Midnight Star

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Nine: The Truth Comes Out, Part II

I actually felt a little bit sorry for Edward as I glanced sideways at him as we drove along the highway. He was sitting in the passenger's seat, doing a very good impression of a statue, staring ahead of us with his golden eyes filled with disbelief and incredulity, but acceptance was already starting to set in, I noticed. Incredible, it had taken me over a week to accept everything that I had just told him. When I first arrived at camp and Chiron had told me everything, told me what my father was—even though I hadn't been claimed yet—and moved into the Hermes cabin temporarily, I hadn't fully believed what he had told me.

Oh, I knew that what I had seen was real, but there's a big difference between knowing that supernatural stuff exist and accepting that your father, who has never really been involved in your life, just happens to be a very powerful divine being.

All things considered, Edward was handling this surprisingly well, though silence had settled down upon us after I had explained all of this, which I conveniently broke.

"So . . . no more questions?" I asked him. He chuckled, surprising me, and turned his eyes towards me.

"Questions?" he repeated with a wry smile. "I have about a million questions."

"So ask me."

"I hardly know where to begin," Edward murmured. "But I suppose the first one to ask is . . . why you?" I stared in confusion at the question, shaking my head in bewilderment. "Why did you have to be cursed with such a fate? Someone like you should be free to lead a normal, happy life."

"There you go with that 'someone like you' stuff again," I muttered. "Edward, my life might not be the calmest or the safest, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Granted, my mother turned her back on me since before I can remember, my sisters don't even know me, my best friend was killed because an all-powerful being was trying to take over the world, but that's only the bad parts of it. There are good parts too. I've got a brother who would risk everything just to save my life and as annoying and overprotective as he is, that's not such a bad quality. I've got a best friend who would gouge out his own eyes rather than see anything bad happen to me." Edward chuckled. "And I helped save the world. There are some girls who would kill to be able to do something like that. The bad stuff that happens doesn't outweigh the good stuff, because as messed up as my life is, I really wouldn't have it any other way. If I could change my life and be the nice, normal daughter that my mother so desperately craved, I don't think that I would take that chance. Even though the average lifespan of female heroes is about . . . oh, twelve to twenty one, I wouldn't change it. As crazy as it is, I wouldn't change anything about my life."

Edward listened to my tirade without interruption, his eyes softening with every word. "What I wouldn't give to know what you were thinking," he murmured softly. "You've been through so much, yet you still have so much faith. That's something that I admire." He smiled at me. "Now . . . I believe that you have questions for me?"

"Are you sure? I know that I just dumped a lot into your lap," I said, eyeing him carefully. "Finding out that some random girl that you go to school with is a daughter of the Sea God isn't exactly something that you learn every day. I wouldn't be offended if you wanted to sleep on it or something."

He laughed at me, eyes twinkling. "That's all right. I don't mind. Besides," he added seriously, "I can't sleep."

Suddenly, I wished that he had been the one who was driving, because I almost let go of the wheel at that revelation as my head whipped around to stare at Edward incredulously.

"You what?" I demanded, my eyes widening. He chuckled at my expression. "What do you mean, you can't sleep? How can you not sleep? Everybody has to sleep, how can vampires function without any sleep?" During my rant, I didn't notice that I had let the word slip out. At least, not until it was too late and it was already out in the open.

Edward's golden eyes flashed and he stared at me with true shock written in them. "What did you just say?" he breathed. I swallowed, trying to pay attention to the road and to Edward at the same time. "How? How could you possibly know that? How could you know what I am?"

I took a deep breath. "The first day that I met you, I knew at once that you weren't human. I could sense it, although I wasn't sure exactly what you were. My thoughts ranged from demigods to monsters to minor gods—" Edward's mouth twitched at that last one, like he was trying not to smile, "—but I couldn't exactly do nothing, not with my life being what it was, so I called my friend Annabeth—she's a daughter of Athena—and asked her about it. She said she'd get back to me.

"Then, a few days ago, Annabeth came to visit me. She did every kind of research that she could, trying to find out what it was that I was looking for, and then, finally, she found it. Every piece of the puzzle, everything that I had told her fit together . . . except for one thing," I said, throwing a glance towards his golden eyes, "your eyes."

Edward pulled them away from me, choosing to stare instead outside of the window, into the darkness.

"Annabeth said that vampires traditionally had red eyes instead of gold and she couldn't understand what was different about you and your family, why you had gold instead of red. And everything that she said made perfect sense. You're incredibly fast and strong, your eyes change colour, your skin is pale-white and ice-cold, and you have an accent that suggests that you weren't born or raised in this era," I added quietly. Edward pierced his lips together. "It's not noticeable, but I've been around enough immortal beings to recognise when somebody wasn't raised in this era. You never eat or drink anything, you don't go into the sunlight . . . how old are you, anyway?" I wanted to know. Whatever he said wasn't going to bother me, but I was curious.

"Seventeen," he said at last, his expression rigid and stoic.

I nodded; I had been expecting this answer. "And exactly how long have you been seventeen?"

He hesitated, debating whether or not to tell me, but gave in. "Since 1918," he admitted.

I did the math quickly in my head—or at least, trying to, since my skills at math leave something to be desired—and asked, "So . . . you're a hundred and nine?" I sought to clarify.

"Yes," Edward said cautiously, regarding me carefully and vigilantly. The way that he was looking at me was unnerving . . . it was as though he expected me to pull the car over to the side of the road and start running screaming in the other direction.

"So . . . I was right?" I said at last. "You . . . your brothers . . . your sisters . . . your parents . . . you're all . . .?" I didn't finish that sentence, but Edward nodded anyway.

"Are you afraid?" he asked me with a hard note to his voice, one that I didn't completely understand and there was the same hardness in his eyes when I looked into them. He was angry, but not, I realised, at me. Perhaps angry that I had found out his secret, but he wasn't angry at me.

Considering his question, I weighed everything that I had found out over the past few days against everything that I knew about Edward. And I realised that I wasn't, not by a long shot. No matter what Edward was, I knew that he wasn't going to hurt me. He would never hurt me; I was perfectly safe with him and I trusted him with my life.

"No," I answered truthfully, my voice so soft that I doubted that, without vampiric hearing, he would have been able to hear it. "Not by a long shot."

Edward stared at me with an unreadable expression before he looked around at our surroundings. "Pull over," he ordered me.

Something told me that he wasn't fooling around, so I obeyed, pulling the truck over at the side of the road. We were just barely outside of Forks, barely touching the city limits as I climbed out of the truck, Edward with me, and he strode towards the woods. I stared after him, wondering what was going on before I followed him.

"Where are we going?" I asked him curiously, completely thrown by his furious expression. He didn't answer, just continued his power walk through the woods. I had to practically run in order to keep up with his long stride; he was much taller than I was and had much longer legs.

When the road that my truck was parked on had disappeared completely from view, Edward stopped suddenly and grabbed hold of me, swinging me onto his back.

"Edward!" I squeaked in surprise, caught off guard to even think about trying to fight him off. "What are you doing—?"

All thoughts went out of my wind as he ignored my questions and broke into a run through the woods, carrying me on my back.

Actually, a run is putting it mildly. The fastest car in the world would have made it seem like walking next to Edward running through the forest. I kept my eyes opened as we raced through the woods, moving quicker than the fastest animal or monster alive. Everything was a blur as we swept through them, faster than a bullet.

My heart was beating so fast that I could feel it pounding against my chest, threatening to explode as Edward carried me through the forest. The only time I had ever been this close to him was the day of the car accident and even then, he had kept our contact minimal. But now . . .

Now I had my arms latched firmly around him so I wouldn't fall off, because at this speed, I was bound to go flying if I fell off. And the contact felt amazing, so pure and strong and unbreakable. The electricity that I always felt whenever I was around him was nothing next to this; now it was a thunderstorm, a hurricane, a tornado, a typhoon.

I could barely breathe. I had to remember how to breathe, tried to focus on my breathing as we ran, forcing air in and out of my lungs, tried to keep my breathing in order so I wouldn't pass out. Edward took no notice of this, just kept a firm grip on me while he raced through the forest.

And finally, he stopped and set me down—albeit gently—onto the ground before proceeding out of the woods, into a small clearing that had beams of moonlight pouring down upon it.

Slowly, I made my way outside of the woods and stared around me in utter amazement, unable to believe what it was that I was seeing, an amazed smile making its way across my face as I slowly stepped further into the clearing, looking in every direction.

The clearing was beautiful. There was no other way to describe it. Every inch of it was covered with beautiful purple flowers that emitted a sweet, floral scent. I could hardly believe my eyes; it was so utterly perfect and incredible, almost like a fairy tale.

Looking around towards Edward, I realised that his expression still carried that furious one that he had been wearing since we left the car and my smile slipped away as I looked at him.

"What's wrong?" I asked him carefully.

He let out a laugh of disbelief. "You ask me that? You, who claim to be a daughter of a Greek god, ask me what's wrong? You know what I am, Susan, and you're not afraid of me? Are you insane? Have you completely and utterly lost your mind?"

"No," I said, starting to get angry at him. "Edward, what are you talking about? Why would I be afraid of you?"

"Why shouldn't you be? I'm a monster in every sense of the word, like the kind that searches for you and tries and kill you. You should hate me and want to kill me. I'm a vampire, Susan, a monster by definition and you don't care about that?"

I met his golden gaze evenly and took a step towards him, continuing so until I was standing right in front of him. Lifting my chin, I stared him down. "No," I said forcibly. "I'm not afraid, okay? Edward, listen to me, it doesn't matter—"

"It doesn't matter?" Edward all but exploded and I'm pretty sure that we would be heard all the way in Forks, even though we were about five miles outside of town and all the way up a mountain. "It doesn't matter that I'm not human? It doesn't matter that I'm not a monster? You're not at all concerned with the fact that I drink blood?"

"No," I said, keeping my voice as even and level as I was able. "Because you're not a monster, Edward."

That stopped his tirade and he actually looked at me. "What?" he asked in a much calmer voice, but his golden eyes seemed as dark as the first day that I met him.

"You're not a monster," I repeated, folding my arms across his chest. "I have met a lot of monsters in the past couple of years, Edward. I have looked evil straight in the eye—met one of the most dangerous beings in the universe—and lived to tell the tale. And trust me, you are no monster. A monster wouldn't have rushed to my aid tonight when I was facing Medusa. He would have happily watched her kill me. A monster wouldn't have saved me from that van; he would have just let it crush me. And besides," I added, shaking my head, "being human isn't about what you are, Edward; it's about who you are. If you were just a monster, you wouldn't care about anything or anybody. You wouldn't have cared about saving my life. You would have just happily watched me get myself killed."

Edward pierced his lips together. "Maybe I knew that if your blood was spilled that day, we wouldn't have been able to restrain ourselves. Maybe I just didn't want our secret to get out."

"Maybe," I allowed. "But a monster wouldn't have cared about that. And humans have the extraordinary ability not to see supernatural activity and convince themselves that something perfectly normal took place. If you hadn't saved me and you lost control, there's a good chance that most of them would have forgotten what they saw by the next day." Edward had nothing to say to this. "Besides, I saw you that day; you didn't care whether or not anybody saw you when you saved me. It didn't matter whether or not somebody saw you push that van off of me. It didn't matter."

Taking a deep breath, Edward looked away, his hard look softening slightly. "No," he whispered. "No, it didn't. I didn't care who saw that day. All I cared about was getting you to safety. Later, I came up with the excuse that none of us would have been able to resist had your blood been spilled, but at the time, all I cared about was saving your life."

"See?" I said not unkindly. "Not many people would have risked their lives—or their secret, for that matter—to help a complete stranger. I can only think of a handful and most of them don't even live in this town," I added in an attempt to get him to smile, but it didn't work.

"And my diet?" he asked harshly. "You're not concerned about that?"

"Edward," I said seriously, gently touching his face and guiding it so that he was forced to look at me, "you won't hurt me, okay? You've had plenty of opportunities to hurt me and you haven't. Besides, I just took down a lady who can turn people into stone with one glance. I can control water and have wicked sword-skills. Trust me, I can take care of myself." His mouth twitched slightly, but otherwise remained expressionless. "Defending myself against mythological creatures? That's the easy part. I've trained for four years for it. It's just the normal life part that I . . . don't have down yet."

His eyes softened at that, his mouth loosening from its tight, rigid position, and his entire body relaxed slightly.

"I'm not afraid of you, Edward," I assured him. "And I'm not going to ask about your diet. Not unless you want to tell me."

"No, you should know," he said quietly. "The worst part about my family and I is over now." He took a deep breath as he looked at me. "My family . . . we're different from others of our kind. That's why our eyes are gold instead of red. Your friend was right about that. We only hunt animals." I nodded, even though Seth had already told me as much, not interrupting. "But being around you . . . I haven't been around humans in so long, Susan, and I'm not entirely certain that I can control myself. I've lived amongst humans, spent almost a hundred years around them, but I haven't actually interacted with humans since I was changed. You don't seem to understand how dangerous I am."

"Because you've had more than enough opportunities to hurt me, Edward," I said patiently. "And I'm just as dangerous as you are. My own mother rejected me just because of the danger that I brought to her and her new family. What do you think that says about me?"

Edward paused without a trace of the fury that had been lingering behind his golden eyes since we had started talking; all of the anger that had been lingering was gone now. "I think," he said after a long moment, "that it says more about your mother than it says about you."

Looking up at him, I felt my hands moving on their own accord, reaching out and taking his slightly larger hands into mine, lacing our fingers together. Although I was unable to tear my gaze away from his, I noticed that they were a perfect match for one another; they fit together all so perfectly, as though my hands had been made for his. They were the perfect size for each other, matching each other's without any need for adjustment, as though we had been created for one another.

And the way that my skin prickled when he was touching me . . . it left me with a desire that I never wanted to be quenched. A desire for this feeling that was growing within me to never disappear. Every particle of my body was singing in happiness and joy just by our hands touching one another's, by looking into each other's eyes, by simply being around each other.

Taking a deep breath, Edward swallowed as he stared down at our entwined hands, as though marvelling at how perfectly made they were made for one another. "This is impossible."

I managed a chuckled. "Says the vampire who sustains on an animal diet while he standing in the middle of the woods with the demigod daughter of Poseidon," I said cheerfully.

That got him to laugh and it wasn't until that moment that I realised that I'd never heard Edward laugh before. I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the sound; it was full of delight and mirth.

With a soft chuckle, I shook my head as I looked up at him. "Edward, I'm not some helpless, weak little girl, all right? I can take care of myself if you wanted to hurt me, which I don't think that you do. I told you once before that I don't think that either one of us wants to stay away from each other. We should just see where this goes."

Edward closed his eyes for a moment before taking a step closer to me, closer than we'd ever been before. "You're right," he finally said after a long moment, "this isn't going away and as much as I try to deny it, I can't stay away from you anymore. And I don't want to stay away from you. You fascinate me in ways I never could have imagined. Your strength, your courage, your faith, your compassion . . . you've bewitched me, Susannah Dawson," he said, using my full name, which people rarely use. Only my dad, on occasion, and Chiron, sometimes, when I'm in trouble. "You've awakened something in me that I thought was long gone. My humanity," he said with a hint of wonder.

"Edward . . ." I whispered.

I'm not sure which one of us moved first; it could have been either of us or we both could have moved at the same time. I don't think that we'll ever know for sure who started it.

All I know for sure was that one minute I was looking straight into his golden eyes and the next minute, my lips were pressed against his in a soft, chaste kiss that nonetheless captured all of the passion and fire that I had felt inside of my dreams. For the first time in my life, I felt fire instead of water building up inside of me.

It was my first kiss and it was perfect.

And it was much too quickly.

Slowly, Edward pulled back, ending the kiss with a wondering, awestruck look on his face. I could barely control the emotions that were building up inside of me, a series of emotions that I couldn't even begin to describe or express. I was melting . . . I was melting in a pool of absolute perfect happiness.

"Wow," I whispered, a soft laugh making itself known. "That was . . ."

"Incredible," Edward murmured, dazed as he looked down at me, studying me carefully. And then he swept me up and captured me in another soul-searing kiss that held none of the restraints that our first one had held.

His arms were wrapped protectively around me, holding me in place, but not so tight that he would hurt me. My arms moved around his neck as he kissed me, my hands moving through his already messy hair, weaving themselves through the bronze tresses.

I was exploding, I was fireworks on the Fourth of July, I was the Christmas tree in Times Square, I was a comet soaring through the night sky, radiating clear for the whole world to see . . .

The second kiss lasted much, much longer, but unfortunately, I have to breathe, which meant that it eventually had to end and I had to come up for air, forcing me to pull apart.

Edward was staring at me in enthralment before he took a deep breath. "I should take you home," he said albeit reluctantly as he took my hand, leading me back down the moment, but he obviously wasn't in too much of a hurry, because he didn't pick me up and use his vampire speed to carry me back down.

"What is this place, anyway?" I asked him, looking over my shoulder.

"Just someplace I like to come to whenever it's nice out," Edward replied with a smile. Seeing my reluctance to leave, he smiled and lowered his head so he could whisper in my ear. "We'll come back. The next time it's nice out, I'll bring you and show you what I look like in the sunlight."

"Really?" I asked, a smile spreading across my face. Edward laughed at my eagerness, nodding. "So I'm guessing that whole 'vampires burn in the sun' thing is just a myth?"

"Yes," he said, nodding. "Sunlight doesn't bother us; we can come out during the daytime, but we just can't come out where anybody can see us. People would know that we're different."

"I think that memo went out a long time ago."

He chuckled again as we began the long track down the mountain, our hands entwined in one another's.

"Edward, can I ask you something?" I asked as we finally reached the truck. He nodded. "How did you know where I was tonight? How did you find me in Medusa's shop? Did you follow me or something?"

For a moment, he was quiet and then he released a sigh. "Like I said," he said so quietly that I almost didn't hear him, "you've bewitched me. Susan, I feel very protective of you. And I was . . . worried that something might happen to you tonight. I could . . . feel it, if that makes any sense. So I kept a close watch out for you and your friends and then, when you went into that shop, I heard Jessica and Angela's panicked thoughts and I—"

"Wait . . . what?" I stared at him. "Did you just say that you heard their thought?" Edward just looked at me, a wry smile in place. "So . . . you can . . . read minds?"

Considering me carefully, Edward opened up the driver's side door for me, being a perfect gentleman and helped me climb into the seat. "I can read every mind that I have ever come across," he answered simply. "Every person that I've ever met, vampire or human, I've always been able to read. But the first demigod that I meet, the first half-human girl that I've ever come across, I'm left in the dark on your thoughts."

I looked at him dubiously. "You can't read my mind?" I asked. "Is that . . . do you think that's a demigod thing or . . . can you just not read mine?"

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe both, maybe one or the other. I don't know. You're the first demigod that I've ever met before, Susan. I honestly have no idea if it's just the demigod part of you that makes it impossible to read your mind or something else entirely. That's partly why I was ignoring you that very first day, when we met. I didn't know what was happening, why I couldn't hear you. But it was also because just like you knew that I wasn't human, I knew that you were different. You were human, I could tell, your scent was enough of a human's for me to know that you were at least part human, but I wasn't sure what else you were."

I studied him carefully. "Do you mind? Being unable to read my mind?" I asked him.

He paused. "At the beginning, I did," he acknowledged. "It frustrated me that I couldn't know what you were thinking, but the more that I got to know you, the more that I began to understand you, the more I was glad that I couldn't read your mind. It was strange, not knowing what you were thinking, but it's a nice change. It's quite when I'm around you. Peaceful," he added with that same crooked smile that made me melt.

Although I didn't know what to think of the whole being a mental mute thing, I was also kind of relieved by it. First boyfriends are tough enough without having to deal with the fact that they can also read your mind whenever they want. At least this way, he couldn't hear any thoughts that I didn't particularly want him to hear (AKA, the passionate dreams that I had where he played a feature role).

"Come on," Edward said softly as he closed the door and walked around to the passenger's seat. "It's getting late and I don't want Charlie to worry and send out a search party."

"Uh . . . you know, I have no idea where you live," I pointed out. Edward just chuckled.

"Don't worry about me," he assured me. "I can get home."

Considering that he had just carried me up a mountain in the space of about a minute and wasn't even winded, I don't know why I was even surprised by the comment as I turned on the engine and began to navigate my way into Forks, heading towards my house.

"Charlie's inside," Edward observed as we pulled up to my house. "You should probably get in, before he starts a search party. Jessica called him awhile ago to tell him that you were with me." He smiled. "Just tell him that I got stranded in Port Angeles and you were giving me a ride home."

"No problem," I sighed. "Charlie can be completely oblivious to falsehoods. He's completely swallowed my stories about my being in a boarding school and my dad being a seaman."

Edward smiled and gave me one last, chaste kiss. "Good night," he said softly. "I'll pick you up tomorrow for school."

Before I could comment—not that I was sure what I was going to say, anyway—he was gone, disappeared from view, and I took a deep breath, picking up my belongings as I climbed out of the car, heading up the steps and into the house, where, sure enough, Charlie was sitting in front of the television with the game on, waiting for me.

"Wondering where you were," he said gruffly. "Jessica called about a half hour ago for you. Weren't you supposed to meet up with her?"

"Yeah, I did," I said truthfully. "I hung out with her and Angela for a little bit, then I ran into Edward Cullen. He got stranded there, so I offered to give him a ride home."

"Oh." Charlie looked surprised. "That was nice of you." He paused, studying me carefully and I wondered if he could tell if I'd just had my first kiss. "Which one is Edward?" he asked carefully. "Not that big one, right?"

"No, that's . . . Emmett, I think," I said, trying to remember. "Edward's the youngest one, the redhead."

"Oh, right." Charlie nodded as though this satisfied him. "Well, it's getting pretty late, you should probably get to bed, you've got school tomorrow."

"Right. Good night, Uncle Charlie," I said as I climbed up the stairs, disappearing into my bedroom and donning my nightgown before I climbed into my bed. The night's events had taken its toll on me and I was out before my head hit the pillow.

But in the few seconds before I was out, three things became certain in my mind.

One: Edward was a vampire.

Two: while we lived two completely different lives, we were two halves of a single whole.

And three: I was inexplicably and irrevocably in love with him.