"It's starting to rain," I said to my companion, down by my knees.

He looked up at the sky, examining the clouds, and a few drops splattered across his marble features. "So it is." He looked as if the clouds had done him a personal affront; I laughed a little at that.

"What's funny?" Noah asked, looking up at me, then.

"You look so insulted by the weather."

"Yes, well, if it had simply remained cloudy, without the wet, everything would have been much better. We wouldn't have to call off our lesson, for one thing."

I smiled down at him. "I don't really mind. And I don't think Mischa does either; she could probably use a good rinse." I squeezed the mare's gray sides with my knees, and she immediately set into a gentle trot. Noah held the long leather reins, so we simply went in a wide circle around him, wearing a path in the soft green grass of the field. Noah seemed to resign himself to his pupil's endless enthusiasm; he pretended to sigh wearily as he continued to turn on his heels, but I saw the gleam of good humor in his eyes, and I chuckled again. He really was a tireless teacher.

For the past week and a half, I had made it my business to seek out horseback-riding lessons from a certain employee of Mr. Pinke's, who was, after all, there for my family's "convenience." They had been proceeding well enough.

The first forty-eight hours after I talked with Noah in the barn were dominated by a fierce denial on my part. It was quite pathetic, actually. I told myself that I loitered shamelessly by the barn to familiarize myself with the animals; I pretended my frequent walks along the old dirt road were for the sake of "fresh air;" I insisted that I constantly lingered by the doors and windows because the cottage felt small and cramped. But the truth was that I wanted to run into Noah again, I wanted to wander into his midst, I wanted to make sure that my eyes missed no moment of him should he come near the cottage. When it came right down to it, I simply couldn't fabricate logical excuses for my behavior for very long without driving myself, and my family, insane.

"Elizabeth," said my mother sharply one evening. "For goodness' sake, come away from that window. The view hasn't changed from what it was this morning. Come and help me wash these things."

She was sitting bent over a wash basin, her hands plunged to the elbows in soapy fluff. It had been an odd adjustment for her, to be reduced to such crude implements for housework. But she endured, I think, for my father's sake; she did love him, very much.

I turned away, disappointed, from the front window and from my pretense of watching the sun set. I hadn't managed to see him, or Tobias for that matter, once during the entire day, and I somehow felt wearier for it.

Immediately I began to scold myself for thinking my emotional state could really be affected by a single person with whom I was scarcely acquainted. It makes no sense, I said to myself, over and over. Stop dwelling on it. Stop letting this happen and get control of yourself.

But those very commands, those which I gave to myself, were evidence that something was happening, something that was very much beyond my control indeed. If…Noah really had no effect on me, I wouldn't have to argue with myself over whether or not he did.

All in all, it seemed my father's decision to temporarily relocate me to the country was having the opposite effect as was intended. During those forty-eight hours, I was morose, stony, and generally horrible company.

That night, alone in bed, I made a decision; a decision which had, for all intents and purposes, already been made somewhere in my heart. Perhaps, I allowed myself, this goes beyond fascination. Perhaps I should give myself a chance to…explore. To wander where this path leads me. Wouldn't father be proud.

The next morning was fortunate. Noah stopped by to deliver two pheasants he and Tobias had flushed out for us, and, frustrated by his polite courtesy, I seized my opportunity. I asked him if he would be willing to teach me how to ride a horse.

His initial response was not an encouraging one. He looked hesitant; actually, his face seemed to glaze over somewhat, as if he were afraid his expression might offend me.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea, Elizabeth," remarked my father. Luckily, he was supporting me. "What do you say, Mr. Alexander? There may be a bonus in it for you."

Noah still looked highly reluctant. "I am afraid it may detract from my duties to Mr. Pinke and to you, Mr. Sussex. As much as I would enjoy teaching Miss Sussex." He smiled at me then, but it seemed forced.

"You need not tend to the garden or to the cottage yard, Mr. Alexander—my wife and I are not above doing such things. Will that provide you with enough time to tutor my daughter?"

My spirits soared high. Noah eventually agreed, but with one condition: he held the right to refuse a lesson at any time.

I accepted, triumphant, interaction with the strange, beautiful creature of my daydreams now guaranteed.

Or so I thought. At first, Noah was markedly unpredictable about when he allowed a lesson with me. Sometimes he would decline—politely, and with the utmost regret, of course—for no particular reason; on those days, he was always very busy in the barn, or he and Tobias needed to run an errand somewhere, sometime later in the day. Others, I simply couldn't find him; either he alone or he and Tobias both would be missing from the premises for the entire day.

But sometimes conditions were just right, it seemed, and he instructed me about saddles and tack and how to mount and lead a horse. At first Mischa seemed distressed when he led her out of the stall; she neighed and stamped and pulled. But eventually she acquiesced to keeping at least a meter's worth of distance between herself and Noah at all times. With me, however, she was remarkably friendly, and I grew quite attached to her.

Noah was a wonderful teacher; accessible, patient, and knowledgeable in, I suspected, many areas beyond horses, though he never let on directly. I tried my best to be an attentive student—and I did genuinely learn to enjoy riding a horse—but I wasn't helped by the fact that any prolonged eye contact with my teacher made my head spin dizzily.

We grew closer, or I hoped we were. He had such a tentativeness about him sometimes, which clashed with his natural, smooth grace, and I wondered if perhaps he was more uncomfortable with me than he let on. I couldn't imagine why; he had absolutely no reason to feel…insecure, inhumanly perfect as he was, around me, just an average, awkward specimen of young womanhood. Noah was poised beyond all capability. He was gracious, confident, and kind. He was handsome and patient. He was…struggling.

I never consciously came to the conclusion that my new companion was fighting a battle inside himself; I just gradually began to adjust my words and mannerisms to something that I must have understood with a sense I couldn't comprehend. When that infinitesimal trace of pain crossed his features, I immediately changed the subject, changed the direction, altered my suggestion to something that would allow him to relax back into his usual calm demeanor. When he hesitated in answering a question, I retracted it. When his muscles tensed or his brow furrowed in the slightest, I distracted him with a random remark or an innocent query. When I saw him swallow compulsively—he tried to be subtle about it—I immediately flickered my eyes to something else, anything else, so I wouldn't be an obvious witness and make him self-conscious. I did everything I could think of without outright asking him what he was struggling with. I wouldn't have bothered asking him if he was alright; that was easily answered in the negative by that unconscious sense. I just knew. But I didn't know what, and though I wanted desperately to ask and to find out, to do my best to help him, something held me back.

It might have been unhealthy, it might have been rationally unjustifiable, it might have been unasked for and unreciprocated, but I came to care for Noah. His pain was my pain; I tried so hard to share his mysterious burden, something which he never knowingly divided with me. I made myself miserable doing it, too, keeping myself awake at night running back my tiny memories and glimpses of his internal battle, worrying about him. Wanting to help; feeling helpless. I also wanted so badly to be able to dwell on the happier moments: the smiles, the shared laughter, the smoldering glances—all of which, I thought, were equally as genuine—but for some unfathomable reason, I lingered on the unpleasantness.

Because I cared for him. Because it was impossible for me to feel happy while he was not.

I was a stupid, presumptuous girl, to both assume that Noah was hurting and that I could somehow make it better for him. To make so much of little observations, magnified by the strength of my senses whenever I was around him and his glorious, pale beauty and presence. To put such unwavering trust in my intuition.

After all, if my intuition did what it was supposed to do, I would have been keeping myself as far away from his presence as possible.

There simply must have been something wrong with my brain.

So it was that I kept one eye trained on my stunning riding tutor as Mischa and I trotted in deft circles about him. I was still learning to reconcile the natural rhythms of my body with the cadence of the mare's jarring movements, so I was jostled around somewhat on her back. Fortunately, I was learning—slowly—to accept the reality that I would never, ever feel graceful around Noah, and fretting about it would do absolutely no good. I grimaced as I bumped up and down, but no blush scalded to my cheeks.

Noah was smiling slightly at me now, dazzlingly; he truly was an incredible person, even beyond the unnatural beauty. I had gathered that much.

But there was the nagging problem of the hesitation, the pain I detected in his mien. It did not belong.

It did not belong, just like I felt, like I knew, that I didn't belong—couldn't possibly merit a place in his world. He was too wonderful. Perhaps he really was an angel, like I had thought the first night I met him.

"Noah," I called, a little more awkwardly than before. "We don't really have to keep going. We can stop. It might start to rain harder."

I pulled gently on the reins to slow Mischa to a stop. I leapt down clumsily and staggered a little, and in what seemed like an instant he was there beside me, one hand closed around my arm, the other resting feather-light against my back. Fizzing tingles shot down my spine and crackled through me; the breath left my body, and I looked hesitantly up into his eyes and gulped.

At the same moment, he, too, performed that compulsive swallow I had seen several times before. I saw his pale white throat, inches from my face, contract. Immediately I sought to direct my gaze elsewhere, but something caught my eye first. His eyes—they were not quite so golden as I had originally thought. In fact, they were an odd shade I never remembered seeing before: blackness crept in from the outer edges of his irises, leaving only a ring of faded ochre around his pupils. I squinted as I noticed it, confused. I had distinct memories of his eyes like liquid gold. I had never seen any black.

But that moment when our eyes were locked lasted less than a second. In a moment he had me righted on my feet again, released his hold on my arm, and had retreated a foot away.

I looked at him, about to speak, when I realized my arm was burning. The place where his hand and been against my skin was literally, physically tingling, not just from the phantasms of my mind. It felt as if something extremely hot had recently been in contact with my flesh.

Or something extremely cold.

I must have glanced down at my arm in surprised confusion, for Noah immediately spoke up.

"Forgive me if I acted improperly, Miss Sussex," he said in his most courteous tone, his "Miss Sussex" tone. "I was afraid you would stumble into the mud that's forming." He carefully kept his eyes away from me; he gazed steadily into the distance.

My irritation at this tone momentarily banished all thoughts of blackened irises and tingling skin. I did not want to be just another charge to him, just another thing done for the salary.

And I knew that, somewhere, he felt a greater connection to me than that of obligation. I knew because he would occasionally slip and call me Elizabeth. I remembered each time clearly. Because I loved hearing my name in his voice, and because his expression always briefly—fleetingly—disintegrated into that image of pain after every time my name slipped from his lips.

So it was painful for me, too. Exhilarating, but painful. And I became a glutton for punishment.

Perhaps it was the strengthening rain, acting as a sort of veil between us, that emboldened me. Perhaps it was my annoyance at hearing "Miss Sussex" again. Whatever the cause, I stepped closer to him, closing his retreat.

"You didn't act improperly," I said, and absolutely none of my annoyance came through with my voice. In fact, it cracked slightly as I looked up into his face. "Thank you. Noah." Rain fell around us in whispering sheets, stirring up mud puddles.

Did I imagine the momentary glint of softness in his eyes? Did I dream the relaxing of his facial muscles into something like affection? If they were there, they were gone and instantly masked with a controlled expression.

"You're welcome…Elizabeth." His voice was more tender, but I could still sense how he was holding himself away from me.

Should I press my luck? I wondered. Should I lean closer? There was no knowing how long my sudden spate of confidence would last. I settled for smiling at him through the rain.

He smiled back at me, but the perfectly cool composure of his face was utterly disheartening. His wet, gold hair had somehow managed to sculpt itself into attractiveness, and I felt my resolve wavering as I again took in how heartbreakingly beautiful he was. I tried very hard not to notice how his soaking clothes clung to his muscular frame.

Stupid, stupid girl.

"Let's take Mischa in, shall we?" he said, kindly, and I could only nod, eyes everywhere but his face, everywhere but his gold-black eyes.

Dr. Cullen was there when I crawled groggily into consciousness. That meant it was night. Which probably meant that Edward was not present.

Excitement and disappointment immediately conflicted. I would have moaned, but the movement of air through my throat was extraordinarily painful. I settled for squeezing handfuls of the rough blanket around my hips and looking around wildly. I was burning from fever; my eyes rolled dizzily in my head.

Dr. Cullen's chill hand came to rest gently on my forehead. I immediately let out a soundless sigh—painful but inevitable—and relaxed a little.

"Your fever is high, but not enough to render you totally incoherent," he said smoothly, kindly—truthfully. "I am going to listen to your heart again."

The icy hands reached for my skin and held the drum of the instrument there again, and my vampire physician listened to whatever disjointed rhythm my heart played for him. I searched for his eyes, the golden eyes that were such a contradiction. They were, paradoxically, the first and last aspect I would have expected to see in him.

They were unfathomable for me.

I croaked, "How many days have I been here?" It burned to say; my throat felt as if it had been scoured with acid.

Dr. Cullen ran a hand through his glossy blond hair. "Seven."

"And how many do I have left?"

He sighed. "I really cannot say."

I glared at him as fiercely as I could.

"No, I am being honest. There is no way to predict. Some people have lasted as long as two months. Others, less than three days." He grimaced, and I could tell he regretted telling me these things.

For a split second, I considered telling Dr. Carlisle Cullen that I knew his secret. I considered telling him that I knew what he was, that I recognized the traits of his kind and I knew his abilities, and that I had known one of them, once. I thought perhaps it would be a relief, to divulge to someone as sincerely kind and trustworthy as this man—this vampire—all the memories and thoughts and questions that I had. To stop feeling like a pariah within myself, and share my closed-away world.

But I did not. I could not bring myself to breach the expanse of still, undisturbed water between us. I knew that the moment I tested that water, the ripples would be uncontrollable, and the serenity I found reflected in its glassy surface would be no more. I wanted to preserve that innocence, to feel that peace again. I had to be, for the time being, comfortable in my hidden knowledge, knowing that I could maintain my own sanity meanwhile. I wanted more to make it last.

"Should I really drink this…concoction, Dr. Cullen?" I asked instead, gesturing weakly at the glass straw protruding from the jug of water. Even that small movement seemed to sap at my life force.

Dr. Cullen's eyebrows contracted. "If you wish. I have not ventured into that field myself, so I cannot know the benefits—but certainly it cannot hurt to try?" He smiled. I smiled in return.

"I trust you," I whispered hoarsely.

He was silent, but not broodingly so. Perhaps there was really no response.

"Your hand feels good on my brow."

A second's silence. Then, he lifted his pale hand, a little tentatively at first, and smoothed it over my forehead again. The delicious coolness seeped through my skin and into my roiling mind.

I'm not sure how long we sat there.

"Doesn't the bit hurt the horse? To always have that piece of metal in its mouth?"

The two of us were standing next to Mischa's stall in the barn, putting away tack from a lesson.

"They don't wear it when they need to use their mouths at all—like when they're trying to eat. It may be a little uncomfortable, but then, it's certainly no more uncomfortable than having a two-hundred pound burden on one's back." Noah smiled at me then, and my heart flew, as it always did, no matter how accustomed I thought I was getting.

Still, my own mouth twitched in response. "You make me feel guilty for wanting to do this. Poor Mischa."

"You think she would rather pull a plow, or become hog-feed?"

I cringed. "Now you're just making me feel guilty for being human at all."

He laughed, a bright sound. "No, you should never feel guilty for being human, Elizabeth." And he stopped speaking quickly. Then, more quietly, "It's not as if you can help it."

I was looking at him, unsure of his rapid emotional shifts. It made my heart ache, the way he seemed so conflicted.

"Then again, it's not as if she can help being a horse, either," I offered, trying to decide whether to attempt some cheer, or to fall in with his serious expression. "She didn't choose to be subject to whatever we humans want to do with her. So am I still the guilty one, here?" I tried another smile.

When he looked at me again, his face seemed full of an almost ancient wisdom—of patience painfully won. I couldn't say how I gave it this description. "Ah, you are entering into realms of moral doubt and responsibility now. Can we help what we are? Can we help what we do to others?" Noah's questions hung in the air.

"Of course we can," I said. "There's no reason we can't change our behavior."

"But what if our behavior is necessary to survive? And that behavior harms others?"

"It isn't necessary for humans to hurt others to survive," I responded stoically.

"You eat meat, don't you?"

"Oh." I considered this. "But those are animals, not other humans. There is no person—no good person, anyway—who needs to hurt human beings."

Noah's body seemed to still even more completely, if that was possible. He turned his face to Mischa in her stall. "No, there is no human being like that," he said softly. He stroked the inside of one palm with his thumb. "But if there were, my question still stands. Could they help what they are?"

He was hurting again. I could see it as clearly as day. I spun desperately away from this topic, striving mentally for some way to lift his mood. I couldn't allow these mental clouds to obscure him for one moment longer, or both of us would surely suffocate.

"If humans can resist their constant urge to fornicate on the ground like dogs, then I believe in the will of anything," I said rapidly, jokingly, being purposely crude in order to stun him out of his reverie.

It worked; he turned around immediately, his eyebrows lifted high. "Miss Sussex, how perfectly inappropriate of you." But I saw his mouth twitching and I grinned, triumphant, not caring of my apparent immaturity.

"I don't know what humans you've met in your lifetime, but I can assure you, some of us are not governed by this 'constant urge to fornicate,'" he was saying, while shaking his head. "Ridiculous."

"You were laughing, Noah."

"That sort of remark befits a childish boy far more than a young woman of elegance like yourself." He had turned to hang up the tack we had been discussing previously.

That brought my chuckling up short. I felt a fiery red blush immediately plume in my cheeks. A young woman of elegance? I felt my stomach flip over and over in feverish excitement. I opened my mouth and tried to respond with some amount of dignity, though in truth my mind was glowing.

"H-hardly," I managed to stutter. Noah continued hanging up the tack on the barn walls, but he smiled as he did so.