Loud thunder echoed through the empty street as the rain continued to pelt against my shoulders. The storm was close now. In an effort to look human, I pulled the long coat, which I'd taken off my last victim, closer. A futile effort. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew, it wouldn't be enough. It was only a matter of minutes before lightning would start to crackle right above the roofs of Philadelphia. Before a lone man in the middle of the empty streets would start to attract attention.

Life was dark these days. Pain and hate followed my every step. Thirst burnt like acid at the back of my throat but satisfying it only pushed me farther into nothingness. I couldn't bring myself to care about much anymore, only noticing the humans around me if they made the mistake to come too close. But being noticed myself, was something I couldn't allow.

Fear made me care about staying undetected. Fear of the dark henchmen that hovered over the entirety of my immortal life. One newborn out of line, one corpse not disposed of carefully enough, one human that took a tiny bit too much interest in a lonesome wanderer in the streets of Philadelphia. That's all it took to overthrow the fragile balance between being 'alive'—if one could even call it that— or hunted down by the Volturi. I shuddered, remembering the pure terror that immobilized Maria every single time their name fell.

Pushing forward through the rain and counting the seconds between one booming thunder and the next, I weighed my options. I didn't have many. There was a small diner up ahead, only a few hundred feet from where I was standing. The crooked sign on the door proclaimed that it was open but from what I could perceive, there were only a few customers inside. Still enough to set my throat ablaze before my hand even touched the door handle though.

I held my breath and let some shaggy strands of hair fall into my eyes to hide their red hue. The stuffy air hit me like a battering ram, and I had to swallow twice to get rid of all the venom that pooled in my mouth. Even without breathing, I sensed them. I heard their heartbeats, felt the warmth of their skin and the incredible dullness of their emotions. Or not?

My head shot up and my eyes met liquid gold. I flinched and took a small step back. Another vampire. No, she couldn't be. Her eyes were all wrong. But she wasn't breathing either. And she was floating across the worn wooden floor more elegantly than a human would ever have been able to. She was coming straight at me.

Is she going to attack? Here in the middle of these humans? Doesn't she see my scars? Attacking would be suicide.

No, she was smiling. And these emotions… I had lost grip of my talent a long time ago, when I still was with Peter and Charlotte. But it had only gotten worse from there. Once, I was able to detect the slightest changes in the emotional plane around me, a trait that had saved my life many times. But with the years, depression had become overwhelming. These days it was near impossible to tell the individual sentiments apart, never knowing what was mine. Even the strongest of them got mangled in the numbness of my mind, never able to truly get through to me.

But hers were clear as day. Pure and certain, like nothing I had ever experienced before. I felt like a blind man seeing sunlight for the first time. And she was my sun, emanating joy and love deeper than what I believed possible. It was intoxicating.

"You've kept me waiting a long time." Her voice, quiet and still clear and warm as summer rain, resonated within every cell of my body, shaking me out of rigidity.

Instinctively, I ducked my head and took a shallow breath, ignoring the explosive pain that soared in my throat. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

And then she held out her hand.

I didn't consider my actions. I didn't need to. It was as if I had always known exactly what to do. After having considered myself to be a lost cause for almost a decade, I suddenly saw a way forward in the pale, alabaster palm of her hand. And as my scarred fingers slowly interlaced with hers and her warmth spread through my whole body, I could finally feel it. For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope.

xxxx

The strange vampire gently nudged me forward, past the solitary customers at the bar towards the last booth at the windows—as far away from the humans as possible. Stiff as a board, I sat down across from her. Only half cognisant, dazed by the constant waves of love, joy and warmth that pumped from her hand directly into me. After all the darkness of the last years, her positivity was exhilarating. I had immediately become addicted.

"I'm Alice, by the way." Her voice sent shivers through my body. It wasn't necessarily the sound of it. It was the way she talked to me; her words laced with immense affection. I couldn't remember anyone ever talking to me like that.

I hesitantly took another breath so I could introduce myself as well but the force with which the fire in the back of my throat blazed, immediately choked my efforts. Alice smiled and quickly put a finger against her lips. "You're Jasper. I know, you don't have to talk if it pains you."

My eyes widened and a few rational thoughts finally pushed themselves through the paralyzing cloud of her emotions. How does she know my name? Is this a trap? Has Maria finally come for me?

I had finally mustered the strength to let go and flee, when her tiny hand suddenly clutched mine tighter. Desperately holding on. "Please don't run. I can explain," she pleaded.

I clenched my jaw.

I should have run anyway. Even if I could not perceive the slightest sign of hostility from her, my gift hadn't been reliable for years. But I couldn't. After spending so much time in the darkness, only a few more seconds of the pure bliss that her touch sent up my arm seemed worth the risk.

"Like you, I have a special talent. I can see visions, flashes of things that are coming."

This time, the explosion of excruciating thirst couldn't stop me from opening my mouth. "Like… the future?"

"Nothing I see is set in stone. It always depends on the decisions people make. I suppose you could call it possible versions of the future," she explained and smiled gently. "I saw you coming here a long time ago. But it wasn't clear exactly when this moment was going to occur. Not until a few days ago. I'm so glad to finally meet you!"

What a powerful gift. I couldn't even begin to imagine how useful her talent would have been in the wars.

"Oh!" Her surprised outburst caught my attention, and I shifted my gaze to where she was looking at. Plain drywall was staring back at me.

"We need to leave. Right now." She didn't wait for me to respond. The strange little vampire got up and urgently ushered me towards the door. Not truly comprehending the situation, I did what felt most natural. And that was to follow her.

Alice hastily grabbed a coat from the rack next to the door and pulled me outside without stopping to put it on. The rain immediately drenched us, and the darkness started to draw me in again as she let go of my hand to slip into her coat. I could still feel it, her happiness, her positivity. But without direct skin contact it felt farther and farther away every the second. Still, I clung to it. I didn't want to drown again.

"What was that about?" I asked, still confused by the quick exit she had forced on me. Just in that moment, the sound of shattering glass met my ears. The noise was followed by the sweet smell of fresh human blood that crept through the doorway before it closed.

I groaned in the pain as venom pooled my mouth again. My hand had already gripped the door handle, ready to rip it open and finally satisfy my thirst, when another jolt of affection shot through me and immediately snapped me out of my frenzy.

Alice had wrapped her fingers around the wrist of my other hand, determinedly pulling me away from the diner and down the street. I followed, dumbfounded by how easy it had been for her to keep me from creating a bloodbath. Sure, I had only fed a few days ago and wasn't at my limit yet. But still…

We passed a few blocks and I had just started breathing again when my sensitive nose picked up another mouth-watering scent. Due to the rain, it took me a split second longer than usual to locate its origin. A lonely drunkard, only a few intersections from us. I could smell the alcohol in his blood. It dulled the sweetness slightly, which was why in the earlier days we had always left drunkards to the newborns. But in recent years, I had started to welcome it, knowing that they were too drunk to realise what was going on until it was too late. Less time for fear, pain, and terror.

I didn't even notice that Alice had frozen next to me, her eyes no longer focused on the present, when I dashed forward. Moving at inhumane speed, I grabbed the man by his shoulders and pulled him into the next dark alley. My hands had snapped his neck before his eyes were able to refocus— another measure to keep the emotions which he subjected me to as limited as possible.

There still was a short spike of fear followed by immense pain as the bone snapped. But I didn't truly feel the ramifications of it until I had drunk my fill and regained some control over my instincts. As always, it was overwhelming.

Letting my victim sink to the wet ground, I regarded the bottle of whiskey I had instinctively snatched from his hand. In times like these, I wished vampires could get drunk. I didn't recall if I'd ever had too much back in my human days, but I knew the dulling effect the liquor seemed to have on humans and their senses intimately. Unfortunately, whatever that effect was, our venom destroyed it quicker than it could develop. Thus, this bottle was only of minor use to me.

I emptied the contents over its previous owner's body and then pulled a matchbox from the depths of my coat. A few seconds later, flames licked over the body. Not strong enough to make him unidentifiable, but it would be sufficient to hide the bitemark on his neck.

Guilt and hate returned in full force as I watched the man burn, a crushing weight that made me feel like I needed to steady myself. The stranger's pain and horror lingered under my skin, reminding me of the monster I was.

'Oh, get over it!' Maria's voice echoed in my ears. 'I made you stronger than this.'

xxxx

Just as I was about to give in to the depression once more, something started to nibble at the edges of my consciousness. A second set of emotions fought its way through the thick fog of darkness that clouded my mind. They were weaker than before but still perceptible. Less scorching sunlight, more lonely candle in the window.

I found strange, little, golden-eyed Alice at the entrance to the alley, disappearing beneath an umbrella. Now, with the blinding effect of her affection was dulled by the fresh memory of my kill, I got a good look at her for the first time. By God, she was tiny.

Looking at her, I somehow felt myself reminded of a story about a fairy that had lost her wings.

Where did I hear about it? From my little sister? Did I even have a sister? I wasn't sure, my human memories got hazier every day.

Her face was truly befitting a fairy—delicate lines, big golden eyes, a small nose, and perfectly shaped lips that reminded me of the porcelain dolls I had seen in the display of a shop a few months ago. She wore a yellow dress with a matching belt around her waist. The skirt was obscenely short, only reaching to the middle of her shin, showing off her pale legs and ankle. But that was how women wore it these days. Her legs ended in a pair of grey heels, indicating that she was in fact even shorter than she appeared right now. The grey woollen coat she had taken from the diner was draped around her shoulders and she had put a pair of matching yellow gloves on.

I didn't need to look down at myself to know that I looked like a vagrant next to her. Everything about her screamed elegance, while I had been roaming through forests without ever changing the clothes I stole from my victims.

"I'm sorry, Jasper. I should have seen this," she apologized, and I unexpectedly found myself liking the way she said my name. There was so much fondness in it. It was the way Maria had said it, back before she got irritated with my deteriorating condition.

And then it finally hit me. All the affection, care, and compassion that had blinded and completely overtaken me in the diner, had been directed at me. For some reason that completely eluded my conscience, the tiny vampire in front of me was in love with me.

The realisation made me fall back a few steps. Once more, I felt the incredible urge to run and get away from her. Just as the thought crossed my mind, however, her face fell and pain like nothing I'd ever felt before shot through her fragile body. I was accustomed to the ache humans felt when they realised that their life was over, and they would never get to see their loved ones again. This was worse.

"No, please don't go. I've waited so long for this already," she pleaded and reached a gloved hand out towards me.

I flinched back a few more steps, almost tripping over the smouldering corpse. "I have no idea who you think I am, but I'm definitively not him. You've got the wrong guy."

Her expression quickly turned from pained to upset. "No, I don't, Jasper. And I can prove it."

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she closed the distance between us, handing me her umbrella which I took hesitantly. Then, she reached into her coat and searched for a moment, before pulling out a piece of folded paper. Her fingers unfolded it gently, as if it was very precious to her, and held it out towards me.

It was a drawing of a group of people. Unfinished, as only six of the seven figures had been intricately shaded while the last one remained a rough sketch. But that didn't matter. All my attention immediately focused on the figure on the far left, which seemed to have gotten most of the artist's attention. It was a near-perfect rendition of myself. Sure, there were fewer holes in his clothing, less filth in his hair. But the resemblance was undeniable.

"What is this?" I mumbled, still unable to take my eyes off the drawing. The man's—my— posture seemed relaxed. I was smiling, one arm wrapped around the much smaller person in front of me. Alice, I realised.

"Our family. Or at least it's going to be, someday." The certainty and affection with which she spoke these words, shocked me.

Could it be? Another coven? No, I couldn't imagine myself ever going back to fight for another's cause again. This couldn't be right. But she was the one with visions of the future. And she had been right about me coming to Philadelphia.

"When?" was all, I managed to get out of my mouth. She sighed, and I got the impression that my question somehow bothered her. But at the same time, she felt cautiously optimistic. Hopeful.

"It's still unclear. But not too long now, less than a decade."

Less than a decade? No, I couldn't believe that. I didn't want to believe that. I had given over seven decades of my life to war, nearly eight if you counted my time in the Confederate army. And now she told me that I would be back in that hell of hate and death in less than a decade? No, I refused to believe that.

Shoving her hand with the picture away from me, I clenched my jaw. "You said your visions are subjective, just possibilities of the future. What if I decide to leave right now and never look back?"

I could feel her hopefulness fade, but it was only a short flicker. For a moment, it seemed like her presence was somewhere far, far away. But then, suddenly, her smile and confidence returned. "You won't. I can't see you running away anymore."

A/N: This chapter has been a long time coming. I wrote the first draft of this almost ten years ago and I'm so glad that I finally found the time and place to put it out. Let me know if you enjoyed it!