A/N – Well I told you it wouldn't be too long for the next update. With the holiday weekend here in the states I wanted to get it out early!

Thank you to all the wonderful readers for supporting this story, it means a lot to me.

As always a big thank you to Tiggrmommi, Pomme_de_terre, and VJGM. This story wouldn't have been possible without all of you.

I do not own the characters, only the story.


Wednesday – San Quentin Prison

I could barely sleep the previous night. I kept replaying the interview over and over in my head, wondering what today would bring. Would there even be an interview today? I kept thinking of the way he had lost control at the end of the interview. He always had such a tight reign over himself that it was disconcerting to see it slip. I had never feared him until that moment. He finally looked like someone who was capable of the heinous things he had confessed to.

Standing in front of my closet I wondered what would be the appropriate thing to wear today. I hadn't even gone back to my office after the incident yesterday. I was more shaken up than I had cared to admit. To have the interview end in that fashion was a confirmation of my beliefs that I wasn't prepared for this assignment.

I finally decided on some black pants with a light blue button up short sleeve shirt. I laid them on my bed and stepped into the bathroom to take a shower. As the warm water cascaded down my back I closed my eyes and saw yet again his face as he looked down over me. His eyes had been a vivid green as they burned with intensity and his face was rigid with rage. I shook my head and finished my shower.

After getting dressed I made my way to my living room and took my pad of paper out of my briefcase and looked at my notes. My phone rang as I was trying to decide how to proceed this afternoon.

"Hello."

"Bella, it's Angela, I just got off the phone with Edward Cullen's lawyer and I need to you to come in this morning." I hadn't expected it to happen so quickly but when your time was running low apparently you took care of things efficiently.

"I will in by ten." I hung up the phone and gathered up my briefcase. Perhaps if he agreed to someone else finishing the interview they would find my notes useful. I thought briefly about changing into different clothes but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I got into my car and headed into the office. On the way in I tried to think of different ways to justify the disaster that had been my interview. Different scenarios raced through my head but nothing seemed to be right. I would play it by ear and try to come up with answers as questions were given to me.

I pulled into my parking spot and walked into the building. I went straight to Angela's office and knocked on the door. She waved me inside and I was surprised to find someone in her office already.

"This is Mr. Cullen's lawyer Mr. Whitlock." He stood as I entered and held his hand out to me. I shook his hand and sat down in the chair across from him. Sending his lawyer was an unexpected move, even for him.

"I'm sorry to drop in unexpectedly on you Ms. Swan but Edward was insistent that I come in person." I said nothing. There was nothing that I had to add to this conversation. "He wanted to extend his deepest apologies for his behavior yesterday and ensure that you were returning this afternoon." Mr. Whitlock and Angela both looked at me waiting for a response.

"Thank you for coming. I plan on being there at the usual time." Mr. Whitlock thanked us for our time and left the office.

"Do I even want to know what that was about?" Angela looked mildly surprised, which was about as excited as I had ever seen her.

"It is a long story." I had no time to sit here and talk, I needed to review my notes and prepare for this afternoon. She looked like she was going to argue but thought better of it.

"I want to meet with you after you go to see him this afternoon." I agreed and went to my desk to look over my notes. I underlined a few things and headed out the door.

Edward was sitting down and waiting for me when I entered the room. He didn't look up, just continued to stare at his hands in front of him. I sat down and waited for some sort of acknowledgement but nothing came. Five minutes passed and I stood to leave. I thought that sending his lawyer had meant that he was ready to continue but apparently I had been wrong.

"Thank you for your time." I moved across the room to knock on the door so that I could get out of here.

"I'm sorry." His voice was barely more than a whisper. My hand stayed raised still poised to knock on the door. "I'm sorry for the way I acted yesterday. It was uncalled for. This was much harder than I thought it would be. I didn't think I would feel so much. I thought you would come in and ask some redundant questions and we would be done."

I sat back down, trying to find the right words. It was a fine line, trying to find the words that wouldn't set him off again.

"Why did you agree to this? You had to know that you couldn't control every aspect of it."

"If you recall I didn't agree to this. My wonderful lawyer volunteered me for this." I had had enough of this.

"I'll save you the energy Mr. Cullen. If you were forced to be a part of this I am freeing you of that burden. I have more than enough and I don't want to waste any more of your time." My head was pounding and all I wanted was to get out of this room, to get away from him.

"Please stay." I said nothing, just stood there at the door but I couldn't bring myself to knock on the door. "Please don't go. I'm sorry." I turned to look at him and he did look remorseful as he sat there running his fingers through his hair.

"Don't let it happen again." I sat back down. "Now where were we?"

"I think you were questioning me about my intentions." I knew exactly what we were talking about but I wanted to get his take on it.

"Oh yes, that question went so well." He actually laughed.

"I am sorry. I had no right to act that way." There was a small smile on his face.

"How about you stop apologizing and start answering questions." He nodded and I turned my recorder on once again. This was my third day sitting across from him and yet it was starting to seem like I had been doing this for much longer.

"What would you like to know?" He leaned his head down onto his hands and looked at me while he waited for his question.

" What has been the hardest thing about being in prison?" He looked surprised, as if my question had taken him off guard.

"The notoriety and the suspicion. When I first got here everyone watched me as if waiting for me to take down one of them. Which in a way is what I had been doing. In here they were safe from me though, in here they were being held accountable for their crimes."

"Is that what you wanted? For those men to be accountable for their actions?" Was life really so black and white for him? "What made this personal for you? Why get involved?"

"When someone got hurt that made it personal for me. No one likes injustice in the world. If no one is held accountable for their actions then what do we come to as a society?

"Some would argue that you are just as bad as they are." He left out a breath in a great rush.

"Is that how you feel? Do you think that I am on the same level as those that I have murdered?" His eyes bored into mine.

"It doesn't matter what I think." I hoped that he would let me avoid the question. Before I met him my answer was clear, yes he was on the same level. He had murdered several people, how else would I view him? Regardless of whatever his intentions might have been. Now I wasn't so sure.

"It does to me." I couldn't say anything. Words were my job and I had none at the moment. "Every day I can tell what everyone here thinks of me. Their thoughts are so clear, so apparent. With you it's different. I can't quite read you." His eyes searched mine and I remained silent. "I have never regretted not getting close to anyone until this point. It would be nice to know that there is someone else out there besides my family who would miss me when I was gone."

His fingers stretched out across the table towards mine and I pulled my hands away.

"What are you trying to do? You spent your whole life hiding from people so that you wouldn't hurt anyone and now you want me to care? What kind of sick game are you playing?" I flipped through my pages trying to find some words to distract me. I needed to get this interview back in control. It was as if he was deliberately messing with me.

"I don't play games Bella. What you see is what you get." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. I was tempted to leave, to walk away; career making opportunity be damned but I couldn't do it. There was something about him that made me stay in my seat.

"All I want is answers. I ask the questions, you answer. Do you think that you could handle that?" My voice sounded foreign to me and I hoped that he wouldn't notice that my hand was shaking.

"Once again I apologize." He moved his hands back to his lap and watched me as he waited for my next question.

"How did you react afterwards?" I would find him more human if I could believe that somehow what he had done had affected him because right now he seemed rather callous about everything.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "I was sick for days. Every time I closed my eyes I would see them. I couldn't sleep because I would dream about them and I barely ate. I know I make it seem like everything I did was easy but it wasn't. I think the sign of a true killer is someone who feels no remorse after killing someone. I can't imagine feeling nothing after taking someone's life."

Without thinking I reached out and patted his arm, trying to offer him some reassurance that while I didn't understand what he was going through, what he was remembering when his eyes were closed I did have sympathy for the pain he was in. I could feel his arm tense under my fingers and I quickly pulled them away.

"No." He started to protest but it was too late. My fingers burned where my skin had touched his. I tried to compose myself, to refocus on the reason why I was here. What was it about him that made it so hard to concentrate? I shook my head and started over yet again. I couldn't even remember what had been covered and what hadn't been. It had almost been three days and yet I hadn't really even begun to scratch the surface of what made him tick. He was good at deflecting my questions and I was running out of time and ways in which to pull this interview off.

"If it was so hard on you then why did you keep doing it?" The more information I got the harder he was to understand.

"I had no choice. We've already been through this. They had to pay for their actions." He sounded exasperated.

"But why you?" Everyone had their reasons for doing the things that they did but not everyone had to justify murder.

"Why not? What did I have to lose? I know what it is like to lose your family and if I saved even one person from that pain then it was worth it. Do you have any new questions on those pages in front of you?" I looked up from the pages I had been staring at as he answered.

"What does it matter if I have any new questions? Are you actually going to answer them or change the subject when you don't like what I am asking? Or better yet put an end to the interview because you are so unused to human companionship that you don't know how to act with common courtesy anymore?" I threw the paper on the ground and stared at him as my hands gripped the table. It was wrong to lose control, wrong to even talk to him like this but I didn't care anymore. Every word that came out of his mouth infuriated me. "If you haven't noticed I am on your side. I don't think that you are a monster. For some reason I don't even care that you have killed people. I am trying to understand your side of it and from what I gather you don't have one. You are too busy trying to push me away. I know you didn't agree to this so please do me a favor and put an end to this charade of an interview. When you sent your lawyer today I thought that you were ready to stop being evasive. I realize that with Friday only two days away that you have a lot on your mind but guess what this is your last opportunity to share that with people. There are many people out there who agree with what you have done that want to know the person behind the murders but only you can share that with them."

My hands were shaking but this time I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of walking out. If he wanted me gone he was going to have to send me out. I was done with being a pushover to him.

"You're on my side?" Out of everything that I said that was the only thing that he caught? It was typical of this entire interview to date.

"Isn't it obvious? Do you think I keep coming back here for your sparkling personality?" He started laughing, a full throated head thrown back laugh.

"No one has ever stood up to me before. My family always felt slightly sorry for me and I never gave them any reason to before."

"You are a bit of an ass. I'm really surprised it hasn't happened sooner." I covered my mouth with my hand. I hadn't meant to actually say the words out loud.

"If only things were different. I would have enjoyed getting to know you." His smiled faded a bit as he collected himself.

"What would you like to know?" My questions would wait. I had a feeling that I would learn more about him this way.

"Are you married?" He looked at my left hand where there was no ring.

"No." He grinned and tapped his fingers on the table.

"Look how verbose my little reporter is." I rolled my eyes at him.

"I graduated high school, moved on to college and have been focusing on my career. There will be time for such things later." It was a conversation that I had with my mother week after week.

"So no special person waiting for you at home after you spend your afternoons talking with me? No one to offer comfort after I offend you." He looked down at his fingers as they traced the number eight over and over again on the table.

"Don't flatter yourself. Once I leave here I don't think about what has happened." It was a blatant lie, he was the only thing I had been able to think about lately but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Hmmm….I'm not sure if I believe that. I know that after you leave you are the only thing I can think about all night long." His voice had trailed off as he said the last few words and I wasn't sure if I heard him correctly.

"You really don't have a lot to do in here do you?" We both laughed and I felt the tension dissipate.

"I try not to think of other things. If I can avoid thinking about Friday then it will almost be like it isn't happening." This was the first time he had ever brought up his impending execution. He had given the impression all along that he was ready and nothing to make me believe anything to the contrary.

"Are you scared?" He took a deep sigh and his fingers found their way through his hair again.

"I'm anxious for it to be over and yet still not ready to say goodbye. I accepted that this was my fate when I started down this path but now that there are only hours left it is getting a bit harder. Every time I walk in and out of here people stare at me and point at me because they know that I am the next one gone." He took another deep breath and placed his hands back on the table. I reached a hand out and placed it over his.

"I'm here if you want to talk about it. I promise that whatever you say will be off the record." He turned his hand over underneath mine and wrapped his fingers around my palm.

"Thank you." A knock on the door caused us to jump back in our seats and both of us placed our hands in our laps.

"Time's up Ms. Swan." The fresh faced guard waited inside the room while I gathered my stuff and made my exit. I looked back at Edward before I went out the door.

"Same time tomorrow?" His face looked immeasurably older as he headed back to his cell. He had lost the carefree look that he had had those last few minutes of our conversation.

"Yes." He walked out the door and didn't look back as he was lead away.

More coming very soon.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Jaime