Poor vision was not a problem Jasper had, nor was scoliosis, yet there he sat, hunched over his self-assembled (and thus perfected) PC, his eyes squinted as he stared at the glowing screen. He had only been at work on the website for a few moments, and it was already falling to pieces in his nimble, expert hands.

Over the past few decades, it had been his job to hack into the collegiate systems for himself and his siblings when high school transcripts were unavailable. The hack was simple enough; the only things truly necessary were the falsified transcripts, certification, and background paperwork, and that was where J came into play. Another package from the man had arrived in the post office box that morning, and all that was left to do was get into the University of Saskatchewan registrar. Sure, it was illegal, but it was so like child's play – even for a human child – that it barely counted. In a moment, the acceptance was ready to go through, and Jasper's fingers were quickly flying across the keyboard, typing in the required fields with the information he had already gathered.

Name:

Rosalie Lillian Hale

Date of Birth:

June 15, 1994

Address:

5132 Main, P.O. Box 1915

La Ronge, SK SOJ 1L0

The rest of the information was typed in quickly enough, detailing her supposed high school attendance and extracurricular activities, her grade point average, even a short essay he spun up off the top of his head (just to seem legitimate. She would get into the university either way, what with his hacking skills and the significant donation Carlisle was making). A few more keystrokes and one solitary click of the mouse…and Rosalie's acceptance letter was being printed out beside him. He was placing it in the file he had set aside for her when he heard the door crack open just the slightest hair. Jasper paused to smell the air and –

He smiled and turned to the door. "Hello, beautiful."

Alice beamed. "Hi, Jazz."

Jasper leaned back in his chair as she came closer, hopping lightly to sit on the edge of the desk. The short purple skirt she was wearing hiked up her legs, exposing the smooth, creamy skin of her thighs. Jasper swallowed hard and averted his eyes to her face as Alice peered over at his computer and asked what he was doing.

"Registering Rosalie for school," he explained, twisting the screen to show her. "She's starting her engineering classes in a month."

Alice paused and pursed her lips, a sure sign she disapproved, yet nothing contrary was said, just a soft, "That's kind of you."

Despite the temptation, Jasper reached forward and put his hand on her knee. "You don't think that, do you?"

She shrugged her thin shoulders, again noncommittal and evasive, her eyes focused somewhere over his shoulder. He could feel the discouragement seeping out of her, something that was only held back by the love and adoration he always felt in his wife.

"Alice," he murmured, reaching up to tilt her face towards his, making her eyes meet his own. "Say what you think. If we disagree…well, it won't be the first time."

She smiled, just a little, and it was slightly tinged with sorrow, but it was a smile nonetheless. "It's just," she started slowly, "here you are taking care of Rosalie and getting her into this school – not that I think she shouldn't go, I…I just…"

The disapproval started to trickle in then, and he bit his lip. "You're upset I'm helping our sister out?"

"It's not like that."

"It seems that way."

This time, it was her small palm that met his cheek. "Think about it, Jasper. Who's to blame? Did Emmett start this whole ridiculous proceeding? Did he serve her with paperwork?"

"No, but –"

"Then it's her fault for doing this. For ending their marriage. You know he would've stayed if they had tried to work things out. He would've even apologized, I know he would. I love her, Jazz, she's my sister and she always will be. But she's breaking up our family."

"She is not. They're both still here. We're still all together."

"Barely!"

"She's my twin, Alice. What am I supposed to do?"

Alice kept her mouth shut tight but gave him a Look.

"Alright, not in the blood sense. But I understand where Rose is coming from."

She arched a singular jet eyebrow. "Does that mean you're going to divorce me next?"

"Come on, love, you know I didn't –"

"Then explain it to me. Explain to me how what she's doing to our family can possibly be right."

"What she's doing?" he repeated. "What about everything Emmett did? All those pranks? He was behaving like a child. He didn't try to apologize, how do you know he would now? Rosalie had to get it through to him somehow. And while I don't entirely agree with her method –"

Alice snorted.

" – that doesn't mean I don't support her. She's our sister."

"She broke them up. She broke everyone up!"

"Broken or not, we still are a family." The words rang in the air like bells for one still moment before he went on. "And so I offer my services to her as a brother, no matter what choices she makes."

Alice's lips were drawn and tense; he didn't need to feel her emotions to know she was upset with him. He let his hands fall down to her own, clasping them tightly.

"Alice, please," he said gently, "let's not let this upset us too. The whole house is so tense. I can hardly stand it. I'd just about explode if you were mad at me too."

He knew it was almost like cheating, but he put just the slightest twang to his words as he spoke them, knowing that would help melt her heart the tiniest bit.

It did. She leaned forward and pressed her cool lips to his forehead, staying there for a brief moment before drawing back and sliding off the desk, standing between his spread knees.

"I may not agree with everything you do," she admitted with a slight smile, "but I know your heart's in the right place. The wrong person, maybe, but the right place."

He rolled his eyes and grinned, squeezing her hand just as the door opened once more. Still keeping her grip on him, Alice stepped aside and looked over at the guest – no, guests – who had come into the study.

"Rose, Bella," Jasper said, rising to his feet to greet his sisters. He could see Alice out of the corner of his eye hanging her head and felt the slightest feeling of shame coursing out of her. Gently, he rubbed his thumb over the pad of her hand, trying to ease the feeling out of her – if only for his sanity. Having Alice upset meant intense stress on his empathy as well as on their marriage.

"We came to see if the forms were done," Rosalie said stiffly. Her honey-hued eyes flickered nervously down to Alice's, almost as if she could feel the tension in the air as well as Jasper. Truly, it wouldn't be that hard. Almost everyone was standing still as statues, dancing carefully around the elephant in the room.

"Yes, right here." Jasper leaned down and pulled the file from the drawer he had placed it in. He stepped forward to hand it to her, Alice letting go of his hand in the process; his palm felt entirely too empty without it, but he refrained from grasping her again after Rosalie had taken the file. He had already felt that flicker of pain coming from his sister when she had spotted their casual embrace upon entering.

"Thank you," she murmured as she began shuffling through the papers.

"Did it take very long?" Bella asked – in an effort to fill the silence, it seemed.

Jasper shook his head. "Not at all."

Alice's cool fingers brushed on his arm as she stepped away, giving him a sympathetic little look. All three of them silently watched her go to the door, no one speaking until she was nearly out.

"Alice?"

It was Rosalie. She had a worried look in her eyes and a nervous feeling emanating out of her. The small black-haired beauty stopped in the doorway and looked back at her sister.

"Did you think…we were supposed to go to Regina tomorrow, to shop, remember?" Her words were hesitant, as if they had been sitting on her tongue for the longest time, trivial as they were.

Alice bit her bottom lip and stared at the floor, her mind surely whirring with potential happenings. Jasper felt a blur of emotion before she became calm once more.

She looked at Rosalie, the corners of her mouth curling up ever so slightly. "I'll meet you in the garage at nine."

But Jasper could still feel the hesitancy in her, the hesitancy going to battle with her so strong sense of family ties. Her eyes met his once more before she shut the door behind her.

"Well…that was awkward," Bella murmured.

Rosalie let out a weighty sigh. "Is that how it's going to be from now on?"

"What, tense and painful?" said Bella.

She shrugged. "I suppose. Do we have to be a family divided? Can't we just take what happened, understand it, and let things go?

Jasper felt Alice's defensive words jump into his mouth but he bit his tongue. Yes, it was Rosalie and Emmett's shared fault, and yes, their inability to get along was making it horribly difficult to 'let things go,' but he wasn't about to remind her of that – and invoke her wrath. He would just be the dutiful brother and attentive husband, siding with his adopted twin while still loving his wife.

"We just have to go on," he said in a non-committal way.

Rose pursed her red lips in a pout. "Are you sure you don't want to go to university too? It'll be so much more fun if I'm not alone."

He hid a smirk. "Me, an engineering student? No, I think my time is better diverted in the application rather than the learning process. Besides, I only just finished my anthropology degree."

"You'll be fine on your own," Bella said supportively, but Rosalie still sniffed in a hurt way, her dramatics never failing to appear. She gave thanks for the files as if bestowing a benediction before walking out of the room, her head held mightily high.

Jasper sighed heavily once his sisters had left. Truly, in all honesty, his heart belonged with Alice, and that was where his loyalty should lie. But did they really all have to make it so difficult?

While Jasper was downstairs contemplating the puzzle that is the female species, Alice was upstairs in their room, specifically in her "thinking place." The little space between her full-length mirror and her floor-to-ceiling shoe rack (the space she hoped to fill with that huge beautiful rosewood makeup trunk she had been dropping hints about to everyone and anyone) was the perfect spot to curl up into and dream a while. She felt such a spot was necessary when literal sleeping dreams were impossible and when your wildest dreams were often achievable, thanks to the immense amount of wealth she had helped her family accrue over the years.

For the moment, she was hugging her knees to her chest, imagining a world where everything was back to normal, their family was happy and whole and everyone was together. For such a long part of her life, she had been hungry for a family. She had been alone and had wanted nothing more than to be a part of a loving whole. And she had gotten it. After years of searching, she had found the most wonderful man, her soulmate, her Jasper. And then they had found their family. Now, it was all coming to pieces with one stupid piece of paperwork.

She should have seen it coming. She should have been paying attention to the future and put a stop to this. But no, her focus had been on that ridiculous clothing line – alright, not ridiculous, but still nowhere near as important as her family. If she had tried, perhaps she could have seen them, intervened, or at least fixed it so there wouldn't be such a horrible divide between the family. That was perhaps the worst part. Not only were Rosalie and Emmett going against each other, but their opposing feelings had spread to the rest of the Cullens as well.

Alice and Edward were with Emmett, of course, feeling that Rosalie's decision had ultimately broke up the family (though Edward was mostly on Emmett's side to make Rose mad). Jasper was with his twin, Bella was siding with the woman who had helped to save her child, understandably, and Carlisle and Esme were remaining as neutral as possible. Perhaps it was rude and awful of her to be siding with Emmett rather than the girl who had been her only sister for so long, but it was even more awful of Rosalie to do this to them.

And so she remained huddled up in the one empty space left over in her customized closet, running one fingertip over the t-strap of her new turquoise Dolce and Gabbana sandals, trying to come up with a concrete scenario wherein she could wear them to yet another wedding for Emmett and Rosalie.

Nothing.

She sighed heavily and rested her forehead on her knees. Not a single vision. At least not one that didn't end in dissolution of property or one or both moving out. The only thing she was getting now included Jasper currently making his way up the stairs to check on her.

Alice looked up to find her husband poised in the doorway, watching her with a sorrowful expression on his face. She pursed her lips; what reason did he have to be sad?

"I don't like it when you're upset," he said as if reading her thoughts. She shrugged her thin shoulders while he moved into the closet, sliding down to kneel before her gracefully. "Talk to me."

"I just…" she started then stopped, taking an unnecessary breath before going on. "I want us all to be happy again."

Jasper smoothed a broad hand over her head, brushing her choppy hair behind her ear. "And we will be happy. In time."

"Not the same way."

"No, not the same way. But things never stay the same. You know that better than any of us."

"But I can't see a thing. Not how long it will take or how we can get back to normal or anything."

"I suppose since everyone's so unsure themselves, that makes sense."

Her eyes grew wide and serious. "But Jasper…I can't even see Emmett laughing. Not for months and months."

Jasper was still for only a moment before nodding. "I can understand that. If I were to lose you…"

Alice's stare grew blank for a moment as she imagined the horrors that would follow such an occurrence. She shook her head furiously. "No, you know that would never happen."

"So," he said softly, "in the meantime, can we agree to disagree about who's to blame and just stay strong for one another? Make it through this together?"

She sighed softly then nodded, positive she could make it through almost anything with Jasper to help her.