As the word slipped out of my mouth, I told myself I wasn't agreeing to be his mate, but instead just allowing him to stay with me. Part of me suspected it was a lie I was telling myself, embarrassed at how close I'd come to changing my mind after just one kiss, but part of me was still apprehensive. I hadn't been lying when I'd told him I didn't want to be anyone's mate. Sex was for making babies, which meant years of drudgery, and in my mother's case, death. I'd grown up haunted by a fear that the same thing would happen to me, and choosing a partner who was a million times stronger than me, and wanted to eat me, wouldn't exactly improve my chances.

"Okay," I repeated. "You can stay." I couldn't commit to more than that.

He wrapped his arms around me and held me to him, not too tightly. "Thank you," he whispered into my hair, his tone amused again, like he already knew he could.

I let it go, though. Something about him told me I've have to learn to pick my battles and every amused tone of voice wasn't worth hassling over.

"Now, let's get you packed up."

"What?"

"You can't stay out here. It isn't safe."

How quickly he'd proven me right. I would have to pick my battles, and this was definitely one of them. "I'm not going anywhere!"

"Obviously you are. I can get you there faster. When you ran away from Forks, where were you going? That's all I want to know."

"Oh." I felt myself relax again. "I didn't really have a plan. I was hoping to get to Seattle, I guess."

"And what were you going to do when you got there?"

"I don't know." I hadn't thought that far ahead, but now I realized how difficult it would be for me in the city. I wouldn't be able to identify myself to anyone without them being able to check my status, and they'd find out immediately that I was a runaway. "Hide, I guess."

He was silent for a minute. "Have you been there before?"

"No, never."

He released me and moved back toward the fire. It was obvious that he didn't like the idea, but what else was I supposed to do?

"What's wrong with Seattle?"

"Two things. First, there's nothing there for me to eat except pigeons and rats."

"Gross."

"Exactly. I don't like eating people's pets, so cats and dogs are out of the question, and the zoo – all the animals there are endangered now. It wouldn't be right."

"No, I guess not." I joined him at the fire and sat down across from him.

"You can sit next to me."

"I thought it bothered you."

"It did at first, but I'm already much more comfortable with your scent. In fact, I miss it. Come here." He patted the space next to him.

"Bossy," I said under my breath, but I got up and moved next to him.

He chuckled. "Sorry. I'll try not to be."

I'd missed his scent, too. "What's the second reason?"

"It's been about twenty-five years since I've been there, but it was like a police state with cameras on every corner. I was even stopped once and asked for my ID."

"You were?"

He nodded. "I don't think either us could hide there very well."

"I had no idea. I thought that was just Forks."

"No, it's everywhere. Every city, every town. There's almost nowhere left for people like me. Vampires, I mean." He stared into the fire. "For years we lived on the fringes, then gave up and moved away from people altogether. But there just aren't that many animals left any more."

"There aren't?"

He shook his head. "The country's changed so much in the last few decades. Once all the parks were sold to developers and miners, the animals began to disappear. Alaska's still pretty good, though. Lots of moose."

"What about your brothers and sisters? How are they surviving in Maine and Texas?"

"Rose and Emmett are close to the Canadian border, and they do most of their hunting up there. Alice couldn't bear to leave civilization." He glanced at me. "You don't have a shoe fetish, do you?"

"I don't even know what that is."

"Good," he chuckled, continuing. "She and Jasper live near a giant beef farm. They help themselves to the occasional steer."

"Are there a lot of vampires?" I was beginning to feel sorry for them. As much as I'd hated certain aspects of my upbringing, I'd never had to worry about my next meal.

"More than you'd think. A lot of us have left the country, though, and moved to places that don't require ID to walk down the street."

"And most of you only eat animals?"

"No, the opposite. My family and I are in the minority. Most vampires prefer human blood."

"So those old stories were true."

He looked at me again. "Probably. We're not put off by garlic or crucifixes, and we don't turn into bats or sleep in coffins, but we do exist."

"And you drink blood."

"Everybody has to drink something."

I laughed a little, but his face grew more serious. "That's another reason you can't stay out here. The vampires who prefer human blood, they're getting more desperate, too. It's harder for them to hunt in cities."

"But that's where all the people are."

"Not all. One advantage – for them – in opening up the parks to development is that there are more people out here working."

"Charlie." My heart sank.

"Who?"

"My dad. He works at the sawmill now."

"Outdoors or in?"

"In. He's too old to go out and harvest the trees. His job is to run them through the machines at the mill."

"He should be okay, then."

We were silent for a minute. "So I can't stay out here, and I can't go to Seattle." I looked up at him to see if I was understanding him correctly. "And neither can you, because there's nothing for you eat in either place."

He didn't answer, but nodded in agreement, his frown deepening.

"Well, I'm not going back to Forks."

His expression changed. "Is there still that big dairy farm just south of Forks?"

"Norris' place? Yeah, that's still there."

He rose and in another blur of motion, brought enough potfuls of water from the river to extinguish the fire. "Then I'm sorry to tell you this, Swan, but we are indeed going back to Forks."

"Are you hard of hearing? And not just of my thoughts? I believe I said very clearly, in English, that I'm not going back."

"I don't mean Forks itself." He was rolling up my tarps. "Esme's cabin, if it's still there, will be perfect."

"Esme's cabin?"

"I know people are living in our old house, or I'd take you there. But surely no one's found the cabin. It's far too secluded." He was tossing things in my pack. "I'd have brought you a can opener, too, but the gas station didn't have any. I'll have to get you some better food, anyway."

I was having trouble keeping up with his thought patterns; he seemed to think as quickly as he ran.

"Edward, stop." I pulled on his arm and he turned to me just as he was zipping up the last of my things. "This is happening too fast. I just met you, and now you want to take me to a cabin somewhere secluded. I don't know if I want to go."

He stood and looked down at me, his expression one of disappointment. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"How do you know that? How can I know that?"

"Touch me again."

"Where?"

"Anywhere." He held out his arm and pushed up his sleeve. I put my hand on his forearm and he slipped his around my elbow. "I don't want to eat you any more. In just the few hours we've been talking, something's changed. Now all I want to do is protect you, to make sure that no one ever hurts you, including me."

"I don't need a protector." Something had changed for me, as well. I realized that while we'd been talking I'd gone from not understanding a thing about his behavior to actually being able to pick up on his moods, as if I could read his emotions. Right now he was feeling concern, dismay, and something else I wasn't sure about. I looked down at our arms, and felt something else. It was like a flow of energy, not electric – not sparks, but a flow just the same.

"If you don't like the cabin, we don't have to stay there. But will you come look at it first before you decide?"

"If I don't like it, I don't have to stay." I wanted to make sure we were agreed on the terms.

"I promise," he smiled, his third emotion suddenly becoming more clear. Affection, that was it. He did like me. He liked me a lot. I couldn't help but smile back at him and I nodded my agreement.

A/N: I almost ended that chapter with another 'okay' - how redundant of me ;).

A couple of reviewers wondered if this story really qualifies as Humor, and I guess I'm not sure if it does, to be honest. I'd just finished a chapter that I thought was funny when I decided to start posting, so that's why I made that selection. The beginning of the story is definitely not amusing, though. Today I figured out how it's going to end, and when I get there I'll decide if it needs to be reclassified or not. Feel free to let me know your opinions!

has changed its alert system - when someone 'follows' the story I get an email saying 'you are being followed.' Paranoid writers, be warned.

Okay, then, off to Esme's cabin ...

- kts