A/N Here ya go. Longest chapter yet. I'm not sure if I got the grief down right. Maybe its just not as potent for me because I'm the one writing it?

"...J...Jasper?"

I was frozen in place. A well of emotion burst inside of me. I wasn't sure if it was sadness or happiness I was feeling. I tried to speak but my motor functions stopped working and I couldn't stop staring. What was aCullen- I spat the words out in my head- doing in my house? My face flushed and my heartbeat quickened to a pace it hadn't reached in a long time. I saw Jasper looking at me, there was guilt in his eyes. He wasn't breathing.

"Hello...Bella." There was grief when he said my name.

"W-wh...what are-"

Before I could form a coherent sentence, someone came bounding down the stairs.

I couldn't understand what was going on. Staring at me from the foot of the stairs was a pixie like girl, wide eyed and smiling with her intensely white teeth blinding me a little. Her black hair was short and wispy accentuating her very fair skin.

"Alice," was all I could whisper before the perky vampire lunged at me with her arms spread open.

I tried to run out of the way, but my human reactions could never be fast enough to dodge her. She hugged me, lifting me off the ground, even though I was inches taller than her. She pushed her cheek up against mine as she squeezed me and I couldn't take the coldness that emanated from her. It stung me to my core. Goosebumps spread all over me and and I instantly hated the feeling of them prickling off my skin. If I could tear my flesh off, I would.

As soon as she dropped me back down, I ran. I ran passed her heading towards the door, but just as I was going to reach for the doorknob, my feet tangled and I tripped. Before my face made contact with the floor, I was in her arms again. Berated my the cold again. Recoiling from her touch I backed away quickly. I huddled myself against the wall near the door feeling trapped. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I sunk my head in between my knees and began rocking myself back and forth, closing my eyes tight as the tears fell. I didn't want to open them and embraced the darkness that greeted me. I couldn't see them as long as my eyes were closed. I was silently praying that by the time my eyes opened again, they would be gone.

"You're not real. You're not real," I chanted to myself. I repeated these words over and over as I tried to get my body to stop involuntarily shaking.

"Bella..." I heard her musical voice, all the exuberance she once had was gone.

"You're not real! You're not real!" I rose my voice drowning out her words before they reached my ears.

I felt something cold press against my arm.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!!!" I screamed. The cold hand that was reaching out to me left, but the spot on my arm that it touched was violently breaking out with more goosebumps.

My eyes were swollen as I tried so hard to push them closed. It only quickened the pace in which the tears dropped. I took in a deep breath. And another one. I was hyperventilating. I felt the the darkness that I sought in my mind spread all over my body. Worse still was that it was never darkness that I was embracing. It was a black hole. The wrecking ball was pounding again, threating to break through my chest. At the same time, the hole in my stomach was starting to give me physical pain. I focused on my breathing. One thing at a time. I exhaled carefully, but couldn't control it. Each outtake of air from my lungs escaped in a choking sob. After a lot more tries, my breathing slowed, not at a normal pace, but slow enough to block out the sobs. Two more problems to go.

I slowly pulled my head out from between my soaked knees. With my eyes still closed, I looked up and began to open them.

Alice was still there kneeling in front of me. At first I thought I was looking in a mirror. Her expression was so torn. I looked up and saw Jasper standing above her. He was leaning against the opposite wall with his eyes shut. His fists were clenched tightly and I saw him shudder.

I stared at the two of them and I felt calmness begin to take me over. I knew what he was doing and willed Jasper to let it happen. I immediately began to start feeling better. The pain was leaving my being. Comfort was washing over me slowly drowning out all the hurt. When it suddenly stopped, I felt the waves of calm withdrawing. I was being pulled back in, deeper into the black hole and Jasper couldn't save me. He let out a soft cry and moved himself as far as he could from me. He crouched down in the same position as me and began to tremble, rocking himself back and forth just as I was.

"Bella...You have to stop. Please! Let him help you!" Alice was begging me.

"I can't," I choked out. "He can't." I truly did want him to help me. I didn't like feeling this way. I was having a break down. This was it. This was the feeling that came back to me every night in my dreams. This is what I fought so hard to avoid remembering every morning.

"Bella, please you can." She was looking desperately at me, and back at Jasper who I was dragging back with me into my black hole. "Jasper try again. Please! Bella, you have to work with him!" She was speaking frantically as if our lives depended on it.

I felt another wave of calm brush through me, but this time, I didn't let it drown out my pain. It could never do that. The hole was too big for him to fill alone. I held my breath and tried to bury it. I buried it and pushed back inside me, as far away as I could. I felt nothing anymore. I let myself blank away any emotion so Jasper could rebuild me.

"I- I think I'm better now." I stood to get up. I no longer held any illusions about their presence here. They were here and I had to face that, only not there was a confidence in me that I didn't have before.

Just as I stood up, Jasper did too. Alice looked at me and her eyes narrowed. She stopped breathing abruptly. Jasper who was panting and breathing heavily just a few moments before stopped too.

"I'm sorry. I have to go." He kissed Alice on the cheek and gave me another despaired look before running out the door.

I pressed my fingers above my lips and inspected it. My nose was bleeding. I looked at Alice, afraid of what her reaction would be.

"I'm fine Bella. I can handle it," she said, not looking at me.

I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a paper towel to block the bleeding. Alice followed me every step of the way, still holding her breath.

"Bella, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I came back, but I had to see you." I had nothing to say. I didn't know what to say, so I waited for her to say something. "Can we talk, please?"

I still couldn't find words. I simply nodded at her request and followed her as she went to sit on the couch in the living room. I sat next to her, but a cushion away keeping my distance.

"I didn't know it was like this Bella." Her voice still sounded musical, only now the song was a sad one. "I thought if I brought Jasper, it would help. I didn't know...I didn't think that..," she stopped, trying to find the words.

I noticed now that Jasper was gone, I felt the darkness creeping up on me again. This time though, I knew it was only darkness. I would be able to handle it. For now.

"Ed-"

"Stop." The word came instinctively before she could finish.

"I'm sorry." She stared at the space between us.

"Why are you here Alice? Why did you come back?" My voice was surprisingly calm.

"I had a vision," she said glancing back in the direction of the kitchen. "I saw a fire in your house, and there were police and a firetruck, but I didn't see you or Charlie. I wasn't sure what happened, but I thought you were dead Bella.

"An hour later, I got another vision of you. I didn't understand what was happening. I saw you. You were alive, and I was happy. But there was something off."

"What do you mean?"

"I saw you Bella, and I would see you talking. Every time I would check to see try and make sense of things, I would almost always see you talking. The weird thing is, is that you were always talking to yourself. I was worried about you. Sometimes you would be laughing or be in a deep conversation...with yourself."

I thought about what she said. The fire did happen, but I never talked to myself. I wasn't crazy. She saw the confused look on my face.

"I'm glad that you're okay," she rethought her words. "Safe, I mean. Tell me what happened after the fire."

"Me and Charlie went to stay with the Blacks, down at La Push." I thought about Jake and what he was doing and why he still wasn't with me at that exact moment.

"La Push?" Alice sounded frightened. "Bella, you mustn't stay there!"

"I'm not. Not anymore. The house will be ready tomorrow." I wanted to ask why she cared about me staying with the Blacks, but decided against it. I was angry. She left me, what business did she have with who my friends were? I would have snapped back at her, but she changed the subject.

"Bella, there's more than one reason for why I came." She took a deep breath, apparently better, now that my nose had stopped bleeding. "Ed-"

"St-" She pressed on, interrupting my interruption.

"Edward," she emphasized his name. "has been away from us for sometime. The whole family hasn't really been together since we left." She paused watching my expression. "Well, I had a vision of you because I'm so used to you. I was still in tune with you.

"It's the same thing with Jasper. He's in tune with Edward," I flinched at the sound of his name. "You saw him earlier. How he was when you...when you gave in to sorrow. You weren't like that before, because Jasper probably wouldn't even be sane if he had to deal with your pain too."

She said Jasper couldn't handle my pain too. Was she talking about him?

"You see, even though he's gone, Jasper can still feel his emotions. It's horrible Bella. Sometimes he just can't cope. They can't cope. Jasper is like that all the time now, and that just means...," she trailed off.

"What does that have to do with me?" I asked not wanting to have this conversation anymore.

"Bella, it has everything to do with you." She looked at me, pleading to me with her eyes. "I brought Jasper hoping he would be safe here, considering that he was getting nothing off of you recently."

"Recently? I haven't broken down like that since..." My mind flashed to a meadow, but I quickly pushed it back away as another part of me was being enveloped in the darkness.

"He feels it from him. All the time. But it gets worse at night. That's when it becomes unbearable. I can't stand seeing him that way." She closed her eyes. I knew that if she could cry, she would.

"My nightmares..."

"Yes. I wouldn't have come, but the nights stopped being so unbearable for Jasper. And it all happened after I had those visions of you. I didn't know what I was going to find once I came, but I brought him along with me hoping to fix this."

I felt bad for Jasper, but there was still something I needed to know.

"Who else did you tell about your visions Alice?" she looked up to me, a small smile forming on her lips.

"Well, I only told Jasper." She was smiling at me and that worried me. "But that doesn't mean others couldn't have overheard." There was a gleam in her eye.

My heart sunk. I couldn't handle anymore visits, especially not from him.

"Don't worry, It's not who you think. I dragged Jasper here with me before telling him anything. We were running near the forests that border Forks and I decided it was best to tell him before we actually saw anyone. I explained to him about the fire I saw in my vision. And I told him you were dead." She was smiling awfully hard despite the terrible sentence she just uttered.

I was about to say something and she saw the hurt look on my face. I was still confused.

"Wait, I'm not finished. After I told him, I heard a soft hiss and some trees rustling. We tried to catch the eavesdropper, but found nothing. We inspected the place where we heard the noises coming from and smelled her."

"Her?" Who in the world could they have smelled to make her smile so much. There's only one person that I could think of, but the person certainly wasn't a her.

"Victoria," her tone turned dark.

"Victoria?" I was shaking now.

"Yes," she said quietly. "She was going to kill you. For killing James, she was going to kill you to get back at Edward. She thinks you're dead now. I checked and she is not going to go through with it. Believe me, I saw what she had planned. It was horrible, but you're safe Bella. She's not going to come after you."

I leaned back against the couch. This was too much information for me to handle. I was feeling faint. Just as I was about to slip into unconsciousness, the door bell rang. Repeatedly, which brought me back to my senses. I looked at Alice and she had a disgusted look in her face with her nose crinkled.

I got up feeling woozy, grabbing the couch for support. I went to answer the door still leaning on things for support. I opened it and the darkness started to retreat. Jake was standing there on the other side with a grimace, but I was still happy he was there.

Before I could greet him, Alice walked by me and out of the door. She stopped after passing Jake and looked back at me.

"Bye Bella, I'll see you again soon." She and Jacob gazed at each other with mutual disgust and hate, then she continued to walk back into the black Mercedes and drove away. Jasper probably ran back leaving the car for Alice.

Jacob turned to me taking a few seconds to gather himself. Then, not too unexpectedly, he got me into one of his bear hugs.

"Bella I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you like that." He squeezed me hard. It felt nice to be in his arms. Everything was so simple and I felt safe again.

"Jake it's okay." I thought about what to say. I couldn't tell him about the Cullens, but I stuck as close to the truth as I could. "Some old friends just decided to visit...it got emotional."

"I'm still sorry. I promise, I'll never leave you like that again." I didn't understand what the problem was between Alice and Jake, but I still wasn't angry at either of them.

"Don't beat yourself up. You have no reason to be upset. You came back didn't you?" I smiled at him, trying to get him to stop feeling so guilty. "Why did you leave me anyway?" I was stung a little when he left me, but I was still curious. I never once doubted that he wouldn't come back though. I didn't have my truck.

"Umm...I just had to tell the guys something." He was keeping something from me. I gave him a questioning look. "Seriously Bells, it was really important, I couldn't go with you. It's complicated."

I knew that Jake's dad hated the Cullens, so I just let it slide. I didn't need to know the details.

"Okay, just take me back home." I was feeling really tired. It was the first time I remember crying in a week, and I forgot how much it drained me.

"Yeah," he grabbed my hand leading me to his car. "The day's not over yet. And we still got tomorrow." He was swinging my arm back and forth as we walked. I leaned onto him, still a little tired. For a moment I saw his nose scrunch up and sniff something in the air. Was it the smoke still? I tried to copy what the others have been doing since I came back here, but I still couldn't smell anything. His face went back to normal and I just let him walk me back to our ride.

"One more day," I said to myself.

A/N See? I dealt with Vicky and now she's gone forever. Whoopee doo. I want to finish this story, but I'm not sure how many chapters it will be. I already have 3 or 4 ideas for new stories hehe. I'll finish this one first because I don't want to multi task. If you don't like the direction this story is going, just remember to tell me. It helps.