A/N: Wow. CRAZY past week and a half. Stupid holidays! We're snowed in right now with seven inches of snow on top of an inch of ice! Yikes. Anyway. I hope everybody had a great Christmas! Mine was chaotic to say the least. Rather boring! I'm having a shitty, shitty day and I'm just exhausted, so the typos might be worse again today. Not sure, but I really needed to update, so here's the next chapter and I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Twenty-Six: My Beloved
JPOV
I could feel how nervous she was and I was just as nervous.
So many things could go wrong.
What if she was killed? The danger of bringing a human into my house... She was everything to me!
What if they hurt her--physically or mentally?
What if she didn't like the life I had made here?
Fear was too easy in that situation.
I smiled at her as I walked up the side walk, side by side with the only important thing in my life. She had recovered quickly from my stunt when I walked around the car, but the look on her face told my family it was the first time I showed her my speed. They had seen. If they confronted me, she would have to watch.
I released her hand to jog ahead and open the door for her.
Her face lightened up and the apparent nerves were gone. She was wise. Any sign of fear on her part would be like feeding the wolves! I knew Rosalie was one to enjoy feeding off such energies.
I wrapped my arm around Alice's waist as she passed. She smiled, and that was it. I closed the door, moving to help her out of her jacket.
She was looking around the house in awe with an amazed look and a cute smile when opera began to play upstairs in the kitchen.
I tossed her jacket and mine down on the bench, then turned to her. "I told them not to do this, but I suppose it was dumb to think they would listen to me," I kidded.
She nodded in understanding and hugged my waist. Of course she thought of me first in that situation. It was the thing that made me feel most selfish. She was too selfless, especially compared to me.
I shook my head at her thoughtfully. She walked with her hand in mine, still worried.
She didn't know she was in a house full of vampires. I knew. She was the only one in danger. I was putting so much trust in my family and I didn't even know if it was a good idea. What if they did hurt her? She wasn't prepared for this anymore than I was prepared for a disaster that was waiting to happen.
I kissed Alice's head just before we rounded the corner to see my entire family there... cooking. Emmett held a huge steak knife that he was using to cut bread. Even I knew the difference. I saw Alice hesitate when she saw that, trying not to laugh. Her look turned slightly worried when he waved the knife in the air. If he wasn't already intimidating enough, he had to add a knife to the situation!
Alice smiled as Esme ran forward though. Esme hugged her, which was fine. I trusted her, Carlisle, and MaRai. I stayed close though, nearly hovering over my beloved. "Alice, this is Esme," I said softly, straining only because I could feel MaRai's temptation, no matter how slight it was.
"It's wonderful to meet you!" Alice said, but I could clearly see her uncertain look. She couldn't hide those nerves, but at least Rosalie wasn't looking. "You can call me Lace."
"Jasper just calls you Alice," MaRai announced with a pleasant smile.
Alice nodded; she knew that well! "Yeah, Lace is a nickname," she explained as Carlisle walked forward. I trusted he would make her feel welcome.
Alice smiled at him, remembering how he had taken care of her and he asked about her leg. "I could always break it again if you want Jasper to carry you around," Emmett volunteered with a grin.
Alice didn't even look his way--another wise move. She wasn't encouraging him while I couldn't stop the scowl that automatically was sent his way. Esme did the same and Emmett barely noticed hers. While Alice explained to Carlisle how she was doing, Edward stood in the back, his arms folded and his eyes on the floor. The manners shouted out how Alice was unwelcome, an intruder, and she had noticed already. She smiled at him and MaRai when she put a hand on his chest. She was trying to get her husband to listen. Edward was too damn stubborn! He refused to give Alice a chance, not one that would matter.
The silence fell. Rosalie's look was brought to a glare soon, and I sighed. The last thing we needed was an awkward silence so soon when Alice's heart was pounding! I glanced down at her. "I'm going to take you on a tour," I announced with a comforting smile down at her. She was trying harder than all of them! She hadn't let the glares or the stupid jokes from Emmett get to her. They were being unreasonable.
"Don't take too long," Esme instructed. "We're making you some dinner."
"Oh!" Alice smiled sweetly, glancing at the Italian cook book laid open on the counter. "Grazie. Che suoma grande." Perfect Italian, even if it was hesitant. Although Alice didn't know, Esme spoke Italian also and was impressed by it.
I waited a few more seconds, then led Alice towards the living room. She waved over her shoulder. I wanted to get her away as much as I could. The time alone to tell her stories of the decorations in our house, to watch her, to be with her, undisturbed. I wanted her to feel at ease here. I wanted her to become part of the family as I had, as MaRai had. She deserved that much at least. Edward loved MaRai more than anything, and that was how I felt about Alice. So why couldn't Alice be accepted as MaRai was?
I cleared my throat softly; I knew the answer to that. Slipping my arm around her waist, I could tell that my entire family was watching us from the kitchen doorway. I could sense it! They reminded me of the Bennetts from Pride and Prejudice!
"Cute," Esme's voice whispered, and Alice heard, grinning up at my annoyed look.
"Adorable," MaRai corrected.
"That went well," Carlisle said. Well? I failed to see how well it went. Emmett had volunteered to break her leg when she had just gotten her cast off! Rosalie had glared at her the entire time. Edward wouldn't even address her presence. Alice didn't seem to notice Edward or Rose, and she knew Emmett to some point that she didn't seem afraid, just surprised, which was understandable. It wasn't as if anything could go perfectly when we were seven vampires, and she was one human.
It went well enough, and Alice hadn't run out the door! That was something.
"Where's your room?" Alice asked once we were out of ear shot of my family. She was trying to distract me! I knew that instantly, even if I wasn't sure why.
I smiled casually. "Upstairs," I answered.
Naturally, that meant she went skipping towards the stairs. She was smiling at me and I followed. I would have followed her all the way to hell if only I could bring her back and take her to heaven where she belonged! She stopped on the third step though. I stood at the bottom as she wrapped her arms around me and hooked her folded hands behind my neck. She leaned into my chest for balance, her forehead touching mine, and her trust so complete. I smiled, waiting, wishing I knew why she loved me. The reasons for my love were all so obvious to me!
Alice kissed my unmoving lips, partially putting on a show for my family who had followed us. She was trying not to laugh at Emmett's red face as he tried to contain his own laughter. "You think too hard sometimes," she told me more seriously though. "Some questions don't deserve answers."
I waited, then chuckled at her, and wrapped my arms around her waist, lifting her from the third step and I held her close that time. I wanted her close, whether we were being stalked or not! That was where she belonged, even if I didn't want to hurt her and that was the only thing that would happen. It was destined to be. But my family needed to see how real this was, how real she was.
"You must be thinking something," I said. "Questioning something."
She nodded once. "I'm thinking your entire family is watching and I would greatly like to avoid intercourse jokes from Emmett," she whispered, but I knew they could hear. Emmett did try to stifle his laughter, not that it worked. Alice gestured towards the door when he burst into hysterics.
I grinned, partially from annoyance. "I'll show you my room now," I replied, and I set her down on the second step so she could go ahead of me.
"Yeah, that's the place to do it!" Emmett called.
Alice grabbed my hand before I could start to turn though, saving me from many things. She was a savior! I let her lead me upstairs, but she could have never known which room was mine. I smiled and let her walk until she reached the last room on the left. Then I stopped her and she turned to the closed door with a hesitant look. I opened the door for her. She smiled at me, then entered ahead of me. She turned to me once she was in the middle of the room. "This is it then?" she asked, but she knew the answer already.
I nodded once.
She spun around to examine the entirety of my room in seconds. She laughed softly, somewhat in awe. "You bought all of this music since we had that conversation?" she inquired in disbelief. With the shelves of CDs and the large quantities laying on the floor, there was good reasons. I watched her look around, but my main feeling was a bit of embarrassment. My room was a wreck! Completely an utterly. I hadn't even thought to clean it.
"Well, not all of it," I replied, and moved to the majority of the music. "The classical is borrowed from Edward, the foreign from Esme, some of the rock from MaRai. I bought the rest."
"Oh," Alice whispered, running her hands over the rows of CDs. "So you and Edward aren't fighting constantly?"
I frowned. She blamed herself for all the stupid family quarrels we had! I put my arm around her waist, catching her before she could move away and continue surveying my room. "No. We had a few fights and a couple brawls, but we've been brothers for a while now. You've fought with Nick, right?"
Alice shrugged. "Okay, do forgive my mortal sin," she mumbled, trying to escape my grip.
"No, no, wait a minute," I instructed.
She rolled her eyes, but she nodded in submission. "What?" she asked me with her usual interest. She smiled at me in a nearly... well, seductive way. It was working too. She pulled me in too much!
"A mortal sin," I repeated. Mortality was one thing I knew.
Alice's smile faded immediately. "Ah, sorry," she mumbled. "I was joking."
I nodded. "I know, I know. It's not a problem." A mortal sin--what was my sin? It just got me thinking. I looked into Alice's eyes to see concern there. I shook my head. "So do you want to do anything tonight?" I had to make sure she forgot about it. I knew the way to do that. She just needed one opportunity to plan something and she was occupied for hours.
Alice gave me a scowl that turned into my favorite smile. She wrinkled her nose and her dimples were deep. "What do you do? Or what did you do before you started spending all your time with me?" She was searching for a way to understand me. She was looking for that one opening, the answer and the truth about me and about my entire family.
"We could go for a walk. Or we could allow Emmett to drag you into a game of Halo 3 or any other video game."
Alice grinned, then she slipped out of my arms, and she moved to a large stack of my old journals I had taken out a few weeks ago. I wanted to remember what it felt like to be so alone in order to realize what she meant to me fully.
I narrowed my eyes. I didn't want her to read them all. Their pages were filled with a pain she could never understand and an anger that would torment her until she knew what I was exactly. She didn't need to know that. The question was always lurking in the back of her mind, and the answer was always in mind.
She glanced at me once as she ran her fingers over the covers. She touched them, but she didn't open one. I could see the temptation there though.
"You can read it if you want," I told her.
No more secrets! She let me in and I owed her the same courtesy. I had to let go of the secrets now. It was coming--the time to tell her everything. Then I could lose her or nothing would change.
Alice played with a strand of her hair and then she hesitantly picked up one off my couch. She wanted to understand, but she wasn't sure if this was the right way.
She flipped open to the middle and read a bit silently. She looked up at me. I saw how the expression of sadness. "Life had no purpose to me, and it never has. I had no desire to live. I hated everything, especially myself. Now time has frozen for a few moments. In those few moments, I met the girl I was meant to spend my life with, and I have no life, no life to give her, no purpose. Death is better than life as long as one is not caught in the death, never to truly die and never to truly live," she read out loud in a devastated, nearly silent voice. The words from the week we had met were hurting her. She could know how much she knew to me, and I could not go on listening to her pain that was my own fault. She didn't see how glad I was now, glad to have felt that because one cannot be joyous without pain first. She read a few more lines silently though, and then she changed the pain.
I remembered how much I had written that week. For once, it wasn't about how bored I was or how much I hated life. I never stopped writing about her. She was the only thing on my mind and she was the only thing I wrote about for journals and journals. She knew now that I had loved her from the start. She had picked up one that wasn't horrible. It was one I wanted her to read actually. I wanted her to know what she had done for me! She needed to know; I needed her to know.
Alice sat down. She read some and smiled, which meant so much to me. She knew! She was there, ready to stay for so long. As long as any human could. She took my hand in hers, and I sat next to her.
"If one life could ever mean the world, Alice means more to me," she began to read again, a smile on her face, but she didn't seem to believe the words! They were honest, true. "She cannot know that, but she's everything to me." She leaned her head on my shoulder and read the rest of the page silently. Then she closed it and set it aside. Apparently that much had satisfied her. She hugged my waist. "All those things you wrote about me, I feel them for you; I just don't know how to tell you," she whispered softly.
"You don't need to, Alice," I told her with a smile. "You look at me like I'm a hero and you look at me like you see there's something more. I'm not an angel or a hero, Alice. I'm just a man who wants to love you unlike any other. I don't need any words, Alice. You're here. That's more than enough."
She looked at me in disbelief. "I'm not an angel either, Jasper. I'm just human."
I nodded. "Good, I like human," I replied.
Alice smiled in a shy way, burying her face in my neck. I laid down with her in my arms. This was meant to be. I kissed the top of her head gently. "Mm," she whispered, her eyes closed. She was content, as was I. This was the only way I wanted things to be.
"I told you I heard moaning!" Emmett exclaimed, bursting through my door. Rude, and Alice didn't move at all! She had a smile that only I knew of, buried in my neck as she shook from silent laughter from embarrassment.
MaRai followed him in, which meant Edward was close behind. Rosalie was being unsociable of course. MaRai smiled at Alice as I sat up, which forced my beloved to do the same. "Just like Jasper to hog the guest of honor," she said.
Alice only grinned.
"Can we borrow her for two seconds?"
"For what?" I demanded.
MaRai shrugged. "You can come too, selfish!"
I rolled my eyes. At least MaRai was being friendly! That was good. She was the only one to have the ability to talk sense into Edward. If only he gave Alice a chance...
I cupped my hands under Alice's arms to help her up. Wherever she went, I would go. MaRai was calm. She wouldn't attack Alice. But Edward wouldn't leave his mate. That was my problem mostly. My Alice smiled as if he wasn't watching her in such a critical way. She followed MaRai down to the living room. They sat on the couch as if they were great friends already. That was comforting.
"I can't believe we haven't talked yet!" MaRai said cheerfully. She was a lot like Alice in that way, but she wasn't as patient. Or perhaps I was just biased because she was my sister. "I'm MaRai," she continued. "Jasper hasn't told me enough about you. Shamefully cruel of him!"
Alice grinned. "Indeed."
"The best way to punish him would be to steal you away and I would if I believed you wouldn't suffer also," MaRai explained. She would! I knew she would have pulled my Alice off for a heart-to-heart talk. Of course that wouldn't be entirely disastrous. MaRai made sense of Edward and she would be able to explain it better than I.
Alice glanced up with a smile. "Well, I wouldn't mind. Jasper hasn't spoken of you enough, but I would love to talk more! I know we'll be great friends." Naturally, she was optimistic while I couldn't get past how Edward behaved.
MaRai nodded. "Yes! Of course! Anyone who loves Jasper as much as you do and anyone he loves so much is a part of the family."
I saw how Alice glanced at Edward that time. She had noticed his behavior and still not taken offense to it. That made me even more angry toward Edward, angry enough for Alice and I together! She needed to stick up for herself more, but then she was in her own way. She smiled. "Well, I hope we can all be friends. You're all so important to Jasper," my Alice said, squeezing my hand. She was trying to reason with Edward while not even talking to him. MaRai was a good way to get to Edward though! Alice's approach made more sense than fists.
MaRai smiled. "Not like you. He's a whole new person with you!"
I cleared my throat awkwardly, not willing to have them talk about me as if I wasn't there. "Are you done yet?" I asked MaRai impatiently. "Can't I get more than two seconds alone with her?" I gripped Alice's petite hand gently, wishing I knew I could hold it for eternity. That would never happen. I knew that, but wishing wasn't anything less than anyone else would do. I had already waited what felt like an eternity for her.
"You have her to yourself every other time," MaRai replied. "Don't we get to talk to her for a while?"
"No," I replied with a fake pleasantness.
"He truly is selfish," MaRai told Alice, and that infuriated me. Yes, I was selfish! We both knew that and Alice was my guest, correct? I showed her to my room and that was it, not much of a tour unless it was Emmett's definition of one!
"You want to go outside for a walk?" I asked my beloved. Whenever I was stressed, she was the one I went to. I needed to feel that serenity when we were alone. She was all of my happiness.
Alice nodded quickly and stood, releasing my hand but not in rejection. I waited, my eyes glued on her the whole time. She leaned down to hug MaRai, which didn't surprise me, but then she smiled at Edward too. She took him by surprise as much as she did me! I wrapped my fingers on the curve of her waist. She put her hand on my chest. It was a sign that she knew my moods were getting out of hand. She was have known how Edward got to me so easily.
I averted my eyes from Edward to prevent glaring at him. Alice led the way towards the front door then. We went outside to put on our coats. She watched my face. "They're trying, Jasper," she whispered, a hand on my shoulder blade now. "Even Edward."
"He didn't succeed," I said through clenched teeth. Alice was only trying to help. My anger wasn't directed towards her; it never was.
"He didn't smack me in the face or stick the dogs on me either," she replied firmly.
I scoffed. "Alice, you shouldn't be so patient. Edward doesn't know you. He shouldn't be against the unknown," I told her in the same tone.
"He's not. He's against what I symbolize to all of you. He doesn't want the outsider to come in and destroy the ideal, perfect home. He doesn't want the outsider to come and then leave. If I've changed this much in you like MaRai said, won't that mean it will be much worse when I'm gone? I can understand the way he's thinking, even if I'm not in the same position. He's not even against me. He's against the pain and all the problems I create," she explained. She smiled at my silence. "Please, don't worry about it. Let me handle it, okay?"
I shook my head. "Edward isn't like me," I told her. "He won't care if he hurts you."
"Then let him. There's only so many ways to fight pain. What about him? He loved MaRai and he brought her into the house and the family! MaRai is permanent. Now you're trying to bring me into a family I don't belong in."
"No, you belong here! If he would just give you a chance..."
"He has no reason to give me a chance when he thinks I'll leave you because I'm scared of what will happen when I'm old and you're exactly the same," she pointed out gently, and she was right. "He doesn't want me to leave you and he's being cautious."
I knit my eyebrows together. "Do you know all men so well?" I asked. "Do you read their minds?"
She shook her head. "No, sir! No mind reading or major profiling. I just know that we all think approximately the same way when we're protecting people we love, and I know what I would do if I was him." She was right, like always. I wanted Edward to put himself in my shoes, but now Alice had forced me to stand in his for a few seconds and it made sense. She made me see the light so easily, which meant she knew me better than anyone else. She knew what needed to be said and she helped me.
I glanced up at the sky because I was reluctant to tell my beloved how right she was, but by the smile on her face, she knew that too.
She entwined her fingers in mine with a sympathetic look. "I love you," she whispered.
I hope you liked it! The next chapter is short and should be posted soon, probably tomorrow night. Hope everybody has a great New Years!