Because You Loved Me
10/?
…Because That Means It's The End
It's been four days since Maria shook Jasper's foundation. It's been four days since she left… four days since they found out from a friend of Carlisle's that a lone vampire had travelled to California and, in the middle of the day, began snatching people off the street until the Volturi had no choice but to intervene.
It's been four days since they received the news: Maria had committed suicide.
…It's been four days since they've seen Jasper.
And Alice… Alice has not moved from the spot she was sitting in when he left. She's at the kitchen counter, her knees pressed together, her bare toes curled around the legs of the stool, and her unblinking eyes fixed on the counter.
For four days, she has not said a word.
"…Is she gonna be okay?" Emmett wonders from the other side of the counter, watching Alice carefully.
"She's afraid," Edward says quietly. "Of what he'll do. Maria was his entire life before he met her… his companion, his teacher, his complete understanding of the world. She thinks a part of him might've went with her."
Rosalie slams her magazine shut and shoots daggers at the both of them. "Just because she isn't speaking doesn't mean she can't hear you. Shut your mouths." Then, she sighs and rubs at her forehead before walking over to Alice and placing a hand over hers for a brief moment before walking to Emmett and pulling him away.
"Rose?"
"We should look for him," she whispers, so low that even the others cannot hear her.
"Why…? That guy's dangerous, Rosalie. If he doesn't wanna be found –"
"You think if you didn't want to be found, I'd just forget about you?" she snaps. "Maria might've been his everything a long time ago, but Jasper is her entire world right now, Emmett. If he doesn't come back soon she might just stay that way for the rest of eternity, and I –"
"…You going soft on me, hon?"
"It's not right," she says. "She's not meant to be this way."
Emmett makes an uncertain noise. "I dunno, Rose. Maybe it's best if he's away for a while."
"What, so he can deplete half the population?"
"Give it a few more days. If he's not back by Wednesday, I'll go with you. I promise."
"I know what you're thinking," Edward says unnecessarily. "He hasn't left you."
"He isn't here, is he?"
"Alice, he loves you. He's just lost right now; he needs time to get himself together."
"And did you hear him thinking that?"
"…No."
Alice responds with silence, as though Edward's own answer settled the conversation. Then, she sighs. "Leave me alone, please. I'm trying to get a vision."
"And what will you do when you figure out where he is?"
"I'll go to him. If he wants to live as a nomad again, I will go with him. If he –" she stops, and takes a sharp intake of breath, and then another, and another. "I have to... Edward……"
Slightly startled by her sudden deterioration, Edward turns her towards him and wraps his arms around her shoulders. "He'll be okay, Alice. I promise you that he would not just disappear on you."
But he had. Jasper had left her.
* * *
On the fifth night, she lies in their bed for the first time since he left. When she buries her face in his pillow, she inhales deeply because the scent left there is the closest she can be to him right now.
She lies that way all through the next day.
On the sixth night, she stands on the balcony and tries to catch a vision of anything: where he is, how he is. If he's even still alive.
On the seventh, at half past three in the morning, her eyes fly open when she hears the knob of the bedroom door turn slightly.
When Alice sits up, she thinks that if she still had a heart, it would've stopped. He's standing there in the doorway, his head down and his hands in his pockets. Under any other circumstances, she would've felt embarassed about being caught lying there in the bed wearing nothing but his broken-down coat.
Now, though, she doesn't care. She pulls herself out of the bed and walks to him, standing so close that her bare feet are just centimeters from his boots, and stares up at his face. He avoids her eyes.
"Alice, I—"
She reaches up and places her finger over his lips gently. "You came back."
"But, I—"
"You came back."
Jasper meets her eyes – two large, onyx orbs glistening in the moon – and he feels as though his legs might've been melted from beneath him. Alice stares, confused and a little frightened, as he seems to sink lower and lower until his knees meet the floor.
She bites into her bottom lip as he wraps his arms around her, and mumbles only two words into the soft skin of her stomach that's exposed due to a few missing buttons: Forgive me.
Alice takes a long, slow breath and reaches down to run her fingers through his hair. She felt strange, standing here like this; seeing a man like Jasper on his knees before her, begging for absolution.
She wraps her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, and pulls. "Stand up, Jasper," she whispers. "Please." When he won't, she takes her own place on the floor and reaches out to place her fingers beneath his chin; to force him to look at her.
To speak her forgiveness is not necessary.
Instead, she simply leans forward and clutches his face in her hands, so firmly that it's almost painful for him. She pulls him to her, and she doesn't need a vision to know that everything – every slip, every disagreement, every kiss and every painful moment of doubt – has led them to this moment on their bedroom floor.
She isn't afraid, like she thought she would be, and when her hands travel down the sides of his neck to the buttons on his shirt and he asks if she's sure, she simply smiles up at him and says that she's never been more sure of anything in her life.
The scars on his body fascinate her, and she takes the time to focus her attention on every single one of them; to memorize their location, their shape, their size, their depth – some, she learns, are only just on the surface.
On every one, she leaves a featherlight kiss; as though an improvised bandaid on the outside can somehow fixed the wounds on the inside. She takes her time, because that's all they have. She takes her time because she wants him to know something very important.
A part of his life did die with Maria, a part that will never be fixed or repaired.
That part is over.
Tonight, his life starts with her.