Summary: "Carlisle, I'm 103 years old. Do you really think I need to be getting the sex talk from you?" A missing scene from Twilight (or, really, Midnight Sun). In my mind, this takes place sometime after our intrepid heroes are more or less "together" and before the conversation they have that I quote below, where Bella asks Edward if they can ever have sexytimes and he shoots her down.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"You don't realize how incredibly breakable you are. I can never, never afford to lose any kind of control when I'm with you."

-Edward, Twilight, pg. 310

The blood of the mountain lion tasted better than usual on my tongue, quenched a thirst I'd been ignoring of late. I drank heartily. When Carlisle had asked me to join him on this hunt, I'd been reticent at first, favoring instead to take up my post in Bella's rocking chair and listen to her even breathing.

"Won't you feel that much more comfortable around her once your thirst is sated?" Carlisle had asked, and I'd had to concur.

I cast the empty body of the great cat aside and swiftly ran to where Carlisle stood, 50 yards away, watching. "Find anything good?"

"I've had my fill," he answered, nodding. I made a move to run in the direction of the house, but he reached out a hand and stopped me. "Why don't we walk for awhile? Enjoy the fauna and flora we so often overlook." I want to talk to you about something, his mind told me. I'd known he was keeping something from me, as he'd recited medical terms over and over in his head throughout the evening.

I looked at him quizzically, but matched his human pace. We ambled along in silence for a few moments, his mind sifting through the D's of his medical terminology dictionary. Dehydration, dehydroepiandrosteron, deinococcus radiodurans...

"What is it, Carlisle? Don't deinococcus radiodurans me."

"I wanted to talk to you about something, Edward," he began.

"So I heard," I replied sardonically.

It's about you and Bella.

Still he tried to hide his intent, but in between delusional jealousy and delusional parasitosis, I saw a flash of what he wanted to discuss with me. I stopped in my tracks and my mouth fell open indignantly. "Carlisle, I'm 103 years old. Do you really think I need to be getting the sex talk from you?"

He let go of his recitations and his mind opened up to me. You may be 103, but this is an area you've no experience in. This is uncharted territory, Edward. "Yes," he said simply. I shook my head and continued walking.

"My experience notwithstanding, this isn't something you need to concern yourself with. Bella and I... you needn't concern yourself with this."

Just let me say my piece. I gritted my teeth and nodded once, tersely. "It's not that you don't know about sex-- between your MDs and your talent for hearing others' most lascivious thoughts, you surely know more than most." But you've never had these feelings before, and sex is a very emotional thing.

I scoffed. "Feelings, Carlisle? Should I have brought Jasper's guitar? Shall we join hands in a rousing rendition of Kumbaya?"

He gave me a stern look. Carlisle may not have been my true father, but he was the only creature in the world who could reduce me to feeling like a guilty son. I shut my mouth.

"Now, your insistence that this isn't something I should concern myself with tells me that you and Bella are not to this point yet. Am I correct?"

I nodded once. If blood ran through my veins, I was fairly certain I'd be blushing deeper than Bella. I felt like the teenager I hadn't been in almost a century. We continued walking at a pace slow even for humans. Carlisle furrowed his brow and touched his fingertips in front of him thoughtfully.

"I suspect you already know all the things normal, human fathers awkwardly tell their sons when they have The Talk. 'When a man loves a woman,' and all that," he began. I crossed my arms in front me. "It's... different for us. Both in feeling and in meaning. Your first time is an experience you never forget, and that memory lasts even longer when you're immortal. You want it to be... special."

I could see candles and rose petals in Carlisle's mind. It was true, I frequently saw things of a sexual nature in the minds of both humans and my family. I tried to allow them whatever privacy I could, but inevitably, I'd seen far more than I'd ever wanted. I felt confident that despite my lack of sexual experience, I knew how these things worked.

"I know all this, Carlisle. Can we please run home now? If you want to have the sex talk with someone, I'm sure Emmett would be obliged. It's all he ever thinks about, anyway," I muttered.

I'm not finished. "If this kind of frank discussion embarrasses you, Edward, then I don't know that you're ready to be having sex, 103 or not."

"I'm not having sex! Bella and I, we are not. I'm not." I scowled at him.

But you will.

My scowl deepened. It was something I'd thought about, admittedly, but something I knew would never be possible for me. Even if she ever wanted to take our relationship to that level, she was far too fragile to risk it. I was trying to reconcile myself to that fact, and Carlisle telling me all about what happens when a vampire loves a human wasn't doing me any favors.

"You're 103, but she's 17. You have to remember that. You've had more than a human's lifespan to prepare yourself for sexual relations; she's had precious little time at all. Now I'm not trying to tell you to wait, or to not wait; that's for you and Bella to decide. But do make sure that you are both ready for the emotional and physical ramifications that come with sex."

I had to laugh at the idea of physical ramifications of vampire sex. "It's not as if I could get her pregnant! Unless sperm has quite a shelf life." I shook my head, then felt another fervent urge to blush.

"You're right. That won't be an issue for the two of you, when you decide the time is right. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any need for traditional human 'protection.' Safe sex, in this case, is sex that doesn't cause her injury," he said. I stopped walking again. That was the crux of it, the reason why this conversation was moot. Any sort of sexual interaction between Bella and I would surely end with her hurt, or worse. Carlisle put a hand on my shoulder.

You would never hurt her.

"You can't know that."

I do.

"You don't. I barely have the self control to not drink her dry while we sit beside each other in Biology. I can barely touch her innocently; how do you ever think I could touch her with less than pure intentions?"

I know you. "It's not a race. I understand that the... urges you feel are probably strong--"

"Carlisle!" I had no desire to discuss urges with my father. This was one human experience I'd never longed to have. He ignored me.

"They're probably strong right now, in the throes of young love, but take your time. I would give you this advice even if you were both human. Don't rush into anything. But even more importantly, for you, taking things slowly could help tremendously with your control. You say you can touch her innocently now," he looked at me expectantly. I sighed and nodded. We began to walk again.

"You couldn't have done even that when you first encountered her! These things take time, Edward. Perhaps if you work up to it-- the two of you could try... other things first--"

"Carlisle!"

"You can learn to control yourself," he finished. I have the utmost faith in you.

I shook my head and sighed again. He was wrong to put so much faith in me. I'd almost destroyed his faith so many times since I'd met Bella. Even now that I'd become so invested in her (had I ever not been?), the risk of my killing her was great. Sex was something that, by necessity, I would continue to know only second-hand. I'd resigned myself to this. Carlisle would be ever the optimist, always believing the best about my nature, but I knew myself well enough to never, ever take the risk.

We walked in silence for several minutes, Carlisle's mind merely reiterating the points he'd already made. I tried to push my self-pity out of my head.

"I can't believe you just gave me The Talk," I marveled, shaking my head with a half-smile on my face. Carlisle chuckled as well.

You managed to get out of it for over a century. It was time.

"Was there anything else, Doctor Cullen?" I teased him. He paused for a long moment, the only sound the leaves crunching beneath our feet.

Perhaps I could give you a few pointers... you know, about... technique.

"Oh, God." My face scrunched into a look of disgust, and I took off running towards home. The last thing I heard my father think before I was too far out of range was, I'm quite experienced, you know. A wealth of information... It was times like these that I cursed our kind's eternal memories. This was a conversation I'd do well to forget, forever.

A/N: Where I come from, vampires can't get their girlfriends knocked up. Sorry, Smeyer. But they do need to get The Talk every now and then, don't you agree?