Author's Note:Uh-oh. I can kind of feel this story taking over my life, which is both good and bad news. At the very least, there are a couple chapters in the pipeline, so expect weekly updates. While I love playing in S. Meyers' universe (with her words, that is), I also can't wait to get my hands on Edward free from the constraints of the text, so we'll see how that goes. That all being said, all the dialogue in this chapter was written by Stephenie Meyer and can be found between pages 17 and 23 of New Moon. As a standard disclaimer: The characters and some of the words belong to Stephenie Meyer. I'm just playing with them. Happy reading!

ONE: Worry

September thirteenth was polarizing opinions far more than any Tuesday ought. On the one hand, Alice was over the moon. Her extensive, excessive planning had completely consumed her mind for the past week or so, causing me to actually tune her out—something I didn't often have to do. However, there were only so many hours I could listen to an internal debate on the merits of gardenias before it all became too much.

On the other hand—though I had no way to be certain, of course—Bella seemed to be wishing that the entire world would just skip over the thirteenth and just segue right into the fourteenth. Oh, and she would love to remain seventeen, while the world was at it. Her normal disgust for birthdays, celebrations, and gifts had been magnified a hundredfold since Labor Day, which I found mildly hilarious. Any time the dreaded day was mentioned, she twisted her features into that adorable scowl and stared daggers at the offending suspect. Mike Newton—always a pleasure to interact with—got the brunt of it on Monday, casually wishing her a happy early birthday from across the lunch table. Needless to say, reading his normally banal thoughts was quite enjoyable as he withered under the infamous Swan glare.

It didn't take a mind reader to understand why Bella was so upset. She foolishly believed that with each additional day she aged, the chasm between us opened to more unfathomable distances. And since this day would make her technically older than me, she was especially gloomy. No amount of persuasion could convince her that it didn't matter, not even my patented "dazzling" method, which I unfairly sprung on her at sporadic intervals.

Of course I didn't mind if she grew another year older. Another year meant more human experiences for her, more life to enjoy. And maybe, just maybe, she would find something that would make her want to stay in this world, make her forget her doggedly persistent quest to abandon her soul. Abandon it by my hands, too. Or my teeth, as it were. Yes, in my mind, eighteen brought a world full of opportunities. Graduation, college, getting out of Forks… events I fervently hoped would turn the tide against the prospect of soulless immortality.

To me, Bella would always be beautiful. As horrifically cliché as that sounded, it was true. The days and years might change her physically, but it truly did not matter. She would always be my Bella, the same girl I fell in love with. Until I could make her understand this, though, birthdays remained a touchy subject.

We made it through the school day with only one or two minor incidents of woefully misguided well-wishers—even Jessica Stanley knew that today of all days, she needed to keep her mouth shut. I snuck in just one "Happy birthday" as Bella clambered into her monstrosity of a vehicle, but by then, her rebuke was feeble, and it was easy to see her resolve was wearing thin. I smiled—Alice would be pleased.

Now lying together on Charlie's old sofa, I could tell she was beginning to relax, to unclench her muscles and let the tension of the day evaporate. This was perhaps my favorite way to be with Bella. Her body melded with mine as if we two were carved from one stone—except that only one of us actually had the consistency of marble. A tiny shiver ran down her spine as her body reacted to my icy temperature, and I pulled the faded blue afghan from the sofa and tucked her into it. She twisted her head around to me and smiled, the picture of serenity, though her heart was telling a different story. It beat a ragged tattoo as it always did when I touched her, the only infallible indication I ever had of her true feelings.

The movie of the day was Romeo and Juliet, though we both had substantial portions of it memorized—her out of love for the words, me out of the sheer magnitude of time I had spent on this earth. As the actors recited the familiar lines, I frowned. At some point in my long life, I had given up on this play. Everyone always went to pieces over the all-consuming love of the titular characters, but they failed to acknowledge that Romeo's fate comes from his own wanton self-destruction, his unrelenting tendency to wreck his and Juliet's happiness. "You know, I've never had much patience with Romeo," I said, my eyes on Bella rather than the TV screen.

She turned her head to face me again. "What's wrong with Romeo?"

She was offended, which was incredibly endearing. I gave her a patronizing smile, which deepened the little furrow in her brow, much to my eternal delight. "Well, first of all, he's in love with this Rosaline—don't you think it makes him seem a little fickle? And then, a few minutes after their wedding, he kills Juliet's cousin. That's not very brilliant. Mistake after mistake. Could he have destroyed his own happiness any more thoroughly?" I unleashed my latent stream of literary criticism, much to her dismay.

I felt Bella's shoulders droop as she sighed, apparently unwilling to mount a defense to counter my attack. "Do you want me to watch this alone?"

I never wanted to do anything alone anymore. "No, I'll mostly be watching you, anyway," I said, which was the truth. My mind was occupied by Bella, and so, it seemed, were my fingers. I ran them up and down her arm, idly tracing patterns on her ivory skin. As always, I loved to watch her human reactions to my touch—goosebumps were a personal favorite—and I grinned. "Will you cry?" Another favorite.

"Probably, if I'm paying attention."

I could make that very difficult for her: the sides of my lips involuntarily curled up into a malicious grin as I moved to press them into the soft brown hair at the back of her neck. "I won't distract you then." I inhaled deeply, craving that familiar burn—the burn that had been dulled by time and practice, but still excited me in the most unbelievable ways. Her scent still intoxicated me, its potency unchanged, and I moved a fraction of an inch closer—probably too little to even attract her notice.

I remained nestled in her hair for much of the film, occasionally pressing my lips against the nape of her neck just to feel, hear, see the blood pulse through her throat and flood her cheeks with that beautiful soft pink. As the film progressed, I lifted my hand from where it had been resting on her arm and traced one long line up the side of her body, stopping to caress her warm, flushed cheek. "See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!" I murmured in time with Romeo, then positioned myself so my mouth was mere millimeters from her ear: "O that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" She exhaled sharply, then seemingly forgot to take in another round of oxygen. I smiled and continued to murmur Romeo's lines in her ear until I became actually concerned that she had stopped breathing.

When I was assured her lungs were functioning properly again, I let my mind wander, thinking first of my sublime good fortune. Would it always be like this? Could it always be like this? I would stay by her side come hell or high water, as long as she lived. Of course, when she died—being blessed with the gift of mortality—I would follow shortly thereafter. What could this world possibly hold for me without her?

The actual act of my death was another matter entirely: a stumbling block, but not an insurmountable obstacle. I had considered the necessary steps before…

I did not like to remember those fateful days in Phoenix last spring. The only pleasure I ever took from those memories was the utter satisfaction of knowing that James was dead and gone, and could no longer haunt my beloved. But had he succeeded… had I been too late… Well, I had made contingency plans. I was a Cullen, after all.

I drifted back to the present and found that Juliet's death was upon us. The scene was an all-too-accurate reflection of my macabre thoughts. Bella was crying now, as expected, and I wiped away the stream of her tears with a lock of her hair. "I'll admit, I do sort of envy him here," I said, hoping to break the depressing silence and brighten my own mood.

She sniffled quietly and spoke in a watery voice: "She's very pretty."

If I could have spit, I would. Instead, I settled for a disgusted grunt. Only Bella would assume that I was envious of Romeo because of Juliet's beauty, stemming from her ludicrous insecurity complex. Would she ever believe me when I said she was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on? Would she ever believe me when I said that I was clearly the lucky one in this unlikely pairing of ours? My frustration at this, our eternal debate, spurred me to say something I hadn't planned to, though I knew I needed to keep it light: "I don't envy him the girl—just the ease of suicide. You humans have it so easy! All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts…"

Her reaction was predictable. She practically sputtered. "What?"

I shrugged, wondering how much I should reveal, how much she could handle, what her reaction would be. "It's something I had to think about once, and I knew from Carlisle's experience that it wouldn't be simple. I'm not even sure how many ways Carlisle tried to kill himself in the beginning… after he realized what he'd become…" Stop, Edward, I had to think. Bring it back to the light—it's her birthday! I did an about-face in my mind and tried to make my eyes dance, if such a thing were possible. "And he's clearly still in excellent health."

She turned around on the couch so she was fully facing me, and I couldn't help but notice that her fingers rested lightly on my stomach. I wanted nothing more than to take her warm hands between my own and tell her it would be all right, tell her that I had entertained these notions only because I thought she was going to be gone from me. Now that we were assured of forever, there was no need to worry… But something stopped me. Some part of me turned from these comforting thoughts, as if I were balking from a lie…

Her angry words shook me back from this strange place. "What are you talking about? What do you mean, this something you had to think about once?" Her chocolate eyes glinted with a hard fury, but there was something else there—what was it? Panic?

"Last spring, when you were… nearly killed…" It was getting too dark again. Must keep it light… I inhaled deeply, again letting her scent infiltrate my entire being. "Of course I was trying to focus on finding you alive, but part of my mind was making contingency plans. Like I said, it's not as easy for me as it is for a human." I was teasing, but I knew she could feel the truth behind my jest, perceptive creature that she was.

For a moment, I knew we were both taken away, on a haunting trip down memory lane. She had no way of knowing that the fateful events in Phoenix had already clouded my thoughts for a good number of Romeo's soliloquies, and I hated being the one to inflict this pain upon her. Again, however, I fought the compelling desire to enfold her in my arms, smooth her hair, and whisper soothing words. My thoughts would not, could not be a balm to her right now. Why? A nagging part of my mind was keeping secrets from itself, and it unnerved me.

A movement out of the corner of my eye drew my full attention back to Bella. She had moved her fingers from their resting place on my stomach and was now tracing them along the equally cold crescent-shaped scar on her hand, the permanent physical reminder of my utter failure as a protector. "Contingency plans?" she asked, her voice timid.

"Well, I wasn't going to live without you," I said with an exaggerated roll of my eyes. Keep it light, keep it light. "But I wasn't sure how to do it—I knew Emmett and Jasper would never help… so I was thinking maybe I would go to Italy and do something to provoke the Volturi."

The Volturi. That mysterious, mythical Italian coven, the keepers of order and power in our world. In many ways, they were an enigma to me, though they had at one time enjoyed a close relationship with Carlisle. The Volturi seemed to be a contradiction in terms: supposedly the most upright of us all, keeping the streets safe and the secret safer. And yet, their methods were… suspect, to say the least. Aro's inner circle, while seemingly pale, frail, and innocuous, was actually a highly-trained, highly-skilled arsenal of weapons more deadly than any missiles rotting away in Russian silos.

Thankfully, the course of my life thus far had not necessitated interaction with the Volturi—a passing acquaintance with them was far beyond what any one of our kind ever wished for. Yet though I knew them little, I knew they would have been my one and only option had that darkest of days come to pass. And when it would come in the future, would I have the strength to turn to the Italians and have them end my life, or would I be selfish enough to roam the earth, to haunt the steps where she once tread?

"What is a Volturi?" her childish naivety scattered my chilling thoughts, though they did not flee completely.

"The Volturi are a family," I said, struggling to push the last bits of despair from the corners of my mind. "A very old, very powerful family of our kind. They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose. Carlisle lived with them briefly in his early years, in Italy, before he settled in America—do you remember the story?"

"Of course I remember," she stated, and I gave her a human-length moment to reflect.

My thoughts were pulled back to the "royal" family, and a phrase unwittingly flitted across the plane of my mind's eye: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. But no, the Volturi were not the "bad guys," as Bella would say. In our world, with the line between right and wrong so irrevocably blurred, was that distinction even possible? Or were we all the bad guys? Certainly none of us could claim to be wholly good, purely munificent. Except Carlisle, of course, but he was always the exception, never the rule.

I certainly put myself in the 'bad' column, as I was blatantly, wantonly, mercilessly corrupting the life of innocent Bella. I was a monster, plain and simple. I was no better than those of my kind who feasted on human blood, though their murdering was physical and mine spiritual. I had been too selfish to stay away from Bella, and now I had forever tainted her thoughts and made it seemingly impossible for her to lead a normal life, as obsessed as she now was with immortality. If she ever were to get her wish—I inwardly shuddered at the thought—I would be fully responsible for the most heinous of all acts: the forced surrender of her beautiful, perfect soul.

Though I cursed my foolish cowardice on the inside, my words came out with practiced calm: "Anyway, you don't irritate the Volturi. Not unless you want to die—or whatever it is we do." I tossed the words out casually, nonchalantly, as if they didn't mean anything. As if they didn't address the question that had so often plagued my thoughts during those days in Phoenix: what happens when we die?

In a movement that nearly startled me with its swiftness, she gripped the sides of my face, her delicate hands pressing into my skin with as much force as she could muster, though I could hardly feel it. She fixed her eyes on mine. "You must never, never, never think of anything like that again! No matter what might ever happen to me, you are not allowed to hurt yourself!"

Her attempt to be stern would have been impressive were her words not so utterly absurd. "I'll never put you in danger again, so it's a moot point." I wanted to shrug, but I knew that would only upset her further.

Sure enough, her anger seemed to be simmering right under the surface: "Put me in danger! I thought we'd established that all the bad luck is my fault? How dare you even think like that?"

Ha. She was indignant, as always, and refusing to believe that I had been the direct cause of all her strife. When would she learn? What could I do to make her realize that without me, her life would be a cakewalk? That the only thing she would have to worry about would be burning Charlie's dinner? Sometimes I wanted to scream these thoughts at her, but I knew they would do no good. Bella was nothing if not stubborn, and her refusal to accept that I was dangerous to her was absolute.

So I tried a different tack. "What would you do, if the situation were reversed?"

She hesitated for a brief instant before responding, "That's not the same thing."

I laughed, and hoped it didn't sound too rueful. Not the same thing? Ha.

Bella was not done with her tirade, though the anger was giving way to worry, and her rouge cheeks were being drained of their color: "What if something did happen to you? Would you want me to go off myself?"

My mind froze at the mere suggestion created by her worlds. I felt so hollow, so cold, so angry at the thought of Bella doing something to intentionally hurt herself. Had I a heart, it would have been thumping like mad as this painful thought wracked my body. Yet though this torture ran its course inside my body, I knew my face would give away only a fraction of my anguish. "I guess I see your point… a little." I would give her that much. "But what would I do without you?" This was a question that had only one answer, and it was one Bella was insistent upon ignoring.

"Whatever you were doing before I came along and complicated your existence."

She complicating my existence? The ridiculousness of that notion was simply baffling. My thoughts wanted to express themselves as a harsh bark of a laugh, but I suppressed the feeling and merely sighed. "You make that sound so easy." Sure, I would just go back to living my normal life: I would watch football with Emmett and help Esme renovate old houses… I couldn't even continue the charade in my head; that's how absurd her suggestion was. The very thought of it made me angry. Could she honestly believe I would be able to exist in the same way if she were to die?

"It should be. I'm not really that interesting."

Apparently, she could. Once again, Bella had grotesquely underestimated her power over me. I wanted to tell her this, wanted to try to explain—for the millionth time—the depth of what she meant to me, but I just couldn't. Not with her sorrowful eyes looking up at me, probing the depths of my own, testing them for signs of weakness. She would not be moved. Not tonight. "Moot point," I whispered in my final defense.

Any discussion would have to wait as I suddenly heard Charlie's cruiser approaching the house. His mind was relatively quiet—I had grown accustomed to this—but he sounded like he was in a good mood. Still, no need to push it. I pulled myself up into a sitting position and moved Bella identically, keeping a respectable distance between us.

"Charlie?" she asked with a smile.

I returned it as she grabbed my hand, and moments later, we both heard Charlie shut the cruiser door and approach the house. Before he reached the door, I caught his scent, and the scent of the large pepperoni pizza he was carrying. From Papa Giorgio's, if my nose was correct—and it usually was.

Charlie opened the door and came to poke his head into the living room. "Hey, kids," he said good-naturedly, beaming at his daughter. "I thought you'd like a break from cooking and washing dishes from your birthday. Hungry?" He nodded at the pizza box in his hands that was, in fact, from Papa Giorgio's.

Bella smiled at him, and I knew it was a weak smile only because he had mentioned the dreaded b-word. "Sure. Thanks, Dad."

We moved in tandem to the kitchen, where Charlie's quiet, pleasant thoughts floated around the bright room. He had long since stopped grumbling—inwardly or outwardly—about my persistent, polite denials of food. Instead, he sat silently at the table and watched as I pulled a seat out for Bella.

Unfailingly polite, he is, just like his father.

I appreciated Charlie's thoughts. I know he had his reservations about our relationship, like any good father, but the depth of his love for Bella was a tribute to the kind of man he was. If anything were to happen to Bella, it would end him. I would hate to be at all involved in that pain.

I watched the two of them eat, keeping up with the small talk until we had exhausted all the usual topics. Though the conversation was trivial, it was a welcome distraction from the cloudy thoughts that continued to threaten my mind like a storm. Why was I so focused on the negative—even more than usual? Had Bella's anti-birthday attitude begun to rub off on me? I desperately hoped that Alice's party would make things better, though a significant part of me seriously doubted that hope.

The pizza was nearly gone—Charlie was a very good eater—when I looked at the clock on the wall and saw that it was nearly seven. "Do you mind if I borrow Bella for the evening?" I asked.

Not at all! Mariners game comes on soon—wouldn't want Bella to have to suffer through that on her birthday… Better sound a little reluctant to let her go, though.

"That's fine," Charlie responded after he let a moment pass. "The Mariners are playing the Sox tonight, so I won't be any kind of company… Here," he said as he tossed his birthday present to Bella.

I smiled at his surprising faith in his daughter's hand-eye coordination, then laughed as the camera inevitably escaped Bella's awkward swipe and headed for the linoleum floor. I grabbed it in a flash, careful not to move too quickly.

That boy should play ball! "Nice save," Charlie said to me. "If they're doing something fun at the Cullens' tonight, Bella, you should take some pictures. You know how your mother gets—she'll be waiting to see pictures faster than you can take them."

"Good idea, Charlie," I agreed, hoping I didn't sound too much like a suck-up. Charlie's thoughts didn't seem to be trending that way, so I was in the clear. I was still smiling when Bella turned the camera on me and snapped a picture.

"It works," she said triumphantly, more pleased at her surreptitious shutterbuggery than at the function of the camera, I surmised.

"That's good," Charlie said, his mind already wandering toward all things baseball.

How a person could be so consumed by the pre-game discussion of ERAs, RBIs, and the like was beyond me. Then again, I spent the majority of my days focused on one thing and one thing only, so to each his own…

"Hey," Charlie continued. "Say hi to Alice for me. She hasn't been over in a while." He frowned a bit, which made me smile. Charlie's reverence for Alice was a soft spot with me, and I knew Alice adored him in return.

"It's been three days, Dad," Bella said with the tiniest roll of her eyes, though I knew she, too, loved the camaraderie between her energetic best friend and her taciturn father. "I'll tell her."

"Okay. You kids have fun tonight," Charlie said dismissively, his body starting to go where his mind already was.

I beamed at my beloved and grabbed her perfect hand, pulling her out the door and to her truck, girding my mental loins for the onslaught of birthday-related complaint that I was sure would come soon.

But it was worth it. Her hatred of birthdays was one of her many endearing qualities, and though the hatred of this particular birthday was a little more loaded, I refused to let that affect us now. We were together, we were happy, that was all that mattered.

So why was I so worried?