Thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone who's even bothering to read this after my epic update fail. For the past YEAR. My apologies to all of you, and my humble gratitude that you PM'd me or tweeted me or otherwise kicked my butt back into gear.

On with the chapter.

~TMAM~

Prompt 14, hospital (Remember this started as a Twilight 25 challenge piece? Yeah. Didn't make that deadline, lol.)
Ness is 18 months old, roughly equivalent to a human seven-year-old

"Hi, Granddad. Ready to get started?"

My handsome blond grandfather's smile greeted me as I entered his study. "Perfect timing, dear. I just finished gathering the documents. Are you sure you want to help me again this year?"

I nodded. "I'm sure. It was fun last time."

He laughed. "I wonder what the IRS would say if they heard that."

I just smiled. "They'd wonder what the heck an eighteen-month-old was doing with a Schedule A besides scribbling on it."

His laughter rang out again before he set a stack of papers in front of me as I took a seat at his desk. "Here you go – everything you need for the itemized deductions. I'll start on the other schedules."

He sat across from me and reached for an even bigger stack of papers. We worked quietly for several minutes, me more slowly since I had to read the instructions first. Last year, I'd helped him with a different form.

Maybe "fun" wasn't exactly the right word, but the task was...satisfying. It served a purpose in the human society we tried to be a part of, and it protected us from unwanted notice. A slight shiver traveled down my spine as I remembered Grandpa Carlisle's words from last year.

"The Volturi will be headed this way if we're discovered. Paying taxes keeps us all underground."

I had never met the three brothers, but I feared them nonetheless. If filling out a few forms helped keep them away, I was glad to help.

I didn't want to think about them anymore, and I quickly found something better to focus on.

"Did Mommy ever help with the taxes?"

The swift movements of Grandpa Carlisle's hands stilled, and he looked a little sad as he shook his head. "No, she never got the chance." He slowly began to write again and added, "At least, not to help me. I believe she may have done her mother's taxes before moving to Forks."

I frowned. I didn't like making him sad, but I wanted to hear more about Mommy.

"When did you first meet her?" I remembered my talk with Aunt Rosalie and her first impressions of my mom. I wondered if Grandpa Carlisle had had a similar reaction.

He chuckled. "In the hospital, about a week after she arrived in Forks. She was almost run down by a van in the school parking lot, and Edward saved her."

"Did you like her?"

"As I recall, I was very curious. After your father's first meeting with her, he ran to Alaska to keep from killing her, but he was back within a week. I was...intrigued to meet the human who had such a dramatic effect on my son."

"What was your first impression?"

He smiled. "The first thing I saw was her X-rays. I wondered how one person could have so many healed bones without being a skydiver."

I giggled. "Uncle Emmett said she was clumsy sometimes."

He nodded. "Yes. Then, when I met her in person, well, the first things I noticed were that she was stoic – she didn't like admitting she was in pain; she had the courage of her convictions – nothing Edward said convinced her that she was just imagining how fast he had reached her and how he'd been strong enough to push the van away from her; and she was a kind, lovely girl. And I could see that she seemed to be as fascinated with Edward as he was with her, even though neither of them would admit it."

"And she was mad because he wouldn't tell her how he saved her."

He nodded. "She wasn't hurt badly, just jostled a bit. Your father mostly insisted she come to the hospital to help cover his actions, so if she tried to tell anyone how fast he'd run across the parking lot, they'd think she just remembered it wrong due to a concussion."

I was surprised. "Really? Did he have to be that sneaky?"

He smiled a little sadly. "I'm afraid so. It's vital that we blend in. What he did could have had dire consequences."

I remembered Aunt Rosalie's fear, her certainty that the Volturi would have killed Mommy and others in the family without a thought. "She didn't tell anyone, though."

"No." He chuckled. "She gave Edward a hard time for not telling her the truth, but she didn't tell anyone else what she saw."

I thought about that for a while as I read the instructions for the home mortgage interest deduction and found the 1098 forms in the papers he'd given me. Grandpa Carlisle finished the form he was working on and started the next one.

"He ignored her for a while, but he didn't stay away," I said slowly.

He regarded me thoughtfully. "He couldn't. The pull was too strong." Shaking his head, he half-smiled. "Not that he didn't try. My word, I don't think I've ever seen anyone fight against his fate as much as your father."

That made no sense to me. "Why? If he loved her, why not just tell her?"

His smile faded, and a line appeared between his brows. "It's not that simple, Ness. Not when you're a vampire who loves a human." A small sigh escaped him as he seemed to become lost in his memories. "Particularly a vampire who believes he's irredeemably damned."

Damned. I didn't like that word. At all.

I'd talked about religion with Grandpa Carlisle and Daddy, and with Billy and Grandpa Charlie, too. Even a little with Jacob. I knew a lot of religions taught that certain actions or beliefs could send a person to some version of hell. I hated to hear him say something like that, especially with such a sad tone in his voice. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure he was only talking about Daddy.

I hesitated, but I had to ask. "Grandpa?"

"Hmm?" He didn't look up, and my suspicion deepened.

"You know you're not, right? You couldn't be..." I couldn't even make myself say the word. "It's impossible." Faster than thought, his head shot up and his eyes flashed to mine. The warm amber shone even in the muted light from the overcast sky outside.

His voice was husky. "Thank you, Ness." In a stronger tone, he added, "That's almost exactly what your mother said."

I wasn't surprised. "That's 'cause she was smart, just like me." I ignored his laugh as I continued. "And anyway, it's obvious. You're the kindest person I know. Even the wolves think so, and you know how they feel about most vampires."

"Yes. 'Chew toys,' I think was the term Jacob used."

I giggled at his dry tone, happy that he didn't seem sad anymore. We worked quietly for a little while, but my mind kept going back to what he'd said. I realized he never really answered my question, but as I thought about it, I began to see what he meant.

"It wasn't just the danger, was it – that he could kill her so easily?"

He knew exactly what I was talking about. "No. That was, of course, a huge concern, especially since she was his singer. But that wasn't all of it."

"He thought like Aunt Rose, didn't he? That he'd take away her human life?"

"Yes."

"Did you think that about Grandma Esme, too, when you met her the first time?"

He paused in his work, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his face. "Not exactly. It had never occurred to me to change someone when I first met her. And she was only sixteen; I didn't think of her romantically. At the same time, there was a...magnetism, a pull of some kind, but it scared me – I didn't want to interfere with her life in any way. When we met, I was already planning to leave the area soon, and meeting her only made me more determined to follow that plan. I never expected to see her again after that. But I found myself reliving the hour or so we'd spent together so many times...I'd been alone for hundreds of years, but after that, I felt lonely much more frequently. A few years later, that loneliness, combined with Elizabeth's plea, somehow convinced me to..." His voice trailed off.

I finished the thought. "Change Daddy."

"Yes."

"So what happened when you found her again? If you didn't already love her, why did you change her?"

"I had no idea. I acted on pure instinct." He seemed to realize something. "As a matter of fact, now that we're discussing these two events together, I believe it was similar to what your father did with that van. When I saw who it was and realized that she wasn't quite dead, all I could think was, 'Not her.' I simply couldn't just let her die, even though I didn't know why she was different from all the patients I'd been unable to save over the years. From what Edward has told me of that day in the parking lot, he had the same reaction when he saw the van's trajectory: 'Not her.' He didn't love her yet, but he could not just watch her die."

I thought about that while part of my brain learned all about child care deductions and skimmed a Form 2441 before deciding we didn't need to use that one – we didn't pay any expenses for my care.

I didn't like where my head went next, but I wanted...no, for some reason I didn't understand, I needed to know.

"Why did Mommy say that, about you not being...you know? Why were you talking about something like that?"

He glanced at me before returning his focus to the page in front of him. "She asked why I lived as I did, why I spent my existence fighting my nature to be a doctor. I told her it brought me happiness to help people, even if I was damned regardless."

I frowned. "And that's when she said what I said, that it was impossible?" He nodded. "Do you really believe that?"

He hesitated before saying, "Not usually. But a part of me finds it hard to let go of the beliefs I was raised with, and those beliefs say that a vampire is a damned, soulless being, no matter his intentions."

I fretted, considering his answer. I didn't like that he doubted himself that way, but at least he seemed to know better most of the time. I remembered how this topic first started, though, and we'd been talking about Daddy, not Grandpa Carlisle.

"Did Daddy think he was...was d-damned?" I stumbled over the word.

He replied quietly, "Yes. He didn't think it was possible that your mother would return his feelings once she knew what he was."

"He told me once, about their first kiss. He said it was like their souls touched. He laughed when he said he wasn't sure if he even had a soul. I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't, was he?"

"No, he wasn't kidding."

I said nothing more as I went through the next few deduction categories. Something about Daddy and Grandpa thinking such a horrible thing about themselves made me sad and angry at the same time. After a while, I couldn't help asking, "Does he still think that?"

His face held such kindness, he looked like an angel. "No, your father doesn't think that anymore. Once he and your mother were finally together, and especially after you came, he couldn't."

"Did Mommy talk to him about it?"

He chuckled. "Oh, constantly. It was a recurring argument throughout their courtship. Your father was stubborn, but she was tenacious – she refused to give up. Over time, she poked enough holes in his theory that he began to reexamine his ideas." He paused before continuing thoughtfully, gazing into the distance. "She saw so many of the same things I do in him, so much to love and treasure, so much goodness. She succeeded where I'd been unable to in convincing him of his true worth." He focused on me again and smiled. "Even if I hadn't loved her for herself, I would have loved her for what she'd been able to do for my son."

I returned the smile, reassured. I went back to work, and Grandpa started writing again.

I had to giggle when I saw the next category of deductions on my Schedule A. He raised an eyebrow at me.

Still laughing, I answered his unspoken question, "I don't think we'll have anything to put on this part."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Medical expenses."

~TMAM~

A/N: Twilight belongs to SM, of course. The idea of Carlisle and Ness doing the family's taxes is borrowed from giselle-lx's delightful one-shot, Form 1040, and is used with her permission. If you haven't read it, take a few minutes and enjoy; the story ID is 4978553 here on ffn. Thank you so much, sweetie! :)

Also, huge thanks to HolletLA, who beta'd this for me and had some wonderful thoughts on this chapter and the story as a whole. I'm so lucky to have her on board. :)

I usually hate to repeat myself, but I have to say again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading after my massive fail for the last year. All I'll say is that RL can be horrible. I'm working on it. See you soon.