AN: Trying something a little different here, folks! And no, I am not abandoning my other story, Come and See. But this idea has been floating around in my head for a few days, so I decided to sit down and type out a first chapter. I am an absolute sucker for anything hurt/comfort between Carlisle and Bella. I have started on the next chapter but that's all the further I've gotten so far. Let me know what you think!

Carlisle's POV

I had barely entered the ER when chaos set in. The set of double doors at the other end of the emergency room burst open in a flurry of movement. Two gurneys came rolling in my direction, making their way past the central nurses station as everyone leaped into action. The paramedics accompanying the first of the two stretchers shouted out the information as the head nurse motioned for them to enter the nearest empty triage room.

"Female, 20 years old, fentanyl poisoning, Naloxone administered on site."

The words had become disturbingly common in emergency rooms across the country. And in Eugene, Oregon we were no exception. I began to run as quickly as I dared in order to join the team assembling around the young woman. I grabbed a pair of gloves and managed to slip them on just as I arrived next to the gurney. Staring down at the girl's pale form, it was as though the room's temperature suddenly dropped twenty degrees. My hand, which had been reaching for the stethoscope in my pocket, froze above the black tubing. An unearthly stillness settled over me. Impossible.

"Patient remains in respiratory distress, preparing a second dose of naloxone. Dr. Platt?" The nurse's words snapped me out of my shock.

"Yes, of course. Go ahead Laura, thank you." I managed to force out.

Oh, Bella. No. Please, no…

While the rest of the team administered the life-saving medication, I started my own examination. Her skin was cold and clammy to the touch and while possibly invisible to my human counterparts, I could clearly see a faint blue tint forming in her lips. Slipping my pen light from my pocket, I opened her eyes and shined the light into her pupils. Her brown eyes were unresponsive. The pupils were small and constricted. The telltale "pinpoint pupils" confirmed what the paramedics had already discovered at the scene. Even without my stethoscope I could hear how her breathing rattled in her lungs, how her body struggled to get the air it needed even with the oxygen mask in place. On top of all that, I could simply smell the opiates that still circulated in her blood.

"Patient has not regained consciousness, her airways are still compromised, prepare intubation tray." I heard myself give the orders, thankful that at least part of my brain was on auto-pilot while the rest of it suffered a blinding ache so acute that I could feel the corners of my eyes prickle uncomfortably. I had not been able to cry in over three hundred years but the instinct to do so had never disappeared.

Laura slid over the tray with the intubation supplies and I shifted down to stand at the head of the bed. Tilting Bella's head back slightly, my thumb settled on her chin and I gently eased open her mouth. I had the tube placed in seconds, moving as quickly as I could without raising suspicion. There was a brief moment of unsettling calm as everyone in the bay watched the monitor. But as soon as her oxygen rate started to increase the rest of them got back into action, everyone but Laura moving on to other patients.

I couldn't pull myself away from Bella's side. I stood stock still, watching as her chest rose and fell. How could she have ended up here? My mind, moving at a supernatural pace, was incapable of reconciling the unconscious girl before me with the Bella we had left more than two years before. My distress must have become visible on my features for Laura spoke up, her words quiet.

"You know her, don't you, Dr. Platt?"

She was observant. And I had not done a sufficient enough job of hiding my shock. A simple half-lie came to mind, for even in the midst of the most grievous situations I had to be ready to cover our tracks.

"Yes, Laura. I knew her a few years ago, she was a dear family friend of ours."

She sighed and placed her hand briefly on the arm of my white coat. "Poor thing. Though she is lucky to have you here with her now."

I returned her kind words with a brief nod and a smile, unsure if Bella would consider my sudden reappearance "lucky" or not. Edward had told us so little of how Bella had taken his parting words. In fact, he refused to even tell us what he had told her in order for her to accept his leaving. His evasiveness had always left me with an uneasy feeling in my stomach. For after all, I still believed them to be mates. And human or not, it would not have been easy to convince Bella that Edward's leaving was best. But for now I refused to jump to conclusions. It was too early to imagine that her current state was tied to her separation from Edward, even though a nagging part of my mind suggested that our abandoning her was responsible for her skirting with death.

A shout from the bay next to us pulled me from my thoughts and I was forced to leave Bella's side.

I knew she would not be able to hear me but I couldn't help myself as I leaned down and spoke reassuringly to her, "I am so sorry, Bella. I won't be far. You are not alone."

I'd made sure she had her own room. The shades were drawn over the window but daybreak had begun to filter in. My shift had officially ended an hour ago, but I could not leave without speaking to her. Overdose patients rarely stayed longer than a few hours, let alone for an overnight observation. It had only been because of my own insisting (and the fact that there was an available room upstairs) that they agreed to keep her until morning. In the early hours of morning her breathing had stabilized and the attending up on the floor had been able to remove the breathing tube. There was nothing left keeping her here. Knowing our hospital's protocol, she would likely be sent on her way later that morning. If I wanted to speak to her it would have to be now.

There was a plastic chair positioned next to the door for visitors. I settled into it and waited for her to stir. One of the floor nurses stepped in to check on Bella and nodded in my direction to acknowledge my presence, but otherwise didn't question why I was there. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Esme, letting her know I would be remaining at the hospital to finish up a few things before coming home. Telling her about Bella was something that would have to be done in person.

At last, nearly two hours later, Bella began to wake. She winced a few times, her eyes adjusting to the light. She gave a small cough and appeared to swallow painfully, her throat likely still irritated from the intubation tube. Then, without moving the rest of her body, her head twisted on the pillow to look in my direction. I tried to turn my mouth into a small, comforting smile, but I feared it may have come across as more of a grimace.

"Good morning, Bella."

She continued to stare unblinkingly at me, her expression weary. The look on her face had been enough to confirm that I had no doubt fallen far, far from her graces. Without speaking a word to me she slowly turned her head back the other way. Her eyes were trained on the ceiling, the muscles in her face tensed, as though she were trying to refrain from displaying any kind of emotion. But then the silent tears began to fall slowly down both of her cheeks.

Bella's POV

My brain struggled to grasp what was happening. Each thought was clouded by the exhaustion of what I had been through the night before combined with the sheer impossibility of finding myself face to face with one of them. I wouldn't even allow myself to think his name. Perhaps I was imagining him, a drug-induced specter. It wouldn't be my first. I forced myself to look up and stare at the specks in the ceiling tiles, counting them as a means to force my thoughts back into focus. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. When I got to fifty I would turn back and look towards the door and see that nobody was there.

But then he spoke to me again, the words thick with hesitation. His voice was uncertain. It sounded all wrong coming from him. His words had always been so steady, so sure.

"How are you feeling?" From the corner of my eye I could see his slow steps in my direction. A pause, and then he lowered his voice nearly to a whisper, "You gave me quite a scare."

I closed my eyes and smirked. The thought that my actions could scare him was laughable. Scared? Out of the entire family he should know best how many ways a human can hurt. How easily they succumb to suffering. He should have known that by disappearing they were leaving me as an open target for all the pain the world has to offer. The way I saw it, he and the rest of them gave up the right to worry over me when they left without a trace two years ago. If he was feigning concern now, after disappearing in the night with no regard for my own feelings, my own well-being, then I would not give him the satisfaction of falling for their lies now. I wouldn't become one of their "distractions" only to be left behind once more.

"I'd understand if you don't want to speak to me, you have every right, of course." His voice was full of remorse. A small part of me wanted to believe that maybe he was being genuine. But I had spent the last two years doing everything I could to protect myself from being hurt that way again. And I wasn't about to let my guard down now.

Swallowing painfully again, I forced myself to snap, "What do you want, Carlisle? I don't know what you want me to say." He winced from the harshness of my tone and for a second I doubted my decision to remain cold with him. Beneath my bitter façade, there remained a small part of me that wanted to fall back into their world. To love them and let them love me back. The thought terrified me.

"You overdosed, Bella. Is this-, I mean, have-"

I cut him off there, "Has it happened before? No. Well, at least, not like this."

He nodded solemnly, trying his best to keep a neutral expression.

"Do you want me to call Charlie? Or Renee? Maybe a friend or - "

"No-" He looked as though he might argue, so I insisted further, "please don't. Please." Could he hear the shame and fear bleeding through my words? He nodded but changed tactics.

"You are welcome to stay with us if you'd like. Just for a night, or two, however long you need. It's only Esme and I right now." I began to shake my head before he'd even finished. I had to shut down his offer before the temptation to see Esme again became too strong to bear.

My head kept up its rhythmic back and forth motion, "No. I, uh, I don't think that's a good idea." He looked crestfallen at my refusal, so I tacked on a deflated, "Thank you, though".

Coming to sit on the edge of my bed, he tried once more. "Let me help you, Bella, please."