Note: I'm free.

I mean, provided I passed all my finals.

You know what's crazy? This has been the worst semester ever. I'd better pass everything, because I don't have another of these in me.

...and I already miss it. Where am I going to hear about new books? Who am I going to talk them over with? How am I going to be forced into coming up with some totally amazing perspective that I only thought of because I was desperate for a paper topic?

Maybe most importantly: how am I going to live without 24/7 access to JSTOR?!

Sigh. I think I'm going to go download peer-reviewed research while I still can.


LI.

Waking up in Edward's arms was, I decided, the only worthwhile way to wake up.

Even once I was awake, I was perfectly content simply to lie in bed, totally relaxed, while he slowly stroked my hair. I might have stayed there all day - and not just to avoid shopping with Alice - had he not finally called me out on being awake.

"No I'm not. Not really," I groaned, cuddling closer to him. He was still fully clothed - I mean, who knew if he even owned pajamas? - so it wasn't as comfortable as it might have been. It was more comfortable than not cuddling with him, though.

"You've been awake for half an hour," he told me, sounding amused.

"You can't prove it," I grumbled.

"I can prove it, because I knew you were awake as soon as your breathing changed," he countered, convincing me only that it was far too early in the day to argue about anything. "Did you sleep well?" he continued.

"You shouldn't ask me about that," I told him, managing to locate at least a piece of my sense of humor.

"Why not?" he wondered, his hand stilling on my head.

I head-butted his hand to get it moving again. "Because the answer might be that I refuse to ever sleep without you again."

I could hear Edward's growl rumbling in his chest, and his hand left my hair entirely in order to tip my chin up - presumably so that I would look at him. I managed to pry at least one eye open, in spite of the brightness of the morning. "You shouldn't tease me about that," he told me.

"Who's teasing?" I asked, knowing that the answer, on the one hand, was me - but also that I was completely serious.

He sat up abruptly. "Isobel - "

"No," I groaned, raising myself on one arm and managing to find a pillow somewhere behind me so that I could hit him with it. "That's not what you're supposed to do."

"Isobel," Edward repeated, taking the pillow from me with frankly irritating ease and dropping it on the floor. "Are you - are you giving me permission to - to stay near you at night?"

"Permission?" I sniffed. "That sounded like a demand to me, and I expect you to treat it as one. Now would you please lie down?"

He didn't though. Instead he bent over me and kissed me.

That was very nice for about five seconds, until I realized that I probably had terrible morning breath. I pushed him away, ignoring his sounds of protest. "I haven't brushed my teeth," I told him.

"I don't care," he retorted, but turned his attention to my neck, where his cold lips made me shiver for reasons that had very little to do with temperature.

I had just decided that I should probably stop him before I started trying to get him naked again, when he paused of his own accord and raised his head to look at me. "Are you certain you - you don't mind if I listen to you sleeping? Even though, before, you - "

"Wait," I protested. "If you're about to compare this to when you were following me around when we first met - and seriously can't tell the difference between that and this - I'm going to bite you. And what's this crap about listening to me sleep? You had better be talking about not being able to see me in the dark and not assuming that I'm demanding your presence on my roof, or else...I'm going to bite you again."

My admittedly stupid threats made Edward laugh, but he also lay down beside me again, which I counted as a win - especially when his hand went to back to my hair as I scooted closer to rest my head on his chest.

"I will also be listening to you sleep, no matter whether I'm outside or in your room," Edward informed me several moments later, rousing me from the half-sleep I had fallen into.

"Oh?" I asked. "Is my breathing that interesting?"

I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke: "Yes, but that's not what I mean. Did you know that you talk in your sleep?"

"No. How would I know that?" I retorted, and then added, interested in spite of myself, "What do I talk about?"

"Some of it is nonsense," he replied, "but a surprising amount has some internal coherency. Last night you were apparently outraged by the idea of science classes where the grades are entirely based on essays instead of tests."

"Ugh. That does sound awful, so score one for my subconscious," I said. "But I don't remember dreaming about it at all. I almost never remember having any dreams, and the ones I do have rarely have plots - or even, like, people."

"Humans, I believe, only remember their dreams right before they wake up, not those they have while deeply asleep," he told me. "So that probably isn't surprising or unusual."

"I didn't know that," I said.

We lapsed into comfortable silence again, but now I was truly awake and I found myself reflecting on the things we had talked about the night before. Some of it, in the light of morning, seemed a little unreal - like, was I really that afraid of making a commitment? I didn't feel it at the moment. I would have to keep an eye on myself and my feelings to see if it was really that big of a problem. Or if I had somehow already conquered it? That seemed unlikely, but…

Well, whatever.

The part that didn't seem unreal was everything I had said about Edward - maybe because I had literally fallen asleep trying to offer up reasons why I thought he was wonderful.

A thought struck me all at once, and I propped myself up on one elbow to look at the subject of my musings.

"Is something wrong?" Edward asked, his hand slipping from my hair and settling instead on my waist. I liked the way he ran his fingers down my back and around my ribs, making even that simple movement into a caress.

"Is there anything else you're not telling me for my own good?" I asked point-blank.

He went very still for a moment.

"What is it?" I sighed.

"That's not it," he protested - a little weakly, I thought, which made me think that was probably exactly it.

I just stared at him.

"Really, Isobel," he insisted. "I didn't - I don't - want to spend the weekend arguing about it. In fact...I thought I might ask Carlisle to talk to you, because I think he can present my position more...dispassionately...than I can."

I spent a moment reflecting on that. "You should tell me," I concluded, meeting his eyes solemnly. "You've kept too many things from me, and so you should tell me this one. In return, I promise I won't bring it up until tomorrow, no matter what it is."

He grimaced and looked away, but didn't argue. "We have to decide whether or not you're going to become a vampire," he said.

I felt my lungs constrict painfully. I had never asked - I had hardly dared wonder about it to myself.

"We aren't going to agree," he added quietly.

Oh. Which meant - it could only mean that he didn't want me to become a vampire.

But - why?

Because - he didn't want to be with me forever?

God - had I really doubted the strength of my irrational fears? I couldn't now - I was instantly drowning in them.

I took a deep breath and told myself firmly that this sudden uncertainty was not a punishment from fate for the closeness Edward and I had been sharing last night and this morning.

"Do you - " I began, and then, remembering my promise, bit off the rest of what I wanted to ask. Instead I swallowed and forced a lightness I didn't feel into my tone. "Well - whatever your terrible reasons are for disagreeing with me, I can wait a day to pull them to shreds."

A sad smile touched Edward's lips and he brought his hand to my face. I obviously wasn't fooling him. "It's the principle, Isobel, not because I don't selfishly want to keep you with me for - well, for the rest of my existence."

The bands around my chest seemed to loosen just a little. No matter my fears, that did sound like an Edward kind of reason for trying to force me to remain human and mortal. And - he understood exactly what my problem was without me needing to say a word. "I love you," I told him, and only added you idiot silently.

"You are my life," he responded with simple sincerity.

And obviously, because I was his life, he was going to resign himself to my death.

I sighed.

Our phones both buzzed, then, which was probably good timing - which meant, with equal probability, that it was Alice texting us.

My guess went from "probable" to "certain" as Edward rolled his eyes and said, raising his voice only slightly, "If you don't want me to ignore you, then don't try to interrupt." Then his voice dropped. "Alice," he told me by way of explanation.

"I gathered," I replied.

"She says that if you don't get up now, you'll manage to weasel out of shopping - her words - and she won't forgive you for at least a week."

Well - we weren't going to talk about the vampire thing yet, and I didn't want the weekend ruined, either. So I laughed - and I also got out of bed.

Edward left while I showered, and then I met him, Alice and Esme in the lobby after I had finished packing up all my things. Esme checked us out while Alice handed me a latte and a bag with a bacon-and-cheese biscuit, and then we went to retrieve the cars.

Alice had two goals in mind: finding a dress style and then looking for the right fabric in the right color for the dress and for me. She knew exactly what she would choose for me, of course, but she still wanted to go through the process - some of the process, anyway. We were only going to one clothing store and then one fabric store, and that was some relief.

The store we went to was on the other side of Lake Washington, so it was a bit of a drive. Alice initially tried to convince me to ride with her and Esme, but Edward growled at her so fiercely that she didn't press the issue. He and I were mostly silent on the way over, exchanging only a few commonplaces, and I could tell he was a bit concerned because of how tightly he held my hand once I had finished eating the biscuit.

Our almost-conversation about me becoming a vampire was still too recent for me to put it aside entirely, though I hoped to do so before we left for home. That drive was too long to be spent in silence, and, to tell the truth, I wasn't any more ready to argue than Edward was. The idea was simply too new. I needed time to consider it from every angle I possibly could before I would know what I really thought.

Though it was certainly true that my first impulse was to insist that immortality - or even semi-immortality - was necessarily superior to mortality. Death, as far as I could see, was the ultimate evil.

Which meant, of course, that I would have to avoid killing anyone else - but surely the Cullens would be able and willing to help me resist my thirst for human blood.

I sighed, and Edward shot me a curious glance. "It's too bad it's cloudy," I deflected quickly, nodding toward the lake. "It's much prettier in the sun."

"Which I can't go out in," Edward reminded me.

"You still need to show me why," I replied.

"It will be easier once there's more sun available," he said - and then we lapsed back into silence.

The boutique Alice had chosen was the clothing equivalent of the restaurant Edward had taken me to the night before. Everything was designer and priced appropriately. "Don't worry," Alice whispered as I undoubtedly turned green after making the mistake of checking a price carefully hand-pinned to a tag on a pair of jeans. Who paid more than three hundred dollars for jeans?! "Esme will buy something. She loves this place."

Alice had three dresses already in mind for me to try on. The first was for Edward's benefit, to demonstrate why I couldn't wear a long skirt. "She would need four inch heels," Alice told him, gesturing to the pool of fabric on the floor.

"You're making the dress. Make the skirt fit," he suggested, but Alice was already shaking her head.

"Her proportions aren't right. Isobel isn't especially short, but proportionally her legs are a little shorter than average for her height."

"I'm right here, you know," I complained, rolling my eyes.

Alice patted my arm either to comfort or hush me. "It's just the truth," she said, but I couldn't actually tell if she was talking to me or Edward.

"Isobel is lovely," Esme chimed in, "but her particular beauty can't be highlighted with this particular style."

They were still talking about me like I wasn't there, but I blushed at Esme's compliment anyway.

"Whatever you think is best," Edward sighed.

The second dress was also for Edward's benefit - or...maybe not benefit. Alice's expression could only be described as bloodthirsty, and the tune she was humming was vaguely martial. I got the impression I was being revenge-dressed somehow, even though I didn't know how a pretty, backless dress was supposed to be revenge.

At least - I didn't until I left the dressing room and found Edward already studying the ceiling, a pained look on his face.

Esme gave a little sigh of admiration as Alice forced me to turn. "Oh, Isobel, your skin is flawless. If you were a little older, I would say this style is perfect for you."

Yeah - there was no way Charlie would let me out of the house in a backless dress.

Edward made a strangled sound.

"Oh come off it," Alice told him, sounding incongruously triumphant. "You may as well get used to seeing her like this. It won't be winter forever. Soon there will be tank tops. Shorts. Swimsuits."

Edward might have whimpered.

Alice cackled like an evil villain as she led me back into the dressing room. "That's what he gets for making me worry last night," she muttered. I could only assume she meant me to hear, but didn't seem to require a response.

The last dress was the serious one. Alice had insisted on bringing the wedges I had been borrowing from the car and now made me put them on, even though I had gone out barefoot in the first two dresses. After helping me into the dress and zipping me up, she began twisting my hair up into a simple knot while I stared at myself in the mirror.

I...liked this dress.

It made me feel...pretty.

I shouldn't have liked it. It was short (which usually brought to the forefront my fear that if I fell, it would be utterly and spectacularly humiliating) and the embroidered pattern was much too loud for my taste. But - the cut was simple and somehow elegant: sleeveless, with a high neck, a band of black fabric marking the waist, and an A-line skirt that I might have described as flirty if I were in the habit of describing anything as "flirty."

"I knew you'd love it," Alice smirked, catching sight of my expression in the mirror.

"Is it - is it too, er, simple for a dance?" I asked, uncertain whether "simple" was the word I wanted.

"Mmm, no, but it's edging on too casual," Alice replied. "I mean, this dress would work just fine simply because it looks so good on you. But when we pick out fabrics, we'll look for something that implies 'evening' a little more forcefully."

"Oh," I said. "Okay."

She finished with my hair and turned me around to look at her, showing her approval of what she saw with a squeal and a series of excited bounces. "You," she told me, "are going to be my masterpiece."

Her masterpiece? Seriously? "Not Rosalie?" I asked, my voice heavy with irony.

"Rose is too easy," Alice informed me. "She looks spectacular in anything. You, though - you are going to give her a serious run for her money, and it's going to be because I am brilliant."

I didn't really know how to respond to that - either the absurdity of me competing with Rosalie on looks or the (correct) implication that I wouldn't be able to do so without some kind of miracle - so I let her usher me out to the others.

Neither of them did anything to puncture Alice's bubble of self-satisfied joy. "Oh, Alice," Esme breathed. "Did I say that other dress was perfect? I was so wrong."

Alice giggled and bounced.

Edward didn't say anything. He was too busy staring.

With his mouth open.

And it didn't look like he was breathing.

Alice and Esme discussed the fit of the dress - how it made my legs look longer because of the way the skirt began just below my natural waist and ended well above my knees, and how something-or-other about cut played up my modest curves. I half-listened and watched Edward trying to gather his wits.

"Alice," he said at last as she and Esme were finally running out of details to enthuse over. I didn't catch the rest of what he said - it was too low and fast for me to decipher.

Alice and Esme both nodded, though, and Alice stepped away from me, gesturing towards Esme. "I'll show you the dress you're going to want," she said.

And then they left, heading back toward the front of the store.

Edward rose, taking a deep breath as he did so, and came closer. He reached out and touched my arm carefully, running his cold fingers up to my shoulder.

"What are you doing?" I asked, becoming increasingly self-conscious as he continued to stare - especially now that I didn't have Alice and Esme as a buffer.

"I...can't quite believe you're real," he admitted. "My memory is supposed to be perfect. How is it, then, that you can keep surprising me with your beauty? I'm afraid that perhaps I'm actually dreaming."

Or maybe, based on the saccharine crap he kept coming up with, he was trapped in a romance novel. I promised myself that I would laugh at him thoroughly as soon as he stopped looking at me with that completely unfair smolder in his eyes.

His hand on my shoulder moved to cup my face, and he placed his other hand carefully on my waist - and then he was kissing me with gentle reverence.

I didn't even hear Alice return - at least not until she passed us with a "Jeez, you two, get a room," tossed back over her shoulder.

I would have ignored her, but Edward stepped away from me, retaining only my hand as he led me over to the chairs where he and Esme had been sitting before. I started to take the chair Esme had vacated, and was surprised when he pulled me onto his lap instead. "I thought this was a bad idea - ?" I half-whispered, half-squeaked.

"I'm a bad idea," he muttered in reply, resting his forehead against my shoulder. I was trying to formulate a protest when he sighed. "As little sense as it might make to you, spending last night with you makes situations like this a little more tenable. Which is just as well, because I'm also not certain that I can let you go at the moment."

Those - didn't seem like compatible statements? I shook my head, not understanding, but willing to let it go for the moment. Hey, we had a four hour drive - er, well, two and half to three hour drive, with the way Edward drove - ahead of us. He would have plenty of time to try to explain it.

Esme emerged from the dressing room a moment later, and I felt my eyes widen. "What do you think?" she asked us, spinning around.

By all rights, her dress should have been frumpy. It was black with small white polkadots, slouchy and mostly shapeless, with only a fabric belt around the hips and two thigh-high slits to rescue it.

On Esme, though? It was probably the sexiest thing I had ever seen. The way she stood - the way she moved - the way the fabric moved around her - made anyone observing her less aware of the dress than the fact that, underneath it, there was a body. A shapely, undoubtedly beautiful-in-the-way-only-a-vampire-could-be-beautiful body. That, and - well, somehow the slightly rumpled air of the dress was suggestively rumpled rather than sloppily rumpled.

"You look amazing," I told her.

"Carlisle will definitely approve," Alice added, and then giggled. "At least, if he has time to register approval before he pulls it off of you."

Esme smiled, looking embarrassed, but said, "That does sound promising."

"Alright, Edward," Alice said, a moment later as Esme turned away from the mirror with a satisfied sigh, "Esme will go change again, but then you're going to have to let Isobel go."

His arms tightened around my waist, but he growled out an "I know."

"Are you okay?" I asked, twisting around to look at him.

He leaned in and kissed my neck. "Yes, I'm fine - Alice just hasn't forgiven me yet for last night, and so she's going out of her way to irritate me. Isobel," he continued thoughtfully, "how would you feel about not going to the dance?"

How would I feel about getting out of going to the dance? Um...try amazing? "I wouldn't mind at all," I told him carefully, trying not to make my glee too obvious.

Edward put his fingers on my jaw, turning my head so I would look at him. "Are you certain?"

I nodded.

A rueful note entered his voice. "And - are you still certain if the reason I don't want to go is that I don't want anyone else to see how beautiful you are?"

I laughed at him. "While that is a terrible reason, I think I'm still totally fine with the outcome."

His tone became even more rueful. "Will you be the one to defend our decision to Alice?"

Damn - that plan had been so promising. "No way. She's your sister," I answered immediately. Humans couldn't stop tornadoes, even tiny ones, bare-handed. I wasn't about to try.

He sighed. "That's precisely the point. I have to live with her."

"And he's already testing my patience," Alice said. She and Esme had emerged from the dressing room without me hearing them. Alice held out her hand to me and I rose somewhat reluctantly, with Edward releasing me still more reluctantly. "You're going to the dance," she told us.

"I would be very disappointed if you didn't," Esme added, glancing at both of us, but mostly looking at Edward.

"You need to learn to take pleasure in the envy of others," Alice counseled him. "After all, Isobel will be there with you. Everyone might be looking at her, but - "

"I'll be too busy falling down to notice anyway?" I broke in.

Alice made a little tching sound. "Edward won't let you fall. Both of you need to stop worrying so much. I can promise that it will be fun - and I promise even more that I won't make this dress if you're not going to the dance," she added with a sniff.

"That's not true," Edward grumbled at her.

"Well - I won't let you see it," she amended quickly. "Isobel, Rose, Esme and I will go out together, which would be infinitely worse for you than just going to the dance with her. At least at the dance you'll be with her."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Alice cut me off with a swift pat on the arm. "No, hush. You will go because I'll promise you don't have to dance with anyone, and I'll get you tickets to something you'll like. Don't doubt my persuasive powers, Isobel - I am the queen of persuasion."

"The queen of bribery," Edward growled.

"Bribery is just one of my many, many tools," Alice retorted.

Even though nothing had actually been decided - out loud, anyway - Alice seemed satisfied and led me back to the dressing room. I supposed that meant that Edward and I were going to the dance.

Thankfully shopping didn't last too much longer. Alice disappeared with the dress once she had helped me out of it, and once I had finished changing it was time to go to the fabric store. That was a quick stop - Alice already knew what she was going to choose, didn't want me to know, and was soon a little bit annoyed at my inability to tell the difference between different types of silks or, like - organza and something else I couldn't remember the name of.

It wasn't long before she sent me home with Edward, her air that of a long-suffering martyr.

"Alice isn't really upset at me, is she?" I asked Edward as he opened my door so I could get into the car.

He shrugged and made a complicated expression - half grimace and half tolerant smile. "A little - but she'll be fine. Alice has trouble understanding why everyone isn't interested in all the same things she's interested in, especially when she's excited." He rolled his eyes expressively.

"Did she try to interest you in fashion?" I asked, sensing a story.

"Yes," he sighed, "but she becomes more consistently annoyed over my differing aesthetics with regards to deep-sea fauna."

"Differing...aesthetics?" I repeated, not understanding.

Edward smiled wryly at me over the door between us. "I don't agree that wolffish, anglerfish, fangtooth fish, vampire squid, and viperfish - among other, unnamed but equally unnattractive species - are 'cute.'"

"Ah," I said, uncertain that I knew all of those fish, but getting the general picture.

Edward gestured for me to get in, and then went around to the driver's side, and in a moment we were on the road and headed home.

"So…" I began as he followed signs to the highway.

He glanced at me when I didn't immediately continue, looking a little wary.

"It's not the vampire thing," I reassured him. "I'm just trying to work out - I mean, I thought spending the night together was - not a risk, exactly, but…"

Edward grunted. "Mated vampires spend a lot of time together," he told me. "At times they might part ways for short periods if it's absolutely necessary, but living apart is…" he frowned, "unthinkable, really." The smile he flashed me was grim. "I may be the only one who has ever tried it."

"Why is it different for me?" I asked. "You're my mate, too, but even though I never like leaving you, it's not - like a huge deal." I caught sight of his expression. "Sorry," I added.

"I can't answer that with certainty, Isobel," he sighed. "As far as I know, I'm also the only one who has tried," he glanced at me, "this. I do have guesses," he continued. "If you would like to hear them."

I nodded.

"I think the most likely explanation is that you spend the majority of your time away from me sleeping."

"Oh," I replied, "I suppose that does kinda make sense." I spent a moment reflecting, and then asked: "Did you know that things would be easier for you if you were spending nights with me?"

"I suspected," he admitted.

"Then why didn't you - " I began, before stopping myself. "No," I sighed, "I know why you didn't ask. But you should have, Edward."

"After last time - " he started to say, even though I'd just said I knew.

"You didn't ask last time," I interrupted.

He glanced at me, smiling wryly. "Yes, but last time was traumatizing - for both of us."

"I guess staying also means you're, you know, with me, which probably feels dangerous to you even when it makes you less dangerous," I grumbled. "I mean, I'm assuming it makes you less dangerous. To me."

"Mmm, that's an irony I hadn't considered," he agreed, tacitly conceding that my assumption was correct. He caught my hand and kissed it. "Thank you for offering. My nights suddenly seem less bleak."

I sighed and didn't point out again that they could have been less bleak days ago.

When I looked at Edward, though, he was smirking. "What?" I asked.

"I'm going to spend tonight with you," he said, his smirk morphing into a full-on grin.

"You'll have to sneak in after Charlie goes to bed," I warned him. "I might be asleep, too. I'll leave the window cracked open for you, though."

My caveats didn't seem to bother him - he kissed my hand again and asked me where I wanted to grab lunch, since it was nearing that time and there wasn't much between Seattle and Forks. I didn't really care, so he just took me to a deli for a sandwich and then, as we got back on the road, told me that if I didn't have any other big questions about vampires, I could plug in his phone and find some music for us to listen to. He actually had a bunch of his own compositions saved on his phone - he said listening to them sometimes helped him work out things that should be changed - so I quickly made a playlist of them and we listened to it for the rest of the drive back to Forks. We didn't talk much since I was trying to concentrate on his music, but we had a few brief conversations when he wanted to explain something that he didn't feel worked or I was curious about a composition. I thought Edward seemed, and probably was, embarrassed that I was listening to his music so intently - and with him right there - and maybe regretted a little that he had ever given me his phone, but I really enjoyed it.

"I want copies of these," I told him as he used our entry into Forks as an excuse to turn the volume down. It should only have been mid-afternoon, but the bright spot that indicated where the sun was behind the clouds was already getting low in the sky. Winter days were so short this far north.

An expression perilously close to horror flitted across Edward's face. "I need to make new recordings," he protested. "These are on my phone because they aren't right."

"Am I killing you a little by making you listen to imperfect compositions?" I asked, trying not to laugh at him.

He growled something that might - or might not - have been a denial.

"Do you want to put your bookshelf together tonight?" he asked, changing the subject before I could tease him any more.

It was my turn to make a face. "Yes, but I still have a couple of school-related things that I should do. There's that test in Spanish next week...and, you know, that was kind of my worst class when we weren't speaking."

He nodded, giving my hand a sympathetic squeeze as he turned the corner onto my street. "Alright then, love. I won't stay - just carry the shelves in fo - " he stopped abruptly as he stared out the windshield in the direction of my house.

"What?" I asked, looking around.

That was when I noticed that Simone and my dad's cruiser weren't the only vehicles pulled up at our house. The van Billy and Jake drove was there, too.

"Shit," Edward swore, his hands flexing dangerously on the steering wheel. It was, I thought irrelevantly, possibly the first time I had heard him say anything worse than "damn."

"What's wrong?" I demanded, torn between hoping that Jacob was just thinking something stupid about me and hoping that it absolutely wasn't that.

Edward closed his eyes. "I'll give you your shelves tomorrow after school," he said, and then opened them again to give me a stern look. "Don't go in - Jacob is watching for you. He'll explain."

I caught his hand. "But Edward - what's wrong?"

His hand slipped from mine, but he used it to touch my hair instead. "This relates to my family and they need to know about it. Jacob won't require much urging to tell you everything."

Edward was telling me to spend time with Jake? Alone? It had to be bad. "They're - the Quileutes - they're not going to tell everyone you're vampires, are they?" Because - I mean, no one would believe that, right?

Thankfully, Edward shook his head. "It isn't that bad - yet." His fingers found their way to my cheek and he leaned over the console to kiss me. "Go find your friend. I'll return later tonight," he said as he retreated to his side of the car.

I didn't want him to go, but there wasn't anything else to do. And - he would come later. Whether or not I was awake - well, it was comforting just to think about having him near me while I slept. I was certain, somehow, that I would sleep better for it.

I got out of the car, watching as he turned around neatly in spite of the narrow street, and gave him one last wave as he drove away. Then, with nothing else to do, I turned toward the house, trying to settle my overnight bag more comfortably on my shoulder. I couldn't tell whether the clouds were getting thicker or whether evening was just coming on this fast, but the living room window was already lit.

Jake must have been watching for me, because he stepped out the door as I stepped onto the little patio in front of it.

"Isobel," he said nervously. Light and sound spilled out after him - no shouting, but tense, heated voices. I couldn't quite pick out the words. "Uh - you don't want to go in there."

"Why not?" I asked, trying to sound innocent - like I hadn't been clued in by my mind-reading vampire boyfriend. "What's going on?"

He shut the door before answering, his expression grim. "It's...difficult to explain."

"Tribal stuff?" I guessed.

He looked a little startled, but gave a sharp nod. "I don't even know where to start," he confessed.

"How about we start with going somewhere else?" I suggested, trying not to sigh. So much for studying.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed a little reluctantly, glancing back at the house. "That's - not going to be finished anytime soon. But, uh - nowhere with people. If I'm gonna tell you about it - it's not something I want anyone else to hear. It's - I'm not even sure you'll believe it, and - "

"I'll believe it, Jake," I promised. "We're friends." Perhaps more importantly, I had that mind-reading vampire boyfriend, plus an equally vampiric future sister, who also happened to be a psychic - facts which had completely reshaped my capacity for belief. But, you know, I couldn't really say that.

Jake tried to smile at me, and I appreciated the effort - even if it looked more like a grimace.

I led the way toward Simone, and we both got in silently. I set my bag on the seat between us. "So where are we going?" I asked.

"Beach," he said instantly.

"You'll have to give me directions," I replied, starting Simone's engine.

He looked at me like I was nuts, at least momentarily shaken from his gloomy thoughts. "I need to give you directions to the beach? Haven't you been spending some of your summers here or whatever?"

"Your beaches are cold, even during the summer," I retorted. "Besides, there are a lot of beaches around. How the hell am I supposed to know which one you want?"

"Uh, not that many you can drive to, and it's going to be dark too soon even for me to want to go hiking. You would kill yourself."

"First Beach, then?" I asked, ignoring the jab.

He shook his head. "Nah, like I said - I don't wanna see anyone. Rialto is more out of the way."

"You'll have to give me directions," I repeated with exaggerated patience, and was rewarded with an equally exaggerated eye-roll.

Half-joking irritation seemed better to me than whatever he'd been feeling before, so I made sure we spent most of the drive over bickering about my taste in temperature and recreation.

Jake fell silent as I parked - an unhappy silence - and was instantly climbing out of Simone's cab when we came to a full stop. I followed more reluctantly - it was a cold, rainy very-nearly-evening, and windy out here near the shore. I zipped up my coat and pulled my hood over my hair as I followed him out onto the rocky beach, picking my way carefully to avoid spraining an ankle. Thankfully he didn't go too far, but stopped at the top of a low rise, looking out over the ocean - what he could see of it through the rain and slowly dimming light, anyway.

We were both silent for a little bit, listening to the waves crash against the shore.

"I saw a wolf," he said abruptly.

It took me a moment to contextualize what he was saying. "During your ritual fasting thing?" I asked, uncertain whether this was what I was supposed to disbelieve. I mean, he'd said there were no wolves on the Olympic Peninsula, but it seemed like a pretty stinking big place to me, with a lot of stinking thick forest, and pinning down where wild animals were and weren't was...sometimes difficult.

His head jerked - a nod.

"What...was it doing?" I asked lamely when he didn't continue.

"She," he corrected me. "She just walked by - close enough for me to touch."

I was wondering if he could tell a female wolf from a male wolf just from looking, if it was completely obvious (I hadn't spent much time around wolves, but if they were as much like dogs as they seemed, it wouldn't be that obvious), or if he had some kind of mystical connection to wolves, when he answered the question without me having to ask it: "She had pups with her. Two. And - "

"And?" I prompted a little impatiently.

"A mountain lion cub," Jake whispered. "I - I thought it was albino at first, but it must've been the light. It looked at me and it had...these enormous yellow eyes. She was - the mother wolf - she had adopted it, I guess."

That seemed - unusual. But, I mean, not completely unheard of. Animals adopting the young of other species was way more normal in captivity, where they were usually introduced precisely for that purpose, but it did sometimes happen in the wild. Baboons had a whole thing where they stole wild dog puppies and raised them as guard dogs for their troops.

In the context of what Jake had been doing, though? I imagined it meant something. I could even come up with some things it might mean, but I was operating from a different cultural context.

"I'm guessing seeing a wolf is a huge deal. What about the lion cub?" I asked.

Jake and I weren't touching, but I still felt him tense beside me. "That's not for me to interpret," he growled. "It's for the elders. My dad. Harry. A couple others. They say - " His voice was anguished. "They say it means the Cullens are planning to take on a new family member. Turn someone."

"Me," I sighed.

Suddenly Jake was in motion. He bent and picked up a fist-sized rock at his feet, hurling it as far as he could toward the ocean with a yell of frustration. Even though we were pretty far back, I heard it splash into the water.

"Nice throw," I told him.

"This is so stupid!" he shouted at the water. He turned to face me, his eyes hot with fury. "They're wrong. Do you know how I know?"

I shook my head.

"In all our stories - in everything about the original Cullens and Ephraim Black - the wolves represent us." He hit his own chest with his fist. "They're our brothers. Not the - " He broke off to bend and pick up several more rocks, throwing one to punctuate each of his next points. "Not the fucking Cullens! Not any of you! Us! We're. The. Fucking. Wolves."

I reached out and put my hand on his arm as he stood, the rocks all thrown, seething.

"My dad and the other elders are so blinded by their hatred for the Cullens that they're… they're throwing away every tradition - every story - everything that makes us...us." He turned his head to look at me and there were tears in his eyes. "Do you have any idea how much that hurts, Isobel?" His voice broke on my name, going high.

I shook my head again. How could I? In his defeat, though, Jake suddenly looked so young - like a kid who had gotten separated from his parents on the beach with evening closing in. He was only a year younger than me - but all at once it was a huge difference.

Without even really meaning to, I found myself slipping my arm around his waist - and then I was holding him as he rested his head on my shoulder and sobbed.

I was a little surprised by how upset he was - but then I supposed I also wasn't. Jake's life hadn't been easy. Five years ago he'd lost his mom. Two years ago his dad had been disabled. And his sisters - I didn't want to judge them too harshly. I couldn't know how things had been for them. But - Jake was still a kid, left alone to take care of his dad. I kind of understood how that felt, even though Renee had never been physically disabled - just, you know, pretty unpredictable and really overly emotional. Having to take care of her had still...kinda sucked.

Sometimes.

And...Charlie had said that Jake had a connection to this place, to his people. It didn't seem like a huge stretch to think that having a vision, or experience, or whatever, and then having it interpreted for him in a way he didn't agree with at all - yeah, okay, I could kind of see how that would be awful.

I gave him a little squeeze and reached up to stroke his hair, and he responded by holding me closer and crying harder.

God - hadn't there been anyone to comfort him all these years? This kind of outpouring of grief didn't seem like it was over just one thing. It seemed like the sort of thing that had built up because he couldn't express it.

I looked up at the sky. It was really getting dark now. Soon I would try to coax Jacob back to Simone, where it was at least dry and sheltered from the wind. Maybe he would want to talk. For now, though - I just held him and let him cry.

We were friends, after all, and it seemed like the least I - or anyone - could do for him.

I just didn't know why anyone hadn't done it before now.