Wasteland
Chapter 6

Disclaimer : Twilight is still not mine, unfortunately. Stephenie Meyer owns it. If it were mine, I'd have Jasper run around half naked all the time.

Eleighs : To answer your question as simply as I can without going into an hour worth of details and theories, yes, Carlisle did stay with the Volturi in the past, but only as a guest. He didn't join their coven, as Alice decided to do in this fanfiction. ^-^
- "Carlisle was studying in Italy when he stumbled across a coven of ancient vampires called the Volturi that included three vampires named Aro, Marcus, and Caius. They were much more educated and refined vampires than those living in the sewers of London, but still drank human blood, and even though they attempted to convert Carlisle to his natural food source, they failed to convince him." - From the "Twilight Saga Wiki" webpage.

- - Alice's POV - -

Human blood was the exact way I'd always imaged it would taste; rich, satisfying. Addicting.

I looked up from my most recent meal, my eyes searching the crowd around me. To the Volturi, "dinner" was the equivalent of the humans' family meals, such as Christmas, although a much violent and bloodier version. It was rarely a private affair ; the humans being herded in, and everyone nearly fighting each other over the most appetizing ones. They claimed to be civilized, but when instinct took over, they were anything but.

My gaze skipped the rest of the feeding vampires, and it didn't take me long to find him, sitting against the wall. His elbows rested on his knees drawn up against him, his hands clutching his hair as he looked at nothing in particular. The look of pained horror on his beautiful face made me want to scream.

I stepped over the discarded broken body at his feet and knelt by his side. "Jasper?" He didn't look at me, and I wondered if he had heard me over the noise in the room. My hand reached up, caressing his cheek softly, my fingers tracing a scar on his skin absently as I repeated his name. His eyes finally moved, blinking at me once, before he looked down at the dead woman in front of him.

His whole body tensed and I was scared for a moment that he'd jump up and run away. Facing what was bothering him had always been one of his weaknesses, after all. My beautiful, broken husband. I grasped his head in my hands, gently urging him to look at me instead of the deceased human. "It's okay, love. It's okay."

He sneered, his glare never quite meeting my gaze as he wrenched away from my hands. "If you say so, Alice." I blinked, shocked. Jasper was never truly mad at me. But at the moment, I couldn't blame him. I had brought him here. I had known he wouldn't be able to resist the blood.

I stayed kneeling on the floor as he rose to his feet fluidly. "You're leaving." It wasn't a question. He looked pained for a moment as he looked at the door at the far back of the room, one of his hands running through his hair absently. It was an unconscious gesture he did when he was unsure, or confused.

"Yes... I guess I am." I didn't need to be an empath to know guess how he was feeling. Weak, disgusted. Hopeless. I knew because I felt the exact same way. How much I wanted to remind him that I didn't have a choice, that it was the only way to save my family. How much I wanted to tell him to stay with me.

But I couldn't bring myself to voice that last part out loud. He didn't have to suffer from the fires of hell with me.

I didn't doubt for a second that he would've stayed anyway if I had asked him, but I didn't think I could have survived seeing him suffer that way. I loved him too much for that. My sanity was already only hanging on by a thread as it was.

He wasn't strong enough to never feed on humans again, and yet he was too strong to live as a nomad.

He was walking a thin line between two worlds, and yet lived in neither.

Rising to my feet, I grasped his hand in mine, pulling him closer to me. He complied wordlessly, and I wrapped my arms around him tightly, burying my face in his shirt. I wished for time to stop, to let this moment last for all eternity. Everything made sense when I was in his arms; reality couldn't touch me. A smile appeared on my lips when he placed a small kiss on top of my head.

He pulled away, his crimson eyes meeting my own for a moment. "I'm sorry. I just... I can't do this." I closed my eyes, nodding my head slightly. I didn't think I could bear seeing walk away from me. I felt him place a small kiss on my lips and hesitate for a moment, and then he was gone.

I had known he wouldn't stay, and yet I had selfishly asked him to join us for "dinner", just to have a few more moments with him.

Between the two of us, I was the real monster.

Whoopsie, my bad. Jasper left Alice.
Will he be back? :O Will he go back to the Cullens? Or live on his own? Or come back to Alice after all?

I'm sorry this was short. x.o And in Alice's POV. I tried writing it in Jasper's, but inspiration decided that it was Alice's turn.

The next chapter will be longer, I promise. It might take a few days before I update again. I'm working on Christmas, and for five days in a row, so I'll need as much sleep as I can get. Not an easy task when you work evening/nights, and the woman living above your head works days. Let's just say she's not exactly quiet. Ugh.

Special thanks to Divine Divinity for her lovely reviews. They always cheer me up. ^-^
And thanks to everyone else who reviewed as well!
I love you guys!
Merry Christmas!