Author's note: As always, thank for reading, and thank you for your feedback. Your reviews really are just about the coolest part of my day. I wanted to give you a heads up that updates may be slow for the next month. Another freelance job landed on my desk, and I have to meet that deadline, mouths to feed and all that. I'll make an effort to keep updating this story as well during that time, but regardless, be assured that I will be back to continue SBR just as soon as I can. I finish my stories. Always.

~ Beth

Bella tried to make her mind blank as she drove toward the Cullens' house. She turned on music, Kate Bush's 50 Words For Snow. The CD had been in her car for ages; she'd bought it just before she'd found out she was pregnant with David. The music was ethereal, contemplative, and, to Bella, profoundly sad. David had been alive inside of that music. After he was gone, she still felt him there, wandering somewhere among those meandering melodies, hiding just behind Kate's breathy vocals.

Bella only listened to this album alone.

She put the windows down a crack as she drove, drawing in deep lungfuls of the cold, clean air that rushed into the car. Her chest felt tight; she gripped the wheel hard with both hands.

It's okay to be afraid. Of course you're afraid – you know what they are.

It wasn't just fear, though. Or, at least, not fear of dying. Despite the precautions she'd taken with the letter and the wolves, despite the harsh things she'd said to Alice on the phone, a large part of her would not believe that the Cullens would harm her. They hadn't yet, and there'd been more than enough opportunity to do so. No, what Bella feared lay beyond that common physical danger. Her fear hid inside in that question, the question that yet persisted –

What do they want from me?

She pushed away all the possible answers, all those worthless guesses that wouldn't matter at all in an hour, and focused on the road before her.

The forty-five minute drive rushed by. Bella was both sorry and glad that it went quickly. She parked her car in the Cullens' driveway and walked to their front door, feeling as though she wasn't entirely inside her own body. She forced herself not to hesitate before she rapped on the door – three times, like she meant it.

You are not a coward. You will not make them think you are.

Edward Cullen opened the door. Bella drew in a little breath when she saw him.

"Please, come inside, Bella," he said. He met her eyes, a small smile on his lips. She followed him in and let him take her coat. "My family is gone. They'll speak with you later if you wish, and Esme did prepare dinner, but I thought it would be best if it were just the two of us for now."

"Okay, sure," Bella said, both relieved and alarmed. This was what she'd asked for, after all. Speaking just with Edward might be easier, safer. But it might be so many other things as well.

Edward led her down the hall to the parlor she'd seen before, the one with the piano. He gestured to a pair of identical armchairs. They were arranged a few feet apart, facing each other. Pushed against the wall behind them was a round table. The top of the table was patterned in a checkerboard of dark and light wood; it was a chess table.

Once Bella was sitting, Edward took the chair across from her. He waited until she was settled before speaking, and when he did, he did so easily, without any of the fumbling hesitation she'd come to expect from him.

"I have a great deal to say tonight," he began. "But first, if it's at all possible, I need you to understand and believe one thing."

"Wh-what, Edward?" This calm, forthright Edward should have put her at ease, but somehow didn't.

"You are in no danger here. Not from me, not from my family. No one here will hurt you, and every creature in this household will fight to their own death to protect your life."

Bella's heart gave a little flip. She shook her head.

"But Edward, why?"

He leaned forward, his hands clasped together in his lap.

"Can I tell you a story, Bella?"

"Um, okay," she said.

He drew a deep breath and looked away to some unknown point beyond her.

"You already know what I am." It wasn't a question, but he still waited for her to respond.

"Yes," Bella said, then added, after some hesitation, "A vampire."

It was the first time she'd said the word to describe the Cullens, even to herself. It sounded ridiculous, cartoonish. It was correct, but it was absurd.

She wondered if he would laugh at her, but he didn't.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "And you know that I'm not twenty-six years old. In truth, I'm seventeen years old, and I have been that age for a very long time."

"How long?" Bella asked.

"Nearly a hundred years."

"Oh," she said. "Oh." Her eyes scanned his face, youthful and perfect.

"I became what I am now a century ago when Carlisle Cullen took pity on me. I was ill, near death. My human family was dead already. Carlisle saved my life, made me what I am, and on that day became my father."

"And the others? Jasper, Alice...?"

"They weren't with us yet," Edward said. "Carlisle had been on his own for centuries. He withstood it – the solitude, I mean – better than most would, but even he was near his limit. He Changed me out of compassion, but I think he wanted my company as well. And then, a few years later, he found Esme. He Changed her out of love. Once that happened, once they had each other, I was alone in a way I had never been before."

"They left you?"

"Oh, no. They would never do that." Edward smiled ruefully. "But, Bella, the love between a vampire and his mate is… difficult to describe with words. It's not the same as what I've seen in human couples. A vampire can no more hide his love for his mate than the sun can hide its light. And, for me in particular, the truth of Carlisle and Esme's love was obvious, and constant. I knew Carlisle before Esme, and I knew him with her, so I knew how empty he had been, and how his life had changed when he found her. I'd understood his emptiness before, because it had been the same as my own. Now, in the presence of that love, I was aware of my aloneness in a way I never had been before.

"I truly was happy for them, and I tried to be content on my own. But Carlisle, being who he is, still had pity for me. One night, he came upon a dying girl in the street. He saw that she was beautiful, and he thought that I might love her. So he Changed her."

"That was Alice?"

"No, Rosalie."

"But you didn't love her," Bella said.

"No," Edward said. "And the feeling was quite mutual."

"So, Carlisle kept doing this? Bringing you girls?" Bella tried not to show how repellent she found the idea.

"No. After Rosalie, he was determined to never Change another human being. You see, she very much regretted what he'd made her. She'd been too injured to participate in the choice, and it's not one she would have made for herself. It took a long time for Rosalie to accept what she was."

"So, the others? Where did they come from?"

"About two years after she came to us, Rosalie brought us Emmett. She found him in the woods, injured and dying, and she loved him. She brought him to Carlisle and begged for him to be Changed. As much as Carlisle didn't want to Change another person who couldn't choose it, he couldn't deny Rosalie, not after the pain he'd caused her. As I said, he knew what a vampire's love for their mate was. He couldn't let Rosalie's mate die."

"How did you know Emmett would love her back?" Bella asked.

Edward shook his head.

"We didn't."

"But he did love her."

"Yes." Edward smiled as he remembered. "Rosalie stayed with him, held him in her arms, for three days and nights while he endured the Change. She was the first thing he saw when he awoke. He called her an angel. Carlisle was so relieved. We all were."

"What about Alice and Jasper?" Bella asked. "Why did he Change them?"

"He didn't," Edward said. "They were already vampires when they found us. It was a little over a decade after Emmett came. They were vampires when they met each other."

"Let me guess, love at first sight?"

"Good guess."

Bella was quiet for a moment as the information he'd given her settled in. She sensed he had more to tell her.

"What's the rest of the story, Edward?"

He smiled and inclined his head in silent approval.

"I'm only just getting to the beginning, actually. I told you, before, that I suffered with the solitude of being a vampire without a mate. It's not possible for me to describe it so that you'll truly understand. The emptiness of it aches. It was agony to contemplate the idea of living forever, on my own, surrounded by my family, all happily mated. But I tried to endure it, for their sake, and because, somehow, I still had some hope that it might change.

"For fifty years, such was my life. My family loved me. They wished they could ease my pain but knew better than to try what Carlisle had before. So we traveled, lived many different lives. At times, I almost didn't mind my life. More often, though, I minded very much. I spent a great deal of time alone, unable to bear their happiness. Sometimes I left them for years at a time, trying to find a place where I could have peace. I needed my family, though. I always came back, sometimes with relief, sometimes in disgrace."

His expression turned dark for a moment. He swallowed hard and looked away before continuing.

"It was after such a time that we came to Forks ten years ago. We had lived here many years ago. We liked the place because the climate allows us to walk among humans more often than we can in most places. I was in no mood to pretend to be human, but the others wished it, so we did. Carlisle started practicing medicine at the hospital, and the rest of us enrolled in school. The others found it interesting enough. I continued for their sake. And then, that day... you arrived."

His expression softened into that look of wonder she'd seen on him before. Bella felt her face get hot.

"And then?" she asked, hardly breathing.

"And then I loved you."

Bella leaned back in her chair. She looked away from Edward because she needed to. His expression was too open, too understanding. It seemed to say, Yes, I know, but there it is. The truth that you wanted.

"I know it can't make sense to you, Bella," he said. "And I know that it isn't fair to tell you this. I tried to keep from telling you, to let you know me first, the way you would with a human man. But, as I said, a vampire cannot hide his love."

Bella listened to him speak. She couldn't tell herself that she was surprised, not really. But, still. This creature, this man, beautiful and terrifying and strange, was telling her he had loved her for ten years, that he'd been searching for her for a century. She felt tears gather, and she didn't know if they were from terror or joy or gratitude or despair. Maybe they were from all of those things.

She cleared her throat and blinked away her tears before she turned to him again.

"I'm no one, Edward. I'm no one."

"Bella," he said. "With all that I am, I disagree." He unclasped his hands, and hesitated. "I very much want to hold your hand, Bella, but I promised not to lie to you anymore, and I don't want to scare you again."

"You won't scare me," she said, reaching toward him. She suddenly needed to touch him.

"Wait," he said, holding up a hand to stop her. "You know what I am, but you don't know what it means. Part of what we do, part of how we stay hidden, is that we have the ability to... misdirect people. To have them perceive us differently, so they won't notice our differences."

"What differences?"

He paused.

"If you touch me, I won't feel to you the way a human does."

"I've touched you before, Edward," Bella said, frowning. "Are you saying you were stopping me from knowing how you really felt?"

"It was necessary. A vampire's flesh is very different from a living human's. We're colder, and much less soft. It would be... alarming for you to feel that without understanding why."

She looked at his hands, trying to see a difference, but they just looked like hands, albeit pale ones, to her.

Her eyes met his for a long moment, silently asking. He looked distressed, but nodded, and even attempted a smile. She leaned forward and reached for his hands. She took them both from where they rested on his knees and held them in hers. When his flesh contacted hers, she looked up at him in surprise but didn't let go.

"How didn't I feel this before?" she asked in a whisper. It didn't seem possible.

"Are you afraid?" he asked, his voice husky.

"No." The word almost soundless, barely a breath, but it was the truth.

Her eyes were locked on his. His hands were cool in hers, but she felt a heat spreading from where they contacted hers. It traveled up her arms, gathered in her chest. A feeling like electricity danced over her skin.

"My eyes, Bella," Edward said in that same low, rasping voice. "Look at my eyes and tell me what color they are."

She looked.

"They're green, Edward. They're- oh my god." She watched with awe as his eyes changed color before her, shifting from pale sea green to shimmering gold. "Oh my god," she said again. "Do all vampires have eyes like that?"

"Our eyes are this color only because we don't feed on human blood," he said. "Vampires who drink human blood have red eyes."

"Can you- Can you make them any color you want?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"No. When we're obscuring ourselves from humans, we can only make ourselves appear to be as we were when we were human."

"So, your eyes were green, before."

"Yes," he said.

She still held his hands. His skin was inhumanly smooth, like the petals of a flower. His flesh was hard, but still felt alive beneath her touch. Even though she was the one was holding him, it felt as though something outside of her was holding her there, in that moment.

It took more effort than she expected to let go of Edward's hands. She eased back in her chair, putting distance between them once again.

"You must be overwhelmed," he said.

"Overwhelmed..." she repeated. She rubbed a hand over her eyes. "Yes. I feel as though I'm following you somewhere, and I tried to leave a trail of breadcrumbs, but the further I go, the less I think I'll be able to find my way back. And, I don't even know if I want to go back, but I want to be able to go back, you know?"

"I do know," Edward said. "When I first saw you, Bella, I both loved you and despised you."

"Despised me? Why?"

"Because I had no choice in what you were to me. None. You were a seventeen-year-old girl, and I didn't know you at all, but I was nonetheless bound to you. As much as I'd grieved being alone, that hadn't been as frightening as the way you pulled me in."

"Do you still feel that way?"

"Angry? No, not anymore."

"Why not?"

He paused for a moment before he answered.

"I'm not really sure. I think the best answer I can give is that resentment simply couldn't survive in the presence of my love for you."

Her face heated, and she looked away.

"But that's just me," he added quickly. "Bella, do you remember what I wrote in your yearbook?"

"Yes, you said that I'm only destined to become the person I decide to be."

"To be fair, Emerson said it, but yes. I wrote that, and I meant it, Bella. Loving you is my destiny, unquestionably. Whatever you choose to do, wherever you go, I will love you. I'll love you until I'm dust. That's my story. It's already been written, and I can't change it. But it's not yours, not if you don't want it. You can always find your way back. You'll always know what you know, and... I'm not sorry for that. Maybe I should be, but I'm not. You can leave, you can choose another, but you'll always know. Even if you aren't mine... I'll always be yours."

The tears were back, and Bella didn't try to stop them this time. She leaned toward Edward and reached out to touch his cheek. His eyelids fluttered and closed as her fingertips stroked lightly over his skin. She opened her mouth to speak with no idea of what she was going say.

Edward's eyes flew open and his head turned as though he'd heard something. Bella didn't hear anything. She pulled back her hand.

"What is it?" she asked.

He held up a finger - wait. His face still had that expression, of listening.

"Breadcrumbs," he said at last. He turned to Bella. "Bella, what did you do, before you came here? Alice sees... Something is about to go wrong."

Alice appeared. There was a blur of black hair and white skin, and then she was there, in the doorway. She looked terrified.

"Whatever you did, Bella, you have to stop it," she said. "They're going to come for us - the wolves. It might be too late. I don't know."

"The letter?" Bella said. "I left it at La Push, but no one should find it, not tonight. Someone had already been there to take care of the monument today, I could tell."

"They do find it," Alice insisted. "I don't know why, but they do. I can see them, here, at the house. Oh, god, they're-" She pressed her hands against her eyes. "They come for us, Edward."

Bella jumped up. "I'll go get it. I'll go now."

"I'll go," Edward said. "I'm faster."

"No," Alice said. "They'll know you've been on tribal land, and it will be just as bad. It has to be Bella."

"Okay," Bella said, stumbling after Alice as she half-led, half-pulled Bella to her car. Alice opened the car door, and Bella got in quickly and started the engine as Alice slammed the door shut.

Bella drove as fast as she dared down the driveway and away from the Cullens' house. Her last glimpse of them was in her rear-view mirror. Alice was pulling on Edward's arm, trying to get him to go back to the house, but he was frozen to the spot, staring after Bella. A moment later, the driveway curved away, hiding them from her sight.

Bella's car engine revved high as she pushed down on the accelerator. The sun was setting and flashed between the trees as they rushed past her. She didn't look at the spedometer. Kate Bush was singing now - "There's someone who's loved you forever but you don't know it..." Bella saw in her mind the wolves, huge and deadly. How many? She didn't even know. Dozens? A hundred? She saw teeth, hair. She heard the roars, Edward's voice, Alice screaming. Would there be blood? Do vampires bleed?

Oh god, no. No, no, no... I don't care what they are. I don't care. Please, no...

Even at near-suicidal speeds, the drive seemed to take a lifetime. It was a miracle Bella didn't miss the turn-off for the road that accessed the monument site. Gravel flew out from under her tires as she took the turn too fast, barely managing to stay on the road. The SUV jumped and shifted over the bumps in the rough track. Finally, Bella reached the point where the trail narrowed too much for her vehicle to continue. She slammed on her brakes and killed the engine. She jumped out of the car and didn't bother to close the door before she started sprinting through the trees.

Jacob was in the clearing. Bella's heart dropped into her stomach as she saw him standing in front of the pillar, holding the opened letter in his hands. She emerged from the trees; as she got closer, she could see his face better. His expression was one she'd never seen on him before. It was wild, dangerous; the man she'd known was nowhere in that expression. The air around him wavered, and a low rushing sound started to build in volume.

"Jacob!" she screamed, running to him. "Wait!"

He didn't seem to hear her at first. She called out again as she ran, but he didn't move. It wasn't until she was almost in arm's reach of him that his eyes shot toward her. She saw first relief, then panic in them, and understood why a moment later. She was too late, and she'd come too close.

An explosion of flesh and fur and claws collided with Bella with incredible force. She was thrown backward more than ten feet and landed hard on the grass. She stared up at the darkening sky, unable to breathe for what felt like an eternity. When she finally managed to make her lungs work again, she gasped and coughed. Her right shoulder hurt. She tried to move that arm and found she couldn't. She reached up with her left one to touch it, and her fingers came back wet. She looked numbly at the blood coating her hand.

"Jacob?" She looked around, finding as she did that it was hard to move. She spotted the wolf that had been her husband a dozen yards away. He was pacing, looking into the woods expectantly. He glanced back at her anxiously and whined but didn't come closer. His tail hung low.

She tried to sit up and found she couldn't. There was a deep, sickening pain in her belly, radiating toward her left hip. She touched her stomach and found the fabric of her clothing torn and wet. Nausea and dizziness overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes. It was so cold.

She was awoken an unknown time later by the feel of warm hands on her face. She opened her eyes.

"Sue?"

"We're here, sweetie. We've got you," Sue said with a tight smile that didn't cover the panic in her eyes. She was looking Bella over, moving her clothes back to see the wounds beneath. Sam Uley stood over both of them, his face ashen. Sue turned to talk to someone Bella couldn't see. "We can't wait for the ambulance," Sue said.

"Okay, no problem. Hey, Bella, I'm going to give you a lift, okay?" Leah bent over her.

"Don't hurt them," Bella said. The world was turning gray again.

Leah lifted Bella from the ground, sending incredible pain through Bella's arm and torso. Bella tried to scream but could only manage a weak mewling sound. From somewhere near, a wolf howled in response.

Then Leah was moving through the woods with Bella in her arms. Every movement brought new agony, but despite the pain, Bella felt sleep creeping in.

"Don't hurt them," she mumbled as the world grew dark. "Please. He's mine... I didn't know."

Leah didn't answer, but picked up speed as Bella's body went limp in her arms.