Yeah! Six chapters in one weekend! My longest chapter yet.

Disclaimer: The original characters and plot are the property of the author, Stephanie Meyer.

Carlisle's POV

Esme had given me a lot to think about. First, she could cry. She said it wasn't salty, it was sweet. So what in our immortal bodies was still sweet? The only probable answer I could come up with was venom. It made sense, to an extent.

Then there was the fact that she could sleep, which, try as I might, I could not come up with a reasonable answer for.

Lastly, there was the blood that would not satisfy her body. Bella had been staying over for meals lately. Once Esme was downstairs when Bella was making herself lunch, she said something smelled good and it gave me an idea. If blood wasn't satisfying her, I wondered if human food would.

I asked Bella if she could make something small for Esme. She gave me a confused look. I just told her that I wanted to experiment. Bella gave Esme some of her "famous" lasagna. I asked Esme to sit down at the table with Bella; she had raised her delicate eyebrows in confusion when she saw the food in front of her. Like I told Bella, I said that I was experimenting. I asked her to try some and…she loved it! She said it tasted rather different, but good. She could still drink blood if she wanted to, but now that she could eat human food, she preferred not to. This was becoming very strange!

So all in all, she seemed to changing from vampire to human. I didn't think that she would be fully human and would retain some vampire traits but human all the same. She still had her heightened senses and her speed and strength but she also had certain human characteristics as well.

Every day was mostly the same. I would go to the hospital in the morning, then return to the house to check on Esme on my "lunch break." She spent all of her time alone at home and refused to let any of the kids stay at home with her to help her as she did not want them to miss school to look after her. "We don't need to raise any suspicions just because of me," she told all of us.

She would now eat three meals a day so I would help her make lunch for herself, even though it smells horrible, before returning to the hospital for the remainder of my shift. When I got home I would usually find Alice and/or Rosalie upstairs with Esme, watching over her or simply keeping her company. Emmett and Jasper would be doing anything they liked, and a lot of the time Bella would be there as well, with Edward. After a few nights Charlie started to become concerned that Bella was spending so much time at our home, so I spoke with him to reassure him that Bella was not intruding and was very welcome in our home at any time and that he shouldn't worry about it. He seemed quite happy with this.

Everything was as normal as it could possibly be, but as the days progressed through the week I began to notice a difference in Rosalie's behaviour. She had always masked her true feelings underneath her "cold mask" as Esme called it, but her "mask" hardened. She didn't really talk much, or when she did it was only to Emmett, and she stopped going upstairs with Alice after school to talk with Esme. I didn't know what to think about her strange behaviour. Esme and Rosalie had always been quite close. The similarities of their pasts and certain desires brought them closer. Rosalie was Esme's first beloved daughter and Esme didn't exactly fill the hole in Rosalie of not having her dear mother with her, but she did help quite considerably. So it surprised me when Rosalie tried to avoid Esme when she could.

A few days later I asked Emmett to talk to Rosalie and find out if he could determine what was wrong. He said that he did not know and that she would not speak to him about it. It was then that I decided to approach her myself. I caught her after work one day, sitting outside on the porch reading, while Emmett and Jasper were wrestling on the lawn.

"Rosalie." I came to sit down beside her on the porch steps. "You haven't been acting like yourself lately. I really hope you do not mind that I ask you this, but is there anything wrong at all? It's just that you do not seem to be as close to Esme as you used to be." I said, choosing my words carefully, not wanting to intrude on anything that might be too personal.

She sighed and closed her book. She looked at Emmett and Jasper for a minute, probably wondering if she should tell me or not. She took a deep, unnecessary breath and said quietly, "Carlisle, have you ever been…jealous of someone you loved, over a silly thing that can't really be changed?" Her question surprised me. Rosalie got jealous, of course, her latest person being Bella, we all knew about Rosalie's feelings but no one ever spoke about it, not wanting to upset or embarrass her. Now, for her to speak openly about such feelings, well this was unusual for her.

"Well, I—to tell you the truth, Rose, I don't know."

"It's a strange feeling to say the least," she continued, looking down at the closed book she held in her hands. "You don't want to…hate…this person you love, yet…you do."

"If you don't mind my asking, Rose," I said, getting slightly curious, "who are you jealous of?"

She bent her head even lower and whispered something inaudible, even to my ears.

"I'm sorry, Rose, I didn't hear you."

"Esme!" She almost yelled, throwing the book, which I now recognized to be her private journal that she kept, down on the stairs in front of her, causing Jasper and Emmett to freeze and look at her.

"Oh, Rosalie." I wasn't as good as Esme when it came to consoling someone while physical actions, so I settled on gently patting her on the shoulder.

"Ugh," Rosalie continued, raising her voice with each word. "She can cry like a human, she can sleep like a human, she can even eat like a human and actually like it. It just isn't fair." I knew, of course, how Rosalie resents me for changing her. She wishes to be more human, at any cost really, and her greatest wish was that she could have a child of her own but sadly this would never happen, could never happen!

After I had my little discussion with Rosalie things didn't really go back to normal, but she was more agreeable toward Esme. She would at least talk to her.

Everything else was okay at the house, although there was still no change in Esme, which I guess was a good thing; at least she wasn't getting worse. She was still eating three meals a day but she wasn't hunting as much, which was a slight concern for me. Bella was usually at the house when I returned from the hospital.

It was not only a moth 'till Christmas and life was okay. As I was saying goodbye to Esme and my family one Saturday morning, picking up my medical bag and heading out the door into the crisp morning air, I could not help thinking to myself that something was about to change….

The first part of this chapter isn't my favourite and neither is the very end, but I liked writing the part where Rosalie kind of "flips out". Hope you liked it.