Good God… another chapter! Crap should start picking up after this… sorry for the delay… and my obsessive use of ellipses.

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That night, Jasper, Alice, and I sat around the phone having a discussion on speakerphone with my father. Carlisle had finally gotten through and was in the midst of praising Jasper for the way he was handling things.

"Well, Jasper, I do agree with you that taking her in would probably be better for her recovery than placing her under psych care. How is she doing?"

"She stayed with Edward today, dad. He'll be taking care of her during the day when Jazz and I are working." She raised her eyebrows pointedly at me, encouraging me to speak to our father.

I sighed. Shit; there was nothing to tell, not really. Other than the breakthrough discovery of using the internet to quickly translate what we were saying to each other, the day had passed in relative ease.

"The girl is fine. A little kooky, maybe, a little awkward, but it was okay. I guess." My lack of enthusiasm clearly spoke volumes and Carlisle went on one of his tirades.

"You guess? What I hear is that Jasper trusts you with this and the best you can do is okay?" His voice blared through the speaker and the disappointment in it was evident. "That news is not exactly thrilling—"

"Yeah, really, are we having this argument again?" I ran my hands through my hair in frustration, trying to keep my voice down. I glanced at the ceiling; the girl was sleeping, and I didn't want to wake her up with an argument. Especially an argument with a fucking phone.

"Edward, you know that both your mother and I love you and…" We heard some rustling and shuffling on the other side of the line. Jazz and Alice traded glances, looking uncomfortable for my sake. We heard Carlisle whisper, "Honey, I got this," before coming back on the phone.

"It's not about you not loving me, dad. I know you're disappointed that I didn't choose to be a doctor like you. I'm an artist."

"Your mother and I have always respected your choices, Edward. We're proud of your talent, that you're an artist, but you're not even doing that."

"Then you'll be glad to hear that I painted again today," I blurted out. Alice smirked, and Jasper nodded in approval. "But really, that's not why you called. What can we do to help this girl?" I tried to bring the conversation back on track and try to deal with the real issue.

"Fine. I'll be calling you to talk about that later. But for now… Isabella, is that correct?" Carlisle asked.

I whooshed in relief, glad to deflect the subject away from me. I pushed the phone closer to Jazz and allowed myself to sag into a desk chair.

"Isabella brought her past life story to consciousness. That can create delusions." Carlisle was once again clinical, detached. "I would advise you to regress her, to try again."

"I've been trying to give her a chance to get back on her own, talking to her… but it's harder to do when it's all Spanish."

"Castilian," I said absently, fooling around with a pen cap I'd found lying on the desktop.

"What?" Alice looked up from the notes she was taking. "Castilian?" Jasper was still deep in conversation with our dad.

"Oh, um… well, I looked some shit up online, you know. Technically, it's not Spanish she's speaking, but Castilian. Castellano?" I scratched my head uncomfortably, unsure of why I was divulging this random bit of information. "Anyway, based on the region she says she's from, it's not like a dialect, really, because it's still Spanish, not like Basque or something…" I trailed off, catching a strange gleam in Alice's eyes. "What?"

"Nothing. Didn't think you'd research that. Or anything, really. Nice to see you've broadened your interests." She went back to her note-taking, a smile at the corners of her mouth.

Damn that smirk. It made me want to give her a noogie or pull her hair. I felt she was deliberately keeping something from me, and all she was missing was sticking her tongue out.

"Okay, thanks for getting back to me, Carlisle. I really appreciate it." Jasper was wrapping up the conversation.

"Say hi to mom for me. Tell her to please ask for the purse at the flagship store in Barcelona, and that it's under my name. We'll see you soon!" Alice nudged me and nodded towards the phone.

"Uh-huh. When are you coming back?" I asked.

"Next week. We'd really like to see more of you, Edward. If you'd let us," he said in a softer voice. I knew he was really trying; the part about me not being a doctor was just part of my own insecurities as a failed artist. Or what felt like failure, anyway.

"Yeah, dad. We'll talk more when you get back. And I know mom is listening in on the receiver. Don't worry—I'm eating, showering, and earning money honestly, mom." I rolled my eyes as my mother cleared her throat on the other side of the Atlantic.

"Fine, Edward. Take care of yourself, please. I love you—all of you, darlings. We'll be back before you know it." Mom's voice was getting sort of teary, so I ended the call quickly.

"So you'll try another regression?" Alice was flipping the pages in her notebook back and forth.

"In a couple more days, I think. I'm still hoping to find some other trigger to bring her consciousness back," he said. He looked tired and peaked around the eyes. "Carlisle said he'd try to rustle up more information on her possible ancestry while he's in Spain. Who knows?"

"Well, I'm no doctor, but I think you're right." Alice placed her hand over her husband's, and squeezed it sympathetically. "How about you go to bed now? I'll be up in a moment."

Jasper nodded, and kissed her cheek. "Don't be long." He stood up and stretched, waving at me as he left the den. "Night, man."

"Yeah, see you." I settled back into the chair, gripping the armrests. Alice noticed my white knuckles, and I was quick to bring my hands back into my lap. "What? What is it?"

Her eyes grew wide. "Nothing. I was just wondering… how did your day go?"

"I already told you." I shrugged. "We hung out. I traded the Oxford for a laptop, and we managed to make some headway conversation. We had lunch." I didn't want to get into how I managed to heat food up in the microwave in front of 400-year-old Chick.

"And when did you manage to fit in some art time?" Alice asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, well… I thought I'd kill some time showing her the studio in the attic. And, um, I guess… inspiration struck or some shit." I didn't know why I felt embarrassed to admit I had practically done a portrait of her, so I didn't mention my subject.

But Alice wasn't fooled. "What did you paint?"

"I used pastels, actually." I didn't answer her question directly, and she knew it. But miraculously, she didn't press me any further.

"No major mishaps?" She stood up and laid the notebook next to the phone. "You didn't try to leave the house, did you?"

"No, I already told you. We just hung out."

"Did she have any trouble using the ladies' room?" I shook my head no. Alice snorted. "The first time I showed her how to flush, she ran out of the bathroom—she thought the water moving by itself and the rushing sound were the work of demons."

I laughed out loud. "Demons? Seriously? You're making shit up."

"Really. And just be glad you didn't turn on the TV. I tried that, just to see if it triggered anything by chance. She was totally freaked by 'the tiny people who live in a box'."

I hadn't laughed so much in awhile. I told her about teaching her English, and how quickly she picked up the random phrases I'd taught her. We traded some stories about the girl, before she shook her head and yawned. I waved her off, so she could join Jasper upstairs.

"Edward?" Alice gripped the door frame and leaned her head against it.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you stopped calling her Crazy Chick."

"Oh." I shrugged. I hadn't realized I'd stopped doing that. "Whatever. Good night, sis."

I stayed in the den, picking up the lone pen and ripping a sheet out of Alice's notebook. I doodled meaninglessly, turning the page over when it was full. I sketched quickly, my mind's eye wandering over the events of the day. It was amazing how much overlap there was already between her strange delusional life and mine.

Finally, I pulled the page closer, and stared at it. I had drawn her, as she had looked standing close to me, as she reached out to touch her likeness on the canvas. Only now, she looked as though she could be reaching out to me.

You remind me of someone I used to know, her voice whispered to me.

I crumpled up the paper and threw it in the garbage can.