Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or its characters.

Again... Hope everyone enjoys the chapter! :D

As much as I hated it, I left the engagement ring in Jasper's possession. That was one gift I didn't need to pop up in the wrong hands. At school, I found myself absentmindedly playing with the empty finger as if it was still there. I did it so much I was surprised no one called me out on it. Not having an excuse to spend every day at the Cullen's, I didn't get to wear it as often as I wanted to. Whenever an invite from Rosalie came and I could spend time with Jasper, the ring never left my finger. In fact, my eyes rarely left it.

With the good came the bad. Whatever relationship with Edward I was building was completely non-existent ever since the day of the proposal. At first, whenever I was near him at school or at Jasper's, I found myself saying how sorry I was. It wasn't until I realized I had no reason to be sorry, that this was the way everything was supposed to work, that I stopped trying to call for Edward's forgiveness.

Nine days after my birthday celebration with the house full of vampires and five days after I celebrated it with my human family, I found myself sitting on the couch in Charlie's living room, not watching the football game that was on. Instead, I saw our calendar with the days of September already lived crossed off. Then I saw a pen stopping after the word 'leaving' in my right hand and the engagement ring I never wore at home on my left. It took seconds to play but a minute to understand. When Charlie jumped up in excitement over the touchdown, I jumped up to get my phone.

"Where are you going?" he asked as I touched the bottom step.

"It's time to call Jasper. Let me know who wins."

"You plan on talking to him for two hours?"

"Look who you're talking to, dad."

I heard a faint chuckle and ran up the stairs and into my room. Bella was on our bed – studying or reading I couldn't be sure – when I picked up the phone. "I almost forgot to call Jasper." She rolled her eyes at me and I ducked out of the room. Pushing his speed dial number, I walked into Charlie's room.

"Hello, Jas –"

"Jasper, can you come over," I whispered in unneeded panic.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just…saw something and I want to talk to you face to face."

"I understand. I'll be there shortly."

I pushed the red END button on the phone and dropped my arm to my side for a moment before putting it back to my ear. Faking a conversation, I walked back out of my father's room and down the stairs. As soon as I closed the door, I hurriedly walked into the forest that almost surrounded the house, the phone at my side. I stopped only when I knew the area was safe from prying eyes. I paced the length of about ten feet with my eyes on the ground until Jasper caught me in a hug. I willed myself to calm down or Jasper helped me; either way, I didn't step away from him until I was sure my face wasn't scrunched up in unfelt pain.

"We're leaving," I said, breaking the silence, "in three days. In the morning before everyone is awake. Well, in my house. I'm going to leave a note as my goodbye."

"I thought we were waiting."

"But I saw."

"They are not always true, are they?" he asked and I could feel my fear and sadness in his voice. He wanted to leave as much as I did.

"But we have to leave, right? I can't be changed here."

"Was it this year? The calendar?"

I stopped to think about what I saw. There was the table with a new lily in the same souvenir cup I put the one Jasper gave to me earlier. The calendar hanging by two small but heavy duty circular magnets was on the refrigerator on the other side of the table against the wall. The calendar had the same picture of Mt. Rainier as the one hanging on the fridge at this moment. Charlie's dentist appointment was written on the same day as was my smiley face on the thirtieth that secretly marked the date when I would get to see Jasper again. None of that held any definite proof as the year printed to the left of the big, bold, and black September that announced this vision was taking place this year and not any other.

"Yes."

"But they are not always true, are they?" he asked again.

"Most of the time," I finally answered.

"Why are we leaving?"

Without missing a beat, I breathed, "Edward."

Jasper gently pushed me away to look at my face. "What does he have to do with it?"

"Nothing and everything." He looked at me, confused. "What if we have to do this for them? Edward will never pursue Bella if I'm around. A tragedy brings people together, right?"

"Why does Edward need to pursue Bella?"

I smiled lightly despite of myself. "Fairytale answer: Because Edward loves Bella even if he doesn't know it yet. Selfish answer: I can't spend eternity with you without my sister. I need both of you."

He took his eyes off me as he worked through the information I gave him. I knew without asking he was trying to go through all the scenarios in his mind's eye, figure out every battle plan that would leave me in Forks as a human for another year. I, on the other hand, was trying to figure out what would happen if we didn't end up in the same position as my vision. Would I change the future that was handed to me as soon as I said yes to Jasper if I stayed behind? Were my visions just something that could happen instead of a future reality? I never questioned my visions before now; they always led me in the right direction, but did I really trust them now?

"There is a cabin in Canada. They will look for us there, but if we get a head start…"

"…I will have enough time to change," I finished. "So we're going to do this?"

He finally looked back at me and brushed his fingers against my cheek. "Getting cold feet?"

I an unwanted blush spread across my face. "No. Not yet."

88888

Two days later, after school, I was walking toward the cafeteria to meet Bella when Edward pulled me away from the crowd and toward the cafeteria doors. We stood just to the right of them, Edward getting the better view of the crowd rushing to their cars and busses. By the look of the anger in his eyes, he knew something was up. I tried to think back to the times I was around him, and couldn't think of anything that would have incriminated Jasper and me. But I couldn't remember every thought I had in the past couple of days either.

"It's not hard to pick up a random thought. I've gotten used to picking out the most important information over the years," he said, half growling at me.

"I don't know..." I started before my vision went dark. I stopped seeing Edward in the same manner I stopped seeing the football game Sunday. He was replaced by a darken scene of Edward and Bella dancing together. He was in a simple but elegant black tux and she was in a beautiful blue dress. He leaned in as she closed her eyes. Just then Edward's face was in mine and everything was lighter. "…what you're…talking about."

"Alice." This time his voice came out with a low growl.

For the first time in a couple of days, I felt my visions were leading me in the right direction. I finally felt by leaving with Jasper, Bella would get what I just saw. At this point in time, neither of them wanted it, but they would soon, and it would all turn out for the best. My selfish and fairytale scenarios were going to converge.

"I don't want that," he said.

"Right, then why did I see it? You and Bella are going to kiss, fall in love, and she is going to join me as a vampire. You and I will get what we selfishly want," I spoke with confidence.

"You are selfish," he spat at me.

I sighed. "I know I am, but if she doesn't come with me, I won't have anyone. If I don't go, I won't have anything. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, but Jasper and I need each other. You'll find out you'll need Bella."

"I don't like it."

I heard the heavy meaning in his words. It held me back for a split second until I worked up the courage to voice the words he already heard. "I don't care if you don't like it because it's going to happen."

He opened his mouth, but it instantly closed. His eyes left mine and he grunted for me to stop talking.

Bella…

I placed a fake smile on my lips and tried to relax my stance as I turned around and greeted my unknowing sister. "Hey, Bella. Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah," she answered. "I guess I am."

Her eyes glanced at Edward and I looked with her. He was unable to look at my sister which made me smirk. Without saying a word, I showed Edward how much Bella looked ready for her first kiss and then walked away.

"Don't forget that you're not the only one here," he called out to me. His words were cryptic enough that I had to spend a second longer to figure them out because he couldn't have meant Bella. We already discussed who would be around for Bella. Charlie. He must have been talking about Charlie. But he would be fine. So would Renee. Eventually, they would move on. And I didn't plan on leaving them for good. Once everything calmed down, once I could be around humans long enough to have a conversation with them, I would come back. It wouldn't be long. Would it?

Bella…

My mind went back to her. As confident as I felt about the vision becoming a reality, my selfishness meant she would never completely forgive me for leaving her in the dark and then stepping out of her life completely. As soon as she saw the note, everything would break between us. I just hoped Edward would stand up and do his job perfectly so she would have someone…

"What were you talking about?" asked Bella, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Nothing important. Just ignore him for right now." I jumped into the driver's seat of the truck even though I hated being there and leaned over to take the keys from Bella. "Hurry up. We've got to make dinner for Charlie."

For the rest of the night, I could think of nothing else but hating Edward. I was confident before those last words caught up to me. He did it on purpose, I was sure. It was most likely to make me put a stop to the decision I already made, but I didn't call, didn't once sneak a look at the phone that was always nearby because I was sure if I didn't leave, everyone's future would change into something we didn't want.

"I'm going to miss you," I said, absentmindedly as I crawled into bed next to Bella that night after my shower, Edward's words still weighing heavily on me. The nervousness about the next day was also making me an emotional wreck.

"What do you exactly mean by that?" she asked.

Before I turned my face to her, the tears had already started to fall. "I know we're going to be separated for a while, but I want you to know that I still love you."

"Alice, are you going away?" she yelled, trying to keep her voice down for Charlie's benefit.

I instinctively shook my head. "Not yet, but when we go to school next year, this won't be the same."

"Alice, we have nearly a year to worry about this. Don't be torturing yourself about this now."

"It's just that something Edward said got me thinking," I said, truthfully. "Well, and I've been really missing Jazz lately."

"Jazz?

I smiled at the memory of the origin of his nickname before remembering the ring he gave to his Gershwin girl. "Yeah, Jazz. He likes it since I made it up."

"Get some sleep, Alice," Bella said, almost commanding me.

I yawned, not needing to feign being tired. "Night, Bella."

I fell into a dreamless sleep. One moment I was listening to Bella turn off the light, the next I was hearing a deep voice with a slight twang whisper my name in my ear. My eyes fluttered open to see Jasper standing in a blue tinted bedroom. I realized it was almost dawn and it was time to go.

As I carefully sat up, Jasper handed me the small square box. "Before I forget."

He left me alone to change, and he took the one bag of clothes and toiletries I inconspicuously packed. I placed the ring on last and shoved the box into my purse before softly running down the stairs and into the kitchen. I stopped in the doorway when I noticed the lily sitting in the Mariners cup that wasn't there at dinner just hours before. Everything was turning out exactly how I saw, and that left me just a little unnerved.

I quickly got the note pad and pen by the phone and moved over to the end of the table.

Charlie, Bella –
I'm leaving

After a couple of false starts which left small ink dots on the white paper and a quick look around the kitchen, I finally started the goodbye.

I'm leaving. With Jasper. Don't try to find me, please.
We'll be back soon.
I love you both.
Alice

I stood staring at the paper, letting the tears well up in my eyes before finishing the note with:

Forgive me, Dad.

I dropped the pen on the table as the tears fell and backed away and into something hard. It wrapped its limbs around me as it gave me a minute to collect the thoughts that tried to push me to stay. "You don't have to do this."

"No," I answered my fiancé, "we do."

The next thing I knew, I was in the Aston Martin as it drove away from Forks, a Washington sun rising in the east through trees and clouds.