Forks was a small town, far smaller than many of those Carlisle had come to inhabit in recent decades. Small towns were nice, usually more than willing to take a man with Carlisle's credentials with no questions asked, but there were few secrets in small towns. Everyone knew everyone's name, within days the Cullen family would be known by everyone, and their alien nature would be that much more obvious.

In larger cities there was a sense of anonymity. Carlisle Cullen was odd, yes, he was pale and seemed to have boundless energy, but no one asked questions if he didn't seem to have any close personal friends among colleagues, or if they'd never seen his wife at the grocery store, or if his children didn't easily make friends at school.

It was just assumed, if anyone bothered to assume anything at all, that the Cullens went off to be normal somewhere else.

Cities, in that sense, were easier.

On the other hand, sometimes that small town atmosphere was a good thing. They didn't blend in, but the human population didn't blur together either. Humans were not just one in a crowd but individuals with marked personalities and histories. When you went to a high school with only sixty students in your class, there wasn't a single one you didn't know. If someone disappeared, the tragedy struck the entire town, and not just a single family.

It was easier to remember that humans were people, that every life was precious, in a town as small as Forks Washington.

It also meant, however, that there generally wasn't too much for Carlisle to do.

He was Forks' head surgeon but with the lumber industry in steady decline and the population so small there generally wasn't much of a need for surgery. The ER often had empty beds and more often than not Carlisle served as something of an urgent care practitioner or ended up doing paperwork or taking days off to hunt. And when he did get an interesting case, he inevitably had to ship them to a larger city and a university research hospital.

It was nice, of course, to have at least one rotation of their human charade where he wasn't on the clock twenty-four seven. It was nicer on his family, too. High stakes, intense shifts meant he would be home less and that wore not only on Esme but Rosalie and Edward as well. When he was young, before Edward, it had been nothing but—he'd somehow become something of a family man.

Which meant slow hospitals, small towns, were better.

But it also meant that Bella Swan and Tyler Crowley being carted into the hospital in the early morning, just before school was set to begin, was an eventful morning indeed. The ER was abuzz, nurses darting to and fro, and everyone was talking about that poor Swan girl who had only just returned to town to end up in an accident like this and how they should have canceled school with those kinds of conditions.

As a result, even before walking into Bella and Tyler's shared room, he knew that Bella had been very nearly hit by a van. Looking at her though, he wouldn't have guessed.

There was no visible bleeding or wounds, didn't smell like there was internal bleeding either, although—it was hard to tell. It was a fact of life that human blood was on a spectrum with no real rhyme or reason. Some blood smelled tantalizing, heady, and a single whiff caused you to blink and have to shake yourself out of a stupor and others—they were still appetizing, of course, all human blood was but some wasn't the same quality. You still wouldn't want them bleeding in front of you, but they weren't worth hunting either.

There was no real pattern to it that Carlisle could see. It had nothing to do with blood types, physical health, or anything else. Yes, substance abuse made the blood smell decidedly worse, as did severe illnesses, but there wasn't any tried and true system for guessing who smelled good and who did not. Well, save blood relatives, Carlisle supposed.

Bella Swan smelled awful.

Just—awful.

Awful in a way he'd never come across before.

It wasn't liver failure, kidney failure, cancer, Crohn's, Lyme disease, or any of the many other conditions he'd experienced in his time as a doctor that made humans smell just a little off.

She didn't even smell like Ephraim had, a musky, wet, cloying scent that Carlisle had always likened to wet dogs (except that dogs to a vampire didn't even smell like he had).

It was something sharp, something—overpoweringly sweet.

It matched, in other words, exactly what Edward had said the first day Bella had arrived in town.

Bella Swan, the police chief's returning daughter, had been the talk of the town and apparently the talk of Forks High School. The children had returned home from school to bitterly complain about the schoolwide obsession with the girl whose only claim to fame was coming from an exotic locale like Phoenix.

While having the nerve to be so pale that it looked like she'd never seen the sun.

Rosalie had complained that it was as if the Forks' male high school population had never seen a woman in their lives.

Edward had complained that the girl smelled terrible.

"And that's a bad thing?" Carlisle had asked with a smile, after all, for a human not to smell good to a vampire—well, Bella would never know, but it meant there were certain gruesome deaths that she was going to avoid.

If a human could have a talent, smelling bad to vampires wasn't a bad one.

Edward spared him a look, something exasperated and entirely unamused, "You don't understand, Carlisle, I—I had to sit next to her all through Biology and it was unbearable. I've never experienced anything like it. She's not simply unappetizing, she's revolting. I—I even went to the main office to see if I could switch into Physics. Of course, it was hopeless, the class is full and—I'm not sure I can do this."

Jasper had then, with a smirk, volunteered to switch with Edward (though they had all known that this suggestion was only half a joke, half of it was very serious, as in sitting next to someone like that Jasper could use her as a crutch of sorts). Then Emmett had made some joke about body odor and perhaps throwing Bella a can of Axe Deodorant and Carlisle had put it out of his mind.

If Edward came home from school every day this week looking like he'd walked through mustard gas—well, Carlisle supposed there were worse fates.

The girl, for example, could have smelled delicious.

But here Carlisle was, a week later, and he had to agree with Edward. She—well, Carlisle wondered if he was about to have a disease named after himself.

But, on the other hand, it meant that Carlisle certainly wasn't going to eat her. Oh, he never had, not once, and these days blood was only a mild distraction at best, but it always was a risk in the back of his mind. Tyler, for example, bleeding and in certain need of stitches brought about a half-forgotten feeling of anxiety deep within him. From that part of Carlisle that had never forgotten being a newborn or those months before he'd discovered the diet.

He attended to Bella first.

"Hello Bella," he said with a smile as he walked over to her bedside. She looked up at him and—it was a very odd expression.

Hers was an ordinary face, attractive, clear of acne as well as freckles. Her eyes were a little larger than average, her eyebrows a little thinner, but it was by all accounts an ordinary face. But that expression—it was not dazed as he might have expected after such an accident, not fearful either, not mortified, exasperated or anything else.

It was intense, yes, that was the word for it.

Her eyes, despite being so large and almost doe-like in shape, were sharp and locked on him. They were not fearful but rather were wary, very clearly waiting for him to make some move.

Edward—

Had noted that as well.

He'd complained that the girl stared. Edward had pointedly never spoken a word to her, despite sitting next to her, and she had never spoken a word in turn. Yet, whenever she felt like she could get away with it she—stared. And with her mind inexplicably silent to Edward, he found it unbearably unnerving.

Biology had become by far his least favorite class with Bella Swan as his least favorite human in a century.

Carlisle had thought he'd been exaggerating, she was a seventeen-year-old human girl staring down a vampire, but, again, he had to agree. It was unnerving.

"I heard you had a bit of an accident," Carlisle forced himself to continue, smiling pleasantly.

Bella didn't answer, she just kept staring. Just before Carlisle could prompt her for details, she opened her mouth and said, "Yes."

And nothing else.

"Yes?" Carlisle asked.

"Yes, I mean—" and for a moment it looked like she was reminding herself of something, her pale cheeks flushed and if her face was screaming a thought it was 'stupid, stupid, Bella saying stupid things', "I, um, was nearly hit by Tyler's van. It's okay, he missed. I mean, he didn't miss because he obviously didn't mean to hit me, but I got out of the way. Just in time. So, I don't have to be here."

She then turned to glare at Tyler, "And he can stop apologizing!"

(Tyler had, for the record, been ceaselessly apologizing to a rather annoyed looking Bella Swan when Carlisle had first walked in. This, though, did get him to be quiet for a few seconds. Carlisle—supposed that would have gotten very old very quickly, especially for a girl Bella Swan's age who was bound to be mortified by anything and everything.)

"Hm," Carlisle hummed, staring at her and the neck brace the EMT had supplied her with, "Well, I'm afraid that I'd like to be the judge of that. If there is anything wrong, I'd rather catch it here then send you home."

Her eyebrows lowered and her mouth curled into a pout, "I'm fine, I feel great, I promise it didn't even hit me."

"You were found lying on the ground," Carlisle noted, "Are you sure you didn't hit your head?"

"I mean—" Bella flushed harder, sighed, "A little, but I'm not concussed. Ask me the date or the president or whatever you want to. I'm fine."

Under ordinary circumstances, Carlisle might very well agree. He'd probably prod at her neck, check that no bones were broken and no muscles torn, but with no blood, no smell of internal bleeding, no sound of blood taking unusual paths through her system—he'd probably have declared her good to go and focused on Tyler's stitches.

But smelling like that—

Carlisle, often, had patients who walked in with early stages of cancer and no idea they had it. As such, there was no reason for a human doctor Carlisle Cullen to suspect they had cancer either. It was only that he could smell what he did that he knew for certain the beginnings of something terrible was occurring to them.

He often found himself gaslighting such patients into agreeing to a cat scan, MRI, bloodwork, colonoscopy, anything and everything and then he'd put on his best surprised face and say, "Oh, Mr. Johnson, I'm afraid you appear to have stage one prostate cancer" and they'd proceed with a biopsy, chemotherapy, or whatever other treatment seemed best.

Bella Swan didn't know it yet, but Carlisle Cullen was about to put her through the ringer.

"I'm sorry, Bella, but I really think we should run a few tests," he said with a reassuring smile, "You might be right, nothing might be wrong, but I'd feel better with an X-ray, MRI, cat scan, and even some blood work."

Bella's face paled, her eyes widened, and immediately she said, "No, no, I mean—I'm fine."

Carlisle frowned, "Bella, I really don't think you should refuse. I realize this might be embarrassing, that you're missing school, but you just went through a very serious accident. You may feel fine right now, but a few hours from now the adrenaline will wear off and you could be in serious pain. Or a few years down the line you might discover that you had a serious injury that you didn't know about and suffer chronic pain because of it. I highly recommend you do the exams."

"I really think I'm okay," she insisted.

"Bella, I hate to bring this up," Carlisle said with a sigh, "But you are a minor. If I have to, I will talk to your father, and I'm sure he'll agree with me. There are worse things in the world than blood work and a few hours spent at the hospital."

She stared at him for a moment, then said, "I really don't think you want to do those tests."

He blinked.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm saying that you really don't want to do those tests," Bella insisted, her eyes sharp again, dark and unreadable, "And that I really think you should just send me home."

Carlisle had rarely been intimidated in his life.

His creator—Carlisle had had so little time with him. Those first seconds spotting him, Carlisle had been intent on running him down, and the man had barely looked at him. After he'd bitten Carlisle, he'd quickly began pursuing the mob, and hadn't so much as glanced at Carlisle after he'd hit the ground.

Carlisle's creator ended up being little more than a concept.

His father—his father was complicated. He was an intimidating man, to be sure, and as a boy Carlisle had been very awed and cowed by him in equal measure. As an adult, though, Carlisle had resigned himself to being an eternal disappointment and his father had only become a source of dull pain and the occasional resentment.

Aro had been an intimidating man, but he had gone to such lengths to hide it. Aro did not wish to come off as the sort of man who ruled the world. Similarly, Marcus seemed to barely remember who he was let alone his position. Carlisle supposed that Caius was intimidating but he'd always seemed more exasperated by Carlisle than anything else.

Bella Swan though—she was intimidating.

It took him a second to remember that she was human, that her threatening him was—frankly, it was ridiculous.

"Yes, well, I'm afraid I have to disagree," Carlisle said with a strained smile, "In the meantime, I'm afraid I must see to Mr. Crowley. A nurse will be by shortly."

"Hm," Bella Swan hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Then, "And I suppose if I disappear out the window you'd just run me down?"

Carlisle blinked again, already halfway to Tyler's bedside, and found he had nothing else to say but, "Yes?"

"Thought so," Bella said dourly, and then closed her eyes and—proceeded to pretend to sleep.

(And Carlisle, beginning the process of stitching up Tyler, felt as if he owed Edward a sincere apology.)

The bloodwork, of course, had to be sent off to a lab and would take a few days to get results.

The cat scan had showed nothing immediately obvious, but was also to be sent off along with the results from the MRI.

By the end of the day, both Bella and Tyler had been released back to their normal lives.

"Well," Carlisle announced when he returned from work, "I just had—a day."

Esme was immediately there, pulling him into her arms with a smile, "Welcome home!"

Carlisle hugged her back and let himself revel in the fact that—he was not at work right now.

He pulled back with a smile, then made to find Edward. Edward was sitting at the piano, staring at its closed cover with a wistful, saddened, look in his eyes. He didn't move to open it, nor to leave, but just kept staring.

This was not unusual.

Carlisle didn't think he'd heard Edward play in years let alone compose. For a while he'd persisted with Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, all the classic concertos, but then one day he'd just stopped and couldn't seem to find the will or energy for it.

For a while now, perhaps ever since Edward had returned from his years on his own, it was as if he'd only simply been existing. All passion, all joy, all the things that made life worth living had been sucked out of him.

It worried Carlisle.

With a sigh Carlisle sat down in one of the chairs across from the piano. Edward glanced over and Carlisle gave him a smile, "I believe I owe you an apology."

A single, red, eyebrow raised as Edward stared at him, waiting for an answer beyond the rueful mirth and amusement in Carlisle's thoughts.

"I met Bella Swan today," Carlisle explained.

Edward frowned, then nodded in realization, "Ah, yes, the truck incident."

He then frowned, "She made a nuisance of herself even there?"

"Well, nuisance is a strong word," Carlisle said, suddenly feeling a little on the spot, gossiping about an injured teenage girl who certainly didn't deserve this, "But she is—ah—memorable. And off putting, I'd thought you were exaggerating but—I can see why you feel the way you do."

Carlisle briefly replayed his few minutes with Bella Swan for Edward as well as his own general impressions. Except, removed from the situation, he couldn't help but feel he'd been overdramatic. Bella Swan wasn't the first patient whose instinct was to refuse treatment, and what he'd read as hostility could have easily been mortification, embarrassment that the entire town had seen her accident and her entire high school was waiting in the waiting room.

For a seventeen-year-old girl that had to be hell on earth.

Now he felt—a little petty and immature. He suddenly regretted bringing it up, and what was supposed to have been a nice conversation between him and Edward (perhaps even a way to spark some sense of life back into him) was now just—well, Carlisle regretted not just heading for his study and forgetting the day had ever happened.

"No," Edward hastily said, "No, you're not—she's odd."

"She's seventeen," Carlisle huffed, knowing there was no point in hiding his thoughts and feelings.

"I spend every day with seventeen-year-olds," Edward retorted, "I have never seen one like that."

And suddenly Carlisle felt awful. He felt like one of those overly mean girls in high school dramas who talked bad about the protagonist behind their backs.

"All the same," Carlisle said, "That's not her fault and—I really shouldn't be talking about her like this."

"It's fine," Edward said with a smile, "I understand, and I'm glad you said something."

Good, because Carlisle wasn't.

He let out a sigh, "Well, yes, I just—wanted to say that. I guess I'll go to my office."

He didn't wait for Edward to protest, as he undoubtedly would. The only thing that would result from Carlisle staying was a continuation of this truly terrible conversation. Or Carlisle would try to pivot and talk about school, anything besides Biology and Bella Swan, and Edward would just dully inform him that nothing of interest ever happened in school or ever would.

No, better to read journals or books and wait for Emmett and Jasper to reemerge from their latest wrestling match, or Rosalie from the garage, and Carlisle could try again talking about something, anything, else.

He wondered when it'd become so hard to talk to Edward or if—

If it ever had been easy.

In the beginning, oh, there'd been so much. Edward had become this thing he'd never volunteered to become, a creature that fed off blood and could never truly be a part of society. He'd had his whole life ahead of him only to suddenly have a life that—was not a human life.

He'd been so miserable.

He'd never blamed Carlisle, at least, not until he'd left but—

It had never necessarily been easy to talk to him.

Edward always thought it was, he adored Carlisle entirely (too much at times), but Carlisle wasn't as confident. Sometimes he wondered if there was ever a single moment where Edward had been happy in this new life Carlisle had foisted upon him.

Perhaps, someday, things would be different.

Until then, he supposed inertia would carry them all forward as it always did.

On the way, he passed by the portrait of himself and the Volturi. He paused, as he almost always did, and let it serve as a reminder that he'd once been a very different man who had lived a very different life.

Vampires didn't change easily but they did change.

Carlisle had changed greatly.

Things could, would, get better.

He believed that.

He smiled to himself, let himself idly muse for the umpteenth time that he really should give Aro a call and see how the twenty-first century was treating him, and then made his way into the office and closed the door behind him.

He dropped himself into his office chair and let out a deep sigh.

What a day.

He stared up at the ceiling, giving himself a moment to process and—

Was something burning?

He sniffed at the air. Yes, something was definitely burning. Not just burning but—that smelled like kerosene, a fire burning not only on wood but chemicals. And there was also something else, some unnatural scent that felt as if it had been cloaked in—

Was that Axe Body Spray?

He glanced towards the curtains behind him in confusion, he tossed them aside and opened the window.

The house was on fire.

The house was on fire, and it was spreading very quickly.

Carlisle jumped out the windows, joined not long after by Rosalie, Edward, and Esme. Esme put her hands to her mouth in horror, too stunned to make a move, while Edward and Rosalie stared in dumb wonder.

Carlisle didn't waste time, he raced back into the kitchen, grabbed the fire extinguisher (purchased for Esme's early days experimenting with cooking in the kitchen when—well, it was probably best not to reminisce about it. Esme had never truly recovered from those ruined kitchens.)

He hastily put out the flames which, while spreading, thankfully hadn't spread enough to be unquenchable.

As the foam receded, Carlisle watched as it fell away to reveal the house's now scorched exterior.

Esme let out a heartbroken sob.

"We'll fix it," Edward promised, "It's not so bad, Esme, some new wood and a few coats of paint is all we need."

The glass wall next to the wooden framing shattered, the excess heat too much for it.

Esme sobbed harder.

"And we'll replace the glass," Edward hastily added. He shot a panicked look to Carlisle, 'Say something' in his eyes.

"Yes," Carlisle said hastily, "Yes, we can fix this, it's—"

Carlisle didn't finish his sentence, instead he turned to look at the woods behind him. There was nothing, no sign of any other person or being. There was also no stray scent of either human, vampire, or even someone like Ephraim.

A human wouldn't have been able to move fast enough to get away, would certainly have left a trail behind them, but a vampire would have left a very noticeable scent behind.

But this—

It was winter, it had just snowed that morning, and the smell of gasoline was still pervasive.

That had not been a natural fire.

Someone, or something, had set it.

And now that someone or something had disappeared.

"Rosalie," Carlisle said carefully, "Could you take Esme inside?"

Rosalie, it seemed, had caught on to what was happening even if Esme had not (the very idea that someone could do something like this on purpose would not occur to someone as kind as Esme). She nodded and hastily ushered Esme inside.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Edward noted, "No thoughts."

At Carlisle's look he added, "Nothing, not even a driver on the road."

And that, Edward's radius was several miles, further than a vampire could hear or even smell. Even if someone had gotten away—Edward should have noticed them approaching the house as well as someone leaving it.

"Alice hasn't said anything either," Edward added, "She'd notice this."

"So then—it was an accident," Carlisle said slowly.

If there were no thoughts, no trail, no sign of any life and Alice hadn't seen any decision being made—well, what else was Carlisle left to conclude? Edward frowned as well, thinking it over, but noted, "I—guess so."

He then added, "No one in town suspects us."

"Oh, they suspect the usual things, incest mainly," Edward continued with a frown, "But—there are none who'd light our house on fire. And the Quileute tribe wouldn't dare, not with the treaty."

"So, it was an accident," Carlisle repeated.

Edward didn't seem to like that answer.

Neither did Carlisle.

"I'm going to look," Carlisle said, more to himself than to Edward.

"There's nothing to find," Edward said with a huff, "And if you stay out—it will only worry Esme."

"Just the same," Carlisle insisted, already walking and making his way through the woods. He heard Edward sigh, probably shake his head, and walk slowly back into the house.

A few miles away, Carlisle found a can of abandoned Axe Body Spray, an unusually sweet scent clinging to it.

Author's Note: A mystery begins.

Thanks to Vinelle for betaing the chapter, thanks to readers, reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight