37. Silver Lining

Sitting down on the familiar bench, I rested my hands on my thighs and considered what to play. Esme waited patiently with snatches of melody flickering through her thoughts as she wondered which song I would choose. She thought of the complex song I had composed for her so many years ago. Though I had never settled on a name for the piece, it had always been Esme's favorite, and I simply referred to it as such.

I shook my head. That particular song was light and playful, full of runs and dancing patterns that covered the entire keyboard. It had been fun to write and was always a pleasure to play, but I didn't feel I would be able to keep up the pace that made the song sound joyous.

Esme had heard nearly every song I'd ever composed, but the ones I'd played most recently were those I'd composed for Bella. The simple tune I'd written when first I had fallen in love with the fragile human girl ran through Esme's thoughts next, and I nodded in agreement, though she couldn't see.

My fingers spread to shape the first chords, but when they touched the keys, I found myself unable to press down upon them. Though the song I loved to play more than any other would surely have lifted Bella's spirits, I couldn't bring myself to play it. The very thought caused my eyes to sting and my chest to ache.

Perhaps something else, then? Some other song Bella enjoyed? I knew how to play most of the popular tunes I'd heard her listen to, but none of them felt right.

Eventually, I simply sat and stared at the keys. The piano seemed to taunt me with its silence, and I scowled at it, as though it were the instrument's fault that I couldn't bring it to life. Flexing my stone hands, I wondered how I had ever dared to think I could bring anything to life when I had none of my own. The only thing I had ever given someone before now was death.

Trembling, I stood from the bench and backed away from it. Though her heart still beat, I had brought death to Bella, and if I dared to touch the piano again, I would surely destroy it as well.

My back came up against a wall, and I just managed to stop myself from crashing through it in my distress. Hearing only silence from me, Esme seemed to accept that I wouldn't be playing and stopped thinking of songs. Not wanting to see the look of pity which I was sure to find on her face if I returned to the living room at that moment, I slid against the wall until I came up against a door. I groped for the knob and slipped into the room.

The piano being my favorite instrument, and not one that lent itself well to being constantly shifted about, it was given a place of honor in the front room. However, it was hardly my only instrument. Perhaps I could play for Bella on something else.

Depending from hooks on the walls of the room in which I stood were enough instruments to supply a small orchestra. Along one wall were the various stringed instruments I preferred. My hand hovered over the case which sheltered the violin Carlisle had given to me decades ago. My piano had been replaced several times over the years as advances in the materials from which pianos could be made, as well as their construction techniques and designs, gave rise to bigger and better instruments, but the violin had changed little since even before Carlisle had been born.

It was the oldest instrument I owned and special to me for several reasons, but when I tried to picture myself standing in front of Bella with the bow in one hand, the fingers of the other spread across the neck, and my chin on the rest, the image wouldn't come. On another day, perhaps I could have made the violin sing for her, but not now.

Shifting my gaze to the next set of instruments, I considered taking down one of my guitars. I owned a variety of electric and acoustic guitars, some with six strings, some with twelve, and even an Eddie Van Halen Frankenstein replica which Emmett had given to me one year for Christmas as a joke - he may have laughed, but it had quickly become one of my favorites - but I felt that if I were to bring out a guitar to play, I would be expected to sing along with it, and there was no way that I would be capable of that.

My eyes swept the room. Though some hung from the wall, more were stashed in shelves or sat on the floor. I had the standard western instruments, of course: a viola, a double bass, and several styles of cellos. In my fascination with all things musical, I had also picked up some which were more common in other parts of the world. A sitar, a mandolin, and an exquisite Chinese zinther had made their way into the room full of instruments, but as I stood in the center, surrounded by evidence of a century of music-making, I was mocked by their silence.

It was all I could do not to grab one from where it hung. Not to play it, no. To use as a weapon with which I would smash the rest. Perhaps their silence would mock me no more when they were as broken as I would soon be.

A garbled noise escaped me as I turned away from the wall full of stringed instruments. Wrapping my arms around my chest, I tried to hold back the sounds of grief that wanted to come forth. The last thing I wanted was for Esme to find me weeping like a small child on the floor of the otherwise silent room.

The instruments which I faced now were nothing like those on the opposite wall. The strings had all been lovingly maintained and were in pristine condition. The ones opposite them were ruined, and no longer capable of music. Oh, once they had been fine instruments. The brasses had rung with triumph and excitement. The saxophone's notes had been mellow and sexy. The oboe had been fun for a short time, but like all of the wind instruments, it had died, the double reeds and wooden barrel quickly disfigured by the venom that flowed in my mouth.

The entire wall of instruments was a testament of what I was. No longer shining, the trumpet looked rusted, the trombone's long slide was riddled with holes, and the bottom curve of the tuba had been eaten clean through by the venom I had been unable to fully clean away. An entire decade I'd spent with wind instruments, trying various ways to play and not ruin the fragile materials with which they were made. No matter how quickly I'd cleaned them after playing, nor how thoroughly I'd removed every trace of moisture, I'd eventually conceded defeat, with the evidence of my monstrosity preserved in their displayed carcasses.

Well, all but one.

Although the silver of the flute was slightly oxidized due to its exposure to the air, it had never been affected by my venom. It, alone of all my wind instruments, was immune to my venom. I stared at it curiously for a long time, feeling that it was somehow important. I had no urge to play it, but still I plucked it from the wall and turned it over and over in my hands.

It was not wholly unscathed; the flute's pads were frayed and useless, but even humans had to have theirs replaced from time to time. But the metal, the instrument itself, was fine. A little polishing and it would be as good as new.

Huh.

As I toyed absently with the keys, I considered the metal that had been used to make the flute. Almost pure silver, it had been crafted for me specifically. Carlisle had ordered it toward the end of my failed wind instrument experiment. Disgusted with the results of my venom on brass, tin, wood, fiberglass, plastic, and glass alike, I had resented his gift and had barely played it after learning the basics of fingering. However, I had played the flute, even if only for Carlisle's benefit, and it should have shown the scars of my venom just as the others did. Yet it did not.

Standing motionless as I stared at the flute, I realized the room was not as silent as I had thought. There was a drum that was keeping an unsteady rhythm, but the soft thumping was not coming from any instrument which I owned. Almost, it seemed that I could feel the pulse of Bella's heart against my skin just as surely as I heard its beat with my ears. An unfamiliar sensation of warmth made me rub my arm, but I seemed as cold to my touch as ever. When the beat abruptly stopped, the silence it left behind made my ears ache.

Esme's and Rosalie's eyes locked on Bella; they had heard the change, too.

Bella blanched and inhaled sharply, but she let the breath out slowly when the muscle gave a loud throb and began beating again. I gasped and clutched at my own silent heart. Carlisle had predicted that it would be unable to bear the strain the pregnancy was placing on it. If it gave out, there wouldn't be any way to save her. I could bite her all I wanted, but with no way for the venom to spread throughout her body, it would not initiate her change.

It was too bad I couldn't bite her there, first.

So few vampires were able to intentionally create fledglings. The superficial wounds made with our teeth allowed the venom to enter the body, but it was the circulatory system which was the delivery method. Once drained of blood, as most victims of a vampire's bite were, any traces of venom that remained would seal the wound, but it would have no way to spread. For a person to change, they had to have blood to carry the venom to every cell, and a living, beating heart to pump it.

Abruptly, I turned and strode through the house, passing through the living room without looking at any of the women who were seated there. Upon entering Carlisle's study, I glanced first at Jasper, who was watching me with a wary frown.

"Sorry, Jazz," I mumbled, certain that he had felt my moments of weakness.

Don't be, my brother. "Can I help you?" he offered. ...at least take some of his misery off... be a relief for me, too...

Not wanting any false sense of peace, I shook my head and turned to address my father. As I met his dark eyes, I blurted, "Her heart."

"I heard it, too, Edward. But it started right up again."

"This time."

"Bella has often had an arrhythmia, even before the pregnancy. What just happened is nothing new."

"No. There is a difference! Such a thing could be fatal now."

"Son, I am not sure what you want me to say. I have already given her medications to strengthen her heart, and the blood she has been drinking has helped tremendously."

"You told Bella that there were some things which venom couldn't cure."

"Yes..."

"Meaning if her heart dies, so does she."

You know that to be true, just as well as I.

"Do I?"

He cocked his head at me and frowned.

"Have you never heard of someone being bitten and... revived?"

His head shook back and forth slowly.

Ignoring his look of pity, I took a few steps closer to him, trying not to sound like I was grasping at straws. "Humans have made advances in medicine over the past century which were inconceivable for the vast majority of their existence. Is not the same thing possible for us?"

"Bro, it's not like we get sick. What do we need with medicine?"

"Fine sentiments for the son of a doctor."

"No, Emmett is right. A vampire might lose a limb, but it takes no surgeon to reattach it. I think most vampires are able to do so quite by instinct."

Jasper snorted. "It's kind of hard to ignore your hand when it's crawling back to you on its own."

Holding back the shudder the images in his mind provoked, I shook my head. "You're missing my point."

"Which is?"

"Vampires don't need medicine. Humans do. If Bella's heart fails, venom wouldn't save her. Not on its own. But in conjunction with modern technology?"

"I do not have a defibrillator, but even if I did, there is no reason to think that would solve the problem."

"There are other methods for restarting a heart."

In his mind flashed an image of a busy hospital's emergency department. Some patients were coughing in one room, others were filling out paperwork in another, and one had a human who was holding a plastic bag and looked like they were trying not to vomit. It was a flash that could have come from any day in the life of an ER doctor, but Carlisle's focus had not been on those humans that day. He had been concentrating on a young man not unlike myself who was lying motionless in an exam room with open, staring eyes.

A nurse held a bag over the young man's mouth and nose, squeezing it every few seconds to force air into his lungs. At the same time, Carlisle had pushed rhythmically over the man's heart.

"Yes," I said fervently.

My father breathed heavily through his nose. "Chest compressions work sometimes, and not others. It all depends on why the heart has stopped, as well as what else might be wrong with the patient."

"I don't mean to be insensitive..." When we all stared at him skeptically, he snickered and admitted, "Okay, most of the time I do, but this time..."

"Will you get on with it, Em?"

"I don't think her heart stopping is gonna be her biggest problem. Restarting a heart depends on what else might be wrong with a patient, yeah? What little me an' Jazz have found ain't pretty, bro. When it's born, she's gonna have a whole lot more wrong with her than just her heart stopping."

Though I had not joined them to read through Carlisle's library for myself, I had kept track of their minds as they went through book after book. In spite of their extensive searching, they had found only a few references to vampire mythology in Carlisle's vast collection which they deemed even remotely plausible.

When rereading Wuthering Heights after falling in love with Bella, I'd discovered that, even though I'd read a book previously and could recall it perfectly, rereading it from a different perspective could give new meaning to the written words. Carlisle's first times through the books, he had not given any credence to the various vampire myths, most of which were as ridiculous as the ones humans of today perpetuated.

Their thoughts had shown me how rarely humans were faithful to one another, and in days past, when humans were more superstitious than those of today, blaming a scandalous pregnancy on a demon lover had not been unheard of. But the likelihood that any of those stories were true was negligible. Or so we had believed.

Oh, certainly we had all known that some vampires enjoyed dallying with humans. The Denali sisters may have been the source behind the legends of the succubus, but they were not the only ones. If one were to base the frequency of such pairings on the stories that had been told, then the world should have been teeming with the kind of child I had planted.

"Yes," I said in a choked voice, "I'm sure the fetus tearing itself from her stomach is not going to be pretty. But you should have seen what that bear did to you. Venom could repair her torn skin, the damage to her organs, even her bones. If she is still alive for the venom to work. If her heart isn't beating, the venom won't spread and will do her no good."

I felt my mouth twisting at those words. But, damn it, she wanted to be a vampire! And eternity with her would be so very good. I took a shaky breath and swallowed hard. Now that it looked to be beyond my reach, I wanted the promised future with Bella more than I ever had before.

No. It couldn't be beyond my reach; Bella had to live!

Carlisle's voice was gentle as he said, "Which is why I told Bella that there are some things which even venom cannot cure. If Emmett's heart had stopped before Rosalie reached us, there would have been nothing that I could have done for him."

"So we keep it beating," I insisted. "If necessary, we do CPR for the full three days of her transformation. So long as her blood is circulating the venom, it should repair the damage, right?"

Studying me with sad eyes, Carlisle sighed and leaned back in his chair. ...afraid Bella would only end up as a perfectly preserved corpse...

"Dude, what did that flute ever do to you?"

"Excuse me? Oh. Damn it."

Emmett was eyeing my hand, and I didn't need to look down to see that I still held the flute from earlier, only now it was bent and mangled. I'd forgotten I still held the thing.

"My venom may not have killed it, but it's dead now. Perfect. If that isn't par for my course, then I don't know what is." I tossed the flute onto Carlisle's desk where, unable to lay flat, it rocked back and forth.

Carlisle looked at me sharply. "What did you just say?"

"Well, before I squashed it, it had been fine."

"No, about your venom."

"It... You've seen how most materials react to our venom."

He nodded.

"The silver didn't," I said simply.

His eyes lit with interest. "Fascinating. When I bought it for you, I did hope, but then you only played it a few times, so I rather thought - "

Hearing her heart stumble to a halt and then resume its pace again, I repeated, "Her heart, Carlisle. We have to save her heart."

His enthusiasm faded, and he shook his head. "Son, you have said that already. There is nothing more that I can do."

"No, no. I mean..." Suddenly, the idea that had been forming solidified. "Emmett, Jasper, have you ever paid attention to your bite wounds after killing a human?"

They exchanged a glance, but Emmett shrugged and shook his head, and Jasper said, "I usually tried not to pay my victims any attention at all. Their emotions were difficult enough to deal with without having to study their corpses as well. There were so many of us feeding, that we were more concerned with covering up their numbers, and not the wounds we had inflicted."

"You never hunted in a city?"

"Peter, Charlotte, and I did, after I left Maria's army."

"Regularly?"

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "We moved around a lot."

"And when you were part of Maria's army?"

"It was usually isolated families from small villages, groups of people trying to cross the borders, things of that nature where we could hunt as a group and leave no witnesses. There were a number of times when we fabricated road blockages to stop cars full of people."

Our casual discussion of mass murder hardly met with Carlisle's approval, but he had no illusions about what his children were, nor what we had done in the past. His lips thinned, but he remained silent.

"I stuck to the cities," I said quietly. "More humans crowded together meant more criminals, and lessened the chance that so many human deaths would attract attention. Humans tend to notice patterns, though, so I had to be creative with the ways I would disguise the cause of their deaths. Rooftops, rivers, turning their weapons upon themselves, fires... there were so many various ways in which I could dispose of their bodies, but my aim was always to hide their lack of blood."

Jasper nodded solemnly. "Your caution was warranted. A reckless nomad is a dead nomad."

"One thing I noticed was that, even after the human was dead, the venom I would leave behind would cause the wound to heal. Of course, the police would have noticed a bunch of bloodless corpses if I left them laying around, so I still had to fabricate the reasons for their deaths, but at least my bites were not apparent."

"I assume you have a point to this?" Carlisle said sharply.

"The stress of the pregnancy is damaging Bella's heart. Couldn't my venom heal that damage if it was able to get there fast enough? Even if we do CPR, it might be too late by the time the venom spreads from a bite wound. What if there were a way to get it into the muscle straightaway?"

"Um, Edward, even if you bite her tit, I don't think - "

"Emmett!"

"Look, I just mean, what's the difference? Her neck, her wrist, or her..." He stopped and pretended to clear his throat. Considering the way I was glaring at him, he thought it healthier not to continue his sentence. "It's still gonna take time to circulate, no matter where you bite her."

"Exactly my point."

Carlisle rubbed his hand across his forehead, and he looked as weary as a human doctor after a long day spent on a fruitless surgery. "Edward, I am afraid you are not making much sense."

Striding over to lean my hands on the desk, I said, "Can you think of no way we can deliver the venom directly to her heart? Have it heal the damage before the muscle can die?"

From my brothers' minds came an image from a movie they had watched where the humans had injected epinephrine directly into some girl's heart after a drug overdose. The scene had been rather disturbing, if a tad ridiculous, especially when the girl had sat up and stared down at the large syringe sticking out from her chest.

Nudging the flute and setting it to rocking once again, I said, "This is ruined now, but metal doesn't care what shape it holds. Couldn't we..."

He was shaking his head, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"What? You wanna make some kind of wacky, slightly-squished, flute-shaped needle? Dude, bro, you've seriously lost it."

I ignored my brother, and Carlisle didn't take his eyes off mine. He seemed to deliberately picture exactly what Emmett was describing.

"Isn't it possible? Even remotely? You have needles that would reach, don't you? It can't be that hard to fashion something that would work."

"There is no need to make anything. You forget how long I have been practicing medicine. I have acquired many instruments, most of which are obsolete and nothing more than keepsakes now. However - "

"You already have one?" I was shocked at the way hope suddenly flared through my body.

"The earliest syringes were works of art, heavily decorated, and valued as much for their beauty and the materials used to craft them as for the more practical medical uses for which they were made."

He rose from his chair as he spoke, and I was on his heels as he headed for the attic and the trunks which he had carried around for centuries. After rummaging through two of them, muttering under his breath at Esme for all the times she had rearranged everything, he finally pulled what looked like a jewelry case from under a stack of outdated clothes and opened it to show me what was inside.

Nestled in the velvet were jewels from another age. I stared in fascination at the small collection of syringes. Gingerly, I picked one up after looking to him for permission. The whole thing was decorated with twisting vines, including a delicate detailing of the veins in the leaves and tiny, bright red rubies embedded within the flower petals. The artisan who had made the syringe had been quite skilled; I doubted his equal existed today.

"Where did you get this?"

"Aro."

I glanced at him in surprise.

"He always did enjoy his little jokes. When I told him of my aspirations to become a doctor, he had that one made for me." ...and then killed the man for his troubles...

"Huh."

"Although that one is well crafted, I always preferred this one."

Plucking a second one from the case, he offered another of his syringes to me. This one was undecorated, and it was not surprising to me that the practical doctor would favor it over the more extravagant one I held. I gave the first one back to him and examined the second.

"Perhaps because no one died that I might obtain it, or perhaps simply because it fit in my hands so well, but I used it for decades. In fact, I used it until quite recently, when humans discovered the dangers of reusing such equipment."

"Almost pure silver," I said when I deciphered the stamp near the base.

"If the flute withstood your venom, this surely will."

I found it almost impossible to give voice to the question that was on the tip of my tongue. "Then, do you believe it's possible? If her heart should fail, and you use this to inject venom right into the muscle...?"

He took a deep breath which he held as he met my eyes. I do not know, my son. I have never heard of the creation of a vampire by any means other than a bite, but this is not really all that different. "The difference lies in the fact that our hearts were beating when the change began."

"But it's possible," I pressed him.

"Possible? Yes. I think so. I would not have brought you here, otherwise. Doctors often resuscitate their patients with little to no ill effects so long as action is taken rapidly enough."

He imagined himself performing a cesarean delivery on Bella, his steady hands helping the creature within her extract itself from her stomach while I... while I shoved the giant syringe-full of venom into her chest.

I thrust it back at him. "I - I can't. You're the doctor. You do it."

"Would you rather help the child deliver itself?"

My eyes were wide and full of revulsion as I shook my head vigorously.

"I cannot be in two places at once. You have been my nurse before, and this is Bella's life we are trying to save. She wants you to change her, not me."

"Fine," I muttered and made to place the syringe back in its case. And why not? It wasn't Carlisle's fate to steal Bella's soul. That honor was and had always been mine alone.

He closed the case before I could return the silver syringe to its home. "I think you should go ahead and fill it."

"Now?" My lips curled in disgust. Although the idea had been mine, as I contemplated filling the silver syringe with my venom, I found my mouth suddenly and completely dry.

"When better?"

When I made no move to do so, he pictured me fitting the plunger into place and sealing the other end with the small piece which screwed into where the needle would go when the user was ready to inject the medication it held. Or venom, as in my case.

"Based on the fetus's growth rate, I estimate it will be born within the next few days, but no more than another week, surely. If Bella's measurements accurately reflect gestation, I would place the date of delivery at four days hence, but some babies come early or late. Certainly no human child would be viable after only a month, so we really have no way of knowing exactly when the fetus will be born. It is better to be prepared so that we are ready when it is."

"I - I don't know... Maybe this isn't - "

"Edward." His voice was sharp. Stop doubting yourself. This idea has more merit than any others we have come up with.

I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. This was not the normal dryness of a thirsty vampire, for that was usually accompanied by more venom being produced. I was thoroughly disgusted with the thought of spitting mouthfuls of venom into the syringe I held. However did humans manage to obtain samples of their various bodily fluids without shame or embarrassment?

As though he could read my mind, Carlisle laughed gently and clapped a hand to my shoulder. "I will give you some privacy."

"I'm not sure that'll help."

His eyes danced, and a smile tugged at his lips. "Would you prefer I stay? I could lend you some moral support by thinking of mountain lions and grizzly bears if you would like. Or perhaps I should get a National Geographic from my library to inspire your venom production? Would you like the issue with Siberian tigers, or lions of the African Savannah?"

I could feel the look of disgust that was still locked on my face, but didn't seem to be able to rid myself of it. "No. You're right. Just go. I'll figure it out."

He chuckled and said, "Do not overthink it. Just remember, you are acting to save Bella's life. There is no shame in that." And there never has been, no matter the end results.

I grunted, but didn't meet his eyes and, after a moment, he left. Alone again, I seated myself on one of the trunks with a groan. How did I manage to get myself into these situations?

When he passed through the living room, he paused and stared hard at the girl I loved. Certain that he was doing so specifically so that I would see her, I sighed her name and did what needed to be done.


A/N

Did you know there is actually a Silver Syringe Award given to healthcare providers? Well, there is! I nominate Carlisle! hehehe. There's a cool website where you can look at some of those early syringes. I've failed to link it in my profile, but it's easy enough to google images of silver syringes.