"…and that should heal nicely, provided that…" I paused mid-sentence, the bandage wrapped only halfway around my patient's stick-thin arm. "I'm sorry – er – Miss Bloom, are you listening to me?"

"Whuh?"

"You look…" Concussed was the word that sprung most readily to mind, medically speaking, when I surveyed the girl before me. She was in her late teens, a quintessential preppy high school student: long blonde hair, ironed straight; designer jeans and a sweater from Hot Topic (labelled with the logo of a fashionable classic rock band she'd no doubt never listened to more than once); creamy skin, now heavily blushed in the cheeks. Her deep blue eyes, I decided, were her crowning features – or, at least, might have been at any other moment than this one: they were unsteady, unfocused, and decidedly glazed. It was a stare that was strangely familiar to me: I had seen the similar sort in my own children's eyes, particularly Jasper's, and in my own eyes, in times of weakness. Longing, lusting, aching, desire…

This girl, however, was no vampire. And she seemed, when one looked past the glaze, to be staring directly at me.

Oh, dear God.

"…unsettled," I concluded tentatively.

"I'm – fine. Really."

I feigned a smile. "Good. Now, Lucy…" I finished the bandage and turned away, avoiding Lucy Bloom's lovestruck stare. "…I'll give your mother some painkillers; she can administer them to you as she seems necessary. You'll have to keep the bandage on, but thankfully it's not a break."

"Then why does it hurt?"

Facing the sink, I grimaced: Lucy was obviously far from the brightest bimbo in the glee club. "Because you sprained your wrist. I'm afraid you'll have to rest it for a while."

"So, I can't, like, do sports?"

"Not until it's had time to heal, no."

"What about cheering?"

"Well, does cheering count as a sport?"

A dull silence fell between us. Eventually, I sighed inaudibly, knowing when I was beaten.

"No, Lucy, you can't cheer. You can't do anything for a few weeks until your wrist heals."

"Oh…right."

"Yes, well…" I turned back to face her, holding a box of standard-issue painkillers for Lucy's sort of injury, and forcing a peppy smile into place.

Dear God.

She was still staring. Doe-eyed; smiling lopsidedly; sweating unattractively.

To Hell with all of these fangirls.

"Is something wrong, Lucy?"

"No…it's – it's just – "

"Let me guess." I have lived for centuries; I have fought off dangerous cravings for human blood in intense situations, facing even heart surgery with little more than a slight pained touch to my smile, but the one task that I still find near impossible to complete is to deal with these teenaged idiots. "You've been reading those – books?"

"Mmm?"

"Twilight, Lucy. You've been reading Twilight." Or, at least, you've seen the movie, like all the other "diehard fans" too lazy to actual open a novel.

"Oh." Lucy giggled nervously, her grin becoming increasingly more strained with every heartbeat. "Um – well – I mean – yeah."

I knew it. I goddamn knew it. "I see." And now you're psyching yourself up to ask me for an autograph, or a photo, or Edward's number.

"Um – see – the thing is – "

I laughed softly. "I'm sorry, Lucy. I can't give you any of Edward's details. It's part of my contract."

"Oh – no – "

"I can't give you Emmett's, either. Or Jasper's. Or…" I smirked thinly at the prospect: this girl seemed far too bland to deviate so greatly from her stereotype, but one could never be sure with the fangirls. "…Rosalie's."

"Oh. Well…can I – I mean, would you – just – "

I smiled through gritted teeth. "I could give you an autograph, if you'd like."

"Oh, great!" Her face lit up into a blossoming grin in an instant; but for the sling across her shoulder she could have been in a Hollister catalogue. "And – one for my friend?"

Already I had reached for my notebook and a permanent pen. "Is your friend called eBay?"

"No – er – she's called Rachel."

"Then yes, of course. I'd been only too happy to oblige." I'm always only too happy to oblige. Hell!

I looped my signature twice over two consecutive pages – Love from Carlisle Cullen – and tore them from the book with a flourish, before setting them into Lucy's remaining good hand. "There you are. Enjoy."

"Thanks." She giggled, and wriggled her sprightly form down from the bed on which I had seated her. "All my friends are just going to die when I tell them how Carlisle Cullen fixed my broken arm!"

"Carlisle Cullen bandaged your sprained wrist," I corrected quietly.

"I mean, when I fell – that's how I did it, like, I mean; I fell in cheerleading practice – I thought this was going to be, like, such a bad day – and then – I mean, like, wow!"

"Yes, Lucy. Now, is your mother waiting outside?"

"And my friend Taylor – she's, like, a girl Taylor, not a boy Taylor – she's got, like, the biggest crush ever on you – "

How long, precisely, had Miss Bloom been holding in this veritable verbal diarrhoea of fangirlishness? "Yes, Lucy. Now, let's step outside – "

"And – like – oh, could you write one for Taylor? I mean, she's a girl Taylor, like I said; she's not, like, a gay guy or anything, so it's not creepy – "

"Mrs. Bloom – " I swung open the door of the treatment room, addressing Lucy's rake-thin mother in a tone several times the volume I had intended. " – here are some painkillers; give these to Lucy when you get home; the instructions are in the box."

"Ohmygod, Mom, look who it is!"

"Two when you get home; no more for four hours, unless the pain becomes extremely intense, at which point you should consult your usual physician."

"Mom, it's him, it's him, from the books – "

"Fortunately it's not broken; she's sprained her wrist, as I mentioned to you earlier. You were right to bring her along, Mrs. Bloom."

"Thank you, Dr. Cullen." Mrs. Bloom had risen to her feet (she was build petite, like her daughter, but in her monstrous stiletto heels she might have dwarfed even Emmett), and fighting back what appeared to be a dusky rose blush of her own at my presence. Keep it together, Carlisle: you've seen women give birth while wearing shirts with your son's picture on them; this should be nothing by comparison.

"It's nothing, really. Lucy has been very brave."

Lucy giggled hysterically, and Mrs. Bloom's lips twitched upwards into a sickening smile. Oh, God, why did you create TwiMoms?

"Mom – look – he signed a page for me, and – "

"It's been very nice meeting both of you," I continued, aiming for my best calm-but-firm tone. "Goodbye, Lucy. Goodbye, Mrs. Bloom."

"Goodbye, Dr. Cullen – "

"Bye, Carlisle, bye!"

"Lucy!"

"Dr. Cullen, goodbye, Dr. Cullen!"

I laughed half-heartedly, pretending to be charmed by her eagerness for the last few seconds as I watched the Bloom women disappear down the end of the hospital corridor. In truth, I was charmed to begin with, when I met the first few fans – the quiet, polite, awestruck girls who'd been enchanted by the stories of my son. It was like any new experience – exciting, surprising, exhilarating – but, as with any new experience, the thrill began to wear off after a while. After the fourth or fifth time a desperate teenager has stuffed your mailbox with their unwashed underwear, addressed to your youngest child, I don't believe anyone has the right to blame you for becoming more than a little irritated with the entire prospect of fangirling (and fanguying, more disturbingly still). Perhaps if Lucy had come along in the first few weeks after the initial Twilight instalment was published, I might have been more sympathetic: now, I saw only one more hormone-crazed bimbo who'd scale the walls of my house at two o'clock in the morning in the hope of catching a glimpse of me walking around naked; who'd dive at my wife and children on our way to work and school with ludicrous and downright inappropriate demands; who'd slash their jugulars and throw themselves at an unsuspecting Jasper in the hope that he'll cave and bite them.

It's insane. Really and truly insane.

I sighed quietly, stepped back into the room and shut the door resolutely at my back. When I get home, I decided, Edward and I are going to have a little talk.