New Mexico, 1948

"What if we went further north again?" Alice sighed unhappily, twitching aside the curtain of their small apartment to scowl at the rising sun. "They're not here anymore, and we can't go out most of the time around here."

Jasper looked up from the newspaper, shaking his head at the human interpretation of what looked like another attack on Monterrey – probably by Jaime, Maria's most fierce opponent, or by Maria herself. Who knew who actually controlled the city at this moment? "They're so blind…" he muttered, before he returned his attention to his unhappy mate. "I'm sorry, Alice, what was that?"

She glowered at him momentarily, her irritation evaporating into disappointment the second he held out his hand, apology in his eyes – he hoped, at least. Sighing again, she dropped into his lap. "You don't want this," she said simply, her gaze holding steady with his. If it were physically possible, he was certain she would have tears in her eyes.

He closed his eyes, acutely aware that there was a flare of pain in her emotions every time she looked at him, her golden eyes seeing the scarlet in his – the recent result of a single moment of weakness. She had been away from him, off on another one of her mysterious 'Cullen quests', as he'd taken to calling them over the last few months with Alice. He had gone hunting – completely intending to stick to this strange new diet, in search of coyotes. And then there had been those two young adults, out in the desert, alone on a cloudless night with a full moon… and they hadn't stood a chance.

He had stayed away for almost a full week, taking shelter in the caves of the rock formations, too ashamed and too disgusted with himself to face her. For a second, a fraction of a second, he'd decided to walk away and the panic that rose within him quickly put an end to that thought. No. She was too tightly wound into every facet of himself to ever leave her.

So he'd come crawling back to her one stormy morning, furious with himself when he felt the waves of fear, anger, disappointment, worry flooding the apartment. He'd hurt her, and it was killing him to know that.

"Don't you ever do that again," she had growled at him, just before she'd thrown herself into his arms. "You listen to me – I don't expect you to be perfect. I know that we're both going to slip up on occasion. But don't you dare ever think about leaving me again, and definitely not for a mistake like that, Jasper!"

It had taken a long time to make all the negative emotion she'd bottled up in that week dissipate, and even now he'd failed so far in bringing back the sun to her smile. She'd shake her head, she'd laugh, she'd kiss him, she'd reassure him again that she knew he was capable of doing it, and she knew that he wouldn't slip up again anytime soon.

But sometimes he wondered if she really could see the future, or if she just pretended to in order to give him hope that maybe he could do this.

"No, Alice, of course I do," he said immediately. Laying a kiss on her neck, Jasper nestled her snugly into his arms. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, darling, I'm sorry –"

"Stop apologizing," she murmured into his throat. "I know you didn't mean to do it. I think it's time to move on from here. There's too little wildlife in the area, and I don't want either of us ever getting that thirsty again." She was referring, of course, to their disastrous attempt to safeguard the New Mexico animal life from extinction. They would go hunt only when the thirst threatened to consume them – part of the trigger for his attack that horrible night.

"So where have they gone now?" Jasper asked with a slight teasing tone to his voice – this was almost like a tracking game to her. "And are we going to catch them this time, or do I get you all to myself for a little while longer?" he added playfully, smiling as she laughed and slid her arms around his neck to kiss him.

*~*~*

"So you never did tell me all you know about these mysterious Cullens," Jasper said, propping himself up on his elbows above her, watching her sparkling eyes as she sighed again, a sigh of happiness this time.

Her fingernails, what little she had of them, traced light patterns on the hard skin of his back as she studied him for a moment. "You really want to know?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied, ducking down to nuzzle her cheek with his nose. "What do you know?" he continued, kissing along her jawline.

"All right, stop distracting me!" Alice laughed. "Stop it, or I'm not going to tell you."

"I can wait," Jasper murmured. "I have eternity to wait. And so do you, and so do they." He kissed her, laughing as she huffed with impatience. The tracing on his back stopped, and one index finger started tapping out a staccato rhythm. It was so amusing to get her impatient. "All right, all right, I'm stopping," he finally said, dropping down beside her. "So tell me again how many there are in this coven-family."

"There's five right now," Alice replied. "The leader is named Carlisle."

"That's the old one, right?" Jasper asked, suddenly eager to prove that he had been listening and that it really was as important to him as it was to her. "The one who created all the others?"

"That's right," she answered, and the delight that emanated from her confirmed that his current strategy was working. "He's a doctor. That's mostly how he found the rest of them. Except for Rosalie and Emmett."

"He used to be with the Volturi," Jasper prompted, still greatly respecting any man or woman who had been part of the Volturi. This Carlisle was by far the most curious of these Cullens to Jasper. Why would he have left the Volturi? Had he been banished – surely not, the Volturi didn't deal with banishment.

"Right," Alice confirmed. "He left them about a century ago; actually, probably about the time you were changed. They were too eager to get him to drink human blood."

"And his mate?" Jasper asked.

"His wife," Alice corrected, "and we're going to do that too, one of these days," she added confidently, curling up happily against his side.

"What, get married?" Jasper teased, tracing curving lines across her back. "Two vampires, married by the priest? How scandalous." How could she have possibly known that he had decided that very thing himself just the other day?

"Mm-hmm," Alice said with a nod.

"So back to Carlisle and Esme," Jasper reminded her, kissing her nose lightly.

"Oh, yes, so Esme was his second change – Edward was his first – and she…" Alice paused impatiently again as Jasper cut off her sentence with a kiss. "Jasper Whitlock, don't make me –" she threatened, cutting him off before he could continue. "Esme thinks of the younger ones as children. She really is the mother figure to Carlisle's father figure. Edward… Edward is the youngest, in terms of human years, but the oldest of the young ones."

"So he's the lone one in the coven – I mean, family?" Jasper asked.

"Yes, he hasn't found anybody," Alice replied. "Carlisle changed Rosalie, hoping that she would become that to him. But Edward just wasn't interested, and two years later, Rosalie found Emmett."

"While he was still human," Jasper said. "Dying in the woods after a bear attacked him."

"That's right. She carried him all the way back to where they were living, because she wanted to save him, but she didn't want to kill him. Carlisle said no at first, he didn't want to change any more humans, he didn't want to finish any more lives."

"But she begged him," he continued for her, still in awe at the self-restraint that must've taken this Rosalie – barely more than a newborn, with a human's blood spilling over her… "So he did." This whole coven baffled him. They really did live as though they were playing at being human – the love, the compassion, the relational dynamics. And yet for all these mad actions and unlikely events, they had remained intact. Vampires who became doctors (he could all too well imagine the burning in Carlisle's throat every time he went to work), newborns who found dying humans in the woods and somehow didn't immediately begin to feed, vampires with consciences…

"I like Emmett," she confided happily, nestling back down against his side again, her head resting in the hollow of his neck. "It's he has no secrets. What you see is what really is, and he's always cheerful."

"You've never met Emmett," Jasper laughed, kissing her again. A ray of sunlight broke through the crack in the curtains at that precise moment, and Jasper was momentarily distracted by the glittering of Alice's skin.

"I think you're going to like him too, Jazz," she continued, her eyes catching his own.

Jasper didn't bother correcting her idyllic vision of the future. Yes, the Cullens intrigued him. Yes, the concept of a quiet, peaceful existence – one that didn't require killing innocent people – was enticing. But he just worried that she was making them into some sort of coven of perfect gods. Real people – human or otherwise – were not that good. There was bound to be some sort of discord, some type of disagreement or resentment. And from what she'd told him of their leader, it seemed like Carlisle Cullen had declared his coven complete.

Would she be able to recover when (though 'if' seemed more likely at this point) they caught up with this coven, only to be turned away? Practically her entire existence had been thrown into this chase. She had already become attached to these fleeting, ephemeral visions – visions he still wasn't entirely convinced were completely accurate.

A bubble of panic began manifesting itself as his mind ran off in the direction of 'worst-case scenario', imagining the pyres of agony she was going to make him roast on when she was destroyed by this coven's rejection. The longer he was with her, the harder it was for him to control his own state of mind to better manipulate the area around him – if she were distraught enough, he wouldn't be able to keep himself calm enough to calm her.

"Jazz," she repeated, and he realized with a start that she'd been trying to catch his attention for some time now. "What are you thinking?" She balanced herself by her arm on his chest, eyes trying to dig deep enough into his to figure out his thoughts.

It was times like this he was immeasurably glad she had clairvoyance and not telepathy.

"Oh," he started to answer, reaching to cup her chin in his hand, "nothing much."

*~*~*

The town had fallen under the darkness of a moonless night when they left. Though there were still a few people out wandering the streets, for the most part, it was deserted.

"So, Alice, where to?" Jasper asked quietly, watching the occasional passerby with slight trepidation.

"I don't know," Alice sighed, still looking out the window of their car wistfully. The last thing she'd seen of her Cullens, they'd had to leave their current residence again, had become nomadic for a while. It was upsetting her.

Jasper reached out and took her hand into his as he started driving. They'd go north again. She'd be happier up north. Besides, her Cullens tended to stay in the northern states. Probably for good reason, the South was hardly the place for peaceful existence. "We'll find them, Lissy, don't worry," he murmured.

She nodded distractedly, her hand tightening around his. "Thank you, Jazz," she said softly.

He smiled at her, already feeling relief from her anxiety. "Love you, sweet."