A/N: Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!

*Note: This is going to be the final chapter because I'm a little pressed for time.*

Warning: Lemony content included in this chapter! No readers under the age of 18!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Twilight series or characters!

Solar Eclipse

Chapter 3: The Bond

Alice opens her eyes slowly, blinking back the sparks of pain exploding behind her eyes and at the base of her skull. Sunlight blinds her and she blinks rapidly to adjust her eyes to the harsh and offensive lighting. From her vantage point from across the room, she can vaguely make out a shadowy figure slumped against the wall opposite hers. Mustering up a substantial amount of strength, Alice begins to shuffle in that direction on her hands and knees like that of a sluggishly graceful cat. The sunlight beats a warm path along her back as she enters a patch of it streaming brightly across her carpeted floor.

Dust mites are thrown upward by her motions across the carpet and dance about her in glittering specks along the radiance of the sunbeams. Alice soon draws near to enough to discern that the figure slumped against the wall was . . . her.

I'm right here! How is that possible? Unless . . . Alice minds begins to fumble as it comes to a startling conclusion.

"We've switched bodies," Alice exclaims, hands flying upwards to cease the hysterical cry prepared to escaped her.

The feel of her hands is all wrong and she looks downward and to her chagrin she finds that, instead of her eyes coming to rest on her dainty ones, she finds them to be Jasper's sleek, smooth ones. A strangled cry escapes her when she looks downward and finds herself to indeed be in Jasper's body. This strangled cry startles Jasper out of his unconscious state and he shifts upward, resting his head against the cool surface of Alice's wall. He is still disoriented and can't seem to pinpoint the location of her voice because of the sunlight. His ears continuously ring inside of his head, so Alice's voice could have come from anywhere in the room or could have been a figment of his imagination all together.

"Jasper," Alice whispers from the other side of the sun patch streaming across the carpet.

"Yes," he murmurs dreamily, crawling towards where he hoped was where the sound of her voice had originated.

All is silent except in the room except the sound of Jasper's fluid movements across the sun-warmed carpet. Jasper's eyes search the other side of the room but the sunlight inhibits his vision and all he can make out on the other side of the room are imposing shadows hugging the walls.

"Jasper is that you," Alice asks as he draws nearer to her.

"Of course it's me," he says, wondering what had gotten into Alice. Who else would it be?

For some reason he couldn't pick up what she was feeling through her emotions and he found that rather odd. But then again, he had hit his head pretty hard and perhaps his ability was paralyzed for the time being and was trying to reboot itself into working order once again. Jasper soon enters the patch of sunlight that stands between him and Alice and at last he comes face to face with . . . himself. His face falls in bewilderment as he tries to rationalize the situation, but his mind was stuttering in incomprehension of what was before him. As if the sight of himself before him wasn't relevant proof enough, he brought, what he assumes to be his hands, up before his face and finds them to be Alice's instead.

Maybe it's a trick of light, he reasons with his befuddled mind, but the feel of Alice's hair flowing through his fingers—or Alice's as the situation would have it—certainly was not a mere trick of light.

"Alice?"

"Yes . . ." she whispers.

"What's going on?"

"I-I think we switched bodies . . ."

"H-How? How is that even possible," he asks in clear disbelief of the situation they had found themselves in.

"I think it may have been the solar eclipse . . . Maybe that's what my vision was trying to tell me. Perhaps that is the connection the solar eclipse has with us."

Alice was silent for a few minutes, contemplating the impossibility and raw possibility of their situation. True, they had switched bodies, but their voices had switched as well it seemed, making it all the more difficult to fool the others, but what of their abilities . . .

"Jasper?" Alice asks suddenly.

"Yeah . . ." Jasper murmurs still trying to wrap his mind around the impossible.

"Can you still sense my emotions?"

"Umm . . . No, actually. I just thought that hitting my head must have jumbled my mind and it's in the process of getting things back in order, including the proper functioning of my emotional manipulation."

"Oh . . . I haven't even tried to see into the future yet. Let me give it a try," Alice says.

She eases her eyes closed in concentration, focusing on trying to make a vision come to her. She focuses for countless moments trying to bring forth a picturesque depiction of some future event—any future event—but nothing comes to mind. All that resulted from her intense concentration was a mild headache growing between her eyes. Alice's eyes flutter open languidly and she shakes her head in confusion.

"I don't get it . . ." she murmurs.

"What? What's the matter, Alice?"

"I can't seem to produce a vision of the future . . . It's like all I'm getting is static when I turn the station on a mono frequency radio."

"Really," Jasper asks, his mind beginning to contemplate yet another possible impossibility. After a moment he asks, "Alice can you sense what emotions are surrounding me right now?"

"Huh," Alice asks, trying to understand where Jasper is going with such a thought. "You think that I now have the ability to read and manipulate other's emotions? How's that possible?"

"Well, what can be more impossible than two vampires of different genders switching bodies."

"Well . . . I suppose nothing that I have heard about . . ."

"Then give it a try. Center yourself and breathe in deeply before reaching out psychically," he encourages, placing a warm hand in hers.

"All right . . . I'll give it a try," Alice says hesitantly before settling down to follow Jasper's instructions.

She centers herself, focusing her mind on all that was around her and never letting her mind stray from its intense focus. After a deep breath, she begins to reach out psychically much like she does when she's reading someone's future from touch alone. A tingling rush of energy races up her spine, sending a shiver through her entire body. A gasp escapes her, as she suddenly becomes aware of the emotions surrounding her. Reaching out, she grasps Jasper's emotions in an instant—confusion, bewilderment, and wonder lace every fiber of his being. Alice tries hard to concentrate on his emotions alone, but she can sense other emotions about her and her mind reels from the sensation of them assaulting her senses.

An exciting thrill jabs through her mind and she begins to feel an overwhelming swell of bloodlust begin to override her better judgment and take over her primal instincts she had thought she had buried underneath years of meditation and constant focus. Perhaps this is what Jasper feels around the humans when he picks up their emotions, she reasons, fighting the urge to sate the bloodlust that is slowly ridding her of all rational thought. From far off, she can hear a voice calling out her name and she fights the bloodlust in order to return to reality.

Jasper reaches for Alice and shakes her gently, calling her name in apprehension as her body begins to convulse. He shakes her harder when she doesn't respond, and at last her eyes open in a sharp flutter of her eyelids. Her eyes are darkened by the bloodlust that has overtaken her and she lunges forward with an animalistic snarl. She tackles Jasper in her body onto the carpet and tries embedding her fangs in his throat, but Jasper manages to hold her off until the influence of her bloodlust subsides. Alice slumps forward then, easing herself beside Jasper, breathing ragged and head pounding with some unknown ache.

"I'm sorry," she whispers to him, rubbing her aching temples in soothing circles. "I don't know what came over me.

"I do . . ." Jasper says simply with a detectable hint of bitterness. "My ability has always been paired with such blood lust, which is the reason why I had such a difficult time transitioning from human blood to animal blood."

"Oh . . ." she murmurs silently, at a loss of what to say to that. After an unsettling silence settles over them, Alice asks, "What about you? Do you think you can try having a vision?"

"I'll try . . ." Jasper says. "What do I have to do?"

"All you have to do is focus on a general idea, like say the school and a vision that relates to that idea will be produced. But if you want to be more specific, you have to think of a more focused idea like say a what's going to go on during a specific class."

Pushing himself up from the carpeted floor, Jasper closes his eyes in focus and thinks of the hunting trip they have planned with the rest of the family. At first nothing comes to mind and he begins to worry that nothing will appear, that is, until a piercing jab of heat wracks his mind as images of Edward and the rest hunting, wild and free, enters his mind. As the images fade, Jasper can feel the edges of his mind ignite and slowly burn through to the center of it. He curls onto his side, rocking himself on the warm carpet, waiting for the pain to subside. Alice offers him a hand and he takes it in a firm grip, which eases some of his pain immensely.

After a while, the searing burn of his mind is quelled by Alice's touch and he struggles up from his fetal position on the floor. He reaches for her then, pulling her into an embrace that steals her breath away.

"Is this what you go through every time you have a vision," he asks holding her close to him, though she is in his body.

"Yes . . ." she whispers, fighting back tears.

Another silence settles over them, but it is soon broken by a curt knock on the door.

"Come in," Alice calls out in Jasper's body, unaware that everyone else could hear her as Jasper only, not as Alice like Jasper could.

"Jasper," Edward utters in question, pausing a moment.

Jasper presses a finger to Alice's lips and calls out "Come in."

Edward peeks his head in through the door before entering to find Alice and Jasper sitting beside each other on the floor. His eyes take in the situation, but he simply says, "We'll be leaving to hunt in about a half an hour. Be ready by then."

Edward gives them one more look that could be interpreted as confusion before leaving the room. Alice and Jasper breathe a sigh of relief and they share a glance of understanding.

"Well, it seems that only we can hear each other with our normal voices and everyone else can only hear us in the voice of the body we're trapped in," Jasper notes.

"That's interesting . . . At least we don't have to worry about that. Now the question is: How do we get back to normal?"

"I have no idea," Jasper says, shrugging his shoulders lightly.

"Well, let's see . . . The solar eclipse was the cause of this phenomenon. Now what was the trigger . . .?"

Alice tilts her head to the side in contemplation of what could've possibly caused them to switch bodies. Jasper was lost in his own thoughts, thinking back to what had occurred before they found themselves in each other's bodies, and that's when he came up with a plausible cause for the switch.

"The kiss," he exclaims. "The kiss was the trigger. That and perhaps the sunlight."

"You think so . . ." she asks in disbelief, but not afraid to consider the possibility. "That could be it, considering there is nothing else we can go on."

"True. The kiss is easy to orchestrate, but what of the sun? When will it be sunny again?"

"Well, I can no longer answer that question because I can't have visions. Only you can do that," Alice states matter-of-factly.

"I know . . . Will you do me a favor, though?" Jasper asks, gaze locking with hers.

"Anything," she offers.

"Can you hold my hand while I do it?"

"Of course," Alice says, offering her hand with a bright smile that even gracing Jasper's lips was unbelievably and wonderfully warm.

With the reassuring pressure of Alice's hand in his, Jasper focuses on the sun and more specifically, what day it would appear again. He is unsure of how he knows, but the day comes to mind and the image of the sun eases from his mind. He returns to reality, Alice's hand still intertwined in his, the pain nothing but a distant throb at the base of his skull.

"Thank you," he whispers, planting a kiss on her forehead.

"So what day will we be able to switch back," Alice asks, barely controlling the eagerness bubbling up within her.

"Luckily for us," Jasper says, "tomorrow the sky is going to clear up and the sun is going to appear, but only for a specific window of time."

"From what time?"

"Noon to one."

"That's plenty of time," Alice says, a sigh of relief escaping her. "So all we have to do is make it through today and early tomorrow morning."

"Yeah . . . Speaking of which," Jasper murmurs, standing up and stretching, "we have to get ready for the hunting trip."

"I know . . ." Alice says, following Jasper's lead.

Thinking nothing of it, Jasper begins to head out of Alice's room in her body, heading towards his room. It isn't until he is in front of his room that he realizes that he is not himself—literally. Before he can correct his mistake, Rosalie exits her room and pauses at the sight of him in Alice's body entering his room.

"Alice, what are you doing? Shouldn't you being getting dressed?"

"Umm . . ." Jasper fumbles. "I was just heading to my room. I just have to ask Jasper something."

"Oh, okay . . ." she says, continuing down the hall in the direction of the staircase.

Jasper breathes a sigh relief and enters his room to gather clothes for Alice to put on. Being more careful this time, he exits his room and treads down the hall and enters Alice's room without knocking. Once inside he tosses the clothes at her and she catches them with ease.

"Put these on," he says.

Alice is quick to oblige and is dressed within minutes. Jasper however, is not dressed and Alice stalks over to her closet and pulls out some clothes for him to put on from her expansive closet.

"Put these on," she says, handing him the clothes. "And no peeking."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Jasper says with a devilishly handsome grin.

In record time he is dressed and ready and they leave Alice's room, hand-in-hand.

******

Once everyone is dressed and ready to go, Carlisle leads his family to his favorite hunting grounds to feed. They have to venture far into the mountains, but the trip is well worth it; the view is breathtaking. From amidst the snow-covered foliage sprouting about the mountain, snatches of Forks below them can be seen. The air was clear here—and so startlingly fresh that it was almost painful to breathe in such pure, untouched air. Carlisle leads his troop through the winding trails that circled the mountain, fresh crusted snow crunching underfoot as they follow close behind one another.

It wasn't long before they began to pick up the scent of the woodland creatures taking shelter amongst the frosted forest. The hunt was on . . .

Carlisle was the first to take off in search of his choice of prey—a moose. Esme followed close behind him, sensing her prey as well—a lone and docile lamb. Since Edward would not be able to find his choice of prey here—the lion—he settles for hunting grizzly bears with Emmett. Rosalie, never far away from Emmett follows soon after—wishing to hunt with her true love Emmett. This leaves only Alice and Jasper amongst the endlessly white forest.

"What do you usually hunt," Alice asks, turning to face him.

"Grizzlies."

"All right then, you'll have to hunt the gracefully demure fawn in my stead."

"Be careful," he whispers to her before taking off towards a distant part of the forest.

"You too," she calls after him.

******

After hours of hunting Alice and Jasper begin to learn a thing or two about the food they so loved to hunt when in their own bodies. Alice learned how in order to hunt a grizzly, she had to be one her toes, use her speed and aggression to overpower it, and most of all, be able to fool it. Though she had to learn that the hard way. Twice, a grizzly had almost taken her head off in Jasper's body and Edward and Emmett had to intervene to prevent such a tragic end.

"Are you all right today Jasper," Emmett asked Alice in Jasper's body while they were taking a break from hunting. "You seem a little out-of-it."

In more ways that one, Alice thought as she struggled to come up with an adequate response. "Umm . . . I'm just a little rusty is all. I just need to find my flow again," she told him and Emmett seemed to be satisfied with that response.

Edward, however, was not and pinned Alice with a stare that would have put a raging inferno out in an instant. Alice said nothing however and continued on his way.

Meanwhile, Jasper was having a bit of an easier time hunting fawns, or so he had thought. He hadn't realized that fawns could be so quick and had to actually move a bit faster to keep up and keep his sights trained on its darting form. He also had to be careful of the low hanging branches that protruded like the gnarled hands of a shriveled up body and interrupted the flow of the forest, for it was the fawn's only defense against him. If it could somehow lead him into a trap, then it could get away from him easily, which it nearly did several times in the beginning.

Both Alice and Jasper were grateful when the day was over and gladly entered the Cullen home, rushing upstairs to Alice's room. All that stood in the way of normality now was several hours of darkness and a few hours of bleak clouds blocking out the sun.

******

Morning finally arrived and Alice and Jasper were eager to leave for the lake where they would at last return to their respective bodies after a kiss shared in the sun. Unable to control their eagerness, they left the Cullen home for the lake decidedly early to wait for the appearance of the sun there and so as not to miss their window of opportunity. Upon their arrival at the lake, the clouds began to lighten with the shining of the sun's rays behind their cloak of obscurity. Alice and Jasper settle down beside each other, watching the clouds glide idly by and awaiting the approaching brightness of high noon.

"Do remember how we met Jasper," Alice asks him quietly.

"Yes . . . How could I ever forget?"

"Do you remember the promise you made to me all those years ago?"

"Of course," he replies, turning onto his side to stare down at her still housed inside his body. "I remember it as though it were merely yesterday . . ."

******

She had seen him once in a vision . . . It had been so long ago, but even then she knew that they were meant to meet. After that vision, she knew what her purpose was in life: She had to find Jasper and together they would find a man named Carlisle who would take them in and guide them down a path of righteousness even though they were damned creatures of this Earth. She searched long and hard for Jasper, relying heavily on her visions to guide her to him and after several months of searching she found him. It was a good thing she did . . .

Jasper was apart of a different sort of vampire family, which fed off the blood of humans, but also indulged themselves in the systematic rape of their victims, followed by dismemberment. The thought alone was enough to make her sick and scare her half out of her mind, but she forced herself to be brave and entered this family of vampires' territory with little thought to her relative safety. All she could concern herself with now was getting through to Jasper and taking him with her in search of Carlisle.

Upon first glance at this pixie-like vampire woman before him, Jasper could tell she was afraid and she should have been—he could have easily killed her on the spot. Her emotions radiated out to him, confirming her fear, but something about her fear, did something to him. Part of him didn't want her to fear him and he didn't understand why at the time.

"What do you want woman," he hissed, demanding an answer from her.

"It's hard to explain this, but I had a vision about you and I need you to come with me to search for a man named Carlisle."

Jasper laughed at this. "Me? Come with you? Do you really believe I would do such a thing?"

"But my vision predicted as much . . ." she began, but Jasper held up a hand to silence her.

"You're vision was wrong, now go home."

An unwanted tear escaped Alice's eye and she hastily wiped it away before turning to leave. Something about the sight of her tears stirred something inside him then and left a sickening lump lodged painfully in the center of his heart. For days he fought off unbidden thoughts of Alice. When his family mentioned that they were going to do a systematic sweep for vampires not apart of their clan, Jasper thought nothing of it until he sensed Alice's emotional signature still located nearby. With total disregard of the consequences of his actions, Jasper raced to her rescue and saved her from his family's wrath.

Without a second thought, Jasper relinquished his ties to his family and left with Alice in search of Carlisle.

"I'll always be by your side and here to protect you," he had said and he had lived up to those words each and every day he spent with her.

******

Alice smiles, recalling his words with freshly painted images of their journey dancing across her mind. Jasper too is recalling their past together and smiles as he remembers Alice's bravery in the face of so many of his former family members. They remain quiet for quiet some time, taking in the slowly warming air as the sun begins to shine its rich rays through the blanket of clouds obscuring its face. Both Alice and Jasper rise to their feet as the sun peeks through the overhanging clouds and turn to face each other with smiles that mirror the happiness they have felt with one another and the loving joy they share.

Without any more hesitation, both Alice and Jasper lean towards each other, their lips clashing in a breath-stealing rush that draws gasps from each of them. A soft light engulfs them and they both feel as though the Earth is shifting beneath them as they switch bodies in an instant. Even though they are aware that the switch has occurred they can't seem to break away from each other—the need for physical contact of a varying degree from holding hands ignites a flame of desire, which melts away all pretenses.

Alice's hands roam along the expanse of Jasper's broad back and Jasper mirrors her movements on hers. Their lips work in perfect unison as they begin to remove the others clothing, the thrilling and occasional brush of bare skin sending exhilarating rushes of pleasure up their spines. Once the clothing barrier is no longer an issue, they explore each other with wanton caresses ignited by their desire and painful need to be by each other's side—always. Alice's cries of need spur Jasper on and he pleasures her with gentle caresses that tease her flesh and leave her wanting more. Alice is not demure as she seems and reaches for him boldly, stroking him until he cries in ecstasy.

Patience is a distant idea, which they no longer comprehend and they indulge in the baser more primal needs their bodies crave. They move together like a sinuously orchestrated dance that brings them ever closer to that moment of pure bliss. Their pants of need fill the air and soon their cries of peak fulfillment follow suit. They lay there for quite some time, breathless and at ease as the sun continues to warm their cool skin.

"I love you . . ." Alice whispers against Jasper's chest.

"I love you too . . ." he whispers back, running a hand through her sun-warmed hair. "I think I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you."

"Me too," she says, snuggling closer to him.

Watching the clouds go by, they each remember the promise they made to each other: To stay by each other's side forevermore.

A/N: So that's it! I hoped you enjoyed this short story of mine. I wish I could have spent more time on it, but school and life kept interfering. Aww . . . well! Please be kind and drop me a review! Much love to all.

Silver Moon Vampiress