You're literally the most incredible people. Thank you for all the reviews here and on ao3, and the messages on my tumblr and discord. You have no idea how that makes my day.

On that note, I left on my profile some extra content for this fic. At the moment a playlist (that will make more sense as we go, or I can always explain lol) and a banner I made. If I make more content I'll be sure to link there and let you know. THANK YOU again.

The woods in that part of Philadelphia were tranquil, especially at dusk. The sun had set already and the birds retrieved to their nests. The animals that crawled at nightfall were more hushed, predatory. Alice found it only made the hunt all more appealing. She noticed it helped when it came to controlling her thirst for human blood because it kicked her instincts in. There was also the fact humans were less likely to be hiking in the area. It was safe for her and even more secured for Jasper's first try.

They halted on top of some rocks and Alice crouched, taking in the scent of the ambient. Jasper's fragrance turning out to be slightly distracting. The breeze kept blowing his way and Alice discovered a newfound adoration for how it calmly involved her entirely like it had done at the diner and again inside the closet. She beamed at him and stood up.

"There's a sleeping deer just a few feet from us and a mountain lion half a mile north." She offered him the possibilities. "Use your instincts the same way you would in other circumstances."

Jasper nodded mutely. He had been observant of Alice, such an enthralling and intrepid gal. After their conversation and learning bits and pieces about her life, Jasper could tell he admired her courage greatly. There had been few people he found to have such conviction and valor. He saw newborns break for a lot less than what Alice had endured in her twenty-eight years. He could only presume how the visions made it all the more overwhelming. From his own talents, Jasper was aware of the strains those gifts had put him through. Alice's appeared all the more extraordinary.

One thing seemed to warm the stone-cold heart inside him: she had seen him. Of all the foresight she could have had, it was Jasper she first predicted. Although there was no real certainty about why that happened, Jasper knew what it meant deep inside. He was seeking for some purpose in immortality, and Alice had been searching for him. Perhaps that ought to indicate something about them. Even if Jasper didn't wish to be too forward, in some mysterious way, he felt that he was precisely where he was meant to be.

"What do you suggest?" He questioned then, matching her grin.

Jasper observed her more attentively now. Her eyes seemed frozen and distant as if she saw images that weren't really there. Briefly, at the luncheonette, he had seen her do the same but only now sunk in that Alice was having visions. Her lips pursed together in a thin like and the slight furrow settling across her forehead were very characteristic; Jasper understood now that his eyes were so supremely faithful to her.

He almost instinctively stepped closer to her, placing a hand on her elbow. The gesture immediately brought her back and Alice offered him a smile.

"The deer. You can take down the mountain lion, but it'll have us chase it too close to the city line. We don't want to risk that just yet." She clarified much to his startlement still. Jasper was genuinely impressed by how Alice could run over the possibilities in her mind.

"The images most overwhelm you." He commented, his voice baritone echoing her heart. His pollex had been gently brushing against her arm now. Alice smiled with a brief nod; she thought it was very dearest of him to worry.

"Sometimes. I learned to manage, but it's hard to tune them out." Her face moved away from Jasper and her eyes went glass like again. "We have to move, your feast is waking up."

Jasper remembered her instruction from before to let the instincts command and took in the scent. There was fresh wet grass all around and the moss from the trees. He spotted the smell of some birds and squirrels inside their nests. The wind blew and he caught on Alice standing so close to him, briefly that made him smile. She had the most luscious and luring scent he had ever seized. Focus, Jasper told himself mentally and with another sniff, he located things further away. The deer and the mountain lion. But the closest prey was all on his focus now. Jasper hissed low and he heard the animal get on alert mode.

He was the fastest vampire Alice had encountered. He moved with such agility, immense experience. She followed behind him to the deer, watching as Jasper landed onto the animal, immobilizing it with ease as his teeth plunged onto its neck. It was dead quickly, no pain or suffering, no fear. Jasper began feeding and the darkness began clearing his eyes to give place to a lighter red.

With Alice stepping in, he paused to look at her, offering the animal. She smiled but shook her head. "I fed earlier, makes me quite full to do so too often. It's all yours, Jazz."

Closely, Alice observed how the nickname took Jasper by astonishment until it melted into a gracious smile. He was this scary, scarred vampire with a dark past, and there she was, that delicate creature calling him by sweet names. Sure took him back to witness such development in his life.

While he finished feeding, Jasper queried if Alice would be so keen on him if she knew the entire story. She had been alive for twenty-eight years as a vampire, a time he could evoke being disconcerted by his actions already, so he couldn't be sure that Alice knew of the man he had been. Her unselfishness and generosity were remarkable. She had learned all on her own not to hunt humans, Alice had gone the extra mile to become someone better. Jasper felt undeserving of her time and dedication. Of course he couldn't see himself walking away, surprisingly. They had met just a few hours before, and the bound felt stronger than his and Maria's had been for nearly a century.

He remembered Peter then and one of the conversations they had before his desertion. At the time, Jasper didn't know about Peter's involvement with Charlotte, but the friend had confessed to him something that Jasper overlooked until now.

"It's not supposed to be all weak knees and racing heart when you meet the one, Jasper. When you meet them, it's quiet and calm. As if you've finally found your place." Peter had told him then, and Jasper mocked, saying his friend was getting overly sensitive and that those things didn't happen for people like them.

Jasper wasn't wrong at some level; they didn't happen to who he was then, so driven and focused on battling and war. But he was changing; the world was changing. Jasper didn't wish to be stuck in old beliefs and the wrongful past he lived.

With Alice, even if just so briefly together, he felt exactly how Peter had described. So maybe, just maybe, Jasper could admit that Alice was what he had been looking for.

There was hope.

Back at the cottage, Alice gave Jasper a change of clothes even if his weren't too bad, they were still drenched. She knew he had been journeying for days, and freshening up was always appreciated even for vampires. While he climbed into the shower, she changed out of her own wet garments and went to find herself a new book to read.

Alice had just concluded reading A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennesse Williams the night before and found herself skimming through her collection. It would be arduous to surpass that one. The book had just come out the previous year, and Alice was captured by the narrative. She considered reading yet another Hemingway, but she often busied with one too many of his books. Alice plucked out her copy of Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. She had read it just once before but treasured it genuinely. There was something about it that felt bittersweet.

Alice relied massively on books to spark her imagination of what her past could have been, knowing nothing about it. Some were mere past times, but others truly brought a sense that something comparable could have happened to her. At times she would tell herself it was all deranged speculation and that the memory loss could have something to do with the one who turned her. None of that seemed to matter now that her whole world was there, showering just a few feet away.

As Alice sat on the porch swing with the book in hand, she strived to keep her visions from floating off to Jasper in the bathroom, but failure wasn't something she abhorred at the moment. Alice bit her lip when she prophesied his approach, hair still dripping slightly, like at the diner, but now donning a comfortable attire and beaming at the sight of her on the porch.

Just a minute or two later, her vision emerged before her eyes, making her smile.

"Found you," Jasper announced as Alice adjusted herself on the swing, tucking her legs underneath her figure. She patted the spot next to her so Jasper would join in. "I loved those porch swings. I haven't sat in one of these in ages."

"When was the last time?" Alice sought, putting the book away as he joined her.

"My 'ma had one. So it was maybe when I was sixteen? She would sit on the rocking chair, and us kids we would take the swing. She was always knitting or reading us a passage from the bible." Jasper gasped at the fond remembrance. He hesitated, deeming about how it had been way too long. All the people in those memories were gone now. There was just him left. "We dreaded when she was rendering us the bible."

"We?" Alice frowned slightly and Jasper carried on.

"I had two siblings. They are long gone now, I imagine." Considering that Jasper was now a hundred and four, that was the only probable explanation. He hadn't ever gone back to that area of Texas to find out either.

"You never looked for them?" He shook his head and Alice felt a wave of embarrassment overtake her. She knew immediately it was emanating from him and reached out to hold his hand. "Well, it was probably for the best. You could have put them in danger."

He decompressed after that, agreeing. "You're right about that. I have never been the most welcoming creature." That made Alice grin kindly, tilting her head as she gaped him. She was no empath, but it wasn't hard to read that there was so much blame, regret, and hurt.

Brushing her thumbs up his arm, the feeling of the small bumps on his skin caught her eyes. Alice had seen it in her visions, but it was entirely different to inspect it so flamingly under her fingertips. There were so many crescents adorning his limb. Alice traced it up to his elbow, where his sleeves were rolled up to, and forced herself not to relinquish further. She didn't hold back on the curiosity though, biting her lower lip casually when her eyes met Jasper's again. He was serene and amused.

"Battle scars." Alice guessed, making Jasper nod and grin.

"That's a way of putting it."

"I got one too." She taunted and rammed a small lock of hair away from her jugular to reveal the crescent reposing just below her earlobe. Alice's hair wasn't long, it was actually relatively short for a woman. But it was always neatly brushed and pinned to place. It had a dazzling nineteen-twenties flair to it. But Jasper was prying on the scar.

He dissected the bite carefully. I was neat, sharp and precise, most certainly done by an older of their kind. He queried then if the Volturi might be involved in that. But then again, he had never seen, in a single case, a situation where the ancient vampires wouldn't have taken advantage of powers like hers. They wouldn't simply turn her if they hadn't any clue what Alice could do, and they undoubtedly wouldn't leave her wandering if they knew her powers. So it couldn't have been them.

"I can tell the vampire who did it is very controlled." Jasper clarified with Alice's inquisitively eyeing his inspection. "You see, it's not too deep, so they didn't get carried away. There's no struggle either. You could have known them or—" He paused, considering and suspecting the possibility.

"Or?"

"You could have been asleep. Had you fought the bite, the marks could have been deeper or clumsier." He sought for one in his arm and showed her the mark. "This one, I was surprised with and fought back," Jasper told and then revealed her a second one, cleaner. "This one I saw them coming, but I was quick to remove them. Yours is even fairer. There was definitely no struggle." He knew a great deal about it and, of course, that she had suffered with the venom after, but maybe not during the bite.

"I genuinely can't recall." She clarified with a smile.

"Neither the pain?" When she shook her head, Jasper blew surprisedly.

"I woke up as a vampire, even if I didn't know that's what I was."

"And then you saw me." Abruptly Alice felt perfectly happy, as the images of that original vision overran her memory. Jasper felt that same utter fulfillment.

There was something so comfortable about Alice, about how her emotions were divinely pure, and yet she didn't feel innocent at all. Her gifts brought her truth and knowledge of a future she couldn't ever grasp with precision, of the enormous amount of possibilities eternity could bring to her and others. It was a lot of weight for one to carry, a massive amount of responsibility. Jasper assumed that could drive anyone mad, but evidently, not Alice. Her visions brought her safety, direction. She had discovered to live with them and use it all to her aid and survival. He hadn't had such a fond familiarity with his own gifts.

"You helped me, Jasper." Alice murmured, her kind eyes never leaving his face even with his orbs drifted to observe the yard. "I understand it's a lot to concoct and grasp that you could have somehow aided someone that you never met, but you did. In so many ways." Her visions brought Alice not only tenacity but also hope, strength and utter love. She belonged somewhere with someone, and that was always Jasper.

"I can't remember the last time I aided someone in any way." With regret, he admitted inaudibly. Jasper couldn't find it in himself to stare back at Alice, who had reached over to hold his hand again.

"For the past twenty-eight years, you have. If there was any way to show you, I would." Although her tone was playful, Alice meant it. There hadn't been a single day for the past years that his image in her mind hadn't brought her peace.

Jasper eyed her as a thought crossed his mind. "Maybe, in a way, you can." She grimaced, but it faded as her vision blurred into the coming events. Alice observed them sunk into absolute stillness as she cherished every time Jasper had helped her in the past, and he sat beside her, experiencing it all.

"Oh! I didn't realize."

He knew by then she'd seen what he was going to suggest but said it anyway, "I can feel everything you feel. Most of the time, I try to keep it on the surface, but I can tune in the best frequency like a radio."

"That's remarkable." Alice gaped, nodding promptly. "We might be here a while." She had seen it already in her vision, so she warned warmly.

"I have all the time in the world." Hearing him say that brought Alice a remarkable feeling that things were falling all in the proper places.

Jasper didn't have to hold her palm to tune in with her emotions, but as Alice shut her eyes, he gripped her hand tighter. His thumb smoothing her knuckles encouragingly.

Alice took her time running over all the visions that had ever spanned her mind concerning Jasper. Some had already befallen him by now and others that stood to unfold. Each particular one stamped in her essence as a world they hadn't partaken unitedly, but that molded who they were going to be.

In every single one of them, Jasper felt the nuances it produced in her atmosphere. It was such an intimate moment, examining the depths of her sensations, the shifts flush even slightly. Jasper periodically equaled his empath capabilities to the ability to hear the drumming of people's hearts, only loudly inside his head. Vampires had no heartbeat, always frozen in time, but sharing that with Alice felt as if he was inside her heart, tasting it pulse distinctly to every new turn of events.

He yearned to know what she saw, what those sentiments were related to. There were infinite of them for such a small individual. Delight, respect, anguish, longing, jealousy, affliction, cheer, desire, lust, crave, passion, and the most utterly wondrous love. Every single emotion invaded Jasper so vigorous, settling in and embracing every inch in his body. It was all so devoted, intimate.

None of them had any clue how long they engaged in this, but no amount of time seemed to be enough. Alice's untarnished bliss dwelled across her features as all that ever involved Jasper did. He was her personal craving for so long that all felt as still a dream. Sharing each emotion that he had ever induced in her, with an open soul, felt sublime.

When her eyes lastly reopened, he was gazing her so profoundly. The red orbs so patient and gratified. Jasper had never felt so wholly connected to another living or dead soul like Alice had just done. It wasn't the simple fact he could go into the depth of her emotions but the truth behind them. He understood then their tie surpassed anything he had ever witnessed or endured in over a hundred years. The twitching pull her presence had, the peace her sentiments brought him, and the welcome always found in her eyes were forever to be cherished by Jasper. He knew then that he would eternally do anything to protect her. There was no longer the feasibility of him walking away. Alice saw that too.

"Alice." He uttered quietly.

She didn't pronounce a word, instead inclining to rest her temples against his, eyes closing again. There was more silence, but it was all so serene and adequate. Her free hand grasped to stroke his cheek, grazing her nails against his cheek blandly. She saw his next words but let him go on with them.

"I did many things I am not proud of." He breathed out, at last closing his eyes. He sunk into her scent, her presence, as he told himself he would leave if she ordered him to. But Jasper wasn't sure any longer he could ever have the strength.

"Shh..." She shushed him nimbly but tenderly. "You never have to be that again."

"Alice." He pleaded this time. Jasper stretched to touch her arm as his other hand stood there with hers, fingers linked together. He knew so much about existing in pain and destruction. But standing there with Alice was coming back home. Living eternally and perceiving the world around him so profoundly could be alright as long as she was there, as he could still hold her.

"It's not going to change how I feel about you, Jasper." She calmed, assuringly.

"You still deserve to know."

"Then tell me, I'm all ears."