-=[ Isabella Swan 17 y.o – the past]=-

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Carlisle and Esme POV (Carlisle returning home from the press conference)

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28.

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"Honey, I'm home!" Stepping into his wife's arms, Carlisle buried his face in her neck, breathing in her scent as he held her tight.

"Are you okay?" Esme asked, tilting her head up to look into his eyes.

"I'm fine," he responded, giving her a reassuring smile. "It wasn't exactly a festive affair. Then again, I knew that going in," he sighed, stepping back a little to loosen his tie."Actually, I'm glad I knew beforehand, so I could prepare myself mentally."

"It seems to have generated quite a bit of media interest already."

"Yeah, they are like greedy vultures flocking on a fresh kill. I predict-or rather I fear-it will only escalate from here."

"It's a terrible, terrible tragedy - no matter how it happened, or who did what…"

"Yes, agreed," he hummed, running a hand through his hair, letting it fall over his forehead again."What about you? How are you holding up?"

"We watched the press conference."

"You did?" Carlisle leaned against the counter and watched her as his wife pulled open the fridge and took out a carton of juice.

"On Alice's laptop," she explained and took a glass down from the cabinet. "You want some?"

"No, I'm good."

"The girls had heard from a friend of a friend about how someone would be attempting to live stream it… It worked surprisingly well. I missed the first couple of minutes, but Alice said it was mostly introductions and stuff we already knew. Then, the stream got cut off towards the end before the Q&A session was completed. I saw most of it though."

"The wonders of modern technology," Carlisle closed his eyes and rolled his broad shoulders. On opening his eyes he added, "If you saw it, then perhaps you noticed that there were certain things-certain details—that were deliberately kept from the general public."

"The part about the plastic bag and the duct tape?" she asked, having evidently already picked up on this.

"Yes." He nodded. "It obviously proves malicious intent, but I've been asked not to spread that information around... You haven't said anything about it to the kids, or anyone else, have you?"

"No and I won't."She poured the juice, and put the carton back in the refrigerator. "I figured it was left out for a reason."

"We need to find the mother and fast. What we don't need is a lynch mob. So it will probably help if those details are left out for now, we need the general public to feel a bit compassion towards the mother."

"What's the word on the-… the second fetus? Was it alive or….?"

"Too soon to was a very small baby though… so small, the survival rate, if it was indeed alive at birth, would have been down to a coin toss."

"Really? A coin toss is 50/50, I wouldn't call that hopeless odds."

"You're right, let me rephrase. If born in a hospital, with all the right medical expertise available, the odds could have been as good as 50/50, perhaps. But born out in the woods like this, he never would have stood a chance. Of course, I'm not a neonatal specialist, but-…"

"It was a boy?" Esme interrupted him. "And he was even smaller than the girl?"

"Yes. I know, it's a bit unusual. With boy/girl twins, if one is bigger than the other, it's often the boy."

"Wouldn't that indicate, the fetus may have been deprived of nourishment or oxygen for a significant period of time?"

"It could indicate that yes, but like I said. It's too soon to tell. They'll do an autopsy of sorts, to find out for more."

"Do they know which twin was born first?"

"No. If I were to guess, I'd guess the girl though. Studies suggest second-born twins are more likely to die during, or shortly after delivery. Complications such as oxygen deprivation, breech birth and infection are often to blame for this increased risk."

"Oh…"

"I have to say it's a bit peculiar, the way the two babies were separated. Someone went through an awful lot of trouble to move Baby X."

"You mean the bag and the tape?"

"I'm talking about the bag, the tape, the walk through the woods, the dumpster… Someone went to all that trouble, only to leave the second baby, and the placentas, behind in the shallow water, covered only by branches, reed and moss."

"Do you think...?" Esme started, but then trailed off with a frown.

"Do I think what?"

She pulled a face, not quite comfortable with what she was about to say next. "I haven't had time to think this through properly, but maybe the mother didn't know she was carrying twins and was caught by surprise...?"

"That's a theory as good as any. Shock coupled with blood loss can make you do nonsensical things." He considered it for a moment, before adding, "I have to say I agree with chief Swan on this one. I think there were at least two persons involved in all this. I don't think they had access to a car, seeing as the dog could pick up and follow that blood scent almost instantly. It sort of supports our gut instincts that it's a very young mother, or a very young couple, that we're dealing with here..."

Esme nodded in agreement. "Yes, I actually spoke with Charlie about this earlier… about our concerns that the parents could be two scared teenager, who's done a terrible thing out of shame and fear for the repercussions of admitting to a pregnancy."

"Oh, you did? Actually, so did I," Carlisle admitted, with a shake of his head."Poor Charlie, I bet everyone is trying to tell him how to do his job, right about now."

"Yeah. I left him a text message asking if we could meet up before talking to the kids at school tomorrow. You know, to discuss our strategy. He called me back, but he didn't say much. He was short on time, for understandable reasons. It was right before the press conference. "

"Oh, okay."

"We did decide on when and where to meet up though, so that's all sorted. Oh, and by the way, I promised him we'd check on Bella a bit over the next couple of days, as he'll be working pretty much non-stop with this. He said something about sleeping in shifts at the station tonight."

"We should invite her over. Isabella is always welcome here, she's no trouble. Even when she's in one of her quiet moods, she's still pretty easy going… " 'Unlike our Edward', he wanted to say aloud, but he held his tongue.

"The invite has already gone out. Alice is working on it. I'll probably have to go into town to pick her up, in a bit," Esme said, checking the time on her watch. "Actually, that reminds me. The kids are all grounded."

"They are? I mean, good! It's probably for the best given the circumstances."

"The boys aren't home right now, so they haven't been informed yet. That will be your job."

"Okay…" He gave her a confused look. "I thought the plan was to wait until after dinner, so that we could have a family meeting and talk to them all at once…. united front and all that."

"Yeah about that plan…. Emmett informed me earlier that he and Rosie have had a change of plans and will be leaving straight after dinner, rather than staying one more night. He said something about an assignment that he'd forgotten about. Me thinks he knows we're on to them and that he's trying to make a run for it, while there is still time to escape the parental wrath."

"You're probably right. I'll speak to him," Carlisle agreed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Grounding him obviously won't do us no good. We'll have to be creative here."

"I'll leave that up to you, dear. You're the one promising him some kind of reward- cash, was it?- for coming home this weekend in the first place."

"I did, yes. He wanted to purchase some new fancy car stereo type of device. It has a touch screen which is the 'shit', apparently. I'm sorry, love. You weren't supposed to know about it…" He hung his head. "I just wanted everything about this the weekend to go smoothly. I'll make sure he knows we're disappointed in him. I have it on good authority that alcohol was flowing freely here last night."

"Good authority? Who's this good authority? Someone at the hospital?"

"Mrs. Stanley informed me she'd seen all sorts of scandalous photos going through her daughter's social media feed. Apparently, we're bad parents for not keeping better tabs on our children's internet activities," he said it jokingly, but the joke fell flat.

"Maybe she's right, maybe we've given them too much freedom, and it's biting us in the ass now. Carlisle, I'm not sure it stopped with just alcohol. Someone's been rummaging through the bathroom cabinet upstairs."

"Our bathroom cabinet?"

"Yeah, I found my allergy pills, or rather I found what was left of the box, sandwiched between the cushions in the couch."

"That's unfortunate. If it's any comfort, the most likely outcome when mixing allergy medicine with alcohol is drowsiness."

"Depends on which pills they picked for their concoction." Esme threw her hands up, in frustration. "In this case it was my Benadryl. A simple google search will tell you that a high dosage of can give you quite the trip, especially if it's combined with other prescribed drugs or alcohol."

"Okay, you're right. Sorry, I didn't mean to belittle your concerns. I thought it was your Claritin. It's been quite a while since you switched, so I didn't realize… I didn't think…-" He shook his head and his forehead furrowed. "Benadryl is a deliriant that in high dosage can cause hallucinations and extreme paranoia in some cases."

"Don't forget coma and death. Taking a stimulant and sedative at the same time can lead to unexpected reactions, including nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, coma, and death."

"Death by Benadryl overdose is thankfully rare… What did Alice have to say about this? You did ask her, didn't you? "

"I did, yes. She alluded that we should speak with Edward about it. She acted like she didn't think it was a big deal. In fact, she doesn't seem to think anything about last night was a big deal or anything out of the ordinary."

"Oh really?"

"She was like yeah, we had some people over, but I swear I only invited 20. Sorry, mom, but a bunch of other kids showed up uninvited. It went overboard from there, but in a good way…like it turned into the party of the year and I promise mom, nothing happened," Esme said, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and imitating her daughter's voice and speaking pattern.

"Nothing happened?" Carlisle raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

"Yeah, I know. That's another reason why I decided to ground her then and there, rather than waiting until tonight. They don't realize the seriousness of this situation."

"This may be the generation which has grown up with a world of information at their fingertips, but even with all that, they are still just teenagers being teenagers."

Just then a thought struck him. "Es, honey, where do you keep your sleeping pills?"

"Oh. They are-… Oh no! I was gonna say I had them with me in my purse. That was not the case though. I never packed them. I left them in my bedside table. Do you think….?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Esme was pale and her hands were shaking, and he knew he should try and get her to calm down a bit.

"Let's go and see if we can find them. I'll have a word with the boys the minute they get home and see what they have to say for themselves, okay?"

He kissed her forehead.

"Okay." She nodded.

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