The Cullen's Family Meta -- Part 3 of 3
These are those in-depth character pieces from the view point of Edward I said might have been floating around. They are being put in the order of appearance, which coincidentally and amusingly also places them in couple sets. I could blame Steph and the Sparkle!Mafia e-mailverse, or a world of things all the way back to Kat, but really I kind of hit this one out the park with my intense need to suddenly get drastically in-depth.
Oh, and I should warn you, each of these in each set is pages long and very much done and in the works at the same time. I'll be updating the versions as they go through their edits.
Opinions on One Ms. Alice Cullen
I think the only proper way to start with Alice is to start at the beginning -- which never really existed, because nothing had to begin.
We can say the hypothetically there was a 'beginning' when he came home with Emmet from hunting and found his family two voice larger -- probably with the first group confused but accepting of the Alice story based on the things she'd told them that she shouldn't have been able to know previously. And these two voices -- a tiny bundle of bounce and a militant, aggressive elder vampire. That there were a few seconds where he was unhappy, aggressive, defensive...and then he touched Alice's mind.
I think it would take seeing her vision of their future -- their = their/Alice & Jasper, their = Alice seeing them coming to the Cullen’s, their = his/family, their = ALL OF Them -- that there would be massive shift in his translation of Alice. Because he'd be able to see a) how her powers work and b) feel her utter and complete faith in her visions. I think it would make him, while not at the first second fully welcoming, much less compelled to be aggressive against their being there.
His ability to relay to his family, given his powers, also probably made their transition into Alice easier. Which in turn, while they aren't worrying about her and Jasper as much, makes his headspace an easier place to be.
I can say with absolute faith, that Alice saw Edward, and specifically, Edward & Alice's relationship, coming. Just the same way she saw The Cullen’s coming. Just the way she saw how she would love Bella way before anything actually happens in canon. Because that's all Alice. She knows the big, nearly unchangeable things and Edward was among them.
And I think Edward seeing that through Alice's mind, after seeing her ability to be right, would mean they skipped having a beginning and over the usual first five or ten steps most people find necessary in a friendship start. Because he could see it and he found the reasons to believe it even over being skeptical.
I, also, think that by this time in his life, Edward near desperately needed someone like Alice (without of course very much realizing he needed it. Quite like Bella's introduction). It's been fifteen years since Emmett changed at this point. The dynamic is dynamically changed. He's living with two very, very dedicated couples and as one of three children. Even having softened to Rosalie, and having gotten an amazing comrade out of Emmett. And at just over thirty years without anyone to him as Esme and Carlisle or Rose and Emmett were to each other, or even anything remotely near it.
And suddenly there she is -- in person and in his head and in her head and in the future. A person with a large power, that also is at the whim of their power, both unable to control it and lacking in any outward application for it. Both with some glaringly large holes in their lives created by their powers, as much as their lives are helped by them.
With their powers combine (they are the Wonder Twins. Er, I mean, in seriousness) I think Edward constitutes a Catch 22 for Alice that no one else can. When Alice has visions with the rest of the world she has to relate them to people, whether in living them or drawing them down, which means they all usually have to go through the motions of what she saw and what's going to happen, making it seen-->relayed-->lived/reacted to.
With Edward he sees it at the moment it's happening (how, when, why, all the details) and this creates a dynamic which can be played with and against, that also circumvents/skips time and future, without changing it.
A good example of this kind of Catch 22 fun: Remember Alice's Milliways introduction thread?
Alice comes to Edward because she sees a vision of Edward checking through the doors in a search to make Milliways appear for him. His decision to look at the doors (which he wasn't certain he would yet, but her visions make certain will happen) is directly corollary to him finding the door at the end of her vision. But because they both know he's going to look for the doors, and he's not going to change his mind about it, and where the door is -- Alice and Edward skip steps one through five (because he never changes his mind that he would look for the doors), going from standing there talking about it (and watching him find it) to simply walking up to one door and it opens to Milliways.
I think this example is indicative of almost all things Edward and Alice. Because he can do for her something no one else can -- he can live and act in the future and present of her mind with her.
Which, of course, is how they play chess. (You know...after everyone else gets tired of Edward being able to see their strategy and Alice being able to see their moves ahead of time)
Because they don't have to move chess pieces. Edward only has to make the decisions of which ones he would move while they play on the ever changing chess board in Alice's visions. Try to imagine a chess game where you could continue to play two steps behind yourself and three steps in front of yourself at the same second. Where you could undo or redo based on a single thought on one side and/or sudden domino outcomes on the other. Always hinging on thought, probably, possibility and future all at once. It would be the kind of challenge that neither of them could get in a game with the others of their family.
Which I think you could and should parallel out on multiple other levels of their lives. They create a challenge and a peace for each other they don't find in other places. Where things are simply understood and taken as they are given (both controlled and utterly uncontrollable).
Her powers also shifted her quickly into another area. Alice was an even further line of defense for his family, which endears her on so many levels so very quickly. The continued ability for both of them to use these powers made them a sort of sentinels for their family -- watching out together against what might or was happening. Which makes them compatriots in their jobs on the same vein.
I think in a lot of ways Edward doesn't have a word to call what Alice is or suddenly became in his world. Sister or even best friend is something lesser, because friends do not happen outside of the family and because he had one sister before her who is nothing near the same.
Alice's youthful exuberance frees Edward up to enjoy acting younger and to having more plain *fun* than he would. Which he does with her, but not so much with others (aside from Emmett). He is willing to conceded to her joys and wishes, no matter how silly and provincial (most of the time), in a way he probably only would for Esme. Except its less dynamic related with Alice.
Because she's Alice.
Another very important things to consider in Alice and Edward is that that each could report on the other where it comes to lying.
But that when they know the other is, they don't. They keep each other’s secret and play the part in each other ruses which backs up the liar as telling the truth. Not so much by standing up and saying the person is saying the truth....so much as by not saying anything at all or acting anything other than though it is the most normal thing in the world.
They live in very secret free realms -- him always knowing what is happening with people now and her always knowing what will happen to people then. And they chose to keep each other’s very detailed secrets to themselves, knowing they instinctively live in each other’s powers and comforts. In their only little world.
I think Edward and Alice snipe at each other frequently in the complaining ways of how they act, because underneath they both acknowledge without words that their bond has an existence beyond them, past and present and future. They can simply endure whatever the emotional ups and downs, joys and disappointments, of each other are because the rest is already a known. They know they get to be whatever it is they are for the rest of time. It's all trivial details without a risk -- which makes it far more than safe to be able to yell and snap and tease and taunt and be brutally honest with each other. Because there isn't a chance of the other person leaving or being mortally offended or something leading to a division.
Which brings me to Alice leaving.
Because the reaction Edward has is even further proof of his faith/thoughts on Alice. When they are discussing who gets who for the final battle, Edward claims Demetri, with a look of hate. But when asked why he wants him, he says "For Alice. It's the only thanks I can give her now for the last thirty years."
Because Edward? After Alice has vanished? Is not focusing on the fact Alice abandoned his family. He knows she's abandoned their family. And done it by choice. And him? He's focused on the fact he never was able to thank her enough for what she was in his life when she was there. It's why his first question about why Bella kept a secret from him is Alice's name. Because you know -- you have to absolutely know -- Edward knows she left because of a vision. He doesn't know what was in it, or if she'll be coming back ever, but that Alice lives by her power and her power said she had to go wherever and she went. Because that's how Alice's operandus Mondi works. And if she didn't tell him, tell him of all people, there had to be a reason. Even if he doesn't know it. Because all he knows is she left. Which is how she had to have it.
And why he's the one who introduces Alice back into the fight. Because you know they're out there talking their silent crazy, I see you thar in my thoughts, way, even during the crazy fight once she appears on the far far sidelines.
This also does not stop him from tucking her under his arm for the rest of the encounter once they are the victors. Because it is Alice and Edward's head goes !@@#$#$%#$%#$%^-elevenity-billion-keyboardsmash at the thought of not having Alice nearby in some *known* capacity. And I have no doubt it was crazy as difficult for her not to let him see, because the dawning terror, shutting him out of her thoughts in the panic, and having to abandon him at the first hint of her vision because *he couldn't be allowed to see* if she was going to save him and Nessie and everyone. It makes me flail like hell for both of them, because of who they are to each other and what it would mean to have to keep the other out for the well being of them and the family.
And yet you know they just smiled at each other in the end, at the end of the battle, with her tucked there under his arm -- because they skipped steps one through five -- and it's Alice's power and Alice was protecting the family and Edward -- and they get it because they get each other. So while Bella's all glares and you played us unfair, Edward's got Alice tucked under his arm and you know they're having a right amused as hell time with each other in their thoughts and small actions and the rest is gone, because it's the past, and Edward and Alice together, with and for each other, only live in the present and the future.
Which Bella misses this, as well as most of the people gathered as witness -- while only the other Cullen’s recognize it as just Alice and Edward being The Freaks Alice and Edward Have Always Been And Always Will Be.
Which leads to another point, even if it's skipping in all the wrong directions -- Alice's visions of Bella. I have to believe, as a reader and player of Edward, that a good one-third of Edward's drama through pre-Bella is that he's having to literally sunder the very foundation of his world. He's having to willful convince himself Alice -- who is never wrong and who's visions are to be believed and used to protect them and predict the future so they can be safe -- IS WRONG. Which goes against every iota of his last fifty years, and probably the strongest (or second strongest, depending) bond he has in his family.
That to stay sane and to not kill this girl and not take her soul? He has to sacrifice Alice.
And he chooses his insanity over Alice.
Which does not even begin to be touched by the elevnty billion keyboard smash of the earlier example because -- there he is losing his hold on reality and himself. And he's now willingly and willfully kicked out the singular column who understood him better than he understands himself. I cannot begin to explain how much this has to be killing him. To choose to not believe her in the present or in the future. Just to shut Alice out? Has to be hell. On top of the already newly exploded level of hell his life became with Bella's introduction. Because he can't have Alice there to help.
(.....you know, while Alice isn't taking it personally cause this is all gonna pass somehow and some when. And it's Edward. And they get forever, so his being a stupid head now is just one of those ups and downs that don't affect their ending status quo. [Just like the keeping of Bella or the death of Bella wouldn't. Only the details of how and where their future shifts to.]
Which is part of why he's still there, and they're still there talking through all of it. Because he's trying and succeeding to snarl her future but not to snarl theirs. And she's bugging him to talk to her, and he's snapping at her that she shouldn't want to if he's just going to kill her, and they are just operating together out of synch, completely unable to abandon each other entirely....because the present is the only subject in jeopardy, and it's the only place he can be just then.)
I really, really, really love the Alice-Edward out-of-time-and-space dichotomy. In flaily arms ways.
Because they really do just get each other.
And I'll stop now, before this doubles again, even though I’m sure it’s hardly done.
Opinions on One Mr. Jasper Hale
I think that Edward respects Jasper more than he likes him (which is not to say that he doesn't like Jasper. He does. But the distinction is important).
Jasper and Edward, when they were human, both aimed themselves in the same direction. The fact that Jasper was the only one to actually make it into a war, and that their wars were nearly a century apart, doesn't change that fact. It does probably make Edward more intrigued and open to certain conversations with Jasper than he would not be with say Alice-Carlisle-Esme who are obvious right monsters, but very given to the notion of peaceful (or avoiding the creating of the situation-) solution first.
Edward wanted to be a soldier. It defined his last human years and undermined his relationship with his own mother. Getting to eighteen and becoming part of the war. Jasper actually stole away and lied to become part of one before he was of age. Something Edward probably envies the act and decision of, even half a century later. At their base they were driven to be part of something bigger, to defend ideals and ideas bigger than themselves in a very real and physical fashion. And probably something they bonded well over in the beginning, because the need to defend and fight is apparent in each of them.
Being one of the three people in the house with extra-abilities throws the three of them into a box from the beginning. A little more extraordinary, both in what they have and what they have to deal with because of it. There is a division in the fact Jasper, while still effected by the outside world, can control his power. He can change and effect how he and other people are feeling. Edward was perhaps a very long time ago envious of this fact, but not beyond the first blush. As it's not something Jasper had any more control over getting than Alice or he had in not getting.
He gets to use his power as a sentinel for protecting their family to an extra step than the other two (and to that extent, even other six). He also gets to read their family -- both in the fashion of figuring out what's going on and being able to keep them from going overboard. In any million number of situations.
I will go out on the limb of saying that while Edward is a right bastardly good liar (a habit honed from not having to react to the millions of things people think a day that he can't avoid hearing) that Jasper is probably the one person in the family who can tell when he's hiding something big. Because Edward can mask his posture and his expression and even his voice....but he can't change what he's feeling on the inside.
There is one thing though that Jasper and Edward experience, and probably have bonded over both knowing they’ve each experienced and in avoiding at times, that no one else in the family has had to experience -- and that is the intimate contact with their prey at the time of hunting/killing.
Imagine being them for a moment.
Jasper, in the middle of the moment of killing a person or a vampire (or perhaps an animal even), gets to feel the raw terror and debilitating helplessness or regret that is rolling off his victim. And affecting him. Edward, in the middle of the moment of killing a person or vampire, is being flooded with all the things which flood the mind when one is thinking their last thoughts.
It's not particularly appetizing, is it?
I'm sure somewhere, some when there were conversations about this. Even if they were probably the smallest relegated down ones, where Jasper was thinking his response and Edward was responding in three to five word sentences. While they discussed it half nonchalantly, as though it was nothing (because no one else has ever understood) and with epic waves of relief (because no one else had ever understood before).
That Jasper belongs to Alice, and vise-verse, does not hurt his appreciation of Jasper either. Even if it does not belong securely to Jasper, on Jasper's merit alone, the fact they are together cements Jasper closer to Edward because of Edward's nearness to Alice/Alice's nearness to Edward and Alice's dearness to Jasper as well as his reciprocation of that dearness. He actively gets bonus love from Edward for being so unwaveringly, stick in the mud, fiercely defensive of Alice's safety (even if Edward is the one who rankles Jasper's chain by encouraging her to do more things outside of his watch). It's both hypocritical and corollary. The fact that Jasper cares so much for Alice and would do so much for Alice, without reservation to any of the vows he's made in his life or to the Cullen’s, (which Edward is comfortably/gladly positive Jasper would break every single one of them, without blinking, if it came down to that for Alice's safety) makes Edward esteem Jasper very highly. Because he knows he doesn't have to worry when it comes to Alice being taken care of (for better and worse) as that's already in the best hands possible.
Edward and Jasper (and Emmett) probably consist of a section of the Cullen household that would understand not only the thinking of breaking the rules but the out right near painfully wanting to when it comes to their family.
Think about Breaking Dawn when Edward is talking to Bella about Jasper. Jasper's been considering for the final fight going and killing a human because it will make him stronger, and thus make the fight easier on their side for the strength/speed/agility/etc. Bella is aghast at the idea, and probably so are a few other people and Edward talks about it plainly. It's a military tactic to Edward and Jasper, very likely. Even as a big break in their personal vows to their selves and their family, the unacted upon urge is not a debilitating weakness or desperation. It's a tactical maneuver....it's the idea of sacrificing one ideal of importance (not killing humans) for the greater ideal of importance (keeping their family alive). Carlisle would not approve, but the truth is neither of them would ask for the approval in this eventuality either.
[Wherein I read that conversation between Bella-Edward as Edward hopes that Jasper won't....but probably wouldn't stop him, or tell so that someone else could. Because, oh, but by god, do they get strategy and sacrifice and what is more important. Which isn't how people see them or judge their actions.]
But somewhere back around the middle to beginning --
I think that more than feeling annoyed at Jasper's unending diatribe on the walking meat-sticks, er, students of Fork High Edward feels reluctantly embarrassed and resigned. Reluctantly embarrassed because he knows his family needs him to listen and watch over Jasper, and Alice totally relies on him for updates of how Jasper actually doing BUT....it’s one of those things Edward really, really, really, really wouldn't listen to if he was given the choice. It's hearing someone having to battle with their own inner demons in the best and worst and most fantasizingly naked ways.
Edward Totally Does Not tell Alice, or any of his family for that matter, what Jasper fantasizes about doing to people. How often or anything else related to it. He's there to kick the chair leg when something gets too loud, and to keep a covert eye out for possible slipping. But Edward Does Not Share The Things He Has To Be Experiencing In This Work.
(It's just not his place. And Jasper deserves whatever privacy Edward can give him above and beyond not being able to just not hear him.)
He also doesn't go about talking about how much he respects that Jasper's still going at it fifty years later with the same dogged determination, especially with what he goes through in doing it.
I mean, respect like Whoa. In the massive degree.
It's one thing to say you're going to beat something and then to find a way up and over it. Where you are beyond it and people can pat you on the back and it can be the fiddled away into small talk. It's entirely another to be the mute witness watching someone willingly walk into hell every time, day in and day out. There is no way Edward couldn't respect what Jasper does for them (regardless of the risk he poses).
Which also made me utterly love Jasper's thought to Edward, on the day he returns from Alaska, when the entire family is watching like hawks the twitchiness of Edward. And there's --
[Jasper] met my glance briefly, and grinned.
Annoying, isn't it?
And I have to laugh and I have to love them. Because their dichotomy has flipped into the reverse. Jasper can feel the hell Edward's going through, while just sitting there and he has to help watch over him. And he's still open enough and acknowledging enough to be like, so this is you in my shoes and me in yours...and wow, but it still blows, doesn't it?
You know they get along.
They just do.
In a quiet, reserved, militantly undermined, old world, gentlemanly, dry humor, willing risk everything for the right things fashion.
Which brings me to their quiet in commonness of being scholarly driven. I can just see the Old Boys Club that Carlisle, Jasper and Edward make up on occasion. They are the most educated members of the family, not so much in how many degrees they've earned that no one else has, but in how much they want to learn and have read and experienced (as opposed to wanting to build, or work, or shop, or play). That they can probably only find interest in the discussing of these rare and not so much loved classics of all scopes except among each other.
It would make Jasper one of those people Edward seeks out for conversation and discussion at regular intervals. Reading books, experiencing the classical of all things, and discussing all manner of their interactions is probably a past time of theirs. Which I think in some ways, Jasper probably gets the view of Edward at his real age the most often.
Oh, and I should warn you, each of these in each set is pages long and very much done and in the works at the same time. I'll be updating the versions as they go through their edits.
Opinions on One Ms. Alice Cullen
I think the only proper way to start with Alice is to start at the beginning -- which never really existed, because nothing had to begin.
We can say the hypothetically there was a 'beginning' when he came home with Emmet from hunting and found his family two voice larger -- probably with the first group confused but accepting of the Alice story based on the things she'd told them that she shouldn't have been able to know previously. And these two voices -- a tiny bundle of bounce and a militant, aggressive elder vampire. That there were a few seconds where he was unhappy, aggressive, defensive...and then he touched Alice's mind.
I think it would take seeing her vision of their future -- their = their/Alice & Jasper, their = Alice seeing them coming to the Cullen’s, their = his/family, their = ALL OF Them -- that there would be massive shift in his translation of Alice. Because he'd be able to see a) how her powers work and b) feel her utter and complete faith in her visions. I think it would make him, while not at the first second fully welcoming, much less compelled to be aggressive against their being there.
His ability to relay to his family, given his powers, also probably made their transition into Alice easier. Which in turn, while they aren't worrying about her and Jasper as much, makes his headspace an easier place to be.
I can say with absolute faith, that Alice saw Edward, and specifically, Edward & Alice's relationship, coming. Just the same way she saw The Cullen’s coming. Just the way she saw how she would love Bella way before anything actually happens in canon. Because that's all Alice. She knows the big, nearly unchangeable things and Edward was among them.
And I think Edward seeing that through Alice's mind, after seeing her ability to be right, would mean they skipped having a beginning and over the usual first five or ten steps most people find necessary in a friendship start. Because he could see it and he found the reasons to believe it even over being skeptical.
I, also, think that by this time in his life, Edward near desperately needed someone like Alice (without of course very much realizing he needed it. Quite like Bella's introduction). It's been fifteen years since Emmett changed at this point. The dynamic is dynamically changed. He's living with two very, very dedicated couples and as one of three children. Even having softened to Rosalie, and having gotten an amazing comrade out of Emmett. And at just over thirty years without anyone to him as Esme and Carlisle or Rose and Emmett were to each other, or even anything remotely near it.
And suddenly there she is -- in person and in his head and in her head and in the future. A person with a large power, that also is at the whim of their power, both unable to control it and lacking in any outward application for it. Both with some glaringly large holes in their lives created by their powers, as much as their lives are helped by them.
With their powers combine (they are the Wonder Twins. Er, I mean, in seriousness) I think Edward constitutes a Catch 22 for Alice that no one else can. When Alice has visions with the rest of the world she has to relate them to people, whether in living them or drawing them down, which means they all usually have to go through the motions of what she saw and what's going to happen, making it seen-->relayed-->lived/reacted to.
With Edward he sees it at the moment it's happening (how, when, why, all the details) and this creates a dynamic which can be played with and against, that also circumvents/skips time and future, without changing it.
A good example of this kind of Catch 22 fun: Remember Alice's Milliways introduction thread?
Alice comes to Edward because she sees a vision of Edward checking through the doors in a search to make Milliways appear for him. His decision to look at the doors (which he wasn't certain he would yet, but her visions make certain will happen) is directly corollary to him finding the door at the end of her vision. But because they both know he's going to look for the doors, and he's not going to change his mind about it, and where the door is -- Alice and Edward skip steps one through five (because he never changes his mind that he would look for the doors), going from standing there talking about it (and watching him find it) to simply walking up to one door and it opens to Milliways.
I think this example is indicative of almost all things Edward and Alice. Because he can do for her something no one else can -- he can live and act in the future and present of her mind with her.
Which, of course, is how they play chess. (You know...after everyone else gets tired of Edward being able to see their strategy and Alice being able to see their moves ahead of time)
Because they don't have to move chess pieces. Edward only has to make the decisions of which ones he would move while they play on the ever changing chess board in Alice's visions. Try to imagine a chess game where you could continue to play two steps behind yourself and three steps in front of yourself at the same second. Where you could undo or redo based on a single thought on one side and/or sudden domino outcomes on the other. Always hinging on thought, probably, possibility and future all at once. It would be the kind of challenge that neither of them could get in a game with the others of their family.
Which I think you could and should parallel out on multiple other levels of their lives. They create a challenge and a peace for each other they don't find in other places. Where things are simply understood and taken as they are given (both controlled and utterly uncontrollable).
Her powers also shifted her quickly into another area. Alice was an even further line of defense for his family, which endears her on so many levels so very quickly. The continued ability for both of them to use these powers made them a sort of sentinels for their family -- watching out together against what might or was happening. Which makes them compatriots in their jobs on the same vein.
I think in a lot of ways Edward doesn't have a word to call what Alice is or suddenly became in his world. Sister or even best friend is something lesser, because friends do not happen outside of the family and because he had one sister before her who is nothing near the same.
Alice's youthful exuberance frees Edward up to enjoy acting younger and to having more plain *fun* than he would. Which he does with her, but not so much with others (aside from Emmett). He is willing to conceded to her joys and wishes, no matter how silly and provincial (most of the time), in a way he probably only would for Esme. Except its less dynamic related with Alice.
Because she's Alice.
Another very important things to consider in Alice and Edward is that that each could report on the other where it comes to lying.
But that when they know the other is, they don't. They keep each other’s secret and play the part in each other ruses which backs up the liar as telling the truth. Not so much by standing up and saying the person is saying the truth....so much as by not saying anything at all or acting anything other than though it is the most normal thing in the world.
They live in very secret free realms -- him always knowing what is happening with people now and her always knowing what will happen to people then. And they chose to keep each other’s very detailed secrets to themselves, knowing they instinctively live in each other’s powers and comforts. In their only little world.
I think Edward and Alice snipe at each other frequently in the complaining ways of how they act, because underneath they both acknowledge without words that their bond has an existence beyond them, past and present and future. They can simply endure whatever the emotional ups and downs, joys and disappointments, of each other are because the rest is already a known. They know they get to be whatever it is they are for the rest of time. It's all trivial details without a risk -- which makes it far more than safe to be able to yell and snap and tease and taunt and be brutally honest with each other. Because there isn't a chance of the other person leaving or being mortally offended or something leading to a division.
Which brings me to Alice leaving.
Because the reaction Edward has is even further proof of his faith/thoughts on Alice. When they are discussing who gets who for the final battle, Edward claims Demetri, with a look of hate. But when asked why he wants him, he says "For Alice. It's the only thanks I can give her now for the last thirty years."
Because Edward? After Alice has vanished? Is not focusing on the fact Alice abandoned his family. He knows she's abandoned their family. And done it by choice. And him? He's focused on the fact he never was able to thank her enough for what she was in his life when she was there. It's why his first question about why Bella kept a secret from him is Alice's name. Because you know -- you have to absolutely know -- Edward knows she left because of a vision. He doesn't know what was in it, or if she'll be coming back ever, but that Alice lives by her power and her power said she had to go wherever and she went. Because that's how Alice's operandus Mondi works. And if she didn't tell him, tell him of all people, there had to be a reason. Even if he doesn't know it. Because all he knows is she left. Which is how she had to have it.
And why he's the one who introduces Alice back into the fight. Because you know they're out there talking their silent crazy, I see you thar in my thoughts, way, even during the crazy fight once she appears on the far far sidelines.
This also does not stop him from tucking her under his arm for the rest of the encounter once they are the victors. Because it is Alice and Edward's head goes !@@#$#$%#$%#$%^-elevenity-billion-keyboardsmash at the thought of not having Alice nearby in some *known* capacity. And I have no doubt it was crazy as difficult for her not to let him see, because the dawning terror, shutting him out of her thoughts in the panic, and having to abandon him at the first hint of her vision because *he couldn't be allowed to see* if she was going to save him and Nessie and everyone. It makes me flail like hell for both of them, because of who they are to each other and what it would mean to have to keep the other out for the well being of them and the family.
And yet you know they just smiled at each other in the end, at the end of the battle, with her tucked there under his arm -- because they skipped steps one through five -- and it's Alice's power and Alice was protecting the family and Edward -- and they get it because they get each other. So while Bella's all glares and you played us unfair, Edward's got Alice tucked under his arm and you know they're having a right amused as hell time with each other in their thoughts and small actions and the rest is gone, because it's the past, and Edward and Alice together, with and for each other, only live in the present and the future.
Which Bella misses this, as well as most of the people gathered as witness -- while only the other Cullen’s recognize it as just Alice and Edward being The Freaks Alice and Edward Have Always Been And Always Will Be.
Which leads to another point, even if it's skipping in all the wrong directions -- Alice's visions of Bella. I have to believe, as a reader and player of Edward, that a good one-third of Edward's drama through pre-Bella is that he's having to literally sunder the very foundation of his world. He's having to willful convince himself Alice -- who is never wrong and who's visions are to be believed and used to protect them and predict the future so they can be safe -- IS WRONG. Which goes against every iota of his last fifty years, and probably the strongest (or second strongest, depending) bond he has in his family.
That to stay sane and to not kill this girl and not take her soul? He has to sacrifice Alice.
And he chooses his insanity over Alice.
Which does not even begin to be touched by the elevnty billion keyboard smash of the earlier example because -- there he is losing his hold on reality and himself. And he's now willingly and willfully kicked out the singular column who understood him better than he understands himself. I cannot begin to explain how much this has to be killing him. To choose to not believe her in the present or in the future. Just to shut Alice out? Has to be hell. On top of the already newly exploded level of hell his life became with Bella's introduction. Because he can't have Alice there to help.
(.....you know, while Alice isn't taking it personally cause this is all gonna pass somehow and some when. And it's Edward. And they get forever, so his being a stupid head now is just one of those ups and downs that don't affect their ending status quo. [Just like the keeping of Bella or the death of Bella wouldn't. Only the details of how and where their future shifts to.]
Which is part of why he's still there, and they're still there talking through all of it. Because he's trying and succeeding to snarl her future but not to snarl theirs. And she's bugging him to talk to her, and he's snapping at her that she shouldn't want to if he's just going to kill her, and they are just operating together out of synch, completely unable to abandon each other entirely....because the present is the only subject in jeopardy, and it's the only place he can be just then.)
I really, really, really love the Alice-Edward out-of-time-and-space dichotomy. In flaily arms ways.
Because they really do just get each other.
And I'll stop now, before this doubles again, even though I’m sure it’s hardly done.
Opinions on One Mr. Jasper Hale
I think that Edward respects Jasper more than he likes him (which is not to say that he doesn't like Jasper. He does. But the distinction is important).
Jasper and Edward, when they were human, both aimed themselves in the same direction. The fact that Jasper was the only one to actually make it into a war, and that their wars were nearly a century apart, doesn't change that fact. It does probably make Edward more intrigued and open to certain conversations with Jasper than he would not be with say Alice-Carlisle-Esme who are obvious right monsters, but very given to the notion of peaceful (or avoiding the creating of the situation-) solution first.
Edward wanted to be a soldier. It defined his last human years and undermined his relationship with his own mother. Getting to eighteen and becoming part of the war. Jasper actually stole away and lied to become part of one before he was of age. Something Edward probably envies the act and decision of, even half a century later. At their base they were driven to be part of something bigger, to defend ideals and ideas bigger than themselves in a very real and physical fashion. And probably something they bonded well over in the beginning, because the need to defend and fight is apparent in each of them.
Being one of the three people in the house with extra-abilities throws the three of them into a box from the beginning. A little more extraordinary, both in what they have and what they have to deal with because of it. There is a division in the fact Jasper, while still effected by the outside world, can control his power. He can change and effect how he and other people are feeling. Edward was perhaps a very long time ago envious of this fact, but not beyond the first blush. As it's not something Jasper had any more control over getting than Alice or he had in not getting.
He gets to use his power as a sentinel for protecting their family to an extra step than the other two (and to that extent, even other six). He also gets to read their family -- both in the fashion of figuring out what's going on and being able to keep them from going overboard. In any million number of situations.
I will go out on the limb of saying that while Edward is a right bastardly good liar (a habit honed from not having to react to the millions of things people think a day that he can't avoid hearing) that Jasper is probably the one person in the family who can tell when he's hiding something big. Because Edward can mask his posture and his expression and even his voice....but he can't change what he's feeling on the inside.
There is one thing though that Jasper and Edward experience, and probably have bonded over both knowing they’ve each experienced and in avoiding at times, that no one else in the family has had to experience -- and that is the intimate contact with their prey at the time of hunting/killing.
Imagine being them for a moment.
Jasper, in the middle of the moment of killing a person or a vampire (or perhaps an animal even), gets to feel the raw terror and debilitating helplessness or regret that is rolling off his victim. And affecting him. Edward, in the middle of the moment of killing a person or vampire, is being flooded with all the things which flood the mind when one is thinking their last thoughts.
It's not particularly appetizing, is it?
I'm sure somewhere, some when there were conversations about this. Even if they were probably the smallest relegated down ones, where Jasper was thinking his response and Edward was responding in three to five word sentences. While they discussed it half nonchalantly, as though it was nothing (because no one else has ever understood) and with epic waves of relief (because no one else had ever understood before).
That Jasper belongs to Alice, and vise-verse, does not hurt his appreciation of Jasper either. Even if it does not belong securely to Jasper, on Jasper's merit alone, the fact they are together cements Jasper closer to Edward because of Edward's nearness to Alice/Alice's nearness to Edward and Alice's dearness to Jasper as well as his reciprocation of that dearness. He actively gets bonus love from Edward for being so unwaveringly, stick in the mud, fiercely defensive of Alice's safety (even if Edward is the one who rankles Jasper's chain by encouraging her to do more things outside of his watch). It's both hypocritical and corollary. The fact that Jasper cares so much for Alice and would do so much for Alice, without reservation to any of the vows he's made in his life or to the Cullen’s, (which Edward is comfortably/gladly positive Jasper would break every single one of them, without blinking, if it came down to that for Alice's safety) makes Edward esteem Jasper very highly. Because he knows he doesn't have to worry when it comes to Alice being taken care of (for better and worse) as that's already in the best hands possible.
Edward and Jasper (and Emmett) probably consist of a section of the Cullen household that would understand not only the thinking of breaking the rules but the out right near painfully wanting to when it comes to their family.
Think about Breaking Dawn when Edward is talking to Bella about Jasper. Jasper's been considering for the final fight going and killing a human because it will make him stronger, and thus make the fight easier on their side for the strength/speed/agility/etc. Bella is aghast at the idea, and probably so are a few other people and Edward talks about it plainly. It's a military tactic to Edward and Jasper, very likely. Even as a big break in their personal vows to their selves and their family, the unacted upon urge is not a debilitating weakness or desperation. It's a tactical maneuver....it's the idea of sacrificing one ideal of importance (not killing humans) for the greater ideal of importance (keeping their family alive). Carlisle would not approve, but the truth is neither of them would ask for the approval in this eventuality either.
[Wherein I read that conversation between Bella-Edward as Edward hopes that Jasper won't....but probably wouldn't stop him, or tell so that someone else could. Because, oh, but by god, do they get strategy and sacrifice and what is more important. Which isn't how people see them or judge their actions.]
But somewhere back around the middle to beginning --
I think that more than feeling annoyed at Jasper's unending diatribe on the walking meat-sticks, er, students of Fork High Edward feels reluctantly embarrassed and resigned. Reluctantly embarrassed because he knows his family needs him to listen and watch over Jasper, and Alice totally relies on him for updates of how Jasper actually doing BUT....it’s one of those things Edward really, really, really, really wouldn't listen to if he was given the choice. It's hearing someone having to battle with their own inner demons in the best and worst and most fantasizingly naked ways.
Edward Totally Does Not tell Alice, or any of his family for that matter, what Jasper fantasizes about doing to people. How often or anything else related to it. He's there to kick the chair leg when something gets too loud, and to keep a covert eye out for possible slipping. But Edward Does Not Share The Things He Has To Be Experiencing In This Work.
(It's just not his place. And Jasper deserves whatever privacy Edward can give him above and beyond not being able to just not hear him.)
He also doesn't go about talking about how much he respects that Jasper's still going at it fifty years later with the same dogged determination, especially with what he goes through in doing it.
I mean, respect like Whoa. In the massive degree.
It's one thing to say you're going to beat something and then to find a way up and over it. Where you are beyond it and people can pat you on the back and it can be the fiddled away into small talk. It's entirely another to be the mute witness watching someone willingly walk into hell every time, day in and day out. There is no way Edward couldn't respect what Jasper does for them (regardless of the risk he poses).
Which also made me utterly love Jasper's thought to Edward, on the day he returns from Alaska, when the entire family is watching like hawks the twitchiness of Edward. And there's --
[Jasper] met my glance briefly, and grinned.
Annoying, isn't it?
And I have to laugh and I have to love them. Because their dichotomy has flipped into the reverse. Jasper can feel the hell Edward's going through, while just sitting there and he has to help watch over him. And he's still open enough and acknowledging enough to be like, so this is you in my shoes and me in yours...and wow, but it still blows, doesn't it?
You know they get along.
They just do.
In a quiet, reserved, militantly undermined, old world, gentlemanly, dry humor, willing risk everything for the right things fashion.
Which brings me to their quiet in commonness of being scholarly driven. I can just see the Old Boys Club that Carlisle, Jasper and Edward make up on occasion. They are the most educated members of the family, not so much in how many degrees they've earned that no one else has, but in how much they want to learn and have read and experienced (as opposed to wanting to build, or work, or shop, or play). That they can probably only find interest in the discussing of these rare and not so much loved classics of all scopes except among each other.
It would make Jasper one of those people Edward seeks out for conversation and discussion at regular intervals. Reading books, experiencing the classical of all things, and discussing all manner of their interactions is probably a past time of theirs. Which I think in some ways, Jasper probably gets the view of Edward at his real age the most often.