Twenty-Three
Even though it had been nearly one hundred years since Alice slept, she still enjoyed watching the sunrise and the sunset. They acted as bookends to her busy days and reminded her to slow down and notice the small things that kept her in touch with her humanity.
The last seventy-two hours had been long and horrendous, so much of Alice's time had been spent laser focused on Renesmee and how to care for the various members of her family, all of whom were in varied moods of destress. For now, as the sun came up, a ball of orange and yellow light over the misty treetops, Alice felt relaxed. She had seen that Ness was out of danger—still not well enough to be back to her normal rambunctious self, but not on the threshold of death as Alice had previously seen. Bella and Edward, she knew, with a sly smile on her lips, were doing better as well.
Jasper was laying atop the lavishly made bed in the center of the room, his fingers busily turning pages in a book about the Civil War, occasionally he muttered to himself about the validity of the author's assertions—there were only a handful of supernatural creatures who were still alive from the 1860's, and Jasper was one of them. In the corner of the room the victrola was on, a moody, jazzy melody bubbling from the turning vinyl. Alice, for her part, was sitting on the black and white checkered chair in the corner by the window. All of the lamps had been turned on earlier when they retreated to their room, filling the space with the ambient glow of colored glass. She was occupying herself with embroidering the letter A onto the inside fly of Jasper's Levi's. It was a practice that she had started several years ago, a way to keep a part of herself with him during their tenure of high school hopping. Thankfully they had remained in Forks long enough that they could continue to pass for their original personas. Alice was studying interior design while Jasper was almost finished with his history degree, both were enrolled to take online classes at Washington State University. Carlisle and Esme loved to brag about them when they met up with the local residents in town. In all honesty, though, they liked to keep to themselves.
"Have you seen anything new?" Jasper asked. He had asked her the same question every half hour or so ever since they got back into their room.
Neither of them had wanted to stray too far from the house with Alec amongst them. Alice hadn't seen anything negative about him, which surprised her. As much as she wanted to believe that any of their kind could be restored to some semblance of their former humanity, she could not help but doubt anyone coming from the Volturi. They were renowned for their cruelty and inability to accept change. Even if Alec had defected peaceably, and of his own free will, Alice doubted that Aro or Jane or any of the others wouldn't seek retribution of the crime of abetting Alec.
But still… She couldn't shake the image that she had seen last, the vision of Alec training with Jasper. Alec was no warrior, his pre-pubescent appearance belied his vampiric strength, and Alice knew that he had never been considered a warrior amongst the Volturi. He was shielded in each battle, committed to offense, rather than defense in any calculated fight. But still, her vision indicated that she could teach Jasper something useful about their greatest enemy.
"Later today you and Alec will go over the Volturi's fighting techniques."
Jasper raised an eyebrow, "Really?"
Alice smiled, trilling happily, "You will."
"From one solider to another?"
Alice gave him a look. "He has intel on how they fight, what they do to set up against an opponent. Alec will recognize," she went on, "That you and Emmett are the muscle in the family."
Jasper snorted. "Little does he know that you, my dear, are one frightening little monster yourself when pressed."
Alice turned to him, abashed. Her voice dipped into a sultry southern drawl. "Why, sir, was that a complement? Bless your heart."
He couldn't resist her when she spoke southern to him, even if it was more of a caricature of the drawl of the deep south that he had grown up with as a human boy. Discarding the book with hilarity he jumped up from the bed. "Ma'am," he began, crossing the room in a few quick strides to get to her side. "Did you just say 'bless your heart' to me?" He grabbed her hand, letting the embroidery needle fall away past her fingers, and his lips brushed the top of her cupped hand.
"Why, sir," she continued playfully, "I am shocked by the liberties you're taking."
He knelt before her. "I beg your pardon, ma'am." His arms encircled her, gripping her hips. She had been sitting cross legged on the chair, and she let the jeans she had been working on fall to the floor. Jasper bowed his head to her knee so she could tangle her fingertips in the long hair curling at the nape of his neck.
"I was worried for you today," she confessed in a whisper.
"What did you see?"
Her fear didn't always stem from what she saw, it could also come from how she felt. "You were the first one to run into the battle today. The first one to protect us should it have come to a fight."
"I'm a solider, Alice," he reasoned gently. "My place is on the front line. My place is to stand at the front of the line protecting you and the rest of this family."
Jasper paused, letting her feel the closeness of his presence near her. He wanted to ground her in the moment. He reached out with his ability and exuded calm, wanting her to understand how at peace he was when they were like this. Her, with her embroidery, and he, with his head in her lap. "Tell me what you see right now?" He asked.
She searched her mind, let her eyes slide toward the window where the sun was rising in a hauntingly garish yellow. She could see them, alive and together. They did not age, so she could not grasp how much time had passed, but Renesmee looked older. She saw Jasper standing on a street corner, it was Seattle at night, neon lights and graffiti art all around him. He was smiling, reaching out, to her? She couldn't tell. His hair was damp from the rain, and the light from the bar was making his lips look blue in the dark, blue like popsicles and chlorinated pools. Alice tilted her head, searching. She couldn't tell why he was there or what he was doing, but he appeared to be safe, despite his blue lips, which seemed somehow sinister and ominous in her eyes.
Then she saw… an empty box. A box that she recognized from the garage, and… A slinking cat, black with white paws, padding oversized feet toward her from the forest clearing.
"I see," she explained, "A cat." She didn't understand her vision of him in Seattle, so she thought no more about it. If it was a certainty for their future, it would strengthen and clarify with time.
He was puzzled. "A cat?"
Alice nodded. "A stray cat, I think." She opened her mouth; the cats name was ironically on the tip of her tongue but she couldn't match her vision of saying its name with the physical act of saying it now. "Remind me later to grab that old box from the garage."
He chuckled under his breath. "So, no harm is on the way, then?"
She tussled his hair, playfully. "Not for a while, I think."
He leaned up, kissing her cheek lightly. "It's been a while since we had a movie morning."
Alice eyed him. Movie mornings were one of their favorite things to do. It was their tradition to disappear into their tiny second bedroom off the closet and watch old movies on the projector. So many people, Alice had reasoned, decades ago, shortly after they had first met, go to the movies at night, but she argued, mornings were the best time to watch your favorite films. Together they would spend foggy mornings in San Francisco or sunny mornings in Nashville escaping away to watch movies together.
Her smile was enough of an assent to him, and immediately he vaulted to his feet, pulling her up from the chair with him.
"Do you think anyone will need us for a while?" He pressed.
Alice cocked her head, thinking. From her vampiric hearing she could hear Esme and Tanya speaking to Alec and Garrett downstairs. The Denali's would be leaving soon, their plans were set. From what she was hearing now they were trying to convince Alec to come back with them, but he was persistent that he wanted to stay. A quick flash behind her eyes told her that Alec and Jasper would meet Alec in the hallway later, and they would start the first of several training sessions about the Volturi's many different defenses. Reaching out a little further she could hear Carlisle in his study, his fingers typing away at his otherworldly speed, imputing data on the digital set of medical analysis that he had done on Renesmee since her birth. Beyond that she could hear Rosalie tinkering away on one of her cars in the garage. She couldn't hear Emmett, but she believed he was still out prowling the boarder of their property, looking for any sign of the Quileute wolves to return. Although Jacob had gradually become more clear in her mind when it came to her visions, the other wolves were still a dark blind spot when it came to her powers.
She searched her mind again, it seemed too strange, like the shifting of the tide, that only yesterday her visions had been filled with fear over Renesmee and the rest of the family. She had been consumed with doubt and fear when she saw the Volturi coming their way, but now, all of those earlier apprehensions had dissipated. Now all she felt was calm, and the lingering flashes of what was to come in the next few days. She could see Carlisle bent over his microscope, feel, insider her own mind, his findings while looking over Renesmee's tests. He would notice that she was growing up, going through puberty, changing. She saw the little girl, her niece, continue to change as each day went past. She saw Bella and Ness in the car, heading toward Charlie's house, she saw Ness and Alec wandering through the woods, Renesmee smiling and laughing. She saw a woman that Alice did not recognize, holding out long boney fingers covered in silver rings, she saw Renesmee looking at them, admiring them, and in the blink of an eye the woman was pushing one of them onto Renesmee's fingers. There were tears, coming for the young girl, Alice could see, but also happiness and change. Beyond that, she saw nothing.
Except the memory of Jasper's blue lips, which she felt apprehensive about, but she could see nothing more than that.
Now, in the moment, Jasper was reaching out to her, guiding her to the sanctuary of their private room off their walk-in closet. He was smiling, at ease, and it calmed her to see him like this. Sated, alive, well, with his fingers entwined in hers.
"What do you want to watch," he asked her.
There was a film projector set up in the corner. When they entered the room, he flipped the light switch which had been wired to turn on the strings of fairy lights that were hanging down the walls like trailing ivy. The color was burnt Carmel, a hypnotizing glow, it took Alice's breath away each time she stepped into this tiny oasis.
"I love this room," she breathed.
He turned, pressing his face into her neck, enveloping her in his arms. Alice sighed contentedly.
"I love you."
She teased his hairline, pushing back the blond strands that always seemed to be falling into his eyes. She scrunched her nose, the dimples in her cheeks appearing. She echoed the sentiment. "I love you."
Jasper released her, and she tottered briefly on her own two feet. "What shall we watch?" he asked again. "The Philadelphia Story?" Alice loved Katherine Hepburn. "Bringing up Baby?" Another one of her favorites.
Alice countered, "Johnny Eager?" Naming one of his favorite's. A polished noir.
Jasper pursed his lips, tempted, by one of his favorite films, but he felt like it didn't truly capture the mood of the day that he wanted to profess with her. He continued to think.
Alice giggled at his expression, "Don't tell me that you're not in the mood for Robert Taylor and Lana Turner?"
He was, but it still didn't fit. "Give me another suggestion." He started to tinker with the projector. It was connected to a laptop in the corner of the room. Jasper's fingers trilled against the keyboard, starting up the app.
Alice fell back onto the mattress on the floor, it was fluffy and think, with dozens of pillows framing the walls. "Something like a dark comedy?" she hedged. Thinking for another moment, she asked, "His Girl Friday?"
Jasper snapped his fingers in agreement, his smile dazzling. "That's the one."
When the movie started playing, the silvery vintage film projecting onto the adjacent wall, Jasper went to her, letting her wrap her arms tightly around him, pulling him ever closer, while the movie began to play. He covered her completely.
It was a dramedy focusing on Rosalind Russell's Hildy, a mouthy newspaper reporter, foiling Cary Grant's Walter's plans. The two were divorcees and the plan casually revolved around them getting back together.
The film was released in January of 1940. Neither he or Alice had met each other, or the other Cullen's yet. Jasper remembered watching the film in a dusty basement movie house in Greenwich Village. He had been passing through, nomadic, as he had been for the last thirty years. He was still killing then, and he liked to stop in at movie houses and theaters to use the dark as a cloak to his feeding. He remembered asking a middle-aged woman if he could sit next to her, in that dark room. She had been kind, he recalled, and even though his thirst burned, he had not had it in him to take that women's life. Instead, he had watched the film, this same film, at her side, laughing as she did, while she casually tilted her bucket of popcorn at him, and obliging in thanks, he had taken some. It was tasteless, of course, but the thought of her kindness had warmed him on that cold night.
Alice, for her part, had seen the film in Los Angeles. Her vision had hinted at the moment she would encounter nearly seventy years later, with a man who had died during the Civil War, and wandered, like a vagabond, for more than a century, before Alice would stumble upon him in a café in Chicago. She had been drawn to the title of the film, she remembered from her human years that Friday had been named after a woman, the goddess Freya, and she liked that it was the only day of the week to do so. She was about to board a ship to Europe, her visions insisting that she head to the continent for a war that was coming, even though she had very little notion of what she would do there.
Together they lay still until the credits began to roll. "I could stay like this forever," he told her.
She sighed contentedly, feeling like a cat that had gluttonized itself on too much cream.
The voices downstairs, which had faded slightly, with the muffled film in the background, were suddenly becoming harder to ignore.
"Alec and I are going to have some sort of training session?" His voice revealed the level of enthusiasm that he had for that.
Alice couldn't help but laugh. "In the woods, it looks like. He needs to feed. He's going to be…" her vision deepened, "chatty."
Jasper smirked, but quickly his voice deepened. "Do you think we can trust him?"
"No," Alice confessed. "But I don't see that he means us harm."
"In a way," Jasper countered, "He did save Renesmee."
She shook her head. "But why would the Volturi let him leave? He's such a powerful weapon for them."
"Jane?"
"I can't see her letting her brother just leave, do you?"
Jasper shook his head. "I don't."
"Maybe he has changed," she whispered, afraid to reveal that she wanted it to be true.
Jasper sighed. Uncertainty raged. He was still holding Alice in his arms, and when her body fell back against the mattress, he felt it and held on tighter. Her eyes closed and he knew the look of pained concentration that ushered in a new vision.
"Alice," he said, trying to reach her in the place she always disappeared to when these visions came to her. "Alice?"
Her eyes flew open, lips parted, mouth agape.