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YOUVE KEPT ME WAITING by Mandi1
Fanfiction Based On Characters From Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series
Rated M for Mature
YOU’VE KEPT ME WAITING
By Mandi1
Summary: Seeing the future is one thing. Knowing how to get there is another. Alice knows
that Jasper is the key to something better. If only she can get - and keep - him in her life.
Alice and Jasper's story.
Once you’ve read and enjoyed this story, why not show the author some love, and review!
CHAPTER 1 - I MIGHT CALL HIM A THING DIVINE
The kit-cat clock on the wall ticked the seconds away with the even waves of its tail, my nerves
being shot a little bit more with each audible click . I tried to drown out the sound by loudly
drumming my fingernails on the countertop, further distracting myself by sneaking glances out the
front windows of the diner. It was raining, the same as yesterday, and yesterday he hadn‟t shown.
I was a little upset that I couldn‟t pinpoint exactly when he would arrive; I only had the vision of
the rain splattering the street behind him to guide me.
He looked very handsome in my mind‟s eye, but I had yet to meet a vampire who wasn‟t. He was
quite tall, but then again, most people were when compared with my four-feet-ten-inch stature.
Yet even if he were the most gruesome-looking thing to ever walk the planet, I would still sit here,
anxiously awaiting the arrival of the man who may be the key to something different, something
better. I still couldn‟t see everything that awaited me with his arrival, but I saw enough to know
that we would help each other find what we were each searching for…whatever that might be.
What if he changed his mind? The thought rushed through me like wind through a fence. I felt my
breath stop cold in my lungs and the smells of the diner – the greasy food, the dirty mop water,
the warm, fresh blood of the patrons – ceased to be known. I didn‟t know what he was looking for,
or even what I was seeking, to tell the truth, but I was sure we needed each other to figure out
where to go next on our so-called quests. Were we supposed to take the same journey? Would he
impart some sort of vital information and be off on his way? Would his arrival trigger some new
vision that would give me any kind of information? I needed this man, that much was clear, needed
him to give me the answers to all the problems I was forever seeking to resolve. If he didn‟t
show…but I shook my head, assuring myself that he would come and hoping that I would get
another vision of his imminent arrival.
The bells above the door jingled as someone entered the diner, bringing a cold breeze in with them
only a few degrees warmer than my skin. Was it him? My head whipped towards the entrance with
unnatural quickness that I hoped no one had noticed. No one had, and I turned my head back to
my lukewarm cup of untouched coffee after glancing at the elderly couple who had just entered.
I focused my gaze on the chipped green cup with Pop‟s emblazoned on the side, still filled to the
brim with murky brown liquid. The waitress, a rotund, middle-aged woman with a few gray hairs
sprouting out of her badly-dyed brown locks, noticed the cup shortly after I did. She leaned across
the counter, brandishing a steaming pot of coffee and poured out a fresh cup, whisking the old one
away.
“There, now, doesn‟t that smell good?” the waitress asked cheerily. I smiled, hesitantly in my
nervous apprehension, and reminded myself to keep up with the human charade of breathing. The
scent of the coffee, freshly ground and slightly burnt, filled my nostrils before being overpowered
by the stronger smell of the waitress. She was awash with the odors of oranges, her husband‟s
cologne, and spoiled milk. It was not the best scent I had ever met with, but it was enough to set
my throat afire and my muscles tightening. He‟d better get here soon , I thought. Hunting was an
immediate requirement if I was to continue living among the mortals of Philadelphia.
I had only been in Philadelphia a week since October 14th. I had been seeing this man for a while
now and was continually trying to pinpoint where he was forever wandering. It wasn‟t until I saw
him trudging through the rain past Independence Hall that I realized he was in Philadelphia. I
quickly left the abandoned house in Savannah I was living in and drove to Pennsylvania, stopping
at the Philadelphia Racetrack to earn enough money to foot the bills. Of course, I got a little too
excited and won race after race, losing only when I stopped to allow the vision of the blond man
entering the diner play through my mind.
I left the track with enough money to book a suite at the Philadelphia Crown Hotel, stopping just
long enough to drop my meager belongings on the enormous bed and head over to Pop‟s Diner on
Oregon Avenue. I only left when the rain stopped or the day broke, knowing very well that he
wouldn‟t be arriving amid the glaring brightness of the sun, and to make myself less suspicious; it
was odd enough spending my evenings and much of my nights in a diner, staying there the entire
24 hours of the day would just attract unnecessary attention.
So here I sat, fussing with the skirt of my favorite red dress, pretending to sip at my warm cup of
coffee whenever the waitress glanced my way. If I could hear her thoughts, I‟m sure she‟d be
wondering why I was still sitting here after three days of waiting. Hearing thoughts was quite
beyond my realm of expertise, but I had my own unnatural gift, and it chose to take over at that
moment. My muscles tensed and my eyes glazed over as the vision seeped into my brain.
The blond man from Alice‟s visions stood amid a group of people just as pale as he was. A family of
beautiful blonde vampires: a tall, strikingly handsome man, a smaller, softer-looking woman, and a
statuesque young woman of intense beauty. They were in the foyer of a beautifully-decorated
home, standing close together but still looking as if they were missing some of their number.
“ Welcome, Jasper,” the man said, his voice resonating through the hall, making him sound even
more handsome, cultured, and wise than he already seemed.
The man from her visions, Jasper as she knew him to now be called, reached out a hand to shake
the one offered to him. “Thank you, Carlisle,” he said softly, and his own voice, a rich bass timbre,
thrilled Alice to her very core with its heavy, melodic tones slightly tinged with a Southern twang.
She stopped breathing as his hand slid casually into hers, as if it were old hat, and began
massaging the pad where her thumb joined her palm.
“ Rosalie, won‟t you show Alice and Jasper around the house?” the smaller woman suggested,
beaming down at Alice with kind golden eyes, eyes Alice had never before seen on any vampire –
save herself. The goddess, Rosalie, nodded, her own tawny eyes staring curiously at the two.
Carlisle encouraged them with a wave of his hand and a twinkle in his topaz eyes .
My hand had tightened around the coffee cup‟s handle as I came to, breaking it neatly off in my
palm. I meekly turned the cup so the waitress wouldn‟t notice, but it was too late. She rushed over,
bringing another wave of her orange-y scent with her as she did so.
“Don‟t you worry, dear, these things break all the time,” she tutted and gave me yet another new
cup of coffee.
“I‟m sorry,” I apologized, handing her the previous cup‟s handle and trying hard to control the
excess flow of venom in my mouth by once again holding my breath. The waitress smiled,
revealing a row of straight nicotine-stained teeth, and bustled off.
I was left alone with my thoughts, but I no longer felt alone. Every vampire I had ever met had all
had the same blood-stained ruby eyes that came with feasting upon the mass of humans around us.
I thought I had been the only one to choose animals over men, giving my eyes a honeyed hue that
no one – up until now – had shared. I wondered if this man I was about to meet… Jasper …would
have the same fair coloring.
Jasper. The name rolled around in my head, dripping onto my tongue until I was forced to whisper
it aloud, quiet enough so the humans couldn‟t hear but loud enough so that it meant something to
me. That hand in mine, those eyes on my own…if this vision was a sure thing (and the permanence
of the images assured me it was), then there had to be something more, something much more, to
this Jasper of mine. I straightened up on the stool I sat on, anxiously stirring my coffee as
butterflies flitted around my stomach, my mind so distracted that the tempting scent of the
humans around me was just a mere memory.
The homeless woman sitting next to me who badly needed a washing stood up to leave, leaving my
view of the front window almost entirely clear. If that young man skipping school sitting at the far
end of the counter would just move…
There was no need. The door‟s swift opening jingled the bells hanging from the frame, letting the
diner know of another entrance. My head turned to the door out of habit, and I half-expected it to
not be him, to be instead another young couple or a mother with her little daughter or maybe a
group of old men ready for their afternoon caffeine jolt.
He stood just in the doorway, his dark eyes scanning the people happily going about their business,
oblivious to the fact that two bloodthirsty monsters were standing in their midst. He was as tall as I
imagined and even handsomer with the rain plastering his blond hair to his face and shoulders and
making his thin button-down shirt hug his body, showing his muscles in sharp relief.
I hopped off the stool before he could take another step. He stopped as his eyes met mine, taking
in my pale skin and graceful step as I came ever closer to him, knowing exactly what I was. I felt
the strangest sensation of trepidation wash over me, strange because it wasn‟t my own fear, but
his. It was odd, this feeling of his feelings. I tried to smile and make him feel more at ease, and it
seemed to work. The fear was swept away in a moment, and I felt a surge of emotions come to
replace it: nervousness, happiness, complacency, and the most comforting sense of belonging,
something I had never felt before in all my life. I reached his side and looked up – goodness, he‟s
awfully tall – and grinned.
“You‟ve kept me waiting a long time.”
CHAPTER 2 - INDISCRETION SOMETIMES SERVES US WELL
“You‟ve kept me waiting a long time.”
I watched as he attempted a slight smile, unsure of what to say or what to make of the whole
situation. Surely walking into a random diner to find another one of your strange breed waiting for
you must be nerve-wracking.
Jasper dipped his head in apology. Had he a hat, I swear he would have tipped it.
“I‟m sorry, ma‟am,” he said quietly, and I smiled at his voice, the same deep, dulcet tones I
remembered hearing in my mind dripping over me like honey. That delicious little twang was there
too, hidden just under the surface, as if he had left a home in the South long ago. Had he? I
wanted to know more, to rush into a barrage of questions, to pick his brain until I knew just why
he was here and what he was looking for. My heart longed to understand him while my brain
ordered me to slow down and try to not further scare him away. Yet the look of fear that had been
on Jasper‟s face moments before was entirely gone, and he was gazing down at me with hope,
calm, and just a bit of confusion in his dark eyes, eyes slightly tinged with a burgundy hue.
My hand shot up to the side of his face. His eyes focused on mine.
“You‟re thirsty,” I murmured, allowing my hand to drop from the smooth, perfect marble that was
his skin, only slightly embarrassed that I had touched him so readily. It was quite obvious that he
was, with the way his muscles tensed and his breathing stopped in an effort to lessen the
temptation.
This was shocking; I had no idea Jasper drank from humans. My own beginnings were so unclear
that I cannot remember having ever tasted anything but animals. A circumstantial choice turned
into a personal one when I found that I couldn‟t stomach drinking from the innocent, despite my
nonexistent memory of ever being human myself.
I had to get him away from these people, away from the city before he snapped. I held out my
hand, and he took it without stopping to think. I grabbed my purse and threw a dollar onto the
counter to cover my bottomless-cup-of-coffee bill then walked out the door into the rain, pulling
Jasper behind me.
He didn‟t say a single word, merely followed me down to the end of the block where my beauty of
a Buick Eight was parked, the soft top folded up to protect it from the rain. I opened my door and
sat down, gesturing for Jasper to get in. He ran a hand over the glossy baby-blue paint job before
sliding onto the seat next to me and slamming the door behind him.
He obviously hadn‟t been in many cars; his eyes swept over the dashboard, examining all the
knobs and buttons, while his hands absent-mindedly stroked the leather interior, appreciating its
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buttery-soft texture like a newborn testing out his senses. I backed out of the space and began
driving towards the hotel, still slightly unsure what I would be doing once I go there.
“I…”
Jasper‟s voice broke through the hum of the engine, soft and rich. I looked over at him, keeping
my hands on the wheel.
“I don‟t even know your name,” he said embarrassedly.
I smiled and returned my eyes to the road. “Alice,” I offered. I saw him out of the corner of my eye
mouthing my name, testing it out.
“Alice,” he said aloud, and the word sounded like it had never sounded before. I wished I had a
heartbeat for a moment, just so I could hear it stop. He went on. “I‟m not sure what to say.”
“Just say what you feel, Jasper,” I suggested as I turned onto Broad Street. It was the first time I
had said his name to him, and it obviously shocked him that I knew it.
Jasper paused a moment, contemplating what to ask first. “How did you find me here?”
“I saw you,” I replied simply.
“You saw me?” He turned in the seat to face me.
I hesitated. Might as well tell him earlier than later , I thought before continuing. “I guess you could
call them visions . They aren‟t always stable, though.”
He nodded slightly, settling back into his seat. “So you‟re one of the lucky few with a gift.”
“I suppose I am,” I confessed. “Have you met many that have something like that?”
“Nothing like yours, but other gifts, yes,” he answered.
“Like what?” I was intrigued.
“Like physical control. Or the ability to sense others of our kind,” he said.
“And you?” I guessed. A vampire who associated with such a talented group had to be talented
himself.
Jasper smiled sheepishly, and I knew my assumption to be true. “I work with moods.” I raised an
eyebrow quizzically, and he went on. “I can feel what people are feeling and alter their emotions.”
I was less confused and more intrigued, but I felt an immediate sense of calm and happiness wash
over me, senses I now knew to be caused by Jasper‟s gift. So that was why I had felt his fear in
the diner. I smiled at the display of his talents and turned the car onto another street.
“So now I know how you found me,” Jasper said, the words quickly rolling off his tongue now that
we were better acquainted. “But why? Why me?”

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