We made it from Northern England to Paris just in time for sunset. We pulled up to one of the many, many hospitals in Paris, this one looking rather ancient, but once inside, proved to be just as modern and well kept as any hospital that Carlisle had worked for.

It didn't take us long to find Paris. As soon as we walked onto the patient's floor, we could feel him, so expansive was his presence. I couldn't yet pick him out of the din, but I knew that once I was in his presence, he would be one of the harder humans for me to tune out that I had ever met, second only perhaps to Renee Swan.

We found him in a room to be shared with three other patients, but he currently had the room to himself. He was a small man in his late forties, not that you could tell without reading his chart. He was worn, but in the sort of way of someone that has lived. He looked weathered from living as much life as he could, when he could. He was chatting with a nurse in smooth, deep French, his base words seeming to have come out of a much larger man. The nurse was smitten and he could tell and liked it. He was already wondering if she worked late and if he might still have this room to himself when she did.

"Mon petit frère," Lissette said as she came in and kissed both his cheeks. She gave the nurse a look that clearly stated, "if you value your life and safety, get out" and she beat a hasty retreat.

"Big sister," said Paris in French, his tone supremely affectionate. "You came to visit me! For such a little thing as this! Pah! I will be out and back to my old tricks in no time. But who is this?"

He looked at me, smiling.

"This is an American doctor," she said, also in French. "He is very good. He is going to make you better."

I walked over and picked up his chart, surveying it half in interest and half to play the part. Lissette looked momentarily surprised.

"Wait," she said in English. "Are you actually a doctor?"

I smirked.

"I have two PhDs," I said. "One in internal medicine and one in surgery."

I looked over the chart.

"Unfortunately, there is little I can do for him," I said. "He has late stage liver cancer. His protein markers aren't good. From his lab results, he might also have early stage lung cancer."

She gave Paris a disapproving look.

"You said you were going to quit smoking," she chastised in French.

"I did," he said looking to one side, waving one hand while hugging a pillow to his chest with the other.

"For how long?" she asked.

"Until the next one," he said roguishly.

Lissette stood up.

"Oh, stop," he said. "I am living my life. I will stop for no one, big sister, not even you."

"And if it kills you?" she asked. "What then?"

"Then I die," he said. "I have lived more than most in my time."

She didn't let him go on.

"What can be done?" she asked me.

I shook my head.

"Not much," I said. "The cancer in his liver is too far gone to treat with anything but chemotherapy. Given his test results, he isn't a good candidate for it. Even if they could cure him, the treatment would shorten his life significantly, and we would still have to treat the lung cancer. Honestly, at best, we could treat his symptoms and manage his pain levels. He would have to quit drinking and smoking now, change his diet, maybe get some more exercise, but I get the impression those are not options for him."

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

I pointed with my eyes and she immediately pulled the flask out of the front of his hospital gown.

"Are you joking?" asked Lissette in French. "You have cancer of the liver and you are drinking in the hospital. If you weren't dying, I could kill you!"

He laughed, "Do not be angry with me, sister. I am dying, remember?"

Lissette looked like she might throw something out the window. Maybe Paris.

"You aren't going to die," she said. "I will see to that."

"How will you?" he asked. "Is your doctor boyfriend a miracle worker outside of the bedroom as well?"

She actually blushed a bit.

"He can fix this," she said. "Do not worry."

She turned towards me, checking left and right.

"Heal him," she said in English.

I glanced at his chart.

"There really isn't anything that I can do," I said. "I can make him comfortable or end his suffering."

"Exactly," she said abruptly. "End his suffering. Heal him. Heal him like you were healed."

I frowned, "What?"

"With the influenza," she said.

I froze. Horror filled me.

"You want me to do what?" I asked, agape.

"Make him what you are," she said. "Make him immortal."

I could not believe what I was hearing. My mind actively rebelled against understanding it. I couldn't. I couldn't possibly be understanding her correctly.

"You don't mean that," I whispered.

"I mean precisely that," she said fiercely.

"You don't know what you are asking me to do," I said, louder.

"Yes, I do," she said. "I am asking you to save the life of my brother, my only family I have in this world. He is the only person in this world who knows what I am who isn't a vampire. He loves me and accepts me for who I am and there is nothing I wouldn't do to protect him."

I glowered at her.

"And I have no say?" I said sharply.

"You do," she said. "You get to say yes, because it is me who is asking. You will do this because you care about me and might someday love me. You will because you know what favors might come to you if you do. You will because if you don't, there is no end to the grudge that I will hold against you."

I glared at her, "Like the choice you gave me to be a murderer again?"

She shrugged.

"Exactly," she said. "I offered you a solution and you found another. If you can provide another, we will do that. Otherwise, you can do it."

It was my turn to want to throw something out of the window. Maybe myself.

"And what of his soul?" I asked.

She looked at me blankly.

"His immortal soul?" I said. "The one I will be dooming to hell by making him an immortal monster? That soul."

She tried to put out an indifferent face, but I could tell the notion that what she was asking me to do might claim her brother's soul was troubling to her.

"What of it?" she asked. "If such a place as hell exists and you are sent there for your actions, it will not matter. He is not becoming what you are by choice or by any action that he is committing. And even if it does cost him his soul, all he has to do is se repentir, so there is no problem."

I trembled, trying to suspend my disbelief and disgrace.

"And what of my soul?" I asked.

"What soul?" she asked. "You are a damned monster alreasy, are you not? What more can this little thing do?"

I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to put my hand around her throat and squeeze. I wanted to look into her eyes as understanding came into them, as she realized that it wasn't an act or a joke, that I had power over her that she couldn't fight against.

"I am a sinner," I said slowly. "I have coveted, have raged. I have been greedy and proud. I have glutted myself and been slothful. I have murdered one thousand seven hundred and twenty two men, and now, thanks to you, I have acted lustful. There is not a deadly sin that I have not committed, thanks in part to you, and now, you would have me commit the final act of my damnation. The only vampiric act I have yet to perform is to create progeny, and you would have me do it against my will for your sole benefit."

She glared at me.

"No for me," she said. "For my brother."

"It's my soul," I snarled in a harsh whisper, so vicious, it was not entirely human. "Would you take it all from me, the last vestiges of my humanity? Care you not that you are insisting on the totality of my own condemnation? When will it be enough for you?"

She looked more than simply angry.

"So," she seethed, "you are saying no?"

I just stared at her.

"You don't care at all what I have to say," I said. "All you hear is no."

She snorted, "All I hear is that my brother is dying and you are making it about you."

I turned and walked away.

"Where the hell are you going?" she demanded.

"This isn't about me," I said. "Remember?"

"Stop," she said. "Cure him first, then you can leave."

I laughed. It was perhaps the most scornful sound that had even come out of my body.

"You can't be serious," I said.

"Fine," she said. "Be angry with me. I do not care. Take out everything on me. Do to me what you will. Just heal him first."

"No," I said. "You do not understand. I am not going to do this. I am not going to damned myself utterly for you when you don't have godforsaken common courtesy to understand why I don't want to in the first place."

She looked at me like I was being stubborn.

"No," I said before she could open her mouth. "I don't care, but you obviously don't either."

"I care," she cried. "That is why I am doing this, because I care. That obviously does not mean anything to you, but it means a lot to me."

I turned and began to leave once again.

"Wait!" she cried. "You are really going?"

I paused in the doorway.

"I am more than you seem to think," I said. "Or, at least, I want to be. I do not want to be a monster. Even if it would be easier. Even if I would be doing you a service. Even if, at length, I would suffer less. I want to be more than what I am."

I looked at her. "And you want me to give that all up, for your own sake."

I shook my head, "Yes, I am going. Would you let me?"

Her face fell. I could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. Her lip trembled and her chin puckered. Her face began to twitch with all the effort she gave to not cry, as much a display as sobbing would have been.

"Why?" she asked. "You would leave me?"

I came to her. Before I knew my feet were moving, I was beside her and held her. She clung to me, her sniffling face buried into me. Over and over again, she whispered the same thing.

"Please," she whispered. "Please, please, please. Do not leave me. Please. Please."

My heart broke. To say I was unfeeling towards her plight was furthest from the truth. But there was truly only one thing within my power to do. Even if I were to call Carlisle this very moment, the most experienced doctor in the world as far as I knew, he would say the same. If I had access to all known medical treatment trials and had the ability to place a Frenchman within the trial, one who was decidedly an unlikely candidate to be accepted into such trials, there was still no guarantee that it would even help him. I would practically need to see the future if-

I unobtrusively reached into my pocket and pulled out the burner phone I carried for just such emergencies. It was blank. No texts. Either Alice couldn't help, or she wouldn't. I was on my own.

"Is there no alternative?" I asked. "Is there nothing else you would have me do?"

She wiped her face on my shirt.

"If there is any other way that he might live," she said, "I would take it. But it must be as certain as curing him."

I felt myself wilt.

"For how long?" I asked.

She looked up at me, "What?"

"For how long?" I asked again. "He is nearly an old man as it is and is not likely to become less so. If he should be cured, he will die. Nothing short of supernatural immortality will prevent that, and even it has its limits."

She seemed to shrink into herself. It was something that she had likely thought of before, but it seemed something she was not prepared to consider.

"I am not ready to be without him," she said. "He is the only one in this world who loves me. I do not want to live in a world where no one loves me."

I looked at her. Did she just imply what I thought she was implying? If I was to love her, would she not need him to become a vampire? If I loved her, could she let him go?

And then, a darker thought occurred to me. If I told her that I loved her, whether or not I truly did, could that free me of the obligation of changing him?

The thought disgusted me, both that I would have it and that I wouldn't immediately denounce the idea. A part of me felt that I should agree without reservation in recompense, but that idea disgusted me further still.

I hugged her tightly for a moment.

"I need time," I said. "To think and to understand. I am not leaving, but I need to go."

I looked into her eyes, wanting… something like permission, but then again perhaps it was only acceptance.

She kissed me, tenderly.

"Reviens vers moi, mon Édouard," she whispered.

I squeezed her hand and left the room. I found the nearest stairwell, courtesy of an emergency exit map on the wall. I slipped up the stairs to the roof, able to exit but unable to enter without a card. Once there, I leapt out into the night.

Paris at night was a sight to behold. There was a reason it was considered so iconic and its skyline was one of the most romantically recognizable. The night was aglow with the lights of Paris, and all its most famous structures were a glory to behold; the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, Notre Dame, the Cein. It was very moving to see it from the air. I landed upon the Eiffel, a place to land that was free of people, having just closed. I sat on the very edge of the highest railing, feeling satisfied in the display of my otherworldliness, completely disregarding the mortal danger that was the far pavement below me. There I sat and considered.

First and foremost, could I do what Lissette was asking of me? Not should or would but could. As stated, I had never tried to change someone before. Carlisle had described it to me one time. You needed to be of a sufficient age or else it wouldn't take. He hadn't told me what that meant, simply that I shouldn't try it until I was at least half a century dead. Next, I needed to find a place within myself that I could gather blood to. There is a place, a place he seemed to describe more abstractly than literally, that one could gather blood to and place into it a bit of one's longevity, one's power and essence. Once gathered there in sufficient quantity, one could move it within one's body to a place of one's choosing, to provide a bleeding wound from which a near dead human could drink. Then, drink from the human, draining them to the point of death, and then create the wound from which they can drink. Give them the blood, but beware giving too much or too quickly. It could injure both parties. Once done, they would die and begin the process of transformation. Though they were still present and could feel, they were still as a corpse and would remain so until completion.

I could do this. I understood how and knew that it would take little trial and error before I could be sure that I was capable. Next, did I want to?

The answer was simple. No. A thousand times and in every language I could speak, to the depths of all that I was and off into the furthest reaches of eternity, no. This was something I would not choose. I had been forced to consider such an option only once before. If it meant that I could keep her forever, would I have changed Bella?

And like that, I was back. It was nearly a year ago. I do some quick math and realize that it wasn't a year yet, but more than eleven months. I was sitting on the balcony of our Forks home. Alice had walked out and I was less than thrilled to see her.

"Go away Alice," I had said. She came and sat beside me.

"You can't avoid this," she said.

"Yes I can," I had said. "You are wrong."

She looked, as she had done before. Two images, overlaid; in one, Bella is dead and I am standing over her body, eyes burning, and in the other, Bella is dead, pale of skin, dark of hair, and her eyes are burning.

"It can only go one of two away," she had said. "Until you decide it can't-"

"It can't!" I roared, but Alice was unphased.

"You say that," she said, "but if you meant it, it would be different."

I hated her for being so right. I knew she was, but that didn't make it any easier to bear.

"I can't make her a vampire," I said.

Alice had looked at me.

"You are thinking about this the wrong way," she said. "Literally."

I glared at her, "You do remember that I am older than you, don't you?"

She giggled.

"You are thinking that you can't turn Bella into a vampire because you can't imagine a situation that would lead you to making that choice. Think about it like this; you made the choice, already. Why did you change Bella into a vampire?"

I considered her words.

If I had made Bella a vampire, it would have been because I had no other choice. I wouldn't've done it because she was injured or dying, nothing so whimsical. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was. There was only one thing in this regard I would have had trouble resisting, and that was Bella. Had she chosen and insisted and needled me and weedled me down, listing all her reasons and all her logic, I wasn't sure I could have resisted her for long. Bella would become a vampire because she wanted to. I just didn't know how to accept that.

And I hadn't accepted it. In the end, I had decided that Bella was better off dead than a vampire. It was a wrong and terrible choice, but it was the one I had chosen. I now regretted it, along with so many other things. I had no doubt that if I was making this decision for Lissette, had she been mortal and wanting to stay with me forever, I wouldn't have easily made the same decision, but with everything that had turned out the way it had with Bella, I would have been more likely to change her. But I couldn't make the decisions to change her. I didn't know what would happen if I tried.

Making her brother a vampire was something I would have to consider very carefully. In truth, I was not sure how long the relationship between Lissette and myself would continue. I could see it lasting for quite some time, but considering the evidence of reality, it was more likely that he would be a vampire longer than we would be together. He would be a vampire until the time of his death, but the chances of us being together until one of our deaths was less likely. I would not be so crass as to state that my only reason for saving his life was that we were together, but if we were not, the chances that I would change this man would be pretty pointless to consider anything other than zero. Perhaps if I knew this man better, the answer of whether or not I would change him would come to me. Essentially, he might be someone worth changing into a vampire, but I would not do so lightly. His hedonist tendencies were cause for concern. When translated through vampirism, they could become truly dangerous.

I went back to the hospital. I wasn't sure how long I had been away, lost in thought and considerations, but when I got back, it was well past midnight. I came into the patient's floor where Paris was staying and was almost immediately stopped by a nurse.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said in French. "This floor is closed to guests until tomorrow."

"My apologies," I said in French as well, matching her Parisian accent. "I was looking for my lover. She was here visiting a friend."

She paused.

"Are you American?" she asked in very accented English.

I was flushed with self reproach.

"Yes," I said in my usual voice.

She smiled, "Your lover… she said she is… nearby… at the hotel."

She pulled out a hotel key.

"Hôtel cher," she said, looking at me, a look that I didn't need telepathy to tell meant that she was lusting after me. I took the offered key.

"Merci," I said and began to leave.

"She doesn't know you speak French?" she asked in French.

I turned and nodded.

"Why?" she asked.

I smiled.

"Because I do not want her to know," I said, also in French. "I would prefer it to stay that way."

The nurse gestured a dismissal, "She will not hear it from me."

Her thoughts added that she would like compensation in return, perhaps a quickie in a nearby supply closet, but she was not about to ask. I smirked and left.

The hotel was not far. As soon as I walked in, I could tell, it was a step up above our usual fair, though nice hotels were a norm for us already. As soon as I walked inside, I was nearly accosted by a doorman who seemed to be extra vigilant about keeping out the riff raff. I displayed the key and he welcomed me as a long lost son.

"Which floor?" I asked, and he took me to the front desk where I had a brief conversation with a clean cut gentleman who spoke English with a faint British accent who directed me to one of their top floor penthouses. He let me know what the numbered passcode was in the elevator to even get up to that floor, and I took the elevator up. This was a bit unlike Lissette. She didn't usually go in for this much luxury, but we were in Paris after all. Maybe this was a hotel she had always wanted to visit.

I made it onto the floor without much trouble. It was decidedly a nice place, with high ceilings and fine art on the walls, not just fine art prints. I made it through the door, mostly distracted by my own thoughts, so much so that I hadn't noticed someone else's, someone who was also in our room.

I slipped the key into the lock and opened the door to the sound of giggling and flirtatious teasing in French. I walked into the main living area of the suite and found Lissette curled on the couch, with a girl's legs across her lap. They stood as I entered.

"Here he is, at last," said Lissette, switching back to English.

"Édouard," she said. "This is Eleonora. She has come for a visit."

"He is pretty," said Eleonora in French. "Is he as good as he looks?"

"Better," said Lissette in French, her tones and posture suggestive and inviting, in that way that makes most young men freeze, for fear of breaking the illusion.

"She is for us," Lissette said in English. "For you."

The girl was a bit shorter than Lissette, willowy and innocent. She had warm dark eyes and dark, straight hair. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the low light, and her looks were that of a sweetly maiden in the vigors of youth, made all the more comely for her modern style of feminine inhibition and independence. She wore long velvet gloves and silken hose, which in total made up about as much material as the little black dress she wore. She was warm and vibrant and lovely and… willing.

She smelled delectable. I could feel my fangs desire to extend, the burn in my throat intensifying. It didn't matter that I had feed a couple of days ago, or that I had drunk so deeply of Lissette that I hadn't absorbed all that I had taken in. I wanted the girl, the young and innocent girl. And she wanted me. She wasn't the same, her features barely an approximation of those that I felt myself longing for them to be, unbidden. But she was enough that it stirred the hunger of my memory, my longing, and my desire.

"You can have her," said Lissette. "She wouldn't mind, anything that you might do to her."

With a playful sound of mirth from the girl, Lissette turned her about and drew up her dress. Along her back and backside were marks. These were not the harsh injuries of assault. These were that of pleasure, of bedroom play, placed upon someone who likes pain to contrast their lovemaking. She liked what had been done to her, liked being displayed to me. There was much that she would consent to, more than I wanted to consider.

"I can't," I whispered, so that only Lissette could hear me.

"You can," she said. "She is willing, so very willing. What would it take? Consent? If you were to tell her, I am sure she would be thrilled. You could make her forget later, no?"

I trembled, doing my best to keep myself where I was.

"I could kill her," I whispered.

"Non, Édouard," she said. "You have my personal guarantee. I will be here. You can have me first, so that you are not tempted to take too much. And I will be here to stop you if I have to. I can give you this. I can do this every night if you wish. How many girls would you like? How many boys? Tell me all your preferences, and I can make it so."

I was quivering and barely able to contain myself.

"Why are you doing this?" I begged.

She smiled, caressing a particularly large and well placed bruise. Eleonora gasped and let loose a quiet moan, edging pleasure and pain.

"You give me what I want," she said, "and I will give you all you want and more."

They began walking towards me. Eleonora's dress came off, followed by Lissette's top and shorts. I couldn't move. My eyes were enraptured by all the acres of pale and perfect skin, provinces of it, begging to be explored and tasted. It was the closest feeling I had ever felt to sexual desire.

"Do not worry," Lissette said. "This is not une carotte. I will not withdraw this gift until you agree to do what I ask. But after tonight, it will not happen again, not until you do what I ask. This is but…"

She lent over and whispered in my ear.

"A taste," she said.

I could not think, could not act. I was afraid that if I thought, I might deny myself this thing that she was offering me. And I was afraid that if I acted, I would go along with her desire without a care for the consequences, whatever they may be.

I was quiet and still long enough that Eleonora seemed to become nervous.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "Does he not want to? Does he not want me?"

"Oh, he wants you," said Lissette, "and that is the problem. He has trouble letting go and having what he wants. That is why we are here."

Eleonora was so sweet in her nervousness. She looked right in my eyes, brave, despite my silence and my stillness.

"I like you," she said, her English clear, but very obviously, this was a phrase she had learned by rote, for situations just like this one. "Do you like me?"

I did. Very much so. That I might take a part of her into me, freely given, even enjoyed in the giving, for the bit of pleasure I could return. This was something I had never thought I might have, something that felt too easy, that felt like it might be something if so easily given, might take over my life, like power, truly corrupting.

She kissed me. I kissed her back. And then Lissette was there and I was kissing her as well, then everything, all the world, the room, thought, and care, all fell away. There was only them, and me and the blood.