EPOV

When I got to my car, I put on my favorite calming CD, the same one I'd listened to that first day. I started composing something new in my head, playing the imaginary keys. It was coming along when I heard mental anguish.

Please don't let her pass out. Is she going to pass out?

A hundred yards away, Mike Newton was lowering Bella's limp body onto the sidewalk. She slumped over the wet sidewalk, her eyes closed, her skin chalky and even paler than normal.

I nearly took off the car door.

"Bella?" I shouted.

There was no change in her lifeless face.

My body went colder than ice. This confirmed every ludicrous suspicion, one second out of my sight…

I was aware of Mike's aggravated surprise. He was only thinking of his hate towards me, so I didn't know what was wrong with Bella. Was she okay? Should I call Carlisle? Was this all the time I would get with her? Only a handful of conversations with her?

"What's wrong with her? Is she hurt?" I demanded, trying to focus his thoughts. It was maddening to walk at a human pace, I wished I hadn't called attention to my approach.

Then I heard her heart beating and her even breath. At this moment, that was my favorite sound. She squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut. Then, I saw what happened in Biology.

Blood typing.

"I think she's fainted, I don't know what happened. She didn't even stick her finger." Mike said anxious and tense.

Relief flooded through me. It was almost comical, definitely nonsensical. She had years of treatment, so much that scars lined her arms, but she fainted at the sight of blood? I would be asking her about this. Once she knew that I knew, of course.

I knelt down beside her, while Mike hovered next to me.

"Bella? Can you hear me?"

"No," she moaned. "Go away."

The relief washed through me again.

"I was taking her to the nurse," Mike said. "But she didn't want to go any further."

"I'll take her. You can go back to class," I said dismissively.

Mike's teeth clenched. "No, I'm supposed to do it."

I wasn't going to stand around waiting for the moron. I picked her up, her eyes flew open astonished.

"Put me down," she ordered in a weak voice.

"You look awful," I told her. I'm sure her hands would have been cold again.

"Put me back on the sidewalk." She tried demanding again.

After a brief visit to the nurse's office, who had no clue about Bella's illness and an excuse to miss the rest of the day, we walked out of the office. Mike was standing outside the office, I realized Mike was trying to get Bella to go to the beach this weekend.

"I said I would ask my dad." She said, the tone in voice was slightly weary.

"We are meeting at my dad's store, at ten." And Cullen's not invited.

After walking out of the nurses office, she asked, "So are you going this Saturday?" Ah, her hope eased my jealousy.

"Down to La Push, to First Beach."

It was impossible, then.

"I really don't think I was invited."

"Well I'm inviting you," she sighed like it was obvious.

"I thought you had to ask Chief Swan?"

"No, just giving myself an out." She shook her head like she shouldn't have said that. This was interesting, What was the determining factor? Had she been feeling unwell? I had the feeling it was partly me, but also partly not.

"Let's you and I not push poor Mike. We don't want him to snap." I did think about snapping poor Mike, I enjoyed the picture.

"Mike-shmike." She said, I smiled at her seeming indifference toward Mike Newton.

After a brief fight on me taking Bella home, I was driving her in my car.

The relaxing CD began to play again.

After a moment, Bella said, "Claire De Lune?"

"You know Debussy?" A fan of the classics?

"Not well. My mother played a lot of classical music around the house. She said it was soothing. I only know my favorites."

"What is your mother like?"

"She looks a lot like me, but prettier." I eyed her skeptically. "I've got too much Charlie in me. She's more outgoing than me, braver too."

Outgoing? I believed. Braver? I didn't believe that for one second.

She sounded more like a parent talking about a child than a child talking about her mother.

I drove onto the street where her house was.

"How old are you, Bella?"

"I'm seventeen." she answered. I knew that, but it seemed like she was so much older.

"You don't seem seventeen." She laughed.

"What?"

"My mother has always said I was born thirty-five, and that I get more middle-aged every year." She sighed, I wondered what she was thinking about, what made her tone change so quickly? "Someone had to be the adult."

This clarified things. Maybe the years of disease slowly killing her made her more mature, or maybe it was just Bella. It seemed like Bella to put her needs behind everyone else's. That was why my father was her doctor. She wanted to make everyone else's life easier - she felt it was her job.

"You don't seem like a junior yourself." She said, pulling from my reverie.

I frowned. For everything I saw in her, she saw too much in me.

I changed the subject.

"So why did your mother marry Phil?"

"My mother is very young for her age. I think Phil makes her feel even younger. At any rate, she's crazy about him."

"Do you approve?" I wondered.

"Does it matter?" She asked. "I want her to be happy and he's been her rock over the years."

Another accidental slip up, I wondered, or was she letting me in? The unselfishness of her comment, was unsurprising, I had come to learn this was in her nature.

"Do you think she would extend the same courtesy to you? No matter who your choice was?"

"I don't know. I've never really worried about hypotheticals like that. But I-I think so."

She didn't think love was in the cards for her?

"Why didn't you think of the hypotheticals?" I hoped I would finally get this out of her. I wanted to know her.

"Umm...I just... It doesn't matter."

"What would she think of me? Too scary?"

She thought about this for a second. "I think you could be scary, if you wanted to be."

"Are you frightened of me now?"

She didn't even stop to think. "No."

We then talked about my family. Leaving out the obvious, of course. She tensed at me mentioning Carlisle. Maybe she was wondering if he had said something? Her mind was unknown to me. I, unfortunately, had to go before I could continue to figure out Bella.

"Oh, sorry, I guess you have to go." She said.

She made no move to leave. She didn't want our time to be up either.

"And you probably want your truck back before Chief Swan comes back, so you don't have to tell him about the Biology incident."

"I'm sure he's heard. There are no secrets in Forks." I laughed. And yet, she harbored one, a big one in my definition, but I did too.

I saw in my rearview mirror, Charlie pulling up to Bella's house.

"I think he's heard." I pointed my chin in his direction.

"Great. I better go." She sighed. This time she actually got out of the car.

She stopped for a moment, "Will I see you tomorrow?"

I shook my head. "Me and Emmett are starting the weekend early."

She looked a little disappointed. I could cancel these plans, but there was no such thing as too much hunting nowadays.

"Just be careful this weekend." She looked a little annoyed at my request.

"I'll do my best." She sounded a little sarcastic.

I saw her trip once getting to the door, and then I saw Chief Swan pulling into the driveway, and then get out of his car. I slightly waved my hand to him, and he waved back. He was worried.

"Can we talk inside, Dad?" She glanced over to my car. I waved again and then drove off.