Work Text:
“Is he in pain?”
Jasper didn’t move. In fact, he had been silently standing by the window ever since they’d arrived. Like one of those marble statues on the churches in Europe, keeping a watchful eye on the world outside, as she made numerous phone calls, changed her headscarf twice, and made plans for three different funerals. The least she could do was give the poor girl options.
Alice had already decided that he hadn’t heard her and returned to the pictures on her phone when he finally turned. “Not from what I can tell.”
With the hood of his sweater pulled deeply into his face and the large sunglasses, he must have looked like one of those superstars trying to remain undercover to the humans. She’d seen it on television. But the characters in the tv program never had such a chilling edge to their words.
How hadn’t she noticed before? Bella’s sobbing had been a quiet constant over the last hour, and she likely wasn’t the only one saying goodbye on this late autumn afternoon. Jasper had been the one in pain, and all she thought about were flower arrangements.
Alice could have kicked herself.
She was just about to rise from her spot on the bench and move over to him when the door at the other end of the hallway flew open and revealed two more visitors. Jacob was wearing a ridiculous baseball cap reading ‘I heart Trucks’ and matching highlighter-green sunglasses. He looked just as out of place as the rest of them did. Except for Renesmee; she had no reason to hide.
“We came as fast as we could,” he said under his breath as they reached Alice. Now standing in front of her, she noticed that his pants were too short, and the sweatshirt stretched uncomfortably around his shoulders. Gas station quality, from the smell of it.
Had he lost control? Was this the strange sound she’d heard in the background of the call that brought the pair back to the Olympic peninsula?
“Where are they?” Renesmee asked. Her voice broke off towards the end and judging from the faint hint of salt, she’d been crying too.
Alice threw Jasper another look, but he had already turned back to the window. Her eyes lingered on his back for an instance before she gestured towards the door to the left. Behind it, Edward was softly talking now. Too low for them to understand. Nevertheless, Alice caught a few words, as Renesmee entered the room.
“…not what he would have wanted. We–“
The poor-quality acrylic of the gas station sweater rudely interrupted her line of sight, and her thoughts quickly jumped back to Jasper. “Car keys, please.”
Jacob handed them to her without comment, pulling the door closed behind him and his wife, and leaving Alice to stare at the handmade sign someone had put on the door.
Chief. Just Chief. All that life, all that character and history, reduced to one word.
Memories started to flash in front of her eyes, scenes both real and never realised. Charlie and Bella, Charlie and Renesmee, Charlie and Jacob, Charlie and her. Even as they’d moved away from Forks, he was everywhere. In the Skype calls to his granddaughter, in the pictures in Bella and Edward’s room, in the short-form answers to Alice’s multi-page letters.
A big lump built in her throat. She tried to swallow it down, but it wouldn’t budge. Desperate for some consolation, she turned to Jasper and found him right by her side. He reached for her hand and freed the keys from her iron grip.
Oh god, did I ruin their keychain?
If she had, he didn’t let her see as they disappeared inside his palm. “Let’s take our bags out.”
That had been her idea to help him. How come it was now him helping her escape this horrid place?
Alice nodded mechanically and grabbed the Louis Vuitton bag from the bench. They had been on their way to meet up with Peter and Charlotte for a small getaway when the vision hit.
The vision—
“Alice, stay here.”
Her mind snapped back to the present. Jasper was leading her towards the exit. “It’s almost five thirty, you don’t need to see it again.”
Five thirty. The big grandfather clock in her vision had stood at five thirty-two.
No. NO.
She had to be there for them! Edward, Bella, Jacob – and Renesmee. Oh, poor Nessie, she’d never even seen a dead person before!
“No, I need to go back!”
She tried to pull herself from his grip on her upper arm, but he didn’t let go. “Not now, you don’t.”
“Jasper, please, they need me.” Alice’s plea finally made him stop. But when he turned to her, his eyes behind the sunglasses were hard.
“I can’t be here right now.”
Her stomach sank. Of course, he couldn’t. How had she been too self-absorbed to realise that again?
“I’m sorry, Jazz,” she apologised. “Let’s go put our bags away then.”
xxx
They entered the garage through the side entrance. It was half empty and Renesmee’s car was parked in the front row. Finding it would have been just as easy if the entire place was filled with look-alikes, though. The trail of wolf leading straight to the doors was impossible to ignore.
I’m going to have to throw away all of these clothes, Alice lamented as Jasper opened the hood and another wave of dog stench encompassed them. And I was so looking forward to wearing the–
“He’s so calm, it’s strange.” Jasper’s unexpected comment cut off her line of thought and returned her full attention to him. He had removed his sunglasses and his face seemed much more relaxed already.
I should have gotten him out of there earlier. “How so?”
He closed the hood and locked the car. “He’s collected, almost content. I mean, sure, there’s been a tinge of sadness ever since Bella arrived, but there’s no regret, no grief, no anger. He’s just–”
“Peaceful?” she offered.
Jasper nodded. “I’ve never seen one go like this.”
A sudden, unexpected sadness gripped her, and Alice felt the need to wrap her arms around herself. However, the urge disappeared before her fingertips found her upper arms. And somehow, she was disappointed.
Alice’s eyes found Jasper’s. “Thank you, but don’t do this right now. This is Charlie, we’re losing. I can’t feel nothing at that.”
For a second, she thought he was going to fight her on this. But then, the sudden cold returned and Jasper put his sunglasses back on. “Do you want to go back inside?”
“Not without you.”
Her comment put a small smile on his lips. “I’ve been through worse.”
“I know,” she returned. “But I promised you, that you’d never have to go through something like that again.”
Jasper took her hand in his and led her back towards the main building. “As you said, this is Charlie. You cared about him, and you should be able to say goodbye. Don’t worry about me.”
Alice wanted to smile for him. As a thank you for always being there for her, always putting her first. But with every step they took back towards the unassuming door with the hand-made sign on it, the heavier the corners of her mouth felt.
When they re-entered the dimly lit hallway, the door was open. Edward and Jacob stood in front of it, looking somewhat out of place with their big sunglasses and unfashionable hats. Bella and Nessie were still obscured by the corner, but their sobbing reached her ears long before Alice laid eyes on them.
They were hugging each other. Renesmee’s head rested on Bella’s shoulders like it had when she was smaller, being carried around by her mother. However, this time, she wasn’t smiling. Instead, her cheeks were wet.
For a split-second, all Alice could think about was how much she wanted hers to be too.
“Can’t you help them?” Jacob’s words pulled her eyes from Nessie’s tears and brought them back to them. Judging from the reproachful glance Edward was throwing their way, he had already asked Jasper to do the same. And he had already refused.
“I’m not going to do anything without their consent,” he reiterated for Jacob. The wolf huffed angrily, but there was no snarky comment accompanying his dissatisfaction.
The three men continued to stare each other down. Alice watched Jasper’s face for another moment before she let go of his hand and moved towards the door.
She’d almost entered the room once before, just as they arrived at the retirement home. But she’d hesitated, long enough for Bella and Edward to barge into the hallway. It felt wrong to join them after at. Charlie was her father, after all. So why was Alice the one that couldn’t bring herself to see him now?
An unexpected warmth suddenly ran down her arm and filled her hand with courage. Enough, to pull the door open a little wider and slip in. The nudge disappeared, just as fast as it had arrived. Alice turned to look back at Jasper and mouthed a ‘thank you’ before the room consumed her.
The inside was dark now, darker than it had been in her vision. The sun had gone down outside, and the dim ceiling lamp didn’t provide much light. Not, that she needed it anyway. A single window had been opened, just as it was in her vision. “To let the soul out,” the nurse in her vision had explained.
Charlie was lying on the bed, exactly as she’d seen; dark-blue pyjamas, grey hair, moustache, and all. It was unmistakably him. And yet, he was all wrong.
His face was too pale, the usual warm glow and cheeky smile absent.
His hands, which had always fiddled around with his shirt or moustache, were too still, the fingers starting to turn blue around their tips.
The familiar smell of his sweet blood mixed with a faint note of the forest, frying grease, and sweat still lingered in the air, but it was dwindling. Alice instinctively walked over to the window to close it, preserving what was left of Charlie, when she realised what she was missing the most.
The room was too silent. There were no more laboured breaths, no more coughing. No more heartbeat.
Alice felt like someone had grabbed hold of her insides and squeezed with all their might. Her body wanted to double over together but at the same time, she couldn’t force her eyes off his face.
All that life, all that character, all that history — gone.
A silent sob escaped her chest and she quickly pressed a hand against her lips, as if she could keep the rest of them in. Her other hand reached out to touch his, she watched as her fingers met his and then shrunk back. It felt like having another vision. She had no control, no idea how she was supposed to feel or react.
Trapped in her own mind, Alice watched as her feet found their way back to the hallway. Bella’s green sweater was the first thing that met her, as she pulled Alice into her chest. Luckily, she didn’t have to breathe.
It felt like an eternity, until Bella let her go. Alice had tried to force her arms to hug her friend back. But they were numb, uselessly hanging on her side. Nessie was next, enveloping her in another tight hug. Alice could feel the wetness of her tears in the bronze hair. It seemed completely insignificant in the wake of things, but somehow, she was jealous of her, nevertheless. What she would have given to be able to cry in this moment.
It took another few moments, but then her brain somehow registered the situation and was able to find the appropriate words. “I’m so sorry.”
Another sob escaped Renesmee’s throat as she finally let go of Alice to return to her mother’s side. Edward and Bella quickly encircled her, revealing an equally distraught Jacob. Alice’s eyes didn’t linger on him, trailing over to the corner instead. Jasper was still watching her. And somehow, seeing his beloved face broke something inside of her.
Another uncontrolled sob escaped her chest before she could flee the hallway, and this damned building. It got more and more out of hand as she dashed over the plaza and into the garden, unable to tell if she was still moving at human pace or running already.
And then, she suddenly wasn’t moving at all anymore. Wrapping her arms around herself, Alice looked around her. She was in the middle of the gardens, a few dozen feet from a small pond. And she had no idea why she came here, why she stopped or what she felt.
She was still sobbing, which should have meant that she was sad. But she didn’t feel sad. Not angry either, but her hands were fists, nevertheless. Her cheeks hurt from grinning, but she certainly wasn’t happy.
Steps approached her, and it wasn’t long before another set of arms closed around her. However, these didn’t feel like an iron cage. Alice turned and buried her face in Jasper’s shirt. “I– I don’t know what’s going on... What do I feel, Jasper?”
“You’re grieving, Alice,” he whispered, his voice and presence soothing her uncontrollable sobs into a quiet whimpering.
Grieving. No, that couldn’t be it. She’d grieved before. She’d mourned the loss of their family, twice. His death, a good dozen times. This was not the same. It didn’t compare. This was real.
“I don’t want to.” She closed her eyes and shoved her hands under his shirt, reaching for his skin. “Make it go away, Jazz. I don’t want to feel this way.”
Jasper tensed under her touch, then hugged her tighter. But relief didn’t come. Confused, Alice looked up to him. “Jazz?”
His eyes met hers under the frame of his sunglasses. “I can’t. I’m sorry, darling.”
“Why not?” Alice felt another sob in her chest, but this time she was able to keep it down.
“Because what you’re feeling right now is an expression of how much you cared about him. I can’t take that away from you. If I do, you’ll eventually resent me for it.” He gently ran a hand over her hair. “But I promise to not go anywhere. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
xxx
Alice completely lost track of how they were standing there in the dark gardens. At some point it had started raining, but Jasper still hadn’t moved an inch. He was holding her while she screamed and cried tearlessly until she felt there was nothing left inside of her. And he kept holding her, as the emptiness slowly started to fill with his devotion.
“How did you know?” she finally asked as her body stopped trembling and she regained control over her speech. “How did you know I’d resent you for taking this away.”
Jasper let go of her head as she pressed against his hand to look up at him. He seemed tired. “Do you remember how Carlisle used to make us go to the funerals of people we killed?”
Alice nodded and freed a hand from his shirt to push the wet strands of hair that were clinging to his face back.
“That first one; I messed with the widow. I thought I was helping her, but I was mostly helping myself.”
“What happened?”
He sighed and his eyes left hers; they always did when he talked about things, he was ashamed of. “She killed herself.”
The cold crept back into Alice’s bones, and another lump was forming at the back of her throat. “You’ve never told me that!”
“I didn’t see the need to.” He still refused to look at her.
Alice sighed and rested her head back against his chest. “It’s okay, Jasper. You didn’t intend for that.”
Finally, he returned to her. His lips brushed the top of her head for an instant before he rested his chin on it.
“So, what do I do now?” she asked after another moment of silence.
“You’re going to grief. You’re going to grief until the day you think back and are no longer saddened by the loss but grateful for the time you had instead.”