RESPONSES TO REVIEWS-

About the Porsche; yeah, I totally stole Alice's car. In this story there won't be any going to Italy, so I wanted Alice to lust after the car at some point even without Italy and decided that Hermione could have the car.

About Teddy; he's just a little shy. And I'm not really sure how much a kid who's only a little over 2 years old should be able to talk. So if anyone wants to let me know some stuff about the different ages little kids are supposed to be able to do stuff, feel free to do so. I'll probably be doing more research on it once I'm home.

Disclaimer- You should know by now that no one on this site actually owns any recognizable characters or pieces of plot, so I won't tell you that I'm not J.K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyer. Wait…I just did tell you that, didn't I? Oh well.

CHAPTER THREE

I can't believe Bella actually fell down the stairs, and only a few weeks ago that was what we claimed happened to her in Phoenix.

Carlisle had just finished fixing up Bella's injuries, he was the doctor on duty when she'd been brought into the Emergency Room, and he was now on his way out to the waiting area to tell her Father what the extent of the injuries was.

It was bad, but it definitely could've been worse.

There were a total of four breaks of her bones: two on her left forearm, the third was a few inches above her left ankle, and the last a few inches above the third. She'd had a few gashes on her head, as well, and they had needed stitches. And she had a nasty concussion.

When Carlisle had first seen her, he'd been worried that she'd done something stupid like throw herself over a cliff because of Edward. One of the nurses who brought her in had informed him that the young lady who had driven Bella to the Hospital claimed Bella fell down a staircase.

As he walked into the waiting room Carlisle noticed that there was the scent of someone he didn't recognize in the room.

Whoever brought Bella here must be new to town, then.

He was halfway to Charlie before Carlisle noticed something odd about the woman. Though she was clearly a human, there was something special about the air around her that Carlisle knew he recognized, but he just couldn't place it.

It wasn't really describable; it was nearly like stepping into a fog when Carlisle tried to analyze it. It made him feel surrounded by a warm mist.

It was clear to Carlisle that this was no ordinary human; she had a sort of deadly power that he could feel even from the other side of the room. She had something enthralling about her that nearly caused him to turn off the course he was on toward Charlie and head to her instead, she had….

Magic!

The recognition of the strange feeling caused his steps to falter, and he couldn't help but glance in the direction of the young woman he now knew to be a witch. Looking at her he was amused to notice that she was standing in a pair of fluffy pajamas, and didn't even appear to notice.

No wonder I didn't recognize it at first; I haven't been around anyone with magic since just after I was changed, over 300 years ago. Now that I know what it is the magic is obvious in the air. I miss magic, it was always great fun.

And the magic was thick and obvious in the air. No one alive, or even any vampires, not even Edward or Aro, had known that Carlisle had been a wizard when he was a human.

Granted, he hadn't been much of a wizard; he'd been a fairly pathetic wizard, nearly a squib. He'd been an epic failure at most forms of magic, only succeeding in the mind arts (Legilimency and Occlumency, which was how he'd hidden it from Edward and Aro) and Potions (which really didn't require much magical talent).

Well, he'd also been magic sensitive; able to sense the magic surrounding people and objects belonging to the wizarding world.

When Carlisle was human, magical beings, like wizards and witches, had had incredible, colorful, swirling magic; the more powerful they were, the brighter the colors of their magic. Magic was beautiful to Carlisle when he was a human. It was intoxicating, and with the way magic had always been present around him Carlisle was usually almost giddy.

Carlisle hadn't been around a witch or wizard since just after his change, when he'd gone to say goodbye to a couple of his old Hogwarts friends before he left England; they'd been less than welcoming after finding out about his new creature-status. That was when he'd discovered something that hit him hard. While all his other senses had become a thousand times more powerful and sharp, his magic-sensing ability had dulled considerably. Instead of great swirls of color surrounding the wizards and witches he knew, he'd seen only a fog; like a cloud enveloping them. And everyone's magic had looked exactly alike. It was still the most intoxicating thing out there, though. He'd hated losing his view of the magic more than anything else about being a vampire.

The loss of those senses was part of what threw him into the suicidal depression just after he'd been changed.

Carlisle shoved these thoughts fronts from the front of his mind and continued on toward Charlie. He'd done all that thinking so quickly that only half a second had passed.

"Dr. Cullen," Charlie said upon realizing Carlisle was there. "How is she?"

"Bella will be fine Charlie, and I've told you before to call me Carlisle." He said calmly, noticing the witch's stiff posture relax at his lack of worry.

Bella is practically family, so that makes Charlie just like family, too, even if he doesn't know it. And family doesn't need to call me Dr. Cullen; it's awkward.

"Her left arm and leg were both broken in two spots, and she had three gashes on her head: two on her face and one in the back. Those needed stitches, but not too many; only five, total. And she has a pretty bad concussion, so I'd like for her to stay here for a few days; that way we can keep an eye on that."

He noticed Charlie wince a few times at the news of, exactly, what was wrong with Bella, but he also saw in Charlie's eyes that he trusted Carlisle's judgment on the fact that Bella would be fine.

"Whatever you suggest, Doct- Carlisle."

"You can go see her whenever you like, she's in room 279. How has she been lately, Charlie? I know all of us, especially Alice, have missed seeing her around." And that was true, everyone missed Bella.

Carlisle figured this was as good a time as any to find out how Bella was dealing with Edward's departure. He really hated the way Edward had left like that, again. And this time he'd left behind a great person; the entire family actually liked Bella, as opposed to the other girls Edward had brought home over the years.

"Just know that if I ever see that boy of yours he's going to have a lot to answer for," Believe me, Charlie, I agree with you. Edward needs to have some sense knocked into him. "but she's been doing better since Hermione got here."

Ah, so that must be the witch's name. Hermione.

It was nice of Charlie to bring Hermione into the conversation; Carlisle had noticed the way she'd looked uncomfortable just standing around listening to them talk, but he hadn't known how to bring her into the conversation.

Carlisle turned to Hermione, acting like he hadn't really noticed her before. "Oh, hello Ms…?"

"You can call me Hermione; I'm Bella's cousin." Well, that explains why she's around Forks; she must be visiting Charlie and Bella. And she's English, maybe she went to Hogwarts! I wonder what house she would've been…

"Then you can call me Carlisle." I plan to at least try to be friends with her, so things might as well start off casual between us. Or, as casual as they can be considering the circumstances.

As she introduced herself she reached out to shake his hand, but, as Carlisle introduced himself, he did something he hadn't really planned to but it came natural to him.

Back when he was still human, it was the gentlemanly thing to do to kiss a lady's hand and it was something that his pure-blood mother had drilled into him from a young age. Whenever you greet a witch, you do not shake her hand; you bow to her and kiss the back of her hand. And from what Carlisle remembered of the wizarding world it didn't exactly approve of change, so it was probably still done now in the wizarding world.

Looking up at her through his eyelashes as he bowed to her, Carlisle noticed her blush. And he noticed that it made her all the more beautiful.

Whoa, Carlisle, where did that thought come from? He asked himself. You know better than to even think about humans like that.

From the corner of his vision, Carlisle saw Charlie looking curiously at him after that display before Charlie just shook his head before turning and wondering off, presumably to go see his daughter.

"Hello, then, Carlisle."

"I'm grateful that you're helping Bella. My son was an idiot for leaving her behind. Are you in town for long?" Please say yes, I'd love to talk with you about what's happened in the wizarding world in the last 400 years.

"I should be; I've just moved into a house on the outskirts of town a week ago." Perfect, that'll give her plenty of time to recognize me as a vampire; then I'll be able to let her know that I know about what she is. I really would like to know more about the happenings in the wizarding world, even if I'm not exactly welcome there anymore.

"That's nice, hopefully I'll see you around someplace other than the hospital."

She was about to answer him when a nurse interrupted their conversation and told him that another patient had just come in. As he was the doctor working the Emergency Room that night, Carlisle had to excuse himself and leave.

The 'emergency' turned out to be more amusing than imperative. One of the local teenagers, Mike Newton, had made a bet with a friend that he could get a billiards ball into his mouth and then take it out. He'd succeeded halfway, but he'd been unable to get the ball out of his mouth.

Teenagers really are absolutely brilliant. Aren't they?

Carlisle honestly didn't know what came over him when he was dealing with the brainless boy; maybe it was just the boredom that comes with being a vampire that inspired him.

He might have tormented him a bit before he helped him; He just said something about how we would probably have to pull a few teeth to be able to get the billiards ball out of his mouth, and the look of terror on Newton's face was absolutely worth it.

In the end all Carlisle had to do was give him a shot of muscle relaxant and wait for it to take effect before taking the billiards ball out of his mouth.

Newton might be scarred for life, though. He'll probably have a little more than a healthy fear of dentists.

After that 'emergency' was taken care of Carlisle didn't have any more patients all night and ended up doing paperwork until his shift was over. On the way out of the hospital for the day, he decided to stop and check on Bella one last time before leaving.

She was awake and, probably because of a lack of anything better to do, she was flipping through the television stations. The doctor didn't see Charlie anywhere, so he assumed Charlie had gone home after seeing that Bella was alright.

"Good Morning, Bella. How are you feeling?"

She jumped a little at the sound of a voice; obviously she hadn't seen the vampire lurking in her doorway.

"Good Morning, Doctor Cullen. I'm doing alright."

When did she start calling me Doctor Cullen again? I thought I'd cured her of that after the first day she came over to the house.

"That's good; I want you to be sure to tell someone if you start to feel sick or if anything feels worse suddenly. Ok?"

"Yes, sir, Doctor." She said in a dull voice before looking away from Carlisle.

"Bella?" She didn't respond. "Bella, look at me." She glanced at him before looking back at the television with unseeing eyes. "Fine, then just listen to what I have to say. No one blames you for what Edward's done. He's done this before. He makes a habit of doing this every time we move to a new place; he starts to go on dates with a girl and tries to bring her into the family before leaving once she's attached to him. We usually moved on with him; no matter how much we hated what he did to people, he was still family."

Bella's eyebrows furrowed in concentration and she turned to look at him. "Was?" she questioned.

Carlisle sighed in relief that he'd caught her attention. "Not anymore, Bella. He made the mistake of picking you to mess with this time, and the five of us found that we like you far too much to condone what he's done this time. Bella, he made you part of the family and, unless you tell us you don't want to be part of the family, you always will be."

"Why would he do that?" She asked as she allowed a single tear to fall.

"I don't think we'll ever know, exactly. I used to think it was some coping mechanism that he used because he felt abandoned after his parents both died, but now I'm not so sure…." He trailed off after realizing that she wasn't listening to a word he said.

Bella had tears running down her face, sobbing silently. He stepped over next to her and started rubbing calming circles on her shoulder; whispering calming nothings in her ear.

It was a few minutes before she calmed enough to say "Just leave me alone for now, Carlisle. Please."

He respected her wishes and backed out of her room, feeling like a failure for not being able to help Bella. His only consolation was that she was obviously on her way to recovery, because to him it looked like she'd just hit the 'acceptance' phase.

AUTHOR'S NOTE- Review?

Sorry for the wait, guys. It's been a long few weeks. Would any of you all believe me if I said that Drafting parts for a robot is hard work, especially when you have to learn to use a new program to do it in. I have AutoCAD training, not Autodesk Inventor training, but my robotics team sponsor doesn't understand the difference…. Anyway, the parts I've spent the last 6 weeks designing and drawing have finally been created and they came in today! The first of (hopefully) many competitions will happen March 17-19, so updates should get more frequent for all my stories around April.

Thanks For Reading,

21ShootingStars.