Chapter 2: A Tiny Angel (Dr Carlisle Cullen, 1905)

"Dr Cullen, David Speers is having trouble breathing," came the voice of Isabelle, one the on-duty nurses, behind me. Forcing a tired expression onto my face – after all, it was my thirtieth hour in a row on duty here, with a sudden outbreak of influenza keeping both Henry and I at the hospital – I looked up from the piles of medical records on my desk.

"Do you mind telling Dr Brandon that he's going to need to stay longer, unfortunately?" I said as I stood up swiftly. It was dangerous, especially given that Henry needed to sleep and eat, but there was no alternative. We could always both simply catch a few hours of 'sleep' on the cot we kept in the office for precisely this reason. I had hunted just the previous night; there was no trouble of thirst driving me away. Henry's wife would probably bring meals, worried as usual about hunger making us weak. "I'll go check on David."

I passed Henry in the hallway, however, and gave him the message myself. He simply nodded, dark circles under his eyes second only to mine, and continued towards our office. Probably to sleep – it had been nearly twenty-four hours since he'd slept.

Poor little David Speers – the infection had spread into his lungs. His time was short, any human could see that, but I could sense it as well. There wasn't much I could do, besides give him more blankets to keep him warm, perhaps some ipecac to try to clear up his respiratory passages, but it would only prolong the inevitable.

I truly regretted how breakable these little human children still were, even with all the advances in treatment, diagnosis and medicines since I was a child. In fact, how I'd made it through 17th-century London without illness was a mystery to me – my father would've called it a miracle, an act of God.

Maybe it was a good thing that he never found out what I was. What parent would want this for their child – immortality as the characters of horrific folk tales?

*~*~*

I pondered this as I slowly made my way back to our office after making my rounds of the crowded wards. I had done a lot of pondering lately, in my lonesome hours, toying with the idea of a companion. As I approached, however, I could hear the sounds of small girls laughing inside the office – Henry's wife must've brought their daughters to come see him.

And I could sense something more – a whiff of a human's scent, and it was undeniably alluring. Not unbearable, but definitely worrisome. It wasn't Henry, nor Theresa – though I'd never officially met his wife, I'd gotten a taste of her scent on his things around the office. It must've been one of the little girls.

Ironic, I thought to myself as I pushed open the door. A scent which would send any other vampire into a frantic frenzy, and it was me who found it first. If I had been a few centuries 'younger', perhaps, I could've been dangerous to the little girl. But now… now she was as safe as any human child could be in these times.

"Ah, Carlisle!" Henry exclaimed – he looked mildly better for a few hours' sleep. On his knee was one dark-haired little girl, her blue eyes sparkling as she continued her happy chatter, capturing her father's attention again. The second little girl was standing beside him, her hands clinging to his trouser leg – almost as though she was fighting for her father's attention futilely.

"I see you've slept," I said smoothly, my composure not breaking. Within milliseconds, I had determined that the first girl, who looked to be the older, yet the more fragile of the two, was the source of the excellent scent. "You must be Theresa," I said, glad for the cold air in the hospital as I extended my hand – the cold around here would explain the coolness of my skin. Unremarkability – that was the key to my lonely existence.

"Theresa, this is Carlisle, my godsend," Henry introduced us, delivering an affectionate hug and kiss to his elder daughter.

"I must thank you," she said pleasantly. "I actually see my husband on occasion ever since you came to town."

I laughed – another good reason, yet also bad at the same time, to be a bachelor in this field. I never had somebody at home waiting for me. But I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like, to have a loving wife to distract me from my thoughts in my endless hours away from work. To have children to play games with.

I allowed myself two seconds of fantasy of creating myself a family like that, before responding to Theresa's comment. "I do try to be of help wherever I go. So, Henry, do introduce me to your adorers."

Henry grinned, and I could tell he was glad I asked. The man did love to talk about his children. "Well, this is Cynthia, my younger daughter," he said, putting a hand on the standing little girl's dark curls. "She's just turned three years old last month."

"Good evening, Cynthia," I greeted with a slight smile. Not too much – children always seemed to catch more subtle markers than adults did – but enough to make the little girl smile shyly back.

"And this little angel," Henry continued affectionately, and I knew exactly who the favoured daughter was at that moment, "is my Mary."

Ah, yes, the little Mary Alice. The entire hospital, the entire town even, had been buzzing when I'd arrived last month about her. She had fallen victim to a raging fever some time before, a fever so powerful that even her father had given up treatment. She had returned, however, from the brink of death. That would explain the look of fragility on her – doubtlessly still recovering her physical strength.

"Hello, Mary," I said, and was surprised when I received a bright, glowing smile in return. It was easy to see how the entire town was wrapped around her small fingers – I'd barely known her a minute and I already loved her, enticing scent quite aside. She did look like a living, breathing angel, with her alabaster skin and wide eyes.

"Only Daddy and Mommy call me Mary," she said, and her voice was high, musical – for a brief moment, I wondered if she wasn't perhaps one of us. "Everybody else calls me Mary Alice."

"Very well, Mary Alice," I acquiesced. For a second, just a fleeting second, I could understand how one could create an immortal child. A little girl as charming and pretty as this one, as a mere human – her allure as a vampire would be undeniably great. In fact, she might be old enough that I could probably argue to Marcus, Caius and Aro that she could be considered a mature vampire – mature, of course, meaning that she could be taught the laws and could abide by them.

I stopped that train of thought before it could progress any further when I caught myself envisioning the little girl dashing along beside me on the hunt, golden eyes sparkling. It wasn't possible – wasn't fair, at any rate, to remove the chance to grow up from a little girl as young as this.

"Mary, tell your father and Dr Cullen the story you told me this afternoon," Theresa prompted. "Carlisle, I brought in some dinner for Henry and yourself. You must be starving, all this time at the hospital…"

"Thank you, Theresa. That's very considerate of you," I said. "I may have some later, before I leave. I'm afraid I'm running low on groceries in my house. Haven't had the chance to replenish yet." Running low as in I had none. I never did.

"Mary, did you dream up another story for us?" Henry asked.

"Well, it isn't a story, Daddy, it's true," Mary Alice insisted. "You see, there's this man. He's not an old man, but he isn't a boy either. He went hunting in the woods one day, because his family was getting very hungry and he wanted to find some food for them."

"A good reason to hunt," I agreed solemnly.

"But when the man was hunting, there was a bear there," Mary Alice continued. "The bear got mad and hurt the man very badly. There's no doctors there, you see."

"This scary story, don't like it," Cynthia complained, covering her ears and burying her face into Henry's side.

"And when the man was hurting very badly, there was an angel who came. An angel from God," Mary Alice added, seeming to need to clarify who sent the angel. "She came and picked up the man and she carried him to God and they lived in forever life together. It's a true story," she repeated, eyes wide as Henry and Theresa both laughed.

"I'm sure it is, somewhere, Mary sweet," Henry agreed. "That's a wonderful story. Now, I'll kiss you both goodnight, and then I will see you tomorrow. Thank you for the story, sweet."

"Goodnight, Daddy," Mary Alice and Cynthia both chorused together.

*~*~*

"Carlisle, you must come over for drinks one of these nights," Henry said, looking up from his charts at his desk. "Mary is quite captivated by you. She has a storybook full of new tales to tell, complete with pictures." He smiled indulgently. "She'll be the next Bronte sister, my little Mary."

"Quite the imaginative little girl you have," I laughed, closing the last of my charts. "The stories sound so real at times."

"Like they could happen anywhere," Henry agreed.

"Well, I'm going to go make a round of the wards, do you want to come with me?" I said, standing up.

"Oh, very well, it's about time to walk around, isn't it?" Henry asked, standing up from his own desk. "You know, Mary told a wonderful little story the other day about you."

"Really?" I asked. "Do tell."

"Oh, I can only recall the gist of it – you know how those stories never quite sound right unless she tells them." Henry paused. "It was an innocent little story. You were out in the woods, with others. Three blonde women, two darker-haired – one man, one woman. Just talking as though you were catching up on news. Like family."

"Hmm," I said, a little surprised. Tanya and her sisters were coming for a visit, and the newest addition to their coven – one of the former Volturi guards, Eleazar and his mate Carmen. Could the child have –

"She must have overheard you telling me that your sisters were coming the other day. Didn't you say that they were?" Henry continued, and I returned my attention to him.

"Yes. That's right, that must be where she got the idea. My sisters and an old childhood friend, along with his wife. They should be arriving shortly, actually." I smiled slightly. "They live up north, I don't often see them."

I didn't think a human could hear that well, to get such an accurate description from down the hallway and through a closed door. Actually, I hadn't even described them. Or enumerated how many were coming, for that matter…

*~*~*

"Well, this is a quaint little town," Eleazar laughed as he settle back into the cushions of a couch with Carmen. "Not quite Volterra, but we can't all have Volterra, can we, old friend?"

I laughed. "No, Eleazar, no, we can't. So how are you finding the New World?"

Kate laughed at my old terminology. "It's not exactly new anymore, Carlisle, they've gone past the new, the rebellion and the revolution. They're practically their own country now – actually, they are their own country now."

Irina and Tanya were both looking out the window at the streets below. "So what stories have you told them?" Irina asked.

"For all anybody who cares knows," I said with a smile, "my sisters and an old friend came to visit from up north."

"You know, it's a nice day," Kate finally declared. "We ought to go play some baseball."

"Where, Kate? The nearest clearing big enough for you is halfway to Texas," I teased.

"And they're probably all already claimed by the southern covens and guarded by newborn soldiers," Tanya laughed. "Carlisle, you pick the strangest spots to settle down in. I never would've even thought about going into the South. How long are you planning to stay here?"

"I'm not sure yet," I replied. "I wasn't thinking long, but there's a human child I'm a little concerned about."

"By concern, you mean…" Carmen prompted.

"I mean, I'm a little concerned that she may become Aro's next project," I said with a sigh.

"Uh-oh," Tanya said, looking at me sharply. "Carlisle, you're not seriously considering –"

"No, no, of course not," I said quickly. "It's just… well, it almost seems as though she has premonitions." Turning around, I rifled through a few papers – apparently Mary Alice's infatuation with me extended to gifts – and pulled out the one I was looking for. Holding it out to Eleazar, I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms. "That was drawn as accompaniment to a story designed by a four-year-old girl who supposedly overheard me saying that my sisters and a friend were coming from down the hallway and behind a closed door."

"My God…" Eleazar breathed.

The picture Mary Alice had given me was an almost perfect replica of Tanya, Irina, Kate, Eleazar and Carmen.

"And the humans don't suspect anything?" Carmen asked incredulously.

"No, her parents write it all off as stories she creates from an overactive imagination and a tendency to eavesdrop," I answered. "But can't you see how intrigued Aro would be by this child?"

"My God, she'd be the jewel of his collection," Eleazar said with a shake of his head, passing the picture to Irina. "Right up there with Jane and Alec and Renata. Look how young he turned them – you said the child is four?"

"That's right," I said, "and I don't think Aro would hesitate if he thought there was a chance of somebody else taking her. She's just at that age where you could argue one way or the other."

"So what are you planning on doing, Carlisle?" Irina asked warily.

"Stay around as long as it's safe, keep an eye out for any trouble," I replied with a shrug. "The poor girl also the disadvantage of smelling absolutely delicious. Practically irresistible to any one of us who actually drinks human blood."

"Or just to anybody without as much inhuman self-control as you," Kate corrected.

"It's true, Carlisle. It's not natural, the amount of self-control you have," Eleazar admitted.

"Hmm," Tanya said. "Fated child. Of all the vampires in the South who could've come through this town, she catches you."