Recap: Esme visits Bella and reassures her that Edward can't read her mind, to her immense relief. She and Edward resume their runs, but she refuses to acknowledge knowing what he is until he shows her his true speed and takes her to the Cullen apple orchard.

Thanks to Camilla10 and Mr. Price (even if he says this chapter is very girly), and to gingerandgold for her Rob Attack rec, and to Nic at the Lemonade Stand, where this story is nominated for fic of the year (WIP division). Link on my profile page. Also many thanks to Angelari7 for language help.

It was hilarious to read your comments about Mr. Price in running tights ….

Chapter 11: Khwaishein jagi hain …

It wasn't entirely clear to me afterward just how long we kissed, though I was acutely aware of every spot where Edward's lips had touched my skin - my cheeks, my temples, the corner of my mouth, my jaw. He loosened my scarf and did that thing that clever guys do, murmuring into my hairline, making paths with his lips from my throat to my ear. I somehow ended up with my legs around his waist and my hands in his hair, licking and gasping into the spot where his neck met his shoulder. It was delicious, the smell and taste of his skin there ...

Edward made a noise in his throat and adjusted our positions so my thighs were cradled in his hands, our torsos now separated by several inches.

"Bella, your heart is pounding the way it does when you sprint," he said. I could feel the faint warmth of the sun on my hair – it had broken through the afternoon's scrim of clouds.

"I bet yours is too," I countered, my breathing choppy. He shook his head, but I was too distracted to pursue that obviously false denial. "You have something on your skin," I said instead, reaching to his cheek. It was hard and smooth, and the fleck I had seen disappeared under my fingers.

"It's my Scarlet Letter V," he said wryly. "I am my own disco ball when the sun comes out."

"It's lovely … and conspicuous," I said, rubbing my thumb across his cheekbone, watching the glints vanish and reappear. "That's why –" I stopped as he moved his face under my hand so he could kiss my palm. I drew in a sharp breath at the sensation, which traveled up my arm and into my chest. "That's why you're not at school on sunny days."

"Yes. And we should talk about school, and everything else," he said. He lowered me to the ground and picked up his jacket, now crumpled next to his feet ... oh yeah, I had yanked it off his shoulders as I kissed him.

He led me to the brick wall alongside the orchard; it sheltered the espaliered apple trees from the wind, but got the southern sun. There was an alcove that had a stone bench inside, with cushions even, and I looked curiously at Edward as we sat down, our sides touching. The scent of rotting windfall rose from beneath the brittle leaves under our feet.

"I thought you would be more comfortable here, as we talked," he explained.

"Not as we made out?" I suggested, and he closed his eyes tightly for a second.

"Don't tempt me, please." He pulled out an insulated flask from under the bench to hand to me. I unscrewed the top and breathed in the steam. Green tea.

"I thought you might be cold, and Alice said you wouldn't accept coffee," he said, and I nodded, marveling at her intuition. Because she was right: I wanted to kiss him again, and not with coffee breath. I took a sip, and turned my face up to the sky, enjoying that rare treat in winter Forks, the sun on my skin.

"Is it all right?" he asked. "I've made coffee before, but never tea."

"It's perfect. When would you have made coffee?" I drank again.

"When I've done rotations in medical school – the students have to take turns making coffee in the staff lounge," he said, off-hand, and I swallowed hard. Despite his perfect, unlined face, he had years and years of experiences I couldn't fathom.

"Oh, I said weakly, and a silence fell. Clouds slid by to hide the sun and the glints on Edward's skin.

"Surely now you have questions?" he asked after a moment.

I did – who are you, where did you come from, why me? - but I decided to start off with an easy one. "How did you know where to find me on Sunday?" I asked. "Did you follow me to La Push?"

"I wish I could have," he muttered, and shook his head. "No, my family has agreed not to cross onto Quileute land."

"Because of your treaty," I said, remembering what I had thought was just Old Quil Ateara's crazy story about Carlisle Cullen and his coven being here in the 1930s. "So ...?"

"I shouldn't be surprised that your first question is one that requires a lot of explanation." He sighed. "You know that I have a certain talent -"

"That has one exception," I said, a little more sharply than I wanted.

"That has one exception," he agreed, taking my free hand, his own hand the temperature of the air around us. "Other members of my family have talents, too, different ones. Jasper, for instance, can influence people's moods. Including yours. At the school dance, you started to feel disappointed that you couldn't identify his accent, correct? And then suddenly you didn't care?"

"That was Jasper changing my feelings?"

"He felt it wasn't right for you to think dismissively of your skills when the playing field wasn't level. And I know how you feel about people not playing fair," he added, with a bit of smirk, reminding me of his little French exhibition in my classroom that afternoon. "Jasper really was born in Texas, but a long time ago, and accents were different in his day."

I nodded, filing that wonderful tidbit away for later. Historical linguists would so love to study the Cullens.

"Alice can see the future," Edward continued, "and she saw –"

"What?!" I practically yelped, and the tea sloshed in its flask. "The future, the actual future? She knows who'll be elected president in November?"

Edward was shaking his head already. "You don't to be a psychic to know that. It's more subtle, her ability. She can tell you the weather for tomorrow. She can't tell you if the seas really will be six feet higher in 2100, because her talent is fickle, in a way – it's driven by people's decisions. No one will make a decision between now and tomorrow that will change the weather, but we can hope that people will made decisions that will keep the polar ice caps from melting. In the same way, she can get a good idea of what you'll be doing tomorrow, but she can't see you a year from now."

"Huh," I said, prudently putting aside the hot tea that Alice had known I would prefer. "Your talents are very ... invasive."

"Alice's saved your life." I startled at his words, delivered with utmost seriousness, and he went on, "She saw that you would be hit by that van in the school parking lot – I saw it too, of course. That vision was like being stabbed, and you should know, I can't be stabbed ... And then, afterward, she saved you again." He looked grim now, but I didn't know why.

"The cougar?" I guessed.

"No, the cougar was happenstance, and easy to dispatch," he said as if taking out a lethal predator was like brushing away a fly. "No. It's because you saw what I could do, you had questions, and my family didn't know if you would tell anyone –"

"Even though I kept Bob Banner and Bruce Clapp away from the driver, and didn't object to Alice's bogus version of his Spanish?" I asked, stung.

"Even then," he said gravely. "Since I can't read you, I couldn't know what you were thinking about us, or if you were going to change your mind. We debated whether to leave Forks, or whether to silence you."

He paused to let the meaning of his last clause sink in. Oh. "But Alice was confident that you would be silent," he went on, and his face darkened. "I wouldn't have let anything happen to you, no matter what my family decided."

My stomach lurched at his words, and I blindly grabbed the tea again and swallowed, giving myself time to control my voice. Still, it would be safer to let his family's discussion of my imminent demise pass without comment for the moment. "Did Alice see me coming, then?" I asked instead.

Edward smiled at that. "She was so appalled at the thought of spending nine months listening to Val Berty repeating the same Shakespeare lectures he had delivered for 35 years that she decided to devise a way to send him into early retirement –"

"The sudden inheritance," I said, remembering Berty's abrupt move to England.

He nodded. "Then Alice saw you arriving in Forks as a result. And then, she left town until school started so I wouldn't see what she saw, so I could experience meeting you fully, without foreknowledge."

His smile vanished and he pulled his hand out of mine. "What she couldn't see was that I would be overwhelmed by the desire to drain you the instant I inhaled your scent. Your scent – your scent has an exceptionally powerful effect on me. You must have thought I was insane, my behavior that day in your classroom, as I planned how to …" He trailed off before resuming, "If Alice hadn't been next to me, screaming at me in her head, and I would have done it."

This confession didn't surprise or even scare me; it made sense with all I knew now. But combined with the Cullens' debate over my fate, the implications were troubling. I looked at him, dreading the answer that I had to ask now. "But your family doesn't drink from people - even the Quileute believe that," I said.

"Yes," he answered before a shadow crossed his face. "At least, it's been a very long time, by your standards, since we've ... failed at that. Of us all, only Carlisle has a spotless record. I've killed people, Bella."

I looked away from him and stared down at his hands, now gripping the beveled edge of the stone bench so tightly that a crack was snaking along the surface. I imagined those hands around someone's throat, my illusion of a family of animal-blood-drinking vampires innocuously enjoying their superpowers shattered.

"Do you regret it?" My question was barely a whisper. "Do you remember them?"

"I remember every one, every detail." He loosened his deadly hands from the bench and made them fists on his knees. "It's no justification, but they were criminals. Killers themselves. I wanted to use my talent for what I thought was the greater good."

"So you were like a mind-reading vigilante," I said. I didn't approve, but despite what he said, it was a justification. "You didn't want to kill them for the, um, usual vampire reasons?"

He apparently could see where my mind had gone, and he shook his head in disapproval. "Not at that time, but it is the nature of our kind to kill, you have to understand that," he said, his voice soft but intent. "It's an instinct that we have to fight, some of us more than others. It's also our nature to remember everything. The difference between our family and the others of our kind is that we remember what we've done with guilt, and they don't."

"So you would have been sorry to kill me?" My words had a harsh edge, but Edward didn't seem offended.

"I would have regretted it every moment of my existence," he said. He took my hand again.

"You've had dozens of opportunities to kill me in the woods, but you haven't," I said, noting the obvious.

"Thirty-five. But what you don't realize that every moment I've been near you, even every moment in school where I've been surrounded by your students, I could have killed you. It only takes one … lapse. All these weeks you've let me run with you, the hours I've spent in your classroom, have been invaluable. I can't imagine now ever deciding to attack you. It would be an accident." He looked away from me and let out a humorless laugh. "Not that that would be any consolation."

We were silent a moment, and I trailed my finger over the top of his hand. That hand had been so gentle on me as we kissed, weaving wonderfully into my hair, sending shivers of pleasure skittering across my skin.

"I'm not going to insult your intelligence by asking if you're afraid," Edward said quietly. I tilted my head, not answering, because I was afraid, though not for the reason he expected – I had told him I loved him, and the ramifications of that were more terrifying than anything a vampire might do. "But are you all right?"

"Yes," I said resolutely. "Tell me more about Alice."

"Alice can see, for instance, if a woman has decided to tell her running partner not to show up anymore." He raised an eyebrow at me. That eyebrow looked accusatory.

"Because it was the right thing to do, since I was having feelings for my student," I protested.

"On a theoretical level, I admire you for your principles," he said. "On a personal level it was agonizing, and I was constantly asking Alice to see what we could do to change your mind. I had to enlist my mother too."

"That's why you and Esme showed up at church that day – you knew you had to change my mind?" He nodded. "And then you kept coming."

"It was a place where I could touch you with society's approval – the exchange of the peace was a highlight of my week." He raised our joined hands and ran his lips over my fingers in a way that would definitely not be acceptable in church. We both exhaled, and he went on, "Alice also saw your conversation with Old Quil Ateara, or parts of it at least. Once he fell asleep, she lost you from view. Can you tell me about that afternoon?"

I had to gather my wits, scattered by contact as simple as his kissing my hand, before describing the events that led to me snarling at him in the middle of the road. "Okay, so after our run I drove to Mr. Ateara's house. I thought Seth would meet me there –"

"Seth Clearwater, a wolf," Edward interrupted me.

"Um, yeah. Instead Jacob was waiting for me –"

"Jacob Black, a new wolf. Dammit."

"He was so cold to me," I said, reviewing the scene in my mind's eye. "Anyway, he stayed while I went over word lists with Mr. Ateara, and then when I asked to hear some stories, Jacob left. I guess it was a signal or something because Mr. Ateara started talking about the Cold Ones." I went on to recount the tale Old Quil had told, Edward nodding as my words matched up to what Alice had seen.

"Then, as you know, Mr. Ateara fell asleep, and Jacob showed back up," I said, "and I accused him of giving me some ridiculous story to screw me over and get back at you guys. Really, a group of supernatural creatures who wanted to stay hidden would return to the same area and use the same name within a human lifespan?" I stopped because Edward was shrugging in that way that indicated, um, actually, that's what happened. I stared at him in incredulity a moment. "Isn't that dangerous?"

Edward shrugged again. "It is. However, the treaty stipulates that when we're in the area, we inform the wolves, but there were none when we returned here. Carlisle decided that we should use the same name, so the Quileute couldn't say that we had tried to hide our presence here. Carlisle can be quite punctilious. It has made our discussions about how to respond to what the wolves arranged to tell you very legalistic."

"I don't get that either," I said. I took another drink of tea, now cooling along with the sunless air. "If the wolves wanted me to stay away from you, why would they tell me something that would give me the green light to being with you?"

To my surprise, Edward laughed. "Do you think that most people find a vampire a more suitable romantic partner than a student? If you only knew the number of teachers who have fantasized about my sisters …" He shuddered before continuing, "The Quileute no doubt thought you would be as repulsed as they are once you knew my nature, and they would thus thwart my nefarious plans for you."

Do you have nefarious plans for me? I wanted to ask, but reined myself in. "I suppose that explains Jacob's reaction, then," I mused instead. "He was so angry I didn't believe him that he changed into a wolf -"

"What?" Edward's hand on mine was suddenly painful and then gone as he sprang up from the bench. He turned to me, his face a mask, but his eyes darkened and furious. "Jacob Black phased in front of you?"

"Then Seth showed up and told him to put some pants on. Why are you so upset?" His shifts in mood were neck-wrenching sometimes.

"Because the wolves are dangerous. They're even dangerous to us, in sufficient numbers. When I told you that the young men of the tribe were volatile, it was a gross understatement. Jacob Black just proved the truth of my warning, changing out of fury like that."

I thought back to the episode. I had been taken aback by the size of Jacob's claws, but not truly frightened, not the way I had been with the cougar. Between the Cullens and the Quileute, I really had no regard for my own safety when it came to supernatural creatures. Perhaps it was the result of growing up under the specter of an early death.

"I can see that, I guess," I said, "though I was more frustrated than scared at the time. Is Raquel in danger, spending time with Seth?" I had decided to give him until Friday to tell Raquel about his lupine qualities, because I knew they wouldn't get together until then, but maybe I needed to push him.

"He would rather die than hurt her," Edward said, as if this were both self-evident and inconsequential. "I saw this in the '30s," he added in answer to my furrowed brow. "The wolves worship the ground their imprints walk on. You, however, are not an imprint so -"

"Raquel is an … imprint?" I asked, trying to get my mind around the concept. "Like a mother duck and her ducklings?"

Edward smiled, and I was pleased to see that he was relaxing somewhat. "More like a duck finding his lifelong mate – a duck belonging to one of the monogamous species, at any rate. Or a penguin." I suspected he enjoyed likening the wolves to penguins. "But please, continue your account."

"Okay, so I got my recorder and papers from Mr. Ateara's house, and Seth was trying to persuade me that Jacob had done this to protect me – by the way, he seemed startled that Mr. Ateara had mentioned Carlisle's name, as if it was a mistake," I said. I was irritated with the wolves, sure, but I didn't want some epic battle between Cullens and Quileute over this.

"But even after Jacob's display –" I started, and Edward's eyes narrowed at the reminder "-I still didn't believe the part of the story about you … not until I was driving away, and thinking about your, uh, quirks." I stopped for a moment; in hindsight, I had been extraordinarily dense even as he slowly and surely exposed his real nature to me. "You dropped so many hints, and I dismissed them all."

Edward had calmed completely, I could see from his eyes – were they really more golden now? - and he returned to sit beside me. He took my hand again, and the surge of pleasure I felt was incredible. "Deciding that I was a vampire would have hardly been the most reasonable conclusion to draw," he pointed out.

"Why didn't you just tell me what you are?" I asked. After the mind-reading, it was the part of all this that had most unsettled me. "I was so … appalled at myself, at what I was thinking about you."

"What were you thinking?" he asked, avid.

I eyed him. "I don't have to tell you," I said. He didn't need to know I had sex dreams about him. Yet.

He gave up and ran his unoccupied hand through his hair. "You've asked another complicated question," he said. "One part of the answer is that it's against our rules for you to know what I am." He went on to talk about the creepy vampire law enforcement based in Italy, and his description was like having ice water poured down my spine.

"Do you remember Dr. Polidori?" he asked. "He was a companion of Byron and Mary Shelley in 1816, in Geneva, when Shelley wrote 'Frankenstein.'" I nodded in sudden recognition.

"And he wrote the first vampire tale in English," I said. "It was a bestseller."

"And do you know that he was found dead shortly afterward?" I shook my head, and Edward went on, "He was 25. The coroner said it was from natural causes, his family believed it was suicide by poison, but we know it was murder. Even if what he wrote indicated that he had never encountered a vampire, it made the Volturi uneasy."

"Then why didn't they kill Bram Stoker?" I asked. I knew from the 11th grade's "Dracula" unit that its author had lived more than a decade after its publication, and died surrounded by his family.

"By then, they reckoned that the misinformation in these novels was useful to us, that vampires were smelly, bloated creatures who were weaker by day, instead of –" Edward indicated his decidedly unbloated, lovely face. "Of course, the Volturi couldn't predict how much the myth would proliferate in the century to come because of the movies." His voice was rueful.

"And now I know about them," I observed.

"If we are discreet, it won't be a problem. The Volturi aren't the N.S.A. I've never met them - I know of them only through Carlisle. So the law doesn't fully explain why I didn't tell you."

He played with my fingers a moment before continuing. "The other part of the answer is that I didn't know if you were afraid of me. I rely so much on what people are thinking that I am less skilled in reading the subtleties of their body language. The physiological signs - increased heartbeat, dilated pupils - of fear and arousal are similar. It wasn't until Jasper assured me that your reactions derived from the latter that I could know with certainty what you felt." My face burned hot at his words. Yes, definitely invasive, that Jasper.

"I was so heartened by Jasper's assessment that I was bolder than I would have otherwise been when we danced," he said, and grimaced. "Alice scolded me for that – she said that I would frighten you off."

"I saw her looking angry with you. Are people usually afraid of you?" I thought of the times when I had assumed that people had been stunned by the Cullens' beauty; now I could see the fear that had been there too when Eliza Teague's mother edged away from Carlisle and Esme at the parent-teacher conferences, when the other students gave Alice and Jasper a wide berth on the dance floor, when Justin Stanley dropped his keys at Edward's approach. Even Bruce Clapp's contempt for the family was probably rooted in a disquiet that he couldn't acknowledge to himself.

"Yes, they are. They just don't know why – remember your friend Raquel when she sat next to Esme in Seattle? Her uneasiness was typical. People are oddly compelled by us and uncomfortable at the same time. So humans generally don't approach us… yet they can't run away when we, well, approach them. It's useful if you want to be left alone …" he trailed off.

"And then it's useful for when you need something to eat?" I said, relieved that my voice sounded calm.

He winced, but nodded.

"The intruders who killed Eliza Teague's sister and father, they were vampires, as Mr. Ateara said?" I asked.

"Yes. And Eliza is scared witless of me, though she's not quite sure why. She remembers most vividly the red eyes of the attackers, and I don't have those, so she hasn't made the connection."

"Poor Eliza," I said, and was cheered again by the knowledge that she was in the running for a generous scholarship. "But you haven't explained why you didn't tell me after Jasper's, um, assessment of me."

"I was afraid that you would reject me," he said simply, and the honesty I heard in his admission eased my remaining resentment over his silence. "And then when the wolves told you instead, and you were so horrified when you saw me on the road … it was my worst fear coming true."

"I really am sorry about that," I said, and he unexpectedly smiled, teeth gleaming in the twilight.

"I will forgive you if I can have another kiss," he said impishly.

"Yes, but –" I raised my hand between our faces in a "stop" signal. "I have to meet Angela and the guys for dinner. They'll wonder where I am."

"You do," he agreed, pulling back and looking disappointed, and I sighed as we stood up from the bench.

"Here I find out that you're not ethically off limits," I said, raising arms above my head to stretch out the stiffness from being on the bench so long. My sweater and fleece rode up my torso and Edward stared in open appreciation at my bare skin. "Yet we're going to have to sneak around or I'll end up on one of those Hot for Teacher websites, since I can't defend myself by saying that you're really ..." I paused suggestively, and he laughed.

"At last, a relatively easy question. I was born in June 1901."

I swallowed. "1901," I repeated.

He looked at me warily. "But I became what I am in 1918."

"Oh," I said, realizing that meant he wasn't born a vampire. "So you really are 17. I don't think of you as a teenager."

"I would hope not," he said, teasing me again. "That would be immoral."

I scowled at him. "I imagine you could school me in immoral, O ancient creature of the night."

"Ancient? Hardly," he said. "Jump on my back, my delicate human, and I'll take you home."

The ride back seemed even faster than the first run, but it, too, ended with a leap, this time over my stairs and into the darkness of my back porch. I slid down from my perch feeling disoriented from the increased speed.

"You always want to jump me over things," I mumbled as he turned to face me.

"I do. And I've wanted to do this since the first time I carried you though the woods," he said, lowering his face to mine.

His lips – cold, hard, infinitely tender - brushed mine once, and again. Our bodies pressed closer, contact that was potent even though our layers of clothes. The tip of his tongue touched my lower lip.

But when I opened my mouth under his, he drew back.

"My teeth are sharp," he said carefully, and my heartbeat sped up at this reminder of his nature. He was certainly right about the interplay between arousal and fear. I nodded in understanding, and his face cleared.

"Will you come back when I'm done? We have a lot more, um, ground to cover," I said, unable to keep myself from staring at his lips as I spoke.

"I'll be here," he said, looking pleased, and cupped my cheek for a moment before stepping away to open the door for me. A kiss on my forehead was our goodbye.

I grabbed my laundry basket and headed straight for my car. As I drove toward town, I remembered how I had sung along to a Garbage song after Edward saved me from the cougar and carried me home. I had new lyrics for that song now.

"I don't care that you're 110," I belted out, willfully ignoring how much more complicated my life had just become in favor of channeling my inner Shirley Manson. "C'mon baby, be my bad boyfriend."

Chapter title: "Khwaishein jagi hain pyaasi pyaasi labhon pe," (in full) "There are new desires awakening in these thirsty lips," from "Aa zara," by Sunidhi Chauhan.

Heh, I guess Bella's still clueless about a lot of stuff.

Reviews are never lame. Thanks for letting me hear from you!