A/N: Technically, Sunday is a day off for the Wit Fits, but I promised 31 days of chapters, and by golly I'm gonna do it! lol

Penname: javamomma0921

Derivative Fiction

Rating: M

Disclaimer: All copyrights, trademarked items, or recognizable characters, plots, etc. mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without their express written authorization.

Prompt: Reflection day; random image search on Google.

Nighttime Flowers

I had spent one hundred and twenty nights at the speakeasy and I was so bored with it. I packed my things carefully, making it look as if I was coming back. I carefully lined up the makeup which I never used, arranging the clothes and accessories so that my work station was pristine, just as it always was.

I heard Sal inching up on the dressing room so that he would be there as I walked out, looking casual. He did this every night, but he had been getting bolder recently. He'd been sidling closer to me, breathing my scent in deeply as he did so. His reactions were just all wrong for a human. It was too dangerous.

"You did well tonight, Alice," he said, reaching out tentatively to smooth a short hair that stuck out to the side of my head. I quickly ducked out of his reach, smiling at him at the same time.

"Thanks Sal," I said, tucking my own hair behind my ear.

My dismissal of his touch was written all over his face. Sadness replaced his hope. For a human, Sal was entirely too enamored of me. In fact, he was the reason I wouldn't be back tomorrow night. Or any other night. It was time to leave Chicago and move on to another city with another set of distractions. He was still standing too close to me, his breathing coming quicker and his eyes beginning to dilate. It was time to make an escape before he tried again to touch me. It wouldn't do to let the human see my lightening fast movements.

"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Sal," I said softly, lowering my eyes and smiling gently at him. I knew it would distract him from his goals, just enough to let me get by. I had been seeing this encounter off and on for the past hour, as he worked up his courage to come and talk to me. He wanted to ask me to dinner. I choked back another laugh at the thought of us sharing a meal hit me.

"Alice," he said, grazing my arm as he reached out again. The touch emboldened him and I saw the future swimming. "Won't you please tell me your whole name? It's just -- well, I'd like to know you better."

His eyes were pleading with me to give him a little more. I knew the look well. He wanted something personal that he could think about later when he imagined I had said yes to the question he would never ask. I couldn't give him even that, even if I wanted to. I didn't have it.

"I wish I could," I said honestly. "The truth is I really am just Alice. I don't know any other name."

Of course, I knew now that I used to be Mary Alice Brandon. I'd looked that up several years after my transformation. It didn't seem right to go by that name anymore though; I had no memory of being that girl and I doubted I even resembled her anymore. The world around me went black again and my immediate future was changing, solidifying.

I was running, flying through a field of blue flowers and there was blood, human blood, streaming through my system. Sal was about to make a mistake.

My eyes darted up to his and I registered the change in his emotion. He was angry with me for denying him what he wanted. All of my many dismissals and denials were building up in his mind now as he thought back on all the times he had wanted to ask me out and all the times I had silently refused, dismissing him with a smile and a shake of the head. Denying him my full name broke his quiet demeanor and now he was going to make me pay.

"You bitch," he spat. "You think you're better than everyone just because people come here to see you sing? I'm just as good as you."

I needed to think quick. If he lunged at me, I wouldn't have any choice but to jump out of his way. Although, him being left with suspicions about me would be better than the future I had just seen.

"Of course you are, Sal," I said soothingly. "I don't think I'm better than you or anyone else. I really don't know my name, so that makes me kind of worse than everyone else, right?"

I was grasping at anything to appease him, trying to divert his pursuit of me. He was backing me toward the door of the dressing room and soon I would have no escape but to hurdle over him. That would certainly tip him off.

"That's right, Alice," he said, smiling a nasty smile that warned me he was in no way backing off. "You're just a nameless little singer. Tiny actually. I bet I could break your little wrist if I tried."

He reached his hand out, making to grab at my wrist and my cool snapped. I was angry at him for assuming anything about me.

"I'd like to see you try, Sal," I said, dropping my bag and leaping straight up.

I held onto an exposed pipe and swung myself over his head, landing behind without a sound. He turned around dumbly to stare at me, still trying to work out how I had gotten around him.

"Never underestimate a tiny woman, Sal," I said coldly. "Never."

I turned and walked down the hall toward the exit, listening to his heart pound. He wasn't following me.

"Alice," he called, his voice strangled. I never turned around. "Your bag."

He mumbled the last, bending down to pick it up. I knew that he would probably keep it and think about this often. I also knew that he was angry with himself for what he had done; I could tell by the way his breathing began to hitch as he sobbed. He wasn't concerned about what he just saw…yet. Right now all that concerned him was my clicking heels as I walked away. He knew I wasn't coming back.

As soon as I hit the forest, I began to run joyfully. It wasn't long before I reached the field I had seen in my vision. Bluebells dotted the open space as the fading moonlight made the meadow glow. I paused in my run to sit for a while in the quite moonlit meadow, thinking over my life and wondering about others like me.

I wondered if any others like me had ever visited this meadow. Was I the first immortal to sit in this spot, contemplating the stars? I knew there were others like me out there; I would some day be a part of an entire family of immortals. I just constantly wondered about the others, the ones that were not destined to be a part of my future. It would be a balm to my lonely soul to find another in whom I could confide.

I sighed and rose, beginning my run again. I didn't have long before wandering humans made travel slower. For now, I was content in having changed my own future. Somewhere in Chicago, Sal was still alive and here I ran through the field I had envisioned, my record still in perfect condition.

A/N: So would you believe that my prompt for this chapter, I decided to look up random flower pictures, and this is what I came up with? Dark, huh? Hey, no one said my mind worked right. Anyway, Alice is totally my hero in this chapter. Hope you enjoy the end of Alice's speak easy days and her tell-off to Sal, the horny stage manager. I found it hard to believe that Edward was the only vampire who ever had a human fall for him. I'm not saying that Sal felt for Alice the way that Bella felt for Edward, but he was certainly attracted to her. And it was a problem she needed to deal with. Hope you enjoyed her solution! ~Jen