I'm not happy with this chapter... it feels a little slow, but I couldn't bring myself to cut it out completely. I think Jasper and Alice have to have these conversations for their relationship to progress. I tried to jazz it up in the end......... thoughts? =(

Because You Loved Me

Part 4/?

Because The Past Still Matters...

"Tell me about her," Alice says a few days later, when they're traveling across a rain-soaked plain just as the sun is setting. She'd been trailing behind Jasper a few steps, admiring the way the light reflected off his skin. When he was like this, she couldn't see the scars as well. Not that she minded them...

"Who?"

She fiddles with the blue flower he'd given her before - it's petals are wilting now, but she doesn't care. She'll keep it until it crumbles away.

"Maria." Jasper is silent, and continues walking, but at a slower pace. Alice hurries to his side and latches herself onto his arm. When she looks up at him, he looks away. She frowns. "You don't have to..."

"There isn't much to say, Alice. She was angry and driven by revenge and nothing stood in her way, or told her she was wrong."

"Not even you?"

Silence again, and Alice knows; yes, he had told her she was wrong, he had stood up to her. Had it been him and him alone? How had Maria reacted? She has so many questions about this mysterious young woman who turned Jasper all those years ago, and she feels almost connected to her in some way. Had it not been for Maria, Alice would not have him now...

"It was often hard for me to be upset with Maria and stay that way. During the first few years of my new life, she told stories to me, stories of her family and all she'd lost. She explained to me why she was doing what she did... whether it was truth or lie, I didn't know. I still don't. Maria was young; just a child, really, and she often acted like one. She threw temper tantrums when she didn't get her way, and though she was one of the most powerful and cunning vampires I've ever met, she was extremely naive. I think that was her downfall, in the end."

Alice chews her lip, and tries to picture a man like Jasper taking orders from a conniving child. She can't. When she catches him looking down at her out of the corner of his eye, she pulls at face at him. "What?"

"Nothing," he says.

"Tell me..."

He sighs. "You remind me of her, in some ways, that's all."

"I do?" Alice is more interested in this conversation now. "Am I a lot like her?"

Jasper's laugh echoes across the field. "No, Alice. You're nothing like her... you just do some of the same things. You both cling to humanity, though she did so because she missed it. You do it because that's all you know."

She kicks a pile of dirt. "I did it to fit in. Now I feel silly, because you never do those things..."

"Alice," he says, stopping and turning to look down at her. "Does it make you happy?"

While she thinks about this, she sits on the ground and crosses her legs. He sits next to her. "It makes me feel like I have something to do. Brushing my teeth, pretending that I'm sleeping, bathing every night - or every night that I can... I guess it's a way to pass the time. I started out just copying other people, but I've developed my own habits now and... yes, I think it does make me happy."

"Then you shouldn't worry about feeling silly."

Jasper stands and offers his hand to her, but she doesn't take it. She simply looks away. "I remember these things..."

"...Remember what things, Alice?"

"Human things. I remember brushing my hair... it was so long and beautiful," she says, her hand going to her now short and choppy hair. "I remember singing and reading. I even remember baking, I remember the smell but I can't remember the taste, and it's so frustrating because I can't remember anything important and--"

He kneels, reaches out to brush the back of his hand against her cheek. "Alice."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't know how to help you, Alice. The only thing I can say - and I know you're not going to like it - is to let it go. The bits of life you remember, the bits of yourself... they're gone now, and you'll never have them back. This is who you are now; this amazing, strong, beautiful creature. Embrace it, because if you don't..."

He trails off. He doesn't have to finish because she can simply look at him and know what he was going to say.

If you don't, you'll end up like me.

* * *

A few hours before a cloudless sunrise, they break into a barn that hasn't been abandoned. It's the only choice they have. The three horses that are housed there stare at them when they enter, and Alice watches carefully as Jasper leans on the door one of one of their stables. His arm is extended, his palm up to reveal a handful of hay he'd picked up off the ground.

"I don't like horses," she whispers, standing near the barn door.

Jasper chuckles lightly when the animal sniffs at his hand and then eyeballs his face warily. "That's probably because they're about sixty times your size, Alice."

"Do they bite?"

"If they bit you, it'd probably break their teeth off. Come here."

Alice blinks. "No, that's OK."

"Alice, for God's sake, you could take this animal down in naught-point-two-seconds. You'll fight mountain lions with your bare hands, but you won't go near a horse?"

She thinks that does seem a bit silly. Walking towards them carefully, she makes sure to make absolutely no sound with her feet on the ground. Jasper reaches out and wraps his free arm around her shoulders. "Why are you afraid of them?"

"No reason," she mumbles, taking a bit of the hay he's holding out to her.

"There has to be a reason."

Alice fiddles with the hay. She knows what he's doing; there is a reason she's afraid. A reason she can't remember... a reason that must go back to her human life. She closes her eyes, wrinkles her forehead and thinks. He's quiet while she does this, and when she sighs and rests the back of her head on his chest, he kisses the top of her head gently.

"It's okay. I was just trying to help."

"I know. ...I'm afraid of their teeth, so maybe I was bitten. Trying to feed him wrong or something."

She watches as he reaches out and presses his hand down into hers, over the hay she's holding. He does this until she gets the idea, and flattens her fingers. "Keep it that way, and you won't have a problem."

The horse has stepped up to the very edge of the stable door now, and is sniffing at her. She stares up at it, wide-eyed and feeling a little ridiculous that she's afraid of a herbivore. When she feels its lips tickling her palm, she giggles and bounces on her toes, then grabs more hay when her hand is empty.

Alice feeds the horse until it can't eat anymore, and then she moves on to the next. Jasper sits on the ground, leaning back against the barn wall, his eyes following her every move. There's a soft smile on his face, and he laughs a little every time she wrinkles her nose when the horses' mouths first touch her hand.

By the time she reaches the third animal, he's completely engulfed in his thoughts. His mind is racing and it jumps back and forth between past and present. He thinks briefly of Maria, Nettie and Lucy. He thinks of Peter and Charlotte and wonders where they are. A lullaby echoes in his head, his mother's voice distorted and faint; he can barely remember her now. He can't remember his father's face at all, and his sister and brother are simply names tucked away with other memories he's chosen to forget.

He can barely remember his human life - but it's still there. He remembers church and, unlike Alice, he can still remember the taste of fresh bread rolls and tender steak. He thinks it's unfair that Alice has none of this to hold onto. Her past matters, he knows... it matters to her and, for some unknown reason, it matters to him.

Whatever the horrible thing was that had happened to her, she had blocked it off and locked it away with no intention of ever finding it again. Someone had hurt her... physically, mentally or both, he doesn't know, but he knows she's in pain because he can feel it.

Alice is in pain, and she doesn't even realise it.

"Jasper, are you alright?"

He jumps slightly. Alice is kneeling in front of him, her golden eyes locked on his face. "Alice?"

"You look like you saw a ghost or something," she says, reaching up and pushing his hair away from his face. "Where did you go just then?"

"Sorry, I was just thinking. I guess you're not the only one who trances out, hmm?"

Alice smiles, and Jasper decides he quite likes the way the corners of her eyes wrinkle when she does this. "Couple of weirdos, we are."

"Speak for yourself."

She looks at him for a long moment before she moves to lay next to him, curling up by his side with her head on his arm. "Do you think they'll like me? The Cullens?"

Jasper leans down and kisses her forehead. "It's impossible to not like you, Alice."

"You like me?"

He chuckles. "Sure."

"I like you, too."

"You are weird."

Alice pinches him playfully, then sighs and snuggles closer to him. She frowns when he tenses and before she can ask what's wrong, he's on his feet and he's dragging her towards the back of the barn. She's about to ask him what's going on, but when she inhales she catches a whiff of something that causes venom to flood her mouth.

"They're coming to check on the horses?"

"Yes. Up there," he says, gesturing to the rafters. He jumps up after her, and they crouch in a dark corner of the loft together. Alice holds her breath when the door opens, and two young boys hurry through. They're laughing loudly, chatting about something that must have happened in the house.

She watches them until a sharp pain shoots through her wrist from her hand, and up the length of her arm. She looks down; Jasper's grip is so tight on her fingers that she things her arm might pop off. She twists around to look up at him. His eyes, which had been diluted to an almost dark pinkish color due to his new diet, were black. They glistened as he watched the boys move around the barn, and his jaw was set tightly.

"Jasper," she whispers. "Look at me."

He doesn't.

Alice begins to panic. She'd stopped him from killing humans before, but it had been at night and in some kind of privacy. Not like this, in the middle of the morning with two young children to witness them.

"Jasper," she hisses again, grasping his face in her hands. "They'll be gone in a few minutes."

He's still not looking at her; his eyes are locked on the youngest boy, who has come to feed the horse that is closest to them. Alice looks over her shoulder at the boy; he's so close. She allows herself a single breath; one mouthwatering smell. Then, she squeezes her eyes shut and wraps her arms around Jasper's neck, as though embracing him.

She's really just preparing herself to hold him back.

Planting her feet as best as she can in her position, she squeezes him tightly when she feels him tense against her. "Jasper, think about it. They're children; they have a mother and father. You don't want to be responsible for that, do you?"

Her whisper is so quiet and so fast that the boy, even as close as he is, couldn't possibly hope to hear her. He does, though, notice their footprints on the ground.

"Mom and dad come out here earlier?" she hears him ask his brother.

"No, why?"

"Someone's been in here."

"Nothing's missing."

Alice feels Jasper tense again, and she gasps when she feels him wrap his arms tightly around her. She wasn't expecting it, and his grip is overwhelming. More surprising than this unexpected action, she thinks, is why; he isn't trying to get away from her. He's holding her as though she were a lifeline.

A lifeline for the two boys in the barn.

"It's okay," she whispers. She can feel his anxiety, his hunger; his gift has been left unguarded, and his emotions are crashing over her like a tidalwave. She squeezes her eyes shut again and buries her face in Jasper's shoulder.

"We should tell dad," one of the boys says.

"But they didn't take anything. The horses are still here, and all the tools."

"Still."

Alice hears them walking, hears their retreating footsteps and when the barn door closes she barely has time to get out of the way before Jasper drops to the ground. She hurries after him. "Jasper?"

"We have to go," he says shortly.

"Jasper..."

"Not now, Alice."

She sighs. "I just wanted to say you did good..."

Jasper stops and looks at her, his eyes dark and empty. She knows that look. Yes, he's saying. Maybe this time.