A/N: This is an AU story. There might be some borrowed dialogue from Twilight in here somewhere, as it does parallel that book. Please read the full disclaimer on chapter one.

Disclaimer: The Twilight Series belongs to Stephanie Meyer. Mitts off Leia.

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Chapter Two

I felt the gentle touch of fingers on my cheek. Carlisle's fingers were cool, but anything tactile was nice. I had my sense of touch and smell back. I had beaten the black void. Unfortunately I hadn't regained the ability to move anything and I still couldn't breathe on my own. The state doctors were making a decision this week as to my fate and Carlisle seemed so sad I knew he didn't expect their decision to be in favor of leaving me on life support.

Over the past two months, Carlisle was a constant visitor to my room. Since he was a doctor here, that wasn't surprising. In fact, he was my dream-walking doctor. It had taken me about three dream-walking episodes to figure that out. After watching him treat his patients, I was in awe of this compassionate man. He was beautiful as the angel I was convinced he had to be. He had a picture on his desk of himself and his wife, Esme, and another of his teenage 'children'. He and Esme had adopted them all. I thought they were beautiful. Of course, I didn't have a lot of people to compare them with. My visual imagery was limited to what I saw in my dream-walks. All the Cullen's were so pale and their skin was cold. I knew this because both Carlisle and Edward touched my face often.

Edward was another surprise. He visited often, at least twice a week, and he usually spent several hours with me. I was thrilled to have someone that I could chat with. I tried to keep our talks from becoming morose. I didn't want my last few weeks to be filled with darkness, anymore than they already were. Edward was funny, often sarcastic, but he made me wish that I could laugh aloud. He told me antedotes about his brothers and sisters. The last few times he'd come, he had brought books. I had confessed a weakness for fantasy novels, which were hard to find in Braille, so he had introduced me to 'the father of fantasy' as he called him, J.R.R. Tolkien. He would sit with me and read in his beautiful velvet voice until I fell to sleep.

Now, as Carlisle spoke about a young child he had treated just this morning, I realized that both the Cullen men had become my friends. I had never had friends before, not really. I had a few people that I'd spoken with at the school in Forsythe, but I had been so worried about them seeing my bruises and asking questions that I had held everyone at an arm's length. But the Cullen's knew about the abuse and other than an obvious concern, they never spoke of it. Perhaps they spent time with me out of pity, but I got the feeling they were both glad to keep me company. Carlisle would often talk about some of his most difficult cases with me. Sometimes I could almost see the stress on his beautiful face. I couldn't respond, but he seemed to appreciate having someone to vent to. I had Edward tell him several times that I was glad to listen.

As for Edward, he never made me feel like I was imposing on him. At first, our conversations had been a bit stilted, but as we got to know one another, or rather as Edward dug around in my head enough to know me well, we always seemed to find little odd things in common. We shared a love for music, both classical and classic oldies, books and strangely enough geography. I missed the old maps at the school for the blind with their raised edges and Braille labels. Edward described several of the places that I had only ever dreamed of visiting. Not that a blind person could really enjoy being a tourist. Edward's descriptions were vivid, though, and I wondered how a seventeen year old could have visited so many wonderful places. He never answered *that* question.

I tried my best to hide my dream-walking talent from Edward. It wasn't that I thought he would be shocked or call me a freak. He was a mind-reader for heaven's sake. But some of the things I saw during my dream-walks with Carlisle lead me to some odd conclusions about the Cullen's. He moved incredibly fast when he didn't think someone was watching and he was incredibly strong. I saw him move his desk once with one hand in order to get to his computer wires. It was a heavy wooden desk and he hadn't just pulled it, he had put his palm under it and had lifted it two feet off the floor and set it down a foot away from the wall as if it was no heavier than a feather pillow.

"We are not angels." How many times had Edward said that, his tone ranging from exasperated to downright angry? I knew I would probably never know exactly what they were, but I didn't think they were human. Perhaps I had read too many fantasies in my life. My elves theory had gotten shot down by Edward too. He even threatened to stop reading me the Lord of the Rings books if I didn't stop thinking it.

"Children these days." He had actually muttered that and I could almost picture him rolling his eyes. He seemed so much older than seventeen, despite his insistence and the picture I had seen through Carlisle's eyes. I didn't push him about it, though. I was too afraid he would get angry and stop coming to see me.

"Oh, Edward asked me to give you another CD. He wanted to come see you again this week but he's busy with finals. I'll pop it in for you. I think he actually composed one especially for you, along with a few that he said you'd recognize. Evidently you two talk about music a lot. I guess since you're blind music would be something you would truly appreciate. He didn't mention if you played any instruments. I suppose that's so cliché, though. The blind musician." Carlisle chuckled softly and I would have grinned if I'd been able. I heard him move to the bedside table and heard a couple of faint clicks as he put in the new CD Edward had made for me. I was awed by his beautiful talent with the piano. If I couldn't have Edward here, I would have to be satisfied with his music. Carlisle didn't turn on the music immediately though.

"Leia, I'm…I wanted to ask you something very important. I know you can't give me your answer, but I want you to be able to consider it until you see Edward again. Next week, when they remove your life support, you are going to die. I don't have any arguments I can use to stall them now that wouldn't expose Edward's gift and put us all in grave danger." Carlisle's face was close to me now. I could feel his cool breath on my face, smell the oddly intoxicating scent of it. It wasn't enough to distract me from his words, though. I could hear my heart skipping erratically with fear and despair. As resigned as I thought I was with the thought of my own death, I wasn't ready for it.

"I'm offering you an alternative, Leia. A chance, only, since I'm not sure how to work the conversion since you can't breathe at all. But maybe we can switch your tracheotomy to a regular ventilator…well, that's not your concern. I am offering you life with us, part of our family. Edward has grown so fond of you and he's told us so much about you that we would be thrilled to get to know you as he has. Esme speaks of nothing else these past few weeks. Don't get me wrong. It wouldn't be easy. We are not angels as you seem inclined to believe, Leia. We are…vampires." He paused when my heart monitor went nuts. I felt his fingers on my face, as gentle as always. I did my best to calm down, to let him finish talking.

"We don't drink human blood, not my family. We like to call ourselves 'vegetarian' vampires. We work very hard to live with humans, to be a part of their world and to protect them when we can. We are going to Alaska, to spend some time with the Denali's, another family like ours, and you would be able to adjust there, to learn how to control your thirst. But it is your choice, Leia. Let Edward know what you decide. He'll be here this weekend." With that, Carlisle turned on my CD and fled the room.

That Sunday

"What is there to decide? I either become one of you or I die. I really would like to take that second option off of my to-do list, Edward."

"I just want you to consider what you might be giving up if you do this."

"You think I'm giving up my soul. I understand that, Edward, but I don't agree with you. If my father in all his drunken evil glory has a soul, then I'll choose to believe that you and your father, your whole family, have the most beautiful souls under heaven. You've denied your very nature, Edward, because you choose to follow your conscience. No soulless being could do that, I think. It is the only thing that separates you from pure animal predators. So I choose the three days of pain and year or two of crazy thirst to have a chance at life."

"When you think like that, I have a hard time remembering you're a fifteen year old girl." Edward's words were both frustrated and slightly amused. I threw a mental snort at him.

"Fine talk for the oldest seventeen year old in the world."

"Well, just so we're clear, I'll respect your decision and I will try to be the best big brother you've ever had." He was serious and I knew he'd caught the edge of my fears that he might be angry with me for refusing to even think things over again. He had just soothed the last of my real reservations. Of course I was nervous about the process. Carlisle had mentioned it might not go as planned. I could die before the venom had a chance to move through my body. Then there was my concern about how they would get me out of the hospital without attracting attention.

"Let us worry about that." Now Edward sounded completely confident and I decided to let it go and just enjoy his company for the evening. At least until he brought up a new subject. "Now, we really need to have a chat. I'd love to know how it is when you talk about my father you have a perfect image of him in your head. For a person blind from birth, you have an uncannily accurate sense of visual imagery."

I knew I was going to have to explain my dream-walking then. I supposed that I could trust him with my deepest, darkest secret since he and his father had confided theirs. So I showed him my latest walk with Carlisle. It had been last night. There hadn't been much going on, so Carlisle had spent a great deal of time in his office reading. He had checked in on me once, but of course I was sleeping.

It always shocked me to see myself through Carlisle's eyes. I'd seen myself through my mother's and my father's eyes, but Carlisle's better than human vision saw all my tiny flaws. My hair was a lank mess of brown curls, my dry skin so pale it was almost translucent. I was surprised to see that my cheeks had some color and I had a sprinkling of freckles across my nose. I was painfully thin but I thought I might had gone through another growth spurt because my body looked longer than I remember from the last time my father had looked at me during one of my dream-walks. I had a tracheotomy in my throat and a feeding tube down my nose.

"Well, looks like you'll fit right into the family. Between my mind-reading, Alice's fortunetelling and Jasper's empathy, we're a freak show already. Might as well add a dream-walker. I don't know how it will translate to your new life, though, since we don't sleep." Edward actually sounded amused. "Is it totally involuntary?"

"Yes." I showed him some of my mother's memories. I didn't want to think about my father, but I know he caught some memories I couldn't keep out of my conscious because I heard his sharp intake of breath and then felt his fingers on my face.

"I'm sorry, Leia. If it's any consolation, human memories tend to fade quickly if you don't make a conscious effort to hang onto them." And it was a consolation. The thought that I might be able to forget my father was another reason to tell Carlisle I was ready now. I hoped I could remember my mother, though. Edward's fingertips skimmed my cheek again in a comforting gesture. He didn't touch me nearly as often as Carlisle. He'd explained once that it was because he wasn't sure if he could control his own strength. I was thrilled when he managed to overcome his resistance. Living for six months with no touch was hard. Somehow those gentle touches helped to pull me closer to reality.

"So, conversion should heal my neck. Do you think it might heal my eyes, too? So that I can see?" I was almost afraid to ask this question, but what blind person wouldn't have it at the top of their list of most important questions?

"I don't know, Leia. Maybe Alice can tell, now that you've made a decision. I guess it depends on why you're blind. If it's something that just wrong, maybe. But if it's something missing, I don't think the venom can change that." Edward's words made sense but since my parents hadn't been able to afford dozens of specialist to poke around my head to pinpoint what had caused my blindness, I wasn't comforted. Edward sighed.

"I wish we had time to do that for you, Leia, but we're all packed up. We'll be heading out tonight. We need to be gone before you disappear. It will keep suspicion off us."

"Well then, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. Surprises can be fun, right?"