Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.
This story has been adopted. The original was written and discontinued by Amiiix3. I was graciously given permission to continue the story as I saw fit. Thank you Amiiix3 for your trust.
Edward seemed frozen for a moment, his eyes glued to mine blankly. He blinked twice and shook his head.
"You want to... learn?" He asked slowly, still shaking his head.
He almost sat up, but I reached out and placed a soft hand on his chest, pressing him back down.
"You don't want people to see you sparkling," I warned, "It's not very manly."
He frowned and I removed my hand, fingertips tingling ominously.
"You want to be an animal drinker?" He was still staring at me blankly.
I sighed. "You don't have to teach me if you don't want to. But if you could give me an address... somewhere I could go. Like those rehabilitation places they send the heavy drinkers to, so I can recover from my monstrous thirst for human blood." I felt guilty. Of course he could not refuse me; it would be rude. But at the same time, I felt he did not want the burden of teaching me this difficult deed. I was giving him no choice.
"I don't... I left that behind. I drink human blood now, as much as you do," his brow furrowed as he talked. Rolling onto his back, he unflinchingly stared up at the sun.
"Oh." I had forgotten he had given up the old ways. "Like I said, if you know somewhere anyone could teach me how to handle my thirst."
"I don't know anywhere," he said, too quickly.
I glared at him, unsure why he would be hiding something. "What about... Alaska?"
His head snapped my way, his blood-red eyes flashing furiously. "Why would you want to go there?" His voice was rough.
"I won't hurt anyone- I just want to learn how to stop hurting people," I whispered quietly.
Edward sighed and rubbed his temples with his long fingers. "I'm sorry," he muttered, "I... when I met you I thought perhaps I could find a kind companion- uh, friend- with which to travel. Someone sane, but who had the same new lifestyle I did. But now you want change to the life I left."
"You don't have to go back to that life if you don't want. I just want to try it. The guilt of it all- four decades of killing innocent people, because I can't control this monster inside me. Do you know how it feels? To drink someone without a second thought and then for weeks be haunted by their face. Could they have been someone's mother? Or perhaps they were a soon-to-be bride, or a caring father, a loving husband." I shuddered, my throat burning with emotion, but no tears could escape my eyes.
"I'm sorry," Edward whispered. He reached a hand and twisted his fingers through mine, squeezing once. The constriction in my chest disappeared, replaced by warmth. But his fingers slid from my grip as he pulled his hand away. I pretended not to be disappointed.
"I should have realized. I've only been drinking human blood for a year, now- nothing compared to your forty. And I go after the robbers, the rapists, the thieves. Still, no matter what, there's guilt."
Edward paused for a moment, or many moments. We both turned and stared at the sky. I listened to the whistling of the wind, the snap of a tree's branches against a window a few blocks over. The birds sang to one another from across building tops. Edward's breathing was steady.
"All right." His words were silent, almost lost in the flurry of the wind.
"What?" I turned to him, sure I must have heard him incorrectly. A few moments before he had been almost delirious trying to force me not to become a 'vegetarian'.
"All right. We'll go to Alaska." Edward smiled at me, his eyes soft.
I blinked rapidly. "We- we will? You'll...- really?"
He chuckled, reaching out to tug on a strand of my mahogany hair, teasingly. "Yes, we will." He was suddenly serious. "I have to warn you, though. It takes a lot of work, mental and physical, and you need to be patient."
"Yes! Of course!" In my exuberance, I almost forgot to stay hidden. I ducked my head. "Thank you!" I pressed my palm flat against his and ran my fingertips across it softly, shyly. It was a strange gesture, and even I did not know what it meant, but it seemed to show my gratitude.
The thought of ridding myself of this monster and maybe washing away almost a half-century of guilt was beyond elating. The sun seemed more magnificent than usual.
Two elongated shadows slunk through another block. They followed their equal figures, pressed against walls and hidden behind trees. Trillions of stars twinkled overhead, circling the full moon in an untraceable pattern, a dance known to few.
"How long do you think it will take to make it to Alaska?" I asked, my mouth moving in a blur.
"If we take a train it might be faster in the morning, but if we can find some sort of forest to travel through during the night, we'll take almost half the time of a train."
I opened my mouth to reply, but Edward held up a finger, his skin sparkling dimly in the moonlight. We were perfectly silent, deathly still, for a moment. Then Edward peeked around the corner and nodded.
"Why are we hiding anyway?" I asked, my voice just a slice in the air. We made our way around the corner and fell behind the shadow of a few towering buildings.
Edward frowned for a moment, as if he himself did not know. Then he glanced around nervously and turned back to me with a sympathetic smile.
"Poor Bella, you should know, of course." I shook my head. "Others might see us," his words were filled with an air of mystery.
"What do you mean?" It was my turn to frown. "We only emit light or reflect it or... well, I'm not quite sure what it is- but it only happens in the daytime, and only the really sunny daytime as well."
Edward obviously did not have an answer to that, and so he shook his head and stepped right out into the street. He paused for a moment, stiff as a board. When nothing came he gave me a nod. I grinned at him, a certain cockiness in the smile, and swayed ahead of him. "Maybe I should take the lead. I do have almost forty years more experience than you do."
His arm was suddenly around my waist, his touch sending shivers cascading down my spine. My knees shook as his hands pressed the sides of my hips, pulling me back against him.