She comes into the clinic one day. Neat hair, sad eyes, lovely smile. Tidy. Her lipstick isn't a bit smeared. But she's coming undone. He can tell that in the set of her lips, the way her hands tremble. It's all a facade, an elabarate hoax, a lie to herself. Carlisle likes to think he has become good at the reading people.

The nurse calls out a name, Susan Pevensie, and she rises shakily to her feet. How ordinary. He would have expected a name more exotic for her, this raven-haired beauty. Something more, well, queenly.

She sits on the exam table, looking awkward, out of place, she isn't used to going to the doctors, she isn't used to needing somebody. The nurse has taken her temputure and blood pressure. He listens to her heart. It thumps with an irregular beat.

"What seems to be the matter today, Miss Pevensie?" He smiles his kindest smile, turns on the compassion he is so known for.

She tells him of her terrible headaches, they happen every day now. She says this all very quickly, very politely. Dark hair sweeps forward to cover her face.

"When did they start? Does anything in particular seem to trigger them?"

She laughs, and he's rather suprised by the bitterness in it. It's so much older than her face. He glances at his clipboard. She is only 20.

"Two years ago. They were infrequent, at first. They're constant now. I was forced to quit my job."

"Do you have any family? Anyone to take care of you?"

"I have no family, Dr. Cullen. They were killed. Train accident. It doesn't matter anyway. There was nothing here for them."

For the first time he is left speechless. The girl has begun to cry, huge tears, the wall that was so carefully built has crumbled around her feet. Her mascara is smearing, pooling under her eyes.

He is used to dealing with crises of every kind, sobbing women, angry men. But some reason it's this, this quiet girl with old eyes, that has everything he's known irrovercably shifting. He fights the urge to kiss her lips, cradle her in his arms, smooth the lines from her brow. Her prescribes pain killers instead.

She rises, chest steal heaving from her sobs. The wall is back in place. She arranges her skirt, whispers a quiet thank you. He sits for a long time afterwards, the sight of her retreating shoulders in his mind.