Bella:

He dropped my arm like it had burned him, and took a step back, looking startled.

"Bella?" His tone was wary.

"It's nothing," I said with a nervous laugh. "You just got me over an old bruise, is all." It was the truth, and also more plausible than anything else I could have come up with. I hoped that if I shrugged it off nonchalantly, he would accept the excuse.

Fat chance. This was Edward I was dealing with, after all.

He frowned. "What old bruise?" he asked suspiciously.

"Just…" I hesitated, my face flaming. I was so bad at this. "I just bumped myself pretty hard on the corner of my dresser drawer."

He scrutinized my face for so long, I began to shift uncomfortably.

"Push up your sleeve, Bella," he ordered me, his tone soft.

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't think of anything to say. He waited a moment, and when I did not comply, reached for my arm slowly, as if wanting to give me the opportunity to pull away, or tell him not to touch me. He took my wrist with extreme gentleness, and with the lightest of touches pushed my sleeve up over my elbow. Then, from the shoulder, carefully pulled the sleeve up higher, revealing the deep purple mottling on my arm.

I had been watching his face intently as he worked, trying to gauge his reaction, but his face remained blank. Holding my arm, he examined the bruises carefully, and then pulled my sleeve down. Then he repeated the operation on my other arm, touching me as if I were made of the finest porcelain. When he was done, and my arms where hanging at my side again, he asked me the question I was dreading, his voice frighteningly calm.

"It was me, wasn't it?"

I wanted so badly to lie, but telling him someone else had done it would create a whole other set of problems, if he even believed me, which wasn't very likely given how dismal a liar I was. I decided to stick with the truth.

"Yes."

His face twisted suddenly, and it was only then that I realized how much he'd been hoping for a different answer. I said nothing, watching him warily and waiting to take my cue from him, but he just stood there, staring at me, stricken, looking almost terminally ill in the ghastly artificial light.

"Edward…"

As if I had uttered the magic word to free him, he suddenly moved, turning from me and striding away into the darkness. "Edward!" I cried quietly, running after him.

"Miss? Excuse me, miss!" I ignored the female voice and kept going. "Miss! You forgot your backpack!"

I stopped and turned, and sure enough, my backpack was still sitting at the foot of one of the telephones. I looked toward my benefactor, who was just getting out of the cab of her semi in her pajamas. I jogged back toward the phones, and picked up my pack. "Thank you," I whispered, distracted, staring in the direction Edward had disappeared. "I would have hated to lose that." I started to leave again, but she stopped me.

"Wait," she said quietly. "I don't know for sure what I just saw. Maybe it was nothing, but just in case…" She handed me a business card and then turned away. I angled the card toward the light to better see it, and froze.

It was a domestic abuse hotline card. Looking up, I opened my mouth to protest, but the woman was climbing into the cab of her truck again.

I was absolutely furious. I wanted to go after her and scream at her to mind her own business, she didn't know what she was talking about, and how dare she imply that Edward…etc. But I could understand why she had done it, and I didn't want to discourage her from doing it again, in case next time it was someone who really needed it. I held the card like it was infected, tempted to drop it on the ground, but I didn't want to throw her kind gesture back in her face in case she was watching. She was only trying to be helpful, and if she had seen Edward grab me, or even seen the bruises, I couldn't blame her for thinking she understood what she saw. I pushed the card into my back pocket instead, and went to look for Edward. After a quick search, I found his car parked in the same spot as before, and climbed in, throwing my pack in the back.

He was sitting in the driver's seat, his hands on the steering wheel, staring straight out into the darkness. His face was tight, expressionless, and it frightened me more than a face-full of guilt would have.

"I'm sorry, Bella," he finally said quietly. "I thought I was being gentle enough. It's no excuse, but…"

"Edward," I interrupted him. "Stop, please. It is a valid excuse. You're a vampire, and you live in a world built for and filled with people infinitely weaker and more fragile than you are. Accidents are bound to happen. I bruise easily, and you know how clumsy I am. It happens all the time. They are harmless bruises. Don't blow this out of proportion, please."

He did not acknowledge my words, still not looking at me. Suddenly, his face crumpled, and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead into his fists clamped at the top of the steering wheel. He drew in a shuddering breath, and his shoulders started shaking. It took me a second to realize what was going on.

He was crying.

I knew vampires were unable to produce tears, but apparently in all other ways the mechanics of grief were the same. I turned, pulling my knee up on the seat so I could face him more fully. "Oh, Edward, please," I murmured, my voice breaking. I tentatively reached for him, timidly rubbing my hand across his rigid back. He lifted his head to look at me, and his face was so full of despair, I felt my eyes well up in empathy. He shifted in his seat, mimicking my position, and I drew him into my arms, whispering "it's ok, everything will be ok," over and over again like a mantra, as he sobbed his heart out silently into my neck. He had slipped his arms around me, but held me so gently I could barely feel it. He doesn't dare to hold me anymore, for fear of hurting me. The thought tore at my heart. I clung to him all the harder in reaction, perversely longing for his earlier roughness.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started. A hitch or two more in his breathing, and it was over. A few endless seconds more, and the nature of our embrace changed. His arms tightened ever so slightly around me, pulling me closer, and he shifted his face, nuzzling the dip below my collar bone with his lips, leaving a trail of tiny kisses all the way to my neck. I held my breath, afraid that if I moved, he might come to his senses and stop.

He misunderstood my stillness. "Don't be afraid, Bella," he whispered against my throat, sending shivers along my skin. "I'm in control."

"Good," I said throatily. "Because the only thing I am afraid of is you stopping."

I felt his cold breath on my neck, then the chilly touch of the tip of his tongue as he tasted me. I erupted in goose-bumps. Another breath and the short, wet trail his tongue had left turned to ice. My nipples tightened almost painfully in response. With a moan of regret, he left my throat, dusting his lips up and along my jaw, seeking and finding my mouth. One hand slipped up my back to the nape of my neck, holding me while he kissed the breath out of me. His other hand ghosted up my ribcage and cupped my breast, his thumb roughly grazing my nipple.

I was just starting to get light headed, when I tore my mouth from his, sucking in a great gulp of air. "Some of us need to breathe," I said in response to his mildly annoyed look.

"Actually, technically vampires need to breathe too. Just like humans, we need air passing through our vocal cords in order for them to make a sound; it is the oxygen we don't need," he murmured absently, staring at my lips, his hand still resting cold on the back of my neck.

I noticed suddenly that it wasn't quite as dark outside anymore. "Edward, morning isn't far away, and I have barely slept. Couldn't we get a room somewhere for the day? I'd like to grab a few more hours of sleep, preferably in a bed, and I am dying for a shower. Or better yet, a hot bath."

He seemed to come back to himself, and looked out of the windows. "That was the plan," he said, frowning thoughtfully. "I will have to drive fast to make up for lost time."

"I thought you didn't make any plans, because of Alice."

"I made no plans about our final destination. The weather is a consideration for me, though, and then there is you. I have you to take care of, now, and your human needs to consider."

He spoke the words so sincerely they sounded like a vow, and it made me feel protected, safe and warm all over. As we pulled back on the interstate, I remembered why we were here, and it occurred to me that I had missed my opportunity to call Alice when Edward walked away from me and I went back for my backpack. More surprising was the fact that I didn't care. I belonged with Edward, and though I disagreed with his actions, I was right where I needed to be. This didn't mean I was going to make it easy for him. Edward had to learn that he couldn't ride roughshod over my life, and I was still going to take advantage of every opportunity to try and get away to contact Alice or Carlisle and have one of them follow us out to wherever we were going, to change me.

Because one thing was certain; we could not go on like this anymore. Edward was losing it; terrified of hurting me, yet so violently opposed to the solution standing right in front of his nose that it had driven him to the extremes of not only kidnapping me, but forcibly restraining me as well. Although he didn't have much choice with the latter; what else could he do when I seemed so determined to fling myself out of a speeding car?

I looked at him, darkly outlined against the inky blue of the waning night, all tousled hair and chiseled profile. "Are you ok, Edward?"

"No," he replied so softly, I almost didn't hear, "but I will live. In a manner of speaking."

I sighed. "Edward…" I stopped, trying to think of a way to broach the subject of him bringing me across again without upsetting him. It was the only solution, and it frustrated me to no end that he couldn't see that.

He must have read my face, because I know he couldn't read my mind. "I can't talk about that right now, Bella," he said, the trace of a plea in his voice. "Let's just get through the Seattle business first. We can talk about…" he couldn't even say it. "We can talk about it later. Please."

I relented. "Ok, but we will talk about it then. Really talk; and you will listen. No unilaterally making decisions for me."

He nodded. "We'll talk, and I will listen," he said. I noticed he said nothing about not making decisions for me, but decided to leave it for now. I knew I wasn't done fighting him. Satisfied for now, I leaned back, feeling suddenly very drowsy. Searching the back seat, I found his sweater and folded it into a pillow. I reclined my seat a little, and settled down sideways, facing Edward, so his face would be the last thing I saw when I drifted off, and the first thing I saw when I woke up.

"Edward?" I murmured sleepily.

"Mmmm?"

"Where are we going? Right now, I mean"

"You'll see." He murmured. "Trust me to take care of you, sweetheart."

"I do trust you," I mumbled. "Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Sing to me?"

"Of course, my love."

I heard the smile in his voice, his first smile since he had dragged me off on what was sure to be quite an adventure. He started singing, something soft and sad in another language. I wanted to ask him what language it was, but I fell asleep before I could form the words.

To be continued…