I'm so excited about the 1950 story! Let's peek in and see what Alice has been up to all this time. A couple people requested that we see Alice's early visions, and so I started with that and just kept going. Thank you to abishop47 and EmeraldStar73, and anyone else who has given me some help with this one.

APOV (visions in italics)

My eyes jerked open, and I scrambled up onto all fours, looking around me in a panic. I was alone in a forest at night, but the darkness seemed all wrong- everything was so clear and light. But why shouldn't it be? I thought about climbing a nearby tree to get a better look. Before I had completed the thought, I was already climbing hand over hand, effortlessly reaching the top.

Nothing- just more forest. And then pain, in my throat. My hand flew up to meet the aching-thirst? I wanted a drink, I needed a drink. Of what? I found my nostrils flaring and my breath pulling deeply at the night air. Off to the right, something smelled sweet…

The next thing I knew, I was on my hands and knees, my mouth dripping blood onto the dead man that lay beneath me. I scrambled away from him, wiping my mouth in horror. I found a rain puddle and flung the water up onto my face to clean myself. When the water stilled, I stared at my reflection, seeing myself for the first time ever.

The first thing I noticed were my eyes, glowing red. They seemed wrong somehow, but I couldn't guess why. What color were they supposed to be? My hair was black, cut short and sticking out all kinds of ways. I reached up to smooth it, noticing with a gasp the shimmering moonlight that reflected off of my raised arm. I looked at my reflection again, memorizing my features. I was wearing a shapeless tunic with blue dots, and it smelled good and bad at the same time. I picked at it in disgust, but looking around the clearing, I found no belongings. Just the dead man, the puddle, and me. I crawled back to his side and closed his eyes, feeling guilty.

What was I? Who was I? I tried to cry, but apparently I had even forgotten how to do that. I just sat there, shaking as I sat next to the dead man, and-

A pale, handsome young man with honey-gold hair, glowing red eyes and a sad smile.

The image disappeared as quickly as it had come. Where had it come from? I still didn't know who, or what I was, or who he was, but I knew that he was mine. I knew that everything would be all right, if I could just find him. I closed my eyes, trying to find the picture again.

Instead, I found something else.

A group of people, and I was standing in the middle, in a blue dress, a beautiful smile on my face as I leaned into the man with the honey-gold hair. He was much taller than me, and he was bending down, planting a kiss on my hair. There was another pair, pale like us. The woman was stunningly beautiful, with long golden hair, and the man was huge, with curly black hair and a mischievous smile. There was another young man standing alone, with untidy bronze hair and a gentle smile on his face as he looked at us. Standing apart from all of us were another couple, slightly older but still beautiful, to the point of perfection.The woman was watching us with a sweet, motherly smile. The man had short blond hair, and his golden eyes held an ancient, patient wisdom. He had his arm around the woman's shoulders. It seemed that the two of them were watching over the rest of us, like proud parents. Everyone was pale, beautiful, and shimmering.

We all looked so happy, like a family. Did I know these people? Were they killers like me? They shimmered like me, but they had golden eyes.

I looked around the rest of the picture, discovering that we all had golden eyes, even myself and the man with the honey-gold hair. But my eyes were red right now, weren't they? And hadn't his eyes been red in the first picture? I scrunched my eyes shut, trying to find him again.

There he was- the same picture as before, and his eyes were definitely red. It was much clearer than the picture where we were with the other people, so it was my favorite. I sighed, memorizing every detail of his face. His hair came down, almost touching the collar of his worn blue shirt. His eyes weren't quite as bright-red as mine, but they were beautiful. His skin was like my own, but there was some kind of curved scar on the left side of his neck, just peeking out of his collar. I wondered what the sad smile was about. I wanted to reach out and poke it, or kiss it, and make it a happy one. I wanted to know what he smelled like. I wanted to bury my face in his chest, like I had been doing in the fuzzy group picture. I wanted him to tell me that everything was all right, and that I wasn't going crazy.

When I opened my eyes again, it was daylight and the dead man smelled bad. I got up and began to walk away.

Myself, digging a hole and tossing the corpse inside.

I froze in mid-step, turning around to look suspiciously at the corpse, which was still lying innocently on the ground.

What was the matter with me? I started walking away again, but I was halted by the same vision- not a frozen picture like the others, but I could see myself in motion, digging in the dirt and covering the man up. Growling aloud in frustration, I obeyed the vision, burying him deep underground. As soon as I had completed the task, I began to walk away a third time, wondering if I would be stopped again.

Nothing. It appeared that I had… fulfilled it?

They were visions, then! Visions of the future. This was bizarre, but it gave me hope. What if the vision of the man meant that I was supposed to go find him? And did the other, fuzzier picture mean that we would be happy, part of what looked like a family? I had memorized every detail of both pictures by now, right down to the "Welcome to Texas" sign that was hovering above his head in the red-eyed picture, far off in the background. I decided to go to Texas, and-

I lost him! The second I made the decision, the picture slipped away into nothingness, and I panicked. Wasn't I supposed to do what the vision said? I reversed my decision, in a desperate attempt to get him back.

There he was. I almost wept with relief, but I knew in that moment that I couldn't go to him- he had to come to me. How long would I have to wait? I sat back down on the damp earth, watching the horizon eagerly. I sat, and waited.

And waited.

The sun rose and fell. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore- my throat just hurt too much. I got up and started to run blindly, following my nose until I found myself crouched over another dead man. This time there was a woman as well, both their throats torn to match. All I knew was, my throat felt better. I took the clothes off the woman and put them on myself, giving her my discarded gown before I buried both of them.

I had killed three people now.

What was I?

My only consolation was that my mind- at least that shimmery, illusive part of my mind- still held the picture of the man with the honey-blond hair, and the picture of us with a family. Other visions came and went, but those two were the most important. As long as I could keep those two pictures alive, everything was tolerable. Not all right, just tolerable. My throat hurt a lot, and I hated killing people to make it feel better. It felt wrong, but I had to do it. What else was there to do?

One time, I was so thirsty and angry that I started running toward a city, its lights and noise calling to me with the promise of relief. I was going to kill everyone I could find, and my throat would finally stop hurting. But then he slipped away- everything slipped away, except a black cloak fluttering the breeze, and then everything faded to black.

I turned around, running in the opposite direction, heaving a relieved sigh when everything reappeared. Apparently I wasn't supposed to be in cities. I knew that I would, someday: I had seen it. But I wasn't ready, for some reason.

The pictures kept me sane throughout the next few weeks. Other visions plagued me day and night. Sometimes I saw myself doing things two seconds before I did them, but sometimes they were of things that made no sense at all. If it wasn't for the pictures of the man and the family, I would have completely lost my mind.

The worst was when I saw myself kill people ahead of time. There was no point in trying to avoid the fulfillment of these visions- I had to feed, and often. I had a vision of myself wandering up into the mountains, and I obeyed this one eagerly, hoping that the killing could stop. But the visions only led me to a campground, and I killed again.

It had been three weeks now, and I finally noticed that I wasn't sleeping. Had I ever slept before? I must have, if it struck me as odd, that I wasn't doing it. I was definitely bored, though. I entertained myself by rooting through the camper that had belonged to my latest meal. He had been a packrat, fortunately. I pored over maps, tore through novels, and slowly, piece by piece, assembled the world around me into some kind of order.

I read about vampires, and decided that this was what I was, though not everything matched up. I was shocked to discover, in one of the books that I found, that the sunlight was supposed to burn me. I was supposed to have fangs, and I was supposed to sleep during the day, in a coffin. I was apparently a poor excuse for a vampire.

I knew that the man in my visions- for I had seven different pictures of him, now- was a vampire as well, because his eyes and his pallor matched my own. This didn't quite match up with the eye color in the group picture, but I would figure that out later. Where was he, and what was taking him so long? I also knew now that the visions with sound and motion were the ones that were about to come true. Over time, I learned to call them up at will, those five-second-ahead ones. I waited patiently for the honey-blond man to be in a moving vision, but it wasn't happening. They were always still pictures.

I followed my visions around the country- it was called the United States, I learned later- and waited for him to find me.

And waited.

One day, I was lounging up in a tree with my eyes closed, playing with my visions to see if I was going to do anything interesting that day, when I got what I had been waiting for- a vision of him, complete with motion and sound. I jerked into sitting, enjoying the scene as it unfolded. I was disappointed to see that I wasn't in it, but I drank it up nonetheless.

He was standing alone on the edge of a cliff, staring out at nothing. Another male vampire was standing a few feet away from him, frowning in disapproval.

"Come on, Jasper. It's time to clean up."

I gasped aloud. Jasper! I spoke the word aloud, savoring it on my lips and smiling at the sound. It was the first time I had ever spoken aloud, and I liked that his name was the first thing I had ever said. My voice was beautiful, a silver tinkling of bells, and his name on my voice was like a song. Jasper. I closed my eyes again, waiting to see what would happen next.

Jasper turned to the other vampire, and nodded stiffly. The two walked away from the edge of the cliff, down towards a small gathering of vampires. As Jasper and his companion neared the group, everyone fell silent, waiting for something. Jasper raised his hand, pointing to one of the males. The male followed Jasper and the other one away from the others, asking what his assignment was. The other vampire moved, so that the male was between himself and Jasper. Jasper nodded slightly, and in a blur, his companion grabbed the male's shoulders while Jasper ripped his head off.

I gasped aloud, losing the vision completely. What was he doing? I had to know. I stared into space, willing the vision to continue.

Jasper and his companion were standing side by side, staring into a fire. Purple smoke was filling the air around them, and Jasper turned away, leaving his companion behind. He returned to the edge of the cliff, staring at nothing again. He looked over his shoulder, and then started staring out again. After a moment, he sank down to sit on the ground, burying his fingers in his hair and trembling. After a while, he lowered his hands and stared at them, a look of hatred on his face. He rose into standing, his hands clenched into fists, and walked away from the cliff.

I lost him again after that.

What kind of a man was my Jasper? I felt even more drawn to him than before, and it wasn't just because I knew his name. It was because I wanted to save him. I wanted to gather him up in my arms, and tell him that everything would be all right, that he would be happy someday. He hadn't wanted to kill the vampire- I could tell. From the numb, weary look in his eyes as he killed, it seemed that he did this sort of thing a lot. And from the moment of anguish that he had allowed himself on the cliff, I knew that he wished he wasn't doing it.

It was a long time before I saw him again, but I waited anyway. I wandered, and learned, and killed.

And waited.

I was growing up. It had been a year now since I had awoken, and I could walk right into a city now without losing my future. I tried to pick people that deserved death, or were close to dying anyway- my visions helped with that- and when I wasn't hunting I was rooting through libraries, learning. Sometimes I broke into stores and replaced my battered clothing. It felt good to wear new things- it made me feel like one of the humans. According to the vampire stories I had read, I used to be one.

I hated killing, hated it more every time I did it. The more time I spent around humans, the more I was bombarded with their futures. If the person seemed happy, it was fun to poke around their future, see what they were going to do that day.

Sometimes I would see things that weren't so happy. Sometimes I looked at a person, and saw myself killing them. I would follow them and kill them, usually, because it seemed like I was supposed to. And at least I got new clothes, whenever I killed a woman that was the right size. But I still felt guilty, nonetheless.

One night I was burying a kill under a rockslide when a new vision surprised me. A still image. It was the slightly older man from the group picture, the one I had had in the very beginning. The one with the short blonde hair and the gentle golden eyes.

It was night, and he was kneeling on the ground, his face pressed against the throat of a huge deer. The deer was sprawled under him at an unnatural angle. Dead?

Was he feeding from the deer? What an odd thing to do! I decided to try it. I got up, running through the forest until I found a deer of my own. I walked up to it, wrinkling my nose. I grabbed its neck and wrenched. I brought its furry, tickly throat up to my mouth and bit, taking an experimental sip.

Ew!

I drank anyway, just to see if I could do it. It was awful, but I did it. Like the vision of the man... the father? When I was done, I felt… satisfied. Not in the way that I usually did, and my throat still had an echo of ache in it. But at least I hadn't poisoned myself. I buried the deer, just because I was in the habit anyway.

It rained the next morning, and I decided to use a rain puddle as a mirror, like I usually did when I combed through my hair with my fingers. I had hoped, in the beginning, that it would grow longer, but it never had. Still, there was no need to be disheveled. But this time, as I leaned over the puddle and began raking my fingers through the knots, I noticed a very slight change in the color of my eyes. They were still red, but just a bit lighter. They had been slowly losing their brilliance over my year-old life, but this was different. It was as if the red had been brushed with gold.

I scrunched my eyes shut, combing the world with the tendrils of my vision, searching for the man with the short blond hair. He was elusive, much harder to find than Jasper. But I worked at it furiously, my extra vision roaming over the miles until I found him. And my extra effort was rewarded: I jumped for joy as I saw him moving, breathing, speaking. This was happening today, somewhere in the world!

"Carlisle! Who in the blazes-"

I looked around the vision, finding the speaker.

It was the young man who had been alone in the group picture, but his golden eyes were quickly fading to black as he shouted his question. On the right side of the scene, he- Carlisle?- was there, running into the house with a woman in his arms. She looked familiar- a lot like the woman in the group picture, the mother. But she was human, and almost dead. She was covered in dried blood, and his eyes, still golden, but faded half to black, were wide and frantic.

"It's Esme! I can't… I'm sorry, Edward, we don't have time to talk about it!" Carlisle's trembling hands fumbled with the buttons at the top of the woman's collar, and he leaned down, sinking his teeth right into her throat. The younger man- Edward, now- stood frozen in shock, watching as Carlisle pulled away and gently bit the woman's wrists. Carlisle collapsed to the floor, his golden eyes shot with just a hint of red, and Edward yelled at him again, just as the woman started to scream.

"What have you DONE?!"

Instead of answering, Carlisle crawled back to the woman's side, holding her hand and-

I lost the vision after that. I sat staring at my reflection in the puddle as I processed what I had just learned. The group were vampires, then- the eye color didn't mean they were a different species. I had also learned three of their names. But why hadn't the smell of the woman's blood made Carlisle's eyes turn completely black, like it had Edward's? And why did Carlisle bite the woman, if he wasn't going to feed on her? I knew she wouldn't die, because I still had her in the group picture. It was the same woman –Esme, he had called her. The one that belonged to him. Was he changing her into a vampire? It was nothing like the stories, but, then, neither were my teeth. And then there was the change in Carlisle's eye color, after biting her…

I leaned over the puddle again, staring at the subtle change in my own eyes, the exact opposite of what had just happened to Carlisle in the vision. I had taken in some animal blood, and he had taken in some human blood.

What if their golden eyes meant that they drank from animals all the time? Was that even possible? If I did that, would my eyes turn golden, too? I knew they would, someday, because I had seen it. I decided to try drinking animals all the time, and peeked into my own future, stretching out into the next few months. I saw several separate shots of myself with varying eye colors. In a couple of the pictures, it looked like I was feeding from animals.

It was worth a try. And wouldn't it be nice to stop killing people?

I waited three days, and tried again. This time I found a bear, and it tasted a little better. As soon as I was done, I ran to the nearest puddle and looked eagerly.

Even lighter! Still red, but a bit more gold in it this time. I doubted if a human would see the difference, but I could. I could do this!

Over the next several months, I practiced my new diet. Sometimes I messed up- some people just smelled too darn good. I didn't feel as guilty anymore, though. I was killing accidentally, and more often than I liked, but at least it wasn't on purpose.

But for the most part, I was able to stick to animals. Sometimes, if I focused hard, I could grab onto a vision that allowed me to peek in on Carlisle, Edward and Esme. I watched as Esme's eyes began to change, along with my own.

Now that I was drinking animals most of the time, I was able to be around humans more, and my throat didn't bother me so much, to smell them. I still had to be careful about them bleeding- I tried to avoid places with sharp objects- but it felt good to pretend to be a human sometimes, and it felt even better to be wearing something that I hadn't gotten off a corpse. I was able to occasionally buy new clothes, instead of just stealing them at night. Of course, the less people I killed, the less money I had, so I eventually had to go back to stealing. I didn't bother too often though; there was no one to care what I wore. But I sometimes sat in a busy department store, watching the human ladies and girls enjoy themselves as they shopped. I was able to do this now- expose myself in artificial light. My eyes were various colors, depending on that last time I messed up, but in general they were brownish yellow or dark-enough orange that no one noticed.

One night, something wonderful happened. I was sitting there, in the department store, envying the cheerful ladies as they bustled around the store, when a woman spoke loudly.

"Alice!"

My head jerked in her direction, like I had been called. I hadn't, of course; the woman's daughter came to her, and the woman scolded her for running off. But when she had called the girl's name, I had felt certain that she was calling me.

Was my name Alice?

It was as good a name as any! I supposed there was a whole human life that went with it, but the past wasn't my thing, it seemed. Oh, well.

Alice and Jasper, I said to myself. Jasper and Alice. Yes, it sounded perfect. Alice it was, then. I couldn't wait to tell him! Would he like my new name?

How long would I have to wait, to tell him?

I was getting better at telling how far off the visions were, from my current point in time. It wasn't an exact science, but I was working on it. Grainy pictures were the furthest off- I still had no idea how long it would be until all of us were together. Blurry pictures were the most uncertain. The moving, audible ones were very close, usually two days or less. So even though I was separated from those I loved- for I loved them all, now- I at least had the comfort of knowing that I was watching them in real time. There was still no sign of the other couple, in the motion pictures. I didn't even know their names. But I peeked often enough to know that Carlisle and Esme were in love, and I got to watch their entire wedding, on some island. Why didn't Edward have anyone? I tried to peek ahead, but his future was a mess. I got a flash of red eyes, and I stopped looking.

On July 19, 1922, I had the best vision yet. It was a still shot, and it almost as grainy as the group picture, which meant it wasn't happening soon.

I was sitting alone, in a diner, my golden eyes sparkling with excitement. My toes were balanced on the floor, like I was tapping them impatiently. I was sitting beside a window, and the sky was gray. A thousand raindrops were suspended in the air outside. But I wasn't looking out the window- I was looking at the door.

I looked over to the leftmost end of the vision, to see what I was so excited about.

The door to the diner was just opening, and a pale, masculine hand was gripping the handle. A little higher, peeking out behind the edge of the door was a lock of honey-gold hair. The other pale hand was raised, brushing raindrops off a man's overcoat, and-

My eyes popped open and I lost the vision, shrieking with excitement. I knew, I just knew, that it was him! I was seeing the day that we were going to meet! When was it!?

I knew, from the quality of the picture, that it was not anytime soon. Nor was the group picture, where Jasper's eyes were smiling and golden. But I knew that both would come.

The years came and went. I still got flashes of Jasper, and they scared me. Sometimes I watched him in battle, holding my breath as his future flickered in and out during those moments. A few times, I thought I had lost him for good. But he would always slip away from his enemy, and kill ruthlessly.

He had no choice. I watched the scars accumulate, resolving to kiss each and every one as soon as I got the chance. I was going to save him. When?

I also watched the Cullen family - I had finally gotten the surname. I watched as Edward went away, drinking his eyes red. I watched when he came back in shame, Carlisle and Esme holding him as he grieved the loss of his innocence. I watched Rosalie join the family, and Emmett. I saw their wedding, and I saw other vampires with golden eyes dancing with my family. I saw them move a lot after that. There was some kind of glitch in late 1936, but everything turned out all right by the end. I watched in amusement as they traveled through the snow, through a tropical rain forest.

Through the world.

When was I going to travel with them? I was getting really good with the animal diet now. Wasn't I ready yet? It wasn't as if any of us were getting any older, but I hated to miss everything like this. When was Jasper going to find me, and when we were going to find them?

I waited some more.

Jasper's future suddenly got brighter in the early forties. I had missed most of what happened, but one night a vision came to be unbidden- the important ones usually did this. I paid close attention, because I felt this was big.

Jasper and his companion- the one who had always helped with the executions- were standing on the edge of another cliff. The shapes on the horizon were different this time. His companion looked peaceful, but Jasper still looked troubled. Not haunted, so much as before, but troubled.

"What's it going to take, Jasper?"

Jasper spoke, that funny twang coloring his musical voice. "I'm sorry. I know it makes it harder for you and Charlotte. It's just…"

"What? You don't want to go BACK to her, do you?"

"Of course not. This is a hundred times better. But I still feel it, every time I kill. No matter how fast I attack, there's always that split second where their fear hits me. I can't stand it."

The other vampire sighed, and Jasper looked guilty. "Sorry…"

"Stop saying that! You can't help it. "There was a pause, and Jasper's companion relaxed visibly. "Thanks."

Jasper looked back at the horizon, the muscles in his jaw clenching in determination. "I think I'm going to go off on my own for a while."

The other one inhaled deeply, shaking his head in protest.

Jasper smiled sadly. "Don't bother, Peter. You know you'll both be happier without me."

"It doesn't mean I want you to go."

"I know. But there's something else for me, somewhere. I've got to go find it. Tell Charlotte goodbye for me?"

Peter frowned again. "You're leaving right NOW?"

Jasper shrugged. "Why not?"

Peter reached out, clasping Jasper's hand. "We'll see you again, sometime? We'll stay in the U.S., of course."

"I hope so. Take care of yourselves- stay to the North."

Peter dipped his head, staring into Jasper's eyes. "Thank you. For everything."

Jasper nodded and slipped away.

The vision ended, and I flopped back down on my back, staring up at the stars as I played it over and over in my head. I felt enormous relief as I unraveled the events that seemed to have taken place.

It was funny, in a way- at the same time as the humans around me were getting nervous about that little war in Europe, my Jasper had just escaped from war. He was free now, but he was still sad. And there was something about feeling other people's feelings. He was striking out on his own, leaving two or more friends behind to find… something.

Me?

It was easier after that, to get a hold of Jasper in the visions. They were mostly still pictures, but occasionally I was rewarded with a moving, breathing Jasper. I never heard his voice again, after that- he had no one to talk to. He spent his time wandering and hunting. He seemed to wait as long as he could- usually until his eyes turned black. And just like he had told Peter, he always killed as quickly as he could, but sometimes it wasn't quick enough. Sometimes, after feeding, he would curl up on the ground, trembling and trying to pull his hair out. It was even harder to watch, now that I knew there was a better way. I hardly ever had human blood in me now. I felt calmer, and happier, and better. I wanted him to have those things, too. He did seem more at peace, when he wasn't hunting, but I knew he would never really be happy until he found me.

I had to comfort him, and teach him about the animal diet- I knew it would make him feel better. Why didn't he hurry up and find me? I tried again and again to go to him, whenever I caught a road sign in the visions, but I lost him each time, and had to turn back.

I waited some more.

And in the meantime, I watched my family, and my beloved Jasper, from afar.