So, this is the last chapter, and I just want to preface it with another of my usual rambling author's notes. First and foremost, I'd like to thank you all for sticking with me through my first completed multi-chaptered fic, though I may turn this into a long oneshot at a later date. And thanks for all the lovely reviews; they always make me smile. :3 Also, my apologies if the end seems a bit choppy; I just felt that it was best told in these little snapshots. And you'll have to make some inferences, because I didn't cover everything that happened between the previous chapter and this one. Basically, James catches Alice with Jasper, and she's left to make her choice. Which is obvious, in my opinion, but I wrote it, and I'm biased anyway. xD Hope you like it! Again, I own nothing.

"Is this what's been going on?"

She jumped guiltily at the voice and spun quickly out of his embrace. Her dark eyes flashed with shame at the shock in his face, and he pulled her protectively behind him, but she darted lithely away to face her accuser.

Inhaling a shuddery breath, she managed to stammer out, "James, this is my fault. Before you do anything, please, just listen, and don't blame Jasper."

His startled expression twisted into a sneer almost instantly at her words. "Protecting him? You've always been so self-sacrificing, Alice. Noble, most certainly. Moral, apparently not."

The tall form standing beside and slightly in front of her moved forward, and his deep gold eyes met his would-be attacker's crimson ones defiantly. "No, do blame me, please," he declared firmly, his slight southern accent more pronounced under the stress of the situation, despite his calm demeanor. "The girl is at no fault, and I've been itching for a good fight for decades now."

A sort of hysterical laugh startled her. "Not you too? Oh, how chivalrous you vegetarians are! Contemplating their lifestyle, Alice, dear? I thought I knew you better than that. Your hunting skills are unrivaled, truly, and I know how you delight in the kill."

She wanted nothing more than to slink back into the shadows using one of the very hunting techniques he had just commended, but she knew the two would tear each other apart needlessly if she vanished. Now was not a time for cowardice. "Stop it, both of you!" she cried in a high, clear voice. "I repeat, this is my fault. I'm to blame, James. And I don't want either of you dead."

"So you care about him now?" The words came almost immediately, and in spite of his bravado, she could hear the hurt that lay underneath them

She stared up at him with earnest dark eyes. "Yes," she admitted without hesitation. Honesty is always the best policy, she reminded herself. When it comes to others of our kind, that is. With humans… But hadn't Jasper just been telling her sincerely about the values of humans as individuals, not just as food? Hadn't she been listening intently, nodding along, eyes alight with new possibilities? "Yes, I care about him," she repeated firmly. "But I also care about you. And you know that, so don't play stupid. I know you better than that." Possibilities, yes, but he was right; the rush of the kill would be greatly missed…

"Nothing you say or do can make me stop blaming him," he informed her calmly. When she froze, he assured her, "I won't hurt either of you, though. I'm not that cruel, Alice; I'm ashamed you would think that of me," he added at her relieved expression. He then looked at the other vampire and sighed deeply. "You would take her?"

"What?"

He rolled his eyes, as though the explanation should be obvious. "Knowing what she's done, how many she's killed, knowing who she is and all the blood on her hands, you would still take her?"

"Absolutely," came the answer, without even a pause for thought.

Her heart soared at his promise, then sank at what she knew was coming next:

"Choose."

She was, she realized now, two different people. She had succeeded in being both of them when she was human, but with her transformation had come a division. And each of her choices brought out one half, made her someone different.

Her first love was intense-- still is, she reminded herself-- and breathtaking, a passionate never-ending whirlwind. With him, all her human vulnerability surfaced, all of her fear and her remembered adrenaline. Then her new side took over, and suddenly it was lust for body and for blood, love of him and of the hunt. Her first romance was dangerous, like him-- and like her, at times. The unbelievable high that came from just being with him, the feeling that mimicked the sensation of blood pounding through her empty arteries and her crystallized heart working frantically-- that, coupled with those rare moments of unexpected tenderness, was what she had existed for for the past eighty-five years.

But Jasper… Jasper and his promises, Jasper and his dreams… If James was her past, Jasper wanted to be her future, and it was a bright future that he spoke of. No more terror, no more pain, no more death. Only love, and the idea of it was, to her, shrouded in a sort of blissful golden mist. Sunshine and flowers crossed her mind, along with laughter on rainy days and the way light arced through a puddle. Her traitorous brain conjured up images of the two of them hand in hand, and thoughts of belonging, of family.

Black and red. White and gold. Arctic winds and burning lava. Breezy afternoons and mellow sunshine.

New or old? Relaxed or daring? Comfort or thrills?

And more importantly, who did she want to be?

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered into his shoulder, her own frame trembling with sobs. But as he rubbed her back and assured her it was all right, she realizes suddenly that the pain she feels is more a result of her own stress than a byproduct of their imminent separation. There's no great crack down her heart; her breath doesn't catch at the thought of never seeing him again. Maybe it wasn't love after all, she marveled, but only rebellion. A brief denial of who she really was. "I can't run from my nature," she murmured, more to herself than him. "This…" She gestured blindly around her, encompassing him, the clearing, his whole life, "This isn't me. And I wish it could be, but it's not, and I'm not. Not who you wish I were."

"I love you whoever you are, Alice; you know that," he reminded her softly, but there was no hope in his eyes.

She shook her head slowly and pulled out from his arms. "Goodbye," she breathed, and then she was gone, leaving him peering hopelessly through the trees with honey-colored eyes, searching in vain for someone who would never come back.

She found herself apologizing again, but this time she was laughing and hysterical and knew she would be crying if she could. "I'm so sorry I put you through that," she sighs again and again, reveling in the feel of his arms around her and the knowledge that she'd chosen well.

And he sat with her as she cried out the confusion, just held her and let her get it all out of her system. And when she finally recovered, he merely asked, "Where to?"

She smiled weakly and gripped his hand tightly, glad of the support. "Italy sounds good," she suggested.

"Western Europe it is, then," he declared grandly.

She knew he was trying to make her laugh, and she wanted to, for him, but something in her still seemed broken.

Ten years later, she was still haunted, though she never doubted her choice. She kept telling herself she just needed time to readjust, but even to her, a decade should have been sufficient. He'd been nothing but endlessly patient, even on her worst days. So why did she constantly feel ready to break into pieces?

One rainy afternoon in Massachusetts, it struck her what was wrong, and the answer was so obvious that she laughed aloud.

He was out searching for a decent laundromat nearby (his fixation on clean clothes was one of the few things that made her smile), so she scribbled a quick note and left it on the table:

Gone out HUNTing. Back in a few hours.

~Alice

He'll be so happy, she thought, humming to herself as she wandered the streets of Boston.

He showed her how to do this just under a century ago, but the technique, thankfully, had stayed with her. A real smile pulled at her lips when she spotted them huddled together in an alley, and when she returned home that evening with a tiny rust-colored stain on the hem of her shirt (which would plague him to no end; blood was tough to get out), she knew she was back for real this time.

This is who I choose to be, and there is no shame in embracing that.

His old words came back to her suddenly: "Stay with me."

I did.