come what may (jasper)

[alice cullen]

Alice had seen a lot of the world, for one reason or another. Traveling, searching, business and pleasure. When you lived a long life, you were given chances to experience things for many different reasons. With the proper lighting (or lack of lighting) she’d been able to see the world from many different angels. One thing that seemed to be the most common part of human life was how it seemed to die down after dark. Yes, there were placed in the bigger parts of the world like New York where the city “never slept”, but even there the activity slowed after two in the morning. And in a place like Forks? It was silent.

It was a small town, there weren’t big restaurants and night clubs for people to let loose and party like in the more famous and touristy parts of the world. It was a place where people went to bed at reasonable hours, after their three square meals and family time. The sin went away, and so did the human population. It left the world very much wide open for vampires. They never slept, not only did they not need it, but it was physically not possible. Their minds didn’t secret the hormone that allowed the mind to rest, and they didn’t need it to. For those six to seven hours before people work up again, she didn’t have to hide what she was.

Living around humans and trying to fit in with them was a job that they’d always taken seriously. It was a part of the vampires code of conduct, they kept what they were quiet because if they were known it could cause wars and terrors and disasters. She’d gone through high school more than three times now, she pretended to eat, she pretended to get sick every once in a while, and she pretended to breath and fidget like an average person. Yet at night, she could be herself. She could move at her natural speed, instead of always slowing everything down. At night, in the shadows, she was free.

It was almost three-thirty in the morning, and she knew that soon the town was going to start coming to life once more. People would wake up and eat their breakfasts, and open their little stores. Children would go to school, mothers would care for babies, and fathers would kiss their families good-bye on the way to work. But at that moment, it was silent, except for the soft breeze blowing through the trees. The moon and the stars were covered with clouds but Alice didn’t need their light to see. She sat on the swing set in the park, gently rocking forward and backward. Her mind was far away from the patch of the world in front of her, looking to the future.

[Jasper Hale]

It wasn't exactly uncommon for them to escape from the confines of the Cullen House once the cover of night had fallen and it was far past the time for the human population of Forks to be up and about. This of course made things much easier for their kind to move around and not have to worry about keeping up so many facades. As for Jasper well, he was out only because Alice hadn't been at home and he knew the brunette well enough to sense when things were on her mind, ability or not. He was pretty sure that the sudden restless that had taken over his mate, had more to do with the fact that the tension was being placed upon them. People within the town were beginning to realize that there was indeed something fishy going on with the Cullen family and that tension was beginning to bleed through the masks they were all wearing.

So after a few hours of just waiting for Alice to return back to the house, Jasper had taken it upon himself to seek out his mate and at the very least keep her company while she continued to knock on the sky and listen to the sounds. It was just a natural thing for them to do, their own way of reaction to the stress of such situations. There was truth to the old saying, sometimes doing nothing was the best answer. And for their kind, immobility was usually the most common effort when they were feeling out of control and lost. Doing nothing gave them clarity. And if Jasper knew Alice, she was looking for it.

Pushing the silver Ducati that Edward had bought him some time after he and Alice had joined up with Carlisle and the others, down the winding drive he let it roll for a few paces before kick starting the engine and tearing off down the lane at a speed that would have made a human nauseous. Other than Reneseme, no one else in their family would be sleeping and it wasn't like his absence wouldn't have been unnoticed, he'd just been trying to keep it down for those who might have been trying to sleep.

Focusing his attention on the bike Jasper couldn't stop the smile from forming on his lips. There was no doubting that Edward knew his stuff when it came to their automotive. And while sure the bike had indeed been modified, made to fit their speed preference, the bike itself ran like nothing Jasper had ever experienced. Not even Alice's Porsche was as smooth as his bike in Jasper's honest opinion. The time that had elapsed from the drive into Forks, had been at the most maybe going on three minutes and even before Jasper had consciously thought about where Alice might be, he just knew. After all there weren't too many vampires in Forks at this time of night, and Alice's presence naturally called out to him. He reached the park within matters of seconds. With the Ducati in park, Jasper pulled his helmet off, shaking out his blonde hair before glancing around the park.

Spotting Alice perched near the swing set, idly swaying back and forth she looked somewhat solemn. Not one of Jasper's favorite expressions. Making his way over to her, he sunk down onto the swing next to her, taking a moment before letting his gaze turn to her. "Penny for your thoughts?"

[alice cullen]

Alice could see every chance in the world like many humans couldn’t. She could see the twitch of a cat’s tail down the block, she could see the particles of dust that floated through the air. She could see the many many different colors that came through a window, or a glass. She could feel the slightest changes in the wind, and smell the subtle changes in the air that came whenever a door opened, or someone were to walk by. Vampires had all of those gifts that came with their immortality, and at that moment as she could sense all of those things, she was also not really paying attention to them.

She was memorizing and ignoring them all at the same time. Her thoughts were both on the present and the future, something that not all vampires were able to do. It might have had something to do with the ability she possessed, but this wasn’t about a vision that night. It was about the future which was still unknown to her. She saw things, of course, but for the most part, everything was up in the air. The future was like that, even one small choice could change everything, but one thing was for sure. Things were going to be changing for them in a very big way, and very soon.

Alice had always know that they would someday have to leave Forks. It was a wonderful town, quaint and small, almost always overcast or raining. It had beautiful wildlife, both to enjoy the sights as well as the tastes of. It was far from the big cities, and yet close enough that she could go in for shopping trips whenever she felt the urge. It was an ideal place for her family to make a home for themselves, which was why it had been chosen in the first place. They’d gone knowing full well that, while they would be able to set up a lovely life for themselves there for a while, it would be temporary.

It would have to be, they didn’t change. Human changed, they grew up and grew old and their lives evolved in ways that were out of reach for Alice and her kind. Wherever they went, it had to be for only a decade or so, and that was pushing it. Still, while this inevitable point in time wasn’t a surprise, it did hit her. She hadn’t expected to fall in love with Forks as much as she had. She’d never felt so attached to a place as she had with her home here. She just wanted to take it all in, as if she could absorb the feel of the town into her, and take it with her.

She didn’t stop her gentle back and forth swaying on the swing, not even when she heard jasper’s bike approach. She would know that sound anywhere, but she let him come to her. She let him move to sit on the swing right next to her, and suddenly the night felt even more like home. She could have sat like that forever with him, simply being a part of the night. When she finally did move, something vampires could go amazingly long without doing, it was only when he spoke. Her gentle eyes changed to come back into focus on what was I front of her, specifically on the face of her mate, and she offered him a soft smile.

“We’re almost finished here.”