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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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.

"Alice," Jasper pleads, hearing the desperation in her voice. "Please. I love you."

It might not be the I forgive you that she needs or wants. Love is all he's certain of, right now.

He sighs against her fingers, closing his eyes. He wants to knock down a mountain still, bury himself in a landslide. He wants to curl up in his wife's lap, her fingers in his hair.

He wants.
And wants.

Alice looks at him, finally dragging her gaze to him, eyes closed with her fingers against his lips. She traces the bow of his upper lip, taking in every part of his face.

“I know,” she whispers, her fingers curling under his chin. “I love you.”

She wants to hide. To bury herself in visions of the future, something that feels productive. She wants to lay in bed with her husband, listen to the rain, just exist in his arms.

Jasper kisses her at the first touch of her fingers at his chin.

Kisses her on the lips. On the tip of her nose. Her forehead.

He breathes her in, face pressed into the wet strands of her hair.

" - Do you want to wait out the storm or head home?"

Alice sighs into him.

She does not deserve him. “Home,” she whispers, lips brushing against his cheek. “I want a towel.”

Jasper scoops her up, into his arms, as he stands.

It's practiced. Not the first time they've had to pick each other up off the ground after a fight.

"Home, and a towel," he agrees, pressing another kiss to her forehead as he whisks her off to where they'd left the bike.

The road home does not seem nearly as long as the one going, even with the care of taking turns on the slick pavement, and wanting just those few more moments of Alice, pressed close against his back, alive.

It's stopped raining by the time he's easing the bike into the garage.

Alice stumbles off of the motorcycle, a repeat of her graceless move earlier. She's tired, cold, wet. Pieces unmended, mind upended.

She wraps her arms around herself and stares down at the small puddle around her feet she's creating. Hesitation, again, then, softly, knowing she will hear her: "Mama, can you start a bath?"

It's early. Too early, when the engine of the Ducati is winding toward the house through the rain, for any of them to be. A glance at the clock says it's still more than an hour from the end of school and she wonders if the crowd was too much for Jasper today.

It's hearing Alice's whisper that makes her heart clutch.

Makes her appear less than a second later to take in the bedraggled state of both of her children, shoulders heavy and expression exhausted. Alice staring at the ground and the puddle growing around her. It's going around, this, isn't it? Rippling outward even as everything settles back in.

She wants to ask, but she's not sure she doesn't already know.

"Of course," is what she chooses instead. Reaching out to gentle raise her daughter's chin, and ignoring the water altogether. "Are you alright?"

They're lucky she used to it, water getting everywhere in the house, with living in one of the rainest places in the US. She's never cared about a carpet the way she cares about them.

"I'm just tired, Mama." Alice whispers, her fingers closing around Esme's at her chin, clinging to her hand like a lifeline. Brief panic seizes her and she whirls to grab at Jasper's arm with her other hand, desperately clinging onto him too.

You've already chosen them--it stings in her mind, her chest tight. She can't choose. She can't be Alice without all of them. She needs him, needs Esme, needs her brothers and sister and Carlisle--

Her teeth chatter, not from cold, but stress, worry. Her fingers tremble as they cling to her husband and mother. She can't look at either of them, not for long.

Esme pulled Alice in closer, to hug her daughter, starting a list of the things she'll need for the bath, even as Alice's whisper was not the truth. Or the complete truth, in so much as the simplest one to say just then.

Alice grabs for Jasper, like she's terrified he'll vanish, and Esme's is pretty sure she is right, as soon as it happens. As she looks up to him, well over Alice's head. Her other hand coming out to touch his arm, gentle and firm. Contact, but just as respectful of the distance Jasper, too, usually kept. "And you?"

Her question, just as equally, about what he might need as whether he, too, was okay, even though it was obvious he wasn't. Some questions were important ask whether you knew the answer or not.