A/N: So I wrote up the events of the entire birthday party in my notebook and then realize, expletive that's A LOT! So I decided to break it up into three chapters, which I will attempt to post today and tomorrow. Today I'm posting the first part, a little Carlisle and patient interaction. The second should follow by the end of the day, and it will be the first part of the party. Then the third part will more than likely be Carlisle and Bella. So I hope you stick with me and for you super speedy readers, while you wait for my slower typing, why don't you go read one of my other stories and Review!

Thanks in advanced for understanding, and thanks so much for your positive feedback. Keep it up guys! Everybody likes to know if people like their writing. I promise things will pick up now.

Read, Review, Pass it on!

-Wish

Chapter 40: Joanie

Today was Bella's 18th birthday. As if Alice would let any of us forget. As soon as the clock had struck midnight, Alice was off. She already had the house decorated by four, when I was preparing to start my shift at the hospital. All the presents, wrapped in silver paper, sat on a small table by the piano. The cake waited in the refrigerator, the only scrap of food in the entire house. Alice and Esme had decorated it themselves in pink. Pink roses were everywhere as I moved through the downstairs, towards the door. I was going in early today so I was sure to be home for Bella's party.

Esme and I had gotten Bella a special present. Actually, two presents. We'd bought her a voucher for two plane tickets to visit her mother in Jacksonville, Florida. We weren't sure if Charlie would let Bella go with Edward, but Alice was hopeful. Or present was a slim package in the short stack on the table.

Esme caught me at the door. "Don't be late," she warned me "You know Alice would be very angry."

I chuckled and kissed her forehead. "We wouldn't want Alice to be upset now. I'll be home." I gave Esme one last kiss and left, my bag I one hand, the keys to my Mercedes in the other.

The hospital was slow at first, but around nine, a tractor trailer accident came in. The truck had drifted and clipped a tree before ricocheting off, into the oncoming lane, and hitting a mini-van, of all things.

The truck driver was okay, just a row of contusions across his chest where the seat belt halted his motion. But the passengers of the mini-van, a family of three, weren't in such great shape.

The father, who'd been driving the car, had been killed on impact. But the mother from the passenger's seat and the little girl in the back seat, were brought into the hospital in a rush. The mother was in critical condition, while the little girl's injuries, were serious, but not as life threatening. The ER doctor on duty received the mother, unconscious with multiple lacerations, fractures, and possibly even internal hemorrhaging. I was called in for the little girl.

She'd been in the very back of the van, in the seat farthest from where the truck hit. She was lucky. They brought the girl in on a backboard as a precaution against possible head and neck injury. She was awake and asking for her parents. I met the stretcher at the emergency room door.

"What are we looking at, Brett?" I asked the EMT on duty.

"Multiple contusions on the right side and lacerations from shattered glass. The car fish-tailed and hit a tree. Back windows shattered. Then she's got bruises from the seatbelt and we think at least one broken rib on the right."

The stretcher was transferred from emergency crew to the hospital crew. I nodded goodbye to Brett and followed it.

"Get some x-rays," I told the ER nurse. "Then we need to get that glass out of those wounds. Have sutures ready."

"Yes, Dr. Cullen," she replied.

I waited for the x-rays before going to see the girl. She had two broken ribs, but miraculously, that was all that was broken. Before meeting her, I looked over her chart. Joan McCauley. Eight-years old.

A nurse was already working on the girl's glass-ridden arm. The girl watched with morbid curiosity. She didn't seem to be in pain, which meant she'd already been given a painkiller.

"I'll take it from here, Mary," I told the nurse. The girl looked up, her brown eyes meeting my fading topaz as I sat down in the chair the nurse had just occupied. I was hit by the scent of her blood as soon as I'd opened the door. I was a little thirsty, but nothing I couldn't handle. I was surprised I even felt thirsty. It must've been because I hadn't fed in a little while.

Mary left as I went to work on the remainder of the glass still embedded in Joan's arm.

"Hello," I greeted her, "I'm Dr. Cullen. I'm going to be taking care of you for now."

"I'm Joanie McCauley," the little girl replied. Instead of staring at her arm as she had with the nurse, Joanie was staring at me, most particularly, my face.

"Does anything hurt right now, Joanie?" I asked, attempting to take her mind off me. I didn't need an eight-year old putting my family in danger at the moment.

"No," Joanie replied. "The nurse gave me a shot that made my arm feel weird, but it doesn't hurt anymore."

I nodded; that had given her pain meds.

"I've never seen eyes that color before, Dr. Cullen," Joanie commented.

I almost groaned aloud. My eyes. My one changeable feature, too changeable. Our most obvious difference. What was I going to do? I had to redirect her focus. But to what?

"I got them from my mother," I replied. I didn't like calling attention to her parents. Her father was dead and her mother was critically injured. She didn't know yet. And I didn't relish the thought of being the one to tell her. But I had to distract her from me.

My comment did the trick.

"Do you know what happened to my mom and dad? They were in the van too. Are they here?"

Now came the dreaded part. "Your mother is here," I confirmed. "Another doctor is taking care of her." I made the mistake of looking up into her two eyes. Green. Green was such an interesting color. It wasn't very common. My thoughts fell back to another patient, long ago, who'd also had green eyes. He was struggling again, but this time, I couldn't simply bite him and make everything work out.

"I don't know about your father," I lied quietly. I refocused on pulling the last of the glass from her arm. The nurse had brought the materials for stitches. Joanie would need about twelve, total. I stitched her up and wrapped a bandage around her wound, though now that the skin was mostly closed there was less blood. It was becoming easier to breathe around her. I checked her for a concussion (she didn't seem to have one, surprisingly) and looked over the x-rays of her ribs. She had two cracks. More than likely it was from the seatbelt, like the bruises across her stomach and her chest. I didn't think there was any other damage; still we would monitor her for signs of internal bleeding and a concussion.

Joanie kept me busy until I had to perform a knee surgery, which spanned the final hours until the end of my shift. I check in on Joanie (she was sleeping) and my other patients before signing out and heading home. It had been an eventful day at the hospital and I still had a birthday party that night.