52

Edward ran after his wife as fast as he could, but even with his enhanced speed she kept just far enough in front of him to stop him catching her. They could hear the others closing in, in a pincer movement, trying to cut her off from the human.

The wolves, in a larger perimeter than the vampires, also headed towards the area, but that meant that Alice's visions were becoming blurred, and she cursed as blackness overcame her second sight. He swore under his breath, he could have used Alice's visions to maybe cut her off, but she was running as straight as an arrow, only dodging trees, and he could not use the deviation to close the gap. The forest was densely packed at that point and he would have to swing wide to find a route past her, she was running full tilt so he doubted that he could have overtaken her even with his superior speed.

Suddenly the trees thinned, he could see sunlight filter through the sparse canopy, luckily at that very second the sun went behind a large cloud bank travelling off the mountain. He could smell wood smoke as well as blood, and the foul reek of a used latrine pit as they approached the source.

Bella broke through to the encampment, on the ground, in front of a single man tent, was a man, young, maybe late teens or even early twenties.

"Are you ok?" she asked as she came to a sudden halt, almost breaking the laws of mass and inertia.

The man stared at her, his hands holding onto a gash in his upper right thigh. He looked down and then back up at the goddess before him. Edward joined his mate at that second, he tried to grab her arms, but her shield held him inches away from his objective. He growled deep in his chest at the lustful thoughts of the young man, who was still looking at Bella.

"You're bleeding, you need medical help." Bella moved at human pace towards him. Carlisle broke through the trees and came to a sudden halt as he realised that Bella was not attacking the hapless human.

"I just fell onto a branch," the man at last found his voice once it was obvious to him that Bella and Edward were together. "It pierced the skin, it's ok though, I've just cleaned it up." He shrugged at the open first aid kit on the forest floor beside him. "It won't stop bleeding though." He scowled at his leg as if it offended him.

He hadn't done a very good job of cleaning it, Edward noticed, he could clearly see dirt in the wound. Bella knelt by the man and carefully put her hand on his upper leg. Edward growled again.

"I'll put pressure here." She explained as the youth blushed brightly at her touch. "Carlisle?" she turned and nodded to the man, "This is my father-in-law, he's a doctor, he can help you."

{Typical, here I am in the middle of nowhere and a goddess just appears out of the trees, and she's MARRIED!} Edward grinned at him and put his hand onto Bella's shoulder. Her shield allowed it now. {Weird eyes though, wonder why she chose red contacts? The men both have yellow eyes, maybe they were going to a party or something later…} He dismissed the thought of their eye colour as the pain shot through his leg again.

Carlisle knelt and using the man's well stocked first aid kit, cleaned the wound. {I am amazed! I made sure to stay away from humans when I was newborn. Her control is more than I've ever seen! But, you know we should have realised after what she did with Tanya that if she wanted something, none of us would be able to stop her.}

Edward nodded, he hadn't thought she would use her shield against him. The human on the forest floor was exceptionally lucky that Bella was who she was. If it had been any other newborn, past, present, or future, he would be dead.

The others closed in, keeping out of sight of the human, they stayed back a short distance into the trees.

"She didn't kill him!" he saw Bella wince as she heard Emmett's exclamation, luckily he was speaking in too low a pitch for the human ear to hear. "Rose, you have a rival!"

"What do you mean?" Rose asked, sounding annoyed.

"Well, you have never tasted human blood, it looks like Bella has the same control as you,"

"I'm not the saint you think I am Emmett." She sounded guilty.

"You resisted though!" he insisted.

A sigh came out through the trees, Edward knew than that a secret they had kept for so long was about to be revealed, he winced as he imagined what his sire would think of him.

"I wasn't alone. When I went to kill the men who had… attacked me… Edward came to help keep me under control. He taught me how to kill them without spilling blood. I would hope that I wouldn't have tasted them anyway, I would have been disgusted to have any of them inside me again in any way. But it was Edward that helped me get my revenge and he was the one who stopped me when I lost control and went to feed." {Sorry Edward, I had to tell him.} She apologised.

He remembered well how hard it was for him not to drain the men, he had only been vegetarian again for a month when Rose was turned, his eyes were still almost as red as hers when they went hunting the men who had hurt her so. After so long killing and feeding on the scum of the streets, he had only stopped himself from reverting because he didn't want to tempt her from the path she had chosen. This made Bella's control even more astonishing, no one was stopping her except herself.

{I'm proud of you, son.} He was shocked to hear Carlisle's thought. He had believed that he would have been ashamed that he had facilitated so many deaths, even though neither of them had broken their diet. He could hear, though, the anger Carlisle still kept inside towards the men who had defiled his daughter and left her to die, alone in the street, like a piece of garbage.

Bella's eyes were glowing proudly as she looked at him too.

"This is going to need stitches," Carlisle turned his full attention back to the young man. "I don't suppose you have a suture pack in here?" he rummaged through the kit.

"I'm not sure," the youth was pale now, the pain and blood loss affecting him. "I have some fishing wire and a sewing kit." He laughed slightly, "It worked for Rambo!" he nodded his head to a tackle box and then the tent he was sat in front of. Edward went into the tent and located the sewing kit when the man shouted which bag it was in, then he got some extra fine fishing nylon out of the tackle box.

"Put a pan of water on to boil." Bella instructed him, unnecessarily. He was more and more astonished by her control every second. The human's blood was all over her hands as she held his leg still and tried to slow the blood loss without cutting circulation off totally. She didn't even lick her lips!

Edward did as instructed, hanging the kettle from the tripod already set up over the glowing coals of the fire. He only placed a small amount of water in the pot, and as soon as it boiled he dropped the needle and nylon into the water and watched it boil for two minutes. He passed them to his father as soon as they were ready and watched as Carlisle neatly closed the gash. As soon as the blood stopped flowing, Bella washed her hands in the small stream close by and she got a couple of Tylenol from the kit and handed them to the man with the rest of the bottle of water that Edward had used to sterilise the make-shift suture kit.

"Edward call Sam and the boys." Carlisle told him as he snipped off the last thread.

"There's no signal here." The man protested, holding up his useless phone. It was obvious he had tried calling for help, but was unable to get a connection.

"My son has a satellite phone." Carlisle lied smoothly. Edward stepped into the trees and pretended to call the pack. Tanya and Jacob were less than three yards from him and he met the yellow eyes of the wolf and nodded.

{They will be here in less than five minutes, I've told Quil to go get Jared's truck and bring it to the closest point in the road.} Edward didn't bother pointing out that he had heard the instructions as Jacob gave them, he just nodded and turned back to the small clearing.

"The rescue squad is on their way, Sam, their leader," he spoke to the injured man. "says that they are only about a mile away, so they should be here soon."

"Thanks…" he looked around and blushed, "I don't even know your names! I'm Scott. Scott Hall." He introduced himself.

"I'm Carlisle Cullen, this is my son Edward and his wife Bella." Carlisle reciprocated.

"Well, usually I would say pleased to meet you, but I admit I was actually more than pleased when you suddenly appeared out of nowhere!" he gestured to his injury. Bella laughed and Scott looked at her and sighed internally, reminding himself she was married. {damn they must have been young when they married, he doesn't look much older than Josh and he's still in high school. She may be a bit older, but not by much.} Edward was a little offended by that but he could not deny that Bella was only 17, he, of course still held himself as a youth, the muscle control was automatic, he had been using it so long and he could not change the shape of his face now to someone a bit older or the injured man would notice.

They sat and made small talk while waiting for the wolves to arrive. As Sam broke cover, his shorts already fastened, Jared scoured the forest floor looking for a couple of straight branches to use in making a stretcher to carry the man back to civilisation. It would look strange if one of them just picked him up and carried him without effort. However when he did find them he realised that neither he nor Sam had shirts to make the sling. Edward looked around the campsite and grabbed Scott's sleeping bag from the tent.

{God they grow them huge around here!} Edward laughed softly at the young man's thoughts as he was confronted by two 6' 7" Native Americans.

"This is annoying." Irina said from the trees, "any one of us could pick him up and run with him and get him to hospital in less than half an hour, but because you all want to live amongst humans you have to go through this charade."

"It is the way we live. He isn't in any danger." Carlisle replied. "If it was a case of life or death we could render him unconscious and get him out faster, but there's no reason to go to such extreme measures." His tone was patient but Edward could hear that his father was rather annoyed with the succubus, just because they did not live among humans did not mean they should not respect Carlisle and his family's choices.

Jared and Edward put together the stretcher and carefully moved Scott onto it. Sam and Jared picked it up as if it was as light as a feather.

"I'll come with you." Carlisle said, "I can fill in what I know at the hospital as soon as we get there, it saves you having to repeat everything to the admin." He smiled down at the injured man. He picked several bottles of water from the cooler and opened one and gave it to the man on the stretcher. "You will need to drink, you lost quite a bit of blood." He explained, again marvelling internally at Bella's restraint.

"Shall we go too?" Bella asked. Edward paused, if it was any other newborn he would never even consider it, but as Bella had already proved able to resist fresh flowing blood he did give it some thought.

"We may as well, Carlisle and I can spot Sam and Jared if they get tired of carrying the stretcher," he looked apologetically at Sam, but the man just grinned at him. "Then we can go home, I'm sorry the walk we planned was cut short." He said for the benefit of the wolves, via Jacob. The rest of the pack could go back to their usual patrol, it seemed there was no need to guard the human race from the latest newborn member of the Cullen Clan.

"We can go visit my dad once Scott is admitted." She looked hopefully at him.

"Yes, Charlie will be pleased to see you." He agreed. He heard Alice call Charlie's house and quickly told him that Bella was going to visit and not to be alarmed when she appeared, she assured him that everything would be fine and that everything would be explained when they saw him.

For appearance sake, Carlisle and Edward took the stretcher for the last half mile before they got to the road. Quil, as instructed, was waiting with the truck at the roadside.

It wasn't the quickest or smoothest ride Edward had ever had, but sat in the flatbed with Bella wrapped in his arms, it was perfect. He thanked God that she was fine and adjusting well, and that she was still the Bella he remembered. He kissed her neck again and she moaned slightly, he quickly stopped. There was no way he could do what he was thinking of with everyone around them. He couldn't wait to get her home!

Carlisle spoke to Scott trying to distract his attention from the couple sat beside them in the bed of the wagon. The boy explained that he was trying to complete a course in orienteering so that he could get a job in an outward bound adventure school. He was miserable thinking that he had just blown any chance of completing the objective in time, but Carlisle assured him that after an Xray to make sure everything inside was fine, and filling a prescription for a course of antibiotics to stem off any infection, he should be fine to continue. He also offered to write an account of how and where he was found, and that in his opinion the young man had done everything right to ensure his own safety. Accidents, Carlisle pointed out, happened to everyone. Bella giggled at that and Edward smiled at her. No one mentioned that if the Cullens had not arrived when they did then the young man would probably have been dead from blood loss by that time.

Jared drove the truck and Sam and Quil had melted back into the forest. The patrols would continue on their old routine, Edward could no longer directly hear the Denali's, or the majority of the wolves, Alice, Esme, Emmett, Rose and Jasper had all followed them into town, stopping on the way to pick up a couple of cars, they headed to Charlie's just to be on the safe side. It took just an hour for Scott to be sorted and discharged with his medication. Jared had waited around and promised to guide him back to his campsite, the others walked the short 2 miles to Charlie's house, after Alice assured him that no one would see them, or at least no one who would notice the change in Bella.

Bella slipped under his arm as they walked at human pace down Bogachiel Way towards her father's home. He felt very happy that she still fitted herself to him that way, perfectly. "You know, I always cursed the weather in Forks, but now that I have to keep out of direct sunlight whenever people are around, I realise just how perfect the area is for us." He kissed her hair. He had worried that she would miss the sun of the south. If only he could see inside her head like he could with every other person on the planet! He wouldn't have to wait for clues to work out how she felt.

As they walked around the last corner onto the short street where she used to live, he felt her pause and tense. He looked at her worried. Was this going to be too much for her? He wondered. Charlie didn't smell half as tempting to their senses as Bella did, but he definitely smelled better than a lot of folk.

Slowly she walked towards the house.

Charlie was waiting for them on the doorstep, thinking silently that it may be easier for her if they were out in the open, the smell of human blood being diluted in the air rather than concentrated in a small room. He tightly gripped a half empty can of Rainiers in his hands as he watched them approach. Bella stopped about ten feet from him and they studied each other. Suddenly he came out of his daze and jumped to his feet. He automatically moved towards her, stopping when he got within arm's reach.

"Bella?" he whispered.

"Daddy!" she flung her arms around him and lifted him from his feet and swung him around, laughing.

"Be careful love." Edward winced, thinking of the newly healed ribs on his father-in-law. He scanned the minds around him, no one was watching, no one had noticed Bella picking up her father like he was a doll.

"It's fine, Edward." Charlie's thoughts were muddled with happiness. There was no sign of Bella putting too much pressure on the fragile being in her arms. Edward could tell that his whole family was just as impressed with her control as he was.

{I thought it would be years until we could do this,} inside he was crying with happiness, but luckily for his own peace of mind he managed to stop the tears from flowing. Edward grinned, Charlie saw tears as a weakness, he didn't realise that every single one of the Cullen Coven would give their entire fortune to be able to shed tears sometimes.

"You look gorgeous, I thought you would have changed." Charlie said, a grin hidden poorly by his moustache.

"I always said you needed glasses." Everyone laughed at the release of tension at that very un-Bella-like rejoinder.

"Come inside." Charlie kept his arm around Bella's waist as he led them all into his living room. "So, what happened? Not that I'm not glad to see you Bells, but everyone told me that you wouldn't be able to come anywhere near town for ages."

Edward and Carlisle filled him in on what had happened ever since Bella had woken from her transformation.

"It makes a change," Charlie laughed, "though I suppose you couldn't faint at the sight of blood now."

"It was never really the sight of blood, it was the smell that made me faint." Bella told them. "I hated the smell of rust and salt." She shivered, a disgusted look on her face.

"Human's can't smell blood." Emmett protested.

"I always could, but now it smells… different." She told them.

"Can you explain that?" Carlisle asked. {We all know how blood smells to us, but I'm wondering, with Bella's lack of thirst, if it is because she was so averse to it before, and maybe it just does not smell as appetising to her as it does to the rest of us. My worry is, if she doesn't get enough to eat, especially during this phase, will it cause her to go into a feeding frenzy at some point.} He clearly remembered the confusion he had felt when he had looked down at the carcasses of the New Forest deer and having no recollection of attacking them. The thirst had literally driven him out of his mind and given full control of his body to the beast inside to ensure his survival.

Edward was eager to know the answer too. Bella seemed to think about it for a moment, her nose scrunched up in the way he found so cute when she was human, but was stunning to him now.

"It… I won't say it doesn't have a smell, because I know that was how I found Scott, but it's sort of neutral. Sort of like water? You can't smell it but you can tell when it's near?" she was struggling to find a description that worked.

"So maybe that is why you aren't thirsty?" Alice asked. Edward could see her scanning possible futures, in none of them did Bella go on a rampage the likes of which troubled Carlisle.

"I don't know. I just know that I was full after drinking a bit." She told them.

"How much did she drink?" Carlisle asked him.

"Maybe a pint." He told them. It was worrying, but maybe she just needed to feed little and often? The air in the room was thick with the scent of Charlie, but there was also the lingering stench of the wolves and it was all being overwritten by the smell of the vampires, still it wasn't enough. Being so close to a human like this should sign his death sentence.

"The average mature vampire consumes 6 to 7 pints per feed and will feed once or on occasion twice a week. We, as vegetarians usually feed once or twice a week and take on about 7-8 pints. We can, if we need to, consume two or even three animals, but it is uncomfortable to gorge ourselves like that and the processing of a glut of blood can slow us." Carlisle was talking to Bella but it was Charlie who reacted. His face went pale and he took a large gulp of his now warm beer. "Once we mature we can go up to two weeks without blood, but that is pushing our limits if we are to be close to humans. Most nomads don't ever go that long as they see no reason not to indulge their appetite."

"So human blood is more powerful?" Charlie asked, his nausea clear in his tight voice.

"Not more powerful, it's just that with us being humans once, we can assimilate the blood better. Maybe metabolise would be a better term, there are factors in animal blood that do not feed us as well as they should, human blood has no such problem, unless there is something like drugs involved. They can give us the equivalent of stomach ache. We have no means of defecation, anything we take in has to be used or returned."

"Pardon?" Charlie looked even greener.

"We throw up." Emmett supplied, subtle as always.

"If we stick to a diet of blood, we don't have any by-product, our… internal processes… for lack of a better term, use everything our system gets from blood. Even animal blood is processed fully with nothing remaining."

"We are rather getting away from the point," Rose chipped in. "Why doesn't Bella need to feed? I remember during my newborn phase that I was feeding every day, twice a day sometimes."

"I don't know. So much about Bella is different."

Edward saw his wife lower her head. He lifted her chin until she was staring him in the eye. "I love you." He said sincerely.

"I'm a freak. I was when I was human and nothing has changed." Protests came at them from everyone present, but he could see from her eyes that they made no impact on her.

"You're my freak and I love you for what you are." He smiled, relief filled her eyes as she hugged him tightly. He knew that it didn't matter what anyone else said to her, as long as she knew that she had his love, she would be reassured. He had found many ways over the weeks since their marriage to compliment her without her automatic defence's shying away.

"Are you… thirsty, Bella?" Charlie asked.

"No, to be honest I haven't been really thirsty since I woke. I only went hunting because everyone was on edge until I did." She told him.

"But you feel fine, you don't feel weak?" he asked, looking straight into her red eyes and wincing.

"No." She turned to look at Carlisle. "Will I get weak if I don't eat?" she asked.

"Not at first. Our kind are never stronger than in the first few months of this life. The human blood lingering in the tissues is better than anything we can feed on, after all you cannot reject your own blood. It's also why Vampires tend to kill close family members first. Not just because they are the first people they come across, but the closer the person is to them, the more compatible their blood is." Charlie winced and looked again at his daughter's red eyes. "But the longer you go without feeding the more chance there is of you losing control. I don't remember feeling weak but I definitely remember, not remembering, killing those deer."

"Pardon?" Bella grimaced trying to work out the convoluted sentence.

"I lost control. The… beast within killed the deer. I myself (my ID if you will) had nothing to do with it." She frowned and nodded. Edward could tell she was worried by the thought that at any moment she could lose control and maybe harm her father, or someone else.

"How long will her… sorry Bella, how long will your eyes be that colour?" he asked.

"They should darken in a month or so, we were careful coming here from the hospital that Bella didn't make eye contact with anyone. Alice has some brown contacts for her to wear, but we weren't expecting to come into town just yet so we didn't give her any." Edward explained. "As she feeds on animals the blood in her system will slowly change, and that will change her eye colour."

"So, if I don't eat a lot my eyes will be red longer?" she sounded appalled.

"We don't know love," he looked at his father, but Carlisle hadn't any answers. The only vampire he knew to abstain totally for a time when newborn was himself, and it wasn't like he had looked in a mirror when he was trying to avoid the humans to see what was happening with his eye colour. "The contacts will make your eyes look brown, but they will never be the same colour as your own eyes were." He regretted that, her eyes had been soulful wells of deep chocolate. However he would much rather have her as she was, invulnerable and indestructible. Well as much as any of them.

Esme disappeared into the kitchen and soon the smell of food filled the air. Rose and Emmett left soon after, Jasper and Alice stayed until Esme brought out the meal and then left. To Edward it smelled no worse than any other meal the humans ate.

"That smells good." Charlie said, digging into the pile of pasta and sauce.

"It does." Bella agreed. All three of the other vampires looked at her in surprise.

"It smells good to you?" Edward blurted out without thinking.

"Esme's food is always good!" she protested, as if he was insulting his mother.

"No, I mean, the human food… it smells good to you?" he wasn't explaining well.

"Well, yes. Why?" she asked.

"It smells terrible to us." He told her.

"I thought you just didn't eat because it meant you had to…" she made a subtle motion as if she was vomiting, obviously not wanting to put her father off his food.

"Well, there is that, but no. Food, all human food, smells horrible." He said.

"Well, it doesn't to me." She told them.

"Are you hungry?" Carlisle asked.

"No. I don't mean I want to eat it, but just that it smells delicious."

Charlie was watching them all closely, but didn't pause in eating the food.

"Do you want some? Just a bit?" he asked, pushing the plate towards her.

"No thanks, Dad," she smiled. "Honestly, I'm not hungry." She told him. He shrugged and went back to his meal.

Edward looked at his father, but neither of them had an answer to the conundrum.

"I think it's time we went home." Bella said, obviously annoyed that they were communicating behind her back.

"Will you come back tomorrow?" Charlie asked. "I'll be on my regular shift, so I'll be home by 6, I covered for Steve this morning, least I could do as he covered for me so I could attend the trial…" He winced and sent an apologetic glance towards his daughter, who shrugged. Edward read in his thoughts that he had actually swapped his shift just so he could be available should any of the Cullens phone with news. He had not wanted to be at the station if he got bad news about Bella's change.

"I'll call you. I think it all depends on if I need to eat." She told him, biting her lower lip.

{Look after her.} Charlie told him in his thoughts, {I don't like the fact that she isn't eating.} Edward nodded. He knew they all felt just as worried about it.