Thanks SO much to everyone who's reviewed this story, especially those who commented in the last couple of weeks. It's nice to know I'm not screaming into the void.

I've taken a couple of liberties with the timeline here, because I've always thought that Rosalie and Edward ought to have had a closer relationship. They're driven by many of the same things and their revenge quests were similar enough that I couldn't help but combine the two into "The Masen-Hale Detective Agency," a two-person organization that solved (and avenged) twenty-seven previously unsolved murders between early 1934 and mid-1935, starting with Rosalie's. Unfortunately I don't write period pieces that well so I probably won't get side-tracked into a detailed treatment of it, but it'll definitely come up again throughout the story.

This week, Edward isn't moping (he is) and isn't stalking (he... is) and isn't hoping (he definitely is). We're so close to the slowburn payoff, y'all.

I lay on the floor, one arm behind my head, eyes closed. I had been there for several hours. If I were human, I would probably be uncomfortable, but one of the benefits of immortality was that only one thing really ever hurt. Everything else was an afterthought.

I couldn't get Bella's face out of my mind. That Thursday afternoon, her nose red and puffy, her cheek already beginning to show a bruise. The image still filled me with an anger I hadn't felt since 1935.

It had started out with good intentions. Most things do, I supposed. After Rosalie's turbulent newborn year, we had bonded over our shared love for justice. Roy had been her idea—and her work—but afterwards, we joined forces and started investigating unsolved murders across the country. With my gift, we could find the guilty party without a shadow of a doubt. It had been—good. For a while.

"May I come in?"

I opened my eyes. As if summoned by my spiraling thoughts, Rosalie stood by the half-open door. Her thoughts were uncharacteristically hesitant.

"Of course."

She entered, then folded herself to the floor in a graceful motion. Vampires were always graceful, but Rosalie was impressive even by immortal standards. "You're listening to it again."

The Lark Ascending played softly in the background. It was one of the first records I had ever bought and it still reminded me of the melancholy days of the 30s. "Yes."

"Jasper says you're upset." She wondered if I would be angry with Jasper for saying something.

I turned my face away. "He would know."

The silence stretched between us, the short, sharp staccato of her nails on the hardwood floor the only sound. She was picturing the confrontation between us when she had discovered I was using the vigilantism as an excuse to feed.

"Why are you here?"

She snorted, still elegantly. "No-one else wants to watch you self-flagellate."

"Maybe that isn't what I'm doing." It was.

Her eyes flashed and she leaned in. "Of course that's what you're doing. You haven't been this moody since you finally came crawling back after your little stint as Batman."

I bit my tongue, feeling the anger well again. "Like you're one to talk."

"The Masen-Hale Detective Agency was a good thing until you got power-hungry. Or perhaps I should just say hungry?" She laughed. "Oh, that was distasteful."

I smiled in spite of myself. Rosalie was the most protective of innocents out of all of us, but that didn't stop her dark sense of humor. "The best thing to come out of it was Emmett."

Her eyes softened. "Yes."

I tried not to listen to her thoughts, which were suddenly filled with love. I couldn't feel her emotions in the same way that Jasper could, but I was still painfully aware of their absence in my life. Except… I wasn't so sure that they were still absent.

Rosalie shook her head a little, and I heard her mind focus. "You can't distract me like that. You're moping."

"I'm not moping." I was.

"You've been in a funk ever since you stopped talking to that girl."

"It's been three days, I hardly think that counts as a funk." I found myself resenting how perceptive Rosalie could be.

"Why did you stop talking to her?" She pulled her knees up in front of her and rested her arms on them, still looking absurdly dignified.

I turned my head away. "We're not supposed to be familiar with humans."

"It's a little late for that." My jaw clenched. She noticed, and smirked. "You are upset. Why?"

The record ended. "Why not?" I replied, trying to sound flippant. Rosalie raised an eyebrow, but didn't deign to comment. Her silence spurred me on, as she must have known it would. "That day, seeing her face… I could have killed someone. I wanted to. Over a black eye?" I had thought that wanting to murder the hunter for attacking her was a reasonable response to vampiric violence. Wanting to murder a teenager over a sports injury was inexcusable.

Rosalie smiled, a small, private sort of thing. "So, you cared more than you thought."

I let my head drop backward against the floor. "It's been almost a century. I never expected to meet someone who mattered like that."

"My baby brother has a crush." The smile was now a smirk.

"I'm two decades older than you, you know," I growled, but without rancor. "It doesn't matter, anyway. She isn't interested. I frightened her off." My heart twisted at the thought, but it was better this way. She would move on with her life, a little more wary. I had never meant anything to her and it would stay that way. And I… I would have centuries to remember her.

The prospect was bleak.

"It's probably better that way," Rosalie said. I bristled, but the image in her head of Bella becoming a vampire—and why? Because I was too selfish to be alone?—stopped me from saying anything. She was right. "It's not wrong to care so much," she added, and I flinched. She knew me too well. "But it has to be worth it." I heard the unspoken addition. She isn't.

I disagreed. Bella was worth it. The glimpses I had had into her personality—her sense of humor, her motivation, her kindness, her wonder—showed me a girl who I would be delighted to have in my life.

"You're right," I said. Rosalie's thoughts turned slightly smug. "Hopefully she'll feel the same way."

Her mouth opened in faint outrage as I jumped to my feet, then dove sideways through the open window. "You know that's not what I—"

As I fell twenty feet to the ground, I took care not to land on any of Esme's neat garden beds. I landed lightly, the stone path beneath my feet absorbing my momentum. I could still hear Rosalie from inside the house, but I chose to ignore her as I sprinted away from the house. For the first time in a long time, I knew what I wanted.

Rosalie didn't try to catch up with me, though I was sure she would have loved to give me a piece of her mind. I was the faster runner, and we both knew it. Besides, Rosalie didn't like to get her hair messy. I sped through the woods, relishing in the feel of the wind on my face and the green web of the trees zipping past. I could see each tree, each branch, even the tiniest spiderweb, and breeze through them all.

Enough of my mind was left free to wonder. Perhaps Bella hadn't realized that when I called off our weekend plans, I had intended to remove myself from the equation entirely. No—that was giving her too little credit. She was perceptive, and her response had been one of equal disengagement.

But I didn't think I had imagined her interest. The subtle ways she leaned into our conversations, the touch of her hand, the warmth in her eyes. It was much harder, without her thoughts to confirm my suspicions. Ruefully, I had to admit to myself that I had gotten lazy about reading people's external behaviors. Still, I allowed myself to hope.

I had thought that I was running aimlessly through the nearly trackless forests that surrounded Forks, but light beckoned from ahead. I slowed to a walk, wondering where my feet had taken me. As I reached the edge of the forest, I recognized the house in front of me. It was the Swans'.

I should have turned and left. It felt creepy, lurking in the shadows not far from her home. But I could hear her voice—low, animated—drifting out the barely-open bedroom window.

Curiosity got the better of me. I slipped closer, hiding myself behind a thick evergreen, but carelessly. A branch snapped as I passed. I froze, and heard Bella push the window up a little further.

"Charlie?" she said, sounding a little uncertain.

I didn't move a muscle.

After a moment, she retreated out of sight, and I breathed again. It was good that her instincts were sharp, I told myself. Perhaps her encounter with the hunter had left her on high alert. Not that any level of alert would be helpful against a vampire, of course. The fact that he had returned to Forks at least once since our original encounter was still unsettling. It seemed to confirm my theory that he was a tracker and his target was Bella.

Perhaps watching her unawares was simply a safety measure in the face of an implacable enemy.

It was a lame excuse, but I seized on it. I had sworn that she wouldn't come to any harm because of me, and if I failed to protect her, I was breaking my promise to myself.

"… you have to tell me all about Jacksonville," she said, resuming her previous convseration.

I heard the tinny voice of someone on speakerphone. "You'd love it, baby. It's warm and beautiful—and right next to the ocean. When are you coming to visit me?"

"Spring break, I promise." There was a smile in her voice and I couldn't help smiling myself, even though she obviously wasn't addressing me. "How does Phil like it?"

"He loves it. We're looking for a house to rent, you know… in case things work out with the Suns. How are you feeling about Forks?"

There was a pause. "It's… it's good. Better than I was expecting. I just got a job… it's nice to spend time with dad… I've made friends…"

"Friends? Tell me all about them! Wait—are any of them boys?"

I could picture her blushing as she answered, sounding flustered. "Half the world's population is male, it's not that weird that I would make friends with some of them."

"Oh, don't smart-aleck me. You know what I mean."

Bella laughed, and I heard her bed move. The tenor of her voice changed, and I imagined her sprawling across the bright comforter. "When have I ever been friends with a boy?" Her tone made the idea ridiculous; I flinched.

"That's not a no!" Renee sounded gleeful. "Tell me all about him."

"Mom!" Bella protested, but good-naturedly. "You're the last person in the world who should be pushing me into the arms of a boy from Forks."

I heard Renee laugh. "You'd think so, huh? Baby, I know you're smart enough to do what's right for you."

Bella's response was dubious. "But… it didn't work out for you."

"You aren't going to make my mistakes, Bella," her mother said, "because you aren't me. You're your own person and you're going to make your own mistakes. And that's okay. We all do."

There was a moment of silence. "Thanks," Bella said, her voice sounding small. "That means a lot."

"That's what mothers are for, baby. Now, tell me everything."

"There isn't much to tell," Bella said, sounding rueful. "I'll keep you updated."

I could hear Renee sigh on the other side of the line. "I'll hold you to that."

I leaned against the tree, feeling a dirty sort of thrill. Could she have been talking about me?

They said their goodbyes. I couldn't justify staying any longer—I couldn't really justify having eavesdropped in the first place, worries about the tracker notwithstanding, so I slipped back into the forest.

I didn't dare let myself hope—and yet, I couldn't help myself. Perhaps there was a future that could be shared by the two of us. I didn't know what it would look like, but I knew that I wanted it to exist.