"WE'RE NOT LEAVING HER ALONE AND UNPROTECTED" Jasper was roaring at Edward. It was so strange to hear him taking on the side of staying for Bella. I would have thought that after what had just transpired at her birthday party, that Jasper was all for leaving her.
"What else would you have me do?" Edward snapped bitterly back at him. "You just tried to drink her blood Jasper. She's better off without us around her". I could hear Esme sobbing from across the room. She was on the couch sitting next to Rosalie. Emmett and Carlisle were both standing close to Edward and Jasper but not interfering. Carlisle looked apprehensive as he watched his sons, who were facing off in the middle of the giant living room and I was sitting on the stairs. I was upset, I hadn't seen it coming until it was almost too late and I hung my head guiltily. Jasper was too busy glaring at Edward to notice, so I just wallowed in my guilt. It seemed like it was happening a lot these days. Jasper too busy to notice my feelings, we were usually so attuned to each other. What's going on? I wondered to myself.
"She's not Edward and you damn well know it. She's a danger magnet, and we are the ones who brought this upon her, so we need to stay and fix it". Jasper was trying to convince Edward with his feelings as well as his words. "I promise everyone I CAN control myself. What happened will never happen again". He was right I could see his future right then. I was too stunned by what I saw to hide it from Edward. In the next second he was lunging across the room at Jasper, a feral growl ripping out from deep inside his body.
Carlisle and Emmett were taken off guard by Edward's sudden attack and it wasn't until Edward had knocked Jasper into the wall that they had moved to stop it. Jasper had felt Edward's rage and turned it into his own without meaning to. Right as they were making their move to stop Edward, Jasper had used all the rage he felt in the room and his own strength and sent Edward flying through the glass wall across the room. Edward was up and back in the room before the glass had even finished shattering to the ground. For a split second, which in vampire time is actually quite long, no one moved or even breathed. Edward made a move to step towards Jasper again and it seemed Carlisle finally regained his control.
"ENOUGH!" He snarled at the both of them. Carlisle rarely felt the need to raise his voice, let alone yell at any one of us. That was what stopped the fight and gave Jasper enough time to calm down. I decided I should come tell my family what I had foreseen, they needed to know. I flitted down the stairs.
"Edward, it's not his fault. How dare you take your anger out about something that hasn't even happened on Jasper"! I rebuffed him as I came to stand beside my mate. Was he still my mate? Was I able to call him that after what I saw? Pure confusion radiated throughout the room, Jasper had thought the attack had been because of the argument.
"Does someone care to explain to me why my sons are fighting and breaking my house?" Esme asked when the confusion cleared; she had moved to stand beside Carlisle now.
"Alice saw… She umm" Edward was unable to speak and they all turned to me expectantly.
"I saw that if we all leave, something would bring Jasper back to come check on Bella and they would fall in love. She will be my sister finally, if not in the way I thought it would be". I finished in a whisper. Jasper came to take my hand in his and looked into my eyes. He went to say something but I held my finger over his lips. "Shhh" I murmured. "It's okay. I can see it and even feel it in my vision. You and I were never meant to fall in love, I was always meant to be your friend. My fate with you was to bring you here to meet our family and be your friend, your best friend". I corrected myself, "I was meant for someone else, and so were you. Edward was never meant for Bella either". As I said this last part Edward was hissing at me. I paid him no attention as I looked at Jasper.
"I d-don't t-think I understand" he was stammering at me. I smiled at him and then let the vision flow through me. I could feel his love for her and hers for him emanate through onto him. They were so happy in my vision. He had to feel that, didn't he? "Oh" he whispered as he registered the intense feelings. The rest of the family felt them too.
Carlisle spoke then, "What do we do now?" No one answered for a long time. There weren't going to be any answers tonight. Who knew if we would ever have them?
"Bella's going to be waking up soon, I have to go back. I promised I would stay the whole night. I'm going to take her to school" Edward said. "You are staying home today Alice". He implored me with a look that dared me to argue.
"I can keep my thoughts under control Edward, but fine I will stay home. It will be better for us all to talk now" I answered back. I saw how his day would go, he would be sulky and distant and Bella would worry. I sighed.
Jasper
I was utterly… dumbfounded. Yes, that was the word I was looking for. Alice had seen me in love with Bella? How would that ever be possible? The love I felt for Alice seemed to be so all consuming. She was my world; I could not picture myself without her. I was panicking and I knew it. Maybe it was just one of those visions that passed without coming true. I heard Edward mutter something like "you better hope so" under his breath as he stalked off back to Charlie's house for Bella.
I turned to my mother and father then, "Esme, Carlisle I am so sorry about the house. I promise to fix it today". Carlisle placed a hand on my shoulder and Esme reached up to touch my face both of them looking worried.
"Don't worry about it son", Carlisle said to me. "We know it wasn't your fault". Esme was nodding in agreement. He turned to Alice then. "Explain to us in full your vision Alice; don't leave out a single detail".
"Jasper's decision has not been made yet, so it's not completely clear" She sang out. "But if he decides to stay by himself or at some point come back to check on Bella, they will fall in love and he will change her. That's all I see for now". I looked at her doubtfully. She was hiding something else. I knew that because of how well I knew her. I would have to get her alone and coax it out of her.
"Holy crap"! Emmett thundered. Leave it to the big bear of a brother of mine to just blurt out what the rest of us were thinking. I smiled.
"Alice, what did you mean before by the two of you weren't meant to fall in love?" Esme asked in a whisper. I could feel her worry and pain flow through and I tried to calm it, but I was so confused, I wasn't doing a good job.
"I had a vision the first time I met Jasper" she began in a whisper. She looked so guilty it was heart breaking to watch. "I could not see who he was with, but I know it was not me. He was so happy and love was pouring through the image. I could feel it every time I saw it. I saw that I would be his best friend and we would love each other but in a very different way. When we fell in love, I pushed the vision out of my mind. I just thought maybe this was one of the visions that could never be. I never thought about it again, until just now. I had the same vision, but this time I saw her face. It's Bella. You were always meant for Bella. I'm meant for someone else".
Everyone was looking at her like she had lost her mind. Myself included. I knew things were bad between us lately, but I never ever thought they were bad enough for us to go our separate ways. Since that first day I met her in the diner I had loved her. I still loved her. I pushed those feelings out to her now and she smiled her most dazzling smile back at me. My answering smile was just as big but probably nowhere near as dazzling. Alice was breath taking.
"Well this is certainly something I never saw coming" Carlisle muttered. Had anyone? Besides Alice I mean. We all stood there looking at each other for a few minutes in silence. Rosalie was the first to speak.
"Who exactly are you meant for Alice?" she asked. Alice just shrugged her shoulders. That was it. That was what she was hiding from me. I knew it without a doubt. And suddenly I was angry.
"Why did you never tell me? Why did you let me fall in love you? And we did you fall in love me?" I spat at her. My anger was pulsing through the room. It made her just as angry in her response.
"It's not like I had that vision every day Jasper. They aren't always perfect you know. You guys rely on my sight entirely too much. I do too". She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down. I was defeated now. No longer angry so it was much easier for her. "Falling in love with you was so easy Jasper. It came so easy and effortlessly, I could not stop it, as you could not either".
"So where do we go from here?" I asked her pleading.
"You have to make a choice Jazz. If we leave, we stay together for now, but you will come back. I can't see why, but you will. If one of us changes Bella now, you still fall in love with her. Can't you see it is inevitable? It is your fate and your destiny. Who am I to stand in the way of your destiny?"
"You are my life Alice. You are my mate, my love, my everything. I refuse to believe there is anyone else out there who could ever hold a candle to what you mean to me". I was flooding the room with my feelings then and they were so intense that all the vampires in the room were looking at their mate quite lovingly. Carlisle had stepped closer to Esme and wrapped his arms around her waist. Emmett had moved to sit beside Rosalie on the couch and was whispering into her ear. I definitely did not want to keep listening to what he was telling her would happen between them later. I tried to send out any other emotion, but I was spent from all that had happened in the last 12 hours.
"Why don't you two go somewhere and talk privately" Carlisle suggested. "We don't need to hear everything that happens right now. When you reach a decision please let us know". He picked up Esme and ran up the stairs. Alice linked her fingers with mine and pulled me towards the hole Edward's body had left in the wall. We both leapt through it at the same time and started running still holding hands. I heard Rose giggling behind us, but there was no way I was going to turn around and see what was happening with them.
We ran for miles in comfortable silence. When we reached the clearing we usually played baseball in, Alice stopped and turned to face me.
"We need to talk sometime Jazz, we can't run forever".
"Sure we can" I disagreed with her as I pulled her face in for a passionate kiss.