"I'm on my way."

Hanging up his phone and shoving it back into his pocket, Carlisle dashed about the room searching for his briefcase which was hidden somewhere among the hundreds of books.

'Argh, where is it?'

He stopped as he saw out of the corner of his eye Edward holding it in his hands, offering it out to him. Carlisle nodded his thanks and looked briefly into his son's eyes and saw that they had not lost any of their hostility. Knowing that Edward's anger was still directed at him, Carlisle felt the need to add in his mind,

'I'm still not finished speaking with you about this, Edward. I just hope whatever has happened doesn't create too many more complications.'

Giving no indication that he had heard his father's thoughts, Edward simply walked out. The only thing that assured Carlisle that Edward had received the message was the faint "We'll see" he heard drift from down the hall.

"Carlisle," he turned his head to look at Esme's terrified face. "What's happened? What if Harry's been –"

"Shh," Carlisle soothed as he moved forward to wrap his arms around his wife's delicate frame. "I'm sure that whatever has happened, Harry is just fine." He could tell his words were doing nothing to soothe her worry; she didn't need Edward or Jasper in the room to know that Carlisle didn't even believe his own words.

"Go. Hurry and find out what's happened. Go and find Harry," she said, her voice gaining confidence as she spoke. Carlisle smiled and kissed her quickly on the forehead.

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

The rest of the house passed by in a blur as he raced out to the Mercedes. Jumping in, Carlisle threw the car into reverse and slammed on the accelerator. The tyres screeched as he skilfully spun around to face the narrow drive and floored it.

As he drove, Carlisle's mind repeated every shocking detail from the call: Harry was missing. They had found blood and glass. No one knew what had happened.

Harry is missing.

Blood.

Carlisle didn't want to think about what it could mean. Had Harry been kidnapped? Attacked in his sleep and taken?

'Please, no.'

Carlisle shook his head; surely the boy would be able to defend himself. He had proven himself capable of saving lives, so he must have been able to save his own were it necessary.

No. Carlisle didn't believe that anyone would be able to break in and take Harry without someone at the hospital noticing. Harry's powers were clearly tied to his emotions and Carlisle assumed that if he became scared enough, Harry could lose control just as he had let slip earlier in his anger.

Carlisle knew what Edward would think; he would say that Harry ran, terrified of what he had discovered and determined to reveal their secret. Carlisle didn't want to believe that. He still trusted Harry, though he wasn't quite sure why. Rosalie's voice reverberated in his mind;

"You don't know him. You're putting your faith in someone whose mind, as Edward said, is completely closed off from us."

Yet Carlisle couldn't shake the feeling of trust he had built up when it concerned Harry. The only way to know if his faith was misdirected, as his family believed, was to get to the hospital and see for himself.

Switching off his headlights to avoid detection, he pressed his foot down to the floor and the Mercedes rumbled down the deserted road.

Carlisle arrived at the hospital in record time, pulling into his car park and dashing inside. Struggling to keep himself going at human pace, he hurried through the corridors heading for Harry's room. As he got closer he could hear a number of voices all talking over each other, but one voice was closer than the others.

"Yes, he's been called. I'll head out to meet him at the – Carlisle!" Simon appeared from around the corner and was clearly surprised at how quickly his colleague had arrived.

"Simon, what's happened? Where's Harry?" Despite the man's exuberance, when the time arose Simon wasn't one to mess around. That also meant he was not likely to question Carlisle on his impossibly fast arrival at the hospital.

"No one really knows what's happened, Carlisle," he began as they both made their way to Harry's room. "The nurses say they checked on him at ten o'clock and he was fast asleep, but when they went to check again at eleven, the room was a mess and Harry was nowhere to be seen."

Carlisle looked down at his watch: 11:18pm. Harry hadn't been seen since ten. If he had gone shortly after that he could be miles away already.

"Murray said something about blood and glass." They had reached Harry's door, but before Carlisle could open it Simon stepped in his way.

"Yeah, there is. The room's a mess, Carlisle, you might want to…" he searched for the right word but just shook his head. Carlisle could see him bristling with nervous energy. "Just brace yourself. It's nasty."

Before he had even seen into the room Carlisle smelt it: blood. And it was definitely Harry's. Simon opened the door fully and stepped aside to allow Carlisle to enter first. Stepping into the room, the first thing he noticed was that it was being lit by several fluorescent surgery lamps placed around the perimeter. Under the intense light the floor glittered, and looking up at the ceiling Carlisle saw the burst light fittings. The window on the far wall was shattered, the frames left swinging sadly in the cool breeze. He could just imagine glass raining down on Harry as his temper flared and he lost control.

The further into the room he walked, the stronger the smell of Harry's blood became, but Carlisle couldn't see from where it was coming from until he got to the bed. A small clock sat on the foot of the mattress, its face and edges covered in bloody hand prints that matched Harry's. Moving closer towards the window, he directed his gaze down to the floor where the largest shards of glass were. There was one part of the floor beneath the windowsill that was stained darker than the rest, and Carlisle knelt down to get a closer look. From this angle, he could see it had a deep red tint to it which gave it away immediately as more of Harry's blood. He had obviously cut himself on the glass; presumably his hands which would explain the bloody handprints covering the clock. Carlisle stood up and turned back around to face Simon and the other doctors and nurses who had congregated at the doorway.

"Has anyone touched anything? Has anything in this room been moved since you found it?" Carlisle smelled the air surreptitiously; he couldn't pick up any scents he didn't recognise, suggesting that no one had broken in and kidnapped Harry. That was one small mercy.

"Nothing has been touched, although someone almost started to clean the place up," Simon's eyes shifted over to one of the nurses standing by the door, Suzanne. Carlisle was surprised; Suzanne was one of the more professional nurses in the hospital and Carlisle got on quite well with her. It seemed unlikely that she would mistakenly try to clean up a crime scene. She offered him an apologetic smile, to which he returned a hesitant nod.

"Chief Swan should be here any minute," Simon continued. "Hopefully he'll be able to shed some light on what happened. I hate to say at this point it definitely looks like a kidnapping, but hopefully when we get some blood testing done we'll find out who was responsible."

Carlisle desperately wished he could tell them what he knew: that the blood was Harry's, not some criminal's. He yearned to say that there was no way that this was a kidnapping and that they shouldn't waste their time, but he knew he had to keep quiet. He couldn't explain how he knew the blood that stained the floors was Harry's, nor could he assure them that no one had been in the room and it was actually Harry himself that had caused all this destruction. Instead he had to pretend to be just as dumbfounded as the rest of them.

'If only I had still been here. I might have seen or heard something.'

Carlisle frowned, deep in thought. What if there was a way to see what happened?

Pretending to look closer at the rest of the damage, Carlisle made his way slowly over to the corner of the room where the little camera sat blinking on the ceiling.

Three weeks ago, much to the disapproval of the community, the hospital had installed security cameras into all private rooms, which they had assured the public was done as a 'safety measure'. At the time Carlisle hadn't seen the need, but now he was thankful that the hospital board had gone against the public's wishes. They had been installed so recently that most people still forgot they were there. By the sound of things nobody had thought to check them, and for this Carlisle was also thankful.

Turning around, he headed for the door to leave, but Simon stopped him.

"Wait, Carlisle, where are you going? The Chief will be here soon and you should be here. He'll, uh, want to talk to you." Carlisle could tell Simon was avoiding commenting on the obvious; as Harry's doctor, Carlisle would be a prime suspect.

"Don't worry, Simon, I won't be long. I just need to pick something up from my office that I left behind earlier and I didn't get a chance to use the restroom before racing over here," he added with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. Seeing that Simon still looked unsure, he added, "I'll be back as soon as Charlie arrives."

"Doctor Morrison? A word, please."

Giving Carlisle a tight smile, Simon moved to go and speak to one of the other doctors as Carlisle slipped out into the hall and headed for the security room. The room would be unattended at this time; it always was at night, and Carlisle was counting on this so he could have free access to the security footage.

He managed to make it to the door without meeting anyone along the way. Security was in a relatively remote part of the hospital, and most of the staff were somewhere near Harry's room so the corridors were empty. Knowing that he would be alone for a while, he pushed down on the handle to let himself in. But the handle didn't budge.

'Typical. I suppose if they won't put staff in there, they'll lock it instead.'

Shaking his head at what he was about to do, Carlisle pulled a small piece of wire out of his pocket and began to pick the lock. It was just one of the things his children had insisted upon teaching him over the decades – 'how to be a common criminal' they had coined it – and he certainly didn't make a habit of doing it. Though he refused to let his family know just how much the skill had come in handy over the years.

Once he heard the tell-tale click of the lock, Carlisle stood up straight and opened the door. As he flicked the switch to his left, the room lit up to reveal over a dozen computer monitors all showing a different part of the hospital. He sat down at the nearest one and began typing. While his children insisted he was a dinosaur when it came to technology, Carlisle knew exactly how to work his way through this old system, and soon enough he had found the footage from Harry's private room over the last few hours.

Rewinding the tape to 10pm, Carlisle indeed saw Suzanne and one of the other nurses enter the room and check on Harry, who was lying motionless on the bed. Suzanne placed a small cup of water on the boy's bedside table before they both left once more.

Carlisle was just about to begin to fast-forward the tape, when Harry sat upright. Carlisle lifted an eyebrow in amusement.

'So he can act, too. Even I thought he was sleeping.'

Knowing he didn't have enough time to sit here and watch the tape in real-time, Carlisle slowly began fast-forwarding until Harry suddenly moved again twenty minutes later. The boy threw himself back down onto the bed and his mouth began to move.

'Why can't this thing have sound?'

Not even Carlisle could lip-read what Harry was saying, but judging by the far-away expression on his face it wasn't anything cheerful.

All of a sudden Harry was standing up and kicking the furniture. Carlisle watched on in amazement at the sudden change in emotion, and froze in wonder as what he had predicted came true; as Harry threw his arms out, the ceiling exploded. The room was plunged into darkness as glass rained down on him as he collapsed to the floor. Carlisle vaguely noticed the window swing in and smash just as he had imagined.

'That boy sure has a temper. How did nobody hear that?'

What he saw next had Carlisle leaning forward until his face was an inch from the screen; Harry had pulled out that same object from his pocket that he had used when he stopped the scaffolding, but before Carlisle could get too excited, he dropped it to the floor and fell back onto the bed. Carlisle sat back in frustration.

'I thought I was going to finally see something there.'

He kept the footage rolling at high speed as Harry looked out of his door, but slowed it down when he saw the glowing animal appear.

"What in the –"

Carlisle knew a lynx when he saw one – he had tasted many over the centuries – but he couldn't fathom how a copy of the animal had materialised from a ball of light. The feline sat proudly in the centre of the room, hovering a few feet above the floor and watched Harry with glowing white eyes. As the creature opened its mouth and Harry appeared to be listening closely, Carlisle cursed the lack of sound for a second time.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the lynx dissolved into nothing and the room became dark once again. Carlisle was hardly watching the screen anymore. He could have sworn that lynx had been talking to Harry, and judging by the boy's reaction it could only have been good news. Did this mean there were other people like Harry and this was how they communicated? Perhaps it was from someone back in England wondering where he was.

Carlisle was so engrossed in his discovery that he didn't even react when Harry summoned the clock into his hands and set it on the bed. He returned his primary focus back to the monitor, however, when Harry moved to the window.

'He's not going to jump, is he?'

Carlisle couldn't help but notice how calm Harry seemed as he looked out into the night. It was the same position he had found the boy in when he spoke to Harry before going home.

'The last time I saw him before he disappeared.'

Suddenly all sense of calm evaporated, as Harry stiffened and spun around so quickly that he ended up sprawled on the floor.

'Well that explains the blood.'

Carlisle watched on in fascination as Harry grabbed the clock with his bloodied hands and gaped at it. Sensing that he was about to witness how the boy had managed to leave undetected, he refused to so much as blink in case he missed it. As Carlisle watched on, Harry gave the room one last glance, turned on the spot and vanished into nothing.

'You have got to be –'

Carlisle couldn't help it: he laughed. A genuine laugh that echoed around the small security room. He had thought Harry was a mystery before, but now he was able to disappear into thin air. Surely, he thought, there's no way he has any more surprises.

As he settled down from his laughter, Carlisle began to see the serious side of what he had just witnessed. Having absolutely no idea what just happened, Harry could be anywhere. Carlisle didn't know how this newest trick of Harry's worked; for all he knew, the boy could be on the other side of the world.

This proved Harry had left by choice, and Carlisle was sure it had something to do with what that lynx had said to him, but he had no way of knowing what that could have been. Carlisle only hoped it had nothing to do with him and what he was.

The ringing of his phone brought him back to attention. Carlisle pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the screen.

Simon Morrison.

'Now I'm in trouble.'

Making the quick decision to delete the footage from Harry's room over the past 24 hours – he couldn't risk the police thinking of checking the security cameras – Carlisle's fingers flew across the keyboard in a blur. He let himself out of the room as the screens turned off one by one and pressed the answer button on his phone.

"Simon, I'm on my way. I got caught discussing the situation with someone from another department, I'm afraid," Carlisle lied easily as he retraced his footsteps towards Harry's room.

"That's fine, Carlisle," Simon was clearly trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. "I've sent Chief Swan along to meet you at your office."

'Oh dear.'

"Excellent. Thank-you, Simon." There was nothing excellent about it at all. Carlisle was ages away from his office and he knew it would look suspicious if he arrived after the Chief did.

A small mumble from his colleague signalled the end of the conversation, and the call dropped out. Pocketing his phone, Carlisle made his way as quickly as humanly possible back to his office. Given the late hour it was simple enough to avoid meeting anyone along the way and so he was able to give the occasional burst of vampiric speed when he knew there were no security cameras in the area.

When he was around the corner from his office, Carlisle heard footsteps approaching from the other direction. Darting around to his office door, he had just enough time to pull his key out and pretend to lock up when Charlie Swan came around the opposite corner.

"Ah, Doctor Cullen, they said I would find you here," the Chief said in greeting, extending his hand out to the doctor.

"Hello, Charlie. Please, how many times must I ask you to call me Carlisle?" he chuckled as he grasped Charlie's hand firmly. Ignoring Charlie's mutterings about 'wanting to be professional', Carlisle gestured to the door beside him; "Shall we go into my office?"

Unlocking the door, Carlisle moved aside so as Charlie could move past him.

"So, I hear you've got a missing patient, Carlisle," he said as he moved to stand by the filing cabinet.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. I assume my colleagues have told you everything they know?" he asked as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

Charlie looked up at the ceiling as he began to recite:

"Harry Potter, estimated to be in his late teens, was admitted yesterday for severe trauma to his body. He was unwilling to answer anybody's questions on how he ended up in such a state, and the only observation to indicate where he's from was his English accent." He shifted his gaze to Carlisle. "It was also mentioned that you were his doctor."

"Ah. Yes."

Charlie suddenly became embarrassed; a red glow was spreading down his neck as he spoke his next words.

"I'm sorry, Carlisle. I know it's ridiculous, but –"

Carlisle waved off his apology.

"Nonsense, Charlie. You're doing your job. I will tell you everything I know, although I'm afraid that won't be a lot more than what my colleagues have told you already." After he offered Charlie a seat, Carlisle moved to sit at his desk. Gesturing to Charlie to go on, he insisted, "Ask away officer."

Charlie just stared, dumbfounded.

"Carlisle, surely you don't believe I think you're guilty of the boy's disappearance? I'm just asking you questions," he assured.

Carlisle laughed.

"I know you don't, Charlie. But you should."

"Wait. What? Are you saying –?"

"I'm not saying I have anything to do with it," Carlisle waved him off, "but you should still suspect me. I've spent more time with Harry than anyone else during his stay in the hospital. I could have said anything to him while we were alone: threatened him, scared him. Never assume someone is innocent because you think you know them, Charlie," he reasoned.

Charlie scoffed in disbelief.

"Are you saying you want me to suspect you?"

"Goodness no!" Carlisle laughed. "I believe I had nothing to do with it. I'm merely telling you that in this sort of situation I should be a suspect," he finished, and fixed Charlie with a bright smile.

Still gaping slightly, Charlie just shook his head slowly until he came back to his senses.

"Right. What can you tell me then?"

"On my way in to work," Carlisle checked his watch, "yesterday morning, I found Harry by the side of the road in a very bad state. I brought him with me straight to the hospital where I have been monitoring his condition ever since."

Charlie made a couple of small notes on a pad.

"Hit and run?" He queried.

"It is difficult to say," Carlisle mused. "Some of his injuries would fit such a history, but others would not. Harry was reluctant to give any more information."

"Seems suspicious," Charlie muttered. "One of the other doctors mentioned something about an incident relating to what happened down the street at that building site."

"Ah, yes." Carlisle had been hoping the construction site wouldn't come up. "I don't really know what came over the boy, but Harry thought he should try to help and so ran outside. As the scaffolding came down a piece of metal bounced off and struck him in the head, causing him to end up back in my care and requiring stitches."

"Crazy kid, trying to get himself killed," Charlie murmured to himself as he jotted down more notes. "Anything else you can tell me, doc?"

"I'm afraid that's about it. Harry was not very forward with his information. He preferred to change topic whenever someone asked a question about himself." That was a fact that still troubled Carlisle. Perhaps if Harry had spoken to him, Carlisle could have helped.

"Right then," Charlie sighed as he stood up from his chair. "I don't see that there's a whole lot we can do. I'll get a couple of squad cars out looking tonight, see if anything comes up. In the meantime you guys know what to do; keep your eyes open, that sort of thing," he instructed, making his way back towards the door.

'Don't bother with squad cars. If Harry doesn't want to be found then he won't be,' Carlisle thought. Instead what he said was:

"Of course, Charlie. Thank-you for coming at such a late hour."

Charlie waved off his thanks, muttering something about 'just doing his job'.

"I'm just going to have a word with the bloke in charge of the department and go and have a look at the security footage, see if those damn cameras have been any use."

The false smile came easily to Carlisle's face.

"Ah yes, good thinking. I don't believe they've been checked yet, what with them being so recently installed." He knew they would find no footage of Harry's room from the past day. Carlisle was hoping that they would simply pass it off as a malfunction of the system and not foul-play, though he was rarely that lucky.

Carlisle stood up from his desk and walked over to open the door for Charlie, who moved out into the corridor. Turning around back to his office, Carlisle's eyes rested upon Harry's file which had been left open on his desk. Wandering over to it, he closed the cover and ran his hand over the boy's name which had been carefully printed at the top. He didn't know where Harry was, but deep down he was confident the boy would return.

"Carlisle, you coming?"

"Coming, Charlie."

Placing the folder neatly back into the filing cabinet, Carlisle flicked the light switch and locked the door behind him. As Charlie began to lead the way back to the boy's room, Carlisle took the brief moment alone to whisper to himself:

"Please come back, Harry."