Can't Hide from Love

[Edward Cullen]

Bella looked almost frustrated at her news. Though he wasn’t sure why. He expected her to freak out, not wonder why he couldn’t hear her. Then again, as he’d come to realize she didn’t seem to think like most people he’d met. He did manage to smile at her question though. It was after all the same one he’d been asking himself since he’d met her. “I’ve been wondering the same thing since I realized I couldn‘t hear you.” under different circumstances he would have said met, but he technically hadn’t met her until today, so that wasn’t quite true.

“You talk in your sleep.” he said after thinking it over for a moment. There was more to it than that, but that was the most interesting thing she did while asleep. Other than that it was just that she was so peaceful. He couldn’t remember what it was like to sleep or dream. Some nights he could figure out what she was dreaming about by piecing together her words. Of course none of them really meant anything to him.

Edward shrugged, “Probably. Alice has probably been watching my every move.” he said realizing for the first time that was probably the truth. He wondered if they would intervene if he attempted to kill her, or change her for that matter. Since he was still undecided on the outcome. Though he was beginning to lean towards change rather than kill. His thoughts were interrupted when she asked him his age. “Physically or technically?” he asked with a smile. “I was born in 1901 and changed in 1918.” Edward realized she was the first person he’d ever had this conversation with. Carlisle knew his history already and had been the one to clue Esme and Rosalie in. The other Cullen’s knew very little about Edward, since he really wasn’t part of their family.

[Bella Swan]

Bella groaned. It was embarrassing to hear that someone had heard her talking in her sleep. “Was it about my mom?” It wouldn’t be that bad if that was what she had been talking about. She had been meaning to email her mom lately. That might explain why she was talking about her. Hopefully it wasn’t about her fighting off Mike Newton. The poor kid was nice, but he was a little desperate. She had refused all of his advances, but the kid didn’t seem to understand it. She looked at him in surprise. “I would have never guessed that long ago,” she said, referring to when he had been bitten. “Do you remember much of your human life?” She couldn’t imagine him living during that time.

She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling her eyes relax. Sleep sounded nice right now, but she was much too interested in hearing about Edward. It seemed funny actually. She had been panicking a few hours before about him. But now that she knew he wasn’t going to kill her, she felt a bit better. She opened her eyes before waiting for his answer.

[Edward Cullen]

Edward raised his eyebrow in question to her groan. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer. “Renee and Charlie usually.” he said after thinking about it for a moment. He assumed they were her patents. Well, Charlie he knew was her father because he’d watching Bella through his thoughts. She didn’t actually talk, more like a word every now and then, but generally it had something to do with her parents or Arizona. Edward smiled weakly at her comment about his age. Edward thought about her question for a moment. His human life wasn’t something he thought about often, it wasn’t as clear as his vampire life. “No. I remember my mother. She died just before Carlisle changed me. I was dying of the Spanish influenza and her dying wish was for him to save me. Then all I remember was the searing pain.” He shook his head to clear it.

Edward watched her eyes close and her body relax and smiled. It was oddly nice having someone be able to relax around him. Most humans had a very different reaction to him, then again most of the time when a human knew he was around he was getting ready to kill them. Giving them a reason to be anything but relaxed. The thought was enough to bring his mood down a few notches. This wasn’t right, in the back of his mind he knew that, the part that still held human morals and emotions. She was a human, a good human and he was a vampire.

[Bella Swan]

Bella smiled carefully. “I’m always worried about Renee. I’m afraid that her new husband isn’t taking good enough care of her.” Bella had always been the one to take care of her mother. She hoped Phil was doing alright with her. “And I worry about Charlie too.” Her father had been alone for so long. She was happy that she was now living with him. He seemed happier than before. “Pain?” She winced. “So it hurts to be like you?” She imagined it had hurt a little bit, but how Edward described it seemed worse than she had thought.

“Don’t be surprised if I fall asleep while you’re talking.” She was tired, and although she wanted to stay up to hear him, she found it was getting harder to do that.

[Edward Cullen]

Bella smiled. It was the first time he‘d seen her smile through his own eyes. He could tell it wasn‘t a full smile, that something was off because through her friend‘s thoughts he‘d seen her real smile and this wasn‘t it. But still he had the urge to return the smile. It only lasted a moment since she left him puzzled by her explanation of why she‘d sleep talk about her mother. “She can’t take care of herself?” he questioned confused. She was grown woman, he seen no reason for her to not be able to take care of herself. Bella seemed capable of taking care of herself, and her father. The longer he thought about it the more it made sense. “Oh.” he said finally recalling part of their conversation from earlier. That had been Bella’s role. She’s always been the grown up. Now that she wasn’t there to take care of her mother she worried. Edward hadn’t need to take care of his parents. Mortal or immortal. And he’d never had to worry about anyone. He was surrounded in people that took care of themselves. The one time he might have worried was when he mother was sick, but he’d been too sick to be able to worry about her.

Edward nodded, “The change isn’t exactly like in the movies or books. It doesn’t take only a night, or three bites. And it not just the pain of dying.” he paused both to decide if he wanted to continue explaining and to figure out how to explain it. He looked at her trying to decide if he should tell her. “Our bodily fluids, what we have of them, are venom. So it’s like being poisoned and it lasts between three and five days.” His lips twitched into a smile when she told him she might fall asleep on him. “I‘ll let you sleep.” His words surprised him. He shouldn’t care about her needing sleep. He shouldn’t care about her in any way.

[Bella Swan]

“My mother is very childlike.” Bella felt that was the best way to talk about her mother. “I don’t mind looking after her. I’m so used to it.” She burrowed herself further beneath her blankets as she listened to Edward talk. His voice was smooth sounding: she felt like she could listen to him for hours. But soon her interest was caught when he spoke of his change. She winced. It sounded terrible. To feel that happening and not being able to do anything would be horrible. Bella glanced over at him once, actually really looking at him for one of the few times that night instead of quickly looking away, before closing her eyes.

She occasionally had nightmares, and this night seemed to include one. Although this time it was something trivial she had seen on tv. This was about what Edward had told her. She finally opened her eyes, staring wide-eyed in the dark at her ceiling. She felt as if her heart was going to jump out of her chest it was beating so hard. She put herself into a sitting position as she tried to calm herself.

Hearing about how people are turned into vampires, and how painful it is, isn’t the best thing to listen to before falling asleep. She glanced around her darkened room. She wasn’t sure if Edward was still here.

“Edward, are you here?”

She wasn’t sure if she should be glad or upset if he had left. She knew he was dangerous, but it was hard to remember that when he was talking to her.

[Edward Cullen]

Although he didn’t completely understand it Edward understood what she meant. Monster or not, he was empathetic and he understood people. That was Carlisle’s guess as to why Edward’s gift was the ability to hear the thoughts of those around him. He watched Bella shudder at his description of the change, it was worse than he’d described it. There wasn’t anything that could compare to the pain of it, it was excruciating. And it was nearly every vampires first memory there were a very few that couldn’t remember the pain. She caught his attention when she looked at him, since he’d appeared in her kitchen earlier that day she’s rarely looked at him for more than a few moments.

After closing her eyes it only took her a few moments to fall into a sleep. He’d been watching her sleep for weeks but this was the first time she knew he was in the room. It was an odd feeling, knowing she knew she was being watched. He wondered for a moment how he could have felt in her position. Being watched by a predator, an extremely dangerous one at that. And yet somehow she managed to become relaxed enough to sleep. Once again she failed to fall into the norm, Edward smiled to himself at the though. A vampire, completely intrigued by a mere human. Suddenly her heart rate spiked and she was wide awake. She sat up panicked and to his surprise the first thing she asked was if he was still in the room. He laughed unable to stop himself. “Yes.”

Without thinking about it he moved to her bed, “I told you, I have nothing else to do at night.” his voice held amusement. She woke, apparently from a nightmare of some sort and she seemed afraid that the monster hiding in the corner had left, not that he was still there when she woke. “You are a very peculiar girl Bella.”

[Bella Swan]

Bella felt herself blush as Edward laughed at her. She didn’t think it was funny at all. She had just been wondering if he was still in her room. It would be weird to act like he wasn’t there. She reluctantly placed her head back on the bed again. She shouldn’t have allowed the story to get to her. She would never have to go through the change, and wouldn’t have to feel that. “That is really weird since I’m not the one watching other people sleep,” she said, frowning. He couldn’t call her odd when he had been watching her for months. She glanced over at him. “You can’t be content to watch me for the rest of my life. No offense, but I don’t want someone stalking me for the rest of my life.” She wasn’t going to go away to college and find him sitting in her dorm room. She glanced at her alarm clock, groaning at the time. She only had four hours of sleep left before having to go to school. For a moment, she thought of skipping it.

But soon her thoughts drifted back to the vampire across from her. She wasn’t sure what his purpose was of watching her.

[Edward Cullen]

Even if Edward couldn’t see almost as clearly as he could in the light he’d have known she was blushing, simply because her blood was closer to the surface and he could hear it flowing through her veins. It was tormenting him sitting across the room from her, when she smelled so good. He closed his eyes concentrating on not killing her. He was just beginning to work out why he had yet to kill the girl. Something in the back of his mind told him he’d regret it, for more than just breaking his morals for her. He was also realizing that she blushed an awful lot and he was going to have to be extra careful around her. He grinned when she called him out on watching her sleep. “I doubt I’d tire of watching you. No actually I already have, hence my choice to interact with you finally. But yes, I am content watching you. I like your company regardless of if you know I‘m around or not. You‘re strangly calming to me.”

Edward watched her for a few more minuets before the question of what to do about her came back to the front of his thoughts. It was a reasonable question with an unreasonable answer. He wanted her, in more ways than one. He wanted to be able to watch her continuously. He also wanted her blood, and surprisingly her companionship. He rather enjoyed being around her. It made him strangely content. But he couldn’t damn her to his meaningless existence. It wasn’t a life. Edward focused on her again, and again he was aggravated that he couldn’t hear her thoughts. She seemed to be thinking about something, but he couldn’t know what. He glanced at the clock, “You should be asleep.” he commented nonchalantly. “Am I keeping you awake?” he questioned trying to find a way to learn what was on her mind without outright asking.