keptherwaiting | (no subject)

(no subject)

Any other drive along the Hoko Ozette road to head out of Forks would be calming to Jasper.

He loves taking these winding roads and turns on the Ducati, with the old growth forest all around and the Hoko River snaking its way through it all; Alice and he have taken this drive many times before, to talk and to be, just them. Little moments of normality, a guy with his girl.

Today, Jasper speeds through it (and God help the poor soul who tries to pull him over). And he’s decidedly not talking to Alice over the quiet roar of the engine.

Every time he's tried to talk to her these past few days, she's danced away from him, out of reach, always busy, leaving the worry in his heart to simmer to anger. Even as he's had to feel her from afar: uneasy, anxious, distressed.

It's excruciating.

And then she runs off with Edward. Again.

He eventually reaches a destination.

Not that he had a particular one in mind.

He simply turns off when he feels the need to, onto one of the pull offs that lead to a stretch of beach somewhere around Shipwreck Point.

The surf is violent, lightening streaking across the sky.

A crack of thunder breaks the silence after he kills the engine and waits for her to say something.

Anything.

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Trembling, she reaches out for him, her hands ghosting over his at his forehead, then settling. One on the side of his head, the other on his shoulder, pulling him to her, if he'll let her.

Regardless of if he moves into her, she pushes her forehead against his head, her breathing ragged in his ear. "I believe in you," she whispers, her lips grazing the shell of his ear. "I don't know if you're going to believe me when I say that, but I do. I know you would lay down your life for mine. And that's why I didn't tell you."

Pulling back, she strokes his arm, carefully, gently. "I can tell you about it--the moment in the receiving room. That it all went insane. I was so scared, but I was so glad you weren't there. I know if you were, they'd have killed you. I"m not trying to say this to hurt you, I just...if you want to know. The truth of it all, why I've been so...off, lately. There's things I can't get out of my mind."

He wouldn't have let them get to her. They would have torn him apart.

Jasper starts to relax under her touch - only a moment of hesitancy, the slap still fresh in his mind, another thing they'll need to talk about - and he sighs.

"I can only imagine what you must have seen, what it must have been like, but that's why I need you to talk to me about it," he says, pulling back to look at her, to cup her face in his hands.

Wipe the streaks of mascara from her cheeks.

"I can only feel when something's wrong with you, I can't help you if I don't have all the facts. And before you even start to think that you don't need my help, you can forget it. We're an us, Alice, and you don't get to make the decisions about us alone anymore."

She trembles still, when he touches her face.

Terror and fear and the stress of trying to keep it all wrapped up neatly under the facade of ‘sunshine child’ pushing forth. Blinking water out of her eyes, she starts, hesitatingly.

“Bella left the car, to get to Edward because I couldn’t get us closer,” she focuses on the shoulder of his shirt, darkened with rain. “She got him inside. By the time I reached them, the Volturi Guard was there—Demetri and Felix—“

Her voice trembles on their names, fear bubbling up again. “They were telling Edward they had to go with them. I tried to give us an out but Jane showed up.”

Alice shudders, her wet hair sticking to her face when she does so. “I didn’t know what any of them had, in the way of powers, but Edward froze, worried, so we went.”

Jasper nods her on.

Terror and fear are two feelings he wishes he could've kept his wife from ever having to feel.

Impossible a task that might've been.

He tries to keep calm, not be affected by the fear that grips her as she recounts the tale, and he forces what calm he can muster on her to help.

Even as his own hand trembles as he pushes the wet hair away from her face.

“Um,” she inhales, collecting her thoughts again, her hand coming to touch his. Both trembling. “The world’s weirdest elevator ride later,” her levity falls flat even to her ears, “and we entered this room. The...main three, I guess, sat on a dais in front, surrounded by the guards.”

Alice picks at the choker on her throat again, fingers closing around Carlisle’s crest. Worrying, twisting, sand scattering on her skin.

“Aro can see your whole mind with a touch. He touched Edward—then Marcus, he can feel bonds. They commented on the strength of mine and Edward’s.” Her jaw tightens. “Then he touched Bella, and couldn’t read her. He asked us to join their...group.”

Her head cocks to the side as she thinks, replaying the scene in her mind. “We refused. Then they decided we couldn’t leave. Edward fought but...one of the guards, Felix, slammed him into the ground, choking—Bella screaming. I couldn’t move, the other guard, Demetri, held me by my throat, wouldn’t let me move.”

Her lower lip trembles as she focuses up at Jasper. “There was one way out. Bella’s turn. I’d seen it. I...I told Aro as much. He took my hand so I could show him. He saw everything.”

Oily fingers rifling through her thoughts. Every moment, every person she loves, touched on, in her mind.

Alice had been right: It would have been worse, if he'd been there.

Jasper wants to rip Demetri's throat out, ensure Aro never touches another vampire ever again.

The thoughts are calm, detached. Mechanical. These are all things he's done before. But just there, for him.

He doesn't want to upset Alice anymore than she already is, can't let his emotions get the better of him again, now.

He pulls his wife close to him, whether she wants him to or not, wrapping his arms around her, sheltering.

"So they only let you go on the understanding that she'd be turned?"

She crumpled against him, shaking, her hand fisting in his shirt. “He saw it, the crisp outlines and perfect clarity of Bella’s turning. He knows it will happen. It has to happen or they’ll come for us sooner.”

Her lips press together and she squeezes her eyes closed. “They’ll try, eventually, to come anyway. Break the bonds between us, take us, just to settle some score. Aro collects people, Edward says. Powers he wants.”

Aro’s delighted chuckle at the touch of Alice’s hand echoes through her mind and she shudders. “That’s just the stuff that happened in Volterra though. I know you know Carlisle and I fought before I left for Forks. Did you...hear why?”

If Jasper could hide Alice away from Aro, he would. He knows he'll never convince her to leave the family, though. Especially now.

"I need them too, Jasper."

And he's never been more angry about their very existence than he is right now.

Yet -

He sighs, kissing the top of her head, trying to focus instead on her question:

"I'd heard," he murmurs.

It had only added to the worry he'd feeling for his wife then. She'd been on edge for days, poised for a fight and he doesn't know why she'd chosen Carlisle. (He'd almost wished it'd been him. It should have been him. If he'd just been able to control himself, at Bella's birthday - )

But then Bella had jumped and Alice was trying to explain in a flurry of activity before she fled Alaska altogether, before Jasper could talk to her, before any of what followed happened.

"You - hurt him. And he called you stormcrow?"

“He hid letters from me. From Bella. She had been leaving them at the Bar and he had been taking them. It...I was so angry. He could’ve...he could’ve brought Edward back. He could’ve tried.”

you’re a goddamn saint

“I acted...I was wrong. But he was right.”

stormcrow, a word she sharpens in her mind, creating a weapon to cut the Volturi out with. She will do what needs to be done.

Alice hesitates, unsure of where she is going with this. She never blamed Jasper—only ever Edward, Carlisle, even Bella. Herself.

Her list grows shorter by one. Edward, Carlisle, Bella, the Volturi, Victoria—

“It...it was the last straw. I deserved his words. He didn’t deserve mine. The last things said to him in hatred...I just don’t want him to remember me that way. I don’t. This doesn’t have any bearing on the story. It just sits and bothers me and I want you to know why I’ve been feeling that way.”

Maybe Carlisle shouldn't have hid the letters. Maybe Jasper would have done the same if he'd known. Maybe Carlisle should have tried to bring Edward back. Maybe Carlisle knew Edward needed the space. He can't say he knows what Carlisle was thinking.

"He won't remember you that way," Jasper murmurs, running a soothing hand down her back. "He was hurt, angry, worried. We all were. Are."

It might not excuse the things said, but he does know love is not so easily broken - (Unless you are, apparently, a Volturi with such powers to do so.) - and forgiveness in this family is a thing.

He knows, though, how hard it is to not ruminate on what happens, what's said and done.

" - Alice, I'm sorry. About earlier."

She will. Remember. Can’t forget with all the words rattling around in her brain.

Shaking her head, Alice pulls back, cupping Jasper’s face in her hands. “No, I deserved it. I tried so hard to keep you from getting hurt and I end up hurting you more, making it worse.”

Her voice breaks at the end, her next words nearly lost to the rain and wind around them. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much, Jasper—“

Jasper knows how much she loves him, and how much he loves her too. Even if that loves gets lost in other emotions, even if it is blinded by fury, even if that love hurts at times.

"I love you, too," he murmurs into her hair, hugging her close. "I'm sorry I thought - What I said before - About Maria."

He grimaces, now just mentioning her again, just thinking at the words he'd said to his wife in his pain.

"God, Alice, I was just - I thought I'd finally lost you when you said - " He swallows hard, the words echoing in his heart once more. "- When you said you weren't like me. I know you're not like me. I don't want you to be like me."

Edited 2020-07-01 15:39 (UTC)

She clings to him, desperately, molding into him like the rain molds their clothes to their skin. Her tearless sobs deafened by the rain, the waves, the wind. “I didn’t mean it,” she whispers desperately against his neck. “I didn’t mean to say that, I’m so sorry.

“You deserve so much more,” Alice mumbles. “I’m sorry you got stuck with me, selfish and foolish.”

"You're not - You're compassionate, caring. Maybe a little foolish. But, your love is more than just for me, and it's supposed to be."

And the truth is: "I would have let him die. I'd have let Carlisle and the whole family fall apart. I'd have killed him myself, if it meant protecting you."

He loves the family, his affection for them running deep, but his love for them isn't all encompassing as it is for Alice: She's all he needs.

She wishes Jasper was all she needed. Desperately so, sometimes. It would make their lives so much simpler, if she didn’t need Edward as much as she needs Jasper.

“There’s more,” Alice whispers, pulling back to look at him. “If you’re okay to hear it.”

An unhappy laugh leaves him, and he pulls away from her just slightly.

Bracing himself for whatever more is.

"What."

“Since they’ll be looking for me...and Bella, and Edward, I’m keeping an eye on certain members of the group.” Alice murmurs, tracing the line of his pants. “It’s hard, right now, to keep it straight and not...”

A sigh leaves her, lost in the wind. “I just want you to know, if my mood tanks. So you’re not just lost and wondering what’s going on.”

There’s hesitation, her lips pressing together as she debates saying what’s next. She doesn’t want to, it makes her chest ache. She’s not him—but she kind of needs to be.

Jasper appreciates the forewarning. He hates not knowing what is causing Alice's mood too fluctuate.

God, if he could just keep her happy -

But he understands the need for the surveillance.

There's more, though. He can tell. Her hesitation, and the desire to say something, clear.

" - What, Alice."

Don’t let Carlisle hear you say that

“We need something they won’t expect. They don’t expect me to fight back. But I’m going to. I can be a stormcrow. Earn the title Carlisle...” she looks away from him.

“I’m so angry, Jasper. And scared. But I need to channel that into something productive. I can’t just let others fight for me now.”

Fighting is the last thing he wants Alice to have to worry about. She has him, for that.

And yet, he knows what it is to feel anger and be scared and want to help.

To do and be more.

He wouldn't have lied about his age to join the Cavalry, if he hadn't known those feelings.

The words he says next pain him to say:

"Okay. Then we're going to train."

He'll throw everything he knows at her, everything he's learned, every strategy, and all he's felt in all his battles and wars, for her to be prepared.

She'll feel everything he can muster, and he can show her both sides of it too.

"But if I think for one minute it starts to mess with you, or change you, it's over. You can be the portent, but you don't have to be the storm too."

She does not deserve him.

She knows this isn’t what he wants to do, never wanted to do. But he won’t let her face it, unprepared and alone. They’ve play-fought before, for years, her visions telling her exactly when to sidestep his swipes, winning most tussles before they begin.

But this isn’t that. A playful fight that ends in kisses. Not now.

Alice nods, swallowing hard and reaching for his hand. A harbinger, but not the weapon, if it becomes too much. If she loses herself to it, Jasper will bring her back.

“Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi,” she whispers, her hand still trembling as she takes his hand. “I don’t deserve you.”

Jasper huffs a sigh.

Does she? Doesn't she?

He's not sure how to respond to that right now.

He's still feeling a lot of things, even if he's managed to blanket them in a calm.

He glances away, watching the violent surf instead, blinking back the rain.

"So we have a plan? And you're going to talk to me instead of avoiding? And you're not going to decide anything on your own, without me, anymore?"

He cheeks twitches.

"And you're not going to slap me again."

“Yes.” She ducks her head in a single nod, turning to look out at the waves as well. She’ll try, to do the things he’s asking of her.

No. She will.

At the mention of the slap, she pushes her fingers against her eyes before sliding them up into her hair, twisting the strands around the digits, tugging hard. “‘M sorry.”

"Just, don't - do it again," he says, jaw tight.

It reminds him too much of another. Of scars that run too deep.

It takes another moment before he reaches out, to pull her fingers out of her hair with care. To kiss her fingertips, to whisper against them: "I love you."

“I love you, too.”

She won’t look at him, her gaze fixed on the rolling black clouds over the sea, the rain in her eyes. Her fingers curl against his lips, and she shivers. “I love you, too.”

Repeating. Desperate.