Note: There was a bit of a wait for this chapter since I posted the last one early. Luckily this is a nice long one, so hopefully its length will serve as sufficient compensation for the wait. I spent a while playing with the confrontation scene: reading, tweaking and re-reading. Thoughts on it are welcome.


XII.

My conversation with Isobel was giving me a little sympathy for Tyler. A very little.

Perhaps "conversation" was a misnomer. It wasn't much of a conversation - Isobel was saying what she wanted to say, and I was doing an excellent impression of an inarticulate moron. I had been nervous enough just walking down the hall with her. Getting pulled into this alcove was worse. She was standing so close that I hardly dared to breathe - maybe that was why I was letting her list for me the oddities she had noticed about my family. Maybe I realized that I needed to know. Maybe I was just stunned by how observant she was. Maybe...I was fascinated by finally, finally getting to hear some of her thoughts.

"Whatever you are," she finished, "it's clearly good. So, um, I guess what I'm saying is - I won't bother you."

"You won't?" I repeated, feeling much, much duller than I was accustomed to feeling around any human, ever.

Bother me? Did she think she bothered me?

The rest of her statement registered. "Good?" I repeated with equal disbelief.

Her chin jerked up in a sharp, certain nod. "After what you did for me, privacy is the least I can offer you, right?" she asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but I wanted to answer it. No, I wanted to say, privacy is the last thing I want from you. Or perhaps: Yes, it is literally the least you can offer me.

I was too shocked to pay attention to my expression. Whatever Isobel saw in it, it made her suddenly grab my hand. Even in my stupor I could have dodged her - I almost did, instinctively - but I would have had to move faster than a human could and so I let her touch me. "Thank you," she said with fervent gratitude.

I snatched my hand from hers in a much more natural-seeming way - my flesh had to feel cold to her, like the dead thing I nearly was. She hadn't reacted, but she had already noticed too much about us without looking as though she was noticing anything. I had no doubt that she would quietly take note of this, as well.

"Don't thank me," I muttered, torn between embarrassment and despair. "I didn't do it for your gratitude."

I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. They could be taken in so many wrong ways, even though I only meant that her life was so important to me that saving it was no more than selfishness. Isobel didn't look hurt or angry, though. She blinked once and gave a little nod. "Even so," she told me with a shrug, her eyes meeting mine fearlessly, "it's yours anyway."

Her eyes were such a warm color - they made me think of velvet, of fertile earth...and of the way her body had felt pressed against mine under her truck, the way her lips would feel if I kissed them…

I closed my eyes resolutely against the temptation. "Isobel," I began, uncertain what I was going to say. Would I tell her it was time to leave? Confess everything? Tell her not to date Tyler? Beg for a kiss?

She cut me off before I could find out. "We'd better get going," she told me, her voice cheerful. It might have been forced. I was in no shape to evaluate. "I really am worried about Charlie worrying," she went on, "and I don't think I can make it out of here on my own."

My eyes opened and I took a deliberate breath in through my nose, finding perverse pleasure in the burning pain of her scent, reminding myself of what I was. Isobel Swan was not mine and would never be mine. It hurt more than the burn of my throat. Why her? Why not some nice vampire woman like Tanya? I knew the kind of happiness that a well-mated pair could have together. I saw it every day in every member of my family. With a human girl - especially this human girl, smelling as she did - I could never have my share of that joy. I didn't want this and hadn't asked for it. Any of it.

And yet...whatever this feeling was, no matter that it was agonizing, no matter that I didn't even know if it was love - I didn't want it to end, either.

Isobel was was waiting for my reply, watching me patiently. She needed to go home with her father. My misgivings could wait. "Right," I sighed, "This way."

"Oh," she said, sounding as if she had just remembered something as she began following me. I glanced at her but didn't immediately respond, still feeling off-balance. I doubted that, if she had something to say, she would be put off by my lack of encouragement.

Just as I had expected, she continued after a brief moment of thought: "Can I ask you for a favor? Or - if not you, maybe Alice?"

Yes, I nearly answered - a blanket agreement whose possible implications left me chilled. "What is it?" I asked instead, the caution in my tone coming more from the intractable bent of my own thoughts than fear of what she might ask. She had promised not to bother me, after all.

"I was going to try to help Angela with trig, but I guess that isn't going to happen." Her face scrunched up in adorable irritation. "The assignment is due tomorrow. I noticed that Alice always seems to know the right answer in class, and Jessica mentioned that you were all in an accelerated program when you were in Alaska." She indicated me along with my siblings with a wave of her hand.

Ah yes, the fictional "accelerated program" that was meant to explain why we always knew the answers to every question a witless human high school teacher could throw at us. In spite of our obvious superiority, however, no one had ever actually asked us for help with their homework. Isobel wasn't asking for herself, but even so… "You want me to help your friend with math?" I wasn't certain whether it was a good thing or a bad one.

"Is that weird?" she asked, eyeing me speculatively.

It wasn't just "weird," it was utterly unique. I frowned at her, trying to decide if the request was good - perhaps an indication that she trusted me - or if she had an ulterior motive. Then, too, perhaps trust was not a good thing at all. She should not trust me. I was dangerous to her.

Isobel looked away from me, biting her lip anxiously. Had I upset her? "You might like her if you gave her a chance," she offered.

I highly doubted it, and had the sudden suspicion that Isobel had noticed my interest in her and was trying to put me off. "That isn't the issue," I told her in a tone that I hoped would check any attempts on her part to deflect me to one of her friends. "I'll see if Alice would be willing," I allowed after a brief moment of thought. "She's...better at that sort of thing." Being able to see into the future gave her an edge on figuring out how to explain concepts to others in ways that they would find easy to grasp. It wasn't something she had tested on humans, but all of us within the family preferred Alice as tutor for any new or, more rarely, difficult concept we came across.

It was Isobel's turn to frown at me. "It's no wonder you don't talk to anyone," she sighed. "Half of what you say seems to have a double or triple meaning. If you're going to keep secrets, you should be less obvious about it."

Was there anything she didn't notice? I wanted to defend myself against the accusation. No one else had ever noticed the disconnect between my words and what I meant by them. That would have been acknowledging that I had secrets to keep, however, and, besides, we had arrived at the waiting room. I contented myself with grumbling something incoherent in her general direction.

We went to the reception desk together and I had the nurse get her release paperwork started. Then I went looking for Charlie Swan.

Though I still couldn't pick him out mentally from a crowd, he wasn't terribly difficult to find: he was in the waiting area with everyone else. Once I was within sight of him, I was finally able to pick out his subtle thoughts - restrained, with few words, some images, mostly simple emotion. It seemed likely to me that Jasper was right after all; it was a matter of degrees. Charlie Swan's mind was not as accessible to me as those of most people. His daughter's was even less accessible.

I sighed, resigned. Isobel Swan's thoughts were closed to me. I would never know what she was thinking unless she agreed to tell me.

The police chief looked up as I approached, his face draining of color. "Isobel?" he gasped.

"She's being released," I reassured him. "I came to get you, sir - you'll probably need to sign some forms. My father looked over her x-rays himself. As far as anyone can tell, she's perfectly fine."

His shoulders sagged with sudden relief. "Edward," he said.

"Sir?" I replied.

"You saved my daughter's life." He held his hand out to me, and I saw no graceful way to avoid shaking it. He didn't seem to notice how cold I was, though - too focused on his own fears. "You saved her life."

"I probably did, sir, yes." I pulled my hand from his and shoved both of mine into my pockets. If Charlie Swan was anywhere near as perceptive as his perfect and impossibly provoking daughter, he might decide to try comforting me. "It was luck that I was in the right place at the right time." Carlisle had not been exaggerating when he told me that losing Isobel would kill Charlie. My stomach twisted with guilt. Leaving aside Tyler's idiocy, I was still more dangerous to Isobel than anything and anyone else in Forks.

"I hope she thanked you herself," he went on, a touch of amused affection creeping into his tone.

"She did," I assured him. "Twice."

"You're welcome any time, you hear? Anything you - or your father - need, just say the word."

The guilt stabbed at me, this time tempered with a healthy dose of despair. Charlie's words, coupled with what I could gather from his thoughts, informed me that he had just given me tacit permission to date his daughter. He didn't seem thrilled by the idea of her dating in general, but I could tell that he liked me - probably liked me even before today. I didn't think she had told him about our first day of school together. It no longer surprised me. She was a strange girl. "Thank you, sir," I told Charlie smoothly, covering my feelings.

"I guess she's probably at the reception desk?"

I led the way back to where I had left her and had the pleasure of watching her face light when she saw us - or, at least, when she caught sight of her father. Charlie signed off on a few things while I asked the nurse to print out Carlisle's instructions for her, and suddenly she was finished and ready to go home. "I'll see you at school tomorrow," she told me, her tone perfectly casual. "You know, provided nothing else horrible happens," she added - a terrible joke.

Charlie agreed with my silent assessment. "Not funny, Bells," he muttered at her.

She rolled her eyes, unabashed.

A few moments later she was gone and I had no reason not to go back to school.

Carlisle willingly let me borrow his car. I pulled out my phone to text Alice and ask if she would be willing to help Angela study, but found I already had a message from her. "Already saw what I'm doing at lunch," it read. I could hear her chirpy voice as she said it. "See you after school. We need to have a family meeting with and about Jasper."

I grimaced at her last sentence, but I had already seen the seeds of what worried Alice. Like all my siblings, I knew Jasper's mind entirely too intimately. He posed a real danger to Isobel if Alice and I couldn't succeed in talking him out of hurting her.

I would die - and, worse, kill - before I allowed that to happen.

Even from the cafeteria I could hear Alice being bored in the library during lunch, but her boredom was more pleasant than the time I was spending with our siblings. Rosalie was furious with me for reasons that I wasn't certain even she fully understood, and kept a constant stream of mental insults aimed my direction.

Jasper was calm and willing to discuss what had happened, but was seriously considering just taking Isobel out - so great was his confidence in his ability to outmaneuver me that he didn't even care if I knew. He was overly confident - he believed that he could find some way to pin me between unpalatable choices, such as protecting the family from exposure versus protecting Isobel's life. What he didn't realize was that I would drop everything - everything - in order to protect Isobel.

Emmett would have made decent company if it hadn't been for his incessant reflection on Isobel as a delicacy instead of the real, solid, absolutely necessary person she had become for me. In some ways he was actually the most difficult. He kept reverting back to the evening when he had encountered the woman who smelled particularly delicious to him, trying to imagine how she could have smelled or tasted better.

He only realized what he was doing when I kicked him under the table and shot him a glare that should have instantly immolated him. Some of my anger cooled at his sincere mental apology, though I didn't entirely forgive him.

The rest of the day passed in a similar blur, with only questions from teachers about Tyler and Isobel to relieve it even marginally. I didn't have much to say about Tyler, but relished the excuse to say Isobel's name, if only in passing.

There was no denying that one of Rosalie's many - and increasingly creative - insults was right on the mark: I was utterly pathetic.

At home once again, we gathered to consult as we always did when something out of the ordinary occurred - not a common event. Our lives were, on the whole, very predictable and rather boring when it came to interacting with the human world.

We took our places around the dining room table, which we used as a kind of conference room rather than for its intended purpose. Carlisle sat at one end, Esme at the other. Arrayed against me were Jasper and Rosalie - I had overheard them conferring in low tones after school, and was unsurprised. Emmett paced uncomfortably behind his wife, too good-natured to be entirely willing to commit to killing a girl whose only crime was smelling too good, and whom I had gone to great lengths to avoid preying upon myself. Alice came in last, her eyes glazed with the multiple futures she was attempting to sort through. She sat down next to Esme - on my side of the table - without appearing to notice the significance of her gesture.

Everyone was silent for a moment, uncertain how to begin.

Rosalie, predictably enough, found her voice first. "Edward, you're being an idiot," she snapped at me, her golden eyes flashing. "She's a human, for fuck's sake."

"Rosalie, language," Esme murmured.

"You cannot make friends with a human," Rosalie went on, ignoring her. "Especially one you might end up killing!"

"I won't," I snarled, but Rose went on, speaking over me: "Her father is the fucking Chief of Police!"

Esme's hand met the table with a bang, and her usually gentle voice was as hard as steel. "Rosalie Lilian Hale, watch your language."

Rose turned her eyes to our spiritual mother, ready for a fight. "Edward is courting an unmasking, and you're worried about my language?" she demanded, incredulous.

"The way we speak about things matters," Esme told her, her voice returning to normal, denying Rose the chance to lay into her. "Edward must have his reasons. Not listening - assuming the worst - disrespects the bonds we all share." She cast a warm, loving look around the table and the tension filling the room decreased marginally. The atmosphere was still strained, but suddenly we were aware of ourselves as a group, as a family, rather than as a collection of individuals with competing needs and desires. This was what Esme did to us, made of us - the reason we regarded her as a mother.

Rose subsided, chastened a bit, at least for the moment. I felt safe turning my attention to Jasper. As vocal as Rosalie might be, she respected Esme and Carlisle too much for any kind of rash or unilateral action. Jasper was the real threat. "I won't let you hurt her."

"She should have died today," Jasper told me, his voice calm and unruffled, but still cold. "You were right to stop it from happening publicly. Now I will make certain that there will never be a risk of you exposing us again."

"No," I growled, my voice going low and menacing.

"I won't bring Alice into a war zone." Memories flashed through his mind - he had spent his first century in a place torn apart by rival vampire gangs. It had gotten so out of hand that the Volturi had stepped in, nearly obliterating both sides. Jasper was fortunate to have gotten out before they came, or he would not have survived. There were no rival vampires here, but if we were unmasked, as Rosalie feared - it would be worse than a war zone. When the Volturi arrived, it would be a dead zone.

I understood his fear, but there was no going back. I would gladly risk my life, his life, all our lives, for Isobel. My voice, when I spoke, was low and certain. "The only way this will become a war zone is if you persist in threatening Isobel."

He looked shocked as, using his gift, he sampled the emotions his threats had called forth from me. His confidence wavered as he recognized the similarity to his own feelings for Alice, though he immediately attempted to reject the comparison. Still - it was enough to clear Alice's vision for the briefest moment, and I sensed a wave of wordless glee from her. My head swiveled towards her end of the table, seeking to see what it was she had seen. "Jasper," she said, her eyes focusing on us for the first time since she had come in, "he's serious. What you would do to protect me? That's what Edward would do to protect Isobel Swan."

Her pronouncement sent another wave of shock around the table, but I had no more than cursory attention to spare for it. In Alice's mind were two images of horror: one of Isobel, pale-skinned, red-eyed and inhumanly beautiful. The other of her - dead. That I was dead too in that future seemed, at the moment, an utterly irrelevant detail.

Alice met my eyes, nodding, knowing that I knew. "Either you both die, or she turns," she told me levelly. And you had better not die, she added mentally.

My chest constricted in a way that would have been painful if I had been alive. "You're wrong," I whispered.

"You can see it for yourself."

"Both die?" Esme asked, her voice high and frightened.

Alice glanced toward the end of the table. "If he doesn't turn her, the Volturi will eventually learn that she knows about us, and they'll kill both. That's if he doesn't kill her himself on accident - followed with a swift self-immolation," she explained. Her eyes returned to me. "You'll choose death over living without her, Edward. Remember that."

"No," our mother gasped.

"What are you talking about?" Emmett asked. "What are they talking about?" he asked Rosalie more specifically.

I couldn't tear my mind away from those twin images of horror. "I have to leave," I gasped.

"What part of you'll choose death over living without her is unclear to you, Edward?" Alice asked, her voice shrill as she tossed her head in irritation.

"Edward...is in love with a human," Rosalie explained slowly, radiating disgust.

"A human?" Emmett repeated. "A human…" he whispered. Shock gave way to humor, and he doubled over with laughter. "Oh, I should have known. I should have known! Why else would you work so hard not to eat her?"

"Nauseating," Rosalie said with a sneer.

"Hilarious," Emmett disagreed.

Esme fastened on a different piece of Rosalie's inference. "Love?" she breathed, her face lighting with hope.

"What about the rest of us?" Jasper asked.

"Alice, you're wrong," I interrupted flatly, but Alice ignored me and answered Jasper.

"The Volturi like Carlisle, and even at the last Edward will look out for us. He'll take all the responsibility himself. There's a good chance he will even let them turn her - if it's turning or death - and in most futures they prefer turning. That mental silence of hers might make her a witch, and you know how pleased they are to find new witches."

"You're wrong," I repeated in a despairing howl.

Alice returned her attention to me. "I'm not wrong, Edward. Tyler Crowley is going to ask Isobel out tomorrow, and she'll say yes. You know as well as I do that you won't be able to stand by and watch that without intervening."

The thought of her with that wretched fool was an almost physical pain, worse - infinitely worse - than it had been in Carlisle's office when Tyler first decided to ask her on a date. I hadn't realized just how much I had been counting on her refusal. Knowing that she would agree made me - made me want to kill him.

"If it's one way or the other and you're safe," Jasper said to Alice, "I'll let her be."

I hardly heard him.

I wanted to kill Tyler - a seventeen-year-old boy who had never threatened me, had hardly even spoken to me. My chair hit the floor with a clatter before I realized I was standing. Isobel was mine, or it felt like she was - felt like she should be - felt like there was no other option. This thing I felt for her wasn't love, not the way humans thought of love. It was stronger than that, less noble, terribly selfish. She was my mate. She was meant for me. If she didn't feel the same - everything was utterly, utterly pointless.

In a flash I was out the door, running - trying to outrun despair.

Isobel was human. Of course she didn't feel as I did. I felt the way vampires felt when they found their mates. She felt the way seventeen-year-old humans felt around members of the sex to whom they were romantically inclined. There was no comparison. Telling her how I felt would frighten her out of her wits, and rightly so. Turning was no better than death - worse, under most circumstances. One way or another, I was set up to be the one who ended her life.

I leapt up a tree overlooking the Puget Sound and gazed across the water at the lights of Seattle. No matter what Alice said, I had choices. I was a rational creature, and my future was mine to make.

Tyler was going to ask Isobel on a date.

Good, I told myself savagely. He was human, normal, safe. Not intelligent, generous or insightful, but someday she would find a man who was the latter as well as the former. This was just a high school romance - little more than an idle flirtation. She would have fun, perhaps get a bit hurt, and move on. I would be happy for her. I wouldn't just tolerate their relationship, I would be happy for her. If she was everything to me, then her happiness was my happiness. If dating Tyler was what she wanted, it was what I wanted for her.

I just...had to make myself believe it.

Maybe Alice was right about that much: maybe I couldn't force myself to stay away from her. But maybe I didn't need to. Isobel had spoken to me easily, as a friend. I would content myself with friendship. Mostly.

Isobel Swan had needed a guardian today, and I had been there. Perhaps one day, in the future, she would need a guardian once again - and, once again, I could be her champion. In the daylight - I would accept her friendship. In the darkness - I would watch over her safety.

It wasn't what I wanted. There would be no personal fulfillment in pursuing her happiness. But if I succeeded, if she was happy, I believed that I would be able to live with my own selfish agony.

My future was my own, and I had choices. I would not end the life of the girl I loved.

I climbed down and turned my back on the peaceful view. My self-appointed duty began tonight. My face toward Forks, I began running.