"Well, somehow I don't think he's going to answer that question," Jacob chuckled. "You know, he can't really say 'I was stalking you'."

That was too easy a question - for her. It gave away nothing, while my answer, if truthful, would give away much too much. Let her reveal something first.

"That's not fair," Bella huffed. "I give away things all the time... you should tell me something for once."

"Next," I said.

"But that's the easiest one!'

"Next," I said again.

She was frustrated by my refusal. She looked away from me, down to her food.

Slowly, thinking hard, she took a bite and chewed with deliberation. She washed it down with more coke, and then finally looked up at me. Her eyes were narrow with suspicion.

Jacob chuckled at this; he could so picture Bella doing that.

"Okay then," she said. "Let's say, hypothetically, of course, that...someone...could know what people are thinking, read minds, you know - with just a few exceptions."

"What?" Jacob said. "How the hell did you figure that one out?"

"I don't know," Bella shrugged. "Maybe when he was talking about Mike's thoughts and all."

"You really are perceptive," Jacob mumbled.

It could be worse.

"He's not shocked at all that you figured that out," Jacob muttered. "I thought it was shocking."

This explained that little half-smile in the car. She was quick - no one else had ever guessed this about me. Except for Carlisle, and it had been rather obvious then, in the beginning, when I'd answered all his thoughts as if he'd spoken them to me. He'd understood before I had...

Bella smiled at that; for some reason she found that image nice.

This question wasn't so bad. While it was clear that she knew that there was something wrong with me, was not as serious as it could have been. Mind-reading was, after all, not a facet of the vampire cannon. I went along with her hypothesis.

"Just one exception," I corrected. "Hypothetically."

She fought a smile - my vague honesty pleased her.

"Well, seeing as you're hardly ever honest with me, that's not hard to believe," Bella mumbled.

"All right, with one exception, then. How does that work? What are the limitations? How would...that someone...find someone else at exactly the right time? How would he know that she was in trouble?"

"Hypothetically?"

"Sure." Her lips twitched, and her liquid brown eyes were eager.

"Well," I hesitated. "If...that someone..."

"Let's call him 'Joe,'" she suggested.

"Joe," Jacob laughed and Bella chuckled. "Why?"

"I always liked the name Joe," Bella shrugged.

I had to smile at her enthusiasm. Did she really think the truth would be a good thing? If my secrets were pleasant, why would I keep them from her?

"Joe, then," I agreed. "If Joe had been paying attention, the timing wouldn't have needed to be quite so exact." I shook my head and repressed a shudder at the thought of how close I had been to being too late today. "Only you could get into trouble in a town this small. You would have devastated their crime rate statistics for a decade, you know."

Jacob grimaced at this... that wasn't something to joke about. He also thought that it really wouldn't have been Bella who devastated the crime rate, but didn't say anything.

Her lips turned down at the corners, and pouted out. "We were speaking of a hypothetical case."

Jacob gave a weak smile at that.

I laughed at her irritation.

Her lips, her skin... They looked so soft. I wanted to touch them. I wanted to press my fingertip against the corner of her frown and turn it up. Impossible. My skin would be repellent to her.

"Yes, we were," I said, returning to the conversation before I could depress myself too thoroughly. "Shall we call you 'Jane'?"

"No... I don't like Jane," Bella said and Jacob chuckled at that.

She leaned across the table toward me, all humor and irritation gone from her wide eyes.

"How did you know?" she asked, her voice low and intense.

Should I tell her the truth? And, if so, what portion?

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to deserve the trust I could still see on her face.

"You can trust me, you know," she whispered, and she reached one hand forward as if to touch my hands where they rested on top of the empty table before me.

"Ha," Bella said, "I knew this whole touching aversion thing was all in his head."

I pulled them back - hating the thought of her reaction to my frigid stone skin - and she dropped her hand.

"If I'm reaching for you, I don't care about that," Bella said a little irritated at that.

I knew that I could trust her with protecting my secrets; she was entirely trustworthy, good to the core. But I couldn't trust her not to be horrified by them. She should be horrified. The truth was horror.

"But she's not normal, remember?" Jacob said.

"You want him to tell me, too," Bella said.

"You're right, I'm so over this part where he thinks how horrified you should be," Jacob said.

"I don't know if I have a choice anymore," I murmured. I remembered that I'd once teased her by calling her 'exceptionally unobservant.' Offended her, if I'd been judging her expressions correctly. Well, I could right that one injustice, at least. "I was wrong - you're much more observant than I gave you credit for." And, though she might not realize it, I'd given her plenty of credit already. She missed nothing.

Bella smiled at that.

"I thought you were always right," she said, smiling as she teased me.

Both Bella and Jacob laughed at that.

"He'll have to change that now," Jacob laughed even harder. "He's always right except when it comes to you."

"I used to be." I used to know what I was doing. I used to be always sure of my course. And now everything was chaos and tumult.

Yet I wouldn't trade it. I didn't want the life that made sense. Not if the chaos meant that I could be with Bella.

"I was wrong about you on one other thing as well," I went on, setting the record straight on another point. "You're not a magnet for accidents - that's not a broad enough classification. You are a magnet for trouble. If there is anything dangerous within a ten mile radius, it will invariably find you."

"You didn't really need to set the record straight on that one," Bella groaned and Jacob chuckled at her reaction.

Why her? What had she done to deserve any of this?

Bella's face turned serious again. "And you put yourself into that category?"

Honesty was more important in regards to this question than any other.

"Unequivocally."

"What's the matter with saying yes?" Jacob rolled his eyes.

"It wouldn't be Edward," Bella shrugged with a smile.

Her eyes narrowed slightly - not suspicious now, but oddly concerned. She reached her hand across the table again, slowly and deliberately. I pulled my hands an inch away from her, but she ignored that, determined to touch me. I held my breath - not because of her scent now, but because of the sudden, overwhelming tension. Fear. My skin would disgust her. She would run away.

Bella really hoped that this would be the last time she had to hear that.

She brushed her fingertips lightly across the back of my hand. The heat of her gentle, willing touch was like nothing I'd ever felt before. It was almost pure pleasure.

"Wow... look what a simple touch does to you," Jacob laughed as Bella blushed a little.

Would have been, except for my fear. I watched her face as she felt the cold stone of my skin, still unable to breathe.

A half-smile turned up the corners of her lips.

"Thank you," she said, meeting my stare with an intense gaze of her own. "That's twice now."

Her soft fingers lingered on my hand as if they found it pleasant to be there.

I answered her as casually as I was able. "Let's not try for three, agreed?"

Jacob and Bella groaned at that; that just seemed to suggest something else was going to happen.

She grimaced at that, but nodded.

I pulled my hands out from under hers. As exquisite as her touch felt, I wasn't going to wait for the magic of her tolerance to pass, to turn to revulsion. I hid my hands under the table.

I read her eyes; though her mind was silent, I could perceive both trust and wonder there. I realized in that moment that I wanted to answer her questions. Not because I owed it to her. Not because I wanted her to trust me.

I wanted her to know me.

Bella really smiled when she read this. In some ways this had more of an effect on her than when he had said that he loved her, for now she could see that he really was trusting her... opening up to her. She really liked that.

"I followed you to Port Angeles," I told her, the words spilling out too quickly for me to edit them. I knew the danger of the truth, the risk I was taking. At any moment, her unnatural calm could shatter into hysterics. Contrarily, knowing this only had me talking faster. "I've never tried to keep a specific person alive before and it's much more troublesome than I would have believed. But that's probably just because it's you. Ordinary people seem to make it through the day without so many catastrophes."

I watched her, waiting.

She smiled. Her lips curved up at the edges, and her chocolate eyes warmed.

I'd just admitted to stalking her, and she was smiling.

"Weirdo," Jacob shook his head. "He's stalking you!"

"I know," Bella said.

"That doesn't creep you out at all?" Jacob questioned.

"Not when he's telling me the truth for the first time," Bella said.

"Did you ever think that maybe my number was up that first time, with the van, and that you've been interfering with fate?" she asked.

"Don't say that," Jacob shivered.

"Sorry," Bella sighed.

"That wasn't the first time," I said, staring down at the dark maroon table cloth, my shoulders bowed in shame. My barriers were down, the truth still spilling free recklessly. "Your number was up the first time I met you."

"He's going to tell you that?" Jacob said shook.

It was true, and it angered me. I had been positioned over her life like the blade of a guillotine. It was as if she had been marked for death by some cruel, unjust fate, and - since I'd proved an unwilling tool - that same fate continued to try to execute her.

"Please move away from that thought," Jacob said.

"I'm sure the unwilling tool will save me from anything fate will try to throw at me," Bella shrugged.

I imagined the fate personified - a grisly, jealous hag, a vengeful harpy.

I wanted something, someone, to be responsible for this - so that I would have something concrete to fight against. Something, anything to destroy, so that Bella could be safe.

Bella was very quiet; her breathing had accelerated.

I looked up at her, knowing I would finally see the fear I was waiting for. Had I not just admitted how close I'd been to killing her? Closer than the van that had come within slim inches of crushing her. And yet, her face was still calm, her eyes still tightened only with concern.

"You remember?" She had to remember that.

"Yes," she said, her voice level and grave. Her deep eyes were full of awareness.

She knew. She knew that I had wanted to murder her.

"Did you really know that he was going to murder you?" Jacob asked. "I know you can't answer that... but I would really like to know the answer to this."

"I doubt my book self knows it like I know it," Bella said. "But I must have realized what the look meant."

Where were the screams?

"And yet here you sit," I said, pointing out the inherent contradiction.

"Yes, here I sit...because of you." Her expression altered, turned curious, as she unsubtly changed the subject. "Because somehow you knew how to find me today...?"

Hopelessly, I pushed one more time at the barrier that protected her thoughts, desperate to understand. It made no logical sense to me. How could she even care about the rest with that glaring truth on the table?

"Exactly," Jacob agreed.

"You know why..." Bella started to say.

"Your book self has no idea what he's thinking," Jacob putted out. "And yet you're sitting there, not caring at all that he just said that he thought about killing you."

"Yep," Bella shrugged and then laughed at the expression that Jacob was making now.

She waited, only curious. Her skin was pale, which was natural for her, but it still concerned me. Her dinner sat nearly untouched in front of her. If I continued to tell her too much, she was going to need a buffer when the shock wore off.