Jasper turned to Alec, glaring at the young boy. Alec smirked in response, amused at the exchange he had partially witnessed between Jasper and his former wife.

The empath took a calming breath to center himself. As inopportune as Alec's interruption was, it served as a reminder that Jasper was truly not in a position to just up and leave, no matter how much he may have wanted to.

The truth was, Alice was right. Edward would attempt to woo Bella back. Edward had always had an almost unhealthy obsession with her from the first moment he met her. Despite that though, Jasper needed to trust Bella and believe that no matter how enticing or persuasive Edward could be that she would not fall victim to his charms. If he ran off in a jealous fit, it would spell potential disaster for everyone he cared about and isn't that what he was trying to prevent by going on this mission?

"I was not going anywhere, Alec."

"Good. My sister is getting inpatient and wants to have progress made."

Jasper could care less what Jane wanted. "Believe me. There is nothing more that I would like to see."

"Very good." Alec turned his attention to the petite vampire. "And how are you Alice?"

She bristled. Jasper knew that Alice had a tremendous dislike of Alec and detested Jane even more. "I could be better."

It did not bother Alec in the least at Alice's cold reception. "Any visions concerning the newborns?"

She shook her head. "Nothing concrete as of yet." Alice looked at the guardsman forlornly. "Alec, Jasper and I just got reacquainted. Can we please have five minutes and then we can meet back at the hotel where you are staying?"

The boy paused for a moment, and shook his head yes. "Five minutes." He left as quickly as he arrived.

Alice turned to Jasper once Alec was out of earshot. "I'm sorry for what I said. It was out of line."

Jasper pressed his lips in a thin line. "It's true. Edward will pursue her."

"He will. He will not take no for an answer easily. But if Bella…" she paused, forcing the next words out, "willingly marked you, then she is not going to succumb to him, Jasper."

She began to walk down the worn path in the park. When his pixie realized that he was not following her, she turned to look behind her, her eyes asking him to join her. He caught up to her easily and for a minute they just walked.

"Did you just want to go for a walk with me Alice, or is there something more?" He could feel the guilt radiating off her and knew that there was more than just a quick apology.

Alice bit her lip. "I have to admit something."

"What is it, Al?"

She sighed loudly and rushed out the next words. "When we first came to Forks, when Bella was first introduced to our family, the reason I stayed so close to her was because I was worried about something developing between you and her."

Jasper stopped the both of them in the path. He grabbed her, looking her in the eyes. "What? Did you have a vision?"

She looked down briefly before meeting his gaze. "I had a vision of you and Bella meeting before she even started school. It was when she first arrived. She had gone to the Library in Port Angeles to check out a book and you were there with Esme. You ran into her in the history section and had a lengthy conversation. You both found that you had a lot in common and I saw the relationship becoming quite close despite Edward. I wasn't positive that it was romantic, but it was enough to make me jealous."

"What happened?" His voice was low.

"Well, the day that you were supposed to go to the library…"

"Ah, I remember."

Esme had walked into the living room, an old book in her hand. "Jasper, I need to return this book. By any chance, do you feel like going to the library?"

Jasper had laughed inwardly when he heard Alice's groan. Alice never understood Jaspers enjoyment of the library; Alice, Emmett, and even Rose never understand why he did not just buy a new book when he wanted one. He had tried to explain to them that there was something about sharing a book that others had already enjoyed, feeling the worn pages in between your hands, and browsing through the aisles, finding the perfect novel.

Jasper stopped the game that he was playing and went upstairs to Alice. He was in the hallway walking into the room. "Alice? I'm going to the Library to-"

He stopped, taking in as Alice lay on the bed in the black lingerie that she knew was his favorite. She sat up on her knees, facing him with her best come hither look. She blinked innocently. "You were saying, Jasper?"

He walked over to the bed. Alice was normally very big on privacy and waited till everyone was gone before they ever attempted making love. The fact that she wanted to do a risky mid-afternoon rendezvous was a huge departure for her and a major turn on for him. "Ma'am, I wasn't saying anything."

He wrapped his arms around Alice and just before kissing her he said. "Esme, I won't be going to the Library today."

"You prevented Bella and I from meeting that day."

Alice nodded. "After that, I stayed close to Bella. I love her, I really do, but my original intentions were not entirely pure. I kept you away from her as Edward and Bella began their relationship, playing up to your fears of hurting the innocent human. They fell in love, and I had no other visions of you and Bella together in that sense. I thought that I had honestly misinterpreted the vision all that time and had finally come to terms with the fact that the both of you were simply meant to have the kind of close friendship that Edward and I shared."

"Alice, why would you play with my future like that?" He had never been so disappointed in Alice in all of his life.

She gripped his arm. "I was scared! Jasper, I love you and the idea of losing you to someone else? I couldn't bare it. So I interfered and it was wrong."

"If you really loved me, you would not have interfered with my happiness. This was not a matter of life and death, Alice. You yourself said it was usually better to let things play out as they are meant to."

"You were my first vision when I turned, Jasper. I had a vision of you and I. I did not have a vision of Edward and I, or of anyone else. That has to account for something. You cannot blame me for not being ready to potentially give you up."

Jasper felt her heartbreak. He was angry, he felt betrayed at the admission, but he also felt sorrow. Truth was, if he was the person who had the visions and if he had seen what she saw, would he not be tempted to do the very same thing?

Alice continued. "Look. I am genuinely sorry. We would not be in this whole mess now potentially if I had not interfered with the natural course of things. All I am asking is for your forgiveness. We have a lot of things that we need to work out. I want us to be okay, Jasper. Even if it is never in a loving way again, even if you are in the arms of Bella forever, I want us still to be Alice and Jasper as friends, as confidants. Can we try to work on that?"

"We can, Al. I don't want to lose you either. You will always be the person who is responsible for making me who I am today. "

Jasper rarely ever teared up. His ability meant that he knew how to control his emotions, but here he was, facing the end of a sixty year marriage to Alice Cullen and he would be damned if he reined in his sadness now. They smiled slightly at each other. "We were good together, Al."

She sniffled. "We were, weren't we?"

Jasper leaned down, placing one final kiss on Alice's lips. She leaned in and Jasper was overwhelmed by the love that she exuded, just for him, only for him. He pulled away, and almost as quickly as it started, it was over.

They were over.

Jasper hoped to whatever God that was up above, that Alice and Edward would find solace in each others arms and be happy.

The walk back to the hotel was quiet, neither one of them saying a word. They needed time to come to terms with all of this, even if it was just a ten minute human paced walk to the building. As they entered the hotel key into the door slot, Jasper was ready to face what he came here for.

Jane sat in a chair in the corner, her lips turned down like always. "Good you are here. I see you brought the clairvoyant with you."

His companion's face soured. "My name is Alice."

Jane snapped the book she was holding shut. "Yes. I know who you are. The only thing I care about is how you are going to be of use to us."

Jasper would not fault Alice is she ripped Jane apart right at that moment. "Well, if you are having an issue with my presence, perhaps you should talk to Aro. Apparently, he thought it was a good idea I was brought on board."

"I never said it was not a good idea to have you involved. I simply did not feel it necessary to bother with fake pleasantries when all I really care about is if you have had any visions that could be of use to us."

Jasper cleared his throat. "Alice has not had any visions as of yet. Once we fill her in on the exact situation and our primary suspect, she can then focus her visions and be of assistance in resolving this matter."

Alec placed a hand on his sisters shoulder, looking at the two new arrivals. "I think that is a good place to start." He reached into his left pocket and pulled out the picture of Christoph and handed it to Alice. "This is the man that we believe is in charge of orchestrating this whole newborn army. We do not have much to go on at the moment."

She studied the picture. "Alright, I will begin to look out for visions pertaining to him. Is there anything else?"

Jasper shook his head. "Not much. Now that that everyone is here, I would like to start by having us all go visit a different site where the attacks took place. There have been about 8 different recorded attacks and Christoph would not let the newborns travel far."

Alex thought for a moment. "There have been attacks on the northwest side, Northeast, southwest, and southeast. That is a pretty far range that he is letting newborns travel."

"Exactly. That is something that has been bothering me. I have come to one conclusion. There are four different newborn nests. Which means that the numbers could be greater than we think."

Alex shook his head. "Impossible. We would know."

Jasper clasped his hands behind his back, pacing the room. "No. You would not. When Maria wanted to ambush another Vampire's territory, she would order a harvesting. A Harvesting was a means to change many humans at once, and by doing so, she would not tip off the enemy of her plans. She would set them loose in the enemy's territory after just a couple of weeks, and the results were very deadly."

Jasper hated remembering those days. He remembered gathering mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, all in an attempt to win a war that was impossible to win. He recalled one time Maria ordering all of them to change an entire church congregation at Christmas Eve Service. Even as a human, Jasper may not have been a deeply religious man, however, that particular order still haunts him to this day.

Alec did not respond, differing to Jasper. "I suggest we start looking now. Since this person appears to be well funded, it will take awhile to locate them and then we still need to devise a plan to take them out. If I am right, four locations is a lot more difficult infiltrating than just one."

The four of them began by pulling out a map to mark where they were going to start their recognizance. By the end of the night, each of them left in a different direction. Jasper was pleased that they were finally doing something of use, hoping that soon he could be able to put this all behind him.

As he sat on the subway bringing him to the Northwest end of Paris, he looked at his cell phone for the tenth time, worried that he had not heard from Bella.

A/N: I posted this early because well, I have had a lot of requests to do so and well, I really have kept you waiting long enough. J

I have also had a couple of requests when I posted the last chapter about the novel I wrote. Well, thanks to a couple of good friends, I finally got the courage to self publish it (I am much more sensitive about putting characters I created and love out there for the world to see). I am currently in the process of getting it professionally proofread. In the meantime, over the next few weeks, I am going to give a preview of the first six chapters of the novel if anyone wants to read it and give feedback through FictionPress (this websites sister page).

s/3064382/1/Awakening