Disclaiming: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Huge thanks to betas Amelie and Janelle. I appreciate your time and effort so much. Also thanks to Jenn and Sam who gave endless support and inspiration through writing this.

Two steps from her window

he tugged at the hairs of his coat

and whispered into the icy crags: "Sleep, little one,

I'll be an avalanche when I come back!"

"In Memory of the Demon," Boris Pasternak

April 2005

The night the hospital threw a thirty-seventh birthday party for Carlisle, he announced they were going to move. Everyone knew it was coming and Edward was relieved it was during a year he acted as a junior. They would transfer his files to the new school and he would have only one more year of torture. After that, he had six years of supposed college and graduate school: freedom. Had it been one year later (or three years earlier), Carlisle would have insisted he and Alice start as freshman again. Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper got seven years off in the deal, but Edward wasn't jealous.

"No," Carlisle said later. "Emmett gets a break. Rosalie and Jasper are juniors."

"What?" Rosalie shrieked. "No one will believe I'm younger than Alice."

"Of course they will," said Esme, smiling. "No one will believe Emmett is younger than Edward." Edward laughed out loud. He wasn't jealous, but he was a little petty.

Everyone was ready for a change, so they decided on western Washington. Carlisle and Esme took a week in April to look at towns first – if all went well, they would live there the longest and deserved first say. They found Forks on Friday and called the rest of them to see the little town.

"I made a treaty at the Indian reservation fifteen miles from here, many years ago," Carlisle told them. "Do you remember, Edward? I liked this town then and I like it now."

"The hospital is looking to hire out for a new chief of medicine," Esme said. "And there's a piece of property a ways out of town that's been on the market for almost four years with this house—" Edward searched her mind for an image and saw a white Victorian surrounded by pale green grass, old growth trees, a river. There was an outbuilding big enough for all their cars. They had been living metropolitan for the past five years and it was clear Esme was excited for something different. Forks was ideal.

As they walked down the main road, Edward considered offering to start as a freshman after all. Why not set it up to stay as long as possible? He was ready to say so when Alice gasped. Jasper put his arm around her and they waited. "I don't—" she started. "I don't understand it. There's a group here and they—they're hunting."

Edward looked in Alice's mind, saw still frame images of three vampires attacking a man in a fishing boat, a young girl running through trees.

This wasn't unusual. That's what most of their kind did, hunted humans, but Alice looked worried. "They're not staying long," Edward said. This other group shouldn't make things difficult for them.

"No, but—I don't understand. They're hunting—someone important. She's—I don't know why she's important. Will you look for the leader's mind, Edward? His name is James." Edward frowned; it was a very common name. Alice closed her eyes for a moment and then said, "He's with a Laurent."

Emmett nudged them forward. "Come on, let's get a table at the coffee shop."

Yes, that would be less inconspicuous than standing broodingly in the middle of the sidewalk. They sat down at an old, blue linoleum table and chairs and Carlisle ordered a round of coffee for all. The waitress dizzily left them alone.

Edward searched the area's minds for "Laurent" and quickly found the group from Alice's vision. James was definitely hunting a girl, fantasizing about what he'd do to her—Edward pulled away with an image of soft brown hair and bloody scalp being pulled away from a pretty, heart-shaped face. "He's vicious," Edward said quietly.

"Maybe we should look for the girl," Alice said, tearing open a packet of sweetener, pouring it into her coffee mug, and adding the packet to a short, pink pile.

"Why help the little thing?" Rosalie said. "How about we just leave and settle things here once they've gone?"

Carlisle was studying Edward's face. Edward didn't know what his expression might be saying, but he felt the same as Alice, that this was important. Somehow. "We'll find the girl," he said. "We'll see what we can do for her."

"Maybe we can just hide her for a while," Emmett said in a soothing voice for Rosalie.

"He's a tracker," Edward said. "We can't let them know we're here."

"We'll use our utmost stealth," Alice said, stirring her coffee briskly.

Esme dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and they left. Sitting in her room with Jasper at a bed and breakfast, Alice searched for the girl's name. Edward paced the room while he waited. There were times – like this – that minutes truly felt like minutes, not seconds in the great scheme of his life.

"Bella," Alice said, at last. "Isabella Swan."

But Edward wasn't listening. He was searching through minds, like flipping channels with a remote, he'd once explained to Jasper, for the name Bella. Several children were thinking of her, one boy quite vividly although Edward was sure she'd never worn that to school, and then he found the best mind, the mind speaking with her: a boy at the Indian reservation. He was sitting on a dusty floor of a makeshift garage, next to a trashed Volkswagen Rabbit and the girl from James's mind, although less bloody, more smiley.

"Want to stay for dinner?" Edward heard him ask her. Ugh, don't be desperate. Just because you're dating doesn't mean you have to be together every second—ha! She wants me to come over. Ha, ha, dating. Dating!

"She's with her boyfriend in La Push," Edward told his family. "They'll be at her house in a little while."

He went back into the boy's mind and then tried to skip over to Bella's, check if she had been sensing any trouble. But he couldn't. Again, he watched her from the boy's eyes and then jumped, but—nothing. It was like flying into a wall. What was wrong with him? He didn't feel fine, he felt agitated, but he had before this unsuccessful jump.

"Let's go," he said and stood up.

"And what?" said Rosalie. "Tell her a vampire's after her and we need to keep her in a closet for a few days."

"A closet wouldn't be enough." Edward slid into the front seat of one of the rental cars and started the car. Rosalie could pout all she wished, this was happening. He didn't question why. He feared he didn't have time.

It took ten minutes to find Charlie Swan's mind and then find his house. They parked three blocks away, then doubled back and hid amongst the trees in the surrounding forest. Bella and the boy hadn't arrived yet, so Edward went back into the boy's mind, then into the mind of the boy's father, their neighbors down the road. It was getting dark now and the two children were illuminated mostly by a bare, hanging light bulb. The boy – Jacob, he finally heard her call him – was underneath the Rabbit now, Bella sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, watching him work and laughing.

He listened to Jacob's chatter as he and Bella cleaned up and crawled to her house in a wretched old truck.

As they drove up and left the car, Rosalie thought Why her? and then hissed aloud, "Why her?" Emmett was the only one who responded, straddling her from behind, covering her mouth with his hand and giving her a hard kiss on her head.

A cold wind blew and Edward caught scent of—"What is that?"

"What?" Jasper said. "Stream water, beef and potatoes, blood from the neighborhood—"

"Blood." He gurgled slightly around the excess venom in his mouth. Then he smelled more carefully. "Her blood. God, of course James wants her."

It was the most perfect blood he had ever encountered.

"It's just blood, Edward," Emmett said slowly. "Human blood. Man, you hunted last night."

Edward was lost. His family was gone, the boy was gone, that tinkertoy little house was gone, the trees, the dirt, the air, were gone. It was just Edward and the human. Lion and lamb. Predator and prey.

How could such a scent be real? How could he have survived without that blood enclosing every sense, filling his body, filling his soul?

She was with too many people now, but she would be alone sometime tomorrow, wouldn't she? He looked around – no close neighbors to hear her scream, miles of wood around the house to hide the body. He could bite her on her bed, lay her on her pillows, surrounded by her scent.

"Edward!" he heard vaguely, everyone thinking and saying his name at once, he realized later. "Stop breathing!"

Breathing. Stop. He did and his mind began to clear. He waited a few moments to let rational sense take over again and then said, "It's the sweetest smell I've ever—it wasn't like that for any of you?" Edward looked around at six worried faces. He scratched his hands through his hair. "What is going on?"

"This is very strange," Carlisle murmured.

"We don't need to be here," Alice said. For a moment, he thought she meant they should give up on saving the girl and his mind reacted violently, almost forcing him forwards, to grab Bella and snatch her away now, before anyone could stop him. So you can get to her luscious blood first, a dark part of his mind whispered—no. It was more than that. But Alice continued, "We should be following James's mind. We'll just follow him when he's going to attack Bella and… stop him."

Something within him wanted to stay, to follow her to her bedroom, to watch her sleep, but he knew that was a very bad idea, so he forced himself to stand and run back to the car, focused on each rapid step forward.

"Why don't we just go after them now?" Emmett said.

Edward agreed, but Carlisle said, "They'll be most off guard when this James attacks Bella. They'll feel invincible when their only opponent is a human."

Back at the bed and breakfast, Edward lay on the shiny, purple, floral print bed and tried to stay in James's mind, but it was too graphic to sustain. He and his mate were passing the night in woods some miles away, enjoying one another and fantasies of Bella's death. Instead, Edward made visits every five minutes to check that he didn't make an sudden deviations from what Alice saw in the future. What to do with the rest of those five minutes, though, there was the rub.

He was fixated on Bella. If his id had its way, he would be enjoying fantasies just as vivid as James's, but he wouldn't allow it. So instead he was thinking of her face, her full mouth, her vibrant brown eyes, her heavy laugh. It was an effort to see her as a person, not as a lovely blood carrier, but instead he was turning her into another kind of object, like the teenage boys he'd found earlier. He'd have to meet her, talk to her, to stop that.

He sat up and looked at Alice. "Is he still planning for tomorrow?"

"Yes. We'd better hope Bella and her friends still want to go when it's as cloudy as it's going to be."

"They will." Edward discovered that several of Bella's friends considered tomorrow's trip to Olympic National Park essential to their courtship of other children, so he was confident it would happen if a hurricane approached. "I'm going for a walk."

"Watch yourself," said Jasper. Edward closed the door without response and ran back to her house. Stalking Bella and staring at her in sleep was not quite meeting and talking to her, but perhaps it would help.

Of course it didn't. Her window was open a few inches to the night breeze and he caught a hint of her scent. Right. No breathing. He was pleased it was Bella's scent alone, at least. He hadn't considered until then that the boy Jacob might be with her. He'd have—well, nothing, probably. He'd have been very annoyed. He ran a few yards away and took a deep breath in the juniper trees – disgusting – and ran back and swiftly up to her window.

It was a barren room, devoid of posters or picture frames or magazines, even clothes, more like an untidy guest room than the nest of a teenager. She was peaceful in sleep, curved on her side like a baby in the womb, until—she started whimpering. Without thought, Edward opened the window silently and went to her bedside, careful not to breathe or even open his mouth.

She was having a nightmare, moving her feet under the comforter, like a cat pantomimes catching a mouse. Why had he come in here? What could he do? He was going to destroy a pack of vampires for her, did she really expect him to fight her mind's demons, as well? Edward sighed. He was going mad. She didn't expect anything. She didn't know he was here. It was him alone who had the inexplicable urge to save her from everything.

He reached out his hand, hoping his body temperature wouldn't do more harm than good, and touched her cheek. She sighed, then grimaced and pressed harder into his hand. Before he could stop himself, Edward lay down on the bed and pulled Bella to him. She moved to fit his body – still sleeping, he checked – pressed her face between his arm and pectoral and was still.

He went into James's mind. No change there, though the images were somehow more chilling with this delicate creature in his arms. He stayed until dawn, tracking her heartbeat and periodically checking the thoughts of James, Alice, and Charlie Swan for danger.

Edward's scent was on her now. This was a stupid risk to take, but it wouldn't do any harm. James wanted her and nothing would stop him from going after her when they were together at the national park. The smell of another vampire would confuse him, but before he could do anything about it, Edward would be on him. This group was not accustomed to other vampires getting in their way.

Bella's accelerated pulse made him move. Edward hid outside her window and watched her awaken. She pressed her hand against the mattress beside her, cold from where he'd been, furrowed her brow, looked around. Missing something. Part of her remembered him. He liked that.

"Long walk," Jasper said as Edward came through the door.

"Mm." Edward nodded. "Very pleasant town. I'll like it here."

Alice opened her eyes a little and murmured, "You didn't seriously want to kill her more than three or four times. It was very admirable."

If we were a little slow in finding the girl, Alice thought, perhaps Carlisle would feel obliged to change her and Edward could keep her for himself.

Edward growled at her. "Focus on James, Alice."

They quickly made a game plan. Edward made sure Carlisle was left out of it completely.

The day dragged. The muscles of his legs ached to go to Olympic National Park now, if only to watch Bella some more, but it was crucial that he, Alice, Jasper, and Emmett arrived after James, Victoria, and Laurent and after one another. By two o'clock, James was at the Park, waiting in the densely shadowed trees, taunting Bella with a hidden threat.

When Emmett thought to spar with him, Edward jumped at the chance and they ran to an open range in Montana so the commotion wouldn't spread their scent. Edward felt no better after two hours and there were hours still to wait. They took a walk to a neglected horse pasture and Edward gave a few bay horses a brisk rubdown in lieu of a few months of brushing.

Emmett was bored. "Let's practice pulling things apart," he said. "I'm going to rip someone's head off today. Out of the blue. No punches thrown, no severed arm to prepare for it, just boom! His head's on the ground, watching while I obliterate the rest of him."

He was selfish enough to want Emmett his brother for eternity, but, as he watched him dismember Hannibal-masked Anthony Hopkins in mind, Edward thought he would have done very well in a more macabre time in history.

A half hour before seven, when James planned to strike, Edward and Emmett went back to Forks. Edward stayed focused in James's thoughts to watch his every move. James had backed Bella into a corner of rocks, miles from where her friends made camp. Victoria and Laurent were not far behind him, pleased to watch as an appetizer to Forks teen party brûlé.

Alice went first, confusing them with her speed, but James was determined and threw Bella backwards hard. Her head made contact with stone with a sound so satisfying to James that Edward itched to rip his penis off. She was unconscious, unable to run, but James made double sure, stepping on her tibia. But his movements were frazzled. He was confused and he was scared. When he got his first clear look at Alice, Edward was shocked by what he saw.

The little mental girl, James thought and then Edward got bursts of images – Alice with even shorter hair, in a padded white room, Alice screaming, Alice being held down on a table, electrodes on her forehead, rubber guard in her mouth, Alice's eyes, wide, a shocking bright blue, Alice's short nails digging into her damp, red skin – all marinated in the same sickening lust from James. Edward gagged and sent Emmett a few minutes early, unable to leave his tiny little sister alone on the battlefield.

Emmett caught Laurent from behind, like he'd hoped to. He grabbed the other vampire's hair for leverage, jumped on to his shoulders and pulled and—pop! Off his head came, like a Barbie doll. At this, Victoria ran, Jasper fifteen seconds behind her. When Edward arrived, Alice was throwing James's dismembered feet to the side while Emmett punched him steadily in the neck. Edward went directly to Bella.

The smell of her blood filled every dry vein, but it was unimportant – this was not about his hunger, this was about her life. He lifted her carefully into his arms, so small and fragile, like he remembered holding a baby bird when he was a child. He studied her face for a moment, debating taking her to Carlisle or simply to where her friends could take care of her, when she opened her eyes. Just for a moment, but long enough to furrow her brow and smile at him. It felt like his heart beat.

He ran with her to the campsite. Jacob Black was pacing the parameter of the clearing, instincts raging, but too embarrassed to worry about what was probably a private walk in the woods to search for her. Edward set her down several feet from him, rustled some dry leaves and skipped to the top of a nearby Maple to make sure they did their jobs.

"Bella!" Jacob shouted. A boy called Tyler pulled his phone from his pocket. A girl called Angela and boy called Ben went to Bella and helped Jacob lift her. A boy called Mike took his car keys in hand and rushed ahead to start the engine. Edward followed closely behind them until Bella was being prepared for surgery. Edward broke a chair handle waiting – thank god Carlisle was taking over as chief because the hospital fell apart in an emergency. Still, Bella was going to be fine – Edward could hear her strong, steady heartbeat until his family left for Anchorage.

Back at the Park, Emmett and Alice were preparing a fire. Two piles of body parts sat behind them. In James's pile, a hand sat on top like a crown, flexing in and out of a fist. Edward smirked. Good. He hoped his brain, crushed and imbedded with pieces of skull, could still feel every break and tear of his body.

"Jasper's still not back," Alice said. "He chased Victoria as far as Seattle and lost her in the freeways. He's on the way back."

Edward checked. "About fifteen minutes He's terrified for you." Remembering James's memories of Alice, he wanted to hold her, to help her somehow, a hundred years too late, but now was not the time.

"I'm sorry about Victoria," Emmett said. He stoked the fire with one of Laurent's arms, then broke it in two and threw them in.

Edward shrugged and helped dispose of Laurent in the flames. "She was a toy to him. If she tries anything again, I'll kill her. If not—live and let—"

"The little bitch run away," Emmett said.

"Like a carrot from a stew," Alice finished cheerfully.

"Hey!" a deep voice called. Damn kids think they can put fires wherever they please, like the rules are just a sheet of paper they can burn up in their safety hazards, the park ranger thought and then came around the corner, gray hair and round body, uniform buttons pulling at their holes. "What do you just think you're doing, kids? You can't keep a fire up here! Probably thought there weren't ramifications, but—now—" The ranger looked dizzy and everyone turned to see Jasper come from behind them.

"I think we can let this fire burn itself out," Jasper said slowly, patting the ranger on the shoulder. "Don't you? We'll watch it."

The ranger nodded and stuttered his way back down the hill. They waited until the little pieces of James and Laurent were charred through. The ranger came back three more times, but Jasper just calmed him back the other direction. The fourth time he returned, the fire was put out and steaming and those pale, meddling kids were gone.

September 2005

Bella heard him before she saw him for the first time. "I'm Edward Cullen. Hello, everyone." It was a velvet voice, like a whisper of music. She looked up and gasped. His amber eyes went straight to her and their gazes connected.

"Where are you from, Edward?" said Mr. Varner, staring at his fingernails and rapping a pencil on his desk.

Los Angeles, Bella thought. He was a model moved to Forks to reconnect to the simple things in life. No, he was too pale to be from all that sunlight. But then look at herself. She certainly didn't look like an Arizona native.

"Alaska," the beautiful boy corrected her, smiling crookedly, as if he knew her thoughts.

Bella had been mortified after Mr. Varner made her introduce herself to the class last winter, but Edward looked perfectly at ease as he walked between the desks of staring faces. Next to Bella, Jessica was almost purple, watching Edward's every movement slack-jawed. As Edward came closer to her, Bella noticed he'd chosen a full isle to walk down, nowhere to sit. Once again, Bella would have been mortified, but Edward was calm.

"Is this desk taken?" he asked her directly and Bella almost stood up to give him her seat when she realized he was pointing at the empty desk next to her.

"N-no—" she said. But he couldn't get into the seat on this side. He'd have to go all the way back down her isle and up the next one to—but instead he jumped elegantly over the desk and slipped into the seat in one, fluid movement. A few of the boys around them clapped or whistled, but Edward only shrugged and took a notebook from his bag.

Bella watched his long fingers form around a pen, the blue veins in his hand, the smooth line of this thumbnail.

Jacob, she thought, forcefully. Bella had a wonderful boyfriend. And even as Edward glanced at her and smiled again, she knew someone like him would never give her the time of day, anyway.

Calculus was torture. It was all she could do not to stare at him outright, so focusing on the class was completely out of the question. Thankfully, Mr. Varner only called on her once and ignored her irrational answer. Edward seemed to be paying no more attention, clearly wasn't taking notes, but answered all of Mr. Varner's questions without even looking up.

When the bell rang, Bella was grateful to finally escape him, but Jessica stepped in.

"Edward," she called and ran him down in the hallway. "I'm Jessica. I was wondering, since you're new here and all, if you wanted to sit with me and my friends at lunch."

Edward squinted at Jess and then moved his gaze down the hall to Bella. "I have a big family," he said, still staring at Bella. For her part, Bella couldn't move, couldn't look away from him.

Jessica giggled. "We have big tables! I insist. Everyone can come." Edward still stared at Bella and Jessica finally noticed. She turned and gestured Bella forward. "Come on, Bella! What are you doing? Edward's going to sit with us at lunch."

Bella lurched forward and almost tripped over her feet, and Edward finally smiled and walked with them towards the cafeteria.

Jessica grabbed her arm and hissed, "Seriously, what are you doing? You have a boyfriend, so leave the new boy for us poor, single girls." She smiled hugely at Edward and swung her arm with Bella's so they looked something like jovial schoolchildren.

"Oh, Edward—" Jessica said as they entered the cafeteria and let go of Bella's arm to grab Edward's. Bella wanted to rip Jessica's hair out, but that was foolish so she ignored the impulse. Jessica should talk to Edward. They would make a great couple.

The table parted like the red sea as Edward led his brothers and sisters toward them. They were the most stunning group of people Bella had ever seen outside of a Hollywood movie. How incredibly gorgeous were their parents? And how did they manage to have four high school-aged children?

Edward diligently answered everyone's questions. Carlisle and Esme Cullen actually had five high school-aged foster children. Absent Emmett was a freshman at Dartmouth. Rosalie and Jasper, strikingly blond compared to Edward and Alice, were twins. No one else was related, but there was an obvious intimacy between them all. Bella wondered how long they had been a family, how young they were when the Cullens took them in.

The Cullens didn't eat anything off their trays, but Bella could tell that she was the only one that noticed. Poking at the congealing cheese of her mini-pizza, Bella couldn't blame them.

Although they were all unusually aloof, everyone in the cafeteria was smitten, star struck. Bella wanted to believe she saw this like an anthropologist, but every time looked at her, Bella felt it down to her fingertips.

That thought helped. This wasn't anything serious. Edward was hot – he was beautiful – that was undeniable. Jacob would have reacted the same way to the dazzling Rosalie.

She'd just avoid him until she got used to him and then—well. She'd just avoid him.

Of course, they were both in A.P. Biology and of course she was the only one without a lab partner. When she glanced at the door and saw him, big and glowing beautiful in the doorway, she was unreasonably thrilled that the year before, she wouldn't let Mike abandon Angela to help her catch up. "Hello, again," he said as he approached, and smiled.

"Hello," she said.

"Mr. Banner told me I should sit with you."

"Smart man," she said and he chuckled. No! she thought. No flirting.

Mr. Banner passed out a worksheet with an assignment to diagram and label a cell and its organelles, then characterize their functions. It was review from the last section of basic biology, a test to make sure everyone could handle the workload. Simple, for Bella, and she was prepared to finish it quickly and share credit with Edward, but he pulled the sheet away from her before she was finished with half the organelles.

"Very good," he said with a raised eyebrow. Had he expected less?

A little annoyed, Bella took the sheet back and labeled the rest of the organelles. When she looked back at Edward, he was leaning his head on his hand and giving her that crooked grin. Bella shivered. Then she tried to laugh it off and moved the worksheet to the middle of the desk. "So, what does the cytoskeleton do?" she asked.

Edward moved his hand to the sheet. Bella moved to give him her pen, but he just outlined the curve of the cell with his pointer finger. Their hands were less than an inch apart. Instead of feeling body heat, Bella felt cold, like dry ice. Like a cool glass of water.

"It's the internal framework of the cell," he said.

"Made out of filaments," Bella continued, and wrote it down.

"It's responsible for the maintenance of cell shape—"

"Cell division, fixing on to other cells—"

"Cell movement… chromosome movement—"

"Cytoplasm movement—I think that's it."

"Yes," he said. Bella looked up. They'd moved closer together in talking and now their noses were no farther apart than their hands. His face was cool, too. "That's it."

The options were to kiss him or move away. So Bella leapt the other direction, overbalancing off her chair. Edward stood and wrapped an arm around her waist, steadying her. There was silence and then Mike laughed, used to Bella's clumsiness, and the rest of the class joined in.

"I'm sorry," Edward said softly and sat down again. For what? she wanted to ask, for being so beautiful? but couldn't make her throat work. Thank goodness because that would have been slightly embarrassing.

Mr. Banner walked by their table and looked at the worksheet. "Bella, do you think you could let Edward do some of the work?"

"He is!" Bella said, her voice squeaky. She cleared her throat. "I mean, he knows it. We're doing it together." Mr. Banner looked to Edward.

He shrugged. "I like biology," he said with a glance at Bella. She body felt an innuendo even if there wasn't one. "And I was in an advanced placement course in Alaska."

"Well, good you two are lab partners then," Mr. Banner said and walked to another table.

It took another five minutes to complete the worksheet and the people on either side of them hadn't finished labeling. It was awful. Why hadn't Bella stretched out their working time? The last thing she wanted to do was spend a half hour talking to Edward about their real lives. Okay, maybe it wasn't the last thing she wanted to do. That was the problem.

Maybe it would be a half hour of not talking and trying not to stare, instead.

"Have you always lived in Forks?" No such luck.

"No. I moved here about eight months ago. Um. From Phoenix. Arizona."

Crooked grin. "That's a big change. You've lost your tan."

"I never—um." Talking about her body made Bella incredibly uncomfortable. "Yeah, big change. Forks isn't such a big change from Alaska, huh? I mean, wet and cold there, too."

"That's true. Why did you leave Arizona? Your father's the police chief here, has been for a while."

"How did you know that?"

He shrugged. "Small town. Carlisle – my father – has taken a position at the hospital. Chief Swan has frequent reason to be there."

"Oh. Of course."

"Did you live with your mother in Phoenix?" They talked easily for the rest of the class. Bella found herself explaining her mother's marriage to her father, Renée's marriage to Phil, her life in Phoenix, how much she hated living in Forks sometimes – things she had only told Jacob and not until after months of dating him. Not until after he'd told her a very big secret about himself.

"I have a boyfriend!" she said, non sequitur.

Edward cocked his head to the side. "I know. Jacob Black. He's a Quileute, lives in La Push, two years younger than you, really hot, really big."

"Um. Yeah."

"Your friend Jessica told me." Edward chuckled. "I was hoping we could be friends."

Friends. Of course he wanted to be friends. Bella should be grateful that he was interested in her enough to even be her friend, to talk to her during lulls in biology instruction.

"Oh, right. Of course we can be friends."

Bella was staring down at her hands, but Edward lifted her chin with a swift stroke of his finger. "I'm sure a lot of guys want to be your friend, Bella. But I'll really try not to overstep my bounds." He smiled. She blinked at him.

The bell rang with Mr. Banner shouting that the students could take the night to finish the worksheet if it was on his desk first thing in the morning. Bella put her notebook in her bag, her bag on her shoulder, her feet on the floor and out into the hallway, but her mind was on Edward's words.

He wanted her. That's what he said, wasn't it? The most gorgeous guy in the world wanted her, but he respected she was with someone else and wouldn't do anything about it.

He was the perfect man.

Bella never would have told Jacob this, but he didn't give her a chance. "There were new kids at school today," she said. "They're named—"

"Cullen," he spit out. "They're vampires. Could you tell? I hear the bloodsuckers have an aura. You know, cold. Dark."

"What?" Lucky Bella was standing in front of the couch in her living room because she fell backwards on to it. Her mind was spinning. Vampires. Edward was a vampire. Of course he was. His skin, his voice, his face, the way he jumped over the desk, stopped her from falling, didn't eat at lunch. Jacob sat down on the couch and put a hand on her forehead, as if he could tell if she had a fever. Edward was a vampire.

He didn't want her, he wanted to eat her. How was she so stupid? She probably wasn't even attracted to him, it was probably some kind of vampire allure, so he could get her close and eat her.

"Mmm," she said and crawled into Jacob's lap, tucked her head under his chin. "They're very cold and dark. Disgusting. How are you?"

Jacob chattered excitedly about his day of werewolf training – school in La Push didn't start for another two weeks – and Bella tried to keep her mind with him instead of cold skin and sharp teeth.

That night, she fell asleep right away and dreamt of vampires like Nosferatu, bat-like ears, black eye makeup, and garbage disposal mouth, chasing her through a mossy, green wood, to a rock wall. Something comforted her fears, wrapped around her like a blanket in reverse, cool and hard, a bed she never imagined could be so right.

Bella was rude to Edward the next day at school. His gaze was on the doorway as she walked into Calculus and he smiled. She raised her eyebrows at him – incredulous, she hoped she seemed, that they had any reason to interact. It seemed unfair that she should change her patterns to avoid him, that a vampire should be avoiding her, should be avoiding anything as human as high school (did it give him pleasure to befriend his victims before he murdered them?), but she chose a seat in left front of the classroom instead of the one next to him she'd taken yesterday.

When Jessica came in, she looked confused and then pleased. She bent down and whispered, "Thank you," as she passed and took the seat next to Edward. Bella turned to see him smile and nod politely to Jessica's words, his gaze still on Bella.

She was not exactly in a position to threaten a vampire, but she narrowed her eyes at him anyway. My boyfriend is a werewolf, you fucker, she tried to communicate. Don't think we won't notice if you eat my friend. If anything, Edward looked bemused. Did he really have no idea why she would be mad at him?

The night before, Jacob was surprised that she seemed so much more angry at than frightened of the vampires. She bit his collarbone and said, "How could I be scared with you on my side? You're so big and strong…" He was easily distracted, but she had to acknowledge when she couldn't sleep that her overwhelming emotion was betrayal. It was ridiculous. She had known the Cullens—Edward – if she was being honest, this had little to do with the rest of them. She had known him for one day and he had given her no reason to think he wasn't a serial killer. Nor should she especially care as long as he didn't hurt her or the people she loved.

And now she was annoyed that he didn't care. Look at him, paying attention to the lecture, writing in his notebook.

"Swan," Mr. Varner said. Bella turned 180 degrees to look at the teacher and blushed red when she realized she had been staring at Edward. Again.

She tried to smile. "Yes?"

"What are the co-ordinates of the stationary points?"

Bella looked at the blackboard. What in hell was a pt of inflection? "The—uh. Part of inflection?"

Mr. Varner sighed. "Right, well, the P T is a point of inflection, Swan, so we have to check the gradient at either side—"Bella stopped listening and concentrated on not looking at Edward again just because Mr. Varner was on the other side of the room harassing someone else.

She didn't last long.

When she looked this time, Edward was looking back. Ha! He did care. Bella was gratified. Or maybe he was just freaked out by her behavior. Good, in that case. He'd best be on edge with her sexy boyfriend on the watch for him.

Bella expected a confrontation at lunch, but he slipped past Jessica at the end of class – "Where did he go? Why would he run away?" – and by the time she entered the cafeteria, Edward and his family were sitting at a table in the western-most corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where Jessica had invited them to sit as possible.

She patted Jessica's shoulder. "He's a stuck-up idiot, Jess. Just avoid him."

She carefully positioned herself so she was facing him with his back to her. She could look at him surreptitiously and if he wanted to look at her, he'd be in the awkward position. Half way through lunch, she realized she was following a pattern Jessica set when she broke up with Mike. It had been annoying then and Bella had no good reason to do it. Why was she so obsessed with an attractive vampire?

They didn't have to interact much in Biology, but when they did, she made a fool of herself. "Stop it!" she said, loudly, but not, she noticed with a glance around the room, loudly enough for anyone else to notice.

"What?" Was there pain in his voice? "What did I do?"

"Stop making me think about you! Turn off your allure, or whatever."

Edward narrowed his eyes briefly and then chuckled and turned away. "I don't know what you're talking about. Silly Bella."

Bella scowled. "You're—silly." No. No. He was an evil vampire. She sighed. "I don't want us to be friends," she said firmly. "I don't like you."

He didn't look at her, but he nodded. "That's for the best. So, what's the major difference between plant and animal cells?" Bella only stared at him, surprised in the change in conversation. He looked at her for the briefest moment. "Do you want Mr. Banner to assign me another partner? Of course, I'll—" He stood up.

"No, it's fine. Sorry. Plant cells have walls, composed of cellulose, which makes the cell rigid and makes a plant grow stiff and big—" She blushed. Edward smiled. "Tall. Tall plants. Like trees.

Edward sat down slowly, watching her, then nodded. "Plastids, like chloroplast, which is used in photosynthesis and gives plants their color." He wrote it all down.

"Vacuoles," she said. "And animals have centrioles."

And then they were done. No one else was. Cue the awkward not talking and not, not staring. This was better. Bella distracted herself by thinking about seeing Jacob after his training tonight.

"This probably will not be on the A.P. test," Edward said. "But it probably will be on the SAT II if you're thinking about taking those."

"How do you know?" she said before she remembered he'd probably taken both those tests before. Many times before, maybe.

"Books. My sister and I got some prep books."

She smirked at him before she could stop herself. "Right."

Edward smiled back placidly. "Right."

Alice was annoyed at him. "You need to do something about this thing with Bella Swan," she said as she walked into the main room and sat down on the piano bench next to him.

"What do you want me to do, Alice?" he said, scribbling a few notes in the margin of the third bar of the bridge of this—thing. Lullaby, perhaps. "I have to leave or—kill her. Or leave it as is, in limbo. I'm sorry. Are you seeing—"

"You're much less likely to kill her than you think," she said, playing the left hand's part of the piece, too quickly. "Mostly I see you rip off all her clothes and lick—"

"That's plenty, Alice, thank you," he said quickly, but he saw it all in Technicolor, anyway. He hit Mr. Varner firmly on the head and settled him behind his desk, ushered the other students out of the room, laid Bella down on their lab table, ripped the red shirt she wore today down the middle, buttons showering to the floor, and tore off her bra between the cups, settling her screams with his mouth until she was moaning…

"She has a crush on me, Alice," he groaned, hiding his face in his hands.

"Then ask her on a date—"

"I can't! I would drink her dry if we had a moment alone and she's dating someone besides. She's in love with him, I think, although I don't know because I can't hear her, and he's certainly in love with her and a very decent young man. A little young for her, perhaps, but by two years instead of eighty-six, Alice! It's impossible. She said she didn't want to be my friend and she shouldn't – that's simple instinctual reaction to a predator, healthy, and I never should have encouraged a friendship, but really she's just mad at me because she's attracted to me while she's involved with Jacob Black—who's a descendent of the Quileute werewolves, by the way—I can't bare to read his thoughts, not since we arrived here. And that's good – that she'd mad at me, I mean, because it keeps her away from me, but I don't want her away, I want her here."

When he finally looked back to her, Alice was watching him with sad eyes. "I don't know what to do."

"Put up with my pathetic longing. Again, I'm sorry." Edward began to play the right hand's part to his piece and Alice joined in with the left. Perhaps he should distract himself with arranging it for four hands when he was finished with it – but no. He would always want to be able to play this alone. Perhaps he would arrange Beethoven's Sonata No. 23 for four hands, instead.

"She will hear this one day," Alice said confidently. "And she will love it."

Alice's mind was clear, only thoughts identical to her words. "You don't see that."

"I don't have to."

It went on like that for a month. He missed one day of school, a sunshiny blue day, and Bella felt antsy, missing his face and their stilted conversation. Edward was annoyingly helpful and clever in their classes together, sometimes caught her staring at him, and left her alone, just like she wanted. In fact, the vampires left everyone alone. Bella worried sometimes that they were planning a grand massacre, but she tried not to ask Jacob about it or bring up Edward at all. She was sure he would see how interested she was and she didn't want him to know she was interested in anyone else, let alone his immortal enemy.

Jacob mentioned the Cullen family frequently, describing their many disarming powers, theorizing that the werewolf gene was stimulated to prepare for their arrival, that it was a sign that the vampires were going to attack violently in some big way – although he'd used a different word. He and his pack brothers had only said, "vampire" to her maybe three times total, but "bloodsucker" and "leech" felt too derogatory for her to use herself.

"Do you talk to them?" he'd said once and although she tried to ignore her boyfriend until he was finished musing on logistics, Bella couldn't disregard a direct question.

"Not really." She was thankful she could be honest. "One of them is my lab partner."

Jacob exploded – literally. Thankfully, he realized his lacking control early and ran out the door before the transformation. A few minutes later, he walked back inside quickly and pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry. You let a leech work with you every day? How could you not tell me?"

"It's not exactly letting," she said into his arm, where her face was pressed. "I couldn't go to Mr. Banner and tell him I felt uncomfortable working with a vampire, could I?" Bella remembered Edward's offer to do nearly that and was grateful Jacob couldn't see her face. "Besides, nothing happened."

"Something could happen." He gave her several rapid, hard kisses on her head. "He wants you. How could he not? Maybe that's why I'm a werewolf now. To protect you from some stalking leech." At the reminder of his own strength, Jacob loosened his hold and Bella squirmed into a cooler, more comfortable position.

"I'm sure he doesn't want me." She pressed her palm to his heart and stroked his hot skin to the steady rhythm. Edward's skin was so cold. She wondered how he would hold her.

How long it would take him to kill her once he had her in his arms?

Her most personal conversation with Edward happened on her birthday. She made sure not to tell anyone about it. She had never been excited when people made a big deal about the day she was born, but knowing Jacob wouldn't age for years, decades or centuries, even made her especially sensitive to the day. Charlie, of course, told Billy about it, and Billy told Jacob, who made her promise to come over and let him give her something. At first, he'd tried for a party, but Bella insisted that was out of the question.

When she walked into Biology that afternoon, she was expecting Emily would make a big dinner and Jacob would give her something small.

Edward was already sitting when she sat down and he smiled at her. He was unfailing polite and didn't question her blank stare now. The rest of the class went the same as usual, but in the last few minutes, when they had nothing to do, he said, "Happy birthday," as she bent away from him to pack her bag.

She cracked her back straightening up to look at him. "What?" He looked surprised that he'd said it, too.

"Happy—um, do you know Mrs. Cope? In the main office? She keeps track of everyone in the school like we'll all fall apart if she plays a game of solitaire and she mentioned that it was your birthday. It's—" He paused for a moment, his eyes focusing behind her. "Jasmine Papp's birthday, too."

"Oh. Thank you, I guess. But I still don't like you. And I don't like my birthday."

"Why haven't you told anyone? Eighteen. You're an adult." He pronounced it the British way – aah-dult – and Bella ground the tip of her pencil into the desk.

"Because I don't like it. Not that it's any of your concern."

"You're right," he said, turning away from her. "I'm sorry."

Although his expression was serene, she could tell that she had hurt him – bizarre – and wanted to apologize – double bizarre.

Mike, of course, heard the whole exchange and made her stand up and hug him, thus inspiring the entire class to congratulate her through the bell. When they let her go and Bella turned to collect her things, there was a little bouquet of wildflowers on her desk, held together with a brown satin ribbon. White, violet and yellow, still glistening with dew drops. She turned to Edward to ask if he'd seen who put it there, or if it had been Edward himself – wishful thinking, and idiotic to boot – but he was already gone. It was probably Eric Yorkie. His cousin Mathilda was in the Biology class, two seats away from her.

Bella had never liked the idea of giving flowers. Men frequently gave Renée bouquets when they first met her and were charmed by her spontaneity and vibrancy. Weeks after she frightened them away, Bella would have to throw the dead blossoms away and rinse dirty water out of the vases. This mysterious present made her smile, however, and she hung it from her rearview mirror.

Charlie told her it was a traffic hazard. Jacob asked her who'd given them to her, with badly feigned nonchalance and she assured him she'd picked them herself. In truth, she had no idea where those delicate little flowers could be found in Forks. Appeased, Jacob told her the ribbon was the same color as her eyes. "Was that why you picked it?" he asked and she wondered if whoever had given them to her could had noticed something like that.

Alice Cullen and Rosalie Hale passed by her car while she was cleaning out fast food trash from the backseat one afternoon and Alice started jumping up and down on Rosalie's delicate shoulder, grinning and staring at approximately her rearview mirror. Bella frowned and wondered again if the flowers were from Edward, and cursed or something, but more likely Alice was a little crazy.

End notes:

1) According to the Twilight Lexicon (here: /?pageid9), the baseball game and James' group find Bella on March 13. In chapter 12, Edward says they come to Forks because they knew the Cullens are there and they're curious, but I'm saying that they knew because of the treaty, or maybe were interested in the treaty itself, going against it, and the treaty is exactly the same in this universe.

2) James and co. killing a man in a fishing boat is taken from the teaser featurette. I think they're killing the mysterious Waylon Forge, friend of Charlie's in that dock scene, but in this universe, Charlie didn't know this person well.