FAMILY VALUES
Chapter 2: Under Better Circumstances We Might Have Been Friends
That last chapter was a sort of teaser setting up the three main story lines. From here on out I am going to try to make more significant chapters focusing on one of the story lines with a small teaser for the next chapter at the end. I am trying to make my chapters longer too, let me know if it's a little rushed. Stay tuned to the end of the story where I have posted a Masen Family tree
2008, Northwest Memorial Hospital, Chicago
"Paging Dr. Cullen, Dr. Cullen to the ICU"
Edward sighed as he put a few last marks on Mrs. Whitman's chart and slid it back into its little box. His shift was supposed to have been over a few hours ago, but the chief had asked him to handle a VIP that had just come in.
Usually Edward didn't mind extra shifts. It wasn't like he was tired and he had been avoiding the house since the Denali clan had come to stay with them; Tanya's kicked puppy look and dirty thoughts were getting on his nerves. Today had been a particularly bad day though, Mr. McFealy's children were being especially difficult, Dr. Johnson was still pestering him about going on a blind date with his undoubtedly shovel-faced sister, and Nurse Cope had managed to cop a feel while he was distracted which had caused him to let out a very unmanly squeak that had been heard by half the residents he had been supervising at the time. The last thing he wanted to do was babysit some billionaire who had keeled over in his hotel room, probably with some bimbo in spiting distance. Edward was the best geriatrician on staff though and the board always wanted to make a good impression on people with deep pockets. With a small grumble he headed toward the ICU to get a look at the old geezer, taking the long way to avoid walking through the Dialysis unit, he hadn't eaten in a while.
Edward was not as immune to the fragrant banquet laid out before him constantly as Carlisle was, but he found it wasn't very difficult to deny himself anyway. Not when every woman was Bella, every man his unmet son, every child a baby they had never had the chance to have. Even so, he had chosen to specialize in geriatrics initially on the off chance that he slipped up and offed someone.
Now though he couldn't imagine treating anyone else. Somehow he found easing the road to death to be much more therapeutic than fighting it. The others called him Iceman because he preferred taking the most dire hospice cases and never shed a tear over a lost patient. Death wasn't a horrifying unknown to him, it was a much yearned for release. If he wasn't determined to keep his admittedly gray soul as clean as possible on the off chance that he would be able to some day sneak into heaven and see Bella for even a moment before they realized he was there and threw him out, he would have topped himself long ago.
Edward pushed through the door in the ICU and walked up to the nurses station. He didn't even bother looking at the buxom nurse who handed him the chart, her hand lingering on his while she tried to push her chest out for full advantage, even his cold, arrogant reputation wasn't enough to deter some people.
His eyes scanned disinterestedly over the details on the chart. Caucasian male, 89 years of age, collapsed into unconsciousness at 7:15 this evening, probable stroke. Edward's eyes rushed through the rest of the document before they happened to glance back at the top and he saw Mr. Deep-Pocket's name. He froze statue still.
Edward Masen III.
His son was lying in that room separated from him only by a thin door. His son whom he had only ever seen once and from afar. The only tangible proof of his and Bella's doomed love. He at once desperately wanted to run away never to return to Chicago, and desperately needed to be in that room and see his child with his own eyes.
God he hadn't even really thought the boy was still alive. He avoided all business news and celebrity gossip like the plague and his family knew better than to think of Bella or Edward Jr. in his presence.
Edward hurried to the room in question not at super speed but fast enough to raise a few eyebrows. Taking a deep breath he slowly inched the door open.
He looked so tiny.
EJ was a big man, at 6'3" he would have towered over his diminutive 5'11" father. Edward wondered briefly where EJ had gotten it from, certainly not teeny tiny Bella. Here in the hospital bed though he looked small and frail. Thin like you could snap his wrists with minimal pressure. At once Edward was transported back to another time, when EJ was a 7 year old boy, tall and slender in a way that suggested a gangly adolescence was on the horizon, wearing a sombre black suit and looking very much the lost waif as they slid his mother's coffin into it's cubby, next to the sealed tomb that should have housed Edward's own body.
Edward had wanted so badly to go and comfort the boy he didn't know at all, but by then it was much too late for him to try and resume his old life. EJ would not recognize him but his sister and cousins would scream and try to escape. So Edward had contented himself by watching the open door of the mausoleum from across the cemetery and had dealt with his grief afterwards by hunting human monsters.
He spent ten years on the human diet, and every murderer and rapist he killed he first asked them about Bella, scanning their minds for the image he both longed for and dreaded of Bella in her last moments before some disgusting excuse for a mortal who was too unworthy to even look at her let alone touch her, had ended her life.
He never found the man who had taken his Bella away, or if he did the man had killed so many he didn't remember her. After a particularly brutal feeding though, when he went back to the grimy unfurnished apartment where he spent his days pushing the limits of his special ability searching for his next meal, he washed the blood of his last victim off in the chipped sink and chanced to look up into the filthy broken mirror. Into his blood red eyes. He realized then that if Bella were to walk in the door at that moment she would not see him as her chivalrous knight in shining armor moving heaven and earth to avenge her death, but as the terrifying devil that he was.
He had left that evening in search of Carlisle, committed to making himself worthy of Bella once again in case they met in the afterlife.
Edward broke out of his reverie when he heard mumbling from the bed. A good sign, if he was sleep talking he wasn't unconscious, just sleeping. Edward hesitantly reached out his hand and after a moment of indecision carefully brushed a stray hair off EJ's sweaty forehead.
"Mother?" The hope in his voice broke Edwards stony heart. Here lying in this bed was the one person in the world who understood what he felt for Bella, if not in exactly the same way. The only one in the world who missed her as much as he did.
"Grandpa?"
Edward turned with a scowl towards the door but it instantly fell away when he saw her, standing in the door looking so much like Bella.
"Oh hello, I'm Isabel Masen, EJ is my grandfather."
Edward smiled and took the offered hand. Isabel had Bella's eyes and mouth, but he could see hints of himself in her too. Her manner was the opposite of what Bella's had been as she stood their cool and confident and gave him the once over with a calculating look, as if she was trying to figure something out but she just couldn't place it. Her mind was hard to read. Not invisible but foggy, like looking at something through a shower door. He could glimpse feelings and indistinct pictures but couldn't really read full ideas. Interesting.
"Dr. Cullen" Edward introduced himself with a genuine smile as he released her hand "I have been assigned to your grandfather's case."
"I'll let you examine him then, I have a few business things to tie up so I will leave it to you for a few hours. If you need any information or releases signed the Chief has my number." Her tone was crisp but Edward could feel the worry coming off of her in waves. She genuinely cared for her grandfather a great deal.
Edward smiled again as she turned to leave, he was happy to meet her and wanted to learn about her, but right now he was more anxious to spend a little time with his son.
2008, The Masens' House, Forks
Jake pulled up to the palatial house and turned off the engine as Nessie ran out to hug her cousin Mike who was standing on the porch with a pretty enough but overly made-up blonde.
"Have you been in to see her yet?" Mike smiled at Nessie's exuberance and shook his head.
"No, she wanted to wait for you and get all the interviews out of the way at once." With that he took the blonde's hand and led her inside.
"Interview?" Renesmee laughed at Jake's shaky voice and took his arm, leading him inside the massive ebony doors and onward down the hall.
"It's nothing to worry about, just Gran's self appointed sentry. You have to get her approval before you meet Gran, but there is nothing to worry about, she is going to LOVE you. I bet you two will end up as best friends."
Jake swallowed as Ness pulled him into a surprisingly non-threatening looking parlor just as Mike finished introducing his Fiancée Jessica and looked up to see possibly the most devastatingly beautiful woman that ever existed. She smiled as she held his hand out to him but crinkled her nose slightly when he came within shaking distance as if he smelled foul. Jake made a mental note to go easier on the aftershave. He was enthralled as he raised his hand up to clasp hers but the second her cool dry fingers touched his skin he felt unaccountably unsettled.
"This is my boyfriend Jake, Jake, this is Bella."
DUM DUM DUM
here is the promised family tree to help you keep track, I tried to make it as easy to read as possible, names in parentheses are the nicknames they go by and Belle doesn't have a death year because she was stillborn.
!-- page size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in P margin-bottom: 0.08in --
...Edward Anthony Masen 1895 Elizabeth Marie Swinton
...b. 1869 d. 1919...I...b.1877 d.1918
...I
...I..ooooooooooooo.I
...Benjamin Cummings 1923 Angela...ooooooooooo..Edward II 1917 Isabella Swan
...b.1897 d.1953...I..b.1900 d.1971..oooo..b.1901 d.1918 .o..I..o.b. 1900 d.1927
...I.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..I
.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..Lillie....1941...oooooooooooooooooooooEdward III (EJ) 1959 Catherine Nevitz
..ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.b.1924 d.1942..oooooo.I.ooooooooo..b.1918.ooooooo..I...b.1940 d.2001
..oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.I..ooooooooooooooooooooooo.I
..ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.Belle.ooooooooooooooooooooo..I
.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..1942..ooooooooooooooooooooo.I
...oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...I
..oooooooooooooooo.I..ooooooooooooooooooooooo.I..oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.I
Marion Davis 1981 Edward IV (Anthony)..ooooooo.Millicent.1984 Orville Newton.ooooooooooo..Anna
b.1958d.1986.I...b.1960d.1986...ooooooo..ooo...b.1962...I...b.1962 d.2003..ooooooooooo.b.1975
oooooooooo...I..oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.Iooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...I
..ooooooooo...I...oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.I..ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.I
.ooo..I.oooooooooo..I..ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.I.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..I
..ooIsabel...ooooEdward V (Quinn)..oooooooooooooooo.Michael...oooooooooooooooooooooRenesme
...b.1982.ooooo..b.1985...oooooooooooooooooooooooob.1985..oooooooooooooooooooooo.b.1990
:-)
This is my first story in a long time and my first story ever of this kind or in the Twilight universe. Review and let me know how I'm doing! Or review and don't let me know but tell me how much you love puppies keeping in mind that I will mentally replace the word 'puppies' with 'this awesome story' and 'numskull stinky mongrels' with 'GREATEST THING EVER'