Spoiler for Defy me in the note:
So, I would just like to tell you that I am honestly scared about writing right now. Because it's not long left for our boy Jasper. Defy me takes place during, like, four days. And I think I can get like two more chapter out with him still being alive. I'm almost crying, I love him so much.
I have also decided to make two branches continuing this fic as soon as Jasper dies. One I've come up with before reading Imagine me, and then another one (hopefully) when I've read what actually happens and I'll be full of inspiration again. So Steps will be finished and the next one will pick it up.
Hopefully I can get that done before Imagine me actually comes out xD
She didn't come to dinner. He dismissed it as her refusing to be in the same room as Warner.
He went to her room afterwards, hoping to catch a moment to speak with her, and make sure she had eaten something. But she wasn't there.
And not when he dropped by to tell her goodnight either.
He had felt a spark of worry, but noticed that things had moved about in her room; the chair by her desk, the note he had left; so he concluded she was merely avoiding him.
It troubled him. But he decided it could wait until the next day, and returned to his duties that carried on later into the evening.
It was when he had returned to his own quarters that she had shown up.
Literally.
He was buttoning his pajama shirt when one moment: his bed was empty, and the next Alice was sitting on top of it.
"G-good Lord!", he had shrieked and jumped a feet into the air.
"Alice…!", he exclaimed palm against his chest to try and still his rapidly beating heart.
She did not say anything, just looked down at her locked hands in her lap. She was dressed in pyjamas.
"W-what's the matter?", he asked patiently once he had calmed down. He sat down on the bed next to her.
"I'm sleeping in here tonight", she told him.
He pursed his lips at that, completely hiding his mouth in his mustache. He could have guessed as much. Now, he knew it wasn't appropriate for an old man like himself to sleep in the same bed as a young girl; especially one at the brink of puberty like Alice; but the girl did not leave any room to object.
"A-alright", he said.
He paused for a moment in contemplation.
Was now a good as time as any?
He gathered his courage.
"A-a-about-"
"Jasper, I don't want to talk now. I'm tired", she said, as if reading his thoughts.
She turned away and started pulling away his covers.
He remained sitting, once again hand fallen on what to do. Persist and risk pushing her away even further? He could not do that.
She stopped midway of fluffing one of his pillows, and he saw how she bit her lip. She glanced at him.
"It's not you I'm angry with, Jasper", she said then in an attempt to comfort him as she resumed preparing the pillow.
"I'm angry at Aaron."
"And Miss Ferrars?", he wondered.
"I hate her."
Well, there it was. At least he didn't have to walk around wondering if he could help salvage that relationship.
There wasn't much you could do about a young girl's hatred. He had learnt enough of that from conversations across table tops.
"You d-don't have to like her...", he said after a little while.
"Good", she responded.
Still.
"He w-was an evil man, Alice", the Lieutenant blurted out.
She actually stopped. Looked at him while letting the pillow fall to her lap.
"I-I…", he tried, but still didn't know how he was supposed to tell her. What he was supposed to tell her.
"I don't want to tell you exactly, because it should be a thing of the p-past. But...", he faltered, overcome with the memories of said things.
She actually waited.
"Pe-perhaps there could have been a way to g-go about it without k-killing him…", he said forcing himself to see the reasoning despite the unease filling his body as the words left his mouth.
"But t-this is how things are now. And I know they can hardly become wo-wo-worse than they already were with M-miss Ferrars in power", he finally said.
She was quiet for a long while after that. Then, finally:
"I'm not scared of what she might do. What I'm scared of is dying in my sleep when they decide to drop a bunch of bombs on us", she said.
"Alice that-"
"I know what they did to that rebel base!", she interrupted.
"So, I'm sleeping in here." And with that she unraveled the bedding and got herself underneath the cover.
He only sat on the bedside for a little longer, wondering if anything he had said had helped at all, and then got underneath the covers himself.
"Y-you can wake me up-p if I snore", he told her.
He waited for a response, but none came.
"Goodnight", he said, a little scared that she wouldn't respond.
"Goodnight, Jasper", she said, her back turned.
He turned off the lights.
A little while later someone moved in the dark room and he felt her curl up against his side.