Alice sighed as she flicked through a fashion magazine she had already read through twice. "You're going to be invited to play poker." She said casually to Jasper, who was just sitting on the couch staring into space.

"What?" He turned to face Alice, waiting for her to explain.

"John is going to invite you to play with the rest of the guys in the building the day before Christmas Eve. You should go."

Jasper cocked his head to the side. "Will it be...safe?"

Alice nodded. "Yep, you'll be fine. I already saw you going, too, so don't argue."

Jasper shook his head and laughed. "And here I thought I had my own free will."

"No, you don't. Not unless I say so. Haven't we already covered this?" Alice grinned and laughed too.

"Sorry, my mistake, what was I thinking?"

"I don't know." She shrugged jovially, but then grew serious. "But really, I think you should go. It would be good for you."

"Are you sure that everything would be fine?" He asked again, more earnestly this time.

"Yes Jazz, I'm sure." Jasper froze when she said that before quickly relaxing, though not before Alice noticed. "I'm sorry. Do you not want me to call you that?"

Jasper hesitated, but shook his head. "No. No, it's fine. I was just taken by surprise. I've never really had a nickname before. Maria," He flinched, "Was never exactly one for pet names, and neither was anybody else I ever knew. Well, maybe my family, but I don't remember them that well, so I couldn't be sure."

"If it makes you feel any better, I never had a nickname, either."

Jasper glanced at her swiftly before looking out the window. "Did you ever want one?"

"I suppose, sometimes I did." Jasper felt the longing though, as if it were his own, and knew that she wanted to have that familiarity with someone. Still, she cheered up immediately after saying this by adding, "But the only thing I can think of for a nickname for Alice would be Al, and when I think of that, I think of I guy owning a pancake restaurant, but not selling pancakes."(1)

Jasper looked at Alice strangely. "Sorry, ahead of the time period. The writer hasn't even been born yet."

"Vision?" He asked needlessly, to which Alice nodded.

There was a knock on the door, and Jasper turned to Alice. "It's John, he's decided to invite you now. Before he loses his courage or something like that. He has changed his mind over this at least four times today."

Jasper got up to get the door while he continued talking to Alice. "Is that why you've had so many visions today?"

"Yes."

Jasper opened the door, and just as promised, there was John. "Hello John, how are you?" Even though he could successfully breathe around John, it still didn't make being around him much easier.

"I'm great Jasper, and you?"

"Alright."

"That's good. So listen, me and the guys always get together the day before Christmas Eve to have a night of poker, you in?" And again, just as Alice had said, Jasper was being invited to poker.

Already knowing his decision beforehand, Jasper shrugged. "Sure why not?"

"Great. We meet at my place at six. If you want to eat something, you gotta bring your own food. We're gonna have some snacks, but that's about it." Jasper chuckled at the fact, that before this 'diet' of his, John would have been the snack. It was black humor, but humor nonetheless

Sensing more than hearing Alice come up behind him, Jasper shifted so John could see Alice. "You could send Katherine and Tommy up here, if you like. I don't know what she normally does."

"That's be great, but I think she might be doing some last minute shopping, I'll tell her, thought." John started to turn and waved. "So I'll see you two later?"

"Sure!" Alice chirped while Jasper simply waved.

"Looks like I'm going to be meeting the rest of the guys later this week." Jasper said as they closed the door.

"Just remember, humans are friends, not food." Alice chirped teasingly, giggling as he swatted at her playfully.

Jasper watched the other men as the shifted in their seats. It was the 23rd of the month, and just as he had said, Jasper was playing poker with the other guys in the building. Having been a little nervous, Alice finally promised Jasper that if he started thinking of the humans here as "snacks" she would go down there personally and get him out of there. But so far, the evening had actually been going pretty good. He had won ten dollars, and had a good hand now, too.

Robert was upset, and as everyone turned to him to see what he would do, Robert through his cards down on the table, still face down. "I fold!" He cried angrily, a couple people chuckled, but most moved on the William sitting next to him. Jasper went through everybody at the table, running their names through his head.

Robert, William, George, Paul, Harry, Arthur, John, Carl, and Anthony. Placing names to the faces, he knew that they were all the men he had seen on the first day he and Alice had moved in. Everybody was expectant now, and Jasper quickly looked down at his hand "I'll see you one dollar, and raise you one more dollar."

Harry frowned, and Jasper got the feeling of disappointment. He quickly shook it off and listened to George as he matched Jasper's bet of two dollars. After they had finished going through the table (Harry folded, too), Jasper watched confidently as William laid out his hand—a straight.

Jasper smirked and slowly revealed his own hand, a four of a kind. Six people were now disappointed, but one was excited. "Read 'em and weep." Jasper told the other boys, but internally he was frowning. The only reason one of them would be excited right then was...

"Straight flush." John declared, enunciating every syllable slowly. All the guys groaned as John pulled his entire haul close. A couple of them stated that they were giving up, but everybody else got dealt an all new hand.

Robert opened a bag of Cracker Jacks, and Jasper almost gagged at the smell. As he stuck one in his mouth, Jasper did crinkle his nose in distaste. "How do you like those?"

Robert shrugged. "How do you not?" Having lost the past six games, Robert has finally given up and was just watching them play now.

The game progressed, and as Jasper realized that he was losing, he finally folded and continued watching. "I'll just play next round." He told them. Jasper glanced over to the window that he had made sure was open before they even started playing at the beginning of the night. Although there was chance that one of the mens' scents would hit him full force, it was better than the air circulating over and over in their with all the warm, sticky, delicious blood...

Jasper shook his head, reminding himself that he was now, vegetarian. His eyes had even finally started to lighten up to the gold that Alice's had been, though right now he had a feeling they were black. Even hunting earlier that day wouldn't help that.

He looked over at Robert as the man had stopped eating and was now looking at something. "What'd you get?" George called to Robert. Jasper swiftly moved to the other side of the room near the window. While it appeared that he was simply looking out, he was really breathing in the cool, untainted night air. He really didn't want to risk it.

"A...ring? What's with that? It's some plastic ring. Fake little jewel and everything! Anybody want it, I sure as hell don't." Robert was glaring at the ring, and Jasper chuckled quietly to himself.

Everybody either shook their head or muttered something about why anyone would want it. Jasper watched silently and glanced over at the ring. "May I look at it?" He asked calmly.

Robert glanced over at him before tossing the ring to Jasper, who caught it deftly and examined it more closely. "Not like I have any use for it." He muttered.

Jasper ignored Robert, and instead continued looking at the ring. Plastic, like Robert had said, but the tiny fake jewel still glittered slightly. Worth nothing, but...

Ideas were tossed around in his mind, as he thought of the idea that had been brushed upon more than once before. He had been to the different shops, but the want for surprising Alice always stopped him from getting anything. Surely though, since this was all last minute. He hadn't planned for this, not right now, so maybe she wouldn't see it...He wanted to do this. He had for a while. She must've seen that, but not when...

Now steeled in this thought, Jasper stood up, the little ring still in his hand. "You said you didn't want this?" He confirmed.

"Go ahead and take it. None of us want it, or need it." It was jab about the fact that Jasper wasn't 'one of them' which really, he wasn't, in more than one aspect. But right now, that wasn't important (nor would it ever be important), right now he had to worry about surprising Alice.

"I have to go." Jasper told them quickly, hurrying toward the door.

"Aw, Jasper, why don't you stay, one more round?" John said, thinking what Robert had said had offended Jasper somehow. "Just ignore Robert, everybody else does." William laughed, while Robert scowled.

"It's not that. I need to go see Alice. I'll see you later." Jasper muttered this through clenched teeth before he rushed out of the room and up the stairs. He really wanted to try to surprise Alice.

Finally getting to their apartment, Jasper quietly opened the door. Alice was sitting on the couch, reading a book Jasper had given her, the radio on almost silently in the background. "Alice," Jasper breathed.

Alice looked up. "Hi." She said brightly. "Is poker over?" Suddenly worried, and slightly confused, Alice sat up straighter, and the blanket she had over herself fell off. "Did something happen? I didn't see anything, but maybe it slipped by..."

Jasper gave a sigh of relief. So she didn't see anything, Jasper thought happily. Alice had continued talking, "I can check the future, find a good route out of here. I can have everything packed in a minute..."

"No, nothing happened, Alice, calm down." He sent a wave of calm toward her, and took two steps closer.

"Alice, Ali..." Jasper trailed off as they stared into each other's faces. He closed his eyes and took a deep, needless breath before opening them again. Alice's eyes had softened even more at his giving her a nickname. Hesitating for a quarter of a second more, Jasper opened his mouth and prepared himself to do the most important thing that he would ever do in his existence.

Getting down on one knee, Jasper pulled the silly little plastic ring out, and held it front of the two of them. "Alice, will you marry me?"

----------

(1): Gilmore Girls Reference. Basically it's Alice saying that she knows the show will be a big hit, but Amy Sherman-Palladino has not even been born yet to write it. More specifically, Al's Pancake World.

I know, ridiculously short, but I wanted to leave you on a slight cliffhanger (I mean, we all know what's going to happen) and that's just where it ended. Personally, I'm happy with it, besides the length. I had writer's block for the past few chapters, but I think that was mainly because I had this planned for a while, and I really wanted to get to this scene.

Did you think that the idea of engagement was a little rushed, personally? I didn't, because in my mind, well, they're soulmates, and they know that, and if you didn't get it from Jasper's inner monologue earlier, he had been thinking about doing this for a while, but he wanted to try to surprise Alice, so that's why he never bought a ring. Obviously if she does say yes (which of course she will) then he'll buy a real ring, but I just thought it would be cute to use some little fake ring, and I got the idea, Hey, why not get it out of a Cracker Jack box? I mean, where else would he get it?

Disclaimer: I only own the characters you don't recognize. Alice and Jasper belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Saw Twilight for a third time! One of my favorite lines, "Oh well I think we can handle that." -Jasper.

~Tally