Here it is, ladies - the mostly APOV companion to I Have Seen the Rain. This isn't a rehashing of IHSTR from Alice's perspective, but rather Alice's own personal story. You wanted to know how Alice came to be Alice, what her motivation for protesting was? Well, this is it. Alice's story. It's very different from the original, and I hope you'll like that about it. That said, as it's planned now only this first chapter will have a song associated with it.

A huge, enormous, unreasonable amount of thanks to my incredible beta (incredibeta?), MrsDazzled. Seriously, that woman has got an eye like a hawk with an English degree. Here I consider myself an irritating Grammar Nazi and she finds like three dozen mistakes in the first chapter alone. She's good.

IHSTR may be Fer's fic, but this one belongs to bent05, without whom it would never have been written. You should be a journalist or something, bb, askin' the questions everyone wants answers to but never bothers to ask themselves. Hale, you asked a question I hadn't even bothered to ask myself and immediately found myself itching to know the answer. You truly inspired me and your reviews keep me going. Hopefully you like your answer. :)

Oh, and just as with IHSTR, I am not Stephenie Meyer and I do not own Twilight, Alice, or Alice's soldier. Mark my words though, one day I will own he who portrayed Alice's soldier in the movies 'cause he is num-yummy! hehe

-------------------

I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's comin' home

- "Travelin' Soldier", The Dixie Chicks

-------------------

APOV

"I'm coming home, Alice. I can't wait to see you."

I read the same line for at least the seventeenth time. The letter said he was coming home – coming home to me – but I just couldn't make my head or my heart believe it. I wanted him to come home, I wanted it more than almost anything at all, but if I let myself believe he really would be home soon and he didn't come home… I didn't think I could survive that. It would be too much to get my hopes up, only to have them dashed to pieces like that. It would break me. It would turn me into Rosalie…

Poor Rose. I'd watched her go through so much, watched a simple piece of paper change her world forever. I hadn't told her at the time - I hadn't told anyone other than Edward - but I knew what that was like. While she sulked at home, praying for any word from her soldier, I sobbed quietly in my own apartment, blowing off the weekly meetings to pray for my own recruit's recovery.

"It hurt so bad, Alice, I don't even want to tell you about it. But I know you're strong, stronger than I am, and you wouldn't want me sugar-coating things," he'd written. And he was right – I didn't want him sugar-coating anything. I wanted to know the truth, wanted to know exactly how bad it was over there. Lies got me nowhere. Lies got us into this damn war in the first place. Lies nearly got him killed… I had no use for lies.

"We were running through the jungle. I didn't know a dozen men weighed down with arms and equipment could be so quiet. All I could hear were sticks and twigs being crushed under our feet. We came up to a clearing. The sun was bright, almost blinding. Birds were flying overhead. It was almost peaceful, almost felt like home. Then I heard it. A high-pitched squealing, getting louder and louder. The men were shouting incoherently behind me. I turned to see what the fuss was about – they were scattering everywhere, taking cover. The squealing grew louder still and I barely had time to look up toward it before it happened. The flash was so bright I thought the sun had exploded. The silence was horrifying. The clearing was gone, everything was burned, obliterated. Plants not far from me were still on fire. I wanted to get up and run away, get the hell out of Dodge… but I couldn't. I couldn't make my legs move. Men were swarming around me. Davis was right in my face, shouting at me, but I couldn't understand a word he was saying. He kept swaying around me and I wanted to tell him to stop moving. But when he got all blurry, I realized it wasn't him. I tried to tell him I needed help but everything went black. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. It hurt so bad. I opened my eyes and I screamed. A nurse came and stuck me with something, promising it would make the pain stop. When I stopped screaming, she told me I was lucky. She said two of the men in my unit had been killed in the blast and three more were seriously injured. She thought they might not make it. I asked where I ranked on that list and she said I'd make it but things wouldn't be the same anymore. She told me I'd broken my leg, but that that didn't really matter, since I'd also suffered a spinal cord injury. I didn't hear what she said after that. I looked down at my feet and watched as they stayed perfectly still, no matter how hard I wiggled them."

I could feel the tears stinging my eyes even thinking about the letter that had broken my heart. My heart hurt every time my mind tried to picture him the way he'd described. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest and let all the air out of my lungs. Thinking about him like that, all alone in that hospital bed, undoubtedly terrified… I couldn't do it. I stared back down at the letter in front of me.

"I'm coming home, Alice."

I closed my eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay, and thought about how ironic it was that all my friends thought I was constantly perky. Even Edward seemed to be under that impression. If they only knew… None of them had ever bothered to ask about the man that inspired me to start the protest group. I wondered what they thought my reasons for it were, if they'd ever thought about it at all. They probably just thought I'd finally found a cause to put all my energy into. They couldn't know about my soldier. I'd never told them. Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever have to; I never thought he'd write me. But he did, and with surprising frequency. I thought back to the day I met him – the day he promised he would write – and immediately hated myself for ever doubting him.

It was a Thursday, my grocery day, and I was sitting on the same bench I did every week, waiting for the bus to come. As always, I was the only one there and I quickly became bored. After seven months of the same routine, I probably should have learned to bring a book or something but I never did. I always sat alone, staring into the distance and humming to myself. No one ever joined me and no one walking by ever bothered me. It was easy for me to just get lost in the music in my head until the bus pulled up.

"You know that song's about drugs, right?" a thick, masculine Southern accent drawled. I looked up to see a strikingly handsome blonde standing before me, nearly every inch of his roughly 6'2 frame covered by Army-issue fatigues.

"No, it's not," I argued. "It's about a girl named Lucy." Duh.

"Oh, come on!" he said, sitting down on the bench next to me. "I know they say the pretty ones aren't the brightest, but darlin', even someone as pretty as you can't be that naïve."

"I'm not naïve. And it's not about drugs." But I'm glad you think I'm pretty.

"Have you heard the lyrics? 'Picture yourself on a boat in the river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies? Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain, where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies?' That's a bad trip if ever I heard one." The man knew his Beatles… or at least their lyrics. I didn't even waste time trying to convince myself I didn't thoroughly enjoy that.

"It's not a bad trip. It's just… fantastical."

He smiled at me and I felt my heart skip a beat. I didn't think it was possible for a smile to outshine the sun. Clearly I'd been wrong. "You're one of them chicks who thinks Lennon's totally clean, aren't ya?"

"Ha. Ha," I retorted, a sarcastic grin on my face. "I told you, I'm not naïve."

"So you say."

We sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment, me fuming, him obviously trying not to laugh at me. A moment was all it took though. He was too handsome to stay mad at and I was tired of the awkwardness. I looked down at the duffel bag he'd put on the ground between us and kicked it lightly with the side of my foot. "Why are you going?" I mumbled.

"What?"

"Why. Are. You. Going?"

"Well, that's, uh, kinda how the Army works there, darlin'. They say 'jump', you say 'how high, Sir?'"

"Yeah… I know that… but why are you going? Why'd you enlist?"

"My country needs me."

"That's not true."

"Sure it is. Who else you think is gonna fight this war?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe Vietnamese soldiers? Last I checked, this was between North and South Vietnam. And seeing as how I'm waiting for a bus, not a rickshaw, I'm pretty sure we're not in either of those places right now."

"Y'always this sardonic?"

"Maybe."

"I shouldn't expect ya to be impressed, should I?"

"Impressed? By what, your vocabulary? Ooh. Kudos. Ten-point vocab word. Want a gold star?"

"Guess not. Y'always so snippy with people you just met?"

"I don't remember meeting you."

"That's a 'yes'. An' you're right. I've been rude, an' I'm sorry." He reached his hand out toward me. "Private First Class Jasper Whitlock Hale."

"Whitlock? Seriously?" I laughed. "That's… unique."

"It's a family name. Mom's maiden name, actually. Any chance I might get to know yours?"

I smiled nervously, resisting the urge to tell him a maiden name is a strange thing to ask a stranger about, and shook his hand. "Alice Marie Brandon. Private… citizen."

"Pleased to meet you, Alice."

"Likewise, Private."

He chuckled and his laughter made his eyes sparkle like the ocean under a full moon. "Unless you're issuin' me orders, it's Jasper."

"Jasper, then."

Silence settled over our bench for a short time again but it was far more companionable than the previous time. And this time, I didn't have to break it. "Where's your bus takin' ya, Alice?"

"Uhm… the Safeway? Thursday is my grocery shopping day." I hadn't meant the first part to come out as a question; I just couldn't figure out why he wanted to know.

"Any chance that can wait a couple more hours?"

"I guess so."

"There ain't someone waitin' at home for ya, is there?"

"…No?" Another unintentional question. I cursed myself internally for my curiosity and confusion always being so blatantly obvious to people. I was a damn open book.

"Good," he said with a smirk, another twinkle sparkling in his eye. He stood and reached a hand out to me.

"Why?"

"Well, I was kinda hopin' you might be willin' to accompany a lonely soldier to lunch before he has to leave." His face was the strangest mix of confidence and nerves. His smile said 'I know you're gonna join me' but his eyes said 'Please don't turn me down.' I could feel my lips curl up into a wide smile of their own accord. I couldn't say no to a request like that… especially not when it came from someone who looked and talked like that. And especially not when even his eyes and his smile seemed to have his accent.

"I would love to." I slid my hand into his and he helped me up from the bench before picking up his duffel bag with his free hand. "What did you have in mind?"

"I dunno. There's a lil diner down the road a bit. That okay with you?"

"Absolutely."

We talked and asked each other the most random and seemingly unimportant questions while we walked to the diner.

"Jasper… how long have you been here?"

"My family moved here when I was eight. Why?"

"And that was how long ago?"

"Well, I'm twenty-two now, so that would make it about fourteen years."

"How come your accent's still so thick?"

"Never worked to get rid of it. I kinda like it. Makes me unique 'round here. 'Specially seein' as how my sister worked her lil butt off the first two years we were here makin' sure she sounded nothin' like me an' our dad."

"I like it too."

"Glad to hear that, darlin'."

He held the door open for me when we reached the diner, and pretended to pull my booth seat out for me when we were seated, saying he would've really pulled it out for me if we'd had chairs. When the waitress came by, he ordered us each a milkshake and a burger. Usually I would've been annoyed by some guy ordering for me but somehow he managed to do it in a sweet way. And he knew exactly what I wanted, down to my preference of vanilla milkshakes over chocolate and my hatred of pickles on my burger. I started to ask how he'd known that but decided it didn't really matter. Maybe I was just more of an open book than I'd originally thought and maybe he knew just how to read me.

When our lunch arrived, the interrogation began again.

"How is it that there ain't someone waitin' for ya at home?"

"Huh?"

"I mean… pretty girl like you should have someone there for her, even if it's just family an' not some guy who don't know how lucky he is."

"Oh… It's a long story. A long, boring story."

"I'd like to know… if you'd like to tell me."

"Well… uhm… my dad died a couple years ago. He was really sick, so I guess it was a good thing, but mom couldn't stand being in the house they'd bought together anymore. She took my little sister and moved to Boston. She was raised out there and her sister – my aunt – still lives there with her husband. They wanted me to go with them but all I've ever known is Chicago. I couldn't leave it behind. So I found a cheap apartment in the city and stayed when they left. I haven't seen them since."

"Oh, darlin'… I am so sorry. That's horrible."

"No, it's okay. Really. I like the privacy. And this way I can sing and dance around my apartment in my underwear if I want… That's probably the sort of thing I shouldn't tell strangers, huh?"

"Probably. But hey, I'm not a stranger anymore. We've been formally introduced, after all. And I don't blame you for dancin' around in your undies. It's really kinda liberatin', ain't it?" He winked at me and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Yeah. It is."

I watched in disgusted horror as he filled the silence by dipping his fries into his chocolate milkshake.

"What're you lookin' at me like that for?"

"That's disgusting," I replied, nodding toward the fry-and-shake combination.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it, darlin'," he said. He dipped another fry in his milkshake and held it out slightly. "Open up."

"Oh, hell no. No way."

"Just try it."

"No."

"For me?" I had to give him credit – he had the puppy dog eye thing down even better than I did. I sighed and conceded, closing my eyes and opening my mouth. He gently placed the shake-coated tip of the fry on my tongue and let me bite off an appropriate amount. The combination of hot and cold was strange and interesting and the mixture of the sweet chocolate ice cream with the salt from the French fry was oddly delicious. It was like the two flavors were made to go together, the salt highlighting the sweet just right. "Better than you thought it'd be, right?" Instead of responding, I swallowed what was left of the fry and opened my mouth for another, eliciting a deep and alluring laugh from my soldier. "I'm gonna go ahead an' take that as a 'yes'," he chuckled, popping another shake-dipped fry in my mouth.

When we'd finished sharing our lunches and the waitress had cleared the table, Jasper asked for an order of peach cobbler – and two spoons. My curiosity quickly became overwhelming.

"How did you know I love peaches?" I inquired, astonishment thick in my voice.

"I didn't," he shrugged. "I love a good peach cobbler as much as the next Southern boy, an' since I got you to try the fries my way, I hoped I might be able to get you to try dessert my way too."

"How'd you know I prefer vanilla shakes?"

"Lucky guess. Chocolate might be great to the average woman but you're anythin' but average. An' strawberry seemed too predictable as a chocolate replacement."

"You thought all that out in the time it took you to order my milkshake?"

"No. I thought all that out in the time it took you to drill me about my accent," he winked.

"What about the pickles?" I must have sounded absolutely incredulous to him. I couldn't believe he'd actually had a process for figuring out what I preferred in food and drink. If that much thought had gone into a simple milkshake, surely the reason for his knowledge that I hate pickles had to be even better.

"Habit. I hate 'em myself, so I'm used to askin' for things without 'em." Oh. We sat quietly until our cobbler arrived and we started picking at it tentatively. A part of me thought that maybe if I ate slowly enough, the afternoon would never end and Jasper would never have to leave. I wondered if a part of him thought that too.

"Alice… can I ask you somethin'?" He sounded nervous. I almost laughed at how silly it was that he should be nervous about asking me something when I'd spent the entire afternoon interrogating him like an FBI agent.

"You just did."

"You know what I mean."

"Of course you can."

"This is gonna sound real stupid, but… uh… see… I ain't got nobody to write to when I'm gone…"

"Didn't you say you have a sister?"

"Yeah, but Lee-Lee… she ain't really the type to like to know what's goin' on. She prefers blissful ignorance…"

"There's no such thing."

"That's what I been tellin' her for the past twenty-two years. But, anyway… uhm… could I… I mean… would it be okay if… if I wrote to you?"

"You really think your sister would prefer you wrote to a stranger than to her?"

"Actually, yeah, I do. But, like I said before, you ain't a stranger to me anymore, Alice. Even if I do end up writin' to Lee-Lee, I think I'd still like to write to you. Somethin' tells me I'm gonna miss you when I leave."

"You just met me, Jasper."

"Don't feel like that, though, does it?"

"No. No, it doesn't."

"So… could I, then?"

"Would it sound stupid if I said I would be honored to have you write to me?"

"No. Actually, it would sound kinda nice. Flatterin', even."

"In that case, I would be honored to have you write to me, Jasper."

"In that case, I'll write to you every chance I get. And the honor'll be all mine."

He paid the bill, leaving a surprisingly hefty tip for the waitress, and helped me up from my seat before throwing his arm around me and leading me out the door. As we left the diner, I wrapped my arm around his waist and held on to him as tightly as I could. It should have felt intrusive and wrong being that close to someone I had just met – I knew that – but it didn't. It felt right. Everything just felt right as we walked back to our bench to await our busses. Just sitting there on that bench with his arms around me felt right. It was like there wasn't a single thing wrong in my entire slightly messed up life… until a bus pulled up to the stop and I felt Jasper's hold on me loosen.

"Alice… that's my bus… I gotta get goin'. I don't wanna, believe me, but I have to …"

"I know," I said to my lap, trying not to let him see the tears I could feel brewing in my eyes. I felt foolish crying over someone I'd just met. But at the same time, we'd connected so easily, clicked so thoroughly, that I felt like I'd known him all my life. When he let go of me and stood up, it felt like he took a piece of me with him. I wanted it back. I jumped up from the bench and threw my arms around his neck, hugging him as tightly to me as I could. He wrapped his arms around me and held me like he never wanted to let me go. I leaned back slightly and tucked a neatly folded napkin into his shirt pocket, patting the flap down affectionately and relishing the feel of having my hand on his chest. He looked at me, curious and clearly a little amused. "My address. I wrote it down at the diner while you were paying the bill," I smiled at him sadly. He returned the smile and pulled me into another tight hug. "Promise me you'll write?" I sniffled into his chest.

"Darlin', I already told you I would. I meant it. Nothin's gonna stop me from gettin' letters to you." His voice was strained, like he was holding something back. I looked up at him just in time to see a solitary tear slide down the side of his nose. I wiped it away with my thumb, leaving my hand on his smooth cheek. His piercing sky blue eyes looked so deeply into mine I thought he might see my soul. It made me nervous and excited all at once.

"Stay safe," I sniffled, never breaking eye contact with him or taking my hand from his gorgeous face.

"I will," he whispered.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too, darlin'," he drawled, placing his hand on my cheek.

"I won't… I'll wait for you."

"Don't you do somethin' silly like that. The male population of Chicago would never forgive me."

"I want to. I've never met anyone like you."

"I never met anyone like you either."

The bus driver leaned on the horn. "Unless you're planning on going AWOL, soldier, you better get your ass on this bus now!"

"Sorry, sir!" Jasper shouted, his eyes still locked on mine. "Could I get just a minute to say goodbye to my girl? Please?"

"You got sixty seconds, soldier!"

"Thank you, sir!"

"Jasper… you… you really need to leave now," I mumbled, fighting back a fresh round of tears.

"I know. And I will. But… there's somethin' I gotta do first. Otherwise, it'll be all I can think about over there."

"Then do it. The last thing you need right now is a distraction."

"You're right." He moved his hand down to the side of my neck and pulled my face gently toward his. My heart raced with the strangest combination of anticipation and dread as he lowered his lips to meet mine. I wanted him to kiss me – a part of me had wanted it from the first moment he'd spoken to me – but something in me knew it would almost be better to not know what I would be missing once he was gone. The moment his lips touched mine, my heart imploded and the tears I'd been holding back streamed down my face and onto his. He kissed me passionately as I fell apart in his arms.

The horn honked again. "Time's up, soldier!"

He held my face in his hands, resting his forehead on mine. "I gotta go, darlin'. I'll write you soon as I find paper and a pen, I swear." He kissed me again once, softly and quickly, before bending down to pick up his bag.

"I miss you," I whispered brushing my fingers against his free hand. I meant it in the present – I already missed him, already felt like I wasn't whole anymore.

"I miss you too," he said as he climbed the steps up onto the bus. I wondered if he meant it the same way I had. I watched him find a seat on the bus. He opened the window next to him and leaned out of it slightly, shouting to me as the bus pulled away. "Two years, Alice! Two years and I'll be comin' back to you!"

I waved sadly at him until the bus was out of sight. Then I sat back on the bench, feeling alone for the first time in that place, and sobbed until I ran out of tears. Grocery shopping could wait.

A week after I met Jasper, the guilt at letting him get on that bus and go needlessly risk his life was eating me away. I needed to do something, needed to make it better, needed to bring him back. I called a few friends and told them about how I'd met a soldier, learned what it was really like for someone my age to be at war, and decided I needed to do something. I told them I had no personal connection, just a strong hatred for clear injustice. I lied. Two weeks later, we had the city covered in flyers advertising the first local protest meeting. At the start we had maybe five new members, if we were lucky. But we recruited like crazy and the group slowly started to grow. We were planning our first big city-wide event when they started up the draft. Our numbers really exploded then. I knew it was only a matter of time until it made a difference and Jasper came home to me.

He'd said two years and I'd hated the concept for as long as I could remember. Two years seemed like an eternity. I never dreamed he'd be home before that, but suddenly he would be coming home six months early, and two years didn't seem like nearly enough time. Two years was normal deployment time for an enlisted soldier – anything less meant something catastrophic had happened. And while he'd already explained it all, already told me all about the horrific event that was bringing him home to me early, I knew it would be an entirely different thing to see him that way in person. It brought up so many questions… How bad were his injuries? Were they all as obvious as his paralyzation? Would he ever walk again? Maybe if he worked really hard he could learn… I knew it wasn't possible but I couldn't stop myself from hoping. Oh God… How would his sister handle it? Would she even want to see him again? What if seeing him after all that was too much for her? What if seeing him like that is too much for me? No. He's still the same man you met so long ago… the same man who wrote you all those letters… the same man you fell in love with from over 8000 miles away. Nothing is going to change that. I looked down at the letter in front of me again and noticed the ink had been smudged by the tears I didn't even realize I'd been crying.

"I'm coming home, Alice. I can't wait to see you."

I can't wait to see you either, baby.