I'm coming late to the party, but if you haven't read jandco's Teenage Angst Brigade, you should… It's embarrassing [for me] how good it is. It's still mind-effing me, days later.

...

EdwardPOV

It wasn't until after she finally left for her home that I realized exactly what I had done. Without her close to me, without her overwhelming every single one of my capacities, I was finally able to reflect on just exactly what I had promised her.

Tell her everything?

Was I insane? I must have been to promise such a thing. There was a reason we kept secrets from her kind. On earth, there were two worlds: Hers and mine. And it took me a century to understand it, but there was reason that the two were kept separate. One existed, solely, to decimate the other. One, was hope… Was life. The other, the reckoning… Death.

………………………

Volterra, 1958

I could still hear their screams.

Their wails of anguish were still chasing me, even now, they had followed me all the way back to Italy. I should have known it would be this way. As if the way they lived was not torture enough, the way they died - the way I killed them- it must have been insufferably worse. Surely. For such pain, even death was not enough of an escape.

After the house had burned to the ground I couldn't comprehend it. They made no attempt to run, no attempt to fight back… Even as they watched me set fire to the beds that they had no use for, even as they watched the flames lick at their feet, they had no desire for self-preservation. At the end of the ordeal, I was sure. They wanted it.

Yet they screamed and they grieved and they cursed me as they perished willingly. Even we immortals knew, there were fates worse than death.

I stood at the base of the washed-out balustrade taking in all the familiarities of my home for nearly 30 years. Centuries of nature's abuse had done little to diminish the grandeur of the castle. Even now, after having spent months in the American's new world, Volterra was immaculate. It seemed as if the only casualty against the war of time seemed to be the vitality of the color. As I passed under the flying buttresses into the vast courtyard, I could not help but think how the faded, oppressive terra cotta tiles of the rooftops may have once been red.

I felt the air move around me, the source distant, but easy to identify nevertheless.

"Speak, Olivier. How long have you been waiting there? They saw me coming then? Tell me, Paolo has returned already? How long ago?"

"Yes, Sir. Two days less a fortnight."

I raised an eyebrow at the servant as he swept toward me.

" So soon?"

He gave me a nervous smile," He has more experience, Sir. And they did come… willingly."

I grimaced. Of course they came willingly, it seemed that Paolo seemed to be more charming than he let on.

"Everyone has assembled? In the receiving room?"

"Yes, sir. They're waiting for you," he said timidly, reaching forward," I'll take your bag ---"

The back of my hand nearly made contact with his cheek, but I pulled away, wrenching away the leather satchel that hung at my side. He whimpered and cowered, taking a step backwards, already muttering apologies. Ignoring them, I berated him.

"You are new, boy," I growled menacingly," So I will tell you this but once."

He nodded, studying the ground.

"This bag and all of its contents is never to be touched. Do you understand that?"

"Y-yes, sir. My apologies, Sir. I only thought ---"

"Then don't think. Do only as I tell you? You are my charge, mine alone. You answer only to me. Do you understand that?"

"Y-yes sir."

"Good," I said threateningly, stopping at the doors of the receiving room, "Now leave me."

He nodded once and was gone, traveling at our natural speed, clearly eager to be distant from what lay just beyond the doors.

. . .

The interior of the castle was unchanged in the ways that the exterior could not feign to replicate. The receiving room, with its sparse décor, thousands of years old, was to be the set to the unfolding scene. And a scene is what it would be, for it was always this way. Pomp and circumstance, the air thick with affectation, exhibitions and exchanges that remained rooted in worlds long passed, all of it acted in confluence, all of it befitting of the Volturi.

I stood before the three thrones, though I deigned to call them that, for I had no King. No master. That I remained here, that I continued to be the heavy fist of their reckoning, it was of my own volition. Marcus and Caius, the others of the coven, they may not be blessed with the same cognizance, but Aro understood this. And his was the only opinion that mattered.

The filed in, one by one, all swathed in ceremonial robes, faces partially obscured by heavy hoods of velvet. It didn't matter. I did not need to see their faces to know who they were.

Athenodora and Sulpicia, came first, standing to the side of me. They were only here as spectators.

Jane and Alec were next, hand-in-hand, their steps less resolute than the rest. Turned as twins and children, were they not so diabolical, it would have been enough to pity them. They took their places next to the wives as Heidi, Felix, Demetri and Chelsea followed. The group of them huddled together on the far side of the room, their thoughts seething with resentment for me. How many hundreds of years had they been his favorites before my arrival?

Afton, Corin, Renata and Santiago swept in behind them, though they took places on the opposite side of the room, to my right. Their thoughts were less resentful, they were too absorbed in the drama surrounding Paolo's latest episode. He always seemed to act out whenever I was gone. It made me wonder what Volterra was like in the thousands of years before my arrival, had his insolence always been so prominent?

The rest of the followers came in quiet reverence, their rigid postures screaming of their gratitude in being here had I not been able to hear their sycophantic thoughts. I would have scoffed at them were it not for my own position in the proceedings. They took places somewhere behind me, huddled in the back of the room, pressed together like sardines in a can.

Marcus and Caius were last, walking slowly behind Aro, who looked particularly frail in the dim lighting of the chamber's torches. His footsteps were the least elegant of all, unsteady against the marble floors, the faintest sounds of the slightest endeavor straining against the silence of the room.

He took his seat gingerly, lowering himself into his chair, and almost as immediately as he relaxed in his seat, so too did the inhabitants of the room release their tension. His voice was little more than a whisper.

"Edward," he said affectionately, "We are so glad to have you home."

"Thank you, Aro," I said honestly, "I, too, am pleased."

An amused sound escaped his lips as he made the charge against me," Do my requests tire you, Edward? Or is it, as I suspect, the boredom that leaves you resentful?"

I smiled, I knew his tone quite well.

"No, Aro. I assure you it is neither. I only mean to say that Italy, that Volterra, is home. It pleases me to return."

He nodded, a flicker of a frown passing too quickly over his lips, I could not say with much certainty if I truly saw it. I think I did.

"We were beginning to think you may never come back," Caius interrupted with a sneer," You have been gone for nearly two months."

I smiled patronizingly at him. What did he know of the hunt? Centuries of cosseted over-indulgence here in the castle, it did nothing for his understanding of our hardships.

"They ran from coast-to-coast, Caius," I said patiently," And I had my fair share of distractions."

I said the last part to goad him, hoping he would comment, daring him to. Yet, I knew he would not. Not here, not with Aro at his side. It was this certainty that further compounded my surprise at the next voice, I had not even noticed him enter the room.

"Humans," Paolo said, sweeping forward to take a place near Aro's side,"I don't know why you bother with them… Not when you cannot stand them…"

"I would say the same thing of you," I shot back at him as the witnesses in the room began to shift excitedly. I was indulging my own vanities, I knew he too would not answer.

Aro lifted a hand then, and the room fell silent yet again, the witnesses becoming stone statues.

"Come forward, Edward. Show me where you have been and what you have done."

I walked to him, my fists clenched at my sides. I felt his breath, cold and stale on my face as he leaned toward me, placing his frail, translucent fingers on each of my temples.

I swept through my memories of the remote log cabin, tucked away deep in the Appalachian mountains, pausing over the images of the slain children. Neither was older than the age of five, their white skin and bared teeth were clearly visible in the dismembered pieces of their corpses though they were both badly burned.

"Good," Aro mumbled, his voice cutting through the flawless recollection of the scenes in my head, "And the parents?"

I replayed an earlier scene in my head, when I first found them. The adults, husband and wife, both with a child in their arms, both of them begging for mercy as a raging fire burned in the fireplace of the small cabin. In my mind, I let them tell the story, knowing that Aro would want to know the catalyst for such disobedience.

"Please!" the mother cried, clutching the red-headed toddler to her chest, she could not have been more than three years old," It's not their fault!"

"Then you should not have changed them," I said in an eerie calm, circling them as they, the predators, became prey.

"What would you have done?!" the young Father yelled, shielding the boy behind him," If they changed you and your wife?! What if there was no one to care for your own children? We never asked for this!"

I showed Aro my hesitation then, my wonder at how many years it took them to reconstruct their family. If these adults were as pure-intentioned as they wanted me to believe, it must have been worse than torture to watch their own children go through the change, worse than death to see what they had become. And if it was worse than death, then why? Why had they done it? But I was not there to make the judgment, the verdict had already been handed down. Death, swift and merciful, but still… Death. And I was their deliverance.

"It is too late…."

I said it honestly and moved toward them, the fire crackling wildly in the hearth behind me, backing the family into a corner.

"You don't have to do this!" The mother shrieked as the child burrowed into her shoulder," You don't have to kill them! They are just children!"

"And how many children have they slain?" I asked calmly," How many parents have lost their own children for yours? And not just for their sustenance either, for their amusement. For sport! How many? Tell me woman…"

She grabbed the boy's hand, the girl still in her arms, and the man stepped forward in a futile attempt to shield his family.

"We'll be more careful," he pleaded," We'll keep moving, we'll teach them…"

I shook my head, moving closer still, "You cannot teach them… They are too young to understand…"

"They aren't!" he begged," They are smart for their age… Gifted even…"

I sneered," It does not matter… Give them to me or I will take them…"

"Please!" the Mother sobbed, pulling both children to her chest, "Please!"

I looked down on them, cowering in fear in the corner, unlike anything I had ever seen from our kind. Yes, they were different, but different was not justification enough…

The Father lunged at me suddenly, yelling at his young family.

"Run, Helen! Run!"

But he was far too slow. I knew his movements before he had even decided to make them. I pushed him aside easily, grabbing the boy by the arm. His body was so small, still so fragile in my hands despite his change and it was over before it even began. I tossed the pieces into the vast fire behind me, moving toward the girl and her mother, the Father chasing after the pieces I had only just discarded.

"Give her to me," I said," Say your goodbyes and give her to me."

The Mother clutched the child to her chest as the Father's cries, otherworldly in their anguish, echoed somewhere behind me. She shook her head, and moved away, but her back was already to the wall…

I reached out quickly, sweeping away the Mother too easily.

… I let the memory fade into black. Aro knew, I didn't need to show him.

"And the parents?" he said, his iridescent fingers still resting on my temples.

I grimaced, flitting over an image of the parents embracing one another as the fire consumed them, damning me until their last breaths.

"Fine," Aro said, beginning to lower his hand and backing away, a strained look on his face," Fine."

Yet just before his hands dropped to his sides, an image of my own tormented face framed by fire reflected in the cracked mirror of the vanity. It flashed through my mind as I tried to block the vision, but it was too late, he had already seen it. He pulled his hands from my face immediately, shuffling slowly back to his seat. Ashamed that I had shown my moment of weakness, despite the fact that I knew he could feel it, I turned to retreat. But he stopped me…

"Edward," he said, "Stay for a while."

I turned, facing him with defiant eyes, attempting to replace the image of me in his mind with the most diametrically opposed façade I could muster.

"Everyone… Leave," he sighed dismissively, lifting just the tips of his fingers from where his hand lay resting on the arm of his throne.

The floating robes swept past me, only the sound of velvet brushing against marble permeating the silence, their thoughts questioning yet resigned in their minds. The resounding boom of the wooden doors signaled our solitude and he beckoned me forward, his voice nearly inaudible.

"Come, Edward. Tell me…"

And so I sat at his feet, not as Servant and King but closer to Father and Son, telling him of my hesitations, of my regret. And I was not repentant for taking their lives. It was not atonement. It was that I regretted our presence in this world. It was that I regretted my life, my own existence. He looked his three thousand years as I let him listen to my thoughts and I believed, in that same moment, that perhaps he and I were not so different. I believed that perhaps Aro, King of the Vampires, might just regret our existence too.

…………………………

I shook myself from my memories. Even now, decades later, they were still unerringly vivid. How could I tell her everything? How could I tell her this. Could I let her love a lie? I did not have the courage for the truth and again I was trapped. Tell her everything?

I was too selfish.

She seemed content to overlook the obvious differences between the two of us. She never once commented on the pallor of my skin, or the iciness of my touch. She seemed content to ignore my otherworldly agility and she never remarked on the barely believable plot of my history. I could only hope…

And even with the hope I knew… Tomorrow would be the test…

……………………………

She was already at her truck before I arrived. Strange. I could see her through the trees, still half a mile from her. She was bouncing. Bouncing.

Who did she think she was? Alice?

I made my way through the trees and it didn't take much effort to surprise her.

"Good afternoon, Bella."

She yelped with surprise," Edward! You scared me!"

I took her hand expecting the way it never failed to scorch against my skin.

"Why do you come from that way?"

Ahh, so the questions were to start immediately then. She was never very patient.

"I live that way," I said, helping her with her backpack and placing into the back of her truck.

"Hmm," she said, turning to face me.

"Go on, Isabella. Ask."

The words came out rushed, in a single breath, "But there's only woods that way. It has to be faster just to take the main road. You'd have to go all the way around the forest."

"That is where you are wrong, my dear, I go through the forest."

"But… Why?"

I shrugged, "I like it."

"Really?"

"Mmhmm."

She sighed, "Okay, I guess."

She grew silent as she walked automatically toward the diner.

"The other week you said you wanted to go to the lake," I said attempting nonchalance, "Would you like to go there today?"

"Really?" she asked, wide-eyed, her excitement spilling over," You're not hungry?"

I had hunted all night in preparation for this afternoon, but I had not considered that she might be hungry. It dawned on me then just how many things I would have to re-learn if I was going to be the type of companion she deserved. I withered at the reality of it all: I would never be the type of companion she deserved. I repressed the self-pity and pushed it back into the recesses of my mind, alongside every memory of my life in Volterra.

"No, I've, uhm, eaten. But you must be… Hungry, I mean?"

"No, I'm fine!" she said quickly, too quickly.

"Isabella…" I said, cautioning her," If you need something from me, you have to tell me. I wasn't exaggerating before when I said I didn't know how to…"

"—I know!" she interrupted, "I just don't want you to change your mind. You're already looking a little more… Freaked out?"

I blinked at her," Freaked out?"

"Yeah," she admitted slowly, her hands fumbling with the hems of her sleeves in the way that I loved, "You already look like you're ready to bolt."

I let out a laugh and she looked shocked. Her sharp intake of breath was comical.

"Do I, then? It was not intentional. Isabella, are you alright?"

She shook her head, her eyes wide with shock. She seemed poised to speak, but bit her lip resolutely. Walking away from me, her steps were tense. I assumed I was to follow her for she continued speaking.

"I guess I'll just have to get used to it I guess."

"Get used to what?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, like always. She always did this. She picked up in the middle of a conversation I had no idea we were having as if I was just expected to know what she was thinking. Infuriating Bella was back already.

"You being so… different."

"Different?"

She assuaged me quickly," Not that I don't like it. I do! It's just that you're usually so... But yesterday, and now, you're just…. I don't know. You're just different. It's like you've just… Made up your mind about something, I guess."

I smiled, taking her hand easily and she let me, her hand tightening around mine when it should have been pushing me away.

"So, do we need to get you some sort of sustenance? A source of fiber? A carbohydrate of some sort? Or protein? I noticed you seemed to like poultry."

This time, it was she who laughed, her fingers clenching delightfully around mine.

"You really are quite strange, Edward."

………………….

Perhaps the rocky quarry by the beach was not the best decision, we had been going to the lake that bordered the edge of the Olympic National Park for three days. Each day, her questions, her curiosity, was insatiable. But it was all easy. So very, very easy.

She changed her mind this afternoon, at the last second, asking excitedly if we could come here instead. At this time yesterday I thought I would never deny her of anything, but that contention was quickly being amended.

After the precarious drive on the unpaved roads that led to this beach, in that deathtrap she called an automobile and now, as she tripped and stumbled over every pebble, I was desperate for the disgusting human food and drab interior of the diner. At least at the diner she would only be able to find a few ways to kill herself.

So this was how we had spent the afternoon, me trailing behind her like a wet nurse, my hands hovering around her form, ready to catch her when she inevitably fell. I was so I preoccupied with visions of her falling accidentally to her death that I barely had the wherewithal to answer the questions that she asked of me. And she had been asking me plenty, like always, all afternoon. But surprisingly, still nothing the least bit troublesome.

She was still blissfully unaware of my past, of my present, but bliss is exactly what it was. I began to believe that I could live this lie if it meant having her. I would suffer my own deceit in silence if it meant having her at all. For the past several days, she had not so much as asked a question that was even the least bit trying. I barely had to edit my answers, I responded naturally, revising very little.

I was beginning to believe the lie was the truth.

"Favorite color?" she called out behind her, pulling me from my musings. I had let her get too far away. She was several yards from me now.

"Brown, I suppose," I yelled back over the sound of the crashing waves," You?"

I heard her giggle," Same."

"Favorite ice cream?" she said, as I came up behind her, it was the 6th food question she had asked that day.

"I don't have one," I admitted honestly.

"You don't ever have an answer for the food questions."

I didn't respond, pretending to be distracted by the setting sun. It sat low on the horizon, just half of it, and even that was barely visible behind the clouds that draped over the deep grey of the ocean. The damp chill of the new evening's air conspired against us as it did every day. It was nearly time to leave.

"You should be home soon, Bella. Someone will be waiting for you, surely."

"And what about you?" she asked, pivoting on one foot over a loose rock. It was her first challenging question all afternoon. If I had a beating heart it would have faltered.

"There are more hours tomorrow, Isabella, "I said, ashamed of my own cowardice," There are hours upon hours for your questions. You should be getting home, you must be starving by now."

"Do you promise?" she asked lightly, almost jokingly, though I noted the trepidation in her voice.

I sighed, taking her hand and pulling her gently from her perch on a small boulder," Yes, I promise. I'll be waiting at your truck tomorrow, as soon as you're out of class. Satisfied?"

"Even if I tell you now that tomorrow my questions won't be so easy?"

I flinched at her light-hearted question. It was a dagger in my still heart. I cursed my own naïveté. I was an imbecile for believing for a second that she was dense. I should have known better, she was always too perceptive, and always slightly demanding.

I sighed again, already weary. It was as if there was a giant clocking ticking down the seconds, making every word, every sigh, every breath count for an impossible amount. It was exhausting to live this way… I had never been conscious of time passing before.

"And what if you don't find the answers you are looking for, Bella? Or worse, what if you do? What then? What if you don't like what you see?"

"Well, I guess I'll just have to disappear and maybe I'll nevercome back."

She teased me with a playful reminder of my penchant for mysterious behavior, but the fact that she had been holding back on purpose made it obvious that it still did more than just bother her.

"Perhaps if you did," I said seriously, "It would be better… But I'm not sure I could let you go now."

"Oh really," she said challengingly, trying to lighten the mood, "And if I just ran…"

Her lips pursed, her eyes bright, and she took off toward the direction of her car, her strides comically slow and unsteady, though I could tell she was trying her hardest.

I let her beat me to the truck, where she collapsed against it, exerted. I stopped just behind her, my breath perfectly even.

"You can't beat me in a footrace," I said to her sadly, grabbing her hand and brushing it softly against my lips.

"And what was that?" she laughed emptily, a sure sign that she had caught the change in my tone.

"I'll always put you first, Bella. No matter what happens now, no matter what happens ever… I can't promise you everything, but I can promise you this… My desires will always come second when it comes to putting you first. Do you believe that?"

"Y-yes," she said, her hands trembling in mine.

"Good. Now let me take you home, Bella, it'll be getting dark soon."

……………………………..

A/N:

This story is dedicated to Pureology Nano Shampoo and Conditioner, Smith's Rosebud Salve & Taylor Lautner in about 5 years.

Also, this chapter is … different. I worried about taking it to the darkside. But don't abandon me just yet!

...

So, somebody has been rec'ing this fic to other people… In particular, an anonymous comment to the girls over at The Lazy Yet Discerning Ficster (check out the blog, they'll guide you through the mountain of fic out there).

Who was it? LLe2006, hm?

Well, whoever it was, I'm very appreciative.

And fess up, so I can thank you properly.