Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga is the intellectual and creative property of Stephenie Meyer and Little, Brown and Company. Any references to this work or direct quotes are borrowed. No plagiarism is intended. No profit is being gained from the publication of this fan-created work.
Author's Note: So this took WAY too long to post. I'm sorry about that. I hope it was worth the wait. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! Please review and let me know what you think. Your thoughts on Jasper? Alice? The story thus far? Any predictions about complications? How about moments you've always wanted to play out between the two of them?
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"Which is worse—the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not?"
-Leo Tolstoy
Her hand. She was holding his hand. With her hand. Jasper felt dazed. If he could be entirely truthful with himself, and these days it was difficult, he could not remember the last time he had touched a woman. Killed a woman, surely. Turned a woman, perhaps. But touched? It was a small hand and it fit entirely inside his own scarred palm.
She looked up at him, then, and another wave of affection rolled off of her. He had thought after the last hour in the diner, he might have grown used to it; it was practically a habit of hers. And still, looking down into her tiny heart-shaped face that glowed back at him, he was still utterly and completely…flummoxed.
Where were they going, exactly? Not that he particularly cared. This had become the strangest day he had had in several decades. He doubted a sewing pin on a map would be of any comfort. He had just opened his mouth to ask, anyway, when she spoke first.
"Shopping, Jasper. You look like a hobo. How many years have you worn those pants?" Alice's nose wrinkled as she took in the mud-stained canvas work pants he had stolen from a shanty town clothesline.
He cringed. 1933. It had been 1933. He did not even bother to ask how she had known what he was going to say before he said it. He supposed she had a gift. Isn't that what Maria always called it? "A gift, mi amor," she would purr. "Usted fue enviado a mí. Un regalo." He clenched his teeth. He worked very hard not to speak her name, even to himself. Jasper could feel his ordinarily tight control slipping and he grasped Alice's hand more firmly.
She smiled at him, again, and Jasper had the strangest urge to touch her face.
"I'm sorry. Did I upset you?"she asked.
"No, ma'am," he said, reflexively. His southern manners, though a trifle rusty from lack of use, were coming back to him.
They had stopped in front of a store and he felt his throat constrict. Stores meant humans in small, crammed spaces. Hot blood pulsing through necks and veins, rushing through arteries and pumping into—
Unconcerned, Alice tugged him through the door and into the large department store lobby where a clerk in a gray suit eyed them quizzically.
"May I help you, miss?"
"My fiancé needs a suit, you see," she said, waving her hand airily. "But I simply cannot convince him that the war is over. Darling," here she grasped Jasper's elbow and shook him lightly, "There's no need to dress like you're still in a fox hole!"
The clerk, who had been eyeing Jasper suspiciously, now relaxed under Alice's well-coiffed, assured guise. "Ah, well, of course," he said, glancing dubiously at Jasper's torn coat and heavy work boots.
"Really, dear, how do you expect me to pack your things for the honeymoon when you only own one suit coat?" Alice stared at him with such annoyance that Jasper wondered for a moment if they had had this conversation months ago and he had somehow forgotten to do as she had asked.
"I…suppose I had better do what she says," he told the clerk, somewhat helplessly.
"Right this way, sir." With that, the man turned and gestured that they follow him.
Alice winked up at Jasper once, beaming with excitement. At what? At the prospect of buying clothes? At the idea of getting away with this little charade? At the idea of pretending they were getting married? He pursed his lips to hide the unexpected smile he felt. What was wrong with him?
What felt like hours later, but could only have been minutes, Jasper stood stiffly before a floor-length mirror in what was, apparently, the height of fashion. The high-waisted trousers felt strange but even he could admit that in the boxy, double-breasted coat and wide tie, he did not stand out as much as he had this morning.
Alice was practically dancing. She ran her hands across the wide shoulders of the jacket and looked up at him, admiringly.
Jasper's gaze shifted uncomfortably from her adoring eyes to his own bizarre reflection. He frowned, looking for the good thing Alice must see to make her smile like that. What he saw puzzled him. His dark blond hair, which he had allowed her to push out his eyes, still hung in wild curls around his face. Below it, his wide eyes were a dark red, something that must have put the assisting salesman ill at ease. His bone white cheekbones were hollowed out and the slope of his pouting mouth was decidedly feminine. Nothing remarkable there. His eyes drifted down to his tall frame. Well, height was good. The muscles in his chest and shoulders were more defined in these clothes. He had a soldier's body, built on horseback in the day and on cold, hard ground at night. Still, nothing to explain this strange girl's strange behavior.
"We'll take it," Alice was saying to the clerk, her eyes never leaving Jasper's face.
In the end, they left the store with a suit, a pair of brown and white wingtip shoes, a fedora, which even Jasper admitted to liking, and a pair of striped pajamas which Alice insisted he would need.
Back in the street, Jasper struggled to walk at a human pace, something Alice seemed to have mastered. She strolled jauntily, her hips swinging in a rhythm Jasper could almost hear. Curling her arm around his elbow, she held her umbrella over both their heads and laughed, "Now isn't this better than your smelly old coat?"
"I'm afraid I can't disagree," he said, fighting that smile again.
"Of course not," she said, smugly.
"How did you know where to find me?" he asked.
"I saw it," she told him, looking straight ahead. "In my head."
"Do you do that often?"
She nodded.
"Ah."
They were silent; the rain hitting the umbrella sounded to Jasper like elephant's hooves. The sky above them had grown dark with a coming storm. The street was empty of passersby, all hurrying to get indoors.
"What else?" Jasper asked, finally. "What else do you see?"
"Lots of things," she said, reluctantly.
"About me?"
"I…"
Jasper thought she looked…shy. "Alice."
She looked up as he said her name.
"Alice, what did you see?"
Alice was about to speak when a strange look passed over her face. Just as she gave a little gasp, a woman passed too close in the street and the edge of her sleeve touched Jasper's back. She had been running to get out of the rain and her skin was flushed.
He was so caught off guard that instinctively he whirled around, a growl ripping through his teeth.
The woman gave a surprised little cry and ran past them down a dark side street.
"Jasper, don't," Alice whispered, catching his arm. He stared out at her from wild, black eyes. He pulled away from her and was gone, whipping silently into the alley in pursuit of what had become his prey.
As he buried his teeth in the woman's jugular, he felt someone had come to stand beside him. He turned to see Alice, her small white face eerie in the lightning-lit back alley.
He didn't know what he had expected to see on her face. Annoyance at him leaving her in the street, maybe. Boredom with his lack of self-control. Anger at him for not sharing. Even lust, he might have anticipated. But not this flickering sadness in her eyes. Not…disappointment.
To be continued...
Author's Note: Alright, time to share! Click the little button and lay it on me! You know you want to…
