Today's Quote: You can't always control who walks into your life... But you can control which window you throw them out of!
"How are you doing, Bella?" Carlisle asked. I plucked another shard of glass from her wrist, dropping it into a small metal bowl.
"I'm fine," she said, her voice shaky.
"Really?" I asked, an eyebrow raised at her. She nodded slightly.
"Leave her alone," Edward said. I had almost forgotten he was there, what with the way he had been standing like an overprotective, non-breathing statue behind Bella. "She's been through a lot."
"Exactly, hence why it's so surprising that she's apparently fine," I retorted. Edward glowered at me, and I returned his glare with one that would've sent humans crying.
"Just go, Edward," Bella sighed. He dropped his glare and instantly began holding Bella's hands and kissing her cheek.
"I can handle it," he insisted. He wore the mask well, but even I realised that he was struggling with the blood. Stop trying to be a hero, I thought at him, the same time Bella said:
"You don't need to be a hero." I rolled my eyes at the coincidence. "Carlisle can fix me up without your help," she continued. "Get some fresh air."
"I'll stay," he said. I pulled out a glass piece a little to roughly and Bella winced.
"Sorry," I muttered.
"Why are you so masochistic?" she mumbled to her boyfriend. Carlisle decided to intercede.
"Edward, you may as well go find Emmett and Jasper - I can still hear them fighting. I'm sure Jasper's upset with himself, and I doubt he'll listen to anyone but you right now."
"Yes," Bella eagerly agreed. "Go find Jasper."
"You might as well do something useful," I added. Edward's eyes narrowed as we ganged up on him, but, finally, he nodded once and sprinted smoothly through the kitchen's back door.
It was kinda theaurapedic just pulling out glass, however disgusting. You just pulled it out, dropped it in a dish and dabbed the bleeding gash with a towel. Easy.
"Well, that's everyone," Bella sighed. "I can clear a room, at least." I hid a small smile - that was actually kinda funny.
"It's not your fault," Carlisle said, taking one of Bella's hands comfortingly. My stomach twisted in quiet jealousy, and I almost dropped the tweezers in shock. "It could happen to anyone."
"Could," Bella repeated. "But it usually just happens to me."
"Hey, you're the one dating a vampire," I said, wiping my blood stained hand on my dress. Once (like 20 minutes ago) it had been a gorgeous green, but now smears of crimson blood covered the patterns.
Carlilse laughed again, before we settled into another silence. His relaxed calm was only more amazing set in direct contrast with everyone else's reaction. I couldn't find any trace of anxiety in his face. He worked with quick, sure movements. The only sound besides our quiet breathing was the soft plink, plink as the tiny fragments of glass dropped one by one to the table.
"How can you do this?" Bella demanded. "Even Alice and Esme…" she trailed off, shaking her head in wonder.
"Years and years of practice," he told her. "I barely notice the scent anymore."
"Do you think it would be harder if you took a vacation from the hospital for a long time. And weren't around any blood?"
"Maybe." He shrugged his shoulders, but his hands remained steady. "I've never felt the need for an extended holiday."
"You should try it sometime - think of it as a science experiment," I said, joining in. "Besides, a holiday would do you good. You mustn't have had one in like, six, seven hundred years?" I joked.
"300, thank you very much," he said with a mock offended voice. He flashed a brilliant smile at me. "Besides, if I went on holiday I wouldn't see you."
I clicked my tongue. "Very true," I said.
"You two are adorable," Bella sighed. My eyes widened - did she hit her head in that fight? Maybe blood loss was affecting her?
"Thanks," I said awkwardly. She did know Carlisle and I weren't a thing, right?
"Yes, thank you." Carlisle seemed to echo my thoughts, although I knew if I asked him out there was no way he'd refuse. "Hand me my bag, please?"
I grabbed a black medical bag and passed it over to Carlisle. He took out a small needle and white thread, threading the sting through the key easily.
"I'm going to do a butterfly stitch," he said to me. I peered over his shoulder as he pushed the needle slightly into Bella's skin and began threading.
"Looks easy," I said.
"Wanna try?"
"No, thank you very much Morgana. No stitching until you've actually had some practice," Bella said, killing the mood. I pouted, but continued to watch the needle thread in.
"Is this something you're interested in, Morgana?" Carlisle asked. I shrugged my shoulders.
I had literally no idea what I wanted to do when I was older, which was kinda scary because I was graduating in less than a year. Well, unless I got held back, but that was unlikely seeing as how the grades I was receiving on my assignments (all done the night before their due date) were pretty damn good.
"Maybe," I said. I could be a doctor, but who's to say I wouldn't find that incredibly boring. At the rate my mind switched between professions, I'd be lucky to find my dream job when I was 60, let alone 16.
"There," he said, snipping the thread. "All done."
He wiped an oversized Q-tip, dripping with some syrup-colored liquid, thoroughly across the operation site. The smell was strange; it made my head spin.
"What is it that you enjoy?" Bella wondered. I had to agree - it didn't make sense to me—the years of struggle and self-denial he must have spent to get to the point where he could endure this so easily.
"Hmm. What I enjoy the most is when my… enhanced abilities let me save someone who would otherwise have been lost. It's pleasant knowing that, thanks to what I can do, some people's lives are better because I exist. Even the sense of smell is a useful diagnostic tool at times." One side of his mouth pulled up in half a smile.
"In the beginning, though," Bella pressed. I taped another long piece of gauze securely in place, copying what Carlisle had done first. "Why did you even think to try a different way than the obvious one?"
His lips turned up in a private smile. "Hasn't Edward told you this story?"
I looked at him and smiled. "I haven't heard it yet," I said.
"You know my father was a clergyman," he mused as he cleaned the table carefully, rubbing everything down with wet gauze, and then doing it again. The smell of alcohol burned in my nose.
"He had a rather harsh view of the world, which I was already beginning to question before the time that I changed."
Carlisle put all the dirty gauze and the glass slivers into an empty crystal bowl. He held it out to me, and it took a second for me to realise what he wanted. I lit it up with my finger, and the bowl's contents began to blaze brightly.
"Thank you, that ought to do it… So I didn't agree with my father's particular brand of faith. But never, in the nearly four hundred years now since I was born, have I ever seen anything to make me doubt whether God exists in some form or the other. Not even the reflection in the mirror."
I pretended to check Bella's dressing to hide my surprise at the direction our conversation had taken. Religion was the last thing I expected, all things considered.
The only interactions with religion I had ever had was with an exorcist, when I was eleven, which didn't exactly give me a great view on Religion.
"I'm sure all this sounds a little bizarre, coming from a vampire But I'm hoping that there is still a point to this life, even for us. It's a long shot, I'll admit," he continued in an offhand voice. "By all accounts, we're damned regardless. But I hope, maybe foolishly, that we'll get some measure of credit for trying."
"I don't think that's foolish," I said boldly. "It's an impressive view, if anything." I couldn't imagine anyone, deity included, who wouldn't be impressed by Carlisle. Gods knew I was. "And I don't think anyone else would, either."
Carlilse smiled sweetly at me. "Actually, you're the very first one to agree with me."
"The rest of them don't feel the same?" Bella asked, surprised, clearly thinking of only one person in particular.
"Edward's with me up to a point. God and heaven exist… and so does hell. But he doesn't believe there is an afterlife for our kind." Carlisle's voice was very soft; he stared out the big window over the sink, into the darkness. "You see, he thinks we've lost our souls."
"That's the real problem, isn't it?" Bella guessed. "That's why he's being so difficult about me."
Carlisle spoke slowly. "I look at my… son. His strength, his goodness, the brightness that shines out of him—and it only fuels that hope, that faith, more than ever. How could there not be more for one such as Edward? But if I believed as he does… If you believed as he did. Could you take away his soul?"
Woah, okay. This wasn't at all how I had expected my evening to go. Hang out with Rosalie, watch Bella open presents, yeah, easy. Watch Bella get attacked, get attacked myself, and then listen to what was basically a philosophical debate? No thanks.
"Morgana," Rosalie called loudly from outside. "Stop being boring and come join me!"
Carlilse laughed beside me. "Always impatient, she is."
He nudged me forward. "I'll be back soon," I said.
I went outside, ignoring the doors in lieu of the giant hole in the wall that I stepped through, my small size making it easy to fit through a Jasper sized hole.
"Hello," Rosalie said amusedly, her laugh tinkling like bells. She didn't move from her position in a tree, but instead held her hand down and pulled me up. I then sat on the branch next to the vampire, swinging my legs. "That's an interesting way to exit the house."
I shrugged. "If it works, it works."
She completely ignored me, half screaming in horror. "Look at your dress!"
I looked down. As expected, it was covered in Bella's drying blood. "It's not so bad," I said. "The green actually works with it."
"Does it?" Rosalie said, raising an eyebrow. "Does it really?"
"Yes," I said, looking her in the eyes. We stared at each other like that for a moment, before we burst into laughter. "God this has been a weird night," I sighed.
"Tell me about it."
"Where's everyone else?" I asked. Looking around, I could see that besides Carlisle still talking to Bella (shut it jealousy!), and Rosalie sitting beside me, everyone was gone.
"The boys are in the field, and Esme's with Alice. They're over there."
She pointed in the direction of the small forest, and I nodded. With my human eyes, there was no way I'd see them, though apparently Rosalie did.
"Edward pouting?"
"God, so much!" she said. "He practically stormed out of the house, ranting about how Isabella was going to die under his care."
"He does know Bella has caused more risky scenarios for herself than Edward ever has, right?"
"I don't think so."
Rosalie critically looked over my dress again. "Come on, she said. She basically pushed me off the tree branch, and I had to think fast so that I landed safely. "You can borrow some of my clothes."
Please review
A/N... So it's been a while... Oops. Sorry about that. It's kinda a short chapter, but I figured it's been so long that it doesn't really matter how long of a read it is.
To everyone who's been reviewing words of encouragement, I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much to all my followers, and those who gave this fanfic a 'favourite'.