Alice laughed as she danced to the front door, simultaneously pulling on her long black coat and turning to watch Jasper as he trailed after her. "Ready?" she asked in excitement, the laugh still in her voice.
"Where exactly are we going?" Jasper asked wryly, watching her as she wrapped a scarf around her neck and handed him his jacket.
"You'll know soon enough, now come on, it's cold out for humans, and you need to put a coat on."
Jasper shook his head in amusement and took the coat from her, slipping it on and rolling his eyes. Only Alice could get him to go out with no idea where he was even headed.
They headed down to the lobby, and then quickly out the door.
A few kids were running around in the empty street, playing some sort of game, while others ran down the sidewalk, screeching with laughter. All of them were bundled up warmly, most likely because it would be cool out to a human. Jasper felt a strong gust of wind, mercifully blowing all of the kids' scents the other way. Alice buttoned her coat up one more time, despite the fact that she wasn't actually cold. The fallen leaves crackled underneath Jasper's feet as he and Alice walked down the street, and Jasper looked at all the trees surrounding them as they walked.
Most of the trees were bare, with only a few leaves still attached. Below all the trees, and even in the wind, though, the red, and golden, and brown leaves fluttered quietly. A teenager down a couple of blocks was raking leaves in front of a store, the sound of the teeth scraping against the cement assaulting his ears.
They turned down another street, though, one that was less crowded as they walked along. The two of them were silent as they continued along the sidewalk. Alice glanced up and down the street swiftly, even though it was empty, before she started to cross, gesturing for Jasper to follow. "Will you tell me where we're going now?" Jasper asked in exasperation.
Alice laughed again, shaking her head. "Nope," she chirped, "because we're already here."
Jasper looked up, only to see the old park. The ancient slide was probably the oldest thing there, and none of the kids ever went on it anymore. In fact, kids never came to this park at all anymore, ever since they had built another playground just across from their apartment and down the street. The only thing that was usable now was the more modern play place off to the side, and the swings.
That was where Alice led him carefully as they moved through the park. She pulled him past the ancient slide, and the merry-go-round thing that Jasper never knew what it was called.
"Halloween is in a week," Alice told him conversationally as she sat down on one of the two swings, pushing herself back and forth slightly. Jasper watched off to the side as she started to pump herself higher and higher, her happiness almost in time with the swing.
She still wasn't going that high, though, so Jasper moved quietly to stand behind her, gently pushing on her back whenever she came near, launching her higher and higher into the air. "Higher," she called to him, laughing in child-like wonder as her hair whipped against her face, and her scarf flew up and then down with her in the wind.
"Are you sure?" Jasper asked
"Positive," she laughed back. With shrug, Jasper pushed again with a little more force, smiling when she shrieked with laughter.
This was the Alice he loved to watch. The Alice that was enjoying her childhood now, in place of all her forgotten memories of her own human life. The Alice that took joy in the simplest of things. He pushed one more time and then stepped back to watch Alice as she swung back and forth, a brilliant smile on her face.
She got a mischievous look in her eye, and, glancing briefly at Jasper, who was now standing in front of her, suddenly launched herself off the swing as it reached its peak, throwing herself into his arms while Jasper just watched in surprise.
Alice pressed her lips against his throat, smiling. "Gotcha," she whispered.
Jasper laughed and set Alice down on the ground, brushing back a piece of hair softly. "So you did. Are you ready? Or do you want to try to slide now?" he asked teasingly, smiling.
Alice grinned widely up at him and giggled. "No, I think I'm good. Let's just wander around town though, okay?"
Nodding, Jasper smiled crookedly at her. "Okay," he agreed.
Alice grabbed Jasper's hand and pulled him to the sidewalk again, glancing up and down the street. Half the stores were closed and boarded up, and a few others were simply closed. Only a couple were open, including a pawn shop that she felt a strange pull toward. Looking up at Jasper, she noticed he was staring at it, too. "Would you like to go in?"
Jasper glanced down at her, then back at the pawn shop. "Will it be alright, do you think?"
"I'm sure it will be," Alice told him nodding.
Jasper smiled nervously but nodded, and Alice led them across the street. She opened the door, and it chimed quietly. The guy behind the counter looked up briefly before going back to the book he was reading. Alice looked around, ignoring him, pursing her lips. There wasn't much here that would normally attract her attention, so why would she feel such a pull?
Jasper was moving toward the counter, and at first, Alice thought it was because of the human, but then she realized he was looking down at the display. "Can I see that?" he asked in a whisper with the last of the air in his lungs, pointing at an oval locket.
The kid pulled it out and handed the necklace to Jasper in a bored manner.
Jasper turned away from where Alice had come up behind him, and she heard the soft 'click' as he unlatched it to look inside.
"It's hardly worth anything," the guy explained, "Ten dollars."
Alice looked at him incredulously. "That's sure expensive for something that's supposedly worth hardly anything."
He just shrugged. "Some lady came in like six months ago with it. Family heirloom or something."
Alice turned back to Jasper, but he was still angled away from her. She heard a soft intake of breath as he started to walk to the door, blatantly ignoring the fact that he had yet to pay for it.
The guy seemed about to remind him of that when Alice pulled a ten out of her purse and pushed it onto the counter before hurrying outside after Jasper. He was silently standing right outside the door, his shoulders stiff as he leaned over the necklace.
"Jasper?" Alice reached out to lightly touch his shoulder, barely brushing his jacket, but Jasper twisted around and dropped into a crouch, his teeth bared as he watched her warily with cool, steely eyes. Alice took a step back, for the first time nervous around him.
He suddenly gasped as he realized who it was, and the locket slipped out of his grip as he straightened out of the crouch. He glanced at Alice with a pained look in his eyes before turning and running into the woods beyond the playground they had just been at.
Alice didn't hesitate after that. She grabbed the necklace off the ground and clutched it to her chest as she ran after him, trying to catch up with her husband. Alice followed his scent until she finally found him, turned away from her yet again as he slammed his fist against the tree.
"That was my mother's," he told her blankly.
Alice gasped quietly. "You mean?"
"Family heirloom? Whitlock family heirloom. There was a picture of my sister and I."
"Oh Jasper," she sighed softly, reaching out to touch him.
Jasper pulled away from her violently and twisted around to look at Alice. "My own mother, Alice! I mean—I always...knew, she was," Jasper hesitated before he finally whispered the word, "dead. But to have proof of it, because she never would have let that thing leave her sight willingly."
"Jasper, I'm sorry..."
"Don't."
Alice looked up at Jasper in shock from where she had just been staring at the ground. "What?"
"Just...don't. Don't try to understand, Alice, because you don't. Please. You don't even know who your family is, so just...don't."
She wanted to be mad at him, for bringing something like that up, but seeing him so upset, so broken, well, it broke her heart too. And she wanted to comfort him, because he was so broken, but that wasn't what he wanted—or needed—right now.
Finally Alice just sighed as Jasper looked away again. "I'm going to go back to the apartment," she whispered softly. "You just...come home when you're ready." She sighed one more time before softly setting the locket on the ground next to him and turning away.
She walked slowly, silently hoping that maybe he would call out for her to stay with him, but she knew even without her visions that that wasn't what was going to happen. Not yet. Right now he needed to be alone.
Instead, she listened as he crouched next to the locket and gingerly picked it up, clenching his hand into a fist.
As she walked out of the trees and cut across the abandoned playground, Alice glanced back one more time, knowing she wouldn't see anything anymore, before turning and making her way home. Without once looking into the future, Alice knew he would be home. Maybe not for the next few hours, or even the next few days if it was really bad, but he would come home.
Her heels clicked against the sidewalk, and she tried to focus on that instead of the way her heart ached to be back in the forest to ease away any pain Jasper was feeling.
Some of the kids were still out playing, but the majority had already headed inside for a warmer temperature. Alice glanced around before she ducked into the apartment building, sighing softly. He would be back soon, she tried to convince herself. Too bad it wasn't really working. Still, she dutifully headed up to their room and unlocked the door with a soft 'click,' hanging up her ratty scarf and slipping out of her coat, not even bothering to remember how just the other day she had been complaining about how old the scarf had been getting.
She slipped off her shoes and then moved back into their bedroom, grabbing one of her books off the dresser and going back out into the living room. She settled down onto the couch and opened the book to where she had last left off, but couldn't focus on the printed words right in front of her face.
Every few minutes, she would glance up at the clock eagerly, only to be disappointed when it had only been a minute or two. Unconsciously, Alice started drumming her fingers against the cover of the book in impatience, only to realize what she was doing and stop.
Alice glared at the book, trying to will herself to actually read it. So far, it hadn't been working.
Eventually, Alice ended up staring blankly past her book as her thoughts flew around in her head hectically. Suddenly, she saw him coming home, but she still had another thirty minutes or so. Alice glanced up at the clock in anticipation, realizing with slight shock that it had beens hours since she had last checked.
Now extremely comforted by the fact that he would be returning soon, Alice finally turned to her book, able to read its words now. So immersed in the book though, she didn't hear the sound of him returning until she heard the quiet sound of the door as he stepped into the room. She looked up, quickly forsaking Through The Looking Glass to see Jasper's welcome face.
"I shouldn't have snapped at you, Ali," Jasper said softly as he came closer to her. "I was just...overwhelmed."
Jasper grabbed her hand absently, and Alice rubbed soothing circles into his hand. "It was your mother's," she stated simply.
Jasper nodded. "It just...reminded me of my past. I wasn't prepared for it. My sister, my mother...I mean, I always knew they were dead by now, but to have actual proof?" he paused and looked down at their intertwined hands before he continued.
"She never took that locket off, and Bethy would have taken it after her," Jasper laughed quietly, staring off into space. "We saved for months to buy her that locket, and put a picture of Bethy in it, too. They added one of myself after I had...left them."
Alice watched him, hesitating before she asked softly, "May I see it?"
Jasper pulled the locket out of his coat pocket and handed it to her.
Alice glanced fleetingly at Jasper before she opened it, gasping quietly. On the left, there was a picture of Jasper, maybe one or two years younger, staring at the camera solemnly in his confederate uniform prim and proper, clean cut.
"I had just been promoted to Major," he whispered. Alice glanced at Jasper, and then back to the locket.
In the other picture, a girl was laughing in her picture, even though she obviously shouldn't have been. She had pigtails that, though it was black and white, Alice could tell would have been the same honey blonde as Jasper's hair was. She was wearing a bonnet, which was sliding off her head to the side, and she looked maybe seven or eight.
Alice didn't realize Jasper had come to stand behind her until he reached over to touch the picture of the little girl.
"Was that your little sister?" Alice asked.
Jasper nodded, his eyes closed. "That was my baby sister," he confirmed. "Bethy. She was seven when we got that picture taken. Ten when I left. She had the greenest eyes you had ever seen, like me. Everybody said if not for such a large age gap, we could've been twins."
"Green eyes?" Alice asked.
Jasper nodded, turning to stare out the window blankly again. Alice stood up and wrapped him in her arms, though she barely even reached his chest.
"I wish I could say I understand," she told him, "but I don't. I've never had to deal with this, and I probably never will. I can't even remember me family."
Now it was Jasper's turn to wrap his arms around her in comfort. "I don't think I'd be able to do that," he told her, kissing the top of her head. "to...exist without knowing where I came from, even with a past I'd sometimes rather forget, it's better than not knowing my roots. My family. But you? You live everyday without any of that."
Alice laughed shakily, and Jasper pulled away to raise an eyebrow at her. Alice shook her head. "It's nothing. It's just funny, somehow you ended up comforting me today."
Jasper smiled at her, chuckling. "Yes, I suppose you're right. How did that ever happen?"
Alice smiled brilliantly up at him then, knowing what he was about to do. Jasper leaned down to press his lips against her cheek, only to have Alice turn her head at the last moment, pressing her lips against his.
Jasper chuckled against her lips, the edges of his mouth pulled upwards in a smile. He pulled himself away, opting instead to slide his lips down her neck, kiss by kiss. "Thank you," he murmured, his breath tickling her skin.
Alice smiled and pulled away, running a hand through his hair once. Jasper smiled, knowing that all had been forgiven again. To anyone else, it would've looked like she had just pulled away so he would stop, but Jasper felt her content and forgiving emotions and just smiled, brushing her cheek with his fingertips once before standing up.
"So what do you want for dinner?" he asked suddenly, grinning at her.
Alice burst out laughing as he pretended to go into the kitchen before coming back out. "Hm...I think mountain lion sounds good tonight? How about you, what's on the menu?" she joked, grinning just as widely as Jasper now was.
"I think I'm going to bag me some bear."
Alice just continued smiling, until she abruptly realized that she still had the locket in her hands. Jasper noticed it to, and came up in front of her, curling his hands around her much smaller ones. Slowly, he pulled himself away and took the locket with him before walking around behind her and slowly putting it on around her neck.
"I would be quite honored if you were to wear this, Mrs. Whitlock," he told her, hooking the chain, and Alice turned around to face him, touching the locket gingerly.
"Thank you."
Jasper just touched the locket once more before smiling at her. "You're welcome, darlin'."
Alice laughed quietly, grabbing his hand tightly in her own and leading him to the door. "Come on, cowboy, let's go get our dinner," she teased happily.
Jasper just smiled, following her obediently out the door.
****
It was meant to be fluff the entire chapter, I swear it was...but then...well, this happened. And sorry about the long, long, long, wait, I kind of just...lost all inspiration. And I'm sad to say that I don't know how quickly the next few chapters will be out, either, but I do plan on finishing it, so that will happen. In case you haven't noticed, too, the story is starting to near the end. I've got maybe three or four more chapters, and then an epilogue. Then it will be over. I'm a bit sad to see it go, I'll admit.
insanityisFUN!!!: Well, first off, your review wasn't offensive, I just felt like I should address this, but I couldn't reply personally since it was anonymous. Anyway, don't worry, I know that southerners don't say y'all that much, I was just kind of having some fun with it. And J & A were just having some fun and messing around, so that's why I exaggerated it so much. : )
Hope you guys enjoyed it!