Carlisle
Esme, when it came down to it, worked with an efficiency worth marveling over. The dining area had been cleared out. So was the living room. Most of the furniture was either pushed to the side or out in the backyard. The larger of the two, the living room had the bed from their, Rose and Emmett's and Alice and Jasper's room. They were all massive and occupied most of the floor area. Carlisle still looked at them skeptically. The wolves were huge even in their human form. And he remembered how much Jacob had thrashed and cursed. In such close proximity, they were likely to hurt one another.
But it would have to do. For now.
The dining area had also been cleared out. All the equipment that he had brought during Bella's pregnancy was there. Carlisle was glad he never got around to donating it away. Edward flashed from one equipment to the next, setting everything up with a speed no hospital staff could match.
The howling outside got louder to the point of being deafening and Rosalie rushed up to Renesmee who was now awake.
Carlisle stepped towards their backyard just as the first group of Quileute boys broke through the tree line. They were carrying a dark gray wolf on their shoulder that was yowling in agony.
"Try to get them to turn to their human form," Carlisle called out.
It would be extremely painful for them to phase back, he knew that. But his knowledge of the veterinary sciences was severely limited. He wouldn't be of much help to them in their wolf form.
By the time he was done speaking, the next group of boys were there carrying another one of their brothers, who was screaming and cursing, but was in his human form. Carlisle directed them to the living room. Seth and three other boys carried a light gray wolf into view and Carlisle recognized that one as Leah. He repeated his instruction about phasing before he skipped inside.
He could hear the boys coaxing Leah and the others to turn through their agonized screams. Carlisle tried to focus on the one that was already on the bed.
"Water, bandages, spirit, Morphine, suturing kit, betadine, lidocaine."
Things were beside him the moment the words left his mouth, Alice running around the place in a blur.
"Jasper, help them turn back," Carlisle called out to his son before he started assessing the boy before him. He was a young kid, one he did not recognize. Perhaps one of the seven that had phased in December. He had a few broken bones, but most of his injuries were focused on the superficial soft tissue. He would need a lot of sutures but he would survive. Carlisle did another quick assessment and got to work. He injected a generous dose of morphine, even though he knew it would not be of much use right away.
"Hold him down, I'm going to break and re-align his hip," Carlisle instructed the boys who had carried this one in. "What's his name?"
"Collin," replied the boy who stepped closer. Carlisle instructed him on how to pin down Collin as he explained to the patient as well as the attendants what he was about to do. Neither cared, the patient in too much pain and the attendants far too worried. But he did it anyway, knowing it wasn't very wise to do anything that might startle the boy into phasing back.
"You ready Collin?" Carlisle asked. He took the string of curses aimed at his long dead mother as an affirmation and in one swift movement, snapped the bone out of the socket. Not the most orthodox or scientific method but the bone was fusing into the socket in the form of a wolf. It needed to be mobile. With another elicitation of promise of debauchery towards Carlisle's mother, the boy's bone was in place.
He did not like the curses being thrown around but he could see the boy breathe easier. On to suturing now.
Edward came forward and with two pairs of hands working, they cleaned the yet to heal claw marks. There was a lot of fur, dirt and grime. Edward and Carlisle each picked one large mark and cleaned it out. Application of the alcohol got exactly the expletive curses that they expected. Once those two were cleaned, Carlisle injected local anesthesia and started suturing while Edward worked with both hands, cleaning another wound while also assisting Carlisle. Bella tentatively approached and took over the work of assisting, mopping up blood from the field. She needed a bit more directions than Edward but not enough that he would have to slow down his own work. One done. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. He sutured up six long gashes, leaving the rest clean and open to heal on its own.
From what he knew of the wolves' healing speed, they had been injured for quite a while before they reached the house.
By the time he was done, two more of the five injured wolves had phased into human form. Esme had directed the others to bring them in and place them on the bed. He let Edward set up a drip for Collin before he went to work on the next one.
He did a quick assessment of the two. The larger, older boy was better of the two. Start him on morphine, he mentally told Edward and turned to the younger one.
The boy, despite his enhanced growth and muscular built, looked far too young. And a part of Carlisle was glad that he kept his curses directed against mothers and sisters in general and did not pin point to his own. Like the one before, this boy's wounds were also extremely dirty and Carlisle could see the inflammation already setting in. He would have to cut up quite a few of his healing wounds to clean them out.
"Give me something I can use as a tourniquet," he called out to all present in the room. The one in his medical kit would not go all the way around the boy's thighs. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Esme take off her belt and Bella passed it to him. He wound it tightly at the top of the boy's thigh, gently coaxing him to lay on his back instead of curling up. He was bleeding and he needed to stop that first.
Emmett eventually had to step in and hold the boy down by his shoulders while his friends held down his arms and legs allowing Carlisle to work through the thrashing. His femoral artery was injured and he had already lost far too much blood. He would need a transfusion.
"Edward, take a sample of his blood. There is a kit in my office. Type it and tell me what it is," Carlisle ordered.
He looked away from his patient when he heard the crunch of gravel as a car turned off the highway onto their driveway. At the same time, from the other side, he heard the thumped footfalls of the running wolves.
His stomach tightened and his hands shook for a moment before he steeled them and continued to suture the bleeding artery. Jacob, Sam and the rest of the wolves phased into a human form and rushed into the house within minutes.
He could see the alarm on their faces when they saw the extent of injuries on their brothers in human form.
"Jacob, Sam," Esme asked them, her voice a little tentative and she took an automatic step back when the two large boys turned to her. "Maybe you should get Leah and…uh…the other one to turn into a human…"
The nervousness in her voice turned her statement into a question but Jacob nodded nevertheless. Both of them went out and Carlisle tuned their pleading and commanding out. He had to remain focused. He knew exactly the state he would be in if he allowed himself to think about Jacob's presence in the house. Jacob and Sam apparently.
He shook his head, focusing on the work at hand.
The artery was sutured and he closed all the other superficial layers just as quick. Bella had picked up on what she was meant to do and Edward called out instructions to her on how to clean the wounds. Together the two of them were cleaning up most wounds before Carlisle started with suturing them.
The howling outside turned to yelling and screaming as Leah and the other one was carried into the house. Seth laid his sister down onto one of the beds where she curled up into a fetal position and the others set the second one down onto the bed beside Collin.
The car came to a halt in front of their house. But Edward did not look too alarmed so he assumed whoever was coming was in on the secret.
"Where is he?" a woman shrieked outside the door when Esme opened it. Without waiting for a reply, the young woman pushed past and entered the already crowded living room. With seventeen wolves and seven of their own family members, the room was already far too crowded. The smell of the wolves weighed heavily in the air. And through it all, he caught a whiff of another smell. Blood.
Human Blood.
As much as he wanted to help these people, it would not be at the cost of his family's comfort. He knew exactly what these boys would do to him, his children or his wife if they lost control.
"Don't let her in," Carlisle yelled out and Esme turned on her heels and had the girl in an unyielding grip, pulling her back. Visiting the vampires wasn't the smartest thing to do while menstruating that heavily.
"Kim, you shouldn't be here," Sam shouted, lurching towards her.
Carlisle looked up at his family members, each one in turn. Esme, Rosalie and Edward seemed okay. Emmett had already been holding his breath, probably due to the stench of the wolf blood so he was fine too. Alice had her hands on Jasper's arms as she coaxed him towards the back door. Bella looked like she was in pain but she continued working on the wounds.
"Bella," he called out to his newest daughter softly. She looked up, her eyes dark. "Don't put yourself through unnecessary pain."
"I can help," she spat out through her teeth. "I am fine. I won't lose control."
"I know you won't," he said, meaning every word he said. She would not, she had shown far too good a restraint. But that did not mean he would turn a blind eye to the pain on her face. "But still. Go out with Jasper. Walk a little way, breathe the fresh air, and then hold your breath and come back."
She nodded once before she navigated through the crowd of bodies and bolted out after Jasper and Alice. Edward left the other boy and went after Bella.
Don't let anyone go too far from the house, Carlisle called out after his son, hoping he would hear him through the medley of worried and agonized minds.
The moment Jasper left the house, all five of the wolves yelled out in pain, thrashing harder against the hands that held them steady.
"What happened?" Seth yelled, alarmed at the abrupt increase in volume.
"Jasper was alleviating their pain," Rosalie explained.
Carlisle was momentarily surprised to find her in the middle of the crowd instead of standing by the stairs. He looked over his shoulder and saw her drape a sheet over Leah's naked body.
"Get away from me Leech," the girl spat out.
"Happy to, Bitch," Rosalie answered back, equally rude. But for a brief instant Carlisle saw gratitude in the pained brown eyes and an understanding acknowledgment in the golden ones. And then Rosalie was back on the steps, turning her nose up at people standing around their house and Leah was back to cursing the world out.
Carlisle smiled at Rosalie who rolled her eyes.
Finished with another one, Carlisle turned to the older of the two. At the same time, Kim, another human girl, Billy Black and Sue Clearwater entered the living room. The patriarch of the house had to give it to the girls. They cut through the flood of semi-naked bodies like warm knife through butter to reach the beds.
"Sorry, I tried," he heard Esme's whisper and shot her a grateful smile.
"Where's Jared? How is he?" The girl, Kim, rushed into the house and demanded of no one in particular.
"He'll be fine, the doctor's working on him," Sam reassured her and sighed, stepping away. The girl sat opposite Carlisle and held the boy's hand. Compared to the two before, this boy had less number of injuries. They were just a lot more immobilizing. His arm as well as leg was broken.
"I'll have to re-break his bones too," Carlisle said, looking at Sam who nodded. "Perhaps you should come, stand on the other side. Help hold him down."
There were more than enough people to hold Jared down. But Sam had inadvertently taken his place right behind Carlisle and his presence had the exact same affect on him as Jacob's. He could not afford to go into an anxiety spiral right now. Emmett seemed to understand his dilemma and he silently placed himself where Sam had stood, guarding his back.
Sam warned Kim to take a step back and leaned beside his second-in-command. On a count of three, Carlisle snapped the wrongly fused bone. Without Jasper around to numb the pain and the morphine long since burnt off, Jared let out an animalistic screech and Carlisle was almost thrown back when the boy phased. Some of the other boys pulled Kim and the other injured boy out of the way of the snarling wolf.
With a pained howl, Jared launched himself at Carlisle. Huddled in the crowd of the bodies, Carlisle did not have the time or enough space to get out of the way and Jared sunk his teeth straight into his shoulder as they crashed through people, furniture and flooring.
Pain shot through his arm and he heard more than one of his family members scream out his name. Emmett was on the wolf in an instant. Mind numbing screech filled his ears and fire shot through his arm and up his neck as Jared pulled his arm off his body. His hand was attached at his shoulder by barely a few threads before Emmett hauled the wolf off him and chucked him out the open back door.
"What are you doing?" Kim yelled out at the large vampire as a few boys rushed out towards the back yard. "He's hurt."
"Yes, and now the only doctor who could help him is also hurt," he heard Rosalie snarl back at Kim.
Carlisle's own eyes flashed with colors and he held his arm in place with his other hand. Cold hands helped him up and he looked around to see Rosalie and Emmett on his either side. Esme was in front of him, carrying most of his weight as she pulled him up to his feet.
Whatever wolves remained in the house were shaking, the air hot and vibrating with their tremors. The ones in the backyard had phased and he could see Jared cowering before the large black wolf. He did not wait to see any further. Esme led him up the stairs and into his office.
"Carlisle, sit down," she commanded and mindlessly he followed her order. With quick hands she tore his shirt off and inspected the arm. It was re-fusing. But each fiber reconnecting felt like he was being branded by hot iron. He gripped her hand with his good one and buried his face against her waist. He could not let his family look at him like that. She whispered to him, words that made no sense to him. But her voice was soothing and she ran her hand through his hair. He leaned into her more heavily, clenching his mouth shut against the pain.
Jasper entered his office at that moment, followed by his other three children. Rosalie and Emmett stood outside his office door.
Edward, Bella and Alice stopped near the door too but his veteran son strode forward and placed a hand over his shoulder. Instantly, Carlisle's mind cleared. The pain was still there but it was far more tolerable.
"It will heal on its own," Jasper said. "But it will take a while."
Carlisle shook his head. He did not have that much time. One of the wolves needed transfusion and he hadn't even seen the other two yet.
Somehow Jared attacking Carlisle had forced the other wolves to tone down their cursing and screaming.
"Okay," Jasper sighed. "This is going to hurt. But I am going to pull the entire arm off, coat both the surface with venom and then reattach it."
Esme whimpered but he gave her a reassuring smile before nodding to Jasper.
"Esme, let's go,' Bella held a hand out for his wife. "You shouldn't be here."
His wife allowed herself to be pulled out of the room.
"Ready?" Jasper asked and Carlisle nodded, one hand planted firmly on his table.
Jasper certainly was someone who believed in ripping the band-aid off. Carlisle gave one alarmed, painful scream and a good part of the large mahogany table turned into splinters under his hand. He clenched his mouth shut thereafter and allowed his son to reattach his arm. The first scream was a slip. He wouldn't let Esme hear anymore than what she already had to.
If he could cry, he would have tears running down his face. But he couldn't so his eyes compromised by stinging in protest. He took in deep, unnecessary breaths, gritting through the burning and throbbing near his shoulder. Jasper used his gift to numb the pain but it was a few minutes before Carlisle could think straight again.
"Thank you son," Carlisle breathed out and Jasper gave him a nod, helping him up.
"Are you sure you have to go back down so soon?" Rosalie looked at him when he exited his office. "I'm sure the dogs won't complain after what they just did."
"I am fine Rosalie," he reassured her, placing a hand on her arm for a brief moment. He pulled on a loose T shirt she offered, large enough to be Emmett's, before he went down again.
Halfway down the stairs, the air was burning, the people tense. The room was far more crowded than it was intended to be, each Quileute boy taking up the space of at least two. Jasper held his breath and walked with him to the bed where Jared was once again lying in his human form. One look and he could tell the phasing had displaced the bone again. The boy would be in unnecessarily extra pain now.
"We're sorry doc," Sam said, his voice hard.
Carlisle gave him a reassuring smile before he looked at Jared. One of the boys held Kim and the other girl in the corner of the room, with Sue and Billy. The largest of the uninjured wolves, including Jacob and Sam stood around Jared, ready to hold him down if needed. Rosalie and Emmett pushed past them and stood near Jared's bed. Jasper took his place right beside Carlisle.
The place was far more congested than he wanted but he resigned himself to it. Instead he spoke to Jared again. "Jared, I am going to re-break your bone so that it can heal correctly. It will hurt but you have to stay in your human form otherwise it will not fuse correctly."
Jared nodded, gritting out a sorry and closed his eyes.
Carlisle ran cool fingers down his arm, looking for the point of break. When he found it, he looked at Sam. Jacob and Sam held Jared down. Rosalie pushed one of the boys away and held Jared's arm while Emmet held down one of his legs.
"Careful dog," she sang at him. "Attack my father again and your arm won't reattach quite so easily."
"Rose," he warned her softly.
This time around, Jared was a lot more co-operative. He was in pain, the volume of his scream a testament to that. Carlisle looked at Jasper briefly, but the hard look in his son's eyes told him he was fresh out of sympathy for this particular wolf. Carlisle gave him another morphine injection and then turned to Leah and the other wolf.
"Carlisle, A positive," Edward called out from his study where he had been testing the blood type.
"What are their names?" Carlisle asked the two alphas.
"Collin, Embry, Jared, Paul and Leah," Jacob said, pointing at the five wolves.
"Well, Embry needs blood transfusion, so if any of you have A+ blood," he looked around the room and one of the boys volunteered.
Edward was down in a flash with a blood collection unit and the boy followed him into the other room.
Three done, two more to go.
He appraised his remaining two patients as he heard another car turn onto their drive way.
"Leah needs surgery," he announced. The girl had sustained mostly soft issue injuries as well. Claw marks specifically. But they were deeper and over more vital organs. And seeing the amount of blood she had lost, Carlisle knew she hadn't passed out yet only through her sheer obstinacy.
Esme offered to carry her to the other room but Sam took over when Leah cussed her out. He stepped closer to Esme, giving her hand a comforting squeeze when he saw the hurt on her face. But she schooled her features quickly and stepped out of the way.
"You and your sister have the same blood type?" he asked Seth who nodded.
Carlisle sent him off to Edward as well. Sue went with her son, daughter and Sam into the other room and Carlisle looked at Paul. The second girl had somehow made her way back to his side.
"Rachel, maybe you should step away for a while," Jacob said, slowly and took a quick step back at the angry glare she shot him.
That was definitely his sister.
"Charlie and Emily are about to reach," Edward called out and more than one person in the room cussed. While the people of the Quileute tribe knew of their identity, Charlie could not be explained everything. But it was too late. Carlisle could already hear the car coming to a halt outside the house.
"I'll talk to him," Billy volunteered and Carlisle nodded before he got to work.
Esme welcomed the two new-comers inside, and Charlie let out a low whistle, looking at the crowd of people and the state of the room. He was still in his uniform from the morning, looking far too tired to be up and about. His radio hung on his shoulder.
"Bill, what's happening?" he asked his friend who had rolled his wheelchair forward.
"Some of the kids got injured. Dr. Cullen is the only doctor in town who knew what they are and knows how to treat them." Billy's explanation was simple and effective.
Charlie looked around again. So many, he marveled under his breath. Sam silently moved to Emily's side.
"I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be here," she whispered to him. "But I got a voice mail that a bunch of you were injured and heading here and I couldn't get to Sue or Billy and…"
Sam hushed up her hurried explanation.
"Bella and Renesmee are upstairs Charlie," Esme told the baffled man just as Carlisle started at Paul.
He started with the dislocated shoulder, popping it back into the socket. Paul's curses, Carlisle had to admit, were far more specific and vivid than any of the three before him. His distaste about the promised perversions of his mother must be getting evident on his face for Rachel hurriedly took out her belt and offered it to Paul to bite onto.
"Please don't be mad at him," she whispered to Carlisle who looked up only momentarily to see the tear streaked and worried face of the young girl. "He doesn't mean anything by it."
Carlisle said nothing, working with inhuman speed to stitch up Paul's injuries and readjust his bones.
"Wait, you are all here?" Emily asked the room in general, her brows furrowed.
"Yeah, why?" Jacob asked.
Her eyes darted around, silently counting the semi-naked boys in the room.
"Em, what is it?" Sam asked her, forcing her face to look at him.
"I met Charlie when I went to Sue's. She wasn't there but had left a note that she would be here. Charlie offered me a lift here and," she said, with an unsure pause. "And when I was leaving her house, I saw a bunch of wolves. Charlie saw them too. We thought it must be you guys, although I wasn't sure why you would be roaming inside the town…"
"Wait how many did you see?" Jacob asked, his eyes wide. "How did they look?"
All eyes in the room were trained on her, even Carlisle's as he waited for her answer.
"Five, six maybe," she said. "They looked like you all, just…smaller?"
Emily's answer was unsure but it told them what they needed to know. The third pack was in La Push.
At that exact moment, Charlie's radio came alive with a static. He was just starting to ascend the stairs so every occupant of the room got the gist of the signal.
Multiple people mauled to death in La Push.
Four houses set on fire.
Highways leading to the town blocked by uprooted trees.
The local police needed re-enforcements clearing the highway so emergency services could reach them.
There was a beat of silence.
Charlie looked around at the room. Jacob and Sam exchanged a glance. The air shook with angry snarls and within seconds, every uninjured boy was out of the house, each one phasing before they touched the ground in their backyard.
The room cleared in a flash.
Re-enforcement would reach La Push soon.
A/N:
Am I a doctor IRL? Yes.
Did I enjoy writing Carlisle doing doctor stuff? Hell yes!
Is it medically accurate? I wouldn't know. He has been a doctor three centuries longer than me. Also I have never treated a shape-shifter.
I do hope you enjoyed the chapter though. Slightly longer than the usual length for this story. Let me know what you think!
-ZQ