Allergies, a twilight fanfic

Disclaimer: While the attempt has been made to be medically accurate, some artistic license has been taken, and statements made by Carlisle and other medical personnel are not to be regarded as authoritative.

Do not post without permission. Do not copy/print without including the above disclaimer in its entirety.

A/N: The date of this story is correct for my alternate history, as described in my profile. Barbie

Summer 2006

Nessie one A/E four and a half

Carlisle

Within the first week of work at a new hospital, I had successfully diagnosed a rare condition in a woman the other doctors had dismissed as a hypochondriac.

News of my success inspired two different feelings toward me. Some of the doctors, particularly a few older ones who had been at the hospital for years, seemed to resent my catching something they had missed (though in truth it was no reflection on their skill; I had recognized the condition by a distinctive scent). They seemed to feel there was a rivalry between them and me; under no circumstances would they deign to ask my advice on a patient.

The other group of doctors regarded me as the best thing that could have happened to the hospital, asking my opinion of cases that were even remotely difficult. Their references to me as a "brilliant young doctor" did not help my popularity with the first group.

Dr Hoskins was a young man; this was his first position after internship. He had come to work at the hospital the same day we heard that my diagnosis had been correct.

The next day, I was walking to my office when he stopped me in the hall. "Dr Cullen?"

"Yes?" I turned toward him, and immediately caught the scent of cheap cologne. It overwhelmed my sense of smell; I felt sure my eyes would have been watering had they been capable of doing so. I took a quick breath through my mouth, but the scent stung the back of my throat, leaving me feeling oddly breathless — odd, because I didn't actually need to breathe.

I swallowed and tried to focus on what he was saying. "If you're not too busy, sir, would you mind taking a look at one of my patients? I'd like a second opinion, if it's no trouble…"

"Of course not," I assured him. As I walked slightly behind him to the room, I rubbed the side of my nose with my finger and wished I could still sneeze.

I watched the patient as we walked into the room. She seemed to have no reaction to the doctor's cologne; was it possible she couldn't smell it?

Dr Hoskins made the introductions and explained her condition to me. I agreed with his diagnosis, though I could smell absolutely nothing but his cologne, and felt without my sense of smell as a human doctor might if he were deprived of his stethoscope.

I made my escape as soon as I could, but the scent lingered in my nose. I had to concentrate to catch any other scents at all, even that of flowing blood, and by evening I knew how Alice felt when she was trying to "see" Nessie; I was fighting my first headache in over three hundred years.

oOo

As I drove home I wondered which was worse; straining to catch some other scent, or giving way and letting myself feel the constant burning tickle of that blasted odor.

I parked in my usual spot, glad to see that Edward's Volvo was missing from the lineup of cars in the garage. At the moment, I wasn't sure I felt up to blocking my thoughts.

I pushed open the front door and heard Esme's footsteps as she ran to meet me. "Carlisle!"

I grabbed her by the waist and spun her around, letting her scent swirl over us. It was so natural that it took me over a second to realize I wasn't straining to catch her scent. With a quiet moan I set her on her feet and buried my nose in her hair. Roses…and lilac… Esme. There was truly no description for that scent; no other like it in the world. I breathed it in as a drowning man breathes the welcome air; hardly knowing what I was doing I pulled the pins from her hair and let it tumble around her shoulders, sending waves of that most wonderful of all scents wafting over me. Already my headache seemed to be lessening.

"Carlisle?" Esme asked in surprise. Usually I loosed her hair only in the privacy of our bedroom; I was passionately jealous of the sight of my Esme with her hair down.

I growled softly, kissing her ear as I swept her up in my arms and ran for the stairs. Esme's arm came around my neck; normally I would have nipped at her fingers, but now I kept my nose buried in her hair. "Carlisle, it's still the middle of the afternoon!" she protested, laughing.

"I don't care!" I growled devilishly.

"But the children —"

"Won't disturb us," I finished, kicking the bedroom door shut and falling across the bed with her.

She laughed and gave in, and with every breath of her wonderful scent my headache receded a little. Long before morning, I had forgotten my original reason for seducing my wife…

oOo

"Alice isn't going to be very happy with us," Esme commented, lounging curled against the pillows as she watched me dress for work.

I chuckled. "Since when is Alice ever unhappy with an excuse to go shopping? And that wasn't a new dress, anyway…"

I picked up the brush from the dresser and sat behind Esme to brush out her soft waves of hair. She sighed happily, leaning her head against my shoulder as I finished and laid the brush aside. "I love you, Carlisle," she murmured.

"And I thee," I whispered in response. I resisted the urge to nuzzle her ear; if I did that my control would be lost again and I'd be late for work…besides ruining another perfectly good set of clothes.

As Esme moved to the mirror and began pinning her hair into its usual soft cloud around her face, I gathered up what was left of the clothes we had been wearing to go in the scrap bin Nessie used for "dress up" and doll clothes.

As I picked up the pieces of Esme's purple dress, her scent wafted off it, giving me an idea. I glanced surreptitiously at her to be sure she wouldn't notice, then tore out a handkerchief-sized piece of material and tucked it in my pocket. The rest I folded with the remains of my clothes.

I glanced at my watch, more out of habit than any real need of the device to know what time it was. "Time I was off, love."

She ran to wrap her arms around my neck and give me a kiss goodbye. "Have a good day."

I held her a moment longer than usual, reluctant to release her and return to what I feared would be another headache. With great effort, I forced myself to turn away and leave my Esme behind in the room.

oOo

I tried to stay as busy as possible, to make it hard for Dr Hoskins to find me. I told myself there was no reason why he should be looking; no reason to assume he had a case too difficult to diagnose himself. But I remembered how obvious the diagnosis had been yesterday, and knew with a sense of foreboding that I would not get off so easily.

It was a little after noon when he found me, and I cursed softly under my breath. Why couldn't the man have enough confidence in his abilities to make his own diagnoses? Sure, he was a new doctor, but it had been my past experience that they tended more to overconfidence, until a missed diagnosis or a patient's death humbled them a little. Often even that didn't.

And now, the one rookie doctor who wasn't cocksure of his ability…

I drew the scrap of cloth from my pocket and took a deep breath of Esme's scent before leaving to follow him. As we walked, I glanced surreptitiously at the nurses and orderlies we passed; none of them seemed even to notice the scent.

I had not breathed since I left my office, but though I tried to keep my comments short, I still ran out of air before the consultation was over. I thought of breathing through my mouth, but the feeling of breathlessness I had experienced the day before worried me; I wasn't sure what it might lead to. With a mental sigh, I turned my head away from the doctor and took a lungful of air.

All my caution had been in vain; the lingering essence of Esme's scent was overpowered by the stinging aroma. I let myself breathe normally then; it really made no difference now.

I returned to my office after the consultation, barely pausing to close the door before I pulled out the scrap of material. Only the faintest trace of Esme's scent still lingered there. I could smell it without straining, but I knew it would do nothing to help. My own scent on the material was obliterating Esme's, though to me my scent was merely neutral.

I tried to simply do without my sense of smell, but I was too accustomed to using it. I only hoped that it wasn't thrown too far off; that my diagnoses were correct. It crossed my mind that a wrong diagnosis might be what was needed for Dr Hoskins to leave me alone, but I could not bring myself to wish to jeopardize a patient in that fashion.

I drove home without thinking of what I was doing; my only thought was of getting home to Esme.

But it was Nessie who ran to meet me at the door. "Grandpa!"

I put on a smile for her, swinging her to my shoulders and taking a quick whiff of her hair as it brushed over my face. I could smell it easily, but it did nothing to ease my headache. "Nessie-girl!" I teased.

She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around my neck, sharing her thoughts with me. She and Esme were baking for Jacob…the house must be filled with the scent of cooking food, but I couldn't smell it. "Read to me, Grandpa!" she demanded.

I laughed. "What about the gingerbread, Nessie?" I couldn't steal Esme away if we were babysitting, but being in the same room with her would be better than nothing…

"I can finish them," she said, appearing in the doorway with a smile.

I sighed, sliding Nessie to the ground. "Go get your book; I'll be up in a minute." She ran off, and I slipped an arm around Esme's waist. "Trying to get rid of me?" I murmured.

"Don't be silly," she smiled. Then the oven timer announced the end of the baking time, and she was gone.

"Grandpa!" Nessie called from the top of the stairs. "Hurry up!" It was the first time I ever thought of her as spoiled…the first time I was annoyed at her request instead of wanting to give her everything she asked for.

And even at that, I couldn't be short with her. She danced into my study ahead of me, climbing into my lap when I sat in the recliner. I wrapped my arms around her and took the book she handed me. Alice in Wonderland.

Nessie could read at college level herself, but she still loved children's stories; loved being read to. She always insisted on different voices for the different characters.

I stopped reading at the end of a chapter; though this was unusual Nessie did not beg me to go on. For several minutes she sat quietly in my lap, looking at the pictures in the book. Then she closed the book, slid off my lap, and slipped out of the room without a word.

I closed my eyes and leaned back in the chair, rubbing my forehead with a sigh. I wondered absently if my body would accept aspirin if I crushed it and mixed it with blood. Or maybe if I injected an animal with morphine or some other narcotic and then drank the drugged blood… They were mere idle thoughts; I didn't really think they would work, and I didn't feel like hunting, anyway.… I wondered if eventually the headache and persistent scent would go away on their own, or if I needed a "dose" of Esme's scent to be rid of them. I wished I could sleep it off like a human…

I didn't hear the door silently open; with my impaired sense of smell I didn't notice the presence of another person in the room until a voice spoke. "Carlisle?"

I sat up, smiling uncomfortably. "Edward…" I tried to let the image of reading to Nessie fill my mind.

He smiled tightly. "Bit late to be blocking your thoughts now, isn't it?" He seated himself on the corner of my desk.

I sighed in defeat. "How long have you been in the house?"

"Five minutes. And I was close enough to hear for five minutes before that. What's causing this, Carlisle?"

I let the events of the past few days flash through my mind…skipping some about my night with Esme… "Now I know how Alice feels when she tries to 'see' Nessie's future."

"Mmm," Edward murmured; I wasn't sure he accepted the idea that the headache was from straining to catch other scents, and I was afraid to ask him if my thoughts were as clear as they normally were.

"I wish you'd stop by the hospital tomorrow, Edward. I can't believe that none of the humans can smell it… If they can, but just aren't saying anything, then I'd be justified in putting in a complaint. If it's something only vampires can smell… They should have a regulation against cologne and perfume anyway," I muttered under my breath. "What if a patient comes in with breathing problems?"

"Well, I wouldn't suggest trying to implement that regulation," Edward said dryly. "Not unless you can disguise your own scent. All the humans think you use pine-scented aftershave." Esme said my scent was like pine and cedar; I couldn't smell it myself because it was part of me.

"Does Alice know?" I asked suddenly.

Edward shook his head. "Not unless she 'saw' it when I wasn't nearby. You know she doesn't try to look for our futures anymore; not with Nessie around all the time." He eyed me with concern. "Is there anything I can get for you, Carlisle?"

"No. Just ask Esme to come up." If Edward was here, obviously Esme didn't have to babysit anymore. "But don't tell her — I don't want her worried."

I saw Edward's mouth tighten slightly as he left, and wondered if he was going to honor my request.

Moments later, Esme slipped into the room. "Edward said you had a bad day," she murmured. "I'm sorry, Carlisle; I didn't realize."

I smiled mentally. Thank you, I thought to my son. Normally when I said I had a bad day, I meant that one of my patients had died. It wasn't that I thought I could save them all, or that I regretted my decision not to change anyone else. But every time I lost someone who should have had years ahead of them, I had to wonder… What gave me the right to decide to change as few…or as many…as I had? Who was I to play God?

Esme knew by now that trying to talk me out of that mood only increased my doubts, so now she sat quietly and let me hold her. It helped when I was wondering if I had done the right thing…I could not believe I had done wrong to turn my Esme…and it helped now as I breathed in her scent.

oOo

Edward had agreed to meet me in my office at the hospital the next day, after he had a chance to gauge the humans' reactions to Dr Hoskins' cologne. I felt a twinge of regret knowing I was subjecting him to the same torment I faced, but at least he wouldn't have to wait for the end of a shift before going home to Bella.

I looked up sharply as my office door opened. "Well?"

Edward shook his head. "They barely even notice it, Carlisle." He hesitated a moment, as if debating whether to go on. "To be honest…I can't say I enjoy the scent of cheap cologne, but your memory of it was worse than the actual smell to me."

I glared at him; anticipation of the headaches was starting to make me irritable. "Are you saying I'm allergic to it?" The idea of any vampire being allergic to anything was laughable; the idea that it should be me, the doctor, was simply unthinkable.

"I don't know…" he hedged. "Maybe it's just because you're concentrating on every scent; I have to try to ignore some of them while I'm here. Or maybe you are more…sensitive…to it."

It annoyed me further that if he thought I was allergic, he wouldn't come right out and say it. "Is that your diagnosis, Dr Cullen?"

"Hey, you aren't the only one in this family with multiple medical degrees." His voice was teasing, but his eyes were concerned; it wasn't like me to lose patience like this. "And all of mine are legitimate…"

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "I'm sorry, Edward."

He nodded quietly, and I understood suddenly that he was looking at me through the eyes of a doctor; it hadn't been obvious because he could hear my thoughts and didn't need to ask about symptoms.

"And I don't necessarily think you're allergic, per se," he added. "I'm more sensitive to Bella's scent; you're more sensitive to Esme's. It doesn't mean either of us is allergic to either of them."

"That's a little different."

"Only in that one's a positive sensitivity, and the other is negative." He was silent a moment. "Carlisle. All the times you've moved without a word of reproach when one of us has slipped…I don't think anyone would have a problem with moving for you."

"I haven't slipped," I said shortly.

"No," Edward agreed. "But that won't make them any less willing."

"I'll…think about it. Right now I have patients to see."

oOo

The rest of that week proceeded much as the past two days had. Edward spent more time than usual at the main house; I knew he was reading my thoughts to check my condition, and though it annoyed me to have my son think he needed to "doctor" me, I didn't try to block him. I knew if I did, he would assume I was hiding worse "symptoms," and would ask about it until I couldn't hold the block…which would have been easy, since I wasn't certain I could block my thoughts when I had a headache, anyway.

The one advantage to Edward's knowing was that he made sure I had enough time with Esme as soon as I got home. I wondered sometimes over those few days if he had told her what was happening; she asked surprisingly few questions about my sudden need for her.

I had Sunday off, and enjoyed going a full day without a headache. The next day I waited for Dr Hoskins' request for a consultation…inevitably, it came. I still avoided breathing for as long as I could talk; it didn't help in the long run but at least it delayed matters.

But today when I drew in a breath, expecting the stinging scent, it wasn't there. There was still the smell of cheap cologne, the five-dollar-a-bottle drugstore kind. It had a harsh chemical odor to me, but no more so than hospital disinfectants. Mingled with it was the scent of synthetic vanilla. I would not normally have called that smell pleasant, but it was so enjoyable just to be able to focus on the different nuances of it.

"Did you switch colognes?" I couldn't help asking.

He looked at me in surprise; we had been discussing aspects of the patient's care.

"Yes," he said. He rubbed a hand absently over his jaw. "I think I was allergic to something in the old one; it was making my skin itch."

I stared at him for a second, and then turned my attention to the patient.

oOo

"So, he was allergic to it himself," Edward chuckled. There was a spark of mischief in his eye, and I looked at him curiously.

"Edward, what aren't you telling me?"

Edward shrugged and leaned lazily against the wall. "I knew you wouldn't agree to let us move for you, Carlisle, and I really couldn't see letting you continue that way for a year; someone would have had to slip up — or claim to — just so we could move. So I got Hoskins' address from the files at the hospital and sneaked into his house."

"Edward. What did you do?"

"Nothing much…just a little skin irritant in the cologne bottle. I knew you wouldn't be able to catch the scent of it."

I frowned, though my lips wanted to smile. "What happened to 'first do no harm'?"

Edward grinned unashamedly. "Unlike you, Carlisle, I never took the Hippocratic Oath. Anyway, a little rash isn't exactly harm…"

I chuckled. "Thanks, Edward. I do appreciate it." I sobered. "Edward…there's something you said the other day…about my concentrating on every scent in the hospital. Is it…hard for you to be around humans when you can hear my thoughts?"

"No," he answered instantly. "If anything, it's easier. I couldn't concentrate on the smell of blood myself, but when it's…filtered through your thoughts, I get only what you're getting. You aren't just exhibiting perfect control anymore; you're completely desensitized. Through your thoughts I can smell the subtle nuances that you focus on, without the thirst I'd experience if I tried to concentrate on it myself."

"You may not be desensitized, but after seeing you with Bella, I don't think you have any problems with control," I murmured.

He understood the direction of my thoughts. "True, but I'm pushing it when I claim twenty. Even you have to claim to have skipped a few grades if anyone stops to do the math."

"Not a doctor, then," I agreed, "but what about an EMT?"

He chuckled. "Right. I can just see myself in training when we have to take each other's pulse…"

I grinned. "So forge your certification."

"Maybe someday. Right now…one doctor in the family is enough."

I shook my head. "Two, Edward," I said firmly. And I followed my doctor-son down the stairs, where Nessie was waiting for a father and grandfather to play with her.

The End

I proofread all my stories at least once before posting, but if you see any mistakes I might have missed, please let me know!

Please note that I have internet access only once a week, and may not have time to respond to all reviews/messages. If you have questions regarding my Twilight alternate history, check my profile first to see if they're answered there. Thanks for your understanding! Barbie