To all who are reading this, thank you for continuing the journey.

Guest, leelee202, catgrl, Ruiniel, kouga's older woman, Goldielover, nickaroos, and Guest: Many thanks for the reviews! I appreciate it like you wouldn't believe.

For those who like to listen to music while reading, the song for this chapter is "Live With Me" by Massive Attack.

CHAPTER 9

SHOCK

The water had reached its boiling point, and steam was puffing through the spout.

After dropping individual tea bags in each cup, Bella unplugged the whistling kettle and started pouring. With their teas now steeping, she then carried the cups out of the kitchen, passing via the yellow entryway to reach the living-room, where the good doctor was admiring the many pictures on display.

"Here we are," she told her guest, and placed their beverages on the coffee table. "Do you want anything in your tea? I have milk. Sugar or even honey."

With his scarf and leather jacket hanging over his arm, Carlisle turned to face her, and waved a polite hand. "Black tea is fine." As he spoke, Bella noted something different about the room. The lighting, to be more precise. For one thing, the lamp was on, and the west-facing windows were now shaded by Charlie's beige and brown curtains.

Did Carlisle close the drapes?

Slightly puzzled, Bella stole a glance at her guest, and soon reasoned that the setting sun might have bothered his eyes. After all, given the angle of the house, the westering sun could shine rather brightly in this room.

Her mind going back to those perplexing moments out on the front steps, Bella wondered what had prompted him to suddenly change his mind about staying. One moment, Carlisle had been wishing her a good night, and the next he had been taking her up on her previous offer of tea.

Setting the mystery aside, Bella checked the strength of her tea. Satisfied with the taste—she liked it on the weak side—she removed her tea bag, grabbed both cups, then rounded the coffee table to join her guest at the mantel.

When he accepted the proffered beverage, the warmth of his smile matched that of his caramel eyes. "Thank you kindly, Isabella."

Her mouth twitched. Thank you kindly?

Carlisle might be thirty-one, but his manners were that of someone far older. It was endearing—and a rare thing in this day and age—but it was also rather odd.

"Is something the matter?" the doctor asked when he noticed her lingering stare.

In order to conceal her blush, Bella busied herself by blowing on her tea. "No, why?"

"You seemed amused just now."

Emboldened by his lingering smile, Bella opted for honesty. "It's just… it's the way you talk sometimes. It's so polite and… old fashioned. Are you sure you weren't raised in the eighteen hundreds?"

His answering laughter was like windchimes, his beautiful face shining with such mirth, Bella found she couldn't look away.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked, and pursed his lips.

At her nod, Carlisle leaned in a bit. "The year was nineteen ten. I was taking a leisurely walk on a dirt road behind my house when I stumbled upon a most unusual automobile. By the dust on the hood, I reckoned it'd been abandoned. Now being the inquisitive person that I am, I tested the door. It was unlocked. Then, I climbed in, tried several buttons, and took it for a spin. Imagine my shock when I realized it was a time machine." Now he watched her with mock-seriousness, his index finger rising to his mouth. "But shhh. You can't tell anyone. It might pollute the timeline."

Bella chortled at his "Back to the Future" reference. Choosing to play along, she schooled her features into a conspiratorial expression. "My lips are sealed, kind sir." But then, she narrowed her eyes. "Although, if you stole that DeLorean... I hate to break it to you, but the timeline is most assuredly ruined."

"Well, given where I ended up..." Now his eyes mapped her face. "I regret nothing."

She had to hand it to him; the guy was funny, and pretty damn sweet.

As their laughter tapered to a series of soft chuckles, Bella smirked and took a soothing sip of tea. Carlisle, for his part, turned to the mantel once more. "These are lovely pictures," he stated, then pointed at her graduation photo. "Your hair was longer then."

"Ahh, my younger days."

"You're only thirty, Bella. You're still young."

She gave a small laugh at that. "Thanks." But after the recent twists and turns in her life, she didn't feel all that young anymore.

"Nice graduation robe."

"Mustard yellow. Awesome color, right?" Staring at the fresh-faced version of herself, Bella went on. "I liked my long hair, but this is easier." In truth, she had grown rather fond of her shoulder-length do.

Though he made no reply, the look on Carlisle's face suggested that he rather liked her current style.

He indicated another picture. "I gather this is your mother?"

Bella's smile turned wistful. "Yes. Her name was Renée. She died a few years ago."

"Charlie told me. I was sorry to hear about your loss." The two of them stared at the picture, the relative stillness underscored by the ticking of a clock, until Carlisle spoke again. "She had a lovely smile."

"Uber pretty." Her heart swimming in reminiscence, Bella ran her fingertips along the edge of the frame. "When I was little, I remember whining and crying because I wanted dimples just like hers." Soft laughter rose in her throat, then her chest swelled on a drawn-out sigh. "If my mother was one thing, she was full of life. She was all over the place, but whenever she would find a new interest or hobby, her face would light up. Brighter than the Vegas Strip. As flighty as she was, I admired that about her. That emotional honesty and unbridled zest for life."

A series of memories surfaced just then. Like a film reel in her mind, Bella recalled her many birthdays, all those road-trips, and the crazy blanket her mother had made out of their touristy t-shirts.

"Even if my childhood wasn't perfect, even if I had to grow up way too fast, helping my mother with everyday things like cooking and cleaning, doing the groceries, even reminding her to pay the bills… Even with all that, I have loving memories of her. We had fun." Bella's fingers lingered on the image for a beat longer. Then, she allowed her hand to fall. "Sometimes, I wish I could go back. Just for a day, for an hour, even a measly minute. Just to have a chance to hear her voice, her laughter. I really miss her."

"It's good that you have all of those memories," Carlisle said, then added. "I never knew my mother."

Her brows creased slightly. Bella looked sidelong at him.

Seeing the unspoken question on her face, he explained that his mother had died shortly after giving birth to him. "I don't even know what she looked like."

"You mean no pictures? Nothing?"

"No." The ensuing pause seemed more like a hesitation. "My father misplaced our albums and home movies when we moved to the states."

"Wow, that's… that's really sad."

His lashes lowered for a moment, his voice scarcely above a murmur when he said, "Like everything else in life, we can't always choose the cards that we are given." His attention shifting to the coffee table, Carlisle indicated the old album beside an empty picture frame. His features set in genuine curiosity, he asked if she'd meant to add a picture on Charlie's mantel.

"I was making a trade actually, swapping a painful memory for a better one." Being a private person, Bella would have normally left it at that. But as Carlisle waited to hear more, something prompted her to near the coffee table, where she reached for a downward facing picture—the one she had removed from its frame mere minutes before Charlie had burnt their dinner and offered to take her out to eat.

Turning the picture over, Bella stared at it for a moment before showing it to Carlisle.

"The man who came to visit you at the hospital," he said.

Bella's jaded heart grew heavy. Hiding her pain beneath a bland expression, she set the picture aside, and went to sit on the sofa. "His name is Evan Miller. I was with him for three years."

A slight crease forming between his brows, Carlisle came to sit beside her. "So you're separated."

Bella replied by way of a nod.

"We'd been having problems for a while, but recently I learned that he had been cheating on me with a woman he works with. Long story short, I ended it, and he's in the process of moving out as we speak."

Carlisle was silent for a moment. His expression was really hard to gauge. "That couldn't have been easy."

"I admit, it was like a kick in the teeth at first, but it's okay. At least now I know the truth. The guy is a lying piece of… dirt." Bella had been about to say "shit", but Carlisle was always so polite, it almost seemed wrong to swear around him. But then again, being a doctor, he must have been used to it, had probably heard every curse word in the book.

"I'm sorry," she said, laughing even as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "We barely know each other, and yet here I am, unloading my romantic woes on you."

"You never need to apologize for that." A pause ensued, like he was waiting for her to meet his eyes. She did.

"I mean it, Bella. We all have our burdens. Sometimes, talking can lighten the load."

Bella appreciated that, more than she cared to admit.

"Besides," he added, and set his cup on the coffee table. Elbows resting on his knees, he toyed with his ring, then looked to her again. "I seem to recall a similar moment when our roles were reversed. The night we sat outside the hospital."

Bella remembered it well. Carlisle had lost a patient on the operating table that day.

"I knew you even less back then," he went on to say. "Still, I opened up and you listened. Words cannot express how much it meant to me."

Something passed between them just then, a moment of undefinable connection that caught her unawares.

A beat went by. Then Carlisle looked away. Unless Bella was mistaken, regret seemed to pass over his features. There was a subtle air of loneliness about him, making her wonder. Who was he really? Was his life happy or as much a mess as her own?

Suddenly yearning to know, Bella was about to ask if there was a Mrs. Cullen somewhere. Before the words could form, however, Carlisle's attention snagged on yet another item on the cluttered coffee table, one that was partly hidden by Charlie's newspaper. Her dog-eared copy of Troilus and Criseyde.

Wordlessly, he reached for the book, and studied the cover. As Bella observed his face, his mouth curved on one side, just a little.

"For everything that happens, happens by necessity: thus, it is my destiny to be lost. For certainly, I know this well, that foresight of divine providence has always seen that I would lose Criseyde, since God sees all things, without doubt, and through his decree disposes them truly according to their deserts, as they shall come to pass by predestination."

Bella's mouth was agape, her blinking stare trained on his lamplit face. "You know Chaucer?" Belatedly, she realized the stupidity of her question. Of course, he knew Chaucer. He'd just quoted him, word for word, in a tone laced with quiet appreciation.

"Well, he is the father of English poetry," he stated simply, extending the book so she could take it.

Bella's amazement was such that her brain was lagging behind. Carlisle couldn't possibly be real. This kind, thoughtful, and talented doctor was a fellow book nerd? Seriously, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship—that is, if she ever saw him again.

And so it was that she forgot her troubles for much of the evening. As they conversed, essentially geeking out over their favorite books and authors, all thoughts of Evan fell to the very back of her mind. The distraction was refreshing, more than welcome. But like the saying went—a saying whose source was the very book that was clasped in her hand—all good things must come to an end.

"Forgive me," Carlisle said when he realized how late it was. Night had already fallen at this point. A glance at the clock told Bella it was after ten.

"It would seem that I lost track of time, and stayed longer than I should." Grabbing both their cups, he started to rise.

"Don't be silly. This was nice."

"Yes, but you still need your rest. As a doctor, I should have remembered that."

As Carlisle carried their cups in the kitchen, Bella plucked his jacket and scarf from the arm of the couch. The leather was smooth and supple, the scarf oh so soft against her hand. When she rounded the stairs, and caught sight of Carlisle, he was pouring tea in the sink. She hadn't noticed, until then, that his cup had been nearly full. Come to think of it, did he drink at all?

Thinking that the tea might have been too strong for his liking, Bella leaned on the door jam, and watched as he discarded his tea bag, and rinsed both cups. Once Carlisle had retraced his steps, his expression warming in tandem with hers, she held out his jacket and scarf. "Don't forget these."

Relieving her of the items, Carlisle watched her watch him. The moment had finally arrived. For the second time that night, it was time to say goodbye.

"Thank you for tonight," she said, running her palm over her left sleeve. "I know you feel bad about staying late, but I've been cooped up for so long, it was good to have someone to laugh and talk with."

Carlisle seemed glad to hear it. Quietly, he said, "Spending time with you was a joy, Isabella." He had reverted to using her full name again. He was the only one who did.

As he fiddled with his baby blue tie, Carlisle tucked his chin, robbing her of the sight of his eyes. A heartbeat or two later, when their gazes reconnected, he took a step back, and she was sorry to see him go.

"I'll walk you out," she said.

Flicking on the porch light, Bella followed as he stepped out into the night. Having reached the bottom of the cement steps, she stopped by the hedges, watching as Carlisle closed the distance to his Mercedes.

With a press of a button, he deactivated the alarm, and opened the car door. In lieu of entering the vehicle, he merely stood there, one hand braced on the roof of his car, while the other rested over the door. His head falling forward, Carlisle appeared to be chewing his lip.

The moment stretched on. Then, he met her eyes again. "Take care of yourself, Bella." Though his regret was evident, a teasing glimmer flashed across his handsome face. "And if you can, avoid those bear crossings."

A shy, breathy laugh as her response, she waved to him, and he waved to her. "Will do, doc... See you around."

His smile held a note of sadness. Softly, he mirrored her words. "See you around."

Wavering in indecision, Bella took a step backward, and considered calling to him, to ask if they could exchange numbers or something. To keep in touch, she reasoned. Maybe they could grab a coffee at the diner next time she was in town. Or then maybe he could call her up if ever he had business in Seattle. Before she could follow through, the sole of her sneaker snagged on something. A crack in the cement perhaps. That or she had tripped on her own shoe.

Whatever the cause, Bella felt herself falling backward, her outstretched hands clawing at empty air. As cliché as it was, her awareness narrowed to the point of tunnel vision. All she could see was a starless sky framed by fluttering tendrils of hair.

As her tumble unfurled in slow motion, Bella knew that the porch was right there, and that her skull might be about to crack like an egg on the corner of that first step.

That would be her luck. Surviving a car accident only to smash her head on something as mundane as Charlie's front steps. Helpless to stop her fall, Bella clenched her teeth, her entire body bracing for the blinding pain that was sure to follow.

Only there was no pain. Instead, the weirdest fucking thing happened.

A sudden gust of wind swirled around her body, strong enough that her ears actually caught a whoosh of air.

Her heart in her throat, Bella stared at the sky without blinking. This made no sense. Something had stopped her momentum, like a bungee jumping harness appearing from thin air.

Except, it wasn't a harness. And her body didn't rebound.

Her panting breaths echoing over her racing pulse, Bella turned her face just enough to see a golden head of hair. Carlisle. Carlisle, who had been standing over by his car, a good fifteen feet away, was now clutching her body, holding her head and shoulders a few inches off the ground.

Outside of logic or comprehension, his right arm was now locked around her ribcage, his left hand supporting the back of her head. Like a lover's embrace almost. Only instead of being heady and wonderful, the ensuing seconds were tainted by a distressing realization.

By order of strangeness, these were the things Bella noticed. Carlisle's hand. His hand was incredibly cold. Freezing. But even more unsettling was the coldness of his cheek, pressed against her own.

Their bodies faintly illuminated by the porch light, they remained as they were. Two stock-still figures, locked in place like marble statues. No sooner had the comparison entered her mind than another realization clicked into place.

As nervous tremors shot up and down her spine, raising the hairs at the back of her neck, Bella took note of her hands—where they were and what she felt beneath them.

Even through the dual layers of his cardigan and shirt, Carlisle's flesh seemed unnaturally hard. What should have been warm muscle felt more like stone.

Bella couldn't process it; her brain was misfiring. These sensations were all wrong, his body temperature akin to that of a corpse. She must have hit her head after all, suffering neurological damage in the process. She was seeing and feeling things that weren't there.

But then he spoke, and his tremulous whisper busted that bubble, dragging her back to this new and freakish reality. "Are you okay?" he asked.

This was real. Oh no. No, no, no.

And it only got worse.

When he had spoken just now, Carlisle had drawn a breath. A single inhalation, his first since breaking her fall. For whatever reason, that action had an immediate and frightening effect on him.

Carlisle shuddered, then his shoulders jerked inwards.

What happened next shook Bella to the core.

As he trembled above her, a sound reached her ears. A low and feral grumbling that originated from deep within his chest.

A growl.

Carlisle was growling, his nose hungrily grazing the exposed column of her neck.

She should have been screaming, but couldn't. She should have been fighting to get away from him, but didn't. This was Carlisle. Carlisle! Dr. Cullen. The guy who had carried her groceries, and charmed her by quoting Chaucer.

Can't process. Can't process.

Like a covetous beast roused from a long slumber, Carlisle had caged her body to his. Desperate to snap him out of it, Bella turned her face just enough to catch his profile. "Ca...Carlisle?" Her petrified voice sounded all too weak to her ears. Yet somehow it reached him.

The growling stopped at once. After a second or two, his hold loosened by a fraction. Bathed in semi-darkness, Carlisle's face was angled downward, his body coiled with a tension she couldn't comprehend.

Shaking in the weakening prison of his arms, Bella caught a fleeting glimpse of his eyes, and what she saw…

Oh, fuck me...

Instead of soothing caramel, his irises were black. Not dark brown. Black, black. Like a tar pit.

Carlisle shook his head, like he was trying to break whatever had gotten hold of him.

"Bella?" Shame, terror, disbelief. Bella saw all of those things, flickering one after the other on his preternatural face.

When those warring emotions ceded to concern, a change came over him. Carlisle immediately went in doctor mode. Widening the space between them, he turned his full focus on her, his assessing gaze rapidly sweeping her up and down. For reasons she couldn't understand, Carlisle cocked his head, and closed his eyes, as though he was listening for something. As if that wasn't strange enough, he actually sniffed the air a few times. "You're alright," he declared, blowing a breath as he raked a nervous hand through his hair. "You're alright."

Bella was half-sitting, half-lying on the ground. Frozen by what she had felt and seen just now, she watched, wide-eyed, as Carlisle backed away even more, crawling on shaking hands and knees until he managed to gain his feet.

The shame had returned, but now it was mixed with anguish. As he turned and staggered toward his Mercedes, Bella rose on wobbly legs, and watched as he slammed the car door. The engine turned, and the headlights came on, blinding her.

Before her mind could fully catch up, Carlisle had placed the car in reverse and was swerving out of the driveway. After slamming on the brakes, he put the vehicle in drive. The tires spewed gravel as the Mercedes sped away. Eyes on his tail-lights, Bella took a few steps forward, ignoring the jacket and scarf that he had dropped and left on the ground.

Bella was in the middle of the road, unable to look away from the fleeing vehicle. Alone in the night, she wrapped her arms around herself, and acknowledged her ordeal with the only words she could think of.

"Holy shit."

This was going to be a long night, the case so baffling and troubling, Charlie didn't know what to think.

Hours after he had been flagged by the store manager, he stood behind the Thriftway. Having called additional units, he swept his flashlight along the tree line for what seemed the hundredth time.

"Over here, Chief," one of his officers—a woman named Grace Murphy—shouted from a distance.

As he hurried on over, Charlie reflected on what he knew so far.

What should have been a standard vandalism case was anything but.

"What the hell…" Those had been the store manager's words, when the two had first reviewed the surveillance tape.

Like a movie burned into his mind, Charlie recalled how the hoodie-clad kid had spray painted the back of the Thriftway. By his height and build, he had guessed his age to be around seventeen, maybe eighteen. Whether he had acted on a dare or with a genuine interest in the street art known as tagging, Charlie didn't know yet. For now, it wasn't important.

As things now stood, the mischievous doodles had fallen to the very bottom of his list of priorities.

His thoughts going back to that tape, Charlie remembered the moment the kid had put away his spray paint and shouldered his backpack. Looking to make sure no one was around, he had jogged out of the frame only to reappear moments later. A fleeting glimpse if ever there was one. Yet in that briefest of instants, Charlie had noted two things. His jog had turned into an all-out run. Toward the store, rather than away from it.

His features concealed by his hood, the kid had been looking over his shoulder, like someone had been chasing him. Much to Charlie's dismay, he had barely made it into the frame when something had seized his backpack, pulling with such force that the kid's feet had lifted off the ground.

And that'd been it. He'd disappeared from the screen just like that.

"What have you got?" Charlie asked as he neared the edge of the tree line.

"Tracks," Officer Murphy answered, her flashlight directed at the muddy ground. "Drag marks by the looks of it."

Coming to stand beside the redhead, Charlie studied the sweeping patterns with a frown. "Yeah, that's not good."

Venturing into the misty woods with their guns drawn, they preserved the tracks by walking alongside them.

Treading through withering ferns, Officer Murphy surveyed the path with disquiet. "Whoever was dragged in here,"—right now, Charlie's best guess was the kid—"looks like he or she put up quite a fight."

For nearly ten minutes they walked. First, they found a sneaker. Then a can of blue spray paint. But as they came upon a towering pine, the tracks came to a sudden and perplexing end. Sweeping their flashlights up the length of the tree, the officers searched the trunk and branches.

Seeing nothing, Charlie heaved a troubled sigh.

"What do you think, Chief? Could the kid have been dragged up there by a bear?"

"That or a mountain lion maybe." No matter the culprit, this was damn strange. Damn strange indeed.

Deeply perturbed, Charlie fetched his cell from his coat pocket.

"Are you calling the forest rangers?"

A nod as his answer, he searched through his contacts until he found the number in question. Pressing on the screen, Charlie waited. It rang once, twice. Midway through the third ring, a guy answered. Charlie immediately knew who it was.

"McCarty. Charlie Swan here. I'm sorry to bother you, but we're investigating a possible disappearance in the woods behind a grocery store in Forks. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at just yet, but I think… I think we may have a problem out here."

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