BPOV

"What do you think, Bella?" Jackie Peyton's voice rang in my ears as I brought a fork full of what was probably the rarest steak on earth to my lips. She was my favorite nurse, but listening to her banter about the new pill dispensing machine getting placed in the hospital is the least of what I cared about. After a week it was starting to get old. Whoever let the secret slip early clearly should have kept it shut.

"Honestly?" I said, swallowing my food. Nothing tasted the same as it used to, in fact food was absolutely disgusting. It made my stomach writhe. I already felt the need to puke from eating human food. I rarely went to eat or grab coffee with them and this was exactly why. I would, however, take advantage of the fact that Jackie owned a bar every now and then. A little intoxication here and there wasn't all that bad, and karaoke there was totally amusing. As I began to reply I could feel the acid from my stomach burning at the base of my throat. I cleared it away with a small, "ahem," and put my fork down immediately. "I don't really see what the big deal is. In my two years of working here I think it's kind of a cool idea. Punch in some numbers and voila, instant meds. No hassle, and.. no Eddie."

Eddie Walzer was the hospital pharmacist. After some close listening (not like I have a choice with enhanced hearing), I had concluded that Eddie and Jackie had been having some sort of an affair. I would never say anything though, because it isn't any of my business and I loathe gossip. I didn't want to turn the hospital into a badly written episode of ER. I had met Jackie's husband Kevin at her bar and he was a nice guy. I've voiced my opinion subliminally time and time again, but she does what she wants. She's Jackie. As for Eddie, I had no problem with him, he was a generally nice guy. From what I heard in conversation walking by the pharmacy he could also be quite the charmer. His name turned me off, though. Ed, Eddie, Edward, too close to home.

Balding guys weren't my thing either. That was all her.

"You know, Bella has a point." Eleanore agreed. Eleanore, also known as Emily or Doctor O'Hara in the hospital, and I tended to agree on things more often than not. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was British. Deep down it was mostly because she reminded me a lot of Alice. O'hara liked to shop, she would throw new clothes away or take me on shopping sprees even if I didn't really want to go. She realized I was constantly by myself or not really doing much of anything. She ribbed me constantly on my lack of social efforts at work, too. Could you blame me though? I was a vampire pretending to be a human. Things could go south quickly.

"What?" Jackie snorted, laughing shortly afterward. "Uhh, I don't know. I still think it's a bad idea."

I shrugged it off and didn't even touch my meal after that. We were pressed for time while on break and we had to get back to the hospital soon. My boss, Gloria, was going to throw a serious fit if O'Hara and I were late. She and the other nurses were covering for us back in the ER. This was the busiest time of night and we generally got slammed with patients. It wasn't long after that the three of us returned to our stations. Not five minutes after putting my lab coat back on and turning on my pager, I was being buzzed in for an accident patient who's ETA was less than five minutes.

Oh, sweet joys of the night shift.

I made my way quickly to the ER, just in time for the patient to roll in through the sliding glass doors. Zoey, another good friend and nurse, accompanied the EMTs and I follow beside the gurney. I listened to everything Lenny, the EMT, had to tell me.

"F'm'le Patient was hi'by a'ab while entering car, crit'cal condition.." He did that sometimes. He got nervous when he was around Zoey and the fact the patient was practically dead didn't help.

"Repeat, Lenny, slower." I barked. I would have spoken a little more politely, but this girl was in really bad shape.

"Patient was hit by a cab while getting in her car. She is in critical condition, vitals low, severe blow to the head, legs and abdominal area." He repeated it slow and clear this.

"Thank you." I rolled my eyes at him and shook my head as we got into an open room.

"1, 2, 3, lift." I counted down as we make a joint effort to lift the patient onto the bed.

I honestly could have done it alone, but for the sake of not letting everyone know I had super human strength I let them help. The nurses hooked her up onto the monitors and gave her a steady morphine drip to help with pain. She was unconscious though, so it doesn't really matter.

As I stood there I could smell her teetering on the brink of death, like I had sensed in many other dying patients before her. A part of me always wanted to just tell the others to save it and let them go, but the other part of me couldn't let that happen. I had to try. If she had any family, it would be unfair of me to just let her die. If she died it would be my fault and I still had trouble with losing patients. I had trouble with all kinds of connection lately. The only connection I could make was with the patients who were dying. I felt like I was slowly dying all over again.

They say we as vampires have no soul, but my opinion on this has changed drastically.

I know what I feel and my feelings are as real as anyone else's.

I reached for a pair of latex gloves and slipped them on over my hands one after the other. I look over to the door as Thor, another nurse, entered the room and quickly came to my aid. He handed me gauze and antiseptics. The two smells I hated most every time I was put in the hospital for doing something stupid like slipping on the front steps of my father's house when I was young or tripping over my own feet. This was ironic. I hated hospitals, and most importantly couldn't stomach blood as a human, and now I was a doctor.

"Compression." I ordered to Zoey. She immediately starts to use her hands to press on the Patient's chest. I watched her pump six times.

"Stop."

I could hear the heart monitor's beep slow a little. It only lasted for a minute before it started to hike again.

"Again."

I placed gauze on the patient's forehead, applying pressure to help stop the bleeding. There were more nurses now, including Jackie, to help with the girl's other lacerations. It seemed like they were everywhere. There wasn't a piece of exposed skin or clothing that wasn't doused in blood. The scent wasn't bothering me. I got used to it after the first year of working here and the years of training myself before that in previous hospitals. No one's blood had attracted me to them, I was safe. My mind was too concerned with helping those around me and I had no time to think about my thirst for blood.

My eyes continued to watch the peaks on the monitor and my ears listened ever so closely. This time around the only thing that was happening was an increase of the beeps representing this girl's life. Within seconds, she flat-lined.

Another one lost.

My onyx eyes fixed on her a few moments as I thought up a small prayer. I did this with every patient who crossed over. I knew I was probably going to see hell when I reached the other side. It was just a matter of when I'd get there. I could only hope never. I could only hope that there would be a place in heaven for me like Esme believed there would be for the entire Cullen family. There was a difference between them and I, however, a huge difference. I had a choice, they didn't. I chose to be a blood sucking demon. I wanted it more than anything, for the sin of lust and just for Edward. For wanting to be immortal and spend the rest of eternity with another vampire at all costs. It was pretty selfish of me, when you really think about it. I left all of my human relatives. In my 100 years of existing, I've came to realize many things. I had learned from my mistakes, yet it seemed I still had so many more to make. I still did, everyday.

I tried being a decent person, but I was horrible at it. It was hard when I was totally miserable as of lately. It was easier before.

When I had paid my respects, I stepped away from the girl and slipped off my gloves. I washed my hands at the sink and then exited the room without saying a single word to anyone. One of the advantages of being a doctor was that nurses practically did all the unfun parts of working at a hospital. Body bags, clean up, anything not associated with operations or taking orders on how to keep someone alive was their job. This particular case was hitting a soft spot somewhere in my heart.

I walked casually down the hall way to my office and stepped inside. I figured I would try and sign off on some paper work before the next patient. As I sat at my desk I couldn't help but think about the patient we had just lost.

Sometimes I think that I get accident patients like this to remind me of Edward.

I opened up a file and started to sign off on different patient release forms. Most of which I had already checked on earlier in the evening and decided they were well enough to go home to their families.

Thoughts of Edward began seeping into my mind once again as I thought more about the girl.

My eyes lifted from the paper to my right to look at my iHome. It was one of better the perks of being a doctor and it was times like these I realized why the Cullens always had the finest of everything. I pressed the play button and the sounds of Debussy filled my office. I was listening to Clair de Lune again. It helped ease the anxieties I got whenever something reminded me of him. I've yet to come across another being that tasted or remotely smelled like Edward Cullen. I had honestly convinced myself I was going to be alone for eternity and I accepted it willingly. I would never feel that spark of electricity again.

I continued signing off on files and there were three loud knocks harping on my office door. I looked up again, away from my paper work and there was Sam, yet another one of the nurses. They were like ants, always running around, antennae waving, working hard and getting in the way. At this rate I was never going to get anything done and I was going to have to stay just before the sun came up. I needed to feed or I was going to be in big trouble the next day. I could almost sense my eyes begin to darken further in hue or maybe I was just being paranoid. I pressed my lips together and raised my eyebrows giving him the cue to say what he needed to say.

"Hey," He said quietly. He and I didn't seem to get along too well, mostly because we bumped heads a lot. He was lazy and lacked in effort when it came to dire emergencies. He didn't even make it into the ER for the girl who had been hit. Some of Jackie's opinions of him rubbed off on me. It probably didn't help that I could smell the drugs pumping through his veins. Perks, vics, and sometimes oxys. I had an overwhelming addiction too, though. Blood. It made me slightly resent him. It was for the best, because it repelled any instinct I had to even take a chunk out of him. It got sickening, being able to know certain secrets about someone just by sniffing into the air. Especially of his sort.

"Hi, Sam. Is that for me?" I asked and looked at the file he had in his hand.

"Yeah, it's the death report from the last patient." He took a few steps forward until he reached my desk and placed the file on top of it. He looked at me strangely and I looked back at him just the same.

I realized we were having a dead-end staring contest and it was getting awkward so I replied.

"Thanks." I forced a smile.

"No problem, but hey, what are you listening to?" One of Sam's problems was he asked too many questions sometimes. Well, actually, it was more like he asked the wrong ones at the wrong times.

"Debussy." Short answers would surely get him to leave. I was only hoping. He was stenching up the room. I could feel my skin crawl.

"It sounds nice, but it sounds, depressing, like.. maybe something someone would listen to if they were upset?" His voice peaked.

Thank you, captain freakin' obvious! I didn't need him pointing out my issues or butting into them. They were really none of his business. It was just another reason why I really didn't like him. He was too inquisitive and constantly asked me too many questions. Why do I do things this way, or that way. I wish my gift was the ability to shut people up, just for this moment.

"I'm not upset." I retorted and furrowed my eyebrows at him.

"Well if you need someone to tal-"

I swiftly cut him off before I could finish his scentance.

"I don't." I paused and thought about the way I was reacting. It was unfair to him. "I mean, I'm sorry. Look, I just kind of want some privacy, if that's okay with you?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, but the offer is there." He half smiled at me before walking away.

I don't know why he tried getting so close to me. At least I didn't have to worry about that with Thor. He was one hundred percent gay. It was something about being a vampire. Attracting all sorts of guys seemed to have been a gift when I made the change. Edward wasn't kidding when he said vampires were made to lure people in. I didn't see it, the only thing I felt differently was what I wanted to eat when I was hungry. The thoughts of feeding and Edward slipped into my mind and as an attempt to distract myself I grabbed the report I had to fill out and began answering the data questions.

After I had finished I reread what I had written:

Full name: Anna Gabrey

Date of death: 12/4/2010

Time of death: 9:34pm

Cause of death: Hit by a taxi while getting into parked car. Internal bleeding of brain, kidneys and liver. External bleeding from wide, open, abrasions about the body.

My teeth worried my bottom lip and I signed off on the paper. I couldn't help but think about what would have happened if Edward wasn't there to save me from Tyler's van decades ago. I had never felt so grateful and felt like such crap at the same time when I got accident patients. I could have ended with their tragic fate. Instead I got a second chance and not only had Edward saved my life, but he made me feel alive for the first time when he had turned me into a vampire.

That's when I had really started to live. He had been the reason I lived. He was gone now, though. All I had left was this; helping others. Saving them the way he had saved me. I was doing what I could and making the best of it. The happy feelings I felt for so long about being a vampire were beginning to disappear day by day.

My thoughts were cut off, I felt my buzzer in my lab coat pocket and my hand quickly moved to snatch it. ETA was 10 minutes.

I got up from my desk and let out a sigh. I turned off my iHome and began heading out of my office.

I was not looking forward to the rest of the night. I was starting to get a strange eerie feeling just before I had walked through the threshold. I felt sick to my stomach. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. Something wasn't right. I could sense something out of balance.

I decided to pass it off as de Déjà vu and I trucked toward the ER.