I became uneasy on my way home from Mom's. I had tried to set aside both the situation back in Forks, and the thought that it might be the last time Mom and I saw each other. I couldn't keep thinking this might be the last time I hear my mother's voice, or the last time I talk to Phil, or the last time I eat a real enchilada, or I'd drive myself crazy. I tried to focus on just being with Mom.

Once the visit was over, I was free to start worrying again. Edward received a phone call as we were sitting in the plane, waiting for takeoff. I felt him become alert as he listened. "When?" he asked sharply, then, "How close did she get?" He listened intently for a moment. "They're about to ask us to shut down our phones for the flight. I'll see you all in a few hours." He listened again for a moment, said goodbye and turned his cell off. He took my hand and sat back, staring at the control buttons over his seat.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. The family send their love."

"That's nice, but that is not why they called."

He sighed. "No, it's not."

I waited impatiently while the flight attendant stopped to ask us to turn off electronic devices and fasten our seat belts. She seemed to linger a bit longer than necessary at Edward's seat, and I resisted the impulse to give her a death glare. Edward noticed my irritation, raised my hand and kissed it.

"I wonder if I'll ever become reconciled to women falling all over you."

"I just wish you could understand how little their attention means to me. How completely insipid and uninteresting they are compared to you." He turned to me, his expression surprisingly intense. "I would love, just once, to see that knowledge in your eyes. To know you see yourself the way I see you. I wish I could make you see it. 'I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees'."

I reminded myself to breathe. "That sounds like a quote."

He nodded, kissing my hand once more. "Pablo Neruda."

I leaned my head against his shoulder as the plane began to taxi down the runway and the flight attendants began to explain the emergency landing equipment. "Distracting me will only work for so long, you know."

"I know. And it wasn't only a distraction." He pressed his lips to the top of my head.

"What happened?"

"Victoria made her appearance as expected. She got away."

"I'm sure there's more."

"Alice saw her - foresaw her, that is - heading for your father's house."

I gasped, horrified. "Charlie?"

"He's fine. She didn't actually approach the house."

"Maybe that was because everyone was nearby."

"It's very possible."

"Is she after Charlie now? Why?"

"I think it's more complicated than that. Alice continues to find it very difficult to track Victoria. Her intentions seem to change constantly. The family thinks she's still trying to elude Alice's vision."

"And it's working."

He put an arm around me. "We're going to talk about it when I get home. Jasper wants to rethink our strategy." He pulled me closer. "Charlie will be safe, love, and so will you. Victoria can't enter Forks, or approach your house, without ultimately deciding to do it. However long she avoids the decision, eventually it will be made, and Alice will see it. We'll be on our guard until then. She will not get past us."

I nodded, and we talked about other things until the plane landed.

Edward drove me home, carried my bag to the front door, gave Charlie a polite greeting, and left. I joined Charlie at the kitchen table, where he was reading the newspaper.

"Did you have dinner?" I asked.

"Yeah. Esme's leftovers lasted me through Friday and Saturday, and then today I ate at the Clearwaters'." So Sue was cooking for him now? I decided not to comment on that.

"That's good. I'll get groceries tomorrow after school."

"Thanks. Your mother called me a little while ago. She said the visit was good."

"Yeah, I had a nice time."

"She was okay with Edward being there?"

"Sure. Mom likes Edward."

"Yeah, I know. Well. He's a good guy, I guess. All in all."

Not exactly effusive, but since that was the nicest thing Charlie had ever said about Edward, I wasn't going to nitpick. "How's work?"

"Pretty quiet here, but I'm a little worried that the situation in Seattle will start moving this way."

"That's still going on?"

"Oh, yeah." He showed me the paper, pointing out an article on the front page. Two more unexplained disappearances. "The police there are stumped. It's got to be the same person, or at least the same gang, but the events have almost nothing in common. No ransom demands on any of them. And there's never any witnesses, no trace evidence, suspicious phone records, nothing. They're calling on every police force in the state to share information on similar crimes, or just pass on any bright ideas they might have." He shook his head in disgust. "Big cities! Don't you dare set foot in Seattle, not until this is resolved."

"I won't." Although Forks was probably far more dangerous to me than Seattle ever could be.

He changed the subject, and we talked for a while about household matters, and how Sue Clearwater and her kids were doing, and whether I needed to take my truck in for a tune-up and oil change. It was a very relaxing conversation until he mentioned my upcoming graduation, and my plans to attend Dartmouth next year. It was tricky to keep Charlie convinced I had my tuition and expenses paid in full by scholarships and grants, without going into too much detail.

Although I assumed my acceptance to Dartmouth had been purchased through donations or outright bribes by the Cullens, I didn't fight it. It wasn't as if I'd be in any condition to attend classes at that point.

"I'm proud of you, Bells. It took a lot of hard work to get the grades you did. Especially when you were also working part time, and taking care of me and the house."

"You're no trouble." He gave me a skeptical look, and I laughed. "I've got a little homework I didn't get a chance to finish. Good night, Dad."

I ran upstairs, showered and changed, and sat down at the computer desk with my biology textbook. Final exams were coming up, and I was feeling the pressure, especially after missing a weekend's worth of studying. I worked doggedly through the material for an hour or so, moved on to History, paused briefly as Charlie looked in and said goodnight, finished my English homework, and finally decided to take a break. I looked through the CDs I'd left scattered on top of my dresser, and noticed the two I'd borrowed from Edward. I hadn't got around to playing them. I placed one into my portable player, put on the earphones, and stretched out on the bed to listen.

It was kind of fascinating. Some of the tracks were recordings of live performances. One I was able to recognize as Louis Armstrong. Another was identified by an emcee as a group called the Val Dormand Quintet. The rest were unknown to me. There was certainly a great deal of variety: jazz, rock 'n' roll, some classical guitar. I wondered how Edward had selected these pieces, and pictured him covertly recording live performances.

I felt a faint breeze against my face, and looked up to find Edward standing beside the bed, smiling. "What do you think?"

I grinned up at him. "Did you really smuggle a tape recorder into a nightclub in 1955?"

He laughed. "I did."

"Weren't they the size of a shopping cart in those days?"

"As a matter of fact, the first miniature recording devices came on the market in the 1950's. They were still too expensive to be in common use, and nightclub staff didn't do routine searches."

"So this is a bootleg recording of Louis Armstrong."

"That's right." He sat down on the bed beside me. "Do you recognize any of the other performers?"

"None."

"The guitarist is Segovia."

"Oh!" Him, I'd heard of. "You've heard him play? In person, I mean?"

"Many times, but I didn't tape this one myself. It's from a recording he made with the BBC. I used forged ID to pose as a newspaper columnist from Germany, and got into the studio to observe. I saved this particular track because it wasn't included on the album."

"You obtained this one semi-legally, too, I assume?"

"I'm afraid so. And I used the same technique to obtain the Glenn Gould recording." He watched my face. "What are you thinking?"

I ejected the disc. "You've had this long, amazing life that I don't know more than a tiny fraction of. I haven't done anything."

"I can understand why you might see it that way, but I don't. My entire existence seems like nothing but prologue to meeting you." He kissed me softly. "And exactly what would you expect to have done, by the ripe old age of eighteen? Most of your life is ahead of you." His expression darkened. I knew very well what was in his mind.

"Don't start that again. My life won't end when I become like you. It will change, that's all." I set my CD player aside and curled up against his chest. He placed gentle kisses along my hairline.

"A lot of it will end if you become like me. I'm not technically alive, not according to the usual criteria."

"That's because the criteria are based on incomplete information," I told him crisply. I felt him smile against my temple. "And you seem very alive to me."

"You make me feel very much alive," he murmured, "and very human."

I turned my face to meet his lips, kissed him until I needed to pause for breath. He moved his mouth to my neck, his hands roving experimentally, gently touching my upper arm, my shoulder blades, the small of my back, then moving away before the touch could become a real caress. It was both pleasant and frustrating: I wanted his hands to stop moving on. I copied his movements with my own hands on his arms, his back, but without abbreviating the contact. A moment later, he moved away from me with a sigh.

I lay back, catching my breath, while he sat up against the headboard and stared out the window for a few minutes. I got up and gathered my schoolbooks together, just for something to occupy my hands.

"You've been studying?" he asked.

"Several hours' worth," I said. "Finals are coming up." Suddenly my eyes popped open. "Holy crap! I completely forgot!"

"Forgot what?"

I jumped back onto the bed beside him. "You were having a meeting. On what happened with Victoria over the weekend, and what to do about it."

"Yes. I was going to fill you in."

"I can't believe I forgot about it."

"You must have had something else on your mind," he said, smirking.

I blushed. "Tell me."

"There isn't that much to tell. Victoria showed up, moved through the area with no obvious goal beyond evading us, and left. As I mentioned, she had some intention of approaching this house, but either changed her mind, or was put off by our being nearby.
"We managed to get close at one point, almost close enough to capture her, but she crossed the boundary line onto Quileute land at that point. Some of the werewolves took up the pursuit. Most of them, unfortunately, stayed behind to confront us. They felt Emmett had come too close to the boundary. When they became threatening to him, Rosalie got involved in the argument."

I narrowed my eyes at him. '"Are you redacting this part for my sake?"

"Perhaps a little," he admitted. "Jasper was able to calm all parties, so an actual fight was avoided. In the meantime, unfortunately, Victoria managed to elude the few who went after her."

"Ugh! You'd think they wanted her to get away!"

"I don't suspect that for a moment; but their priorities are somewhat different from ours."

"I think their priorities need some adjustment." I was furious. A homicidal maniac was stalking us, and those half-canine lunatics were worrying about property lines? "Was Alice able to see anything new?"

"Very little, and what she does see is confused and inconsistent. She's very upset with herself."

"It's not her fault."

"No. Victoria seems to have found a way to manipulate Alice's gift. The fact that contact with the werewolves creates blank areas doesn't help."

"Poor Alice. She must be going crazy."

"She's very demoralized by the situation."

I thought through what he'd told me. "Is there anything I can do?"

He sighed. "Unfortunately, there is." I laughed. "The family would like you to try once more."

"Try to speak with them? With Jacob?"

"That's right. It is probably useless, but Carlisle wants to approach them again. He thinks you have a chance of convincing them to work together. Of course, it is entirely your choice."

"Of course, I'll speak to them. It can't hurt to try."

"Let's hope not," he murmured.

I curled up next to him on the bed, as ready to sleep as I was going to be.