Disclaimer: Twilight and it's characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Malakai Ross, however, does not.

xoxoxoxo
Blue Eyes

The air in the Urgent Care waiting room was stuffy and unpleasant; sick and injured, young to old, patient or not, people filled more space than there were chairs available. They crowded around each other, leaning against windows, reading old magazine, coughing, bleeding, sleeping. Some of them had been waiting hours, more were just arriving. And they just kept coming. It was all the staff at St Mary's could do to keep up. Doctor Carlisle Cullen stood silently just beyond the door leading to the Emergency Room, his bright eyes sweeping over the packed room, and sighed. Northern Wisconsin certainly had more than its fair share of Bella Swans.

Bella. Her name brought back painful memories. Time and distance had done nothing to lessen the pain and anguish he felt―they all felt, Edward especially―when they had fled Forks, Washington four years ago. It was too easy to blame someone: Alice hadn't seen them. Jasper hadn't felt them. Edward hadn't heard them coming. And then in the blink of an eye it had gone up in a gulf of flames, and Carlisle had been unable to get them all out. Carlisle ran a cool hand through his perfect golden hair and put it out of his mind. It didn't do any good thinking about it now; there were still patients to medicate.

Eighty-eight-year-old Hector Wallace was sure to need a refill on his Vicodin after his back surgery. And Mrs. Calvin needed to be re-convinced that her seventeen-year-old daughter would indeed wake up after the anesthetic wore off.

"Dr. Cullen?" a starry-eyed nurse squeaked, blushing when he offered a helpful smile. Carlisle always had to remind himself that humans never got used to his unnatural beauty. "Um, Mrs. Hudson . . ."

"Oh, of course," Carlisle rescued the poor girl, smiling again. "Thank you. Will you tell her I'll only be a moment, please?"

The nurse nodded, red ponytail bobbing, and walked off in a daze.

Francine Hudson was seventy-two and in need of a new hip, though she certainly didn't let that stop her from "raising hell", as she put it. The orderlies had a slightly different term for it.

He sighed again. It was going to be a long morning.

* * *
Six hours and a sleeping Mrs. Hudson later, Carlisle was ready to call it a day. Not because he was tired―he was never tired―but his heart just didn't feel in it today. The feeling was new to him, foreign. He loved what he did. Even if his patients weren't always the easiest people to get along with, he at least knew he did something worthwhile. But after Bella had been kidnapped, it almost didn't seem worth it. It didn't seem right that the nine of them (Renesmee and Jacob were still with them) went around as if nothing had happened. Of course, they couldn't go around telling everyone that they had just barely escaped certain death (premeditated by the highly lethal, slightly vindictive vampire version of the Italian mafia) in Washington.

None of them wanted Jane, or Felix, or any of them, really, to knock on the door of 1097 anytime soon. They had to remain inconspicuous. That's why they had to flee Forks. That's why they had to pretend to be normal. That's why Carlisle had taken a quiet job in Green Bay.

Speaking of jobs, Carlisle still had a few forms to fill out, waivers to authorize, and medication to dole out before he thought about clocking out early.

He leaned against Mrs. Hudson's propped open door, thankful the meds hadn't worn off quite yet, and thumbed through the stack of papers still on his clipboard. He held back a sigh.

"Doctor Carlisle," a lightly accented voice called off his right shoulder.

"I'll be with you in a moment," Carlisle responded automatically. He clicked his pen open to sign his name.

A ghostly pale hand closed suddenly over his, smudging his signature, as a voice, the same voice, purred in his ear, "Somehow, you're even sexier than I remember."

Caught completely off guard by the unexpected U-turn the conversation had taken, Carlisle was―for once in his long life―at a loss for words. He stared down at fingers as white as his own, and his mind went blank.

A peel of quiet velvety laughter escaped his faceless assailant then, and his hand was freed.

That laugh!

"Malakai!" he exclaimed, turning sharply around.

The vampire laughed again, his eyes crinkled shut as he scratched the back of his head. "I keeping thinking you'll deck me one of these days," the vampire confessed, staring pointedly at his shoes now. "Then, of course, I remember it's you."

Laughing a little, Carlisle looked over his old friend with new warmth and shook his head slowly.

Taller than Carlisle by an inch or so with hair the color of onyx, the twenty-something vampire was more Botticelli angel than man. His even red lips parted over his stark white teeth in a perfect smile as he toyed with his (no doubt expensive) cuff links. If there was anyone who dressed to be noticed, it was certainly Malakai. His soft gray blazer (the finest silk, naturally) lay atop a classic white Oxford (nothing but Armani would do), a paisley pocket square poking out beneath his finely-cut lapel. In all the time Carlisle had known him, he had never seen Malakai do anything half way, right down to his shoes. Lavender Converse high-top sneakers (probably vintage) sitting beneath a pair of slim-fitting dark wash designer denim finished his wardrobe for today. Clearly he had no reason to be inconspicuous.

"I was hoping I might speak with you," Malakai informed him, inspecting his flawless fingernails intently.

"You've caught me at a bit of a bad time," Carlisle admitted, tapping his clipboard. A thousand questions pushed to be answered, but Carlisle knew now was neither the time nor the place. He tried to piece together a scenario that would make Malakai come here. Come now. Nothing came to mind. The last time he had seen Malakai, they hadn't been on the best of terms. To be honest, he had hardly thought of the man since they parted shortly before the Civil War. Whatever he had come for, it couldn't be good.

Malakai stared down the bustling hallway, oblivious to the curious eyes watching them. "I asked the girl at the desk―"

"Cheryl."

"Right. Cheryl." Malakai shoved his hands in his designer pockets, looking at his shoes again. "She said you're on break soon?"

"Yes," Carlisle said, aware that Malakai was avoiding his eye. "Is ten minutes all right? I have some things to finish, but you're welcome to wait for me in the break room."

Malakai laughed lightly, the same velvet laughed Carlisle remembered from all those years ago. "Just tell me where I can find the A positive and I'll happily wait." His eyes flashed playfully in Carlisle's direction.

His impossibly blue eyes.

Carlisle stared. "Malakai . . ."

"Ten minutes," his friend reminded swiftly and disappeared in a blur.