AN: Happy day before Christmas Eve and nice to see you here again for the next chapter of Irrevocable, not too many to go now.

Now we are on with the action - how to make it all real for Bella and Alice

I have managed, I think, to catch up with all my reviews - it only took a whole day!

Thanks to SarcasticBimbo for beta'ing and to MeteroOnAMoonlessNight for pre-reading

Also my thanks go to all my followers, favoriters and reviewers for both this and my recent entry for the Naughty or Nice Contest.

It didn't win but as always I enjoyed writing for and taking part in the competion.

Now on with the story after a quick 'none of it's mine' disclaimer for the great SM

Irrevocable

Summary

It doesn't matter when I live my life, as long as it's with you.

Chapter 12

Bella

I awoke to a serious banging on the front door, realizing that I was once again back in my own time. Now I was prepared, and would be making arrangement where it was needed in order to return to Edward once and for all. Holding my head, which seemed to be a little sore this morning, I headed to the door, opening it to find Jasper waiting.

"Bella, you're back," he drawled, seeming happy to see me, which considering I had the life his girlfriend wanted in my hands, was a bit strange.

"I am indeed, Jazz, come on in." I turned to make my way back to the living room.

He just grinned at me and headed straight to the kitchen as if he owned the place, putting on the coffee. Handing me a bottle of water and two Advil, he advised me to sit back and let them do their work. "There's plenty of time to talk once you feel better," were the only words I heard as I slid back into proper sleep for a while.

Waking a few hours later, I felt so much better, and found Jasper sitting in the chair opposite me, reading.

"How do you feel now, Bella?" he asked solicitously.

"Better now, thanks, Jasper." I noticed a cup of steaming hot coffee and two hot pockets in front of me and grabbed at the drink before munching at breakfast, or was it lunch?

We were silent for the moment and Jasper went back to his reading, while I finished my food. "I suppose you need to know what I have decided to do."

Putting his book down, Jasper's face became serious. "Of course I do, Bella. I love Alice, but I realize how important a decision this is for you. It's not as if it's something that can be done lightly; it's a whole life change."

"Edward and I talked very seriously about what we both wanted. We both finally admitted that, despite the peculiarity of the situation, we do love each other very much. Giving up the life I have here won't be difficult."

I stood, unable to sit still any longer. "I have never been a material person, and therefore, I don't have a lot of possessions, just the few things left from my youth, from when my parents were alive. I need to take those with me, however awkward their presence in the past might be. I am not technologically minded and I won't miss much, probably my iPod and phone most of all, but I can live without them. I cannot, however, live without Edward. So, yes, Jasper, my decision is yes."

Pacing in front of Jasper, I continued, "I assume that you will be here for Alice to help her acclimate to the life here? I have money, which of course I am unable to take with me, so before this happens I will arrange to see a lawyer and change my name to Alice Swan. What you do after that is up to you," I smiled at him, letting him know that although the conversation was serious, I was happy with my decision.

"There are a few other things to take care of, all of which I will do to make things easier. What about you? What do you plan to do?"

Jasper launched into his plans for them both, letting me know he had thought a great deal about the future he was getting. "Alice and I have had much the same conversations as you and Edward, and although this is a really hard thing to get my head around, I have to believe the evidence of my own eyes. I saw the switch for myself; nearly gave me a heart attack, it did."

He laughed a little at that and the levity cut through the tense discussions. "It's not every day your girlfriend appears before your eyes."

Remembering back to when I picked up the hairbrush I asked curiously, "What exactly happened?"

Jasper looked amused. "One second you were sitting on the sofa next to me, running that brush through your hair and the next you sort of faded a little and the air, I don't know, um, wavered? When everything solidified, Alice was there in your place."

He stopped for a moment, lost in thought, "Anyway, if she'll have me, I want to take her back to Texas with me, where we can start a new life. I was only here for a conference and since then it has been vacation time. If necessary, I can take a sabbatical from my job. It would make things much easier if you resign from yours before you leave, so it will make it easier for everyone you know to accept that you've moved on."

The unspoken, slightly sobering thought was that no one would really be looking for me.

He stopped for a moment and looked at me. "Thank you for doing this, Bella. Alice showed me the news detailing what would have happened to her had she stayed in her time, and I am really grateful that you would give up your life here so that she has a happy future."

"It's not all for her, Jasper, I love Edward and I want to be with him. I'm not giving up a huge life here, there's nothing I will miss, these things are just my way of arranging things here so she can move on, too; he is my happy future."

I spent the next couple of days changing my name and any other details I could think of. I wasn't sure what could be done about my drivers license and passport but as long as Alice had all the paperwork, she and Jasper could work through those themselves. I couldn't worry about everything, so I just did the best I could by changing the details on my bank account and house rental agreement.

Finding the mirror was not so easy. I hadn't been there when the mirror was purchased on engraved and I didn't think to ask what I should be looking for. Sara had said that I would have to stand in front of it so I assumed that it would be larger than a hand mirror.

That evening, Jasper and I sat and talked about how we could go about the search. "Surely Esme, Sara and Rose would realise you wouldn't know what it looks like?" Jasper ran his fingers through his hair in much the way Edward would have done. "Any ideas how they might have done that?"

"Well," I mused. "Esme's journals in the past didn't have the spells that were in mine. So, it stands to reason that she added those details after I left." I stopped to think it through for a minute and then reached for the box. Flicking through the journals, I found the last one and opened it at the end. "There," I exclaimed triumphantly. "I knew they'd come through."

Taped in the back of the journal was a photograph. A photograph of a mirror, the mirror, and I could clearly see the words of the spell engraved on the inner bevelled edges. The words inscribed were slightly different just as Sara had explained.

Looking back through the years

And gazing through time

My future will change his past

His mirrored in mine

To be irrevocable

Two souls need to be one

And destroy the path back

Once and for all

Unfortunately, the mirror had disappeared in the one hundred plus years since it was included in the spell. After finding out what we were looking for, I had thought it would be so easy; I assumed it would be in the Dowager House with everything else.

Throughout the next couple of months, Jasper spent a lot of time on the internet searching for it, made more difficult by the fact that initially I had only a description to go by, what was in my memory of it and of course the words engraved on it. Eventually we did locate it; in The Hamptons, halfway across the country. We discovered that the contents of the Dowager House had been sold years ago, after Esme died. Momentarily, I contemplated that if everything had been sold, I would never have met Edward. Maybe, fate would still have stayed on track somehow, though the thought of never having known him horrified me. I simply could not let fate be derailed for the one item we needed and we re-doubled our efforts to persuade the current owner to part with it.

The old lady who owned it had received it as a wedding present and she was now in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's and her son would not part with any of her possessions. Nothing would persuade him otherwise; not even money.

By this time, I had given up my job and Jasper and I had taken a small rental close to Mr. Thompson's house, leaving my place empty for the time being, while we tried to convince him to sell. One Saturday morning I was pacing up and down doing much the same as Edward would have, tugging at my hair in frustration.

"What can we do, Jasper? We have tried everything to get Mr. Thompson to part with the mirror except to tell him the absolute truth and I have a feeling even that would not sway him."

"I don't know, Bella. I'm beginning to think that we might have to break in and just carry out the ritual right there, but that causes problems, too. When you switch with Alice, we will have very little time to get out of the house and if we are discovered too soon, I'm not sure we could talk our way out. Nothing would change the fact that we would be in his home, without permission, and we would have destroyed one of his prized possessions. I don't think getting in trouble with the police would be a good way to start our life." Jasper smiled wryly.

He threw his hands in the air in his frustration, raking his hair back across his scalp. "It's not as if it's worth that much, anyway. I think he is just being stubborn!"

I sighed and slumped down onto the sofa. "Then that's what we'll have to do, Jasper. It's been three months and I'm getting desperate. It must be worse for Edward and Alice because they have no way of knowing what's happening, or even if I have changed my mind."

The situation was exhausting me and I couldn't remember when I last had a good night's sleep. I longed for Edward's arms, and sometimes it seemed as if he had never existed.

"Okay, Bella, then it's time we thought this through and made a plan, even if it doesn't work. We have to do something and we've exhausted all other avenues. I hate to say it, but I hope to hell this is the right mirror after what we are about to do to get it." Jasper sat beside me and pulled a notebook and pen close, ready to get down to it.

We decided that simple was best. The first thing was to find out if and when any deliveries were made to the house and that was likely, given how rich the family actually was. Jasper said he would do some asking about among some of his friends, a few of whom had connections with individuals who lived in the same area as Mr. Thompson.

In the meantime, I gathered all the things I wanted to take with me in a backpack, which weren't many, and I would need to keep it with me at all times. We checked on the house frequently, noting when Mr. Thompson visited his mother, knowing that he would be away from the house for a few hours each time.

Once we knew the schedule, we decided on the day we would carry out the plan. Jasper would put together a few groceries, turning up at their back door stating that Mr. Thompson had requested an additional delivery. He would deliberately leave the back door ajar when he took the boxes into the house.

I could then slip in behind him and go through the bedrooms looking for the mirror, which is where I assumed it would be. That would be likely to take a little time as there at least six of them, judging by the number of windows, and that didn't take into account the old servants' quarters at the top of the house. We had no idea in which one it would be, or even if it had been moved somewhere else. He assured me that these old houses had accessible lofts, so he would sneak away when he had dropped off the boxes, hoping that they would think he was just rude enough to go without saying anything.

"When either of us finds the mirror," Jasper urged, "we need to search out the other so that we are together and Alice doesn't arrive with no knowledge of where she is or what's happening. It might freak her out and being in a room with obvious damage to a valuable antique, will definitely create some awkward questions."

He assured me that once Alice was with him, they would leave by the back door and then make their way down toward the beach, pretending to be walking along the waterline like any other couple on holiday.

It was a little loose and we might have to improvise at some point, but it seemed a good plan right now.

I didn't mention the dreaded thought in my head that maybe Edward would have changed his mind about me; I had to cling to the last night we had spent together, when he had said he would always love me.

** Irrevocable **