the semester we go over things that we are already used to. We are only a few weeks in. Today is the Civil War. We will talk about it for two weeks or so. We studied it a little in middle school but it was not that long ago. It's 1953. Okay so maybe to the humans it was a while ago but it did not seem very long off to me.

I wear my bright red lipstick and cross my legs under my polka dot skirt at my desk when I pull my book out. I sit in front of Jasper. I smile at him as we see each other before the bell rings. I touch his hand and feel his tenseness. I look questioningly at him.

"Jazz?"

"The war is today," he says.

"Don't be nervous."

"Trying," he offers.

I turn back around as the teacher starts talking. She goes through the Confederates and the Union. She goes through battles and troops and the importance back home. She mentions a man named, "Caraway" and I can feel the air shift behind me.

"Not a known man, I know," she says. "But the most interesting stories are the smaller ones. He was a young man, fought along side many other soldiers. He was just one in millions that fought in this war. As he was charging the field at his first battle he came upon his best friend. His best friend and him lived together in Texas before Caraway was forced to move with his family to a Union state right before the Civil War began. They stood there and stared at each other. The other soldier by the name of Whitlock-"

I try not to gasp. I lean my hand behind me, under the desk and flex it open. Jasper grabs my hand and squeezes so hard if it were a human he would break my bones. I hold onto him just as tight. I want to tell him it's okay. But I can't. I knew this would happen. Well I knew something like this would happen. Not this exactly. I try not to watch everything that Jasper and I are going to do because that leaves life incredibly uninteresting and I hate uninteresting. In fact I like quite the lively bit of life together.

"…Caraway began to back away. Whitlock starred at the man but did not shoot. He could have, he was close enough to gut him if he wanted to-" at that Jasper flinches. "But he didn't do that either. He let the man walk backwards. Before Whitlock could do anything another Confederate soldier shot him from the side and went down. He then heard shouting orders to flank right. Whitlock starred at his friend as he lay dying and bleeding on the ground-" Another flinch but this time I tried to be as positive as I could be.

I felt hope, I felt happiness and love and tried to send all of it to him. I know he is hurting badly. I have to make it better. I think of how he kissed me last night. I think of how he took my clothes off, how he touched my short hair and told me I was beautiful. He could feel my emotions over everyone in the world. He told me that once. It is like my voice is louder in Edward's head than other voices are. Well my emotions are louder in Jasper's veins too.

"And he left because he had to. That was the terrible fact of the Civil War. These two people were best friends and they had no choice but to fight each other. And even when they chose not to kill each other, they were forced to leave the other for dead, which may be just as bad as if they put the bullet in Caraway himself."

There is a long silent pause. We have three minutes left of class and I think we are going to skip the rest of the day and the rest of the week and the rest of next week. I didn't think she would tell that story. That was a last minute decision and I am so very terrible at reading those. Actually I am not great at figuring out how to read futures of people I don't know well anyway. I can always try.

"Whitlock doesn't have a first name. Of course he did at one point but no one knows his first name. He vanished as many did in the war. He was probably perished too badly to be able to tell who he was…many were."

I stand and grab my bag.

The bell rings.

I throw it over my shoulder but don't let go of my lovers hand as we make our way out of the door. I bring him all the way to a utility closet on the third floor when the bell rings for the next class. I pull him inside and close the door. It's dark but I can still see him. I put my hands on either side of his face. He is panting slightly as if he thinks he might need the air. I wonder if he remembers any of that. Often I wish I could remember my human life and then I think if I could I wouldn't like it or I would be disappointed. Maybe I don't want to remember something so terrible.

"Jazz," I whisper. "I'm sorry. I didn't know she was going to tell that story. I wouldn't have let you go. I'm terrible! I should've figured it out!"

"No," he says and rests his shaking hands on my back and wraps them around me so that our bodies are close again. "No," he says again. "It's not your fault, Ally."

He is the only one that calls me that and most people don't even know. I feel special when he does.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm sorry that you had to do that."

He shakes his head and sighs, biting his lip.

"What do you want me to do?" I ask.

"I don't want to think about it right now. That did happen. It was me. I remember watching him. I had to leave because my orders were to leave not because someone yelled at me to. I had to leave because they told me to keep going and honestly because I didn't want to be there, watching him die. I knew that he would and that I wasn't allowed to help him."

I don't say anything as I run my fingers through his hair gently. I play with it and curl it around my fingers. I lean close to him and watch as his lips move to talk to me.

"I didn't want to Ally," he says with some emotion. "I was proud to be a soldier. The killing did bother me but I was able to not let anyone know it to be true until that one. Because then it was someone I knew and I could've saved him but I didn't. I told my father and he said that happens in war and that I have to be brave. I told him I would be. And so I was and I didn't speak about it again. But hearing someone else speak about it…I feel like the bad guy."

"Jasper you are not the bad guy. In the Civil War it wasn't that easy. There weren't good guys and bad guys all the time. You were fighting and so was he. You were doing what you were told. You didn't take his life."

"But I didn't save him either."

"You weren't supposed to," I say and lean up to his face. He leans down so that he can closer to mine.

"Kiss me," I say.

"We're in a closet."

"So what? Kiss me."

So he does. He kisses me several times, holding me close before he pulls away with darkness in his eyes and his hands shaking slightly, the need pouring off of his body. I could see our future and I wanted to get home right away to fulfill it.

"Jazz," I whisper. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I think so."

"I don't think you should go to school tomorrow. I'll stay back with you. We'll go hunting and have a date or something."

"I can go to school," he argues.

"I know you can but maybe if you don't want to-"

"Ally I can do it. It's just talking."

"Jasper I don't want it to bother you. If they were talking about my past and I didn't like it I wouldn't go."

"But I would."

I smile a little bit.

"I know. Because you're brave but you don't have to be…not around me. Around me you just have to be my boyfriend, my lover, my savior…my favorite person in the whole world. And that means that if you don't like something or something scares you or makes you upset or angry then you can tell me."

I see passion and trust in his eyes. He knows that what I am telling him is the truth.

"I love you forever and ever Jasper Whitlock Hale. I will always love you," I whisper.

"I love you Alice," he says. "Maybe you are right. I have a lot of things to think about and this isn't one of them. I don't have to relive something that happened all of those years ago. It doesn't matter anymore. Plus I am getting kind of hungry."

He kisses me again with his lips capturing mine and tugging on it. I fall against his chest and catch myself with my hands on his shoulders. His large hands touch the back of my neck and then fall into my hair for several moments as our lips meet over and over.

"Jazz," I whisper as a reaction. "That's not the same kind of hunger I was talking about."

He moans as he kisses my neck hard and then pushes my hips against his.

"There's no one home right now. Esme and Carlisle are at work. Rosalie and Emmett are at school. The house is empty…we wouldn't have to be quiet."

"Sounds like an offer," I say with a smile as I sigh and my knees go weak against his soft, luscious lips.

"Maybe I shouldn't go tomorrow," he offers. "I have something much better in mind."

He leans down for another kiss.