Lea took Carlisle's stone cold hand. She shuttered, not at the temperature of his body but rather of the feeling of being shocked and she loved it. Carlisle slung her onto his back and walked over to the window as if a hundred-thirty pound person hanging onto his neck didn't register.

"Do you trust me?" He knew that she hadn't known him long but he needed to know that she did trust him despite the fact that he was a monster.

"With every fiber of me being," she told him truthfully, Carlisle didn't hear anything to hint at a lie and smiled to himself.

"Then you, my dear, are the most reckless human I have ever known."

Lenore didn't miss the fact that Carlisle had called her 'human'.

Was he not?

There was no way she could know, he looked human but at the same time didn't: he was too cold, too pale, too perfect to be what she was. They way he moved and his mannerisms made him seem like he'd come from a different century entirely. Sometimes even the way he spoke, she caught that on a few occasions, he used words that came from somewhere in the past as if the thought of speaking like someone who'd grown in the nineties didn't fit. Even the name 'Carlisle Cullen' seemed like a character that popped out from the pages of a book.

She clung tighter, her grip like a vise. Carlisle noticed this and looked over his shoulder, when he turned back, he opened the window to reveal a slippery looking landing with stairs that led to the concrete sidewalk slicked with a mixture of rain and snow hiding a thin layer of ice beneath.

"What are you doing?" She asked as he begun to step out onto the fire-escape.

"I'm showing you…"

Before Lea had a chance to scream, he jumped from the third story and landed on his feet with a spring in his step, neither the ice or the fact that he just jumped from a hight that would definitely injure most, made him bat an eyelash. Lenore didn't have a chance to react to his first action before she found herself in a blur of buildings, the light streaming from the windows, a ghost, there and gone. Within a few seconds, they were amongst the trees. The air felt damp like it always was, it was colder but even that felt warmer than the man Lea clung to.

The trees' shapes were muddled at how fast the man was running. Could it even be called running? It felt more like flying over the ground, his steps were not misplaced and he glided. The cold rustled the trees and stirred up a slight breeze at how fast what ever this 'person' Lea could only call him, was moving. She barely had time to take in her surroundings when they stopped.

Lea jumped off, she would have done so earlier if not for the fact that she knew she would get hurt and likely crash into a tree so much so even the doctor wouldn't be able to mend her mangled body.

Carlisle had taken her to the one spot he felt he was most human, the spot he wanted to build a cottage, the spot that offered him solace.

"What the hell was that?" She yelled. She knew they were far enough no one other then the being in front of her would be able to hear.

"What I wanted to show you…"

"I think I've seen quite enough thank you very much," Lenore said as she turned and begun to walk away toward were she assumed town might be. She figured she'd eventually find a road and just walk to wherever it lead, either that or be eaten by an animal.

"Please, don't go. I want you to stay. I need to tell you this. I'm begging you, please; don't leave me here. All the hurt and hatred I feel for what I am, you are my illusion. Being like you are, human I mean, I'm something else," Carlisle looked out defeated toward the misty figure of the woman. She looked like a ghost, albeit a clumsy one as she stumbled over the tree trunks that stuck out of the ground. She stopped in her tracks and turned back.

She was an illusion. Even to this man, she seemed unreal, she made it seem like he was dreaming. To her, everything she'd ever learned was a lie. There were creatures that walked among humans, concealing themselves and hid right under everyone's nose, it was perfect hiding. Even still, she knew not what he was and knew even littler as to who he was, she wanted to know, she felt like she had to.

"I know it's hard for you to tell me how confused you are, Lea. I would be too. How mixed up you feel, not quite sure that I'm not a dream, you're just a human after all. It's difficult for me to explain…I just hope that you can keep an open mind and trust what I'm saying is the truth. You and I, when we were younger we used our imagination and were told stories of monsters that hid themselves in the shadows, under beds and in the basement, it's just a fact to be scared of the unknown, but I…I hope you won't be scared of me.

"For the entirety of my life, I felt as though I never belonged anywhere, sometimes, I still do. It's not sadness and it's not joy, it's mundane. After my father died, though he was somewhat overbearing, I died with him. So I traveled and never stayed in one place for longer than a few years until I took Edward as my own son and not long after that: Rosalie, Jasper, Emmett, Alice… they lived with me as well. I decided that the best thing for them was to settle down so we moved here."

Lenore listened intently.

"Can you comprehend?"

The figure in the mist took a moment to herself, shifted her feet, and nodded her head.

"I used to claim it was divine purpose, because my father was a pastor. Now I can see that it isn't so. I'd like to think I have a soul, but I've only given as many lives as others of my kind have taken. It's at least, what I'd like to believe and it doesn't matter. I used to think that somehow, I'd been sent to this Earth to do something more than I, myself can comprehend. All my life, I'd been waiting for something I know not what. But now, I can see that the thing I'd been waiting for is standing before me, scared out of her wits at the man she listens to.

"It's like a part of my soul tied me to this other world, what I had been, I'd taken bits and pieces, because the less is than…" he trailed off, "but it's just what I believe. I'm still not sure. What I do know, is since I met you, to me the world is different, as I am to the world. It's like I'd never seen the sky before. I never knew I could feel like this, but I am a creature of the underworld, I can't afford to love someone who isn't like me. I hope you know that. The fact of the matter is, I think I do and if you were smart you'd stay away."

"But what are you?" The shrouded figure asked, the only reason Carlisle knew she was alive was the fact that the cold caught her breath and clouded around her face.

"I'm something from out of the pages of a storybook, the hunter and the hunted…"

"Enough with the riddles," Lea interrupted, "just tell me? You brought me out here."

"I'm…I'm…not human."

"That's it, I'm leaving," she'd had enough. She turned back toward the way she was headed.

"It's true! You don't believe me?"

"N…" Lea paused a second, "no."

Who would?

"Try to out run me!" Carlisle yelled in a ditch attempt to keep her. He ran in a wide circle that was more than a hundred meters in diameter and was back at his starting position within a few moments.

"Try and fight me off!" He grabbed a nearby boulder that reached up to his waist, the surface slippy with dew and moss. He threw it across his clearing and it smashed into a tree, slowly, the pair heard crackling like thunder and the ground beneath their feet quake in Carlisle's wrath. The tree fell over.

Lea looked on in astonishment. She didn't know what to think, every guess she tried, she came up blank. She tried to put things together in her mind but to no avail. She was awestruck.

"I'm designed to kill, but my family and I, we quench our thirst using other means," he told her, still trying to keep his distance as he was unsure as to how she reacted.

"What do you mean 'thirst'?" She asked as she took a step closer to the god before her though she was terrified as all hell.

"I've lived for over three-hundred and sixty years, surviving off of the blood of animals."

Lenore had heard the stories of the people who came to live where Forks now was. Her father, who was friends with the Chief of the Quileute tribe, told her that they were cold, pale, that their skin glistened in the sun like a million diamonds and that they strong and incredibly fast. That they could take down whole bears with just their hands and that they drank the blood from such animals to sustain themselves.

Finally, she put two and two together and it clicked in her head.

She knew Carlisle Cullen, Forks' best doctor, the adoptive father of excellent teenagers, all of which, including him were model citizens, she knew that he was a vampire.

She caught her breath in her throat and felt like she was going to go into hysterics. Lea felt as though she were crazy to even be thinking of such a thing. She took in the misty figure before her and she found herself backing away slowly. Her foot caught onto the trunk of a tree. Slowly, she begun to topple over. Carlisle was by her side before she could reach the ground.

She looked at him and he seemed different, worried. Carlisle always seemed so suave and generous, but this was something she'd never seen cross his face.

He was scared of her.

"Lenore?" He asked.

"Yeah?" She breathed.

"Say something…"

"I don't know what to say…" not a single thought came to her mind.

"If you had any sense of self-preservation you'd stay away from me. Can't we just go back to the way things were before we met? Before you knew what I am?"

"You know we can't. Even if I wanted do, I don't think I ever could. I never would…" they continued to hold each other close as they rested on the trunk of the tree. Carlisle took her face into his hands and brushed his thumb on her cheeks. Lea leaned into them though it felt like putting her face to a frozen stone.

"I can't deny what I am even though I've lived my entire existence in such the manner. There is no changing the fact that I am a vampire. But I'd never feed off human blood if ever given the absolute opportunity. I have restraint that keeps anyone from knowing what I truly am, but with you…the way that your smell is a fragment of the real taste and how my mouth seems to dry and feels like I have not eaten since the time I was changed. Even now, I have to use everything I've taught myself, all of my willpower, not to taste even a drop…if I do, I know that I would kill you and the hatred for who and what I am would drive me mad. You are something that my people use to describe someone like you. Il mio cantante…"

"What does that mean?" She asked furrowing her brow. Lenore was not scared of the man that sat with her, she knew in her heart that if he wanted to hurt her then he would have done it by now. They were alone and by the time Lea screamed, she would be dead and he would have been long gone. He would leave no trace that he was ever here and he might have made up the story that they had gotten into a argument and that she had run off. No one would suspect him as he is Forks' best doctor with no record of criminal activity and his children, as well as everyone else in the town, would vouch for him.

She set that thought aside, the thought of him being alone after so close to having someone there, she couldn't bare it. What he had to live with, always in the back of his mind that he could never truly tell anyone in confidence. He never had anyone, he was alone and she felt for him. It was not pity as he didn't need such a thing, but it was the feeling of needing to be closer to him. This man had stumbled into her lap and now, she wanted nothing but to spend as long as they had together. She didn't care if she got older and would look like his mother and later his grandmother, she wasn't that vain. All she wanted was to love him, though she knew very little about him. She wanted to tell him that even though she died because she knew eventually she would as everyone did, well almost everyone, she would still be there, never far away.

She shifted closer and took his hands in her's.

"It's Italian," he broke her train of thought.

"It means, my singer. Your blood sings for me, begging me to take what you have to offer. It begs in a way I have not felt before," he told her ashamed of himself and what he is.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"I want to ask you something but I'm afraid you'll hate me after. Carlisle, does it hurt?" She looked him in the eyes trying to gauge his reaction and they flickered with something.

"No. Not in the physical sense. But the few days I spent after being bitten, I…the pain, the feeling of the cells in your blood, everything being ripped apart and put back together, that's what hurt the most. But even still…"

"Who were you before you were changed?" She asked wanting to know everything that he could possibly tell.

"When a person is changed, the memories of their previous life are slowly forgotten. They forget when they were born and when they were changed. They forget who they used to be and what they did. Even slower still they forget about the people they loved: mothers and sisters, cousins and lovers…the few things I do remember was my father was a pastor, I was born sometime between the sixteen-twenties or thirties and my mother died after she gave birth to me."

"Carlisle, I'm so sorry," Lenore told him as she took him and held him against her chest, his ear was right were her heart was. The beat was accelerated slightly as Lenore ran her fingers though his hair.

"Lenore, I can hurt you…" he said as he tried to pull away from her embrace only to be held tighter.

"You won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because you would have already done it."

"What is it that you want from me, Lea?" He asked.

"I don't…I want us to be together for as long as we have," she answered truthfully.

"You know I can't change you…"

"I don't care about that! I want…I want…" she tried finding the right words.

"We, you and I, we're a team now. We're in this together. I don't care that I'm not like you and you're not like me…what matters is this; I will always be here for you and I will never go away."

"Promise?" Carlisle asked like a child.

"I promise."