(A/N: Thanks everyone for the reviews/favorites/alerts! I love you all.)

5.

Peter

…

Bella still hadn't come around by the time Peter had brought her through the house, up the stairs and into his room. He lay her down on his bed, pulling sheet up around her and sitting down on the edge of the bed. The low light of a bedside lamp cast deep shadows across her face, making even more ghastly the bruises and marks on her pale skin, from her cheekbones down to her collarbones, even her under the scrapes across her hipbones. Her skin looked nearly translucent against his dark blue bedding, and her shallow breaths worried him.

Peter had no idea what to do – and he refused to ask Jasper, the bastard, even though he had much more experience with living humans. Sure, he sucked 'em dry two or three times a month, but he damn well wasn't gentle about it. Even then, as he worried over Bella in his bed, thirst prickled in his throat.

And none of his victims had ever affected him so badly – just looking at Bella got him riled up, and seeing her this way made him sick to his stomach, tense and angry at the same time.

After retrieving a damp washcloth, Peter tried to softly wipe away the old blood and grime marring Bella's skin. Her bruises showed even more prominently now. Peter sighed heavily, throwing the washcloth onto the side table. He cupped Bella's cheek, rubbing his thumb over her cheekbone, before leaning forward to kiss her forehead softly.

Peter headed downstairs – Jasper owed him some answers. He found his old friend in the backyard in a rickety old chair at an equally run-down old patio table, staring down at a cigarette in his hand. Peter recognized the battered pack of Reds he'd found that morning.

"Thought Alice made you give that up."

Jasper looked up, not surprised to see Peter walk up and take a seat across from him. "Yeah, she did."

"Jasper." Peter said, wanting his full attention. "How in the hell do you know Bella?"

Jasper wouldn't meet his eyes, and Peter felt faint waves of anxiety and guilt coming off his friend before Jasper began to speak. "I haven't seen her since I tried to kill her."

Peter's entire body involuntarily tensed, growling low in this throat. "What the fuck."

Jasper finally looked up. "About five years ago she was dating Edward – Carlisle's son."

"Edward?" Peter interrupted. "But he's practically still a child."

"So was she." Jasper said distractedly, seemingly lost in his memories. "It was her birthday. Alice threw her a party, and Bella got a paper cut. Started bleeding. I fucking lost it – I woulda killed her – wanted to. You know how I work – I was feelin' the bloodlust of every vampire in that goddamn room – and Bella's Edward's singer. After that, Alice convinced Edward and the rest of us to leave her, leave town. Said she had a vision that Bella didn't belong with Edward… I figured she'd want us gone after what I did to her."

"Jesus Christ Jasper, you're fucking lucky if I don't kill you right now." Peter was surprised as soon as the words came growling out of his mouth, still not sure how Bella had gotten under his skin so quickly.

"Look, I'm sorry, Peter. I had no idea she'd end up here." Jasper paused. "You want to tell me what's goin' on with you two?"

"What are you talkin' about?"

Jasper quirked his head, "You've got some pretty intense shit going on with you right now. You feel that, right?"

Peter groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. "You're telling me. I have no idea what's going on with me. I haven't thought about anything but Bella since I first saw her."

Jasper just chuckled. "You'll figure it out soon enough."

…

Bella

…

The deep scent of summer rain and sandalwood lingered in my senses when I finally realized I was awake. What didn't immediately occur to me was my lack of fear.

I was really becoming used to extreme disorientation upon regaining consciousness - as of late, however, I'd also been waking up tied to a wall in an underground dungeon by a slutty-looking psycho vampire.

My wrists ached and burned, pain shot through my back, and parts of my neck and leg throbbed – but I felt a pillow beneath my head and soft flannel sheets against my skin. I felt… safe, wherever I was, or in whomever's bed I currently lay.

I opened my eyes, but my vision was still blurry. Light slanted in through the curtained windows, throwing small shafts of light into the darkened room, and it sank in to me where I was. Or, where I wasn't.

Somehow I'd gotten out of Maria's hellhole – I vaguely remembered being moved, but my mind had been hazy with pain and dizziness from the blood loss.

Some things I did remember – being carried through dark tunnels, a strong chest beneath my head and arms around me. And I remembered the relief I'd felt as I breathed in Peter's scent all around me as he carried me back through the hot desert.

I didn't remember how I got to this room either. The room looked like your average man's room – wooden furniture, messy closet, random knickknacks thrown everywhere – yet I could tell I was in an intensely private space.

I simultaneously felt nervous and exhilarated at seeing Peter's bedroom. Lying in his bed.

Oh God. I let my head fall back on the pillow – which smelled amazing, of course, just like Peter – this was not helping me get over my fascination with the vampire. I wondered where he was, though.

Stretching, I ran my hand over my stomach, and stopped abruptly as my hand encountered rough skin on my lower stomach. I threw the blanket off of me and jumped out of bed to stand in front of a mirror I saw in a bathroom through a door to my left.

The light coming in through the bathroom window shone on my stomach – and I looked like shit in the mirror. My pale skin looked sickly instead of pristine, circles darkened underneath my eyes, and nasty looking scars littered my entire body, practically.

But when I made out the jagged lettering on my stomach, appearing backward in the mirror, my stomach heaved. One name – Peter.

I puked then, in the toilet next to the mirror and sink. My dirty hair stuck to my neck with sweat as I coughed and choked, trying to hold my hair back from my face.

I had a vampire's name scarred on my body. Permanently. I looked like Peter's property. Marked as his pet.

This, mixed with my fuzzy feelings towards him and his unpredictability, would not end well.

Finished with my puking spree, I stuck my head underneath the faucet and gulped away at the cool water. I trudged back toward the bed and noticed pile of folded clothes on a chair in the corner – a pair of women's sweatpants and a white t-shirt. I pulled them on before snuggling back beneath the covers. An overall grimy feeling had me wishing I had real, clean clothes instead of my days-beyond-dirty underclothes.

I huddled under the covers in bed and commenced with my worrying. It was all well and good that I was saved from the dirty psycho bitch, but I still didn't know where the hell I really was – just that I was snuggling up in what amounted to a murderous vampire's lair.

Peter was still a mystery – evil or not? And why had he saved me? He's fucking attractive as all get out, sure, but I still had no idea what he was really after. He hadn't killed me yet… yet killing me outright was only one of many cruel things vampires do to humans.

Outside of Peter, I had other problems to be nervous about – my lack of clothes, numerous injuries, and obviously my future safety in the world of vampires in general. Why couldn't they just leave me the fuck alone?

Listening more closely to the house around me, I heard soft noises from distant areas of the house. Men's voices filtered up from rooms below me. I stood up and looked out the window next to the bed. I looked out into a yard filled with big trees, the late afternoon sunlight peeking through the tree branches. Despite my anxious thoughts, I smiled to myself, imagining the warmth of the sun flowing into me.

So, leveraging my momentary positive outlook, I gathered my courage and strode out of the room to confront my captor and/or savior.

As I walked down the hallway, I noticed that the house looked quite old – kind of run down, completely unlike the Cullen house in Forks. I felt simultaneously reassured and uneasy at that thought.

The end of the stairway led to a empty living room, curtains again fluttering lightly in the breeze. Men's voices rang out again, this time much closer. A wood-paneled hallway led away from the front living room back into a kitchen – where a pile of gas station food littered the counter. I pounced straight onto the first Swiss Cake Roll I saw, humming in appreciation at the fake-chocolate taste and trying not to wonder how long it had been since I'd eaten.

At the back of the kitchen, a slant of light came in through an open door into the backyard.

As I stepped into the sunlight from the darkness of the kitchen, I had two things on my mind: seeing Peter and then finding some answers.

I shielded my eyes against the late afternoon sun, squinting to make out an overgrown yard stretching as far as I could see. And a couple yards in front of me, Peter sat at a rickety patio table nestled into the weeds. When I realized it was him and took in the sight of his profile against the bright sunlight, a burning began inside my chest.

Next to him, however, sat Jasper fucking Hale – or Cullen, maybe, but whatever.

"Jasper? Why in hell are you here?"

I marched over to the table and sat slowly on a rickety-looking chair. The scene felt surreal – Jasper in all his quiet and scarred glory next to the red-eyed, handsome Peter against a beautiful backdrop of wild nature with the sun setting in the distance behind a line of trees.

Peter smiled as I caught his eye, startling me out of my anger at Jasper's sudden appearance in my life. "Well? Anyone care to answer me?"

"Sorry, Bella…" Jasper seemed flustered. "I mean, Peter called me here to help bring down Maria, actually. And save you. How are you feeling, by the way?"

Oh. Surprising, getting a straight answer for once… and a name to put to the psycho face in my memories. I contemplated the various pains throughout my body, ranging from sharp stabs of pain in my ribs, my sore wrists, and radiating aches from the deeper bite wounds.

"Considering the circumstances, I almost feel… fine, I guess. I'm lucky I'm not dead. And look at this!" I lifted my hair away from my neck, exposing the already healed scar of Maria's bite. "I'm healed! How long was I… there?"

Peter smiled brightly at my question. "Like I've said before Bella, you're healed, and you're welcome. How much of all a' this do you remember?"

At Peter's words, the memory of when he saved me for the first time flashed through my mind – the growling face of my attacker, pain in my neck, and Peter's eyes on mine. But then I recalled a vague memory of his hands on me as I was released from the wall, and his touch was gentle. I guess that pointed toward the not evil option…

"Not much, really. But why…" I trailed off, not sure if I really wanted to ask. "Why would you go to all this trouble for me? And Jasper, why would you even bother coming down here to help me? And where's Alice?"

Jasper looked down, avoiding my eyes, but Peter wasn't having it. "Jesus, Bella! Of course we wanted to help you. You're a person too, you know." His soft tone tempered his sharp words.

I blinked at him, somewhat surprised that a human-drinking vampire would think of me as anything but prey. "Yeah, till you decide to kill me or leave me alone and I'm back to fending for myself. Then I'll just be dead."

Peter and Jasper exchanged a look of confusion.

"They always come for me," I elaborated. "I seriously think I'm a magnet for psychopaths. If it's not Cullens disrupting my life, it's the werewolves, or Victoria, or random newborns she sends." Encapsulating my train wreck of a life into so few trite words made me sick to my stomach. I leaned forward to rest my forehead against the cool table.

Peter shifted forward in his seat, resting his arms against the rickety patio table . His forehead crinkled with concern. "I don't understand. Why do they keep coming after you?"

I raised my head and met his red eyes. "You're the vampire; you tell me. I've been told I'm irresistible." At my sarcastic challenge, a rakish grin spread across Peter's face – a look that once again sent desire throughout my body. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs.

But then, of course, Jasper spoke up and I remembered there was an empath in the sitting at the table with us. Good god. "Actually Bella, the only reason you were attacked this time was me. Maria was trying to get to me through Peter, and by extension, you. I'm sorry, I really am. Maria's done for, though. You don't need to worry about that."

I looked down at my hands in my lap, uncomfortable with the fresh memories of Maria's underground cell. Dark green and blue bruises covered my wrists, with red scrapes crisscrossing all of my exposed skin. The old fear started to rise again, this time for another reason: what was I going to do now?

I wished I could just go home, curl up in my bed with the covers over my head, and pretend this had all been a bad dream. But I knew I could never again feel safe there… and I also knew I didn't want to leave Peter. He drew me to him like no one else ever had, and damned if I didn't want to know why.

And as mad as I was at Jasper for all of his and the Cullens' faults, I remembered that he and I had been friends once, and I'd missed him when he'd left, though I'd understood why he of all people felt a need to just get away after my disastrous birthday.

Which meant that I had to keep myself around the two of them somehow. Like many other things, the thought of going home alone to my trashed and violated house made me sick to my stomach.

After several minutes of nobody speaking, just the sounds of the wind and insects chirping around us, I looked up and met Peter's eyes. My voice came out softly. "I don't think I can go home… not yet."

Peter merely nodded, a look of sad understanding crossing his face. Relieved, I felt the tension leave my body. I relaxed down into my chair, leaning my head back to look up at the twilight sky. A deep breath in tasted of ragweed and desert dust – it felt like home.

I sat there quietly, listening as Jasper and Peter eventually began to argue over who was the best idea to go amongst the local humans to retrieve supplies for me.

Feeling restless and wanting to explore the overgrown yard, I stood and left the table. Grass dotted the expanse of clumps of twisted bushes and dusty animal footprints. A path led away from the house and down a rough walkway to a copse of trees and a small pond.

Across the dark blue water, a willow tree hung its branched canopy over a dirt ledge, shielding me from the sun and casting dancing shadows across my skin. I took a seat on a dusty rock ledge jutting out over the scummy water and stared up at the advancing sunset.

…

Later, when the sun had set and only the sounds of the wild remained, the ground felt cool beneath me. I heard rustling behind me, and the calm I'd felt disappeared evaporated. I tensed, anxiety building in my throat, but then I heard Peter calling my name.

My heart jumped into my throat, and I went from scared to exhilarated straight back down to confused – what in the hell was making me react so strongly (and strangely) to this particular vampire?

As I stared straight ahead, Peter stepped up next to me, then sat quietly to my right, dangling his long legs over the ledge.

I turned to look at him, imagining how handsome he would have looked in the earlier dusky light of the sunset. "Thank you," I told him, smiling a bit when he turned to look at me, surprised. I wanted to tell him how much I meant that, how sure I'd been that I was going to die, and how safe I'd felt when I'd finally felt his arms carrying me through the desert – but my subconscious reminded me that Peter was still a stranger to me, no matter how fascinating I found him.

I looked forward, down into the swirling water that caught the moonlight where flies disturbed the surface, and I tried to will away the tears that came into my eyes.

Peter draped his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned against him, glad for his strong, solid presence. I breathed in his deep scent, closed my eyes, and thought about nothing – not the bloody name across my stomach, not the pain stiffening my bones and muscles – focusing on Peter beside me and the wild night around me.

…

Peter

…

A while after Peter had found Bella, she relaxed into sleep with her head nestled into his neck. He smiled to himself, wondering how this was happening and also how long the two of them would go before figuring any of this out. He couldn't keep his hands off her when she was near, and she gravitated towards him just as strongly… he knew where the signs were pointing, and that only made him worry about her even more.

How would she handle the trauma of whatever Maria had done to her? How would she deal with his named being carved so violently – and permanently – into her skin? And would he be able to keep all this shit from completely falling apart before they even got started?

Peter sat contemplating Bella and his own future, until the stars in the sky had shifted, and a light wind swept through the across the dry land. Bella shivered under his arm. Her heart beat slow and steady, and Peter thought then how much she fit here in this field behind his house, her soft scent of wildflowers complementing the warm, open air.

He sighed, knowing he should get Bella back to the house so she could sleep in a real bed, but not wanting to leave this quiet place she'd found for them. "Bella?" he prompted her, but she didn't react. Peter picked her up carefully, tucked her against his chest, and carried her back to the house.

He brought her back to his old bedroom, tucking her back into his bed, trying not to imagine Bella stretching out on his bed in an entirely different situation – Bella pursed her lips in her sleep as these thoughts ran through Peter's mind, and he felt somewhat abashed. He leaned down, kissed her soundly on the forehead, and retreated from the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Jasper had also retreated inside and was rustling around in his old bedroom on the third floor. Peter was glad for it, not wanting to face any more questions until a new day.