Chapter 35: Crossroads

Hours later, Elle returned an emotionally wrecked and exhausted Bella to lockup. The girl had been subjected to every scientific examination imaginable, and while she hadn't been harmed, she had definitely been scared out of her wits. She had not, however, displayed her ability even under extreme stress, much to Elle's surprise; she hadn't thought Bella would be strong enough to withstand Company testing. Elle still didn't like her, but she almost respected her.

Bella was just glad the testing was over. It could have been worse - all the people who'd stared at her like she was a rat running a maze could have insisted on touching her as well - but she'd been given so many injections that her arms were bruised, and she had a splitting headache, probably from whatever was in the needles that had been stuck in her. Over a dozen telepaths trying to break into her mind hadn't helped either, but she knew nothing about them. All she wanted was to lie down and be left alone for a while - a long while - but before she allowed herself that luxury she had to ask, "Will I have to go through that again?"

"I don't think so. I think they already did everything they could think of."

That gave Bella a small measure of relief. "What happens to me now?"

"If you're lucky they decide there's no point in keeping you and let you go. They probably won't make any decisions till tomorrow though. You should get some sleep. You look like hell."

"Um…thanks?" Elle shrugged and started to leave, but Bella's next words stopped her. "Seriously though - thank you."

Elle turned around. She'd expected Bella to immediately collapse on her bed, but she was still standing there, close enough for Elle to get a good look at her face. Her expression was one of sincere gratitude - again, not what Elle expected. "For what?"

"Being there. I don't know what I would have done without you."

"No problem. I was just doing a favor for a friend of your dad's."

"Charlie." Sadness seemed to fall on Bella like a ton of bricks, weighing her down. "Assuming I'm released soon, how am I supposed to go home to him? He's the most normal, down-to-earth guy in the world, and I'm a freak…and a killer. What if he doesn't want me around anymore?"

"I can't help you there," Elle said flatly. "Things aren't exactly great between me and my dad either."

"I'm sorry."

"I've learned to live with it. And hey-" Elle forced herself to sound chipper "-your dad probably won't be a jerk like mine."

A hesitant smile appeared on Bella's lips. "Thanks, Elle." She took a half step forward, then another, and before Elle realized what she was up to, Bella Swan was hugging her.

Except for Edward, no one had hugged Elle in a very long time. Unlike Edward, Bella was soft and warm, and she clung like a koala to a eucalyptus tree. Elle pushed her away almost immediately. "What happened to the 'no touching' rule!"

"S-sorry, I just- You've been so nice to me that I just forgot." Bella looked mortified and a little shocked at herself.

"Okay." Elle took a deep breath and tried to stop freaking out. It was only a hug; normal people did it all the time. But with family, and people you're dating, and friends, right? Oh crap, does this mean Bella and I are friends?

"I'm sorry," Bella timidly repeated.

Elle tried to smile, but her mouth didn't quite cooperate; the result was a lopsided grimace. "No problem - I hear friends hug each other all the time. Just don't do it again, okay…buddy?"

"Absolutely not."

"Great." Elle fled, hoping that just once Edward had found something better to do than eavesdrop on her, but of course her hopes were in vain. Worse, the last part of her exchange with Bella seemed to have struck a chord with his warped sense of humor - he wasn't laughing hysterically, but Elle sensed that he wanted to. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"But I know what you're thinking. It's not funny, Edward! I don't even like her!"

"You don't have to. In most cultures a simple hug doesn't obligate you to be the giver's lifelong friend."

"Oh. Well, that's good. It's still so weird, though - I've never had anybody latch onto me like that."

"You don't usually invite emotional attachments," Edward agreed.

Elle stopped so suddenly that her boots screeched on the squeaky clean floor. "Usually? Are you saying I asked for Bella to get all clingy with me?"

"You're probably the first person she's felt safe with since Noah Bennet took her from the hospital-"

"Then she's nuts." Elle started walking again, faster now. Edward easily kept up but let her stay in the lead, content to follow her so long as she didn't get too far ahead.

"-And she admires you. In fact, I'd be willing to bet you're her new role model."

That disturbed Elle. She wasn't anyone's role model. There was no doubt that Bella needed to grow a backbone, but she should not try to be like her.

"At least she has good taste."

Her boyfriend, Elle was annoyed to see, found this whole thing - or maybe just her horrified reaction - highly amusing. "You're as crazy as she is." She punched the button to call an elevator with unnecessary force, unleashing a little misplaced aggression on the inanimate object.

The elevator arrived without delay, and Edward took her arm as if to help her inside. "We've already established that, but insane or not, I can see why Bella admires you. You are one of the best people I've ever had the privilege of meeting." Most people wouldn't think so; they thought Elle was psychotic and sadistic and prickly, and they were right. She was all of those things. Still, after hearing how she had been experimented on as a child - how damaged she was - Edward thought it was amazing that she still had any shred of good left in her.

She, of course, had no idea what he was talking about, but wherever those words had come from, she could tell he meant them. She also noticed that he hadn't taken his hand off her, though he wasn't taking advantage of the privacy the elevator afforded them for more intimate touching. Probably doesn't want to risk me causing a power outage. We could be stuck here for hours.

"If the elevator broke down, I could get us out. Though I wouldn't object to being trapped with you," he added with a mischievous smile.

No technical malfunctions occurred, however, and they reached the ground floor without incident. Noah Bennet was waiting when they left the elevator. "Elle, I was just on my way up to look for you. I spoke to your father, and he wants you to call him right away. There's an empty conference room down the hall you can use if you'd like to talk to him in private." He looked past her and gave a curt nod. "Edward."

"Noah."

Since when are they on first-name terms? She put that out of her mind; whatever was going on between Edward and Noah, whatever her father wanted took precedence. She went into the conference room alone, leaving Edward in a lobby that looked exactly how you would expect the common area of an office building belonging to a paper company to look. Noah's advice to call Bob in private meant that he probably did not want to congratulate her on her work with Bella, and she didn't want Edward to hear her getting reprimanded.

Edward didn't protest; he had no desire to hear anything Bob Bishop had to say. He took a seat at the far end of the lobby and perused the newspaper while he waited for Elle. When he finished with it, he moved on to last month's Time magazine, then Newsweek and an old National Geographic.

Elle reappeared almost an hour later. Although she had obviously tried hard to make her face blank, there was a slight tightness in her mouth that Edward took to mean the conversation hadn't gone well. He put his magazine down and rushed to meet her at the front doors, noticing when he got closer that her eyes were moist and slightly red, and her eyeliner had been touched up. Had Bob made her cry? "Are you all right? What did he want?"

"I don't want to talk about it right now."

She didn't seem to want to talk about anything else either; she didn't utter another complete sentence until they were back at the Cullens' house, when she got out of the car and said, "I need some time to think without you listening, so I'm gonna go for a walk, and I don't want you to follow me."

"Where will you be walking?"

"Out there." She gestured vaguely at the forest.

Edward was puzzled, and somewhat concerned. "But you hate the woods, and it's getting dark."

"I won't go far."

"Wouldn't you rather stay in the house? I can leave if you'd like."

"No thanks. I'll be fine."

That was true enough - wild animals recognized vampires as predators superior to themselves and tended to keep out of their territory. In the unlikely event that Elle encountered one, she could handle it. If she got lost, Edward would be able to track her scent. He let her go and went inside, resolved to track her down if she wasn't back in an hour. Whatever was on her mind, she couldn't possibly want to spend any greater length of time in the forest.

###

She walked quickly and purposefully until the house was out of sight, then slowed down, enjoying the first truly solitary moment she'd had since returning to Forks. Edward's family, especially Esme, had worked hard to make her feel welcome, but for a girl who hadn't had any kind of family life in years, their efforts were a bit overwhelming. Of course Edward himself never left her alone if he could help it, although he didn't make her feel smothered the way Esme did with all her maternal behavior; it was as if, since she found out that Elle's mother was dead, she'd been trying to fill that hole in Elle's life. Elle supposed that was nice of her, but the fact was that she had gotten over losing her mother a long time ago and wasn't sure she wanted a new one…or another father figure, or siblings, or a mansion surrounded by gorgeous woodland scenery but far from anything else, or any of the other things that came with Edward. Yet she still wanted him.

The problem was that Edward didn't fit in with her life as an agent. So far she'd managed to juggle the two; her conversation with Bob had shown her that she couldn't keep up the balancing act much longer, though. Sooner or later - sooner in her case - something had to give.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elle caught a flash of motion - something with skin so white it almost glowed in the late evening light was following her. "Edward, I thought I told you to-"

"He's in the house, giving you your space as you requested."

"Jasper?"

The tall blond vampire dropped out of a tree directly in front of her. "Evening, Elle."

"What do you want?"

"We just want to talk to you."

Elle spun around and saw Alice approaching from her right. "This is starting to feel like an ambush. I hope you're not planning to kidnap me again."

"Absolutely not," Jasper assured her. "We really do just want to talk."

"What do we have to talk about?"

"Alice had a vision of you going back to New York."

"Yeah, my dad decided it's time for me to go home, not that it's any of your business."

"Actually, it is," Alice said sharply. "You see, my vision didn't tell me how Edward will take this, meaning he isn't aware of your plans. I hope you don't intend to just disappear without a word to him."

"Of course I don't; I just haven't figured out how to tell him yet. He won't want me to go."

"Is that what has your emotions all tied up in knots?" Jasper asked. "I don't think you need to worry so much about his reaction." Not that Elle leaving him again would please Edward - Jasper knew for a fact it would not - but he wasn't likely to get angry with her over it.

"I've just got a lot on my mind," she said tersely. "That's why I came out here. I wanted to think stuff through without a bunch of nosy vampires breathing down my neck, but that obviously didn't work out." She started to storm off.

"Elle!"

She spun around, glaring. "What!"

Alice pointed in the opposite direction from the one Elle was heading in. "The house is that way."

###

Once safely inside, Elle rebuffed Esme's offer of dinner and went straight upstairs, claiming she just wanted to go to bed. There was only one problem with that plan: Edward was sitting on her bed.

"You're not gonna get up and let me turn down the covers, are you? At least move over so I can have a whole side of the mattress."

"After you tell me what's wrong. First you need time alone, now you have no appetite; I need to know what your father said to upset you so deeply."

Elle sighed. "He's mad at me. Bennet convinced him my main reason for being here was to bag and tag Bella, but he guessed I wouldn't pass up the chance to see you." She dropped onto the bed. "He wants me back home."

"So you're going."

"He'll kick me out if I don't. He wants me to choose between you and my job, and I don't know what to do! I want you, but I've been an agent my entire life. That's all I know how to be. It's not like I can just have you anyway."

Edward suddenly moved into a crouch in front of her, fixing her with an intense, smoldering gaze. "You already have me. I'm yours."

"What about all the stuff that comes with you - the family, the lifestyle? That's not what I signed up for."

"Are you unhappy here?" Getting the words out was hard, and he realized that at some point he'd stopped breathing. He thought he had been doing a good job of keeping her happy, but had he really? Was there something he'd overlooked, something she needed or desired that he'd neglected to give her?

"Forks isn't a great place for me with all the water. Anyway, I don't want to give up everything else in my life and just be some trophy wife like my mom. That's one of the things she and Daddy used to fight about. But I don't want to give you up either." She looked thoroughly miserable.

Edward couldn't bear to see her that way. "Then we'll go to New York. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will be with you. I won't make you choose."

Elle was perplexed. "You said before that you wouldn't like living so close to New York City-"

"Elle, any inconvenience posed by the sun and the scarcity of prey pales in comparison to what I felt when we were apart. Our separation was only bearable because I could still hear your voice, although phone calls and Skype were hardly an adequate substitute for having you in my arms. For the most part, being without you felt like having my heart torn out, except that my heart is no longer essential to my survival. You are."

Out of habit, she shied away from the heartfelt profession of his undying love even though it didn't freak her out nearly as much as it used to. "Even if you move to Hartsdale, seeing each other won't be easy. I'll still have to work, and I can't always be going out or people will start to ask questions. Daddy will be there too. Maybe you should just stay here - even if we're in the same place, we're still living totally different lives."

"No, we aren't." He reached out to caress her face, then wrapped his hand around the back of her neck to pull her closer. Just before their lips met, he paused long enough to say, "You are my life now."

So I didn't get Elle out of Forks after all. I swear I'm gonna do that next chapter though. At least now we know she and Edward will be sticking together. We'll also be saying goodbye to Bella in the next chapter, but someone else will take her place. I'll give virtual cookies to anyone who can guess who that might be.