A/N: I know in the New Moon extra Miscalculation (which can be found on Stephenie's site) Rosalie states that Alice didn't seem to be suffering as the rest of them were, because she was living in the future. But in my opinion, Rosalie didn't know Alice very well ;). Jasper knows her better.
A/N 2: Thanks to my PTB betas EvilPumpkin and LoriAnnTwiFan. PTB, you make writing easier and awesome :).
"Idiot, idiot, idiot," I chanted, seemingly to the forest trees.
In truth, it was my brother's neck I wanted to snap.
Despair. He had doomed us all to an eternity of despair and desolation. I could see him, martyring himself in a rundown attic somewhere in the most sordid regions of Rio.
"Stubborn jerk," I muttered. All I could discern in our future, for months and years and ages to come, was the same devastating, numbing state of hopeless grief. And this was eating Jasper up. He hadn't smiled in six months. Esme's and Carlisle's sorrow was destroying my sensitive husband's soul.
"Agh." I could have dragged ludicrous Edward by the neck all the way back home. But I knew it wouldn't do any good. He was in no state to be around other people, not even his family. Perhaps least of all his family. He was suffering more than all the rest of us put together.
I whimpered, laying my head in my hands in a very human gesture of anguish and misery.
There was nothing I could do. Nothing. I was rendered completely useless. My gift did nothing for me, except add the pain of the future to that of the present.
I had to watch helplessly as my family crumbled apart, and my brother's soul cracked anew every minute.
If only I could trust that small percentage of possibility that he would change his mind… If only he would admit the obvious, that he was fighting an absurd and losing battle, and go back to Bella…
I hated it all: feeling useless, my family's agony, my brother's self-inflicted, vain torture, Jasper's remorse.
And still, tick-tock, tick-tock, the hours mercilessly drifted by. When being oblivious to the passage of time would have been most convenient for us, we were aware of every second as we had never been before.
Pain and grief. Grief and pain. That was all there was left. Always and forever.