Disclaimer: It is safe to assume that I am not Stephenie Meyer. The only thing Twilight-related I own are copies of the books and the DVD.

A/N: Many thanks to Bridget, Staysa, Ciara, and Katie for beta services, input, idea bouncing, summary help, and for sparking the evil plot bunnies in my head.

I have never written this type of story before so I'm a little nervous about the response it will get. And when I say "this type of story" I mean the fact that the characters are vampires and it contains slash.

Summary: Edward Cullen always thought that he was meant to be alone. When a new person comes to town, he realizes that love doesn't have boundaries. Love is unconditional. And sometimes love is unconventional. AU-SLASH

Prologue

Decade after decade the world has shifted and evolved around me. When you have been on this earth for as long as I have, you note all the changes around you. I've been a constant observer, watching events shape and change others around me. During this time I have fought with my inner demons over what I had become. The changes that I had been forced to make had not been lost on me. Sometimes a change is thrust upon you. Other times it is so gradual that you don't even realize that it happened. The two biggest changes in my life were both different. Both were painful in their own ways, and each mutated my personality and life.

The first change brought me inner turmoil for years. When I was seventeen, I lay dying in an infirmary in Chicago from the Spanish Influenza. My doctor whispered soft words into my ear that I can not remember. I recalled the pain at my neck that swiftly coursed throughout my body, torturing me painfully for three full days.

I wished for death to claim me.

If I had only known how accurately true my wish would become. I woke up in a room with the doctor staring pensively at me. I was different now, I knew that for certain, but I didn't understand why or how.

Although I couldn't see myself, I could feel the change in my body. The way my skin felt. The way my throat burned. I felt things I didn't quite understand.

The doctor tried to explain that he did what he did to save me. I never understood that statement since we were really dead. I could still talk, walk, and think. I could breathe, but I didn't actually have a need to. I had no need for food. My skin was now hard as stone and cold as ice. My heart no longer beat rhythmically in my chest. It lay there dormant, taking up residency in my body along with all the other organs that no longer functioned. Blood did not flow through my veins. My blood had been replaced with venom when I was bitten. The venom would slowly take over and forever change its victim.

I loathed the venom that flowed through the hard shell of my body almost as much as I loathed myself.

I understood now what the doctor meant about saving me. I had been forced to decide between two dreadfully, horrible choices, one no better than the other. I could choose to permanently lose the one person that I loved most in the entire world. I could watch them breathe their last breath. They would be buried deep in the cold, dark ground and I would never get to see their beautiful face again. Or I could save them like the doctor had saved me.

Now eighty-eight years later I sat watching a loved one writhe in pain and agony much the same way I had all those years ago. And it was my fault because I was the one that had been forced to turn him.

A/N: I'm a self confessed Review Whore, so if you liked it, please let me know.