Carlisle's POV
I watched as my son hopped around the room, with much less grace then I knew he was capable of. His awkward movements and puzzled demeanour was owing to the fact, that apparently, he had lost his shoe. Now he was walking around the living room with one shoe on, in search of the other.
I found it hard not to watch my son closely. It was like looking at a completely different person and an amusing one at that. I briefly wondered if he had lost his mind, especially when he froze, raked his hand through his hair and furrowed his brow.
He smiled widely at me and shook his head.
"They were right here" he promised me with a laugh, obviously reacting to my thoughts that were playfully questioning his sanity.
His hair was wet, his shirt was only half buttoned and for the first time in almost a hundred years, I found myself seeing him as the boy he was before I turned him. For the first time in a long time, Edward reminded me of the teenager that he was forever immortalised to appear as.
"Here it is" Bella announced picking the shoe up from under the sofa.
"That's odd" Edward remarked as he took the shoes from her, an odd grin appeared as did a crease in his brow.
I could see him scanning through his own memory, trying to figure out how the shoe had travelled so far from the place where he had taken them off. Finally he rolled his eyes to himself and sat down, putting it on and doing up the remaining buttons on his shirt. He seemed to finally just accept that the shoe had simply been misplaced on accident.
Edward looked across the living room, watching Bella as she wondered back in, doing her own mental checklist to assure she was also ready to leave.
His eyes softened and scanned her over before he got to his feet slowly. He approached Bella with an inviting smile, a smile I wanted the rest of his family to witness, because this particular smile was one we had never had the pleasure of seeing it before. There was much more contentment in it then I ever knew he was capable of.
I ducked my head down, trying to give them some privacy, but it was almost impossible to take my eyes of Edward.
"I will see you very soon" Edward said carefully as he took Bella's face in his hands and kneeling slightly, to line his eyes with hers.
"You will" Bella replied, returning the smile and leaning into the simple kiss he was offering her.
When the kiss ended the smiles on their faces grew slightly before he turned to me and gave me a swift nod.
Bella chewed her lip as she watched him leave. She was quite obviously a little dazed after the affectionate goodbye and I was a little lost myself.
Edward was not known for being a physically affectionate person.
He was sensitive, he had a great deal of empathy and he was a very loving and devoted member of our family. He himself could accept physical affection, but he rarely offered it out. He simply was not known for being very tactile. But it seemed that he had found someone who he was eager to be physically close to.
I cleared my throat to bring Bella back from her daydreaming. She jumped slightly and turned to face me, revealing the crimson flush that had fallen over her cheeks.
"Does he do that a lot? He's usually not very forgetful" I asked as I picked my briefcase up.
Bella smiled and walked over to the coat hanger to retrieve her jacket. "He isn't forgetful at all"
"You understand it's quite strange for our kind to loose their shoes. We have pretty good memories"
Bella glanced out the window and watched as Edwards car slowly pulled out of the drive way.
"He likes to make me cups of tea, because he likes the smell of it. He likes to take long drives and listen to music he doesn't know, even if he doesn't really care for it. He likes lounging around. Folding the clean clothes and washing the dishes with me. He likes all that domestic-human-stuff" Bella said with a shrug and a sneaky smile on her face.
I smiled back and raised my brow at Bella, as I realised what she was confessing to. "So you hid his shoe?"
"Do you think it's mean?" she asked with a toothy grin that forced me to release a light chuckle.
I considered the question and shook my head. "I think it's kind of sweet actually"
She had noticed that he liked feeling human. It was nothing I hadn't noticed myself. I brought Edward as close to being apart of the human world as I could, but I could never truly immerse him in it. He would always be faced with a dividing line. It didn't bother most vampires but it caused Edward a lot of suffering.
Aside from being a vampire, Edward could read the thoughts of people around him and I feared this gift was much more of a curse to him. It was a constant reminder to him that he was, as he saw it, a monster.
But I doubted the monster Edward envisioned himself as, was capable of misplacing a shoe, folding laundry or having to wonder what was going on inside his girlfriends head - just like everyone else in a relationship tended to do.
Yes I brought Edwards as close to the human world as I could and Bella worked to push him in even further.
Bella was comfortable in my office by this point. She had walked in and relaxed into my chair behind my desk waiting for me. I found her tiny form in the large leather armchair quite comical and she seemed to enjoy making it swivel from side to side while she waited on me to sought through the records and the documents I needed.
"So Carlisle what's it going to be?" Bella asked after a few minutes of silence. I turned to find her leaning forward to fidget with the Newton's cradle, as she always did when I left her waiting at my desk for to long.
"PET, MRI, fMRI,… or my personal favourite EEG?" She asked letting go of the spheres and watching as it started to swing into the others.
"You don't like the EEG" I questioned, lowering the folder that I had been flipping through.
She shrugged and I could see that she felt bad for making the comment.
I knew that Bella always feared that she would appear ungrateful, though her concern was not necessary.
"It's ok if you don't enjoy it Bella. I didn't assume you were finding much joy in any of these tests "
She chewed her lower lip, something she was prone to doing as much as Edward was prone to rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.
It wasn't always a nervous reaction . It was the response to a myriad of emotions, ranging anywhere between severe discomfort to happiness. One would need to pay close attention to understand the context of the gesture.
Right now I had my money on nervous.
"I don't-…I just don't like those things all over my face." She confessed as her whole body shuddered at the thought.
"The electrodes?" I offered and Bella scrunched her nose. Even the word seemed to make her uncomfortable.
"I'm sure they aren't the most pleasant thing in the world" I assessed, trying to convey some understanding.
She absently nodded, watching the spheres collide, before she quickly tensed looking over to me in slight panic. "But I can handle it, if you want to do one."
Bella was the most accommodating patient I had ever had. I knew I would never have another patient quite like her, even without taking her illness into account .
Bella was poked and prodded, she was given test after test, scan after scan. And was never given a diagnosis. I couldn't imagine there were many people out there who could be pestered by a doctor so persistently and still smile when he informed her that he'd found nothing to help her.
Bella always thanked me politely after each test, procedure or examination and she always made sure that I knew she was grateful for my effort and time spent. I assured her it was not necessary, but she continued to offer her gratitude all the same.
"Were keeping it pretty simple today. If you consent to it, we will do an MRI and some more blood tests. Then you can see what the cafeteria has to offer. And if your up to it, maybe you could answer some more questions about your medical history over lunch." I finished looking up to Bella, hoping to find her comfortable with the agenda for the day.
"How does that sound Miss Swan?"
Bella smiled sincerely and gave me a nod of approval and I was grateful to see it.
Watching Bella inspect the food in the cafeteria was oddly amusing. She had very visible reactions to each option she was faced with. I noticed her nose scrunch when we passed the tray of lasagne, her brow slightly raising as she ducked her head to inspect the jello, before we finally reached the salad bar and her lip slightly curved in approval.
This was the girl whom Edward had chosen to spend his time with and maybe if that hadn't been so, I wouldn't have spent any time noticing the changes to her facial expression.
I felt like I couldn't help myself when it came to watching the girl.
I wanted to get to know Bella and Bella was a hard person to become acquainted with. I just hoped some efforts would help me to understand her better.
Once we were in my office I pointed Bella to her usual spot, which just happened to be the seat behind my desk. The chairs that were reserved for patients or colleges were far to low, especially if she wanted to eat at the desk comfortably. But that wasn't necessarily my reasoning.
I would much rather her take the seat behind the desk because I didn't want to treat her as a patient. She was so much more then that.
The more I got to see Edward and Bella interact, the more I realised how very important Bella was to Edward and our family.
I feared what would happen to both Edward and my family if we were unable to help Bella.
I feared Edward wouldn't cope with the loss. I feared he needed her more then he had needed anything before. But my family needed Edward, we simply wouldn't know what to do without him and I feared our family unit would crumble without him.
The back and forth was easy. Bella had spent a lot of time over the past few weeks answering questions about her physical health and what she knew of Anna's. A lot of the time she seemed to be absently answering the questions while she picked at her food.
Bella worked quickly to chew the lettuce, while nodding, as she reached up to cover her mouth. "Topamax…. That was the store name for it. I cant remember what it's proper name was"
I nodded and jotted it down.
Bella had been tried on more drugs then any person I had met and she'd had doctors who were uninterested in keeping vigilant notes on her progress, or lack there of.
There was also the case that Bella had spent a great deal of time keeping her condition hidden, so I could never be sure if Bella had taken half the drugs she had been prescribed, or if she had simply smiled and nodded to the doctor handing her the scripts.
"Topamax… That would be Topiramate?" I clarified wrote down some brief notes, receiving a nod from Bella.
She hummed and slightly waved her fork in front of her as she released a light chuckle. "Never again. It gave me these horrible rashes all over my arms, made my head all foggy and it made me really nauseous. It was awful."
"How long did you take it for" I questioned as I scribbled down notes.
Bella lightly squinted her eyes as they drifted towards the ceiling, while tilting her head to the side. "Two months, give or take."
I nodded and looked over my notes, and Bella's files. "What about after that? I can see a gap here"
Bella stared at her food and chewed her lip for a moment before meeting my gaze. "I tried Dihydroergotamine" she admitted, watching my reaction closely.
I sat back in my chair slightly and felt the crease in my brow form. I had not seen anything in her records about her taking Dihydroergotamine and it was not something that wouldn't have been given to her without close observation.
I flicked through the pages of her files, I couldn't believe that I could have overlooked something like this, but I assumed I must have."Did you see a different doctor? I don't see anything about this?"
Bella stiffened in her spot and watched me closely."It was my mothers. It was her migraine medication and I thought I would try it?"
I shook my head slightly in confusion. "How did you…?"
"Anna gave it to me. I can't handle needles, I couldn't even look when she was doing it". Bella said scrunching her mouth to the side as she recalled the memory.
She glanced up at me and noticed the brief expression of disapproval before I managed to remove it, thankfully she seemed to find it amusing.
"It was stupid, believe me I know. But we thought it might work"
My lip curved slightly, relieved she at least knew how dangerous it was to tamper with such strong medications.
"Did it help at all?" I asked, hoping that she may have found some kind of relief.
Bella turned her attention back to her food, shifting the remains with her fork.
"No. Nothing's ever helped" she barely breathed out, making my heart sink at the sound.
I started to see that the day was wearing on Bella and perhaps the conversation was getting to be to much for her.
"I think I have everything we need for today Bella. Just one last thing and we can wrap this day up."
Bella perked up slightly and nodded as she started packing up the plastic container and utensils.
"From the age Thirteen to Fourteen who was your physician? I would like to have every piece of information available."
Bella's doctors had become steady after the age of fourteen and it had taken some time to go through all of the information available to me. Then I had decided to go right back to the start, in the hopes I could form a timeline and maybe even a map that might lead us somewhere. But there was a year that was unaccounted for. It wasn't an odd occurrence. Medical files had only recently gone digital over the last few years and most doctors hadn't bothered logging the information in , especially for patients they no longer had.
Bella sat starring at me with her lips slightly parted, she'd become pale and he breathing was rough and shallow. I briefly wondered if she was seconds away from having an episode until she quickly calmed her features.
I couldn't help but watch her cautiously as she rose up awkwardly from her seat with the plastic container in her hand.
She studied the container in her hands far to closely as she walked across my office."I, um-…I actually have those at home" she stuttered out.
I couldn't help but let the crease form in my brow yet again."You do?"
The forced smile I received, was one I had heard Edward complain about before. It was more worrying then seeing her visibly upset. It wasn't just that you had to wonder what was actually wrong with her, or that you had wonder what had brought on the strained look. The problem was that Bella resorted to the expression a great deal, she seemed to think that it was convincing. It was concerning to wonder, if at some point, it had been enough to satisfy people into believing that she was ok.
I am sure the girl has a great number of skills up her sleeve, but acting was not one of them.
"Edward. He-…" Bella stammered out taking her container to the trash can and quickly snatching her jacket from the coat hanger. "He'll be home soon and I want to be there when he get's back"she rambled as she put her jacket on and needlessly fidgeted with the sleeves.
I knew better then to push Bella. Especially if I knew she didn't feel comfortable. If anything had ever needed to be discussed that Bella didn't necessarily want to talk about, it had always been Edward that was able to ease Bella in the right direction and comfort her while she disclosed those things. I simply didn't feel comfortable pushing her to talk without him here.
"You're right, he'll be returning soon. We should get back." I said lightly, tucking her folder under my arm, while I picked up my brief case.
She looked up at me chewing nervously at her lip and barely allowing her sights to land on me before they drifted back to the floor.
"I'm sure he will be eager to see you Bella."