Last relatively slow chapter before things start picking up again! Whoever's still reading, thank you for your patience, and I hope to have something a little more exciting for you next time.

Chapter 20: Sunlight

The road ended, and Edward parked - they were in Elle's car, but he'd insisted on driving since he was the only one who knew where they were going. "This is where we start walking." Elle hopped out of the car, surprisingly willing to take his direction for once, and headed for the hikers' trail past the end of the paved road. He hurried after her and caught her arm. "Not that way."

"We're not taking the trail?"

"I did say our destination was off the beaten track," he reminded her. "My offer to carry you still stands, if you're uncomfortable with traversing rough terrain."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "I can walk on my own, thanks. Just lead the way."

She quickly proved herself competent, negotiating natural obstacles such as tree roots, loose stones, and foliage with surprising dexterity for a girl whose previous experience of nature was limited to a single stroll around Central Park. Even more surprising, she wasn't completely miserable in the woods, though she stayed close behind Edward at all times as if expecting poison oak or snakes to appear at any moment.

"Here we are," he announced at last, after they'd trekked through nearly five miles of forest. "The place I want to show you is right through those trees. Go on, have a look."

Wary but trusting that Edward wouldn't have any unpleasant surprises in store for her, Elle went ahead of him, slipped through a narrow gap between two huge trees, and found herself on the edge of a perfectly circular meadow carpeted with thick grass and wildflowers. She had never been a nature enthusiast, but she had to admit that this place was beautiful, especially now, when the sun was directly overhead, bathing everything in golden light - which Edward was about to step into. "Hey!"

He stopped just short of leaving the trees' shade. "Yes?"

"Are you sure you won't burn up when the sunlight touches you?"

"I'm positive I won't. Do I strike you as suicidal?" Without waiting for an answer, he moved out into the light.

Behind him, Elle gasped, and then he heard the grass brushing against her jeans as she approached. "Oh my God. Wow."

"Problem, Elle?"

"No, it's just that you're so…pretty."

He wanted to protest her use of what was generally considered a feminine adjective but didn't because now she was right in front of him, touching his face tentatively, curiously, as if he had become something entirely different from the person she'd been so comfortable with just last night. "How come you don't look like this all the time?"

"Our skin only reacts this way to sunlight, which is why we avoid it. As I told you before, it doesn't hurt us, but we can't let anyone see us like this."

"So you have to hide out during nice weather instead of enjoying it? Bummer," she said sympathetically. Then: "That means we're stuck out here until the clouds come back, doesn't it?"

"It's safest for me to stay where there's virtually no chance of meeting other humans. You, of course, are free to leave any time you'd like."

Elle snorted impolitely. "Like I could find my way out of these woods alone. I'm stuck with you - and I'm fine with it," she added before he could say anything. "I know you won't let me get lost or leave me, and I don't mind spending all afternoon here as long as you're with me. Now, I have some questions I didn't get answered yesterday."

"I thought I had told you almost everything about my kind."

"About vampires in general," she agreed, "but I still wanna know more about your family. Why you decided to be 'vegetarians' and how you became a…the word's coven, right?"

"It's a pity you didn't mention your interest in my family history yesterday evening - Carlisle tells the story much better than I do."

"I had enough to process yesterday. Anyway, I want to hear it from you." She laid a hand on his arm and purred, "I'd rather listen to you than Carlisle."

"Don't distract me, then."

She gave him her best 'wide-eyed innocent' look. "Am I supposed to know what that means?"

Edward's eyes narrowed. "You are the most dangerous creature I've ever met, and the fact that you appear so harmless only makes it worse." He brushed her hand off, stepping back just enough to reclaim his personal space. "Our story begins in London, where Carlisle lived as a human in the sixteen-hundreds, shortly before Cromwell's rule. His father was an Anglican pastor who devoted himself to purging the city of demons, and of course his son followed in his footsteps…"

Telling the story of Carlisle's conversion, subsequent struggles with his new nature, travels, and his eventual decision to create a companion of his own took some time, but Elle's attention never wavered; she hung on every word until at last he stopped talking. "…So what then?" she asked when his silence stretched on too long to be a simple pause for breath. "Carlisle had changed you, after a few years you'd adjusted to life as a vampire…and?"

Edward said nothing, and Elle realized he wasn't in need of prompting - he wasn't having trouble remembering the sequence of events; rather, he was reluctant to continue his narrative. "Did something bad happen in nineteen twenty-eight?" It was the only reason she could think of for his sudden reticence.

"No, nothing happened," he replied after a brief hesitation. "I did something…terrible, something I still regret to this day."

Elle's interest spiked visibly. "What'd you do, have a cigarette? Or did you go really crazy and tag a wall?"

Edward barked out a short laugh, unsure whether to be flattered that that was the worst behavior she thought him capable of or sad that she was about to be harshly disillusioned. He just hoped she wouldn't react too badly to finding out that he wasn't the saint she seemed to think he was. "I never smoked or defaced public property - those are things humans do when they're feeling rebellious."

"What were you rebelling against?"

"Carlisle - I wasn't sold on the all-animals diet he imposed on me, and resented him for curbing my appetite. So I went off on my own for a time, and…gave into my natural instincts."

"To feed on human blood, you mean."

"And that doesn't frighten you? Repulse you?" He didn't mean to come off suspicious, but she'd taken his admission a little too calmly.

"Should it?"

"I killed people, Elle!"

"Yeah, I got that." Does he think I'm dense, or what? She meant to reassure him, but it wasn't working - he was still giving her a tormented wounded-puppy look, like he expected to be rejected for his past sins any moment now. Saying something to make him feel better seemed called for. "I killed a man once."

There it was: Elle being completely unbothered by everything he revealed to her was too good to be true, so Edward had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and now it had - his mate wasn't perfect after all. He hadn't expected to hear that she was a killer like him, though. "What?"

"He had a gun on me, so I fried him; his skin made a sizzling sound like bacon, and he kind of smelled like bacon, too. The shrinks said I should've been upset after doing that, but I wasn't. See, I understand where you're coming from."

"I don't think so - you killed one person in self-defense; it isn't anywhere close to what I did, no matter how callously you can talk about it. You aren't a monster."

"Neither are you - you killed for food like animals do, and no one thinks they're evil-"

"Because they lack comprehension of morality and the value of human life," he argued. "I understood those things, but I chose to end the lives of my prey anyway."

"And now you're sorry, and I'm not, so if either one of us is a monster it would have to be me - not that I think I am, but then I don't have a conscience-"

"I have to disagree with you there."

Elle's mouth twisted in an ironic smile. "Wait'll you hear what else I've done. I already said I tortured Sam Uley into telling me what you were; wanna hear just how badly I burned him? That hurting him didn't bother me at all - maybe I even enjoyed it a little? How about the guy I vented on when I had a bad day? All he did was give me a ride on his motorcycle and try to flirt with me, and I gave him a heart attack."

"Carlisle treated that man," Edward murmured. "He couldn't understand what brought on the heart attack because the man was perfectly healthy… That was you?"

She nodded. "So I stumped Carlisle? Cool."

"No, Elle, it is not cool. You can't do things like that!"

"Um, obviously I can." She smiled, pleased that she'd confounded Carlisle - doctors had been complicating her existence too long for her not to feel a vindictive little thrill at having caused one of them some trouble for a change, instead of the other way around.

"Yes, clearly you're capable of causing all kinds of trouble," Edward snapped, irritated by her smug remorselessness. "That doesn't mean that you should. Hurting people for the fun of it isn't right."

"Save the lecture; I'm not interested. If you're gonna be one of those guys that wants to change me into a better person, I might as well leave right now."

She actually started to stalk off, but didn't even make it to the trees bordering the meadow before Edward appeared in front of her, blocking her. "You said yourself you can't find the way back to your car without me. Also, you forgot this." He held out the red and black shirt she had taken off after half an hour in the sun.

"I'll take getting lost in this damn forest over listening to your moralizing," she huffed, snatching her shirt. "I've heard it all before, and that crap doesn't work on me."

"Okay, okay - I'm sorry. No more lectures on morality, I promise. Just calm down." He reached for her hand and got a mild electrical shock; in her anger, her skin had started to spark without her realizing it. He yanked his hand back, wincing.

"Did I hurt you?" Elle asked, reluctantly sympathetic although she was still annoyed with him.

"I'll live, and I've just learned that upsetting you is done at one's own risk - which I'm sure you would have taught me at some point. I suppose it's best I find out what I've gotten myself into sooner rather than later."

Elle frowned at his wry, resigned tone; he sounded like he was beginning a prison sentence. She wasn't that bad, was she?

"Your comparison is more accurate than you realize. I've told you that vampires are immortal; what I didn't explain, because I didn't think you'd understand, is that it isn't just our bodies that stay the same forever - so do our minds, and our emotions to a degree. It's very rare for one of my kind to experience a real change - falling in love, for instance."

"You did mention that vampires mate for life." Elle had a very bad feeling that she knew where this was going. "So…are you not able to fall out of love, then?"

"If there is a way for that to happen I don't know about it," he said evenly, eyes boring into her.

Holy freaking hell, he's saying he's going to love me forever. "I can't be your mate, though," she protested weakly. "I'm not a vampire, and I never gave you permission to mate with me!"

"Believe me, it wasn't entirely my choice either! In fact, given your insensitivity to anyone else's feelings, I'm starting to think I couldn't have picked anyone worse to fall for if I'd tried!"

"Well why did you then?" Elle shouted. "If I'm such a bad person, how can you want to be with me?"

"Because you're not bad, Elle, just…a little wrong-headed. Because you are the only person outside of my family whose company I've ever really desired. Because the human world, in all its mind-numbing monotony, is so much less hellish since I met you. Before you transferred here, I used to liken Forks High School to my own personal purgatory, which I endured to atone for my sins-"

"You must've been really bored to come up with that."

"'Bored' is too mild a word. After we became lab partners, I started looking forward to school, just because I knew I would see you again. Are you beginning to understand now what you mean to me?"

"I'm getting there." She dropped her shirt and moved closer. "Let's kiss and make up now - you need the practice."

"Only you would offer reconciliation and insult me at the same time."

They kissed once, and then he decided to have some fun with her. Elle wasn't quite sure what happened; one minute they were standing, the next Edward was sitting with his legs folded up to his chest and she was on her knees in front of him, clutching at him for balance. "You're too short," he explained with a smirk. "We need to level the playing field."

"I'll give you a level playing field." She pushed him to lie down and ripped his shirt open, causing half the buttons to tear off and scatter.

Edward had a moment to reflect that Alice would either be upset that he'd allowed Elle to abuse brand new clothing, or pleased at having a good excuse to buy him something new. As if any of us need more clothes. Then Elle crawled on top of him, straddling his stomach and running her palms up his exposed chest, and Alice's probable reactions to his ruined shirt suddenly became much less important. "Ah…Elle, don't you think it's a bit soon to be doing this?"

"Well, you know I don't like to drag things out…but if it makes you feel better, I promise we won't go any further than this today." She leaned down to claim his mouth, and he kissed back, but other than that remained motionless and stiff beneath her. Hey, you're allowed to touch too, her mental voice reminded him. Relax.

If I relax too much I could kill you! he silently retorted, knowing she couldn't hear. Still, he didn't want her to think he wasn't enjoying this, so he raised his hands to her waist, lightly gripping her sides above her hipbones and below the bottom of her ribcage. Her spandex exercise top had ridden up slightly when she stretched herself out over his upper body, leaving an inch-wide gap between it and the waistband of her jeans; he rubbed his thumb hesitantly over the exposed skin there, and Elle hummed her approval.

Encouraged by her positive response, Edward moved his hand higher, feeling the synthetic fibers of her top, and under that the hard ridge of her spine, which would snap like a toothpick under his fingers if he wasn't careful, and damn, her kisses and her scent and the feel of her warm body pressed against his were chipping away at his self-control… He shoved her off him, jumped up and sprinted to the far side of the meadow, taking deep breaths of air not saturated with her scent to calm himself and thinking for the hundredth time that he must be crazy, or masochistic, or both, to have this girl as his mate.

Primatech warehouse, Port Angeles

Thompson hung up his cell phone, scowling. He'd just made his fifth call to Elle today and, just like the previous four times he'd tried to get hold of her, she hadn't answered. He was already annoyed that she'd had the Haitian flown out to Washington without telling him, and her failure to pick up her phone was only making him angrier. I'm her direct superior on this mission, dammit - she can't just ignore me! Going over my head was bad enough, but this…

He was beginning to suspect she was deliberately keeping him out of the loop, and he could think of only two possible reasons for her to do that. Either she hadn't made any more progress and didn't want to admit that she couldn't get results, or she was having too much fun pretending to date Edward Cullen and didn't want the assignment to end. Either way, it was time for him to intervene.

If Elle couldn't be counted on to carry out her orders, something would have to be done about her. He would have no choice but to report her to Arthur Petrelli, and even her father wouldn't be able to protect her then.