A/N: Standard disclaimer time. The characters aren't mine, just what they do in this story.

A/N #2: first and foremost, to my beta, rainpuddle13, for her unflagging support even when the block gets so bad I can't see around it.

Thanks also to everyone who's favorited/ put the story on alert.

Finally to the Hall of Awesome – thanks to everyone who left me a review for the last chapter, and past chapters as well. Your words feed the muse and mean so much to me; and at times you're the reason the story keeps getting written. I tried to respond personally to every one…I hope I got you all. So thanks again to the makers of my awesomesauce: gabby871, Manna1, Sheeijan, Melolabel, lynne0731, mmmgirl13, BabyBear08, Tais T, lola84, RosaBella75, avidreader69, solareclipses, and Prospice.

Chapter 10

I'd only ever seen that look on Bella's face once – in the memory Garrett had showed me from the day he found Bella.

Whatever had happened in this clearing, Bella was terrified.

It took no more than that thought to register and I was running flat out into the clearing towards her, the survivor forgotten, the body of the mauled camper forgotten.

All I knew was my nomad.

There was no indication that she'd seen us, no gasp from her or turn in our direction anyway. If her thoughts were in any way registering our appearance, they remained a mystery to me.

Thoughts or no, my path was clear. There was only one thing to be done in this situation – get to Bella as soon as possible. The rest, I figured, would come to me.

With this in mind, I took one huge leap when the tree was still ten feet away. I'd spent enough time jumping into and around trees in this forest that I had a better-than-average sense of timing and direction. I landed neatly right on the limb where Bella perched, huddled and trembling. I moved quickly to position myself between her and the survivor, breaking the eye lock.

"Bella?"

Her eyes stayed fixed on the spot, or maybe her body was just frozen in shock. Maybe both.

"Bella, love?"

The breeze carried her whisper. "Edward?"

"Yes, it's me," I said, relief in every cell of my being. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"G-girl. B-blood," she said on a stutter that reminded me very much of the first days she'd come into my life.

I didn't dare risk a look towards the scene below us; I was too afraid of Bella darting away from me. I listened with my mind instead.

"Yes, and Emmett and Jasper are taking care of her," I said in my most calming voice. My brother's thoughts behind me told me everything I needed to know; their discovery of the survivor, a young girl and their plans to get her away from here. I could also hear her thoughts, though the phrase she kept repeating made absolutely no sense to me – Not me too. Over and over she said it, like her mind was stuck on that one thought, unable to move on. Jasper was tossing around the word catatonic in his mind.

"Get her to Carlisle," I said over my shoulder before returning to my Bella.

"See, it's fine. They've got her and they'll take her away."

Bella was shaking her head. "Not. I didn't." She raised panicked eyes to mind and I was nearly knocked from my perch to find them black with thirst. "I didn't," she repeated.

"I know," I soothed. "It was a bear, you left the girl alone." I don't know how. Even after decades of abstinence we were all feeling the burn. Jasper felt it worse, of course. With his thoughts so focused on the young girl's panic, it wasn't as all-consuming as it could have been, though, I didn't relax until I heard Jasper and Emmett clear the meadow.

"I couldn't. I haven't."

Bella's voice brought my attention immediately back to her.

My hands took her cheeks, forcing her black eyes to mine. I didn't see the near-feral Bella I'd encountered when she first showed up in a thunderstorm I did wondered, however, if sometime in the last week apart, she'd lost her words again.

"It's all right. Relax, shhhh." I tried to calm her. I kept my arms open if she wanted to come into them.

To my everlasting joy, Bella moved towards me. Inch by painstaking inch until she'd crossed the distance entirely. "Th- the girl. Th-the man. Her father." Bella was trembling in my arms to the point the entire tree was starting to shake from it.

"He was her father," I repeated, my voice soft and steady against her ear. "How do you know that?"

"Heard her. Calling. Daddy."

She stopped speaking, her breath seemed to have caught in her throat. I ran my hand along her spine, trying to soothe her into sentences. "Its all right, you don't have to tell me everything now. Just relax, settle down a bit. Shall we walk a bit, maybe? Clear our heads?"

That's what I said. What I thought was Get away from all the blood. Spilled or no, it was still overwhelming.

"You're not...won't leave?"

I barely managed to not snort when she asked that. Leave? I wouldn't even if I could.

"No," I said evenly. I held her face in my hands to make sure she saw me, that there wasn't a drop of dishonesty on my face. "I won't leave you, Bella."

Bella considered that for a moment and then nodded. She extricated herself from my arms and dropped down to the forest floor. Her eyes raised at once, watching my every move, waiting for me to join her. I did a mere half-second later, landing right by her side. Taking her hand while we walked had become so ingrained in me it was now an automatic gesture. I didn't realize I'd even done it until we were a good hundred yards away from the grisly scene.

As Bella didn't seem to mind, I didn't release it and kept hold. After a week's absence, I needed this connection.

We walked for a long time in silence. Every now and then Bella's fingers would tighten on mine, frustrating me as I couldn't hear the reason behind it. Still, though, I remained silent. This was her trauma. I'd let her tell me about it in her own time. She was back, I could see her and touch her again, for those gifts I could wait a few minutes, or hours, for her to tell her story.

She stopped when we reached the cliffs edge of the forest. Fifty feet below us waves crashed against stone. It wasn't the more calming sound of waves on the beach. The cliff waves beneath us were more hearty, more violent, as if they were hell-bent on making their mark on the rock walls in their path.

I wondered if she was going to continue walking us down the cliffs, and was about to ask, when she turned to look up at me at last.

"Edward," she said, then took a deep breath. I was thankful the shudder I'd heard in her voice earlier was gone. Whatever else our walk had done, it calmed her considerably. "When I ran off," she started.

I stopped her with a shake of my head. "Bella, no. That's not important. You don't have to—" I didn't get to finish because her fingers were pressed to my lips.

"Now it's you turn to shhh, all right? Please, let me tell this my way?"

I nodded because I wasn't capable of denying her much. All right, I wasn't capable of denying her anything.

"When I left," she began again. "I think that was the lowest I've ever been. Lower than when I first woke up, terrified and alone. Worse than the loneliness I'd feel when I'd hear other nomads running together, laughing and talking. All I could think of was that I'd disappointed you. The thought ate at me."

It took everything I had to keep my promise and not break in to reassure her that she hadn't.

"As I ran, I thought about you, your comfort and your arms and how safe I felt there. It was the only thing that kept me going – I was able to draw on it, Edward. To remember how it felt, being with you, even in those first days when I was still…well, when I wasn't quite me yet. Then I remembered something else. Something from my transformation; I remembered wishing someone was there with me, someone whom I'd always trusted to take the pain away."

She stopped and looked up at me. "I remembered my father."

My hands clutched her a little tighter. From my initial research into Bella's human life before she'd disappeared, that was a constant. Bella had come back into her father's life late, sent here by her mother – a flighty woman from what I'd heard in the other residents' thoughts. It hadn't seemed to matter at all how old she'd been when she arrived. From everything I'd heard, Charlie and Bella's relationship had been a close one. If I'd had any doubt about that, I merely had to look at the way he was now...

My eyes flew to Bella's. "My God, tell me you didn't try to see him..." We'd have heard, wouldn't we? If the Chief of Police had reported seeing his long-disappeared daughter?

Her own eyes widened at my reaction, her head shaking. "No, nothing like that. I just remembered him, Edward. Little bits and pieces, words he'd say. So I went in closer to Forks, stayed in the tree line, and watched him. I might not have any memories of him, but it didn't look right. His face was so long, drawn. So sad. And the way he walks. All hunched over?"

She seemed to be asking me rather than telling me, so I answered as best I could. "We didn't come here until after you disappeared, so I don't know for certain. As far as I know, all of that is relatively recent." Like since he had to admit you were gone and weren't ever coming back.

Bella nodded, as if she could hear my thoughts; mostly likely, though, I had just confirmed her suspicions. "Then today, I was running...and I heard her in the woods," she began after a moment, "the girl. Then I heard the bear. She was calling out 'Daddy' and the bear was growling. I was well away from them, but the sounds were still agonizing. I couldn't take it, couldn't listen anymore. I couldn't stand by and do nothing. So I ran towards them, fast as I could. It…it wasn't fast enough. I heard her scream when the bear attacked, it was more…like she was crying and screaming at the same time. I heard him, too, the father? Telling her to get down, hide, play dead and not move. Then. Then he didn't say anything else."

I nodded as she spoke. The father had very possibly saved the girl's life with that information.

"When I got there, it was clear I was too late for him, for her father. The smell," she paused and shuddered, "it was everywhere by then. I could hear her heartbeat, too," another shudder. "It was fast, too fast. The adrenaline made it even worse, and I was so thirsty. But I couldn't. He was...he was her father. She...she was alone. I thought maybe…maybe…I could even the balance? My father lost a daughter, maybe I could save one?"

I could see it then, the Bella that had tried to reconnect with her past. She had found a reflection of her human life in the campers. My hand squeezed hers gently, my heart lifting in hope. And, at the very edges of that hope, I felt a ray of optimism. Was Bella no longer seeing humans as food?

"What did you do then?"

"By the time I broke through into the clearing, the father was already gone even though the bear was still at him, or maybe he smelled the girl, too. I tried to scare him off, ran straight to him and knocked him off the body. We tussled and he swiped at me a few times. He only got close once, managed to knock me down. I got right up and hit him back. He didn't like it. He growled at me but I didn't flinch, I just moved in closer, yelling right back at him. He was rearing up to growl again, so I jumped straight into the tree. I thought if I could get onto his back or something, I could get him out of there. He must've decided it wasn't worth it or something, because he ran off.

"Then it was just me and the girl in that clearing and I wanted... she looked so scared, Edward. Our eyes met, me in the tree, her on the ground, and I was so afraid I'd give in and feed, my body was shaking from it. I was petrified, so was she. I don't know how long we stayed like that; it seemed close to an eternity. That's when you and your brothers arrived and...and here we are."

I smiled and reached over to touch her cheek; rewarded when she leaned into it. "You did it, then. You balanced the scales back." My thumb brushed over the apple of her cheek. "Makes me very proud of you, Bella."

I could see a smile turning the corners of her lips even though her eyes were on her feet.

"One thing I don't understand, though," I asked. "You said you were thirsty. Why?"

Her eyes cast downwards. "I haven't eaten since…"

I knew what she'd been about to say. That she hadn't eaten since the camper near the cliffs when she'd run away from me the first time.

"Every time I tried I'd see your disappointment, Jake's anger, my father's worry. And I couldn't. Being around you, your family, I've stopped seeing them, humans, as food. I see the girl I used to be. I see my father."

I turned towards her. I brushed the hair from her face, tucking the tendrils behind her ear. I was heartened that my supposition was correct, that Bella's perception of people had changed. It opened up a new worry, though. My fingertips touched at the circles beneath her eyes. I didn't ask if she'd been able to hunt animals because the answer was in her black eyes.

"Bella," I sighed. "You can't do this, starve yourself like this…"

I broke off when Bella went rigid beside me.

"C-can we please talk about something else? Please, just until I forget…the smell back there? Because it's still, it's like I can still…and the burn it's so," she stopped again and this time she sniffed the air. "…oh God."

Bella was up like a shot. In the next second, she was off and running.

There was only one thing that would have Bella running flat out like that.

Blood.

Without pause I was up and after her, running fast as I could to close the distance. Branches and twigs broke from the impact against my face and body; I barely noticed. I was focused ahead with all of my being, trying to hear Bella. I was trying to figure out her path and cut it off before she could gain too much distance; to hear whichever human had spurred her this time; to pray to a God that had no doubt long since abandoned us to get me to her in time.

My mind was so busy inward with plans and worst-case scenarios that I lost track of the here and now...and nearly tripped over Bella when I finally caught up with her.

The sight that greeted me was so unexpected, my mind didn't accept it.

Bella was on the ground with a now-still elk under her lips.

Elk.

Not human.

Enhanced as my vampire mind was, this information took forever for me to process.

Not human. Elk.

My brain didn't reboot itself out of the loop until Bella looked up at me. She'd shoved the dead animal's carcass away. Her eyes had lost the black and, while not golden, the red was not as deep, not as prominent. They were a deep orange, the color of sunset on a clear day.

"Edward?" She said softly, pulling me from my reverie.

"Bella," I replied on a breath. I tried to rehinge my jaw.

"I did it," she said, her smile widening at her success.

"You did," I agreed. I wondered idly if I'd ever be able to form more than one or two word sentences again.

Then she launched herself at me, up and off the forest floor and straight into my arms. The force of her impact was so unanticipated, I was caught unprepared and fell backwards under her. Our bodies hit the ground with a thud that must have caused a tremor to register somewhere. Neither of us cared a damn.

We were laughing, both of us, deep laughs that shook our whole bodies and caused wide smiles to stay plastered to our faces.

Our celebration went of for quite some time. Both of us laughing and hugging, we repeated the assurances that she had done it to each other whenever we had breath to speak. I couldn't remember a time joy had filled me so completely; had spread through every inch of my body. I didn't think anything ever had; I suspected nothing ever would.

When the laughter subsided we were still embraced, laying on the forest floor with Bella across my chest. Her legs were bent, knees straddling my hips. There was nothing romantic, or even sexual about our position. It was more a horizontal hug than anything else. I looked up into her eyes and reached up a finger to touch the corner of one.

"Are you still thirsty?"

"Not oppressively so, no..." She broke off eye contact with me and looked around. "I want to make sure."

"Make sure?" I quirked a brow at her.

"That this wasn't a fluke, because I was so thirsty" she said on lowered lashes. "That this isn't a premature celebration."

I nodded, understanding. She wanted to make sure she could do it again on purpose this time.

Slowly, we extricated ourselves from each other and I brushed the brambles and leaves from our clothes and hair. "It will take us a while to run back to Rainier," I said, mind already plotting the best route from here.

"Rainier? Why so far away?"

"Because the odds of finding a carnivore here are so much more rare. They do wander in from time to time, but that's the exception, not the rule."

Bella shook her head. "No, Edward. I'm going to hunt here, right here. With whatever we find here."

"It would be easier..."

She took another step forward and pressed her fingers to my lips. "No," she repeated, "I don't want easy. I want what I'd be hunting if I..."

"If you..?" I prompted.

"If I stayed," she said as her eyes fixed on mine.

It took no more than a second for that to process through my mind. If she stayed. With us...with me.

That joy I thought I'd never feel the equal of just moments before? I'd been wrong. This feeling surpassed that one in spades. Even though I knew my stone body to be fixed firmly on the ground, knew my long-dead heart to be incapable of motion; that knowledge ceased to matter. All that mattered was what I felt – and I felt like I was flying.

Feeling lighter than I in days, even weeks, I turned towards the forest, Bella's hand in mine, and started searching for prey.

It didn't take us long. The lush greenery of the Olympic Peninsula meant it was the perfect environment for herbivores like elk and deer. They thrived here amidst the abundant food supply, which, in turn, made it a haven for hunters as well.

All types of hunters. Even those whose weapons of choice were teeth rather than guns.

We found a small herd of mule deer a few miles from the cliff face. Some drank from the small brook running through the clearing; others fed on the tall grasses and flowers that grew in the occasional sunshine that the meadow provided.

"Bella?" I asked when she went silent and still next to me.

She didn't respond save a tiny shake of her head.

I abided her wishes and dropped her hand. I stepped to the side, wishing for at least the hundredth time that I could see, just once, inside her mind. Instead, I was forced to watch, and wait, as Bella stood statue still next to me. I could see nothing on her blank face, just her small, pink tongue darting out to moisten glass-smooth lips.

Dread formed a pit in my stomach the longer she stayed motionless beside me. With every ticking second she didn't spring on the idle deer, I felt again the fear that Bella wasn't capable of adapting to this life; not without starving herself.

Again, I had to ask myself. Did I want that for her? Was I selfish enough to want to save myself the agony of living without her that I'd force her to keep herself on the brink of starvation in order to survive?

I knew I wasn't. I knew I'd never be able to endure her suffering in any way. I'd just have to—

-to watch as she tore off from my side like she'd been shot from a cannon.

I was too stunned to move. All I could do was watch as Bella ripped into the clearing and straight at the big buck by the brook. Her lips were fastened on his throat before he knew what hit him, and they both went down in a thud that scattered the other deer into the brush.

I stayed where I was until I saw the buck stop moving, knowing his death had come quickly as she'd drunk deep from his throat. When I saw the voracity of her feeding start to ebb, I walked towards her on feet that felt almost winged and a mind whirring with half-formed hopes for the future.

She looked up when she saw me approach. The elation inside of me was mirrored in her eyes, still sunset orange.

Her expression said, I did it.

Mine responded, I always knew you could.

We stood frozen, both of us, as our eyes caught and connected. It felt like the world around us stopped moving. There was nothing in that moment, just Bella and me. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to get up and walk towards me.

It was perfectly normal for her to step right into my arms.

And when our lips came together in a kiss, the fireworks that exploded inside me were, for the first time, eclipsed by a different sensation. One I hadn't felt in decades, since the day my adolescent rebellion ended.

I felt like I was coming home.

The kiss stayed that way, slow and sweet, while we both relished the homecoming of lips and tongues intertwined again in a seductive dance. Her taste flooded my senses, as did her scent; the feel of her body against mine was a delicious torment.

Slow and sweet didn't last long, however. Soft kisses took a harder edge. My hands, which had come up to frame her face, slipped into her hair, holding her mouth to mine. Her hands had been at my waist. Lost in the haze of her kiss, I hadn't felt her pull my shirt free; hadn't noticed until I felt her hands splayed against my back, fingernails running over the diamond-hard skin.

I broke my lips from hers, dragging them along her jaw to her ear. My teeth grazed the skin, nipped at her earlobe. My breath was soft, my voice husky against her ear when I spoke her name.

She responded with a low moan and her head dropped back to give my lips free access to her throat. A second later, my shirt was shredded to rags under her deft fingers.

I was by no means a stranger to intimacy, but the needs starting to bubble just under the surface of my skin were. I'd never felt this overcome with it before. I'd felt lust, yes, but not desire. My body was starting to tremble under the onslaught of her fingers on my skin. Short nails grazed the ridges and valleys of muscles long since frozen in time. I swore I could almost feel them quivering beneath her attentions.

I wanted more. Being touched wasn't enough, I wanted, needed, to touch in return.

"Bella," I sighed again, this time my breath caressed the juncture of throat and shoulder, moving her shirt away from her skin as I kissed my way downwards.

"Yes," she answered my unspoken question.

Within a drum beat, her shirt ended in the same condition as mine – rags littering the forest floor. I pulled away to look my fill, eyes roving over her beautiful body, the full curves that waited for my touch. I don't know why I was surprised to find no bra beneath the shirt, and the lack of it stole my breath.

"So beautiful, my Bella. So beautiful."

My lips continued their path along shoulder and collarbone as my flattened hand moved its way up from hip to belly to ribcage. It didn't stop until the full weight of her breast rested in my palm. She gasped, I moaned. Fingers and thumb searched out the distended nipple pressing into my palm. Slowly, I rolled the bud between them, eliciting more moans from deep in Bella's throat.

I felt her body bow against me, back arching in what I could only interpret as a move to get closer to me. It was my turn to moan when her belly pressed against the raging erection I'd had since the moment she'd ripped the shirt off me.

I didn't know what I expected when she felt my reaction to her, but it certainly wasn't for her to moan again and shift her body against mine – creating the most delicious friction and a surge in my already painful cock.

Not one to take torture without dishing out a bit of my own, I took the only route open to me. I slowly lowered myself until my lips were inches from one darkened nipple. My tongue darted out to flick the sensitive bud, moistening it, then I blew softly against the wet skin, causing the nipple to pucker even further. I counted a beat, one, two, three seconds, then closed the gap and took her breast straight into my mouth.

This time I didn't know which of us moaned; nor did I care.

I continued to torment the sensitive skin of her breasts, my mouth moving from one to the other so that neither felt neglect. Bella arched and retreated against the assault, her hands continuing to roam over my back and shoulders, stomach and hips, fingers digging into and tugging at my hair.

I was so lost in her, tastes and sounds and feelings, that I didn't notice her lowering us to the forest floor. Not until I felt her nimble fingers at the fine trail of hair leading from my navel. My muscles wanted to quiver under her touch, and instinct had me tightening them. Bella took advantage of the gap that created between skin and denim and slipped her clever fingers inside.

She didn't stop until she had my cock wrapped in her firm grip.

"Oh fuck," I hissed when she held me at last. It was all I could do to not buck straight into her hand, took every ounce of my strength to keep from scaring her off with my over exuberance.

"Does that feel good?" she asked. I was almost surprised when I heard a vague teasing in her voice.

I dragged my eyes open and saw the smug smile on her face.

"You know it does," I answered, dipping my head down to kiss her fiercely.

"Edward," she managed when I broke my lips away from hers again. "I want..." Her hand moved slowly along my cock, one agonizingly slow stroke.

"What do you want?" I asked through gritted teeth.

She waited until our eyes met and held. "I want you. All of you." She gave me another stroke as if to emphasize the point.

No emphasis was needed.

I shuddered into her hand, groaned into her mouth, and was lost to her entirely.

My movements weren't practiced or suave. In fact, I was fairly certain I looked more like a horny teenager than I had even when I'd been one nearly a century before. My fingers fumbled and failed with the buttons on her jeans, and on mine, until I finally gave up on a roar and ripped both sets of jeans to ribbons on a string of curses.

I knew in any other situation, Bella would have laughed at my haste. Not today, not now. She was as caught up as I was, our eyes fixed on each others bodies, our hands clenching in haste to touch.

Then finally, thank God, we were both divested of every barrier between us.

"Beautiful."

I lowered myself down, covering her body with mine. My cock slid just between her legs, resting in the warmth at the juncture of hips and thighs. I could feel her body's moisture against my sensitive flesh, feel the pulsing of her body as it waited for mine.

"Bella," I breathed. My hand skimmed down her side, along the curve of her hip. I slipped it between us to the wet folds harboring the nirvana of her body. One long finger slipped inside her, I had to be sure her body was ready. I should have known she would be. I groaned when her wetness coated my fingers. My cock surged again in a silent plea.

Beneath me, Bella whimpered and her hips bucked upwards. The friction against my cock was almost my undoing.

"Please, Edward," Bella keened into my ear.

I'd never been able to deny her before and this moment was no exception. Within a second I had replaced my finger with my cock, slipping slowly inside her, inch by torturous inch.

Oh God.

I don't know if I said it, or thought it, or both. I didn't care. There were words, I was sure, for the completion I felt when finally joined in every way with my Bella. In that moment when our bodies fit together like yin and yang, however, none of them came to mind. It just was. Is. Was. Us.

Perfect.

I stilled my body when I was buried to the hilt within her welcoming heat. I wanted to give her time to accommodate, to stretch itself around me. I should have known Bella wouldn't let that stand. Her legs raised almost at once, wrapping themselves around me and pulling me deeper. Her hips bucked upwards once, twice, as if begging me to move.

Again, I couldn't deny her.

With my elbows braced on the forest floor, I raised up just slightly, stopping when the tips of her breasts were just brushing my chest. I shifted just enough to let the friction of my chest bring her nipples to peak, then started my hips moving. Every thrust increased that friction, inside and outside, until Bella was writhing and whimpering beneath me.

My moans mingled with hers, breaking only when I couldn't help myself from stealing hers with deep kisses and nips to her lower lip and earlobe. Over and over my hips crashed against hers, deeper and harder at every screamed command for more that tumbled from Bella's lips. The pleasure building inside of us both until we were nearly blind from it.

I felt the tightening in my lower back and knew release was only moments away. I slipped my hand between our bodies again, never breaking the rhythm of my hips as they pounded my cock into her. I managed to find the little nub of nerves between thrusts and flicked my fingertip against it.

"OhGOD," Bella screamed at the first touch. I felt the answering spasm of inner muscles against my cock and continued. Over and over my fingers pressed against her clit, each touch in counter point to the thrusts within her until her pleasure centers were overloaded with the relentless assault.

I felt her orgasm a second before she tensed and arched against me, screaming my name until it echoed off the trees above us. My hips continued to pump into her until I was certain she was spent. I was holding on by my fingernails when I felt her body relax beneath me. I went rigid above her and pressed my hips deep, spilling inside her on an orgasm so intense I nearly grayed out from the force of it.

With my body still trembling from the extremity of my release, I collapsed next to Bella and rolled us, not stopping until she was sprawled across my chest, her cheek against my silent heart and her words falling lightly into my ear.

"I love you."

Nat King Cole said it best:

At...last...