[Disclaimer] Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] I want to thank all of you for leaving me so many lovely reviews on the last chapter. Your kind words mean so much to me. Thanks for being such inspiring and encouraging readers.

**9**

Alice felt an unpleasant tightness in her stomach. Maybe this was the right time to break the truth to Bella. The problem was Alice had no clue how to explain her secret. There are things that are difficult to explain and having a penis definitely fitted into that category. She could feel her heartbeat quickening and her palms sweating while the fear of Bella's reaction began spreading through her. It practically paralyzed her.

"Alice?" Bella asked, placing her fingers gently on Alice's shoulder. "Don't you agree on what I just said?"

"Yes. Yes, of course." She said. Then, she took a deep breath and continued in a lower, whisper-like voice. "But sometimes it is difficult to share secrets with others. It's risky."

"I don't think I understand." Bella told Alice, running her fingers down Alice's arm. She closed her hand around the smaller girl's hand and sighed. "Why do you think it's risky to trust me?"

Because I don't know how you would react to the fact that I'm different! Alice yelled in her head while her lips stayed pressed together.

She made a step backwards against the stove behind her, pulling over the pot with the hot sauce. Unfortunately a big amount of it landed all over Alice's thighs before the pot landed on the floor of the kitchen.

"Ahhhh," Alice called out, as the pain radiated through her. She was freezing and burning at the very same moment. She screamed and sobbed while Bella tried to pull her upwards to the bathroom. Cold water would help against scalding, wouldn't it?

"Is Alice sick?" Eddie asked Bella worriedly before he offered to blow it better. That would help to make it better, wouldn't it?

Bella managed to maneuver Alice inside the bathtub and turned on the cold water.

"Let's get you out of this jeans." she whispered. "I need to see how bad it is."

"No," Alice croaked. "I'm fine. Ahhh…oh, crap. Why does this hurt so much? It hurts so much, so much!"

Alice could feel herself getting sick, the pain in her thighs made her nauseous. Even with the pain throbbing through her, she was aware that letting Bella see her without clothes on was a bad thing. She didn't want her to find out like this. She couldn't let Bella find out like this."

"Eddie! Bring me the phone. Can you do that?" Bella called, while she tried desperately to remember everything knew about treating scalds.

Her brother rushed off and when he returned a moment later, Bella tried to reach Carlisle. Her stepfather would know what to do. He would hopefully also know how to calm Alice down.

"Crap! He's not answering his fucking cell! Damn it!"

"You can't say bad words. I'm going to tell Mom."

Bella sighed and managed to croak out a lame excuse to her little brother. She decided that it would be best to drive Alice directly to the hospital to have Carlisle check on her. She brought Eddie over to an elderly neighbor, telling the boy to behave until she came back.

When she and Alice reached the entrance of the hospital about twenty minutes later, Alice was trembling. The pain in her thighs had worsened so much that she couldn't even think straight anymore.

"Can you page, my stepdad, Dr. Cullen for us?" Bella asked a blonde nurse who was standing at the information desk.

"He's in in a meeting. No, let me check, he's in surgery right now with Dr. Alistair. It was an emergency." she told them. "Shit, What's wrong with her? Is that blood?"

"Tomato sauce, she dropped that hot stuff all over her. Can you please, try to page, Dr. Cullen now?

"He's in surgery, sweetie. We'll have another doctor take care of your friend here."

Alice cried. She didn't want to see another doctor than her father. It would be awkward and embarrassing.

The nurse guided them into a small examination room and told them to wait for a few minutes.

"I don't want to see a doctor. I'll wait for Dad." Alice stammered out, wiping some snot from her nose.

Bella put one arm around Alice and rubbed Alice's back gently. She felt bad for Alice because she was in pain and even worse, for she seemed to be scared of the doctor.

"Hi," Esme croaked when she entered the room. She hadn't been exactly happy when she had read the name Cullen on the chart of her next patient. At least, it wasn't the boy – her boy – who had ended up here in the hospital again.

"I'm Dr. Platt, but you probably remember that from the last time you were here."

"I don't want you to examine me! I'll wait for my father. I don't want, I don't want-"

"Alice, please. You're in pain. Why do you want to wait for Carlisle? It could take hours until he finishes that surgery." Bella told her while she continued to stroke up and down Alice's back to calm her down a bit.

Alice sobbed but finally agreed to let Esme examine her.

"You need to take your shirt up a bit…and your jeans down so that I can take a look at your injuries."

"Please," Alice croaked. "Not in front of her."

"Could you wait outside for a moment?" Esme asked Bella who didn't feel comfortable with leaving her stepsister alone with the young doctor.

"You don't have to be afraid. I'm a good doctor, even if your father doesn't agree on that."

"I'm sure you're okay." Alice mumbled. She stood up and pulled her jeans down. Her skin was deep red with some blisters building at the inside of her left thigh. She cringed when she felt Esme's cold hand on it.

"Let me see. It's not as bad as it looks. You're not going to have any permanent scarring."

Then Esme's eyes moved a bit higher and her jaw dropped. Was Dr. Cullen's daughter a transgender? The chart didn't say anything about it and to her the girl looked perfectly female. She was petite and didn't have the slightest hint of an Adam's apple. Wow, nature did crazy things sometimes.

"Dr. Platt?"

"I'll give you a painkiller now. Do you know if you're allergic to anything?"

"No,"

"That's good." Esme assured her, pulling out an injection from the pocket of her lab coat. "I'll give you a prescription for some salve that you can put on your injured skin. That stuff smells terribly, but it helps."

"Thanks."

"You don't have to thank me. I'm just doing my job here. Can I ask you something?"

"I know what you want to know. Every doctor who sees me has the same question."

"I don't think so,"

"Oh sure, tell me you don't want to know about the penis. No, I'm not a boy trapped in the wrong body. I'm just a girl who's a freak."

"You're not a freak. You're just a bit different from what we consider normal."

"I'd rather not be different." Alice said, sighing in relief when she felt the pain subside as the painkiller started working.

"We're all different from others, one way or another. Now, can I ask you something? It's about your brother."

"Eddie? What do you want to know about him?"

Everything! Esme thought. I want to know everything about him.

"He's a happy child, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's happy. It's easy to make a five-year-old happy, I guess."

"Five…he's already five. God, I already missed so much." Esme mumbled barely audible for Alice.

"Dr. Platt?"

"Yes?"

"I heard some conversation between my parents. My Dad said you're Eddie's birth mother."

"I don't think I deserve to be called mother."

"Because of the adoption?"

"It's complicated. I just wished I…I wished—," The words died in Esme's throat as Carlisle entered the room.

"Alice honey, are you okay? I'm so sorry you hurt yourself."

"I'm fine, Dad. Dr. Platt gave me some painkiller."

"Did she give you some salve too?"

"She is here, Dr. Cullen." Esme snarled at him. "I told her to apply the salve to help it heal faster."

"Yeah, right, that's good. Dr. Platt, I'll handle this myself now. You can leave."

"You don't have to send her away. I want to keep her as my doctor."

"For real? I thought I'm the only doctor you would want to take care of you."

"She's different. She doesn't ask stupid questions about the…well, you know what I mean."

"I see." he murmured. His lips twitching into an almost smile. For the first time he took the time to look right into Dr. Platt's young face, noticing how her iris was the same shade of moss green like that of his adopted son. She was a pretty woman, maybe a bit too pretty to be a doctor. He tried to push the thought away.

"Dad, will I have to stay here?"

"No, I don't think that's necessary. You can get dressed now. Bella will drive you home. I'll let them deliver that salve there."

Alice nodded her head and after awkwardly putting her clothes back on, she stumbled out of the room, leaving Carlisle alone with Esme.

"Thank you." he murmured, leaning back against the wall behind him.

"For what? Her injuries are painful but not that severe. There won't be any scarring."

"I'm not talking about the scalding."

"I see."

"You were very professional about her…condition. I appreciate that a lot."

"It's alright. I've not seen many cases of Intersexuality. Most parents tend to…well, they prefer getting the child's genitals fixed at a very early age."

"Most parents are stupid. It's her body and that makes it her choice if she wants to change it or not."

"Does she?"

"Right now she does. She's seventeen. Life is difficult when you are seventeen and you feel like no one is ever going to like you the way nature created you."

"That's sad. Can I ask you something private Dr. Cullen?"

"That depends on what you want to know."

"Why do people that already have children decide to adopt? It's not my business, I know that. I just don't understand why you would want to have another kid, if you and your wife both already had some?"

"That's complicated. I'm glad we have Eddie though. He's a darling child."

Esme's heart cramped. It was obvious that Cullen loved the boy. How could she destroy that happiness by trying to take Eddie away from the people he had known as his parents his whole life? But how could she, herself, go on living with that nagging hole in her chest. The emptiness seemed to be overpowering since that horrible, horrible day five years ago…

"Does he know he's adopted?"

"He's too young to understand things. Renee and I are planning to explain things to him when he gets older."

Carlisle walked over to the door and sighed deeply. "I understand this is difficult for you. But you made your choice. Now, you have to deal with its consequences."

"Whatever having a choice means, Dr. Cullen." Esme stated, walking out of the room.

Meanwhile Bella had driven Alice back home. The painkillers were working and a slight drowsiness was making Alice too weak to protest when Bella brought her upstairs to their room.

"You can't sleep in those jeans. They're still damp."

"You just want to see me naked." Alice chuckled, as she sat down on the edge of her bed. "I can't let that happen."

"You're acting strange. I don't want my first time with you be to happen while you're stoned with drugs."

She pulled Alice's shirt over the girl's head and kept her eyes on Alice's face all the time, not daring to look down at the light blue silk bra she was wearing underneath.

"You're blushing. You are so pretty when you blush." Alice giggled, reaching out her hand to stroke softly over Bella's cheek.

"You're probably just saying that because of the drugs."

"You're always pretty to me. I like you. Can I get a kiss?"

Bella kissed Alice's forehead, pressing her lips a bit longer against Alice's cold skin. "I'll go and get Eddie now before he gets too much on Mrs. Cope's nerves. She's such a crazy old woman, different than anyone I ever met."

"Different," Alice whispered, closing her eyes tiredly. "I bet she's not as different as I am."

"What do you mean you're different?" Bella asked, but when she noticed that Alice had fallen asleep right next to her she just kissed Alice's forehead again and tiptoed out of the room.

"I don't mind you being different, as long as you want to be with me, Bella thought as she made her way down the stairs.