Why, hello everybody! It's Khaos again, here to say that I'm now writing another fic. Don't worry, I will continue my other story, The Spark. I can't just work on one story at a time, it makes me crazy. (Well, more so than usual.) Any-hoo, I know there are a lot of these "The Cullens adopt a random teen and there's supernatural crap going on" fics, but I had a sudden "flood light" moment and had to type this up! So, I hope you like it!
~Khaos
P.S. Lilly, I don't care how much it annoys you, I will not stop writing multiple stories at once. My disorganized thought process defines me.
Disclamer: I think that it is obvious that I don't own Twilight. Duh, people. :D
Carlisle's POV
I drove at least thirty miles over the speed limit on the deserted highway. My sleek, black Mercedes was being tailed by the equally fast cars of my family. Edward's Volvo, Rosalie's BMW, and Emmet's Jeep were a few car-lengths behind Esme and I on our way to Olympia. We were on our way to adopt a child.
The entire family had been both nervous and excited about this day. Obviously, bringing a human child into a house of vampires was very risky, but seeing as we had had Bella in our lives for quite a while before she was changed, we thought that we could handle having another human around. I was a bit worried myself about all of this, but I was happy that Esme would finally be able to raise a small child, as she had been wanting to since her own son passed. I knew that she and Rosalie would see to it that the child grew up in a safe, joyful environment, despite the risk factors.
My family had all agreed that if we were to adopt, we should adopt a young child. That way, the child scent wouldn't be as potent until it had grown into it's early teen years, and by then we would have all become accustumed to it's scent. It did turn into an argument, however, when we discussed the gender of the child we wanted to adopt. Emmett and Jasper had desperatly wanted a boy that they could teach how to play foot-ball and video games, while the girls were set on adopting a girl. After many long discussions and a few random fist fights, we had come to the conclusion that we would adopt a little girl, around three or four years old.
Esme had been extremely excited during the entire car ride. She had been chattering non-stop about the child. She couldn't wait to meet all the children at the foster care center. Her whole face lit up when she talked about taking them home, reading them stories, playing games, and hearing the pitter-patter of little feet around the house. Her excitement was contagious, and I found myself smiling and laughing along with her.
We finally entered the city limits and soon found our way to the care center. Esme, by then, was so excited that she jumped immidiatley out of the car and made sure that everyone else was doing the same, as fast as humanly possible. I followed her wishes and quickly got out of the car.
The care center looked a little too bleek to be assoiciated with children. It was a large, rectangular structure made up of gray bricks. The window frames and doors were painted the same non-descript gray coler as the rest of the building. All in all, it looked like a boring, almost sad place to live. Once everyone was assembled, we made our way into the dull building.
The inside was just as bad as the exterior. The walls and carpet were all a dirty gray and the only furniture ther was in the tiny room was an old wooden desk. The lazy receptionist stationed at the desk gave us a bland greeting and lead us off to see the head caretaker.
The peroxide blonde receptionist lead us through several narrow hallways. On our way we saw all kinds of children. The younger ones that we saw playing or walking would turn to look back at us with expressions of hope. You could tell just how badly they wanted a home and to be loved. It broke my heart to see a childs face like that, but what was worse was the older childrens' reaction. Unlike the younger children, the teenagers we passed didn't look on in hope, but in apathy. They knew that most people came looking for small children, and had resigned themselves to a life in this pathetic house. That was truely the saddest thing I had ever seen.
We finally arrived at a heavy wooden door that was procclaimed to be the office of the head caretaker. The receptionist went inside and came out a moment later with a stict looking woman beside her.
"Hello, I am Ms. Monroe, the center's head caretaker. I assume that you are here to adopt?"
"Yes. My name is Carlisle Cullen, and this is my family," I responded, gesturing around to my wife and children. "We were hoping to adopt a little girl, between two and four...?" It sounded like a question.
"Ah, yes." Ms. Monroe nodded, "If you would follow me, I shall take you to the play area. That's where all of the children should be at this time."
Ms. Monroe lead us down yet another set of hallways to a large, gymnasium like room.
Toddlers were running and screaming about the room, playing tag and hide-'n-seek. Older kids sat at small tables gossiping or telling rude jokes, and most of the teenagers were sitting in corners sulking and listening to loud music. It was all together chaos.
"Well," Ms. Monroe said, observing our cautious expressions with cynical amusement, "I shall leave you here to interact with the children. Come and find me once you have made your decision."
With that, the hateful old woman made her exit, leaving us to deal with maddness.
"So what should we do?" Emmett asked, looking around in awe.
"We could go talk to some of them, there's a group of little kids over there." Rosalie said pointiong to the middle of the room to where a group of five toddlers were kicking a ball around. We made our way to the group of kids, but before we reached them, one of the little boys kicked the ball hard toward the corner of the room. The ball smaked into a teenage girl's head, causing her to squeal and topple off of her chair, sending the papers in front of her scattering across the floor.
At the girl's squeal, the small group of kids went dead silent, before the boy who had kicked the ball screamed;
"Crazy Girl! Run for your lives!"
He and his small group of friends turned tail and ran strait for the exit, yelling at the top of their lungs.
"Um... what was that all about?" Bella asked watching the terrified kids make their escape.
"I don't know," Esme said thoughtfuly, before turning to me, "Shall we go see if she's all right?"
I nodded, and we walked a little hurriedly to the farthest corner of the room where the girl had been sitting.
When we reached the secluded table, we saw a girl with short, dark green curls bent over picking up the scattered papers, rubbing the back of her head where the soccer ball had made contact.
"Here, let me help you with that." I said bending down and grabbing the rest of her papers.
"Oh, why thank you." The girl said, looking up and giving me a soft smile.
I drew my head back involintaraly. I was startled, not by her tone of voice, or actions, but of her oddly colored eyes.
Her irises were such a light gray that they were practically white, and they nearly blended in with the rest of her eye. the color was peircing and harsh, though she looked at everything, in a calm, almost dreamy way.
I quickly tried to compose myself, not wanting to offend her, and handed her the papers that I had now discovered were drawings.
"Are you all right?" I asked her, coming back to the task at hand. I noticed my families' mild shock as they too got a glimpse of her odd eyes.
"Oh yes, I'm fine. Thank you for asking." She said rather politely, giving me another small smile. "I'm Frances by the way, or Franky if you prefer." She stuck out a delicate hand for me to shake.
I shook her hand quickly, not wanting her to get suspiciouse of my icy skin. She didn't seem too notice, however.
"I'm Carlisle Cullen," I said, before gesturing to my family, "And this is my wife Esme, and our adoptive children , Jasper, Rosalie, Emmet, Alice, Edward, and Edward's wife, Bella."
"It's nice to meet you all." Franky said, smiling at everyone in turn. She seemed like such a lovely girl, the only reason I could think of the other children being so startled by her was because of her unsettling eyes and odd choice of hair color.
"Would you like to sit with me?" Franky asked, waving towards the extra chairs at the table, "I could tell you about the little kids here. I assume you want to adopt one of them. They're all very sweet from what I've noticed.
"They do seem rather sweet." Esme said sitting down accross from Franky, silently encouraging us to do the same.
"Yeah, they're nice, but why'd they all run a way from you?" Emmett asked, extremely blunt as always.
"Emmett-!" Rosalie scolded him, back-handing him across the head.
"What? It was just an honest question!" Emmet retorted, scowling.
"It's all right," Franky said, "I like people who are to the point, it's refreshing. I guess they run away because I'm a little out of the norm. I see things others don't, and that frightens them, I think.
We all gave each other pointed looks. We were all thinking the same thing, I knew.
"What kinds of things do you see?" Alice asked, intrigued. I'm sure she wondered, like the rest of us, if the girl was like her.
Franky jumped slightly, like Alice had brought her out of a daydream. This only added to our curiosity.
"I'm sorry, I was distracted," She turned to me and gave me yet another of her soft smile. "You have a lovely aura, by the way."
"Er, aura?" I asked, completely confused now.
"Yes, aura. It's like a colored light that glows around a person. It basically shows colors representing a person's emotions or personality traits. I can see people's auras like empaths," - to our surprise, she waved her hand towards Jasper, causing his eyes to bug out-"sense emotions. Your aura, Carlisle, is a nice, sunny yellow. It's very pretty."
"W-what did you call me?" Jasper stuttered, uncounciously sending some of his anxiety on to us.
Franky looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, did you not realize?"
"No-I mean yes-I mean-how did you know?"
"I didn't mean to let out a big secret or anything," Franky said, apologetic again, " I know you're an empath, because I can see your irregular aura, it doesn't have it's own color, it's a "rainbow aura" so to speak because it mirrors everyone else's emotions- because you feel everyone else's emotions. I have a friend who's an empath, we came to that conclusion a few years back."
"You seem like a very interesting girl, Franky. I'm sure we would all like to learn more about you." I said looking at my family to see if they agreed. They nodded, knowing what I ment. We all thought that Franky had been just the girl we had been looking for, despite our earlier misconceptions. She seemed like such a wonderful girl, and due to her unique abilities, I thought that she would fit in pretty well among the rest of us.
"Franky, I was wondering..."
"Yes, Carlisle?" She urged politely.
"Would you like to become a part of our family?"
Her mouth dropped open in shock. She clearly wasn't expecting that kind of question. Once she recovered from her moment of dibelief, she smiled a huge,toothy grin.
"That would be just wonderful! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"We'd love to have you as part of our family." Esme said, smiling at her enthusiasm.
With tears in her eyes, Franky stood up. She ran around the table and gave Esme a huge hug. For half a second, Esme looked a little shocked, but she quickly recovered and returned the heartfelt embrace.
We all got up from the table, patting Franky on the back. I grabbed Franky's pictures from the her seat. They were all pictures of fierce dragons and mysterious fearies, drawn in intriquit detail. Franky was quite talented.
As we all began to leave the now empty play room, Franky stopped and whispered so only I could here- well, so she thought.
"There's just one more thing," She paused, for the first time she seemed a little worried about my reaction, "Not only can I see auras...but I can see gohsts as well."
Okay, I'm very sorry if this wasn't good, but I just got the idea out of nowhere and had to write it down. Plus I'm tired and half brain dead so the grammar and spelling is probably really bad as well, and my Beta is currently busy...curse sports! Any-hoo, I hope you like it, and thanks again!
~Khaos.
