A/N: Thanks to all of you for reading. :)

One chapter to go after this.

It wasn't until I reached the coastline that I realized I had left my car, my purse—everything—back in Halifax. I only hesitated a second before diving into the icy water and swimming across to Newfoundland. The rhythm of my strokes and the frigid water helped me calm my mind somewhat. If only the icy water could also cool the pain I was feeling in my chest.

When I reached shore, I stood looking back at Nova Scotia. I could just make out the faint glow of the city on the horizon. A human wouldn't have been able to make it out, but it gleamed to me like a beacon.

That is where your heart is. Go back to him.

I shook the thoughts out of my head with a wail of anguish, forcing myself to turn and run home. The home where my family was—not the home where I had left the remnants of my heart. I couldn't be weak. I had to leave him, no matter how hard it was for me.

I slowed to a walk as I approached the house. I knew that they would be supportive, but having to tell them what happened would be almost as hard as running away had been.

"Alice?"

I looked in the direction of the voice I knew so well. Jasper and Bella were sitting on the stone wall at the back of the garden, resting in each other's arms. It was going to take them a while to become accustomed to the chaos of the family again; they had been so used to it just being the two of them.

"What's wrong?" Jasper asked. His voice made my despair come crashing down on me, and I collapsed to the ground, sobbing, my knees sinking into the snow. He looked at Bella. She nodded her approval, and he jumped down and raced to me, taking me in his arms.

"It hurts so much." My body was shaking like a leaf, vibrating the ice that had accumulated in my hair off my head.

"I know," he cooed, stroking the back of my neck, and I felt terrible that he was having to share this pain with me. "Tell me what happened."

The commotion had called the rest of the family out to the yard, and they circled around the two of us, each couple standing together – just as it should be. The pain of knowing that I could be like that but had walked away from it ripped through me, and visions of the past few days flashed through my head.

Edward gasped. "R—really?"

I looked at the grass, unable to look at him now he knew what I had done.

Esme crouched down next to us. "Alice? What happened?" she asked in her perfectly caring, soft voice.

I shook my head, and Edward told them all. "She found her mate. And left him."

A buzz went around the circle as different reactions merged into one. It was a cacophony of hisses, exclamations of how could I do it, and sympathetic noises.

"Why?" Carlisle asked, his voice ringing out clear and authoritative.

I shook my head again, unable to say the words.

Everyone looked to Edward.

He was confused for a second as he tried to sort through my thoughts. "Uh, they…couldn't accept each other's diets."

"Oh…" Any protest Carlisle was about to make fell away on his lips.

"Come on, honey," Jasper said softly, lifting me up into his arms. I could feel him manipulating my emotions, and I was too tired to tell him to stop. I was the one who ran away; I deserved to feel the pain, not him.

He carried me into the house, setting me on the couch next to him so I could snuggle into his side. I noticed Bella take up her place on the arm of the chair next to him, her fingers making their way into his hair, soothing.

I noticed the rest of the family hovering. "I don't want to talk about it," I warned them.

"But…"

"I can't." I buried my head under Jasper's arm, treasuring the comforting—no longer enticing—scent I knew so well.

After several minutes of me not saying a word, they all drifted out of the room. Despite their attempts to stay quiet, I could hear them all meeting in Carlisle's office to get the story out of Edward. I didn't care. I just knew that I couldn't tell them myself.

"Did you know you were going to meet him when you left here the other day?" Jasper asked softly.

I nodded my head against his side.

"And you hadn't foreseen it going badly?"

I shook my head but realized I needed to explain at least a little bit. "I'd only seen glimpses of us together."

"Oh, Alice. I'm so sorry."

He let me sit there in my misery for hours, just stroking my hair. He always seemed to know just what I needed, and he allowed me to feel my pain, only taking the edge off when it became too much. The sky began to brighten before I even attempted to move from his comforting embrace.

"You're too good to me," I mumbled as I sat up, looking Bella in the eye in silent thanks that she allowed me to monopolize her mate all night. She pursed her lips and nodded slowly in response.

In his own answer, Jasper sent me feelings of understanding and acceptance.

With my head just a little bit clearer than when I first arrived, I had the sense to ask Emmett and Rosalie to get my car and my belongings from the hotel.

"And if he's there, can I rip him apart?" Emmett asked.

Pain ripped through me at the thought, and it was obvious on my face. I couldn't stand the idea of Daniel being hurt—physically, anyway. I knew that he was likely hurting emotionally because of my actions.

"I'm sorry, Alice," Emmett blurted out when Rosalie elbowed him in the ribs. "But this guy hurt my sister. I'm entitled to be mad at him, aren't I?"

"I doubt he'll be there," I said with a shake of my head, my sight focused on the carpet. "But don't make things worse if he is. I hurt him, not the other way around. This is entirely my fault. I should have just stayed away."

"Of course we won't make it worse," Rosalie reassured me before taking her husband's hand and leading him out the French doors into the garden.

They each gave me a sad look before they disappeared. I expected to receive that look a lot from my family in the upcoming days. Weeks. Months. The biggest problem was that I knew that I didn't deserve their pity. I had brought this pain upon myself. I was the one who sought him out. I was the one who approached him. I was the one who convinced him that regardless of his history, we should be together. I deserved to feel the pain.

Without my visions, I wondered if we would have ever crossed paths. Would things have been better if we met at a different time? Would we have been more amenable to each other's needs? Or would I have found a different mate – someone more willing to change their diet for me?

It was Edward who finally approached me almost 24 hours after I first arrived home. Esme had taken up Jasper's earlier job and was unobtrusively sitting at one end of the couch with my feet in her lap while I tried to block out reality by covering my head in cushions.

"Alice? Will you come out for a run with me?"

"I hunted yesterday. It didn't end well," I said softly, pushing my head further into the couch cushion.

"We don't have to hunt. We'll just take a run around the island. We can talk, can't we?"

I raised my head to look at him with a sigh. "I guess."

"Get changed," he commanded me. "Get rid of those sea-salt encrusted clothes."

"Really? You're telling me about what to wear?"

"Yes. Since you're incapable of realizing what you need right now, someone needs to."

With another heavy sigh, I trudged up to my room and changed.

"Better?" I asked as I returned down the stairs.

"Much." He grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door.

I halted just before the tree line. "Edward?"

"Yes?"

"If I try to go back to the mainland, you have to stop me, okay?"

"Of course." He nodded curtly and pulled me into a jog.

I felt the rush of air against my face as we ran. I could feel the crunch of the snow beneath my feet. I could hear the whisper of insects munching their way through the trees. I knew that I should be happy right now—I always loved the feeling of flying—but the joy was lost to me. All that remained was excruciating pain.

"Why are we out here?" I asked after twenty minutes of running.

"To run."

"Not a good enough reason." My mind turned to Daniel and the look on his face the second before I turned to leave him. I couldn't believe the strength it had taken to walk away from him. If I was honest, I would have to admit that it was harder than giving Jasper up – because with Jasper, I knew that leaving him would make him incredibly happy. But this time, I left for selfish reasons and because of that, I was being punished with the incredible amount of hurt I had to endure.

"It will get better, you know."

I scoffed. "I can hardly see how."

"It will. I've seen it."

"I thought I was the one who could see the future."

"Not with you. I've seen the minds of others who have left their mates. It's possible, but definitely not easy. It's only been twenty-four hours, Alice. Of course it hurts. But after some time, you'll be able to live again."

"Like I did before?"

He leaped over a river before answering, smiling at the feeling as he flew across. "Maybe not. You'll probably feel like there's something missing now. But you'll be able to live without him."

I sighed. "So I'll be a miserable old cow. How long until you start calling me Miss Pittypat?"

He barked out a laugh. "Well, I wasn't going to at all, but now that you mention it—"

In two steps, I had approached him and pushed him over, landing him deeply in the snow. He jumped up and shook the clumps out of his hair, patting his clothes down at the same time.

"See? Right there?" He smiled at me. "There's still some emotion left in you."

"Oh, I know I can feel emotion," I retorted. "It's called misery. I'm becoming well-acquainted with it."

"Something other than misery."

I shrugged.

He sat down on a fallen tree trunk as I leaned against a nearby rock. "You know, Alice, you can leave. Go back to him. Nobody will think any less of you."

"I can't! I can't be the monster he'll turn me into!"

"At least you'll be together," he said, his voice fading on the breeze.

"I can't. He won't change his diet; won't even consider it."

"Alice," he said with a sigh. "Does it have to be all or nothing? You'd known him three days before you left. It's a lot to take in. I'm sure he was overwhelmed and scared. Maybe, after some time, he would come around to the idea. Maybe—just maybe—for now, you could meet him halfway."

I looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "What? You're on his side now?"

"There are no sides in this. We all just want you to be happy. That's all that matters, surely. I know that we have created a great life here without harming humans, but Daniel only knew his life. You can't expect him to make such a life-altering change so quickly."

"He said he'd never do it."

Edward ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "When you pushed him. You argued, and he felt backed into a corner. Did you really expect anything different from him? I don't think he's a bad guy here, Alice."

"What? And I am?"

He sighed. "No. You're not. There's no right and wrong sometimes. But you need to both listen to each other and adapt to what the other wants and needs. You need to at least try to make it work. Even if that means you have different diets."

I kicked at a mound of snow, making flakes fall all around me. "I'll become a monster just like him. I saw it."

"Yes. I know you did. I saw it too. But sometimes I think you rely too much on the black and white of what you see in your visions. Did you consider the extenuating circumstances of what was causing that vision?"

I dropped to sit on the other end of the log from him with a slight thud. "What do you mean?"

He rubbed his hand against his cheek in a very human gesture. "You have us, Alice. The impression I got from that vision was that you had run off with him as a nomad. But you need to remember that we are here, and even if he stays on the human diet, you have us to help you abstain. We won't let you fall off the wagon if that's what you want. There's a middle ground here. It doesn't always have to be all or nothing. Don't run away from your family; we're here to help you."

"He wouldn't want to live here with all of you."

"You don't know that. He may have baulked at the idea initially, but he might change his mind. And even if you don't live with us anymore, you can stay close by so we can still help you."

"I can't see how this will work. Do you really expect me to go back to him, hat in hand?"

"Do you love him?"

"Well, yeah."

"Then that's the most important thing here."

"I might love him, but he never showed any hint that he felt the same way about me. It's useless."

I saw the flash of a vision just moments before it happened, and Edward and I both whipped our heads around behind us to see it happen in real life.

It was such a familiar voice, a voice I had spent the last day imagining. And it wasn't just a dream this time. It was right there coming from his mouth.

"I do feel the same way."

I sat there in shock as I watched Daniel duck out from behind the brush and walk toward us.