Thanks again to Amber my Beta!
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How is it possible that he still looked the same? It was 10 years ago that I last saw him, but he was still as young and handsome as he was back then. Those eyes, they were the most beautiful golden color. There was no way I could ever forget those eyes.
It was in Columbus, I was 16 years old. My friend Allison and I decided, rather foolishly, that we were going to climb the big English Elm at the edge of her parents' property. They lived outside of town about a mile. It was late in the afternoon and it was a stupid thing to do. I only fell about eight feet, but I landed just right, or in my case wrong, and broke my leg. Dr. Harper was out of town caring for a woman that had just had a difficult delivery. My Dad ended up taking me to the little hospital in Columbus where Dr. Cullen was working. He set my leg and took care of me when I was in the hospital. He left town not too long after that, but I could never seem to forget him.
There was something about him that was unforgettable. How is it possible that he hadn't changed in all these years? He looked so young still. I figured that he was probably about 25 back then. There were no visible signs that he had aged, none. He was as beautiful today as he was then. That was another thing that I remembered about him. He wasn't just handsome, he was beautiful. It's not a word that is commonly used to describe a man, but nothing else seemed to fit.
"It has been along time, hasn't it?" He asked me as he sat down in the chair towards the end of the bed. "I think the last time we met you were in much the same position. Of course, your leg was broken then."
"That's just one in a list of questions I have for you." I replied. "First of all, how did I get here? Second, how is it possible that I survived without so much as a scratch let alone half the bones in my body broken?"
"Well, first let me ask you. How are you feeling? You never answered me." He looked fairly relaxed as he sat there, so I assumed that there wasn't anything seriously wrong with me.
"Actually, considering what I just experienced, I feel pretty good. My throat is really dry and it burns a little. I don't understand why I am not really in any pain. The burning seemed to last for days, but I don't really feel anything now. No physical pain anyway." He was looking at me with those penetrating eyes; it was making it very difficult to concentrate.
He smiled at me with perfectly straight and surprisingly white teeth. "I guess I can start answering your questions then. I was working when two men from town brought you to the hospital. The doctor that looked at you was unable to find a pulse so they took you to the morgue. I happened to be working in the morgue when they brought you in." He paused; he must have seen the look of shock that passed over my face.
"Are you saying that I was dead?" I couldn't hide the horror that I was feeling.
"No, I was able to find a pulse during my initial examination. It was so weak, though, it was no wonder the other doctor couldn't find it." He was still not explaining how I got here and why I wasn't a broken mess.
"Did you bring me here?" I asked, still confused.
"Edward and I did." That just left me with another question that he hadn't answered. He must have seen that it was coming next though. "Edward has been with me for almost 3 years now. I guess you could say he is my adopted son. His parents both died from Spanish Influenza in Chicago. I found him in much the same state as I found you. He was nearly dead from the Influenza. His mother died just hours before, but her last request was that I do anything in my power to save him." I could hear the affection in his voice when he spoke of Edward.
"I see you kept your promise to his mother, but how?" I couldn't see how he could have saved Edward when he obviously couldn't save his mother. That brought my thoughts back to me…how was he able to save a woman who had quite obviously tried to take her own life by jumping off a cliff? Furthermore, why would he want to?
"Do you want to sit up?" He stood up, took my hand and helped me sit up, but I didn't feel weak at all. I knew I could have sat up easily without his help. He propped some pillows up behind me to make me more comfortable and then he sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Where would you like me to start?" He took my hand in his. "I can start from the beginning, it's a long story, but I think it will be easier for you to understand if I start there."
"Well, I don't appear to have anywhere I need to be." I smiled as he stroked my hand. It felt so good to have someone touch me the way that he was. He was so gentle and reassuring.
"I don't want to frighten you too much, but my story started a very long time ago. I was born about 280 years ago, I don't remember the exact year though. It's been so long now and I remember so few things about that part of my life." He paused; the look on my face must have stopped him. I'm sure I looked a little incredulous.
"I don't understand. How on earth are you here now? How is that possible?" I didn't know he could possibly explain this to me in a way that would make it even somewhat believable.
"My father was an Anglican pastor in London." He continued, ignoring the look on my face. "You have to understand, I grew up in a time of great religious persecution. My father was intent on ridding the world of evil. He believed that he was hunting witches, werewolves and vampires. I wasn't a believer, how could I be? As my father got older he wanted me to start leading the raids. I still didn't know if I believed, until I discovered a coven of vampires, true vampires, living in the sewers. I thought I was being clever so I set a trap and ended up chasing one of them down. I didn't think it would attack me, but I was wrong. It…he left me bleeding in the streets when he took off after another man."
I didn't know what to think. I had read stories of vampires, but I thought they were just that…stories. "Wait, a second, so you are telling me that you were bit…by a vampire?" I was so engrossed by his story though; I didn't want him to stop.
"Yes and thanks to my father's obsession with vampires I knew what that entailed. Even though I thought that he was just telling stories, I always listened to him. I knew that once I was bit, there was no turning back. I couldn't go back home, I knew what he would do to me."
"You don't mean that, do you? He wouldn't kill his own son." I was horrified to think that anyone could do that.
"That's exactly what he would have done. I found a cellar and I stayed there until I knew my change was complete."
I was a little more than intrigued now. "How long did it take for you to, you know…change?"
"At first I wasn't sure. It seemed like an eternity that I was in pain; I had never been in such agony. It felt like it was much longer, but it was only 3 days." His eyes seemed so far away now, but I knew that he was very aware of me. He was still holding my hand.
"So what did you do then? How have you made it this long?" I had read the stories about vampires, but they were just stories. The vampires in the stories were monsters, this man was no monster. That much I knew.
"Well, I knew what I was and I didn't want to be a monster. I felt the thirst, but I denied it. I was so disgusted by what I was that I tried to destroy myself. I jumped from cliffs, I tried to drown myself; I even tried to starve myself. Nothing worked; it's actually much harder to kill a vampire than most people believe. Eventually I could no longer stand the thirst and I attacked a herd of deer. I realized then that I could survive off the blood of animals. I have never taken a human life. Life has always been too precious to me."
"I don't understand though, how can you be a doctor? How can you be around humans and all the blood without becoming a monster?" I didn't want to sound mean, but I was confused by the conflict between the compassionate doctor I had seen, and the stories of vampires that I had heard.
"Centuries of practice… In the beginning it was a struggle, believe me. I have been doing this for 250 years now. It took me a long time to build up an immunity to the scent of human blood. I wanted to be a doctor; I wanted to be able to save people. I believe I felt the need to atone for what I had become."
"How did you come to be here…now?" I was still struggling to believe him, but there was a part of me that knew he was telling the truth. It explained so much about him. How he could be that exact same man that I met when I was 16. That beautiful ageless man.
"I came to America about 30 years ago. You have to understand that when you look like I do there is only a certain length of time that you can stay in one place without raising some suspicion. I am sure you noticed that I haven't changed since we met 10 years ago. I can stay in a place and maintain a normal life for about 8 years or so, but after that people will start to notice that I am not aging like they all are."
"How old are you then, I mean, how old were you…before?" I wasn't sure how to put it, but I knew he understood me.
"I was 23 when I was bitten. So, I guess I am still 23 with an extra 250 some odd years of experience. Since I am a doctor people naturally assume that I am a little older and I can pass for early 30's if I need too, but too far beyond that isn't very believable." He was smiling now. "That means that you are 3 years older than me."
I was starting to understand. My mind was frantically putting the pieces together starting with Edward. "What about Edward, how does he fit in?"
"Well you know I left Columbus shortly after your accident. I knew that I needed to move on soon and when I met you I made up my mind that it needed to be sooner than I had originally planned."
"Wait a second…what do you mean? Why did you need to leave sooner because of me?" I was curious now and just a little bit angry. Why would he feel the need to flee town immediately after meeting me?
He must have sensed the underlying anger in my question. "Please, don't take it the wrong way, that's not what I mean. When I met you that day, I felt like a part of me that had always been missing was suddenly there. I don't want to scare you, but I think that I was meant to be there that day. Just like I was meant to be here in this town now. You were so young then and I knew that if it were meant to be that I would find you again when the time was right. It seems now, that I have" He paused for a minute, like he was trying to remember where he was in his story.
"You were asking about Edward though. After I left Columbus, I went to Chicago and it was several years later that the Influenza epidemic hit. You know that part of the story. Edward's mother seemed to sense that I was more than just a doctor; it was as if she knew it was within my power to save her son. She had no idea what she was asking me, I didn't even know if it were possible for me to do. I promised her though and I knew I had to try. I had nothing to lose; he was going to die regardless. I took his body to the morgue just after I took hers. Everyone just assumed that he had died as well." He looked away from me, remembering. I could almost feel the loneliness in his voice.
"I didn't know the specifics of how I had been changed, just that I had been bitten. The only thing I knew to do was what had been done to me, so I duplicated the bites that I had received and I waited. It didn't take long and I knew that it must be working. I could tell that he was in immense pain, but after 3 days it was all over. He has been with me since then. After all the years of being alone it has been so wonderful to have a companion, someone who understands this life. We have been here in Wisconsin for a few years now, but we just came to town here a few weeks ago."
"What about me? How do I fit in?" I had a pretty good feeling what he was going to say. There was really only one explanation that made any sense. Wait, that's not entirely true. In fact, it made no sense at all, but it was the only way to explain how I was sitting in this bed and not six feet underground.
"Well, I think it was destiny that led me to this town at just the right time. I know it may sound morbid to you, but I think that all this was meant to happen so that I could find you again." He looked right into my eyes as he said it and I knew at that moment that I would believe anything he told me. "I don't know how else to explain how I came to be in that morgue when you were brought in. Or how you managed to survive a jump from a cliff when nearly every bone in your body was broken."
I knew it, but I didn't want to believe it. It was all starting to make sense now. "What day is it today?" I needed to know, to be sure.
"Today is Christmas Day."
It was true then, it had been three days. He had changed me…all the pain, the burning agony. I didn't know what to do first, yell at him for making me a vampire or thank him for saving me.
