Hurray for Carlisle's P.O.V.! Let's see if I can not mess him up :)

I watch the newborn tear the doe's throat open with fangs that drip with venom thrice as powerful as my own. Venom that hadn't been there mere days ago. Venom that had replaced the blood which, for all intents and purposes, had evaporated into thin air.

I'd watched her screaming during the transformation, and had told myself to hold her, but I could not. Edward's words still lingered in my mind and staving them off took all my effort.

"Why? Why do you always feel like you need to save people?! Carlisle, you said so yourself - you don't know what we are, or why we exist, or if we are even allowed to go to a place like Heaven! We have no souls! Why would you condemn a child to a life like ours when she is so obviously a believer!"

And she was. She'd told me through gurgled gasps that I need not worry, pretty angel, since God would not allow her to pay for her sins much longer. And I'd been incapable of holding her hand, or brushing some stray hairs from her face. All I had been able to do was repeat how sorry I was.

But seeing her now, seeing the enhanced beauty of the child who had been condemned to a life of misery, I feel a sense of justification in my acts. Why not save her? I had saved Edward from certain death, and he never compl- well, that's not right, is it? He's told me plenty times how hard he finds it to believe that we are anything but monsters.

Esme, then! A sweet, loving creature like Esme could never be a monster. Nor could my little Alice, or daring Rosalie, or sensitive Jasper, or even my bear of a boy; Emmet. And as hard as Edward may find it to come to terms with it himself, I know that he is no monster. He is a kind, gentle spirit, who at times can be rough around the edges and a bit stuck-up, but we all have our flaws.

'And here is mine', I think as I walk up to her. I care too much for all things living. I have an incessant amount of respect for life. Even a life that others would not call worth living.

"Are you feeling better, miss Walker?" I ask her. I really should stop calling her that, but I'm afraid she might get agressive if I get a little too personal. I'm always afraid around the newborns. Not of them, but of scaring them off. I know how heavy the burden of responsibility is when you turn a human, and I do not want to see any of my children subjected to the horrors of vampiric mistakes.

They have all made them, and none of them have ever been able to come to terms with their regrets. Which is why I try my hardest to keep them from straying from our path - to keep them from turning into the things they detest the most.

She looks up with a glint of fear in her eyes, mixed with a sense of shock, as though she wasn't fully aware of my presence. I know not to worry - Emmett was like this as well when I changed him. (My bear of a boy had run fourty miles from the house until he'd collected his sense of self and stared at his hands like they were the most uncommon set of appendages he'd ever had the pleasure to come by.)

"Doc-" she takes a second to swallow, even though it is unnecessary, "Doctor Cullen?" she asks.

"Yes, dear," I reply, and hunch down in front of her.

"Where-" she starts, and then stares down at her slippered feet, which have blood splatters on them. She lifts her gaze to her fingertips, which are likewise covered in blood, and her hospital gown which is in a similar state. "Why am I covered in blood?"

She asks this so calmly I am taken aback for a second, recognizing that deep inflection in her tone of voice as something I should be hearing in a mental ward.

"I realize you have a lot of questions, and I want to answer them as honestly as I can." Ugh, this is always the hardest part. "You were sick, miss Walker, can you remember that?"

She nods.

"Do you remember which disease you had?"

"Spinocerebellar Ataxia." The words roll off her tongue the way they should when you're the patient.

"Indeed. You had only lived a very short life and put up such a fight in a tremendously hard and trying situation, only to die way before your time."

"So... I am dead?"

Yes. "No. Now, I know this is a lot to process, but... I am a vampire, miss Walker, and I turned you into a vampire so that you could live the life that was taken from you before your time."

"W-what-excuse me? No. No, you're-you're doctor Cullen. You were treating me. You can't- you can't be a-a-..." She giggles then, hysterically, and I wonder if perhaps this is what happens to crazy people if you turn them into vampires.

"That's ridiculous!" she cries out then. "Vampires, if they do exist, can not be out in daylight, for one," she starts, but she then sees how dark it is and rethinks her line of thought before continuing, "and they can't stand crucifixes, which the hospital is filled with! And if you're so blood-thirsty, how come you work in a hospital filled with-" she stops then, very abruptly, and turns to look at the doe not even three feet away from her.

Trembling fingers touch her lip, and though they had already been soiled with blood, when she looks at them again, she makes the connection.

I can see her eyes cloud over with a million questions and make a suggestion, "For now, let's get you back to the house, get you cleaned up, and when things are calmer in your head we can go over this properly."

I know the technical terms must disturb her. I know it must be annoying to hear words which were previously used for simple things, like school work or family arguments. Not changing into a vampire. But I can't let her let go of these human emotions.

But she does not snarl at me, or even roll her eyes. She nods instead, with this dreamy look on her face, and follows me back. I walk at a human pace because I know there is only so much she could take in at one time, but am compelled to walk a little faster when I feel the questions she desperately wants to ask prickling the hairs at the base of my neck.

She is uncomfortable in my house, even though I sent everyone away earlier. They know very well what it's like to undergo the change, and agreed to go on a hunting trip together.

Miss Walker's small feet make little sound on the staircase and I can almost hear her thinking how strange that is, as if she's taking in all the little details about everything around her. Strangely enough, she doesn't think twice about the student graduate caps she sees on display on the wall, the way the others have. She doesn't even sniff the air when she passes each room, almost as though she's accepted what she is and knows the deals of the trade.

I stand in the doorway and watch her avoid her reflection in the mirror, instead keeping her gaze trained on the washcloth she's running under hot water before scrubbing her face clean. She scrubs furiously at her glassy fingernails before turning to face me and asking me if she missed anything.

I look at the tattered hospital gown for a second, but my focus is drawn to the bloody bitemarks on her neck. I softly pry the washcloth from her grip and press it against the wound, earning a hiss from the young female.

"Sorry," I murmur, cleaning the wound as best I can. Underneath the dried blood and venom are two circle-shaped white scars which will fade in under a day. And though I am centuries old, I know how much it will continue to hurt her for years to come.

"Miss Walker-" I start, but am cut off by a sudden fierce grip on my shirt as she twists her fists around the fabric. Her head is bent down and I can see her slender frame quiver as elegant shoulders tremble erratically.

"Miss Walker," I say again, but no words come to mind when she doesn't start screaming things at me the way Rosalie had after I'd changed her. Come to think of it, I hadn't said all that much that time, either, mostly thrusting the emotional part into Esme's capable hands. I had been able to comfort Edward and Esme, but Rosalie had been very clear on the fact that what she wanted was most definitely not what I gave her and I had not been able to stave off the guilt that had infected my heart so I had had to burden my soulmate with both Rosalie's and my own devastation.

This child was different.

She is not very vocal on the matter, and that seems to make it easier for me to bear, even though a small voice in my head is telling me that that's wrong of me. That I should be able to talk to her and comfort her, instead of allowing her to grab hold of my shirt and bawl tearlessly into the air.

And so I wrap my arms around her. She seems to need it, for no more than a second later, she sags against me and cries like the world has been taken from her.

As I allow the venom tears to soak my shirt, I realize that in a way, it has.

An angsty chapter, I'll admit. Please let me know what you think! The numbers still apply :)