Lost in Translation

I do not own.

Pages floated under my fingers as I sat in Carlisle's office doing my own type of research. I was going to leave Bella alone just as she had asked of me. My heart had shattered into a million pieces but I would respect her wishes. The only things is, I had to at least know what she was and why.

Carlisle's office was the best place to try and research for what Bella was. He was the oldest out of us all and he had kept hold of a lot of books from his many travels. A lot of history on our kind and the kinds of others were scattered across the room in pages I had left open for further research. The internet was tedious and hard to decipher what might be useful versus what people had just made up. There was way too much stuff made up and completely incredulous on the internet.

Though, the computer stayed lit up from my last venture through the World Wide Web I didn't see myself finding the answer there. The rest of the family was out hunting in the vast amounts of woods that trailed behind our house. It was the perfect time for some peace and quiet. I wasn't going to go to school today, in just a few hours everyone would come home to change clothes and leave again while I stayed here and dived into another boring tale about vampires.

I had a scrap piece of paper with the word Bella written across the top in big bold letters. Little facts about her pale cold skin, or the smell of the blood that trickled through her veins, but nothing of value to point me in the right direction. The way she didn't seem to age since the last time I saw her, or the way her hair also seemed the exact same length.

Though back in the seventies I was looking through the dull eyes of a human, I could still picture her perfection through the glow of moon lit room. And everything from then to now seemed exactly the same. How could a human remain the same? I let out a deep unwanted sigh when I heard Alice and Jasper arrive back earlier than the rest of the family.

I gritted my teeth when their thoughts trailed up to my location and I sat back with my arms crossed when they both made the decision to come and talk to me yet again about Bella. I sat here silently waiting for their ambush and was not surprised at all when the office door swung open to reveal two sets of golden eyes staring at me like a child who was supposed to be in time out.

"Edward, Jasper and I won't stop you…we're curious too…but have you checked the possibility that she is one of them? I mean she could be a werewolf, we don't know enough about them to rule that out."

I was going to immediately start arguing and instead changed my attitude; it wasn't either one of their faults that I was in this predicament. And I could use any help or support from my family that I could get.

"Alice, I see you point, but you're missing one thing. Her scent is nothing like theirs, she smells floral instead of like last year's trash."

"Maybe it's because she is female? Why don't we search out that avenue Edward?"

I shrugged my shoulders and tossed Alice a book that Carlisle had been given by an older vampire named Casius. Casius was part of the Volturi royalty, vampires didn't exactly have a government but if we were ran by someone or followed a rule set by anyone it would have been the Volturi. They went to war several years ago with the werewolves practically making their species extinct and Casius and written his own book on their kind. If Alice wanted to research them she was more than welcome to it.

Alice took the book in her one hand while she guided Jasper through the mounds of papers and books on the floor over to the couch where they both sat down. I knew she wasn't much for reading historic type books so it didn't surprise me when she handed the book over to Jasper and he began flipping through the many pages for her.

Her eyes studied my own before her hand extended out; she knew I was about to hand her another reference book, so I did…it's not like her prediction was wrong, it just still kind of irked me when she did things so silent and expectantly.

After handing Alice another one of Carlisle's books I dived back into the book I presently reading. It was based more on the myths of vampire's listings with bullet points that lacked in the details department if you asked me. It appeared to be a book that should have still been in the process of writing or stuck on the internet with those strange web sites I had found earlier.

"They're not werewolves."

I looked up at Jasper as Alice closed the book she was reading and turned to face him. Although she knew what he was about to say or uncover she pretended to be interested for my sake.

"They don't fit the profile. Werewolves can only change during a full moon…and from what this says they are pretty much extinct and only really populated the European areas. I don't think they are werewolves at all."

"What do you think they are then Jasper?"

"I'm not sure; Carlisle doesn't have a species book around here?"

I just shrugged my shoulders if he did I didn't know about it and if I did know something like that existed in this room well I wouldn't be sitting here rummaging through books that are older than the dirt under this house.

Alice turned her head back to me with a sly smile written across her face, her thoughts flittered between Jasper and I and whether or not we even bothered to ask Carlisle if such a book existed. I was close to Carlisle so I knew about pretty much every book in his office, surely there couldn't be one as important to my research as that without me knowing about it.

"Neither one of you bothered to ask him did you?"

She knew the answer, why she had to ask was beyond my understanding. Jasper shook his head as his eyes moved back down to the pages within the book. He began reading again as did I. Alice stood up from her seat and navigated around the room again before leaving out of the office door. I followed her thoughts down the stairs and into the living room where Carlisle and the rest of the family were just arriving. Alice's gift gave her perfect timing for every situation.

She didn't ask him anything in front of the rest of family, it was best not to get Rosalie riled up again. Rosalie couldn't understand my obsession with Bella, she thought Bella was plain and ordinary compared to her, it would never cross her mind that any male or female species could worship someone more than they worshiped her. Jasper was immune to Rosalie's spite because he and Alice were completely meant for each other in her eyes. Jasper with his scars and Alice with her quirky attitude, they were polar opposites but perfect for each other.

I set the book that I was looking at down on the ground with the rest of the pile of books and looked over to Jasper who was deep into the book he was reading. Jasper loved history so even if the research he was doing was of no use to me, he would still find it completely captivating.

Alice bound through the room with Carlisle on her heels. He stopped at the door for a second and surveyed the mess that I made in his office before moving to his desk and taking a seat in the large chair behind it. His arms stretched in front of him as his fingers intertwined themselves and his hands laid palms down on the desk.

He looked like he was awaited a commentary ambush from either myself or Alice. No one in the room looked particularly worried about Jasper because well, he probably didn't even really notice what we were doing around him, that book must have been more interesting than I had given it credit for.

"So, why is my office a mess and why did Alice pull me up here? Is there something I can help you with?"

"Alice wanted me to ask if you had a list of the different species that had been encountered over time in one location."

"I might, why is it of importance?"

"I'm trying to find out what Bella is, which has turned into Alice and Jasper trying to find out what those wolves really are."

"Are they not werewolves?"

"Not according to Jasper, they don't fit the profile. They can change without a full moon and are supposed to be extinct, to top it off they are only known to have existed in the European areas."

"Interesting."

I waited after his 'interesting' comment. I got the slight impression from his thoughts that he was holding out on some possibly important situation. His mind rummaged through scenario's that I could possibly date back to the eighteen hundreds when he lived with the Volturi.

I waited exactly fifty six seconds in silence before he began typing on his computer and then stopped. His eyes trailed over the page before his fingers stopped and ran over another line twice and then he stood up. I followed his thoughts to a back section of his book collection where he pulled out a brown and golden leather bound book and walked back to his desk.

The book had a leather strap running across the front of it and appeared to be more of an old journal than of a published book. But then again, Carlisle was old and books back then came in all kind of shapes and forms. The only the same about them where the scent they carried and language that was sprawled across the pages. Every book Carlisle had in his office was translated at some point in time to English, by him personally I suppose.

"Edward, did Bella ever tell you any part of her past? It might help with my search."

"Her family owned a hotel in California that she claimed to not be able to leave; her mother went crazy and started hearing things before she killed herself in a horrible way in the back court yard of the hotel. Her father drank himself to death and there was some myth about the place being haunted by a beast of some sort."

That's the most that my human memories could tell me of our conversation. I remember finding the story to have loop holes but it was also interesting. So much for her not being able to leave, though we were only a few states away, we were definitely not in California.

"Did she tell you anything about the beast? Maybe it's not so much a myth after all?"

"I can't remember. The memories of our conversation that night are a little hazy."

"How did her mother kill herself?"

"I don't remember."

"How old was Bella when this happened? Were these her real parents?"

"I don't remember Carlisle."

"Sorry son, I know this might be hard, but I need to know as much as I can about Bella if I am going to find out what she is for you."

I was beyond frustrated and not with Carlisle, I knew he was just trying to help; I was more frustrated with myself. I couldn't remember hardly anything of importance about the woman I claimed to love and here I was trying to find out her secrets without her permission.

"Don't forget about the werewolves Carlisle."

"I haven't forgotten them Alice, and I am pretty sure I already know what they are."

His smile ran from ear to ear as he glanced over at Jasper who had finally looked up from his book. His curiosity on the wolves was peaked now that he had a bit of the werewolves' history fresh on his mind. He looked around the room expectantly waiting for Carlisle to pour out the information while he ran a finger down the sides of the pages within the book. That would have given a human a paper cut, but for us… it possibly just sharpened the edges of the pages.

"If they are not were wolves Jasper than the only other thing that history has provided us for them to be is shifters. There was a man a very long time ago who was said to take on the shape of the wolf. Maybe they are his ancestors, but they would have the deeper details of that history than I would have in any of my books. It was really followed up on because the man was not considered a threat to us."

"Could Bella be a shifter?"

"I don't know Edward, I guess it's a possibility, but the two don't seem to be the same do they?"

"They don't."

"Well what else can you tell me about Bella?"

I picked up the scrap piece of paper I had scribbled my useless facts on and tossed it in the air towards Carlisle. The thin paper glided across the room fluttering through the air until it landed on the corner of the desk and Carlisle pulled it closer to him with the tips of his fingers.

"She seems to have a lot of our features, never aging, cold skin, and pale. But she has blood that runs through her veins. Have you had any good leads or ideas?"

"Nothing, everything in here is from one extreme to the next, there is no middle ground for our species within these books."

"I would think that 'middle grounds' as you put it, would not be in those books. Maybe Bella is something so rare that it has not been written about. Though, I don't see the Volturi not writing about it unless it was not a threat or something that they had found any value in. They are meticulous about history that way. But there is something about everything… you'll have to look at the small things, everything is at least mentioned once."

I could tell that Carlisle was very interested now, uncovering the truth of a new species would give him something else to research and look further into, but I wouldn't allow Bella to be a test object. He knew that, I could see it in the crease of his eye brows, the way the gold irises sparked with enthusiasm but then faded with compassion.

"Why don't you start with ghost stories Edward? Maybe there is a mention of her that was just over looked because no one believed the story."

"That's a good idea Alice."

Jasper smirked as he stood up and moved closer to Alice extending his hand so that they could have some alone time before they headed off to school. It had become a ritual between the two of them to spend two hours before school alone so that Jasper could clear his mind and focus on not killing the student body that attended Forks High School. Alice smiled and took his hand as they both nodded in Carlisle's direction and left the office.

"Edward, I would like to stay and help, but I have to be at the hospital and should be leaving soon. Maybe tonight we can go over whatever you discover?"

"Yea, that sounds fine."

And then I was alone again in the office waiting for the drones of thoughts occupied by my family to once again leave the house. Esme would probably remain down stairs or in her room designing yet another beautiful house somewhere else in the world while I stayed silently to myself researching old ghost stories that would prove to be more on the comedic side than helpful, but Jasper was right about Alice being right…it was a good place to start.