this hostage stuff is fun

It's a bad day.

It's one where she can't get out of her own head and she can't remember and she's hurt herself trying to. Edward and Jasper went hunting.

They won't go together anymore after this time. Because of her. She wants them to get along (it took them so long to do so) but now they won't leave her alone after they come back.

She needs them, they'll say. She can't be left alone when she's like this. It's...

heartbreaking.





Alice stretches out on the floor of her bedroom, fingers curling into the carpet as she grasps at memories like a kitten grasping for string. Everything feels wrong.

Asking Mal to visit his ship had been easy. He was Mal and she was Alice, so she asked and he said yes. There wasn't much to it than that.

Getting there, without her family flipping their collective shit was the harder part. They wouldn't have wanted her to go on her own...if she took Edward, it would be yet another time she chose Edward and fun over the family and safety...there was something in the way Jasper glanced at her when she had almost asked him that made her think twice. She wouldn't want to torture him like this.

Esme, no. Rosalie, definitely not. Emmett...no.

So she mentioned it to Carlisle, her fingers twisting in her skirt as she explained the logistics, bounced on her toes and gave him a hopeful smile. He consented and that was that.





So now Alice stands on the cusp of Milliways and Serenity herself, looking into the metal and ornate hangings of a shuttle. Mal's on the other side, holding the door for them and she sends a grin over her shoulder to Carlisle before going in.

There's something so exciting about the new experiences...things haven't been new for a very long time.