Never Say You're Bored

by Foxflight

Henry's life used to be interesting. Almost a century ago he lost his cousin and best friend to the Spanish flu and his brother to WWI, although one ("one") of those turned out to be not so dead. But now that he's been a vampire for so long, he's kind of in a rut- -that is, until the Cullens visit Chicago... and then, as if that wasn't exciting enough, he meets the WOLVES...

1. Chapter 1

Hello. This starts a bit slowly, but I promise Exciting Things will happen later.

Updated 8-24-22, because my writing has improved in the past 3 or so years.

Chicago, November 2007

How you know you're bored:

1. You agree to go to the store with your sister-in-law even though she always disappears into the art section and abandons you.

2. You consider running home, since you're the only vampire in the world who wouldn't be noticed doing so even if it was sunny, which it isn't.

3. You end up sitting on your car typing something that starts with "How you know you're bored."

It's never a good sign when this is all you can come up with to entertain yourself.

I could think of a million options, of course; I'd just done most of them already. I wasn't going to college again yet, that was for sure. School's not very fun when you can remember everything—what the teacher was wearing last Monday, how many times the kid next to you has dropped his pencil in the last year—except for what you're supposed to be learning. For example, I was never going to remember the first six digits of pi. It simply would not happen. I was pretty sure that was one of the fundamental laws of the universe.

I'd tried other things, too—getting a job, programming my car with artificial intelligence—that had not turned out well—but nothing worked. Joshua, the older of my two brothers, said I needed a girlfriend. He was probably right, but there weren't many girls who were willing to date a vampire, and I just happened to be one of those blood-drinking critters. A very bored one.

Henry, I was thinking that day, you've really got to do something about this. Move to Africa or something, or maybe—

Then I caught their scents.

My head snapped up, and I noticed three things at once. One: the female vampire who had been driving the red car wore an impossibly familiar ring. Two: the young girl who stepped out of the back of the car had reddish-bronze hair. Three: her smell was halfway vampire, but I could hear her heart beating.

I dropped my computer.

The other vampire looked up at me, her black eyes confused, then shocked, then wary. She could see me?

But the girl couldn't. She didn't even look up.

Half a second after the computer touched the ground, I slid off the roof of the car and picked it up, checking it for damage before sliding it through the window. Then I waited.

The vampire stepped protectively in front of the girl, who looked up, confused. "Mama, what's wrong?"

Her mother? Surely only adopted, and yet... the bronze-haired girl was pale, and too perfect to be human, but she certainly wasn't a full vampire. An incomplete transformation? Or a hybrid? They looked alike, and the ring...

The adult vampire stepped toward me slowly. "This isn't what it looks like, I promise."

I tipped my head to the side. "And what does it look like?" My cousin, that's what. But that wasn't possible. Was it? My mind raced. There had been so many bodies; they must have lost track of some. There hadn't been time to give each one a proper funeral. Would they have known, if one disappeared? Maybe not.

So, why? Why would a vampire have chosen to transform a dying boy? As a companion? For a newborn army? Unlikely—there would have been traces of such a thing even when Josh got back. Or, third option, could it have been the Volturi, looking for another talented minion? Would they have known about him, and would they have let him leave? More importantly, wouldn't we have known, if I was right about him? Would they have hidden him that carefully, for that long? Not the Volturi. Someone looking for a friend, perhaps?

It couldn't have been this vampire, she was too young, judging by the way she spoke. Who, then? It was possible that some random vampire might have snuck into the hospital and happened to choose him, but someone probably would have noticed, and not many vampires could safely be around that many humans, sick or not. But what about someone who belonged there? A nurse, perhaps, or even a doctor. Maybe an imposter, but why would anyone go to such lengths to bite one insignificant human? Unless, of course, they already worked there.

It was possible.

The girl pulled on her mother's arm. "Mom, who are you talking to?"

Her mom frowned. "What do you mean, Nessie?"

"Oh. Sorry." I concentrated on making myself visible; I had a bad habit of becoming, shall we say, extremely inconspicuous when I wasn't paying attention to the world around me.

Nessie jumped as she finally noticed me. I held up my hands, trying to look harmless. "I promise not to eat you," I told her. "Whatever you are."

Nessie held out her hand. "Can I show you?"

She must have some sort of power. I touched her hand carefully, surprised to find it so warm, but mostly hoping I wasn't about to get electrified or something.

It was like a movie, only sort of transparent. I felt my eyes widen, but I didn't flinch. I was too busy watching the flashes of Nessie's life.

First was her mother, but with brown eyes. Human. Then someone else, a Native American human. No, not human, I realized—the next picture was of a massive wolf. I was familiar with those creatures—I'd met some of them on my first visit to Washington, but then the next time I went they were gone. Next was—

Oh!

It was him. He was alive!

I was going to kill him.

I looked up at the female vampire. "Would you mind telling me where the rest of your family is at the moment?"

. . . . . .

September 1918

I raced along the sidewalk, trying to ignore the unnatural silence that seemed to fill the air. Some people shouted through their windows at me to "get back home"! I just shook my head at them and sped up.

Soon I saw my destination—the large white house with roses by the gate and an elm tree near the front. I sprinted to the door and knocked hurriedly, anxious to get inside.

My aunt answered the door, cracking it open first to see who it was. "Henry. You shouldn't be here," she told me, even as she held the door open.

"I know." Coming here had been foolish, and I understood that. "I had to make sure you were all right."

She smiled sadly and patted my shoulder. "Edward's in his room."

I leapt up the stairs two at a time—I'd been inside for too long. Even after sprinting three blocks, I had too much energy.

Edward appeared to have the same problem. There were about a thousand toy soldiers—relics from our childhood—scattered around his room, apparently locked in mortal combat. Here and there were large patches where all the soldiers had been knocked down by the deadly rubber bands that still rested among them.

Their murderer stretched another weapon and let it fly, instantly smashing down several dozen men. Without mercy, he reached for another rubber band, this time aiming at a group of three soldiers on the windowsill.

I bent down slowly to snatch a rubber band the size of my fist—the Masens did not purchase inferior office supplies—from the ground. Edward never saw it coming. He dropped his with a yelp and spun around.

"You're going to regret that."

I cowered against the wall, using my hands as a shield. "Please have mercy, O great wielder of the Rubber Bands!"

He reached for the nearest missile.

I inched closer to the door. "You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you?"

Apparently he would.

Courageously, I stood my ground, at least until I got smacked in the face for the third time. Edward had very good aim.

. . . . . .

"You should go home now, Henry," Mrs. Mason told me, casting an apologetic look at her son. "Before it gets dark."

I nodded unhappily. "Sorry, Edward."

I expected him to argue, but he just sighed, putting his head down on the table next to his empty plate. "All right; I'm tired anyway." He coughed suddenly, hard.

My Aunt and I exchanged a concerned look. "Are you feeling all right?" she murmured, crouching to look at his face.

He pushed her away. "I'm fine. Just worn out."

I could see his mother trying to hide her panic.

"I'm tired, too. It's getting late," I tried to reassure her. She didn't look at me.

"Go home, Henry." I started to protest, but she pushed me toward the door, still watching Edward. "Go."

Every instinct I had told me to stay, but I knew she wouldn't allow that. I nodded, swallowed and halfway turned, but then stopped.

"Don't you dare get sick," I told them both. Edward raised his head a few inches to look at me.

I left.

Don't panic, I told myself. He's fine. Just tired. So are you. But I couldn't forget about the feverish look in his green eyes as I said goodbye.

I never saw him again.

. . . . . .

"What was your name again?" Nessie's mother still didn't seem sure what to make of me, not that I blamed her. I had, after all, totally forgotten to introduce myself before sprinting off toward the hotel where their family was staying. She'd only now caught up to me, since she'd had to drive. At least I had waited for her, trying to guess which cars the vampires owned. Then again, I didn't know which room was theirs.

"Henry. Sorry; I got a bit carried away back there, didn't I?"

"I've seen worse. My husband freaked out once just because I went to visit my best friend. You're forgiven."

I chuckled. "Is this friend by any chance a werewolf?"

Nessie touched my hand, showing me that he was, in fact, her werewolf.

"How did you know?" The brown-haired vampire looked at me quizzically.

I shook my head. "There had to be something. Even for Edward, that would have been... unreasonable."

"You know him?"

"I'm his cousin, actually." I leaned back against her car, watching to see how she would react to that.

"His cousin?" She stared at me with sudden wonder, perhaps seeing the resemblance. My face was similar enough to his, despite my dark, almost grayish-brown hair. Certainly our eyes were close enough in color now, I mused. Assuming he hadn't hunted for a while. I imagined Edward with red eyes and shuddered.

Unless... he had married a human, after all. I decided to try something.

"You haven't told me your name yet." On purpose, I made my voice wary, almost unfriendly.

She blinked, confused by my sudden hostility. "Bella Cullen."

Cullen. Interesting. Part of my mind considered that as I asked my next question. "I hope you're not planning to hurt any of my friends, Bella." Cullen. Where had I heard that name before?

Bella started to say something, but Nessie beat her to it. "We don't hunt humans. We're good vampires. Vegetarians," she said with a smile.

Vegetarians? I raised an eyebrow. "What, do you hunt radishes or something?" In truth, though, I could guess what that meant. I wasn't surprised—I couldn't quite see Edward living a typical vampire lifestyle.

Cullen... Not a common name. I thought back across the century of my life. I'd met someone with that name in 1967... No, too late, not even a vampire. I went back farther, watching my life flash by backwards, scanning every memory intently. Fire, and thirst. Pain. Dying, hearing my dead brother saying I needed to learn to stay out of trouble. Seeing the flash of a blade... More human memories, not important; I skipped over those, working to keep my mind on track. Bella was saying something...

Oh. They hadn't even been here. That explained why none of the cars smelled like vampire. Henry, you idiot, you should have figured that out.

"That's them." She pointed to a trio of cars pulling into the parking lot. Two of them fancy, expensive, like Bella's; the other stood out only because it was so common and uninteresting compared to the others. Odd; it didn't seem like a vampire's car. Oh, of course. The werewolf was driving that one; it must be his. Nessie would have wanted him to come to Chicago, although I still wasn't sure what their relationship was.

I was getting distracted. Two cars left; which was Edward's? I didn't look at the drivers; that was too easy. Let's see... Mercedes or Volvo? I really needed to study cars more. I knew the speed and price of both, but, really, Josh was the automobile expert. Stupid hyperthymestic memory. I tapped Bella's car thoughtfully, making sure in the back of my mind that I was properly hidden. No sense in ruining the surprise.

Aha—Dr. Carlisle Cullen, one of the doctors who had helped my father when he'd had the Spanish Flu. My father had been impressed with him; that was why he'd mentioned him to me. He was calm, he was competent, and an unusual number of his female patients and colleagues had developed an interest in him—a likely sign of a vampire skilled at interacting with humans.

Hmm, silver or black? Definitely silver. Edward had a thing for silver. Three silver cats, two gray horses—I stopped myself before my memory could run away with me again. Concentrate, Henry.

Sure enough, Edward was driving the silver car. A blond vampire who looked about twenty-five drove the black one—Dr. Cullen? I leapt onto the top of Bella's car and watched the two vehicles pull into the parking spaces on either side of me, ready to analyze every detail of Edward's new family before Bella could take away my chance of giving Edward the closest thing a vampire could have to a heart attack.

Somehow, I'd expected him to still have green eyes, even though I'd known better. Instead, they were pitch-black, like those of every vampire here. Otherwise he appeared more or less the same, besides the obvious vampire-ness.

The one with the black car was definitely Carlisle; the black bag he carried, which gave off the smell of various chemicals, confirmed that. I guessed from the way the others gravitated around him that he was the leader, as would be logical if my father's opinion of him was correct.

One of them, a brown-haired woman, greeted Bella warmly. She had a few drops of paint splattered on her coat; I sensed she and Cari would get along well. She had been in the same car as Carlisle, and she walked around it to join him before they went over to Bella and Nessie.

The werewolf ran straight for Nessie and spun her into his arms, both of them laughing. Like the werewolves I'd met previously, he had an aura of heat, but unlike them, he did not, apparently, try to kill every vampire he saw. I still didn't know what I'd done to provoke the others. Maybe he'd know?

Two of the other vampires were blond; the male caught my attention first, since he was covered in scars that had obviously been inflicted by another vampire. He might have been in some sort of newborn group; it was hard to acquire that many wounds without a lot of fighting. I guessed he'd been created in the Southern Wars—the only time there'd been a lot of those groups—though that would make him a good half-century older than me, at least.

The female wore a coat that at least looked quite valuable, but I smelled just a bit of gasoline on her. She made a face at the werewolf as soon as she saw him, and he stuck out his tongue at her, earning him a swat from Bella.

The remaining two were on the opposite extremes in terms of size. The girl was tiny, with short, spiky hair and a bouncy stride, while the boy looked like a football player; he paused to kiss the blond girl on the cheek. All the vampires had wedding rings, and it was easy to pair them up—Dr. Cullen with the brown-haired woman, the big vampire with the blond girl, and the scarred one with the short-haired girl. And Edward with Bella. They moved to each other like magnets and kissed. Ew. How long had they been apart, a few hours? From the look of it, it had been weeks.

I made myself visible and slid down to the ground, and, to test my suspicions, thought "Hello." Edward jumped so high he landed on Bella's car where I'd just been; the others, startled by his sudden movement, looked up and saw me. I, in turn, was taken by surprise when the werewolf exploded into his canine form with a burst of fur—he'd put Nessie down by that point, luckily. Note to self: don't startle werewolves.

"It's all right!" I said quickly. "No one can see us. I've got it." I shifted my attention back to Edward. He was staring at me just as blankly as the others. "You forgot about me completely, didn't you?" I huffed. Granted, he didn't have my memory, and he'd probably done his best to forget his human life, but really. Maybe if I gave him a hint... "That hurts, Edward. I can still remember everything from the last time I saw you, down to what you were wearing, and you don't have a clue who I am? Sure, you'd caught a potentially fatal disease, but I still would have expected better of you."

Recognition flickered in his eyes. "Henry!" He leapt down from the car to embrace me.

"Right, now you remember me," I said, returning the hug. "I missed you, cousin, even if you didn't think to let me know you'd survived."

"You were human," he explained, stepping back.

"I told my family," I told him. And then they ended up as vampires, too, but that wasn't such a bad thing. "Seriously, I know you were a newborn, but you could have written. 'Hey, Henry, I just thought I'd let you know I'm not dead, even though you're never going to see me again because I'm a blood-drinking monster.' And yes, I would have believed it was from you, because I know what your handwriting looks like, and no one would have tried to fake it that obviously." And there would have been other signs, like where his family's property went. Come to think of it...

The football-player vampire cleared his throat. "Sorry to interrupt your little reunion, but who is he?"

No one important, apparently, I thought for Edward's benefit, extending my hand to him. "Henry Taylor. You?"

"Emmett Cullen." He squeezed my hand harder than necessary, but I could tell he had nothing against me. I thought I could get a general idea of his personality from what little I'd seen so far; he'd almost certainly get along well with Joshua.

"He's my cousin," Edward explained.

You know I'll never let you forget this, right? I thought, raising my eyebrows. Edward looked back at me; he'd noticed that I hadn't spoken aloud that time. "Anyone who knew you as a human could probably have guessed you could read minds," I said in explanation.

He looked like he doubted that, but turned to introduce me to his family. "These are my parents, Carlisle and Esme; my siblings, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, and Alice; my wife, Bella; and my daughter, Renesme." He looked like he'd burst with pride when he pointed out the last two, and I couldn't really blame him. "And... Jacob," he added reluctantly.

"Pleased to meet you," I said, trying not to squirm under their collective stares. I noticed that Rosalie, the blond girl, didn't look too friendly. Alice was giving me a very strange look, beyond the normal "Have you been there the whole time?" thing; she probably had her own power, and would have known I was coming if not for my skill at sneaking up on people.

Jasper was wary; that was further evidence for the Southern Wars theory. I gave him a friendly smile in the hope of dispelling his suspicious expression. Esme and Carlisle looked friendly, even happy to see me. A friend of Edward's was a friend of theirs, apparently. That was a relief.

"Thanks for looking after my cousin," I told them. "He needs it."

"Sure does," Emmett agreed wholeheartedly, prompting Edward to hit him in the ribs; he barely flinched.

Carlisle smiled at their antics and came forward to shake my hand. "I take it you live here?" He was from England; he had a slight accent.

"Just moved back last year. There's room for more, though."

"Actually, we're only here to visit," Carlisle declined. "We have a very nice home in Washington."

"Near the Quileute reservation," I said with a nod. "Well, Edward's staying here for a month, at least. Either that or we're following you back across the country. By 'we', I mean my family and me."

"We'd like to meet your family, if that would be all right," Carlisle said.

"Oh, I wouldn't let you leave without doing that!" I assured him. "My father will want to see Edward, anyway. You've met him," I told Carlisle. "I don't know if you'd remember. Jeremiah Taylor. Looks sort of like me, but had green eyes as a human."

"That's right," Carlisle remembered.

Edward's eyes were wide. "He's alive?"

"Undead, technically," I corrected. "But yes. So are my mom and David and Joshua's wife. Even Joshua's alive-ish."

Edward frowned. "But I thought Joshua—"

"Yeah, so did we. We were told he'd died in the war," I explained for the others, "but... well, you can guess. That's how this happened." I picked up a rock and squished it like a grape.

Something pulled on my memory. I pushed back against it, but it just tugged harder. Hold on a minute, I thought to Edward.

July 1919

It was starting to get dark. That wasn't ideal, since I was in a bad neighborhood at the moment, but I wasn't too concerned; I was good at blending in with my surroundings. I'd get home all right.

A movement in an alley caught my attention; a man with a dark mask over his face had someone at gunpoint. The second man looked relatively innocent; I guessed he was a fairly wealthy businessman.

Confronting a criminal with a gun wasn't very bright as far as survival was concerned, but I had to do something. I stalked toward them, sticking to the shadows. Somehow they didn't notice me before I got very close—close enough to snatch the gun.

Its owner kept a hold on it, though, and I figured out pretty quickly that he was stronger than me. I couldn't wrestle it from his grasp, but letting go and running wasn't exactly an option, either. I heard the victim's footsteps speeding around the corner and knew I wasn't going to get any help. Well, this had been brilliant. Good job, Henry, now you're going to die at the age of eighteen and leave your parents with only one living son.

With no better option, I let go of the gun and ducked under his arm; he couldn't shoot me at this range without hurting himself, and he'd have some trouble hitting me, anyway. I punched him in the side with all my strength, some of my hope returning when he shrank back with a groan. Then he stabbed me.

Of course he had a knife, I thought to myself as I lay on the ground, watching him flee to freedom. What had I been thinking? At the same time, though, I didn't regret saving the man. I just felt guilty for doing this to my family. I closed my eyes, trying to stay awake, if only for another minute. Maybe someone would find me...

"Oh, Henry," someone moaned, turning me over. "I let you out of my sight for a few hours and what do you do? You get yourself stabbed. Will you ever learn?" I knew that voice. Was I dead? I didn't feel dead quite yet. Oh, well. Maybe Edward was here, too. I needed to yell at him for catching the flu when I'd specifically told him not to. Of course, I hadn't known I'd be meeting my own demise less than a year later...

"Okay," the voice said, taking a deep breath, and then another. "I'm really, really sorry about this, brother, but I've got to do it. Don't hold it against me."

I found my voice. "What—?" Then something pierced my throat.

So either I was delirious, or my brother had just come back from the dead and bitten me. Given the context, the first option seemed far more—ow. Oh, no. Where had this new pain come from? If dying hurt this much, I wanted a refund.

"Ah," Joshua gasped. "Ah. All right. Henry—" He drew in a breath, "—try to stay quiet, will you? I'm going to get you out of here." He scooped me into his arms.

Were we going up? That didn't make sense, but then again, I could hardly feel anything through the agony that was spreading from my throat. It had almost reached my heart now. I needed to think about something else, distract myself; Joshua wanted me to be quiet. Aha, there was something to think about. I forced my mind onto this new topic.

Assuming this was really happening, the only reason I could come up with was that he didn't want to draw attention to us. Was it possible he wanted to hide the fact that he was alive? Was that secret worth more than my life? Maybe he thought there was nothing anyone could do—this was no use. The pain was too intense. I gritted my teeth, refusing to give in. I trusted my brother, and if he thought silence was best, I'd stay silent. I struggled to keep thinking.

Was that wind blowing against me? It was. Odd; it hadn't been windy a moment ago. I pried my eyes open, looking up at his face. His eyes—his blood-red eyes—stared back at me.

"Oh," Edward said. It was less of a sympathetic oh and more of a "Your mind is weird" oh.

"Sorry. I have major concentration issues. Where were we?"

"Your family," Bella reminded me.

"Right. I was going to take you to meet them. Shall we go, then?"

The werewolf growled.

"When did you start worrying about safety?" Edward muttered. "He thinks your family might hurt Nessie," he told me.

"You did it before, Jake, with the witnesses," Bella pointed out.

"Jacob," I said, pointing to Nessie, "this is my cousin's daughter. No one is going to hurt her, I promise you."

Another growl.

"He says he's sorry if he doesn't trust you," Edward translated.

"Can you blame me for wanting to ambush Edward? I promise we're harmless. You also outnumber us by three, not counting Nessie. I'm the only one who could sneak up on you, anyway; my dad can kind of do it, but not well enough to work if you're watching him."

The werewolf considered that.

"Bella can see me," I added.

"No one's going to harm Nessie, Jacob," Edward said impatiently. Why was Jacob more protective of her than Edward was? Yes, Edward knew us, but there was more. I'd have to get to the bottom of this.

"This way, then." I pointed in the proper direction. "It's not far from where we grew up. Don't worry about being seen."

They followed me, except for Jacob, who glared at Edward.

"He says he'll catch up," my cousin said. "He also called you something I'm not repeating."

"Wonderful." I'd keep him hidden anyway. "Race you to that skyscraper."

He grinned and we sped off. I ran as hard as I could, but he still outpaced me, of course.

"This isn't fair," I complained. "I'm a year older than you. Quit being so fast." He tried to catch me in a headlock, but that didn't work so well for him.

. . . . . .

"This is it," I told them. "It looks more impressive on the inside." It wasn't a small house, but it wasn't exactly a mansion, either. The most distinctive thing about it was that it was emerald green, since we'd let Cari paint it. It wasn't that I didn't like the color, but sometimes I did wish she'd chosen something less distinctive; I always wanted to blend into the crowd, an instinct I shared with my father and one of my brothers.

I held the door open for them—Jacob, in his human form again, stalked in first, scanning every crevice carefully—then let it swing shut. It closed silently; sneaking up on people was easier when you didn't have to worry about things like that, even for vampires, and my brothers needed every advantage they could get against me. "We have visitors," I called quietly. "Watch out for tripwires, everyone, my brother's a bit crazy. That would be David, obviously," I whispered to Edward.

"If you think he's crazy, I don't want anything to do with him," Rosalie sneered.

"What, just because I have random, uncontrollable flashbacks?" I asked calmly. I suspected we might have conflicts in the future, but now wasn't the time.

Jasper fell into a crouch suddenly, snarling, and it didn't take me long to realize why. "Don't mind the moving pictures; let's just say I'm not the only talented one in this family. Nice try, Josh, but I can see you."

"Rats." Joshua straightened up. "Wait. That's not..."

"Turns out you two are more alike than I thought," I noted as Edward got crushed in a bear hug. "That doesn't mean I'm forgiving you, though. Hi, Cari."

"Hey, Henry." Cari had a clipboard in hand—I would have been surprised if she didn't—and it looked like she was writing this time. She'd probably just gotten back. "Oh, Edward, you're alive! You know, I have a character in this story who everyone thought was dead, but she wasn't. I got the idea from Josh." She pointed her pencil at her husband and went back to writing. "How did this happen?"

That was Cari for you. "Wait until everyone's here."

Josh was shaking Edward. "You're a vampire? I can't believe this!"

"Shh!" I hissed. "Don't let Dad hear you!"

"What's with all the noise down here?" My father poked his head around the corner.

Edward stepped around Joshua.

My father's jaw dropped. "Edward?" He ran toward him, stopping an arm's length away. "You're... you're here. You're..." He made a choking sound and hugged him.

Now my mom came in; she laughed incredulously and joined her husband. So did Josh—again—and poor Edward looked like he might be squished to death.

David entered last and wandered over to me, apparently deciding to wait his turn to attack our cousin. "How will we feed them?" he wondered.

"It's all right," I told him. "They're 'vegetarians'."

"Vegetarians?" he repeated with a raised eyebrow. "Do they drink tree sap?"

I shrugged and snickered.

I heard David draw in a sharp breath and saw where he was looking. "That's Renesme. Edward married that girl there—her name's Bella—when she was human. That's how they were able to have a daughter, I guess."

"Huh." He glanced at our parents. "Mom and Dad haven't noticed her yet?"

"They're too focused on Edward." He'd probably figured that out already. "Remember those werewolves I told you about? The ones in Washington?"

"Yes. Why?"

I pointed to Jacob. "That's one of them. He's Nessie's bodyguard, or something like that; I'm not exactly sure yet. Anyway, he's clearly okay with vampires. If he's not the only one, I'd like to go learn more about them. Oh, there they go. They've seen her now."

There was an explosion of excitement as our parents and brother all tried to hug Nessie, with Jacob trying to block them until she ducked under his arm.

The only one who still looked concerned—besides Jacob—was Jasper, and I thought I knew why. I went over to him and Alice, making sure to stay visible. "Hi. What was with that look you gave me earlier?"

"Oh, that," Alice said, half-smiling. "Normally I see these things coming."

Hmm, now I knew of two reasons for Jasper to be worried. "You can see the future?" Most people would have been fazed by that, but my curiosity took over. "But then... I was invisible to almost everyone for most of the morning, so that probably did it, but shouldn't you have seen me coming before that? Yesterday, for example?"

She pursed her lips. "Our choices can change the future. You must have decided something that led you to meet Bella and Nessie."

"When I agreed to go to the store with Cari." I nodded. "Can you see my future now?"

"Too much interference," she said, grimacing at Jacob, who was starting to relax, sort of.

"You can't see the werewolves?" I'd ask more about that later. "Anyway, I came over to tell you, Jasper, that you don't have to worry. Edward would know if we were planning anything, you outnumber us, and we don't have a motive for attacking you. I could sneak up on you, but Bella can see me fine." Unless... maybe if I concentrated really hard... but mentioning that might undermine my efforts.

"Oh, good," Alice said. "We were so worried you would murder us. He's right, Jazz. They're friends." She kissed him on the cheek and pulled him toward the others. What was with all the kissing in this family? I was used to Josh and Cari kissing in front of me, but... ugh.

My father and Carlisle were talking now, introducing the members of each family. The Cullens hardly looked related at first sight; Rosalie and Jasper almost looked enough like Carlisle and Esme to be passed off as their biological children, but Emmett was too big, Alice was too small, and Edward's hair was completely the wrong color for him to fit in. The only traits they all shared were the signs of vampirism. And then there were Nessie and Jacob, who didn't even have that.

That contrasted strongly with my family, in which Cari was the only one who stood out, her medium-brown hair being by far the lightest. Josh, my father, and I all had the same dark hair, and my mother's and David's hair was pitch-black. As humans, everyone but my mom and I were green-eyed—even Cari, though hers were closer to hazel—just like Edward and his mother. Everyone could tell we were related.

When we were human, Edward and I had often been asked whether one of us was adopted when we told people we were cousins. We probably wouldn't get that anymore, what with our skin being exactly the same shade now, and him having lost his freckles.

Was Jacob part of their family? I kept getting the impression he was mostly here for Nessie. How odd. And (on a different train of thought) now that I thought of it, why had they given their daughter a name that was easily shortened into the Loch Ness Monster's nickname? That seemed like a lack of foresight. Then again, Edward and I had the first names of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; I still thought our parents had planned that one. But I was getting off topic. Edward? Edward! Testing, 1, 2, 3. Can you hear me, Edward? Sorry, cousin, but seeing as you forgot I existed...

Edward looked at the ceiling and sighed. "Yes, I hear you," he whispered.

What's up with Jacob and your daughter?

He made a face. "I'll tell you later."

He was going to let me suffer. No great loss, though; it would be fun to try to figure it out for myself. Let's see... she looked about ten, so it made sense that he'd think of her as vulnerable, no matter what her actual capabilities were, and Bella had carried her on the way here, so she wasn't as fast as a full vampire—at least not yet—and surely not as strong. That didn't solve anything, though. Exactly how did he think of her? Daughter? Sister? Not just friend. It didn't seem like the first two, either, but what other option was there? Maybe it was only that she was the youngest member of the "pack"... but why was he focusing so obsessively on her? And why was Edward's expression getting even more irritated as I went through my train of thought?

I needed more clues. In the meantime...

If Jasper had been created in the Southern Wars, that meant Carlisle probably hadn't bitten him. I ran back over my memories for the last few minutes; sure enough, he'd looked at Alice far more than the rest of his family, even compared to the others with their spouses, suggesting he was more connected to her than to the others. Was he, like Jacob, just here for one person? Had he met the Cullens and fallen in love with Alice, then? Wait... she could see the future. Could she have foreseen their future relationship and sought him out? That was an interesting thought... I needed to learn more about the mechanics of her power.

How many of the others had already been vampires when they'd met the Cullens, and how many had they—mostly Carlisle, I assumed—transformed? He was a doctor; maybe the others were also humans who had been dying. Hmm... besides him, they all had various American accents. Had he been here most of his life?

Time to ask more questions. Come on, Edward, they're going to take forever. Let's go to my room. He started to get Bella's attention. No, you can't bring her, she's a girl. Look, we have almost a century of stories to catch up on. I went over and started pulling him toward the stairs. "I'm stealing your son for a bit," I told Carlisle.

"Just so long as you give him back," he said.

My room was on the second floor, facing away from the road; the window revealed a backyard which was not nearly big enough for three male vampires who'd been transformed when under the age of twenty-two. It was a good thing I could make us invisible to humans.

I sat Edward down on my bed and plopped down on the floor. "All right, tell me about Bella. There's got to be a story there."

So he told me.

I flinched when he explained how she'd smelled to him; I'd experienced that twice. In fact...

June 1920

The smoke couldn't hurt my lungs, but my throat burned anyway. I held my breath, lamenting Joshua's choice to go on a date with Cari today, of all days. I didn't understand why he didn't just marry her already, or, for that matter, transform her. I knew she wasn't against either idea...

Josh was right when he said our family was too self-sacrificing for our own good. Once David had gotten back from the war, he'd joined the fire department, of all things; he just didn't seem to be able to go back to a calmer lifestyle. And now it had finally caught up with him; a beam had fallen on him, and I wasn't sure how badly he was hurt, but it didn't look good. The burns alone would leave horrible scars...

"Henry," my brother gasped.

"I'm here," I said. I'd heard him scream and come running. "David, I'm going to take you down to where someone will find you. I don't trust myself to try the other way. Not with you."

He coughed. "No. I can't feel my legs. You know I couldn't live... like that."

I believed him. "I could kill you, and we don't even know if it would fix you."

"I don't care."

I pulled in a breath sharply, which was a mistake. "Okay. Let me get you out of here first. Maybe I can find Josh..."

I smashed through the roof; the building was going to collapse soon, so I doubted anyone would ask questions. Maybe they would, but I didn't have time to look for a better way. Was this how Joshua had felt when he'd seen me get stabbed? It couldn't have been this bad. Why did my brother's blood have to smell so good to me? Why?! It had been bad enough when I could stay across the room from him. I told myself firmly that a panic attack wouldn't help anything.

I picked David up and climbed through the hole, then dropped into the alley and ran. I could go to the house Josh and I were staying in outside the city; he'd probably live that long. Maybe Josh had gone home early... no, I knew better than to hope for that. My stomach dropped as I thought about what I would have to do. Was there some way to contact Josh in time? No; I didn't dare leave David. Of course, the alternative could be even worse...

Even if David screamed on the way to the house, I'd learned how to stop anyone from hearing him. Any more delay would only be dangerous. I set my brother down—he didn't react—and tried to compose myself.

I'd never tasted human blood before, and his smelled so, so much better than everyone else's. I'd never forgive myself if this didn't work, but it was too late to try anything else, so I pushed all my venom to the front of my mouth, trying to get as much on my teeth as I could; I wanted as little blood in my mouth as possible. Although part of me wanted as much as possible... no. No. I was going to save my brother.

I sank my teeth into his throat.

Edward and I both flinched at the rush of pain and ecstasy that flooded my mind at that moment. I tried to pull myself out of the memory, but all I could do was skip a few minutes. Someone in my family would have known to shake me or something until I snapped out of it, but Edward seemed fascinated anyway. Maybe I'd find this interesting too if I didn't have to relive it every week or so.

I didn't hear the door creak open over David's screaming, but I did notice Josh running past me. I clamped the bleach-soaked towel more tightly over my nose and mouth. I'd even swallowed some of the stuff, but I could still taste the blood.

Josh came back out after a few minutes and looked at me for a while. "I couldn't have done that," he said finally, sitting next to me on the couch.

I didn't react.

He put his arm around my shoulders. "Really. Even now, if he smelled to me the way he did to you... and you're not even a year old."

I'd be proud of myself later. Right now, all I wanted was to be able to stop thinking about how my brother's blood tasted. How good it had been.

That was a lie. What I wanted most was a way to drink David's blood without hurting him. I didn't care if it turned my eyes red again. Maybe it wasn't too late...

"You look awful," Josh murmured.

I imagined I did. Had I really hunted only five days ago? How could my eyes be any color other than pitch-black? I laid my head on his shoulder, wishing I could sleep. I needed it, mostly to keep me from going in to see if David's blood was still edible.

Of course, Josh had to try to put some humor into the situation. "Hey, it's better than being dead, right?"

He had a sick sense of humor. I took a breath; I couldn't smell anything except bleach, thank goodness. "Barely."

"Hang in there. It'll be over soon." He gave me a much-needed hug. "Now go murder some deer."

Until now, I'd had two reasons for not doing just that. One: I hadn't been willing to leave David, even if I didn't dare be in the same room as him. Two: when I thought of feeding, I didn't think of anything with four legs. I couldn't quite make it out the door.

"Go," Josh repeated. "Don't come back until tomorrow; it'll be safe then."

Josh wouldn't let me do anything anyway. I threw the door open and almost flew away from the house, keeping the towel over my face until I'd gone a very long way.

I resurfaced from the memory, breathing hard. "If that happens again, slap me, please."

Edward wasn't listening. "Of course. If you remove the sense of smell, the thirst isn't a danger! Henry, you're brilliant!"

"You never thought of that?" I shook my head. "Okay, well, now that my brain's temporarily in the present, let's hear more of that story."

I really didn't mean to keep interrupting him; I just couldn't help it. The problem was that even when I didn't say anything out loud, I still thought plenty of things, and while I really didn't mean most of them to be sarcastic, a lot did come out that way. For example: You should've told her you were gone because you were sick, and you were acting weird in that first class because you were trying not to throw up the whole time. This way, I imagine she kept wondering about it. When in doubt—and humans are involved—feign illness. It helps solidify your cover, too.

You see this girl about to get hit by a truck, you instinctively risk everything to save her—and you know you wouldn't have done it for anyone else—and then you're surprised when Alice says you're falling in love with her?

How do you fall in love with someone you want to eat?

And... now you're ignoring her indefinitely. Yes, this will make things better.

Poor Mike. That one earned me a glare. Apparently, he still wasn't too fond of Mike Newton.

Edward, watching people sleep is creepy.

You are a stalker, you know that?

Yeah, I don't get Rosalie's motivations either. She was jealous because you liked Bella and not her... but she was never interested in you in the slightest? Girls.

I don't understand why you kept doing this when you loved her more than anything else, but you knew you could kill her with a touch. Don't give me that look; I really don't get it.

My goodness, you're describing these conversations in detail.

Bella faints at the sight of blood? Ha! Although you probably shouldn't have laughed at the time...

Do you still think about yourself this way? It rather worried me that he kept saying he'd thought, "Bella will never choose me," or "I don't deserve..." Really, are you okay?

Wow, your stalking her turned out to be a good thing. And she didn't mind. I would have been avoiding you at all costs by now.

So she knows you're a vampire now... and doesn't care. Bella is very brave.

Bella is very stupid.

We've been here for an hour now. That's fine, though; the incredibly specific details make it so much more entertaining. That's when he stopped giving me details.

Bella has low self-esteem too.

I'm glad I already know she survived all this.

Aww, you wrote her a song?

I'll bet I could make a girl faint by kissing her. No, really. Stop laughing at me.

Something occurred to me, but luckily I hid myself from him before he heard it. "Edward?" I interrupted a moment later. "I can tell this is going to take a while, and, well, you can see how dark my eyes are, and you remember my flashback a while ago, so... want to hunt?" I'd realized that, sooner or later, he would mention hunting and figure out he had something to tell me, and that could ruin my surprise. I was surprised he hadn't said something already, actually. Did he have some reason for not telling me? It would be strange for him to be embarrassed about it.

He obviously hadn't wondered about our eating habits before. "About that..."

"Too bad." I ran to the doorway. "Josh! David! Want to go hunting?"

Josh was there in an instant, David right behind him. "Please! It's his fault we don't hunt more often," Josh told Edward. "He never wants to go until he has a flashback that makes him thirsty."

"You can hunt whenever you want; I'm not stopping you," I said. Edward started to protest again; thinking fast, I hid myself for a fraction of a second to think, planning to change the subject. I couldn't think of one that I was sure wouldn't take us back to the subject of hunting, though, so I did something else that was sure to work: I buried myself in a memory on purpose as we ran out of the house, knowing I could somehow keep us from being seen at the same time.

October 1917

Edward and I were the last ones to get to the park, and we found the other boys deep in a thoughtful, highly scientific, and totally unbiased discussion as they waited for us.

"Let's ask them!" Louis, a big, loud boy, suggested as we neared. "Henry, Edward, is Andria or Catherine prettier?" Andria and Catherine were, it was generally agreed, the two most attractive girls at our school.

Edward just shrugged. He'd earned a reputation for not being interested in any of the girls in the slightest, so no one pushed him. Of course, because he always insisted adamantly that he didn't care about any of them in particular, voicing even such a small opinion would have gotten him a whole lot of teasing, so maybe that was why he was keeping silent.

"Catherine," I said without hesitation.

Half the boys groaned. "He doesn't count," another boy, Jack, protested. "Everyone knows he only likes dark-haired girls."

"Dark-haired girls are prettier," I said matter-of-factly.

Louis grinned and said, "Seven to six, Jack. It's decided."

Jack looked around like there was someone else who might agree with him and even the count. "Edward! Come on, you've got to prefer one or the other."

Silence fell as Edward met Jack's eyes. "I wouldn't marry either of them," he said finally.

This was an unpopular answer; protests came from almost everyone. I had to agree, though; Andria was snobbish and Catherine was just cruel, and I didn't much like either one.

"That's all right. You remember what happened to Oliver," I reminded the rest. "Someday, my cousin here is going to meet a beautiful young lady, and we'll wish he hadn't, because he'll never shut up about her!"

Louis barked a laugh. "If we live that long!"

Edward rolled his eyes. "I suppose it's possible. Theoretically."

"It's more than theoretical, trust me." I elbowed my cousin in the ribs. "Just wait for it."

"I highly doubt it," Edward sighed, but even I, sitting next to him, hardly heard him above the others' laughter.

I blinked, refocusing my eyes on the world around me. Edward's expression was half amused, half perplexed. "I was right," I said, just for the record. "And we've proven already that you can talk about her for a long, long time. Can anyone else confirm that?"

"I was listening," Josh said. "Which memory was that?"

"A minor one. I was assuring Edward he'd fall for a girl someday."

Josh patted Edward on the back sympathetically. "Don't worry; you'll get used to him always being right. Just never watch a detective show with him. He'll spoil it."

"True," I admitted, "although that's different."

We were outside the city by now—we'd been close to the edge anyway—but we still had a good distance to go, and I was running out of ways to delay the inevitable conversation.

Oops, he'd heard that. I gave him my most innocent look and blanked my mind.

"So, cousin," Josh said, "I suppose you've never—"

I hid myself from Edward, hoping he couldn't see me through Josh's thoughts, and made a frantic "don't say it" motion.

"—ended up in the army, then?" he continued smoothly. "You were really excited about it for a while."

I heaved a sigh of relief. Joshua looked at me curiously, but Edward didn't notice. "No," he was saying. "And I think I'm thankful for that."

"About time," I said. "Between your mom and me, I don't think a day went by where neither of us wanted to slap you."

Edward looked at me. I smiled humorlessly. "Whenever I thought about it, I couldn't forget that the "enemies" were just a bunch of kids like us." I looked at my brothers. "And now that I've seen what it did to people..."

Josh and David nodded. Josh said, "I always used to pray you wouldn't get caught up in it. It destroys a part of you."

"I don't think I could have done it," I said softly.

"'Course, it's not the same as getting rid of people who deserve it," Josh commented, winking at Edward. He'd figured it out, then. Good, but I wasn't surprised; I wasn't the only clever one in this family. "Sometimes with those you'll feel bad, but..." He shrugged.

We had to keep Edward from asking questions. "I wish we didn't have to go this far out," I complained, "but this way we don't have to worry about being seen."

"Not as confident in your superpower as you pretend to be?" Josh teased.

I ignored him and winced dramatically. "I call the first one we find. I'm not in the mood to be looking for a week."

Josh, who was really getting into his role, grinned. "The first one in general, or..."

"You know what I meant. The first one we'd kill."

Edward kept making faces, though he looked like they were more the kind he would make if he were debating telling us his secret than if he were thinking about us hunting what he would assume we hunted. Strange.

Okay, so clearly I could lie with my thoughts as well as my words, since he hadn't figured out yet that we were messing with him... would it work to do that when I wasn't talking? Time to find out. What's Edward making faces about? I thought in his direction without thinking about how I was directing it at him. Maybe he's as thirsty as I am; he did share my memories, after all. I really doubt it's about looking for a long time; I don't know about the rest of the Cullens, but going with the first person he comes across doesn't sound like something he'd do.

And then, before he could say anything, I ducked out of his awareness and smelled the air. Hmm, a few humans nearby, but not too close... aha, a deer. Not great, but it would do. I really was quite thirsty. I sped away, letting Edward see me just as I vanished from sight. He didn't follow me as I'd expected him to—probably not wanting to see me kill a human—but I immediately had a new, and maybe better, plan ready, and kept going. My brothers stayed with Edward.

I found and dispatched the deer quickly. Despite my complaining earlier, I usually took the time to look for something that would taste better, but skipping the search was worth it today. I counted to 250 seconds—we'd timed how long it took for our eyes to start changing color—and ran back.

"You're still here?" I asked when I reached them. "Aren't you thirsty?"

"Henry..." Edward said quietly, as though worried about my reaction, "I should have told you before, but I was afraid of what you would think." Yup. "My family... we don't..." He looked up at me. I thought he was going to continue, but then he froze. And blinked a few times. And then he got exactly the same smile my father and my brothers and I got whenever we realized we'd done something really stupid.

I walked over and put my hands on his shoulders. "You really need me around, don't you?"