Chapter 9: Changes

The journey back to Forks was charged, to say the least. Once they had disentangled themselves from each other and the forest, Beau drove home. His mood was soaring, and he couldn't keep the grin off his face as he drove one-handed, his free hand across the space between them, toying with Edythe as his fingers crept up and down her thigh. She worked to hide her reactions the best she could; she could not partake in any payback, worried about causing Beau to drive the Volvo off the road. But when he had parked in front of Charlie's house and they noticed the cruiser was still gone, she did not hesitate to pull his face across the center console and crush his lips to hers. He returned the gesture passionately, his own desire swelling again, but Edythe was the one to control herself this time. She sucked on his bottom lip for a moment before pulling back.

"I'll get you back for that, but not now," she whispered into his ear. Beau's hands were traveling across her ribs and waist, traveling south. She swatted his hands away playfully.

"I don't see why now is not a good time," he grunted, and she giggled.

"You do have neighbors, Beau. And I can't read minds anymore so I have no idea who might be watching," she reminded him, pulling away and back into her seat, trying to fight the urge to laugh as his expression fell. But he assented and they moved into the house; one glance at the clock made it clear to Beau that he should start on dinner.

"How about chicken enchiladas?" he asked Edythe, moving about the kitchen to make sure he had the ingredients required.

"Do you expect me to know what that is?" she countered teasingly; Beau laughed good-naturedly as he pulled out onions, lettuce, tomato, tortilla flour, and chillies. He found the cutting board and pulled out the dicing knife as he responded.

"It's Mexican food, specifically a tortilla wrapped around chicken and filling with sauce on it," he explained. Edythe didn't know how she felt about food that was simply bread wrapped around a few pieces of meat but she was too hungry to care that much; the snacks they had toted on their trip to the meadow had long since expired in her system and she trusted Beau's judgment. She had yet to try a human meal she didn't like. Beau instructed her to turn on the stove to medium heat and to prepare a saucepan; she worked easily to complete the simple task, letting him know once she was done. He had prepared the onions already and added them to the pan as well as the salsa and some cream cheese.

"Stir it all together for about two to three minutes," he said; she nodded as she took his place in front of the stove, following his instructions. The smell coming from the pan was already making her stomach growl, though that didn't take much. As she worked, Beau defrosted the chicken and diced it, making even, manageable pieces. Edythe watched him cut the meat with mild fascination; though Beau was hardly the most graceful of humans, the sinuousness he used in the kitchen was incomparable, and came completely natural to him. She hoped, maybe one day, that she would be as comfortable and be able to cook for herself and for him, and maybe their future family.

The idea passed through her mind by coincidence, but she paused to consider it, to flesh out that small desire she had craved. She imagined herself a bit older, in a kitchen similar to Charlie's, standing by the counter as she diced vegetables into a salsa while simmering onions and chillies on the stove, all the while two small faceless beings sat nearby, waiting for dinner to be ready. The memory dissipated as quickly as it had come, but Edythe found herself smiling slightly. That future was no longer a mere fantasy; she could have it now, if she wanted, if they both wanted. But that was something too far down the line to worry about; none of them knew whether or not this change would be permanent and there was no point in getting her hopes up.

Beau added the chicken to the pan and, after checking Edythe's progress, he prepared six tortillas. Once the mixture was ready, he showed her how to carefully pour it into them and roll them up to keep the filling from falling out the other side. They finished them off by dousing them in enchilada sauce and cheese before placing the pan in the oven to bake. As they stepped back, Edythe shook her head.

"It seems like so much work for only one meal," she lamented. Beau grinned.

"You may think differently once you taste them," he said, "Besides, didn't you say you would go miles away to hunt? Doesn't that seem like a lot of work?" Edythe smirked back as she leaned against the counter.

"That's different; there was always better game out east," she remarked. Beau shook his head indulgently and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Well, now you need to eat more than once every two weeks," he said. "You'll get used to it." His mouth pressed to her ear, nibbling at the edge. She shivered but moved away, her arms inadvertently wrapping around herself.

"But will I?" she wondered, not really expecting an answer. Beau hugged her tighter to his side.

"You will," he emphasized. She smiled at him slightly, hoping he was right, but knowing he was only saying that to cheer her up. She shook her head of the invading thoughts, not wanting them to dampen the mood.

She pushed off the counter, moving across the kitchen to the sink; Beau joined her as they began to clean the dishes. This had been something Edythe was familiar with, as she had helped Beau do so many times over the past few months, especially while he was unable to move around much due to his injuries from his encounter with Joss. They worked in companionable silence, the only sound the scrub of the brush on metal and ceramic as they cleaned up the mess and waited for the food to be done.

Edythe reached into the sink, which had filled significantly with bubbles from the dish soap, but gasped in surprise as she felt a stab of unexpected pain at her middle and fourth finger. She pulled back her hand to find the skin sliced open, a small sliver of blood dripping from the wound down her fingers. She stared at it for a moment, before she realized that sweat had broken out across her forehead, though the room was cool, and her head started to swim. Her peripheral vision had disappeared and she suddenly felt the room spin.

Edythe thought she heard someone call her name before, just as suddenly, everything reversed. As if from somewhere far away, she saw Beau yank her hand under the running faucet, the cool water soothing the sting of the cut and washed the blood from her skin. She exhaled as the room righted herself and her body stopped the shivers she hadn't even noticed had started. She looked up at Beau in surprise, bewildered as her mind gradually caught up with what had just happened. Beau had his forearm pressed against his nose and mouth, his own face contorted as he kept her hand under the running water, trying to keep himself coherent just as she had almost fainted.

After a minute, Beau forced a breath through his mouth, willing himself to not be sick as he grabbed a bunch of napkins from the counter top. Quickly, he pulled Edythe's hand toward him, and clamped the napkins against the wound tightly, putting pressure to stop the bleeding. Edythe covered her hand with his and he pulled her briskly to the hallway bathroom, hunting through the linen cabinet for band-aids.

Once he found them, Beau cautiously pulled back the napkin, which was stained red. Edythe felt another wave of unease as she started at the blood marks, and the sheen of sweat across her forehead formed once more. She wrenched her gaze away from it, focusing on Beau's face. The bleeding had stopped and Beau automatically dried the rest of Edythe's hand, adding a small amount of ointment to the wounds before wrapping a band-aid around each finger. He tossed the napkin in the trash and buried it under a few more paper towels. The gory sight gone, Edythe found herself able to breathe and think properly again. She met Beau's gaze in the mirror of the bathroom with an unsteady expression.

"Are you all right?" Beau asked. She nodded after a moment, ensuring her mind and body were acting correctly.

"Yes. Are you?" she returned. She remembered all too clearly the last time something like this had happened; the memory of dragging Beau's nearly limp form across the campus of Forks High School as he was nearly sick with blood phobia, a phobia they now seemed to share. Edythe had no memory of her human life, so she had no idea if this was a new development, or merely a trait she had transferred over from her first human life. But regardless, the reaction was extreme enough that they both had been affected, and somehow Beau had kept from both of them from passing out.

Edythe let out a small breathless, disbelieving laugh. After a moment, Beau joined in, and they both laughed at the sheer unexpectedness of the experience, and the sheer irony of the situation. Once they had recovered, Beau check her fingers once more.

"Do they hurt at all?" he asked. She shook her head; the dull throbbing was uncomfortable, but not painful.

"Be careful the next time you reach into the sink when you can't see the bottom," he chided her. She rolled her eyes but grinned, both of them moving back to the kitchen as the stove timer dinged. They both were sitting at the table when Charlie arrived home a few minutes later. He clumped in the front entrance loudly as he put away his tackle and hung up his jacket.

"Hey, kids," he greeted as he stepped into the kitchen's doorway. Both Beau and Edythe had their mouths full with the enchiladas so they merely waved, Beau pointing to Charlie's own prepared plate on the counter top. Charlie thanked his son for dinner before moving to the living room to turn on the TV.

Beau and Edythe finished dinner quickly; Edythe found that, as expected, she liked chicken enchiladas as much as anything else she'd had so far, save for the green beans from the first day. She suppressed a face of disgust as she finished the last of her food, chugging down the glass of water Beau had offered her. Beau laughed at her antics; it was still so strange for him to see Edythe eat, and more than that, to enjoy eating. She was, thankfully, not a picky eater, willing to try anything he gave her. He was sure someone may consider her a 'foodie', despite how little meals she'd had in the past few decades.

He stood next to her as she sat in her chair at the table as she finished, before taking her plate and utensils away to the sink. She made to get up but he stopped her, quickly kissing her bandaged fingers before moving to clean their plates. She gave in easily, and sat crosslegged in the chair watching him, her eyes roaming the span of his neck, down his muscled arms, easily seen with the T-shirt he wore. She remembered the wide expanse of his back, how she had kissed every inch of it earlier in the warm sunlight…She worked to stifle the reaction that caused in her body, but when Beau turned around, he saw the same expression in her eyes as he had earlier that day. He returned to her side, and their fingers intertwined as their eyes got lost in the other's.

Edythe was about to suggest moving upstairs before the vibrating of her phone on the countertop stopped her thoughts. She leaned over to read the name of the caller; with only a moment's hesitation, she slid her fingers across the touch screen and pressed the phone to her ear.

"Carine," she breathed.

"Hello, Edythe," Carine greeted. "How are you?" Edythe glanced up at Beau, her cheeks turning a little pink even at the idea of sharing with her mother what she had done today.

"I'm doing better," she said simply, hoping it would be enough to keep Carine appeased.

"I'm glad to hear that. Is Beau there? We have some information we'd like to share," Carine asked.

Edythe assented, standing and pulling Beau with her to the stairs, wanting to go up to his room so they could speak with Carine. As they passed Charlie in the living room, though, the Chief of Police looked up from his game.

"Beau?" he called; Beau stopped and looked back at his father, Edythe still holding his other hand, halfway up the stairs.

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Charlie sat up in his favorite chair, pushing his plate away. Beau glanced at Edythe, who looked equally confused and unsure. He squeezed her fingers gently in encouragement.

"I'll be up in a minute. Let me know what they say," he told her. She nodded before climbing the rest of the stairs and closing the door to his bedroom behind her. Beau stepped back to sit on the couch across from his father, curious and unsettled about what Charlie could want to speak to him about. For one brief moment, panic shot through him that Charlie was going to rescind his offer to allow Edythe to stay with them; but, just as quickly, it passed, knowing Charlie would never go back on his word, especially after seeing Edythe last night. That soothed his fears slightly, but still left him confused.

"What's up?" Beau asked, prompting his father to speak; Charlie looked unsure, not knowing how to broach the subject properly.

"How is Edythe doing?" he asked instead; Beau frowned.

"As best as anyone could expect her to be," he replied. "She's been through a lot in the past few days." Charlie nodded in agreement; even though he had not seen Edythe's response save for last night, he could only imagine how traumatized the girl was by the entire situation.

"She seems…different," Charlie said slowly, his eyes glancing at Beau. He did not want to offend Beau by the statement, but he couldn't help but address his thoughts.

Charlie had watched and interacted with Edythe since the Cullens had arrived in Forks, and even more so since she and Beau had started dating. He had been used to her, at least as much as one could get to someone with disproportionate beauty and disrupting maturity and grace. But, since Beau had brought her home yesterday, Charlie could see the stark change. He couldn't exactly put his finger on it completely, but something had definitely changed in his son's girlfriend.

Edythe seemed to have tanned significantly in just a few days, and her skin color wasn't the only thing off; Charlie admitted he didn't stare at Edythe that much, but he definitely didn't remember her ever having the bright green eyes she now had. In addition to the physical, Edythe acted different; not in the big things, but the small minutiae that were almost too inconspicuous to catch. How she seemed to be cautious when she ate, how she moved less easily than she had before; besides her anxiety and nearly palpable stress, Edythe was just emitting the aura of something being distinctly different about her.

Beau's frown deepened; as Charlie believed it to be him interpreting his concerns as an insult, Beau's mind was going a mile a minute. Charlie had noticed the changes; it would be ridiculous to expect him not to. But he hadn't expected this to be brought him up so soon, and he was scrambling for some sort of explanation he could give his father. For a half-second, he lamented about not asking Archie or Carine for a cover-up story.

"What do you mean 'different'?" Beau asked, wanting clarification on exactly what Charlie had noticed. Charlie shook his head almost to himself, before the observations spewed out of him in a gust.

"I mean, she looks…I don't know, different. She never used to eat while she was here, and it looks like her skin got darker..and since when did she have green eyes?" Beau stared at his father, slightly shocked to be put on the spot to address the very real physical changes in Edythe. He searched his mind, and an old conversation popped into his mind.

"She used to wear contacts," he answered quickly before clarifying, "She used to wear gold-colored contact lenses. And she used to wear make-up; that's why her skin was so light. But she stopped wearing them out a few days ago when all this happened." Charlie's brow furrowed.

"Why would she do that?" he asked. Beau shrugged it off lightly.

"I can't answer that question; she said it was something related to her skin care and how it wasn't good for her eyes or whatever. But she seems to like going without; she says she feels more natural without all the extra stuff on." From his side of the conversation, Beau could see the big faulty holes in his logic and explanation, but he hoped Charlie didn't. His father seemed to deliberate; when he spoke, it sounded less suspicious, more normal.

"She doesn't need it; she's a beautiful girl without it," he stated. Beau smiled.

"I know, and I've told her that. But up until now, she never felt comfortable without covering herself up in public. But I guess that's changed now." It changed indeed, and Beau felt his heart rate return to normal as his father seemed to swallow his story. Charlie considered it for one more minute before moving on, not wanting to dwell on the meaning and purpose behind girls' skin care and make-up routines.

"How is the court case going? Have you heard anything?" he asked. Beau indicated the stairs where Edythe had departed.

"Carine had just called her when you called. I think she has an update," Beau said, his eyes flickering up the stairs. Charlie waved his hands toward Beau as he reclined back into his chair. His concerns assuaged and his curiosity rectified, Charlie dismissed him.

"Go, then. Let me know what Carine says," he said. Beau nodded and then nearly bolted up the stairs. As he stepped into his room, he saw Edythe sitting on the bed, holding the phone in her hand, her elbow perched on her knee, the speaker button pressed on.

"Beau's here," Edythe announced to the room as he joined her on the bed. Beau met her gaze, questions in his eyes.

"Carine and the others went looking for whatever it was that caused this," Edythe explained, indicating her body with one hand. "They started where you found my car and were able to track a scent back east where it stopped at the river. It didn't pick up again for the twenty miles in either direction on either side of the banks." Beau nodded as she filled him in, settling crosslegged on the bed and stroking Edythe's knee.

"It's unfamiliar, but definitely one of our kind," Carine said from the phone. "Whoever it was had been in the area for a while; we found scent trails all over the forest, mostly concentrated at the outskirts of the high school."

Edythe frowned; she travelled frequently through the forest and has never noticed any strange scents; of course, if she had, she wouldn't have left Beau's side until the person had been located.

"Have you been able to find anything in lore or your old contacts?" Edythe asked; Beau noted the twitchiness in her arm as she pulled at the strings on the quilt. He reached his hand to hers to still it. Carine responded with a firm negative.

"We've only just started searching, but nothing comes to mind, nor anything that I can glean from others," she said, regret seeping into her voice. "Only gods were ever known to be able to transfigure people into other things. I just can't see how one of our kind could have this strong of an ability. Or why they would do it in the first place." Edythe was staring off into space as Carine spoke, her mind far away, wracking her brain for all the information she knew on this topic, which wasn't much.

"Archie says Beau can come pick up your computer when he stops by tomorrow," Carine continued after a pause. Beau raised his eyebrows, and he could see Edythe was equally thrown. She had debated on wanting her laptop so she could do her own research; though she doubted she would get any more information than Carine had, the urge to scratch the itch, to find some type of answer to this miraculous situation, was not something she could ignore.

"Beau's coming by tomorrow, is he?" she asked, one eyebrow raised, as if her brother could see her expression.

"Yes. Apparently, he has some things to discuss with us?" Carine's response was more of a question than a statement, but the intent was clear and Edythe felt herself freeze for a moment, like bucket of cold water was dumped on her as she recalled her and Beau's conversation before they had gotten…distracted.

Edythe had no idea where her family stood on the idea of the future. Though now they seemed to be willing to work to uncover the source of her transformation, she could hardly assume without their input that this was what they wanted. As Beau had said, this was their choice was much as it was her and Beau's. Edythe pursed her lips together for a moment, than swallowed the gulp in her throat to respond, but nothing came out.

Beau reached out and pulled her to his side tightly, comfortingly.

"Yes. I'll be by tomorrow morning," he assured Carine. Carine responded in assent and then ended the call, saying they would speak in more detail when they had more information. Edythe barely heard her, her mind started to swirl with all the uncertainties that plagued her this morning. Her thoughts turned bleaker and blacker as she continued, and she seemed to sink deeper into the disparity of the situation, of the reminder thrown in front of her, almost mocking her.

Beau squeezed her harder, bringing her back to reality.

"It will be okay," he vowed; she nodded absently and let him comfort her, but there was too much uncertainty to give her any real relief. But she had no choice; she would just have to wait and see.