A/N: Thanks to all of you for reading my new adventure here! I hope you enjoy the second chapter; the Mason's wake up! See how Carlisle handles the two of them.

Carlisle

For almost three days I was tortured by the sounds of the Masons being in pain. The moaning, writhing and screaming were almost more than I could bear. Elizabeth was quieter than Edward was, almost sensing that seeing her in pain would cause me to feel worse than I already did. Edward, though, didn't hold back. He screamed more than he was calm while the venom worked through his body. Being a doctor, I had always strived to help humans, not to hurt them. That's why I believed this to be the purest form of torture for me.

As the dawn started creeping up for the third day, they both started to calm. I could hear their hearts accelerating, indicating something was coming. We were so isolated where we were that I could easily concentrate on this sound without worry of anyone approaching. Elizabeth's heart raced faster than Edwards, and then finally it stopped. I reached over to her first, begging for her eyes to open. I was fairly certain that I had done this correctly, but honestly, I remembered so little from my own change that I couldn't be sure.

Finally, I was rewarded with Elizabeth's bright red eyes opening and staring up at me. Immediately, she jumped to her feet and cowered against the far wall, fear written all over her face.

"Elizabeth, I'm not going to harm you. I just want to help," I tried to say in a soothing manner, taking a small step toward her. Her instincts must tell her I'm dangerous. "I will not hurt you," I said again, in a calm and slow voice.

"Who are you?" she asked, still not getting up from the floor.

"I am Carlisle Cullen. I am a doctor at the hospital you and your son were brought to a few days ago. You were both dying from the Spanish influenza."

Elizabeth stared at me for a few moments, then her eyes glassed over. She stood up carefully. "We are going to be friends. At least, I think. It's hard to tell, there are so many choices."

Confused, I took another step closer to her. "What do you mean?"

She didn't respond, rather she turned her eyes to Edward who had just opened his eyes. "Edward?"

I had missed Edward waking up while my focus was on Elizabeth. Turning slowly, I looked into the stark red eyes staring at him cautiously. How am I going to handle two newborns? What if they both hate me for what I did?

"Newborns? Who are you? What have you done to my mother?" Edward shouted and ran quickly over to Elizabeth. "Mother, are you, all right? Who is this man? Did he hurt you?"

Elizabeth shook her head, standing up out of her crouch slowly. She regarded her son as she had me earlier. Her eyes glassed over again. "You will be fine, my son. You have options ahead of you that will be difficult to overcome. But I think I can help."

Edward shook his head, his eyes wild. "I don't understand, what did you say? Why is my throat burning? Mother, you aren't making any sense!"

I stepped toward them again, my hands up in a defensive motion. "You both have many questions, and I will happily answer all of them. But first, you need to feed."

At those words, both of the Masons looked at me, red eyes ravenous. "Yeah, you need to hunt."

Still unsure of myself, I motioned for them to follow me out of the cabin. Letting my senses take over, I tried to locate the closest animal herd that I could lead them to. Edward was faster, though, and took off running as soon as he was outside. Elizabeth followed him after a split second, so I just started tracking them instead. It was more important for me to keep them in my eyesight than search for prey. Their instincts would help them find the animals easily enough.

"Edward, search for deer, or elk. They do not taste as good, but they will calm the thirst." I knew that he could hear me, though he was farther away than Elizabeth. Edward was leading them, so I knew that the best way to handle it was to prod him toward the right source.

Soon, we came to the edge of a clearing. Edward had stopped and was crouched down, staring back at them. Elizabeth sat next to him, her hand immediately going to her throat. I approached slowly, but stayed a safe distance away.

"Use your senses. Do you smell that? There is fresh blood in the clearing. Go, satisfy your thirst."

They needed no additional pushing. Elizabeth's dress did not appear to hamper her ability to move swiftly, and she was on top of a large elk in the middle of the clearing before he could even move. Edward had run to the other side, closer to them, and taken down a deer. I could tell that I would need to hunt soon also, but I was leery of taking my eyes off of the newborns.

Between the two of them, they took down four deer and two elk before they finally turned back toward me. Elizabeth's face was a mask of calm, while Edward's eyes glared directly into mine.

"What are we? What have you done to us?" he demanded, putting his arm around his mother. He stared at me for a moment. "You...you are a vampire? You changed us to be like you!"

I took a step back, trying to figure out how Edward had come to that conclusion. I put my hands out in front of me in what I hoped was a calming gesture, trying to calm Edward down. In a flash, Edward was right next to me though, his hands around my neck.

"Start talking, doctor." Edward's face was vicious as he tightened his grip. I was too stunned to speak, but Edward kept talking without pausing. "Mother, he was lonely. He wanted companions. He turned us into monsters so he would have people to, what, talk to?"

Elizabeth appeared next to them, placing her hand on Edward's, forcing him to let go of me. "He made a choice, dear. I see that one choice he had was to let us die, he couldn't bear that, could you, Carlisle?"

Shaking my head, I took an involuntary step backward. "You both asked me to save the other, I wanted to help in any way that I could. It didn't feel right to separate you two."

Edward shook his head. "That's not all..." He was quiet for a moment. A look of disgust marked his face and he stared at the doctor. "You...you..."

Elizabeth, once again, put her hand on Edward's, stopping him. "Dear, do not worry about his motivations. We are what we are now, let's try to deal with it. We have a choice to make, we can fight him and go off on our own – in which case, I do not see that we will have a good life – or we can stay, learn about what we are and let him guide us."

Edward and I looked at Elizabeth in surprise; I didn't know a newborn could be that eloquent in their reasoning. My time with the Volturi taught me to expect anger and unbearable thirst. But, as I should have guessed, the Masons were surprising, not at all what I could have expected.

"Mother, you don't understand! He-" Edward lowered his voice, "-wants you. He thinks he is in love with you." His attention shifted for a moment. I looked back into the clearing and saw a bear wandering in. Edward took off after it, though his thirst should have been abated by then.

Elizabeth, however, stood her ground and turned her attention back to me. "I get the feeling that we will have years to discuss the 'whys' of this situation, but I feel that I must tell you something. I understand the options in front of me, but am not ready to make one of them. Do you understand me?"

I shook my head, still trying to figure out how or why they were behaving the way that they were. There was no way Edward can know that I was falling in love with his mother.

Elizabeth squinted her eyes at him, taking a small step forward. "You just lost many of them. You must have made a decision about something?"

Taken aback, my mouth dropped open. "I don't understand. What do you mean by 'made a decision?'"

Edward ran up to them again, his thirst sated again. He looked silently at his mother and then he turned his gaze to me. "I cannot get enough to drink, it's like I'm half crazed for it!"

I nodded, remembering back when I had first turned and the unnatural need I felt. Edward hissed at me, stepping in front of Elizabeth.

"Stay away from her, you monster!" he shouted, pushing me away from Elizabeth.

"Edward," she murmured. "I think he's only trying to help us. Calm, dear one."

He turned to his mother then, anger filling his eyes. "How can you say that? He turned us into monsters! And, Mother, he wants you!"

I picked myself up off the forest floor, and walked cautiously over to them. I began circulating the Volturi gifts in my mind, wondering if Edward could somehow tell what I was thinking. Edward hissed again and crouched, protecting his mother as I got closer.

Edward, can you hear me? I thought desperately, hoping that I had figured it out.

"Of course, I can hear you, I'm right here!" he said, exasperated.

But I am not speaking out loud. Look, see that my lips aren't moving.

Edward stood, slowly, his eyes still on me. "How is that possible? I can hear what you are thinking?"

Elizabeth, realizing what was going on, turned to Edward and stared at him for a moment. Edward's eyes shot to her briefly, but he kept his focus on me. The silence was almost deafening. All of the animals had escaped, knowing there was a predator nearby. To me, the silence was unnatural, but I understood why they would have escaped. Unfortunately, that left me to deal with the ramifications of this decision.

I ran through the possibilities in my head: what I could say to them as an explanation, how could I try and calm Edward down, and why Elizabeth seemed so calm when she should be as all over the place as Edward was.

Edward was following my thoughts, and the last comment made him glance at his mother again. She seemed to him to be just the same as she had been when she was human. He spat at the word, knowing he would never be human again. Elizabeth, however, seemed calm and under control. The only real difference was her blood red eyes.

"Mother, your eyes!"

"Yours too, dear. It must be normal, right Carlisle?"

I took another step closer, and said, "Yes, it's normal. The longer that you feast on animal blood, though, the more the color will shift. They will look like mine at some point. I have never done this before, though, so I'm not sure how long that will take."

Elizabeth seemed unfazed by this, and she turned her attention back to Edward. "Dear, I know you are upset right now. Just remember that Carlisle did this to save us. We asked him to do that, remember? We are together now, and we no longer have to worry about the influenza virus killing us."

Edward sat down on the ground, his head in his hands. "I can't stop the voices. Both of you, please, stop thinking for a minute! I can't concentrate..." His voice carried off and his head shot out of his hands. I smelled a herd of some kind of animal not far away, and before I could stop him, Edward had shot off again.

I made to follow, but Elizabeth stopped me. "Let him go, he needs the quiet for a moment without our thoughts assaulting him."

I looked into her blood red eyes, and marveled at her strength again. "I am surprised at how well you are handling this, Elizabeth. You seem totally under control."

She shrugged, turning slightly to stare at the place in the forest where Edward had disappeared. "I analyzed my choices and decided that this was the easiest way to handle myself." She looked back at me, a small smile on her face. "Though, I am still thirsty. And I believe you are also. One of the options that looks most promising for you is to feed soon. Shall we?"

Before I had a chance to respond, she took off after Edward. I followed as closely as I could, but they were both faster than me right now. I was sure the Volturi had mentioned the strength of a newborn was more than a more advanced one, so I shrugged it off.

After we had all hunted again, they began to walk back toward the cabin slowly. Edward kept shooting glances at me every time I thought about his mother, so I began to try and focus on other things. The smell of the forest, the color of the sunrise in the sky, and the small crunching noises their footprints were making.

"Elizabeth," I said, finally breaking their silence. "You keep talking about options and choices. What does that mean exactly?"

She stopped, so Edward and I stopped as well. She sat down on a fallen tree and regarded us both with a small smirk. "When I look at you, I can see a sort of map laid out in my head. It looks like options, like if you say this, you'll go down that path, if you decide to go here, you'll go down that path. The possibilities are endless, but I can tell which options are most possible."

"You can predict the future?" Edward asked, staring at his mother in shock.

She shook her head. "No, but I can tell what will happen if you make a specific decision." She looked at me again for a moment. "I can also sense something from you...loneliness abandoned, maybe? You believe that Edward and I will make excellent companions and you are happy to no longer be alone."

Shaking my head, I smiled at her. Edward turned and hissed at me, but I ignored it. I am really going to have to really watch my thoughts around this boy. "I never thought I would have anyone to talk to, really talk to, about this life and anything else, honestly. Now that you are both here, I am comforted."

Edward sneered at me. "I will never be your friend, Carlisle. How can you damn us to this existence? How can you live with yourself?"

But before I could answer, Elizabeth stood up and walked over to Edward. "Stop, please. If you go down this route you will only know sorrow and heartache. You must try to accept Carlisle. Or, at least, make the decision to try. I cannot see everything that will happen, I can only feel that the path you are on will lead you to heartache. Please, Edward, I do not wish that for you."

Edward nodded at her, still shooting an angry glance at me. Apparently, though, this pleased Elizabeth and they continued to walk back to the cabin.

I trailed a little way behind them, controlling my thoughts about Elizabeth, but wondering, once again, if I had made the right choice.

A/N: Little shift here from original story; Adding Elizabeth into the mix creates a different dynamic between Carlisle and Edward. More on that in the next couple chapters. Plan is to update one chapter a week, on a weekend day. Getting chapter 2 on Friday becauseI just happened to have today off. Hopefully you will all continue to enjoy my dive into the world.

Thanks again to my wonderful sister, and my beta zombified419, for their pre-reading and keeping me on track with the lore, and just listening to my thoughts!