Chris was Channeled the next day to come over to the Cullens' house. He wasn't particularly busy these days—having finished his residency years ago and now working as a proper doctor—so he simply took some days off to visit them. He was actually thrilled to see them again. He missed them a lot.
"It's good to see you again, Chris!" Carlisle grinned widely, hugging him. The embrace was followed by Esme, who was also pleased to see the young hybrid again.
After a brief welcome by everyone, Chris stepped right into business, curiosity overpowering him. "You said you want to compare my DNA with some guy?" he asked. "You didn't... find my father, did you?"
"Actually, no, but I think... we found your half-brother instead. Of course, we have to wait for the result of the test, but I'm almost certain."
"Yeah, just look at their eyes!" Rosalie interrupted out of nowhere (not exactly nowhere; she was in the garage, as from the moment she first looked at Chris's car, she just couldn't fight the urge to tune it. Chris obviously doesn't know anything about maintaining this vehicle). "They're freakingly the same."
It was then Chris and Norman finally noticed each other's presence. Indeed, in addition to the other facial resemblances, the two hybrids' eyes were the exact same shade of black. They awkwardly waved at each other.
The test results came out around noon the next day. As everyone thought—the rest who had not paid much attention to their resemblance at first later noticed that they looked similar and thought they were somehow related by blood—the result showed that Chris and Norman's father is the same guy.
"So... I have had a brother, after all? A... real family?" Chris was trembling with a mix of happiness, confusion, and sadness. If he had known earlier... He almost blamed himself for not investigating his origins.
"Don't blame yourself, Chris," Edward said sympathetically, reading his thoughts. "No one here knew."
"Yeah, I don't care!" Norman grinned at his now-revealed half-brother. "I'm just happy I have a family now! ...If you don't mind me calling you brother, of course." He fidgeted anxiously.
Chris smiled in relief. "Certainly! I don't mind at all! How old are you, anyway?"
The newfound siblings chatted endlessly about themselves, discussing topics such as when they were born, their hobbies, why Chris became a doctor, why Norman chose this particular company, their favorite animals to hunt—the Cullens took Norman hunting yesterday—and so on, until they grew drowsy from the conversation.
"I can always move in with you, you know," Chris assured his brother when asked if they could live together. "I'll be able to find a job at a hospital near your workplace, or even open my own clinic! It's not like we can live there forever anyway, as we don't age. We have to relocate eventually, like the Cullens."
Norman nodded. "Thanks. So, it's settled then..."
The two of them would later be known as the Hybrid Coven, but that's a story for another time.
Few years later...
It was an uneventful day for Chris at work. He and Norman were now living in a big city. Unlike Chris, Norman didn't know what he wanted to do for a living, so he took any available job. Currently, he was working as a cashier in a local market. Due to the lack of sparkle in their skin, they could choose any region to live, regardless of climate. Chris was sitting peacefully in his office, enjoying the sunlight seeping through the window and the calm atmosphere. Hopefully, the day would continue like this—
A piercing scream interrupted his thoughts. Right downstairs from this office, he thought. It's the maternity ward, so childbirth screams are not unusual, but... It was certainly strange. He knew from the beginning that something was definitely wrong. He hurried downstairs, moving at barely human speed.
"What's going on here?" Chris demanded, entering the room frantically. Blood was everywhere. An obstetrician and two nurses stood in front of the patient, the mother giving birth, who was screaming as if in hell. The mother was so young, barely a teenager. The three humans standing there were obviously frightened by something. Chris took a closer look. A baby was eating out her mother. "Oh, no..." He quickly locked the door, but no one noticed.
"Dr. Choi! Just in time." The obstetrician, whose name was Dr. Harris, looked strangely relieved. He was shaking like mad. "I didn't want to deal with this mess alone. What's wrong with that child?!"
Chris hesitated. Well, he thought to himself, how can I just say, "Oh, it's because the baby is a half-vampire like me!"? I'm screwed. But he had to deal with this anyway, right?
"The mother..." He started.
"Is dying and there's no way to save her," one of the nurses—Avery—said firmly. Both Chris and Dr. Harris nodded, agreeing. They didn't need a doctor to know that. "Simply assessing by the blood loss... Oh, what are you doing, Dr. Choi? What if she bites you too?!" The nurse yelled as Chris collected the baby from her mother—whose heart had already stopped by now.
"Don't worry. I'm not... tasty to her. Probably." Chris strolled across the room, grabbing one of the unused blood bags—the mother's blood loss was faster than the transfusion, so there were plenty—and started to feed the baby. "She prefers this."
The room went silent for a moment. The only sound was the baby drinking the life-giving fluid from the unknown human donor.
"If you promise to keep this a secret, I'll tell you everything you need to know," Chris finally opened his mouth, breaking the eerie silence. The three humans nodded, not knowing what to say.
"Did—did she just give birth to a vampire?" The nurse beside Avery, Mia, asked directly. Chris was not surprised, given the fact that the baby was seen drinking blood.
"Yes, and no. It's a half-vampire, actually. Only the baby's father is a vampire. The mother who just died, is human," Chris looked down, sighing. If only he'd been here a little earlier...
The room fell into silence again. There was indeed a lot to take in.
"How do you know that?" This question by Dr. Harris was sharp and reasonable.
"That's because..." Chris sighed. There's no way out, is there? "I am the one."
"Uhh... okay? To be honest, I'm not scared at all. Certainly not scared," Avery's voice was shaking, betraying her brain's command. "You don't seem tempted at all anyway, so what's the big deal?"
"Tempted?" Dr. Harris suddenly wasn't following the conversation well. He looked like he wanted to go home and forget all about this. "...by what?"
"Isn't that obvious? Blood, of course! What else would vampires drink, then?" Mia was a little irritated. She couldn't believe she was talking about mythical creatures with her colleagues.
"Cool it down, everyone. Firstly, yes, I'm mostly not tempted by the scent of human blood. Not entirely, though, but I'm trying very hard. I think I can master it in a few years." Was it Chris's imagination, or did everyone in the room actually look at him sympathetically? "Secondly, I only drink animal blood if needed, so you don't have to worry about... vampire thing at all. I can also eat human food. And lastly, are we going to leave here like this or not? What happened to the patient?"
"Oh, right." Dr. Harris regained his composure. "She was already in labor when admitted here. Some hikers found her lying in the middle of the forest and called the hospital. And... this happened."
Chris unconsciously stroked the baby's sandy hair—already grown an inch—and looked down at the girl who had finished drinking and was asleep. "No family?" He asked.
Dr. Harris shook his head. "Not that I've heard of."
"It isn't like..." Avery hesitated for a moment. "It isn't like any humans can raise the kid, right? What if she can't control herself and drinks someone's blood again?"
"Actually, that's not likely." Chris instinctively defended his kind. "The hybrids are born intelligent. It's beyond human understanding already. I was raised in foster care, too, and I didn't bite anyone! Not that I'm suggesting ditching the child. She has no one."
Someone knocked on the door all of a sudden. The four people—not counting the baby—all jumped, hastily putting together whatever looked messy, not succeeding as everywhere was messy.
"Remember. The secret," Chris warned them quietly. They all nodded.
"What will we tell them? The baby... she doesn't look like a newborn anymore," Dr. Harris whispered, worried.
"Tell them it was a strange kind of teratoma or something you can think of, so it was not a baby in the first place, and that it burst itself. I don't know, we can't show them the baby. I have to evacuate," Chris said, already opening the window.
"Good luck, Dr. Choi."
Before Dr. Harris unlocked the door, Chris jumped out the open window, running away from the child's birthplace as if flying through the air.