Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.

Rated M for several reasons.

Chapter 9: You Could Not Make This Up

BPOV

"You couldn't be bothered to get dressed?" I ask.

"I ran here."

"You've taken up long distance running now?"

"Are we going to stand on the porch and do sarcasm all night?" He gripes, "or are you going to let me in?"

"Sorry, come in."

For two people who have known each other since childhood, and known each other in the biblical sense, we sure are awkward tonight.

"What's going on, Jake?"

"You can't tell anyone, Bella."

"I am hearing that a lot recently," I grumble, as I open us both a beer.

With s half smile he follows me over to the kitchen table, dropping down into a chair like a ton of bricks.

"Have you been working out?" I ask, curious that he seems, bigger, somehow.

"No."

Silence. Communication was never an attribute of our relationship. But, after a few pulls on his beer, he finds his voice. If not the ability to look at me.

"So, it turns out all those old stories weren't exactly bullshit," he says. "And to be honest I don't really know what to think about it or do about it."

He hangs his head, like its weight is more than he can bear.

"Sam was the first of us to change, months ago, it hasn't happened to any of us since the thirties. There was no one to help him, at first none of us knew. We just thought he'd run out on Emily and Mia. It turns out he hadn't gone very far, he'd been living in the forest, he came back when Paul started to change."

I want to fire questions at him, but I know enough about Jake, to just have patience.

"Jared was next. Dad and I had a long talk about what was going on. They looked different, acted different and people were scared of them. Even Charlie knew something was up. Of course, I thought dad was losing his marbles, talking about scary old stories and we argued. A lot. People don't turn into wolves, Bella, and vampires don't exist."

"Except they do," I sigh, and he laughs, mirthlessly.

"You know I can smell them? Like sickly sweet death. I know one of them's been here recently."

"Alice," I admit, "she wanted to apologise for Saturday night."

He growls and finishes his beer. Apparently, I have already finished mine, so I get us two more.

"Thanks," he acknowledges. "I cannot describe how weird it feels to change, like your every cell is trying to get away from the next one, like you're going to explode. And then you kinda do."

"Does it hurt?"

"I guess, but the rush, it's like a powerful drug is coursing through your veins. You feel invincible, like you could run and fight forever."

"Are you, um, dangerous?" I have to ask.

"No," he is quick to reply, "well, not deliberately anyway."

"What does that mean?"

He sighs and hangs his head again.

"When Sam came back Emily was pissed at him, there was a lot of shouting and screaming. And it turned out that we are more prone to anger now, and if we don't control it, we change. He lost it and changed too close to her; he nearly had her eye out."

"Is she okay? Why didn't she come to the hospital?" I demand.

"She's okay, but she has a scar on her face she's none too happy about. And as to why she didn't come in to see you, why do you think?"

"She could have made something up," I object.

"Or she could decide to deal with it on her own," he retorts.

"Or she could have felt she had no choice!"

"If it helps, Leah offered to bring her in to see you, but she refused."

"Does Leah know about you?"

"She knows, now," he sighs, indicating drama.

"Jesus Christ, Jake. What happened?"

"This afternoon, when Paul lost his temper with you . . . ."

"Oh my god, he was going to change?"

"Yes, that's why the others dragged him away. Anyway, Leah and I got into a row because I hadn't told her the truth about what was going on. We were both pretty angry."

"Please tell me you didn't . . . ."

"I didn't," he says, looking up at me, "she did."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. There are no stories of a woman ever changing before. Which doesn't mean it hasn't happened, just means its more weird piled onto the weird."

"Is she okay, should you have left her?"

"She's fine," he snorts, "turns out she's been changing – phasing – a lot longer than I have."

"She didn't tell you?"

"Nope."

A silence extends out, which I fill by handing out another two beers. This time we clink bottles.

"So, you really can shape shift into wolves?" I ask eventually, wimping out of the Leah situation.

"Yes, we really can."

"Fucking hell, Jake."

"Quite."

"Alice says that Carlisle thinks it's their fault."

"He's right, the more vampires there are around here, the more of us seem to change. We won't kill people Bella, please believe me, but we can and do kill vampires."

"Were you there on Saturday night?"

"No," he admits, "I am new wolf, Paul and Sam were on patrol when they caught the scent of the leeches (that's vampires to you pale faces) and were following the woman when she attacked you. Paul saved your life."

"I should thank him."

"That would be a good idea if you ever want to come to La Push again. Even when he calmed down, he was still offended, he seems to think you'd know why."

I blush but fortunately Jake isn't looking.

"And the Cullens?"

"Believe it or not, we have a treaty with them." He says. "Because they're vegetarians they're allowed to stay here, but they're not allowed on our lands and they're not allowed to kill or change anyone."

"And if they do?"

"Then we'll hunt them down and kill them," he says, a simple statement of fact.

"Um, how are they vegetarians if they're, you know, vampires?"

"They don't drink humans," he says with a shrug, "deer, bear, mountain lions, but not humans. It's not exactly what I'd call vegetarian, but the others that have been coming here, they were definitely killing humans."

Suddenly I'm very tired.

"What do we do?" I ask him.

"Well, I don't know about you but I'm going home to hug Harry and straighten things out with Leah."

…..

I could have spent the rest of the night re-hashing our conversation in my head, indeed I absolutely would have done. Because vampires and shapeshifters are bat shit crazy codswallop.

Except that when Jake left, he stripped out of his shorts and bounded off the porch at a run, exploding into a giant wolf before he'd even hit the trees on the other side of the road.

So, there you have it.

…..

Of course, I have plenty of material to sift through so my night's sleep was fitful at best.

Some of the Quileutes are wolves, which means that it is highly likely that the Cullens are, indeed, vampires.

…..

I am still shambling around the kitchen in my bathrobe the next morning, like a zombie, when there is another knock at the door.

I open it to find Edward.

Of course.

I find him incredibly attractive, for a dead man, and he finds me in my bathrobe.

Great.

"How is your shoulder?" He asks eventually.

"Sore."

"I am," he pauses, "deeply sorry about what happened."

"If you are talking about Saturday night, then I am not convinced you have anything to apologise for. If you are talking about stalking me for months, then a grovelling apology, that includes clear evidence that you understand what you did wrong, would be a starting point."

"I would like to explain, if I may?" He asks, almost mesmerising me with his expressive liquid gold eyes.

I probably should not invite a vampire into my home, even a vegetarian one, but I am too tired to care.

"Fine, come in."

I lead him to the kitchen table and indicate that he should sit. Which he does, with far more grace than Jake did last night.

"I am making coffee, would you like to pretend to drink some, or have we passed that now?"

"I would rather not," he says easily, "anything we do eat or drink in front of humans has to come back out again at some point and the clenching it in is not pleasant."

Gross. The doctor in me would like him to explain, the slightly hungover human is not going there right now.

"As we go through the change," he continues, oblivious, "our internal systems, and our veins, hollow out. Anything that is not blood will either pass straight through or needs to be ejected . . . ."

"Stop!" I order. "Please, stop. TMI."

"Too much information?" He queries.

"Yes."

"I apologise."

Too late now, but okay.

Coffee in hand I eventually sit down opposite him, morning breath and all and we regard each other across the well-polished wood. Strange, but I have always associated this table with awkward conversation, but I realise now that Charlie and I are actually quite relaxed around each other. Although, to be fair, the most shocking thing he ever told me at this table was that he was happy that mom and Phil were pregnant. I had always thought, courtesy of too much romantic fiction, that he would never move on. Speaking of which, there is some other knowledge prickling at my awareness that I owe it to Charlie to pay attention to . . . .

"Dr Swan, Bella?"

"Oh, sorry Edward, I am still waking up this morning."

"May I call you Bella?" He asks, with a charming smile.

"Of course," I assure him, "but maybe not in front of other people."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Well, you are only seventeen."

"Right," he confirms with a sad smile, "but eighteen as far as the town is concerned."

"How old are you, really?"

"I was born in Chicago, in 1901. And I 'died' of Spanish Flu when I was seventeen."

"You know it did not actually originate in Spain, right?"

"Yes, I know that is somewhat unlikely given the evidence, but it was the perceived wisdom at the time. And I am a creature of my time."

We lapse back into silence and I wonder if it is too early to swap my coffee for beer.

"Why have you been following me?" I demand abruptly.

"My family and I are vegetarians," he begins, leaning forward slightly. "But like all of our kind we are susceptible to the scent of human blood. It gets easier to resist as you get further into this life, but it is always there. And some blood is more attractive to us than most. When I first encountered you in the hospital . . . ."

He stops speaking, swallowing reflexively. Which is creepy.

"When I first encountered you, I knew that I had to get away before I hurt you. So, I ran."

"Could you not have," I do not believe I am asking this, "settled for a little sip?"

He laughs, a full-on belly laugh. Who knew he could do that?

"No, Bella, sorry. Real vampires do not work that way. We either drain you and kill you. Or we change you."

"Oh."

"We are venomous. If we bite you but do not drain you, you will change into a vampire."

"I see," I really do not, but it seems like the right thing to say.

"I wanted to leave town, immediately," he continues, "to protect you. But Carlisle, Esme and Alice persuaded me to stay and Carlisle suggested that I acclimatize myself to your scent. Since I had no real excuse to spend time around you, I started to follow you."

I pull a disgusted face, which seems to upset him.

"Never alone, Bella, one of the others was always with me. To ensure your safety if I failed to resist you."

"That sounds, sweet, Edward," I interrupt, "but following a woman around without her knowledge is stalking, vampire or not. And getting your sister to arrange 'impromptu' meetings is also stalking, with an enabler."

Oh look, I have knocked that 'secure in my righteousness' expression off his face. Quite right too. His mouth opens and closes again. His brow furrows and his eyes darken. And I feel bad, because other than wanting to eat me initially, I do not sense any malevolence from him, the opposite in fact.

"I am sorry, Edward, I did not mean to hurt you. But following me around without me knowing is more unsettling than the concept of you wanting to drink my blood. It is 2020 and I am still getting used to the existence of vampires. Stalking women is bad, that is the perceived wisdom of my time, and I am a creature of my time."

He blinks at me and I realise that he has not been told off much in the last hundred years or so. Which is very human, in its way . . . .