A/N: I've been waiting a long time to publish this one. Enjoy!

Previously: Edward was planning to take Bella deep into the woods for a romantic afternoon. Alice thought this was an incredibly stupid idea.

From Twilight Chapter 13: Confessions

There's a Hole in My Heart That Can Only Be Filled by You

"So those cookies you were baking this morning…" Edward said, trying for any little distraction to keep his mind from focusing on the fact that the most delicious-smelling human he'd ever encountered was willingly following him into a secluded part of the forest, miles away from anyone who could help her or even hear her scream. Damn it, stop thinking that!

"Hamantaschen," Bella answered. It had taken her most of the morning, mixing, shaping, and baking the tri-cornered, fruit-filled cookies, completely oblivious to how disgusting it all smelled to the predator boyfriend helping her prepare them. On the plus side (or not), Bella cooked with oil instead of dairy, so her body wasn't permeated with a nauseating butterfat smell. "They're supposed to resemble the hat Haman wore."

"I don't remember that part of the story," Edward said, thinking back to the Masen family Bible, the one his mother kept. The book of Esther, as he remembered it, didn't exactly go into specific clothing details, at least not about the villain Haman, though it did have a number of things to say about ladies' fashions. It was kind of odd for a religious text, now that he really thought about it.

"My people keep our own history," Bella reminded him. "You're going to have to trust that we know it better than you."

"Ouch," Edward smirked. "Defensive much?"

"You might be, too," she replied, stepping over a moss-covered rock, "if missionaries and Bible-campers were constantly going on about how you'd been misinterpreting your own holy books for thousands of years. It usually starts with little remarks about how it's different in their version."

"My apologies," Edward said, raising a hand to steady Bella as she took a hazardous step. Wouldn't want her scraping her hands up trying to break a fall. "Will you tell me how the story really goes?"

"Tonight," Bella said. "If you come with me to the Purimshpiel. Then you'll hear it all."

"Where?" Edward asked carefully. As a general rule, he never entered holy places of any kind unless it was for a Cullen family wedding—his way of respecting that which other people thought sacred.

"It got moved to Dr. Stein's house," Bella said. She didn't realize it, but it was actually because of her that the location was changed. Once Charlie told Dr. Stein that Bella had been mugged in Port Angeles, Dr. Stein started making phone calls. "You'll need a costume. I know it's short notice, but—"

"I've got something."

Bella smiled. "You're ready for anything."

"I've had the same costume for thirty-eight years."

"Wow," Bella replied. Since my mother was born. "I bet you have a lot of old stuff."

"One of the downfalls of seven immortals sharing a household rather than living as empty-handed nomads," Edward said, "is that we're natural packrats."

"Is it sentimentality, or a Depression-era thing?" Bella wondered.

"Some of it is nostalgia for our past, but mostly we're just bored," Edward admitted. "Except for Esme, my mother. Old furniture and homes are, as your generation would say, her thing."

"Antique lover?" Bella guessed.

"She's the one who pitched Antiques Roadshow to PBS."

"You people just have your fingers in everything, don't you?" Bella laughed.

Edward stopped ahead of her, and she paused before a field of new-grown grass and tiny shoots. Eventually it would be a gorgeous field of flowers, but it was only March. Still, Bella could appreciate the potential for something beautiful to happen here.

Then she realized the young man in front of her was taking off his shirt.

"What are you doing?" Bella said. Not that she minded doing this kind of thing, but she preferred doing it a lot closer to civilization, and with some advanced notice. A guy taking her all the way out to the middle of nowhere and disrobing without warning set off an alarm.

Edward, smelling the sudden surge of adrenaline behind him, stopped. "I'm not going to try anything, Bella. I just wanted to keep my promise."

"What promise?"

Without another word, he stepped into the brightness of the clearing.

Edward in the sunlight was shocking.

Also: stupid. Guffaw-inducingly stupid.

And painful to the eyes.

And (Bella didn't mean it as a pejorative, but an accurate description) the single gayest thing she had ever seen. Gayer than her mom's brother in the stunningly beautiful "it-was-just-for-a-gong-show-I-swear" drag queen outfit that nearly got him written out of her grandparents' will. He'd promised to give it to Bella if she ever grew tall enough to wear it. Bella could almost hear Uncle Maurice's voice in her head chiding Edward for excessive use of body glitter: there's flamboyant, and there's tacky…guess which one you are, princess?

More than anything, Bella wanted to avoid hurting Edward's feelings. It took courage for him to show her this, and she respected that. She even tried to tell herself it was beautiful, seeing him like this. But the effort she exerted to keep from laughing her ass off was nothing short of Herculean. She found it very taxing.

"You remind me of the Mona Lisa right now," Edward whispered. "What's that smile?"

Not trusting herself to answer, Bella gave a small shake of her head, thankful that her mind was guarded without effort so she could concentrate on keeping a reasonably straight face. They sat down together in the sun, just staring, not because they liked staring, but because they had no clue what to say to each other. This whole thing was just freaking weird.

Unfortunately, Edward was too impatient for a reaction to give Bella the time she needed to process what was in front of her. "Will you please tell me what you're thinking?"

Another shake of the head, this one more emphatic.

"Hideous, right?"

Bella shut her eyes and swallowed louder than she meant to, feeling her neck get sore from having to shake it so much. Don't say it, don't say it, do NOT say 'fabulous.'

Edward sighed. The fact that Bella was trying so hard not to look at him and the way her pulse sped along were proof enough for him that she couldn't really handle this. "I knew this was a terrible idea."

"Does it hurt?" she finally managed, peeking at him through one barely opened eyelid. What if I'm laughing at this poor guy and all the while he's burning and just not saying anything? What kind of horrible person am I?

"No," he reassured her. "It's just…warm."

Thus Edward awoke Bella's inner science nerd, at which point she immediately opened both eyes and began peppering Edward with questions and asking to touch his face. The idea that his skin "sparkled" like a diamond was a romantic notion, but ultimately a useless one to Bella's mind. It was far more interesting to speculate on whether he was made of organic or inorganic carbon, and if his skin was composed of actual diamond. It made more sense for venom to slightly alter the existing carbon in a carbon-based life form than to magically change the carbon into silica. Perhaps he'd somehow undergone a chemical transformation into the radioactive carbon-14, an element with a five thousand year half-life that would explain his longevity.

This girl, the one who asked intelligent questions, not a silly one who just stared and stared and had nothing of substance to offer…this was the girl Edward could spend the rest of his life with, or at least the rest of hers.

And he'd been keeping so much from her that the shame of hiding had, to his mind, finally exceeded the shame of what he was hiding.

"Bella, please," Edward said quietly, stopping her before she could get too excited. "There are things I should tell you. Things I've done that I'm not proud of."

Torn, Bella lowered her hand, wondering what could make Edward hang his head so low, but also wanting to grant him the same privacy she wished for herself.

"You're allowed to have secrets," she said with difficulty.

"You have a right to know." He took a breath, inhaling not only the fresh air, not only the scent of the finest meal the universe had to offer, but also the scent of the only person he'd ever loved. It was complicated, but he tried to find strength in the conflict. "I wasn't always…dedicated…at least, not in the way I am now…to preserving human life."

Bella's breath hitched. In a few moments more her heart would be racing, but first she had just enough sense to say one thing: "Explain."

"There was a time," he began, ever mindful of how easily this could all come crashing down on him, "about ten years after I was changed, when I didn't want to feed from animals anymore. Carlisle's way seemed unnatural to me, a violation of the natural order of things. But I didn't want to hurt innocent people," he added quickly. "I never, ever wanted to do that."

Bella kept her eyes trained on Edward, where his hands were, his breathing. She could only nod for him to continue.

"That night, in Port Angeles," he said, by way of explanation, "what happened to you…that's the kind of thing I hear in my head all the time, especially in large cities. One night I heard a man planning to do unspeakable things to his daughters. The way he pictured it…" Edward shuddered. "I decided, much like you said to me, that there was more than one way to be evil. Knowing what I knew and being in a position to stop it, I decided it would be a greater evil for me to do nothing."

"So you…" Bella croaked, her mind fairly scrabbling now. "You killed him."

"I did," Edward admitted, not moving at all, lest he frighten Bella away.

Bella held up a hand to silence him, to give herself time to think. Edward was a vampire, and only an idiot would assume he'd never fed on a human being even once in a century. Bella was not an idiot.

"He was the first."

"The first?" Bella hissed, one hand rushing up to cover her mouth. "How many were there?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" Edward asked. He was pretty sure he didn't want to tell her.

"Um…" Bella gave herself a few seconds to think that through, and came to the conclusion that a specific number would only freak her out more. "Not really. But…how many years did you do this?"

"Three years, four months, and six days," Edward answered. "But I did not hunt every night. I didn't hunt any more often than normal."

Bella didn't want to ask what length of time was considered 'normal' for a vampire to go between killings. She allowed herself one second—just one—to close her eyes, and to remember fighting for her life in Port Angeles. "What about the people you saved?"

"What about them? You mean how many?" He had to think about that one. Some of his victims had been serial killers and serial rapists, black widows, and even a few pyromaniacs who got off on torching heavily populated buildings. "A few hundred souls."

That's a lot of people. "No, I mean who were they? What happened to them?"

Edward cocked his head to one side, considering this. "I don't know. It was so long ago, I assume most of them have passed away from old age by now. I only kept up with a handful."

"I see," Bella nodded. "So what you did…it wasn't really for the victims, was it?"

"It wasn't solely for them," Edward said. "At the time, I imbued my behavior with a lofty sense of moral purpose out of psychological necessity. I had to identify with the criminal, not the victim. That's a horrible psyche to share."

Bella thought about this, and about what she wanted to do with her life. "So you were like a criminologist?"

"In a way yes, but not quite. All I had to do was go to the right places and listen. I didn't have to worry about evidence, or corrupt judges, or the fact that a prison sentence wouldn't bring back someone's children, or even retaliation from the Mob. I knew with perfect conviction what would happen if I didn't intervene. So I did."

"Judge, jury, and executioner," Bella whispered. Placed in the same circumstances, without the gentle guidance of her monks and rabbi, she might have done the same thing. But she'd never had that much power, so how should she know anything about the line between using and abusing it?

Edward still couldn't meet Bella's gaze. "I was using vigilantism to justify my appetite."

Bella found her mouth asking a question without her brain's permission. "What was it like?"

"Which part?" Edward asked cautiously.

"Drinking from people," Bella's mouth carried on.

Edward looked at her wide eyes, the way her neck pulsed so rapidly, lips trembling. But there was something else in her face, something that made him think of iron, of fists and thunder and a secret history of knowing more strife than she let most people see. She can handle this.

"It was the single greatest physical pleasure I've ever known."

Bella's face was a stone. When she didn't interrupt, Edward decided to continue.

"Cocaine users describe their high as euphoria, increased alertness and energy, even a feeling of supremacy. That's exactly what it felt like for me. I was stronger than I'd ever been, faster…I even thought I was happier. That's how it was for about a year."

"And after a year?"

"It became less of a novelty," Edward recalled. "It was still a rush, but it wasn't quite the same. It wasn't exactly like real drugs; I couldn't just try a more concentrated dose. By the end of the second year, I wasn't feeding because of a rush or even a real desire to save people. It was like there was this cavity in my being that only one thing could ever fill. I drank human blood because I just wanted to feel normal."

"You were addicted," Bella realized.

"Very much so," Edward agreed. "And then, after a while, I started to notice that there were different flavors."

Bella shut her eyes. Do I really want to hear this?

"I'm sorry," Edward whispered. "We can stop."

"No," Bella insisted. "Go on." This was a conversation she only wanted to have once.

"Not everyone smells or tastes the same," Edward said. "Sometimes I would hear two different people thinking awful things. I'd smell them both, and I'd go after the one who seemed more…appealing. I told myself I was doing some good either way, so I kept on like that. But after a while the scent became more important than the severity of the crime, or even the certainty of it. If one already had the murder weapon, and the other was simply thinking about finding one, I would pick whoever smelled better to me. And sometimes, if there weren't two choices, just one person who hadn't quite made up his mind…" He sighed, looking away. "One day I realized that I was willing to tell myself anything, twist errant thoughts into a full-blown murder conspiracy, just to have an excuse to feed. I was no better than the people whose lives I took." Making sure to meet Bella's gaze, he said, "That's when I decided to go back to Carlisle and his way of life."

"I see." Bella swallowed, thinking. "And has it been hard for you?"

"Not a single relapse since 1931," Edward assured her. "Though at times I've been sorely tempted."

"By me," Bella stated quietly.

"By murderers," Edward corrected her. "Serial killers, rampage killers…there are entire countries I simply will not visit because of the sheer number of murderers there. I spent seventeen years trying to solve the Zodiac case. I was hesitant to move to Washington at all because the Green River Killer is incarcerated here. He's only an eight-hour drive away."

Bella restrained herself from saying the first thought to cross her mind: Probably ten hours in my truck. Instead she went with the second thought: "Where do I come in?"

After a few moments' hesitation, Edward explained, "Gary Ridgway and people like him induce a certain nostalgia. But you…you smell like everything I've ever craved. Your blood is my ambrosia, my Star Dust cocaine, my black tar heroin. You are my ultimate high."

At the enraptured look on Edward's face, Bella reached into the pocket of her sweater and quietly grasped what looked almost exactly like a cheap cell phone.

Edward, who noticed the movement, said, "I know what it is, Bella. It's okay."

"How is it okay?" Bella asked, carefully removing the object from her pocket.

"Because it means you care," Edward answered, and his face was different now. Sad, maybe. "You care enough about your own life to defend it, and you care enough about your family to want to make it home to them."

Bella armed the charge. "I really do."

"It also means," Edward added, listening to the faint electric whir, "that even though you know I'm dangerous, you cared enough about me to come here anyway and hear me out instead of just writing me off completely and hopping the next plane to Florida. And even though I know this must be terrifying for you, and you'll probably never speak to me again, I'm grateful that I got the chance to tell you the truth."

Bella could not help but feel touched by this. She did not, however, lower the weapon.

Edward wondered how this could possibly end well. Not just today, but every day after. All he could do was show her the lengths he was willing to go just to try.

Moving slowly, he placed both hands behind his back and lay down, face to the sky.

Closed his eyes.

"Do it."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Bella considered him lying there, shirtless and seemingly vulnerable. "You're not serious."

"Put it anywhere you want."

And sparkling. Don't forget sparkling. Glittery, flawless…downright fabulous.

"Anywhere?"

"Stick it in my mouth, even. Use your imagination."

And saying these things with a straight face.

"Edward, are you fucking with me?"

He peeked up at Bella through one eyelid. "Excuse me?"

Bella was full on giggling now.

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'What?'? Do you seriously not realize…"

Edward lifted his head and looked through both eyes. "Realize what?"

"What you're saying!"

"Which part?" Unable to resist a smile, he said, "The part where I sound like some silly, poorly written erotica?"

Bella's mouth dropped open a moment, and she smiled back. Shook her head at him.

Triggered a short burst on her Taser.

"Now, Bella," Edward said quickly.

"Oh, look who's taking me seriously all of a sudden."

"Of course I'm taking you seriously." He inched a little further away, trying not to be too obvious about it. "You're a serious individual."

"So I take it this would hurt, then?" Obviously it wouldn't kill him, or he wouldn't be treating it like a joke.

"Very much so."

Bella stared directly into Edward's eyes, and her smile disappeared. "Would it stop a vampire from hurting me?"

Edward stared back. "You mean me."

"Are you suddenly the only vampire in town?"

Edward shifted his eyes to the east, thinking of the news Alice had shared with him this morning after they'd spent most of the night leaving their scent in strategic places around Clallam County. There was a 95 percent chance that the nomads would be returning to Seattle, a four percent chance that they would remain in Port Angeles, and, thanks to his and Alice's Friday afternoon spent rolling in miles of dirt to leave a scent behind, only a one percent chance they would travel south, toward Forks. "Point taken."

"If I have to defend myself," Bella continued, "will this be enough to incapacitate a vampire?"

He looked at the little thing—surely it isn't more than 30,000 volts, right?—and at Bella, and thought about lightning, and Tesla coils, and the limitations of human reflexes.

"I have no idea. It's probably enough to cause an injury if the voltage is high enough, but that wouldn't necessarily stop a vampire so much as distract him."

"Is four million volts enough of a distraction?"

Edward's eyes fairly popped out of his head. "Where did you get that thing from, Death Row?"

"That sounds like a 'yes,'" Bella replied.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. I'm not even sure you'd be quick enough to use it in an emergency."

Bella sighed, lowering the Taser a fraction. "Well that sucks."

"Can you put it away now, please?" Edward asked politely.

Bella didn't take her eyes off him as she quietly disarmed the charge and returned the Taser to her pocket.

"Are there other vampires I should be worried about?" she asked him.

"Not as long as you're with me," he promised (foolishly). "We may encounter a few strangers from time to time, but our guests tend to respect our territory and hunt elsewhere."

This confused Bella. "You mean you're friends with vampires who eat people?"

"A few, yes, if you use the term 'friend' loosely. Mostly they're Carlisle's or Jasper's old acquaintances. We don't host an annual Christmas party for them. "

She shook her head. "You're going to have to explain that to me."

"Which part?"

"The part where you're friendly, or civil, or whatever, with vampires who routinely eat people."

It took a few moments for Edward to think of a way to put the situation in a way Bella might understand. "Say you have a dog," he began. "There are dogs all over town, but this one is yours. You love your dog, you would do anything to protect it, and you'd never, ever hurt it.

"There are other dogs in town, and some of them play with your dog, and you like them, but that same level of personal attachment isn't there. Likewise, you're aware that dogs exist everywhere and they have different personalities. Some of them have nice homes and some root through trash cans for food; some of them are friendly with other dogs and some of them fight other dogs. Occasionally the aggressive ones kill each other. This doesn't particularly concern you; it's just how dogs are, and it's not relevant to you unless the aggressive dog is a public danger or if he's attacking your dog.

"Now, you're a meat-eater. You eat beef, chicken, fish, and occasionally pork, but you don't eat dog meat. It would never occur to you to eat dog, nor would you expect it of the people around you, because where you live, dogs are pets. You certainly wouldn't eat your dog, because you love her so.

"If a person came into your town and ate your dog, you'd be outraged. If someone started rounding up the neighborhood strays and eating them, you'd likely be angry, but not as much as you would be if they got your pet. If it happened a few towns away or in another state, you'd be disgusted, say 'Oh, that's terrible,' and it might bother you for a while. But there are entire countries in which dog is a perfectly acceptable meal. You know this, but you don't care. You're aware that those people are culturally different than you, and you don't begrudge them their dinner. You don't know any of those people, you don't know their dogs, and what happens to those people and their dogs has no effect on you or your dog whatsoever. If you ever did travel to their lands and meet one of them, the first thing on your mind would not be, 'This person eats dogs.' Even if it did, that wouldn't stop you from befriending her."

"I see," Bella responded thoughtfully. "So between the dog metaphor and the drug addiction metaphor, you're a new pet-owner and a recovering drug addict, and I am…your dog who smells like crack?"

"I suppose so," Edward agreed reluctantly, thinking that maybe he needed to expend more effort coming up with better metaphors. "Although, just to clarify, what I feel for you goes well beyond what anyone feels for a pet."

"And while you personally choose not to feed from humans," Bella checked, "you don't actually care that other vampires do."

"In principle I do," Edward answered, "but in reality, it generally doesn't cross my mind unless I have a specific reason to ponder it, mostly if I know I'll be interacting with them. There are humans who feed on other humans, and I'm pretty sure you don't lose any sleep over it unless it happens in close proximity."

Bella had to admit this was true—she rarely thought about cannibalism except as a gruesome joke, and certainly not in terms of modern-day Americans. "Fair enough. What about your father? How does Carlisle fit into this?"

At this, Edward smiled. "He's a compassionate veterinarian originally from a country that serves dog meat every morning for breakfast."

"But I still don't understand," Bella said slowly. "How can you be so affected by humans murdering humans, but be so blasé about vampires killing humans?"

"I'm not blasé about it," Edward protested.

"Yes you are," Bella disagreed. "Unless you're going to tell me that when you were out hunting mass murderers, you killed off other vampires, too."

Edward looked up at a tree, not really seeing it. "Remember, in those days I was fulfilling my hunger, and that was all I really cared about. I didn't meet any other vampires, nor did I seek them out. I won't sit here and tell you I would have done this or that if I'd met one. What-if statements aren't truth. But," he added, "I can tell you that in my family, it's considered a great shame for anyone to lapse and kill a human."

"Hmm," Bella said, unhappy that this contradiction wasn't being resolved.

"Does every death you see on the news move you to tears?"

Bella shook her head no.

"When was the last time you executed a human for eating a hamburger because you felt sorry for the cow?" Edward asked.

She narrowed her eyes. "Now instead of a heroin-flavored dog, I'm a burger? I'm a cow?"

Leaning in closer and adopting a low, comically seductive voice, he answered, "Baby, you're filet mignon."

"Don't make me pull the Taser back out," Bella said, though the threat was spoken with a half-smile, which promptly melted into a frown. "I'm serious about this, Edward. Do you see me as a person like you, or as a lower animal?"

"I see you as the only woman I've ever loved," Edward said. Which he didn't intend to be an emotional manipulation or anything, though it could easily be construed that way by a girl who'd seen a series of men, including the abusive one, all claim they loved her mom, but had only known two ever to do something to try and prove it.

Bella had never been on the receiving end of someone else's love, not this kind, and she was not unaffected by Edward's declaration. She even believed it, or at least she wanted to. But years of watching her mother's romantic failures had given her the good sense to not let it derail the conversation. Also, not two minutes ago he'd used a dog metaphor to describe his feelings. "Answer the question," she prodded.

"As far as other humans," he sighed, unhappy that she hadn't said it back, "I suppose the real answer is that I see humans as something in between. Their thoughts make them so much more than just a lower animal species, and I'd give anything to be human, as would everyone else in my family. But my brain is hardwired to see them as something different than me. And after eighty years of looking at them as precious enough not to feed on but not precious enough to protect them from each other, my neutrality has warped my concept of what personhood even means anymore. Sometimes it takes work not to see them as Other. Sometimes it takes work to see myself as worthy of life."

Bella wasn't entirely satisfied with this answer either, partly because she couldn't figure out her place in Edward's confused stratification of the personhood of species. But at least it was an honest response, and honesty was all she felt she had any right to expect. "Is that your final word on it, then?"

"Hardly," Edward assured her. "Since I met you, I'm reevaluating everything I ever thought."

"Aren't you a little old to still be a work in progress?" Bella said carelessly, then caught herself. "Sorry," she muttered. "That was rude."

"No, it's quite all right. A few months ago I would have said you were right about maturity," Edward answered. "The folly of old age is that you think it means you're done changing. But as it happens, I'm not old by vampire standards, nor am I immune to shifts in perspective."

From my current perspective, Bella sighed to herself, I'm sick of beating around the bush.

"Are you going to kill me, Edward?"

He looked at her, all of her, from the bottoms of her shoes to the crown of her head. Her hair had grown a full inch since her first day at school, and under her eyes rested dark circles that hadn't been there a month before. Subtle changes. Imperfections. Growth. Edward thought her whole being entirely beautiful.

"No."

He stared at her lips.

"Come here," he murmured. "Please."

She looked at him, at the way his lips parted, and understood what he was asking. If she couldn't trust him not to kill her, there was no point in refusing. But more importantly, if she wasn't willing to take this risk, there was no point in loving him.

And she did love him. Not like her mother loved her father, but the way her dad loved her mom all through their short marriage: completely, flaws and all, even though it would likely hurt, even though it might all slip away at any moment. The lesson of her parents' failed romance went unlearned, and Bella was okay with that, because what was a lesson compared to being in love with someone who loved her back?

Bella leaned forward, bending down to meet Edward's lips with her own.

Alice, who'd been sitting cross-legged on her bed for the last three hours, deeply entranced, waited a few more seconds, just to be sure things wouldn't take a turn for the worse. Jasper sat nearby, putting his book down once he sensed some emotional apex in Alice, ready to offer emotional support. And then—

"We did it!" Alice shrieked, jumping up and hopping on the mattress, singing merrily. "We did it, we did it, we did it, yay! ¡Lo hicimos! We did it!"

Emmet poked his head in the door. "Is that fucking Dora the Explorer?"

Jasper, caught up in his wife's joy without knowing the cause behind it, smiled back. "You bet your sweet ass it is."