A/N: We've made it to 200 reviews! A cookie goes to 'Mystery of the Night' for being that 200th reviewer. *MWAH* You can't imagine how exciting each and every of those 200 has been. I treasure them all soooo much. :)

Thanks go out to my betas, StoryPainter, and Thir13enth - I couldn't have done this without you! Because even after reading through it four times, there were still stupid typos. And you pick up all the things that sound right in my head, but just... aren't.

I don't own. Stephenie does.

I was on the verge of panicking, my eyes darting from Bella's face to the rest of her body, out the window, and back to her face again. I had just revealed my biggest secret to her and she hadn't reacted at all.

I had registered a brief spark of surprise just after I told her I was a vampire, but other than that, she had stayed perfectly calm. Her expression didn't change and the only movement was the rise and fall of her breathing.

After fourteen breaths, she sucked her lower lip into her mouth and nibbled on the corner—a nervous habit I had seen her do a few times. Her pink tongue poked out to lick her lips, and she raised her eyes to catch mine.

"I hadn't considered that one," she said softly, one side of her mouth quirking up slightly. Was that amusement she was feeling? The drastic change in her mood from only minutes before concerned me slightly. Was it possible that she was losing her mind? Finding out your boyfriend is a mythical creature surely shouldn't be a cause for amusement.

"Excuse me?"

Her voice didn't rise in volume at all with her explanation. "I've spent days trying to work out what you are—it's obvious you're not human to anyone who cares to take notice—but vampire isn't one of the things I had considered."

"Oh." I stretched my mental fingers out further, trying to sense any fear or hesitance in her, but found none. There should have been fear, logic told me. Fairy stories told her that vampires were dangerous, and here she was in the same room as one. In fact, she had been kissing one only a handful of hours previously. "Are you okay?"

She nodded and moved to slip under the covers of the bed. The wallump noise she made with her fist when she tried to punch the pillow into an acceptable shape juxtaposed dramatically how delicate she seemed to me. She was perfect crystalline and was surrounded by polyester fibers of the hotel's bed linen. Linen which, in my opinion, put too much of a barrier between us.

"Are you afraid of me?" I just had to know, even though I feared for what her answer would be.

She became still as she considered her answer, her eyes shifting to the ceiling in thought.

"No, I don't think I am," she replied. "I should be, though, right?"

I assumed it was the pereche bond that was making her feel safe with me. Any normal person would have been petrified.

"Probably," I admitted.

She snuggled deeper into the mattress, pulling the comforter up under her chin.

"You said I could ask you anything, right?"

"Of course."

She nodded slowly and seemed deep in thought for a few minutes as she looked at me. She seemed to be taking in my appearance, making me feel self-conscious. I wondered if she could see the inhuman scars on my skin.

"Are you going to bed? It's late." She looked at the other bed across the room.

I chuckled softly. "I guess that counts as your first question about me." She looked confused at my comment, so I hurriedly explained. "I can't sleep. We don't need to."

"Oh. So you're just planning to sit there while I sleep?"

I shrugged. "Sounds fine to me."

Her thin, pale arm snaked out from under the blankets and she patted the bed next to her. "Come lie with me."

My eyes widened at the prospect. She wanted me near even after all the trauma of the day? "Are you sure?"

"Well, I thought I could ask you questions until I fall asleep. It'll be easier if I don't have to strain to hear you."

I couldn't deny her logic, but even though she claimed she wasn't afraid of me, I found it difficult to believe she would want me in the bed with her.

I moved with extra caution—both so I wouldn't startle her and so as not to jostle her. The cheap polyester of the comforter rustled as I hesitantly reclined next to her. I was careful to not get too close and make her uncomfortable. Bond or not, she couldn't be very happy with me for stealing her away from her home.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with her scent to help me relax. That, along with the tingle our proximity was causing, helped each cell in my body slowly release tension. I was right where I was supposed to be at that moment—next to my other half—and my body recognized that.

We both remained staring at the cracked ceiling for several long minutes. It was her turn to talk, and I wasn't going to push her. She would begin at her own time. Instead, I focused on not allowing my fingers to inch their way closer to her skin like they wanted to do. Even in this time of stress and worry, her skin was like a siren to me.

She took a ragged breath in before she spoke. "So, vampire, huh?"

"Yup."

"Your whole family?"

"Yes."

"You kill people and drink their blood?"

I tensed and turned my face to look at her, resisting the urge to touch her still. "No! We don't kill people."

She turned her head to look at me, confused.

"My family is different," I explained. "We try to stick to animal blood. To varying levels of success, admittedly, but we're fairly successful."

"Who's the least successful?"

I sighed heavily. "Me."

"Huh. I would have guessed Edward, given his reaction to me."

"No. Edward hasn't attacked a human for seventy years. Until you."

Shock ripped through her and she pushed herself up onto one elbow to look at me better. "Wait. Seventy years? You don't age?"

"Nope. Immortal."

Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. "So, how old are you?"

"Nineteen," I told her, a smirk on my lips. She knew that I had purposefully misinterpreted her question. Her rolled eyes said it all.

"Oh, ha ha. Immortal humor, is it? How long have you been nineteen?"

I desperately hoped my answer wouldn't freak her out. "Since 1863."

She nodded her head incredibly slowly. "Whoa. That's old."

I chuckled softly. "Compared to you, sure."

Her arm reached out of the blankets and she playfully smacked me on the chest. Not hard enough to cause any damage to her hand, thankfully. "Compared to every human being on the planet, you mean!"

"I thought we already discussed that I'm not human," I teased her. "Vampires can theoretically live forever, so there are many who are thousands of years old. That makes me seem rather young in comparison."

She drifted off into her thoughtful place for a few seconds before speaking again. "So is your family all older than you?"

"Only Carlisle. They didn't use calendars very much back then, so he's not sure exactly when he was born, but he's about 200 years older than me."

"You say that so casually," she said with a laugh.

I just shrugged. Hundreds of years didn't seem like a big deal when you had eternity.

"So Edward hasn't killed anyone for longer than my grandparents have been alive. But the reason we're now here in only-God-knows-where and not at home and the reason you fought with him today is because he wanted my blood?"

I shuddered, not wanting to be reminded why we were really here. We weren't here because Bella wanted to go on a vacation with me. We were here because we were fleeing from my homicidal brother. I dreaded to think what would have happened if I had reached Edward only a second later than I did. Bella would likely be lost to me forever, and I didn't think I could survive that.

"Yes," I admitted. "You smell irresistibly good to him."

"But not to you?"

"No. Never. I lo—I care about you too much to ever consider you food. With every other human, there's always a part of me that wants to drain them. I fight it daily. But with you, that has never been an issue. You, Bella, you don't smell like food. You smell like home."

She smiled at me and reached out to entwine her fingers with mine. "I know what you mean," she whispered just before a yawn escaped. I glanced over at the clock on the nightstand and noted it was almost two in the morning. As if the yawn had reminded her how tired she was, her eyelids began to droop.

"It's okay, Bella. Sleep. We can talk more in the morning."

"But…"

"I won't go anywhere. I promise."

She squeezed my fingers and sleepily rubbed her thumb across the side of my hand, and it was less than in a minute before her breathing deepened and she fell into oblivion.

I was fascinated as I watched her sleep. I had listened to her slumber several times, but it was a completely different experience actually being right next to her and not in a tree outside. Her hand kept its place against my own, twitching every so often. The twitching was echoed on her eyelids after an hour of unconsciousness. It was then that she began muttering indecipherably.

It was amusing to begin with; the odd word would be understandable but no two words seemed to have anything to do with each other. How I longed to know what was going on inside her mind, to be able to see what she dreamed of.

Just before dawn, her anxiety levels spiked and she began thrashing in the bed, ripping her hand from my grasp. No amount of emotional soothing seemed to make a difference to her stress. I was considering waking her up to cease the nightmare when she jerked violently and called out clearly.

"Jasper! No! Don't go!" Her arms flailed near her face, and I wondered whether she could hurt herself doing that.

I quickly moved closer to her and wrapped my arms around her, holding her arms tightly against her body.

"Shhh, Bella," I whispered into her ear. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

She struggled somewhat against me grip initially, but after a few minutes of my shushing and my hand rubbing soothingly along her back, she relaxed.

Once her emotions were back to normal, I gradually released her from my iron grip. I had almost separated myself back to my original position when she spoke again, still dead asleep.

"Jasper," she sighed and rolled over, draping her left arm and leg over my body.

I stiffened at first, but once I felt her contented state, I allowed her to stay in the position. Once my surprise had dimmed, I let my mind focus on the intimate position we were in. As much as I worried she would be upset that she had been sleeping in such a way, I couldn't help but revel in just how right it felt. She had kissed me the previous day, sure, but to know that her subconscious mind was drawn to me just as much as I was drawn to her made me so happy. Each inch of our skin that touched felt like they were knitting together on some cellular level. My mind knew that wasn't possible, but we had never had our skin touching without moving for such a long period of time, and the tingling sensation that always accompanied our united flesh seemed to change the longer we stayed joined.

When my mind began to wander to what it would feel like if our entire bodies were touching without clothing in the way, I had to mentally slap myself and force my thoughts in another direction before I embarrassed myself.

This was right. Being there, together, was perfect. Lying there with her body half draped over my own left me with no question as to whether we were right for each other. It was obvious. She may be human and I far from it, but even that mountain seemed conquerable. I knew just how rare this connection was, and if I could only convince Bella, then nothing could come between us. Not her humanity, not my murderous brother, not my previous marriage, nothing. If we both recognized the same goals, we could accomplish anything together.

And the only goal I cared about? Our future with her by my side. Our eternity. Nothing else mattered to me. I knew that when she awoke, things wouldn't seem so easy. We would be tugged back into the stress of where to go, what to do and how to keep Bella as far from Edward as possible. I would have many more questions to answer from her about my life and my world. To top it all off, now that she knew about us, we had to worry about the Volturi finding out. And—I realized with a jolt—we still needed to decide how to deal with her father. She was still technically a minor, and once he found out she had run away with me, there would be hell to pay.

But right in that moment, with Bella sleeping peacefully for a few hours and her skin in contact with my own, there was nothing but bliss. I would worry about how to proceed regarding our myriad of problems in the morning.

I leaned over, burying my nose in her severely tussled hair and breathing in her scent.

"I love you, Bella. Please don't leave me. Please don't hate me for bringing all this mess upon you," I whispered into the quiet of the early morning.

A/N2: So I've never really done reccs before, but I was thinking I'd start a "What am I reading right now?" section. Basically, I've read pretty much every kind of fic imaginable, so there's bound to be something for everyone. And you know - when you're really enjoying a fic, you want to share it, right? They'll all be completed fics, because that's all I generally read.

This week I'm reading "Swan's mate for life" (yes, the apostrophe is in the correct place) by Mrstrentreznor. It's technically Bella/Leah/Paul, in werewolf world, and is about 5% romance, 10% lemons, and 85% "Oh My God, I can FEEL their heartbreak! I'm going to DIE!". I'm losing sleep the last few days because I can't turn my computer off.

See you all in a few weeks!