A/N: I started this story three years ago when Twilight FF was insanely popular. I don't know if it still is but after three years of illness and general craziness I suddenly had an urge to continue with The Subject after neglecting writing (my job as well as my hobby) for far, far too long. Whether or not anybody will read I don't know but it's good to be back on the keyboard :)

"Seems a little early for visitors Aro."

I caught Aro glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, waiting for me to be amazed.

"He heard the door, obviously." I hissed.

Aro didn't reply, instead he only smiled serenely in response my scepticism, as if perhaps he found me foolish for really believing there to be a reasonable explanation for the outlandish claims this subject had made.

Staring through the one way mirror while my employer tapped something in to the computer behind me, I watched as the man remained unnaturally still, his back stiff and tense.

Aro cleared his throat and I started. I'd been so engrossed in watching this unlikely subject that I hadn't even noticed him move across the room or heard him open the door.

"Sorry," I muttered, moving away from the mirror and shaking my head, as if it might clear it a little.

I realised that I was behaving strangely even as I moved, robot-like out of the obs space. If there was one thing that I was known for here it was being on the ball. I might drop things and I might trip over rather more often than a normal person but I was reliable and efficient, calm in a crisis and never, ever vague. It was part of the reason that I had moved so quickly through the ranks at Volterra Pharm.

I couldn't say for sure why I was reacting like this. I certainly didn't know Edward Cullen and it wasn't the first time I'd had contact with a test subject.

It was something in his refusal to turn around perhaps, or maybe it was the excitement with which Aro was treating his admittance to the facility. Perhaps it was simply the fact that, considering everything I'd read in his notes, this Mr Cullen was quite patently not the man I was expecting.

Aro held open the door to the main living area, holding it back to allow me to pass through.

As I entered the room slowly the subject finally moved, his head swivelling to allow him to look in my direction.

The weak smile I gave him did little to hide my surprise. But though I may have been jolted it was quite clearly nothing compared to what Edward Cullen felt.

No sooner had he registered my presence than he was across the small room, crouching in a strangely feral, defensive pose, his eyes flickering between Aro and I. His jaw was locked and his brow crumpled in concentration as eventually his gaze focused on me. Those same bright green eyes that had caused me such shock boring in to my skull with so much intensity that I thought perhaps he was expecting me to wither up right there and then.

"Edward?" Aro asked, the softness of his voice doing nothing to conceal his concern.

"What is this?" he growled in response.

"I apologise Edward but I'm afraid I don't..."

"Her!" he didn't allow Aro to finish, "why have you brought her here?"

"Edward, please!" Aro glanced at me over his shoulder before approaching the crouched figure, "I'm quite sure I mentioned Ms Swan."

"Swan?" Mr Cullen nodded, "Isabella Swan. Your assistant."

"Not exactly, but yes, she will be assisting me in investigating your case. As you know, myself and Carlisle have agreed to keep your...uh, skill, between ourselves. However Isabella is far more proficient in the lab than myself. It seems sensible to have her on board."

It surprised me to hear Aro refer to a 'skill'. I had expected 'condition', or even 'problem'. But not that.

"Aro," I spoke as quietly as I could, "perhaps I should come back later. Give you a chance to discuss Mr Cullen's concerns?"

"No!" I flinched, the man's voice was loud and harsh.

"I'm sorry, I just..."

"No," he hung his head and scrubbed his fingers through his shock of coppery hair, "I'm sorry. I know I'm behaving very badly."

"How are you feeling Edward?" Aro reached out to help him up and it was only as he unfolded his limbs and stood that I registered the way he held himself, straight and tall, his posture almost arrogant.

Not at all what I would have expected.

"I'm fine," although he spoke to Aro, his eyes never left me.

"Is now a good time to talk?"

It seemed strange that he would ask permission. Aro more usually behaved with the kind of pompous self-importance peculiar to doctors. If it was convenient for him it was expected to be convenient for you.

Edward Cullen continued staring at me for a moment before his attention snapped.

"I wonder if I could speak to Ms Swan alone? If we're going to be working together we should probably get to know each other a little. Is that alright with you Ms Swan?"

I wasn't entirely sure that I had the option to say no, although I expected to do little more that required us to spend time together other than drawing bloods and running scans. Both things I assumed Aro would insist I do, having made it quite clear that nobody else was to be involved in his new pet project. I nodded to indicate my willingness at the same time raising a questioning eyebrow in the direction of my superior.

"Well," Aro hesitated, understandably thrown by the request, but quickly recovered himself, "I have plenty to catch up on. I'll be in Dr Santiago's office should you need anything."

He slipped past, throwing me a pointed look. "I'll see you in a few moments Isabella."

The door swung closed and Edward Cullen and I were left alone, a loud silence filling the space around us. I allowed myself to watch him concentrate on a spot just above my head. There was no other words for it, this man was handsome in the extreme. In fact, no, not handsome. He was beautiful. It was the only word that fit.

His skin was deathly pale but somehow not in the least unhealthy and he had the dark rings of too many nights spent thinking under his strangely bright green eyes. I searched for imperfections as I allowed my gaze to slowly travel over his face - I supposed his brow was a little heavy and his jaw a little too angular for my tastes.

"What are you doing?" he suddenly snapped.

My face immediately began to burn. No matter how many years passed I had never lost the rather childish habit of blushing at the very slightest embarrassment.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I just...I mean, you're..."

"How are you doing it?"

"Doing what?" I realised then that he wasn't talking about my blatant staring.

"What are you thinking?" he folded his arms across his chest and fixed me with a cold, hard stare.

"What do you mean?" I wasn't normally so easily flustered. Though I blushed easily I rarely let anybody get the upper hand on me in this way. I felt a sort of anger rise in my chest as I realised I had lost control of the strange situation.

"For a doctor you're exceptionally stupid."

I let my jaw drop. "Excuse me? For somebody locked up in a mental facility you're exceptionally arrogant!"

He grinned then, sinking down into the brown leatherette armchair across from where I stood.

"As you well know this isn't a mental facility. And, for the record, I'm allowed to request my leave at any time I wish. Now, tell me what you're thinking."

This strikingly beautiful, breathtakingly arrogant man was so damn sure of himself I almost spilled every single thought that was in my head at that moment; that I'd never felt so utterly perplexed by anybody, that I'd never been so unreasonably furious with another person, that I'd never been so drawn to somebody as I was to him in that moment.

"You're the mindreader aren't you Mr Cullen? You tell me."

"Ha," he breathed, mirthlessly, "you don't believe it?"

"That you can read the minds of others? No. No, I'm afraid I don't."

As soon as I spoke the words I knew that this was probably going to be the end of my involvement with Mr Cullen and with Aro's new case. I also knew that I was putting my position at Volterra Pharm. in serious jeopardy. To say that Aro would be disappointed in me after placing such faith in my ability to behave discreetly and professionally was a severe understatement.

Earning the trust of our research subjects was second only to earning the trust of our clients. Telling Edward Cullen I didn't believe his claim that he could read minds, losing my cool with him...well, none of it equated to the kind of behaviour that would garner his trust. Nor was it the behaviour of an impartial professional.

"I wish you were right," his tone was suddenly lower, sadder and his head dropped despairingly into his hands.

"I'm sorry Mr Cullen but surely you understand how difficult this is for me to accept?"

"Of course I understand," he was angry again, his mood swings were almost impossible to keep up with, "it's no easier for me to accept it you know."

"May I?" I gestured to an uncomfortable looking metal chair positioned alongside a small writing desk. He nodded and I perched myself on it, chewing a thumbnail thoughtfully.

Neither of us spoke for a moment and I busied myself by taking in the details of the room - the barely there pattern in the wallpaper, chosen no doubt in an attempt to make the room feel more homely, a scuff mark at the foot of the door which I knew would lead to the little bedroom that each of these 'apartments' had in an attempt to convince subjects that they had more privacy than they did, the tea and coffee making facilities similar to those found in the kind of bland hotels I would stay in while visiting the important international conferences on laboratory sciences Marcus was so keen on me attending as a Volterra representative...

"Forgive me. Would you like one?"

"Pardon?"

He indicated the small kettle, "a tea? Or coffee?"

"Surely you know as well as I do? You are the one who reads minds after all."

"See Ms Swan," he smiled, rising out of his seat and flicking the switch to set the kettle to boil, "this is very frustrating for me. I can read every mind except yours."

We sat for some time, him in his armchair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and me leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees, cradling the warm cup of tea he had made for me in both of my hands.

"I do see how hard this is to believe, I'm not that stupid" he smiled ironically, "if it wasn't happening to me I'd have the very same reaction as you."

I was beginning to understand how Aro had been so convinced by this guy. But i couldn't help but be reminded of those news stories, the ones in which everybody was surprised to find that their neighbour or colleague was a psychopath. The ones in which said psychopath was described as 'charming'. They were always charming.

"How does it work? Do you hear a voice in your head?"

He narrowed his eyes, "Aro already asked me all of these questions."

It seemed strange, a subject calling Aro by his given name. All Volterra employees used titles and surnames in public. Although I recalled Aro referring to the Cullen case as a favour for a friend.

"Sure, sure. Sorry."

"It's difficult. I hear somebody's voice almost exactly as I would were they speaking aloud," I chose not to point out that he was now answering the very question he had chastised me for asking, "in a way that's why I'm here. You see, I had kept the fact that I could hear things to myself for a long time..."

"How long?"

"You're not a very good listener are you? Aren't doctors supposed to be good listeners?"

I gave him a wry smile, "I'm not a doctor, I'm a CLS. A lab scientist."

"Ah. Since I was a child."

"Sorry?"

"You asked how long." He rolled his eyes, "I've heard people's thoughts for as long as I can remember. I managed to hide it though. I always knew that whatever was happening wasn't normal, I was a smart child though, I built up strategies to help me differentiate between a person's thoughts and what they were saying with their outwards voice.

"However, when I was seventeen I was involved in an accident, I was quite badly hurt."

I wanted to ask him more about the incident, about how exactly he'd been injured, but I sensed his reluctance to talk about it. So I kept quiet, sipping on my tea as he continued.

"After the accident I found it harder to cope with what I was hearing, it affected me...um, in a different way I suppose. Anyway, I started to make mistakes. I started to answer people's thoughts, or I'd ignore things that were said out loud.

"My father noticed. He's a doctor..."

A piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

"You're Carlisle Cullen's son?"

He closed his eyes and let a long breath out through his nose. I took his dismay as confirmation.

Dr. Cullen. I knew exactly who he was. There was nobody in the world of science who hadn't heard the name, who wasn't aware of his work. And there was nobody who worked here at Volterra Pharm. who wasn't acutely aware that Dr. Cullen had started his career in these same corridors, as a protege of the very same man who had left the room just a short while ago.

I was surprised that I hadn't made the connection before. Not only was Dr. Cullen a well respected doctor, a celebrated scientist and an award-winning humanitarian but his family was a regular fixture on the society pages of the godawful magazines that my best friend Rose pored over weekly.

Therefore I knew that Dr. Cullen was married to Esme Evenson, a one time movie actress who had quit Hollywood to dedicate herself to charity work, who had even spent a year of her life in New Orleans building new homes for Katrina victims. I also knew that Dr. Cullen and his wife had two children. Alice, a party girl and fashion icon dating some up and coming musician, and a son who refused to be photographed and who was kept out of the spotlight by his family.

"So, your father noticed?" I whispered, encouraging him to go on.

"He noticed but it took a long time for me to tell him everything. Nobody knew before then. I thought if I told anybody they'd lock me up and throw away the key. I mean, I hear voices," there was no humour in the laugh that he barked out.

"I guess I'm lucky that Dad's a doctor, when he eventually got the story out of me he didn't jump to any conclusions. He ran tests in secret, he researched all the previous cases out there, going right back to these weird stories from Medieval England."

"Have you seen a psychiatrist? I know Dr. Cullen is an excellent physician but..." I trailed off, not wishing to suggest that his father was anything less than thorough.

"Of course. But Dad's convinced that there's no psychological aspect to any of this. I can tell you that he's pretty unhappy with Aro right now for putting me in here"

"I don't think it means anything. This is just the most secure building and the least used. It makes sense for you to be here if your stay has to be a secret."

He leaned back in his chair then, contemplating me carefully. I very quickly began to squirm, feeling uncomfortable at being so closely scrutinised. Did he mean what he said about not being able to hear my thoughts? The mere idea that he could read minds scared me, despite my scepticism. What if he could hear the thoughts of others and he was lying about not being able to hear me? What if I'd left my thoughts unguarded and he was listening to my most intimate ramblings?

"You're wondering if I'm lying aren't you?"

"What?" my voice was ridiculously high pitched.

"You think I can hear what you're thinking."

I gasped.

"I really can't, it was a guess."

"Great. So my mind doesn't work right?" I was only half joking.

"I hear voices in my mind and you're worried that you're the freak?"

Rather than get into a discussion about my insecurities I glanced at my watch. My colleagues would be starting to arrive before long and I needed to finish up the samples Aro had started before anybody else saw them and questioned the lack of paperwork.

"You really aren't doing something to keep me out then?" he asked and for the first time I saw a flash of worry pass across Edward Cullen's all too perfect features.

"No, I'm really not. I guess I'm just on a different frequency, sorry."

His face relaxed into a smile, "please don't apologise. The silence is very...pleasant. It isn't often I can speak to somebody without their thoughts contradicting what they're saying to me."

I made to leave and he stood too, it was a strange, antiquated thing to do. I wasn't used to gentlemanly behaviour, least of all from Jake.

"As I said, I'm only working on your case as Aro's lab tech so, at most, I'll only be seeing you to take samples and so on. You shouldn't really be disturbed by anybody but Aro."

"Oh," I could tell he was disappointed, perhaps he wanted company.

"I could come back. If you want someone to talk to...or...whatever..."

"Later today?"

That soon? "Sure, why not? I'll come up once I'm done in the lab this evening."

He held the door open for me as I exited his room, already planning the best way to keep his labs away from Mike and Eric. My assistants were too efficient not to notice extra samples being run on a regular basis.

"I'll see you later then Ms Swan? I'd say dinner's on me but..." he swept his arm outwards to indicate his limited resources.

I smiled, suddenly feeling at ease in front of him, "you can call me Bella if you prefer. Of course, if you'd rather keep things on a..."

"No," he interrupted, "I'd like that. Have a good day, Bella."

His voice caressing my name seemed to echo through me as I returned to my lab to try and put Edward Cullen, Aro's pet mind reader and son of one of the world's most esteemed doctors, out of my mind.