The Pond

**For a small, yet vitally important disclaimer. I saw the movie New Moon with some friends the other day. And no, the Marcus in this story looks NOTHING like the guy playing Marcus in the movie. Sorry, I'm just really picky about what I think that he should look like. So if anyone reading this has seen the movie and is trying to picture movie Marcus with the Marcus in this story, get it out of your head. Right now. Thank you.

The following morning, Adriane had woken up to feel shooting pains run down the length of her back. She'd had to ask Marcus to put her down the ache was so intolerable. He had stood by her quietly as she slowly moved into a completely upright position, which, trust me, was no easy task. Adriane had lifted up her shirt and twisted ever so slowly, trying to get a view of her back, though as soon as she turned a searing pain flared at the base of her skull. From that quick glance however, she concluded that most of her back was a disgusting, blackish green bruise.

Already weak from a lack of food and sleep, the simple act of staying conscious was exhausting to Adriane. "Do you think you'd be able to get any more food…soon?" She'd asked, trying not to sound as whinny out loud as she did in her head.

Marcus nodded slowly and walked toward her. "You can survive another hour, no?" he had whispered. "We are…perhaps an hour away from the French border. I wish to at least cross that before we stop again. That way, we aren't…entirely…in Volturi territory."

Adriane had stopped trying to remove the dirt from the front of her shirt and looked at him. "By territory you mean, like—"

"Hunting…territory."

"Oh." Oh, she had thought to herself, it's amazing that something so significant could be going on around you that you have no knowledge of.

"Italy is a fairly expansive area for one group of vampires", Adriane pondered, "unless, there are more of you..?"

Marcus shook his head a fraction of an inch. "Others of our kind…both respect and fear the Volturi. As a general rule, if you will, any vampire from a visiting clan does not overstay their welcome in Italy." He had paused in consideration, "For a human, it is a relatively safe inhabitance."

"And what happens if people overstay their welcome?" she had asked.

With a dispassionate look, Marcus had asked if she was well enough to travel. After some consideration, it was decided that Adriane would again travel on Marcus's back. It was still painful, but the lack of contact to her spine helped ease some of the uncomfort.

They had been traveling for over an hour now and Adriane's stomach was ready to cave in from hunger. Marcus, who had been running at a steady, yet insanely fast rate, slowed down infinitesimally to look at some unseen object in the distance. "There is water several miles ahead. We shall stop there."

Adriane considered this the best news she'd received in days. It was time to put some of that soap to good use. Thank God Marcus stopped to think of some practical necessities, she murmured to herself. In less than a minute they had reached a small, secluded pond. Nothing had ever looked so beautiful to Adriane in that moment, except for maybe her sulky vampire protector.

Sliding gingerly down Marcus's back, Adriane started to unzip her suitcase. She pulled out the soap and shampoo that Marcus had so graciously thrown in her bag days before. While Adriane knew that she was starting to smell, she also knew that Marcus's senses were much more attuned than her own. If nothing else she would get clean for his benefit.

"Umm…I'm going to wash up", Adriane muttered, embarrassed. She sniffed her hair. "I smell really bad."

Marcus only shrugged. "I will find you food."

Adriane just nodded, already turning to head to the pond. She removed her shoes and gingerly stuck one of her feet in the water. It was cool, but refreshing, not that Adriane would have complained anyway. She glanced back to see if Marcus had gone yet. While she didn't picture him as some kind of pervert who would get off behind the bushes, she also didn't feel easy around him. There was something about him that made Adriane nervous, and not for the reason that it should have been.

Seeing no one, she stripped and slid slowly into the water, shivering for a couple minutes before her body adjusted to the temperature. She washed quickly and was enjoying the feeling of the cool waves gently rocking her body back and forth. It wasn't until ten minutes later when she went to get out that Adriane realized that she didn't have any kind of towel with her. She looked at her dirty clothes and considered putting them back on, yet discarded the idea quickly. No way was she going to get dirty again after finally being clean for days. She decided to wait.

When Marcus finally returned, Adriane swam to a shallower part of the pond. "Marcus!" she yelled, attempting to be coy, "can I ask you for a favor?"

Marcus slowly looked up at her with those blank, red eyes. "I don't have a towel…or anything to change in to", she continued, "Can you bring me something out of my suitcase to put on?"

Marcus unbent he knees slowly and glided towards her suitcase. Halfway there he changed his mind and turned to walk toward her. Adriane wondered what he could possibly be doing. When he reached the edge of the pond Marcus unhooked the cloak from around his shoulders and laid it on the grass. "You may use this to dry. It serves me no current purpose", he said, then turned around and walked back to his catch.

Adriane looked at the cloak for a minute and then turned to face him again. Marcus was directed away from her, and from the looks of it was building up a fire. Reassured that he wouldn't turn around, Adriane quickly waded out of the pond and up to shore. She rung out her hair the best she could and put the cloak around her. At least I don't have to worry about the length, she told herself. The fabric hit her way below the knees.

Stopping to pick up her clothes, Adriane walked slowly to where Marcus was, still tending to the fire. A lazy trail of smoke rose from the tipi-like structure he had created. "Umm, thanks", she managed.

Marcus gave no reaction to her words. Instead he began to work on skinning the rabbit which, she assumed, was her dinner. Adriane could feel herself begin to get sick and had to look away. When it came to matters of food, she wasn't going to be picky. After all, she needed to eat something. Although that didn't mean she had to watch the gory process take place.

Instead, Adriane focused her attention on the muscles of Marcus's back, which rippled like steal cords beneath his plain cotton shirt. It was amazing to Adriane that something so ordinary could rest on a being as magnificent as Marcus. It wasn't something that she had bothered to pay attention to when she first met him. Adriane had a feeling that most people never took the time to look past his lethargic expression, but once you did there were a lot of little things that added up to a truly beautiful being.

For instance, he had long, powerfully shaped hands. His face was highlighted with high cheekbones, a straight nose, and a strong yet not quite square chin. His back wasn't the only thing that was layered with muscle. At a first glance he looked fragile, but once you looked closer you could distinguish a trace of power remaining in his movements. He must have been extraordinarily strong when he was younger, Adriane pondered. Flashes of the day before entered her mind, of Marcus ripping Alec's body apart like one would tear a sheet of paper in half. He's not as defenseless as you think, a voice whispered in her mind, don't underestimate him.

In an effort to clear her head, Adriane went searching for something that she could potentially sit on. Scouring the nearby woods she saw a decent enough piece of wood that must have once been part of a massive tree limb. She went over to it and tried to drag it towards the fire, but no matter how hard she pulled the tree limb stayed stationary. Adriane bent down to examine the bottom piece of the wood and saw that it was somehow embedded in the ground, with one of the surrounding tree's roots pinning it down like an anchor. There was no way she'd be able to move it.

Adriane turned to call for Marcus's aid but found him already standing behind her. He glanced at the tree limb and walked slowly around her. Grabbing on to one end he turned and began to walk away. The wood slid smoothly out of the ground as if it were nothing more than butter, taking the neighboring root with it. Adriane watched with awe as the rest of the root was ripped out of the ground. Marcus examined the limb and broke off a piece that had not been unearthed. He carried the dry piece to the fire like a normal person would carry a stick and placed it easily on the ground. Adriane followed numbly behind. "Thanks", she murmured, and sat down. No way did she ever want to get on his bad side.

"I would ask you for a favor", Marcus sighed.

"Yea, sure", said Adriane, still in a slight daze at that little inhuman show of strength.

"I wish to borrow this", he said, and waved his hand at the shampoo that Adriane had used earlier.

Unable to stop herself, Adriane busted out laughing. Marcus showed no expression. "You…you're asking me if you can borrow my shampoo?" she giggled.

"I did not wish to enter into public looking…"

"No, no, it's just that you don't need to ask me something like that", she exclaimed, "dude, just take it".

Marcus picked up the bottle. "Thank you", he said, and inclined his head slightly.

"Unbelievable", she sighed. Though what was more unbelievable was what he did next. Marcus apparently wasn't as self conscious about his body as Adriane was. She followed him with her eyes as he approached the pond. He placed the bottle on the ground and removed his shirt as he stood up. His entire body glistened in the morning light, but that wasn't what Adriane was paying attention to. Instead she choose to focus on the fact that in the next second the remainders of his clothes were in a pile by the pond.

Adriane felt her breath stutter to a stop as she stared at Marcus in all of his glory, well, what she could see of it anyway. His entire back was layered in muscle, with both his shoulders and neck impossibly broad. This tapered off into slender yet lean hips and on to powerful, long legs. His butt, as Adriane noted, could rival any godly statue.

Marcus slipped into the water without a sound. He continued walking until only his neck and head could be seen, and then the next moment those were gone too. Adriane focused her attention on the food that had now finished roasting on the fire. She focused on eating said food, and when she was done with that she focused on a blade of grass by her feet and maintaining a steady intake of air. She didn't hear Marcus leave the pond, nor did she hear him approach her. He was simply there at her side, already dry and now fully clothed. He must have cleaned his clothes too for they were nowhere near as dirty as they had been before; they were also completely dry.

"Have you finished?" he asked her politely.

"Yeah…" she responded, annoyed at the sigh she heard in her own voice.

"Then let us go", Marcus answered. He turned and waited politely for her to change before stamping out the fire and lifting her suitcase. Adriane slowly climbed onto his back. There was a whole new meaning to this gesture now that Adriane knew what lay underneath the thin cotton fabric of his shirt.

They stopped on the outskirts of a small French village. Marcus left her behind a tiny chicken pen and told her to wait for him to get back. It wasn't long before she heard the rumble of an engine and then the quiet hum as a car was geared to a stop. Adriane peered around the pen and saw that the door to the car was open and inside was Marcus, looking at her impatiently. It didn't take a genius to know that he hadn't gotten the car legally, so Adriane threw the suitcase in the back and jumped inside, slamming the door closed behind her.

The ride to the airport was a quite one. Adriane, feeling exhausted, was content to sit and watch the country roll by outside the window of the car. She had only one momentary lapse of panic when she first entered the automobile. Like most things that had happened to her the past few days, it didn't surprise Adriane to find out that Marcus could in fact drive. The thing that surprised her was how fast he drove. No human could have maneuvered around turns and across country roads at speeds that exceeded almost a hundred miles an hour, but Marcus did so with ease. He didn't even seem to be paying attention to what he was doing.

About an hour into their trip Adriane read a sign that said: Beinvenue en Lyon! She had been to the southern part of France before and vaguely remembered getting a flight out of one of its airports. Marcus seemed to know where he was going and found Lyon St-Expuéry with ease. He left the car in the parking lot and slipped on the cloak that Adriane had used that morning. She had no idea if it was still wet or not.

Adriane and Marcus entered the airport without much difficulty. The security personnel regarded Marcus uneasily, but as there was nothing on him that could keep him detained, and since he somehow managed to procure a passport and fake identification card from his inside shirt pocket, they went through customs with ease. Marcus handled the ticket transaction, not surprising Adriane when she heard him speaking perfect French in his whispery voice.

While they waited for their flight, a direct route to Olympia, Washington, Marcus ghosted over to an ATM. He slipped a black credit card out of his shirt and stuck it into the machine. He waited with an impassive expression as Euros were quickly dispensed into his hand. Tucking his card back into his shirt, Marcus handed Adriane the money that he had gotten.

"Purchase what you will", he directed. Adriane continued to stare at him. She could get her own money and felt uncomfortable using his after everything that he had done for her.

"I don't feel right using your money", she said, "You've done enough for me as it is."

"You are hungry, no?" he inquired. "I cannot hunt for you in here…I doubt you would enjoy human flesh."

Adriane had the fleeting suspicion that he had just made an attempt at humor, and decided not to push the subject. She would find a way to pay him back somehow. The highlight of the afternoon was watching Marcus try to fit himself into one of the tiny food-court chairs as Adriane bought a salad. After days of eating only meat she figured it was time for something green. It amused her to see a slight hint of revulsion on Marcus's face as he observed the people around him eating; the small change to his features somehow made him seem less like a statue and more like someone capable of feelings. No matter how bottled up he kept those feelings.

The sun had set by the time that they boarded their plane. As Adriane offered up her ticket she got the feeling that someone was watching her. She turned to face in the direction of the food-court. What she saw made her heart stop in her throat. There was Jane, sitting at a table in the section nearest Adriane, looking her dead in the eye. Her lip turned up slowly into a snarl and her eyes blazed like fire.

"Mademoiselle."

Adriane turned to see the man holding out her ticket and passport, looking at her with slight concern.

"Merci", she said.

Glancing back over her shoulder she saw no one at the table. Calm down, you're just tired she told herself. She boarded the plane and found her seat next to Marcus, and was pleased to find that she got the window. He watched as fellow passengers boarded the plane with slight interest. A mother and her young son were seated to the right of him. Adriane watched his expression soften infinitesimally as the boy tugged on his mother's sleeve, pointing to something out the window.

"Did you ever have a family?" she heard herself ask.

Marcus turned away from the pair. "No", he said, with a slight edge to his voice.

Adriane looked at him again but he had closed his eyes, and remained that way the rest of the flight. Adriane doubted he was sleeping, but she knew that she had crossed a line with Marcus and didn't want to push him any further.

The next thing that she knew Marcus was telling her she had to get up. Adriane stretched and followed the slow moving line to the front of the plane. No one ever told you it took longer getting off the plane than it did to get on. After an hour and a half of going through customs and security, which was much heavier in the States than it had been in France, Marcus withdrew a thousand dollars of U.S. money. Adriane didn't say anything.

They exited the airport and entered the cloudy state of Washington. Adriane hailed a cab and put her sole measly suitcase into the trunk. The cabby looked at Marcus uneasily but must have decided he wanted the money that Marcus was offering him if he took them to a place called Forks.

An hour into their drive it started to rain and after another two hours it hadn't stopped. It took Adriane a minute to realize that they had reached their destination. She concluded that the houses must have been fairly spread out, since there were only a couple businesses to signifying that they were on Main Street. As they passed a post office Adriane read a sign that said: Welcome to Forks! She had no idea what to expect now that she was here, but Adriane was fairly certain that whatever it entailed she could count on it to rain.

***Okay, so first let me just say…NEVER listen to me when in regards to putting up a new chapter. Just know that I'm not going to stop writing the story; no worries there. Second, thanks to my new readers for all of their comments, and thanks to my old readers who haven't deleted this story because I suck at updating. I'm really busy so I basically have no idea when I can add a new chapter, but I'll try to write as quickly as possible. I love comments, so leave me some-Thanks!