Disclaimer: While the attempt has been made to be medically accurate, some artistic license has been taken, and statements made by Carlisle are not to be regarded as authoritative
Recognizable characters and plotlines are the property of Stephenie Meyer; all original characters and story © 2015 FemaleChauvinist.

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Carlisle

Five weeks. It was the longest I had ever gone without hunting.

Three weeks was easy; four was manageable. My eyes didn't even start to get really dark until I had gone more than three weeks. But now they were pitch black, and I was careful to avoid making eye contact with the humans in the hospital. Every time I had attempted to go hunting the past week, my pager had gone off, calling me back to another emergency.

Yet I didn't feel I was in danger of losing control; I could still focus on the scent of blood to diagnose illness without putting the patient in danger. Strangely, even that focus helped keep my mind off my thirst, helped me bear it just a while longer.

It was afterward, cleaning up, that it was harder and harder not to lick the blood off my hands; harder to watch the waste as maintenance wiped blood off the floor, still fresh and red and living.

My temper was growing short; one of the nurses noticed and asked if I was all right. I muttered something about a slight sore throat, shaking my head at her offer of a throat lozenge and escaping into my office until my services were needed. Sore! — my throat was burning! I had forgotten what it was to be thirsty, hunting so often before I needed to.

I had some excuse to be irritable, I supposed. I had been at the hospital nearly twenty-four hours a day for the past week; as a human my only sleep would have been brief naps in my office between calls. Maybe a human would have snapped long ago…

Three hours. In three hours my shift would end. In three hours I was going to turn off my cell phone and pager, drive to the nearest woods, and go hunting…I wouldn't even change clothes first or find someone to hunt with. Let the hospital find out the world wouldn't come to an end if Dr Cullen wasn't available at a moment's notice for any emergency.

I leaned my elbows on the desk and closed my eyes. Instantly I thought of the blood bank just below me…I could see row after row, bag after bag, gleaming red. No one would miss a bag…two bags…half a dozen. I would take the type we had the best stock of, of course; I would take the older bags that would soon have to be discarded anyway. I was thirsty enough even to drink it cold.

It wasn't morally wrong to drink donated blood, but I wondered what it would do to three hundred-plus years of carefully built control. And then there was my pride; I liked being able to say I had never drunk human blood. Even in changing Esme and the others, I had not swallowed enough to do more than muddy the gold of my eyes for a day or two.

Two hours, forty-six minutes, and five seconds. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, wishing now that my pager would go off. I needed a distraction, even if it involved the scent of fresh blood. Anything to get my mind off the thirst.

The seconds ticked by, each seeming an eternity. I couldn't have told how long I sat there…and yet I knew the time to the second.

Suddenly there was a soft tap on the door, and I looked up in surprise; it didn't sound like any of the doctors or nurses. Before I could say anything, the door swung open and Esme poked her head into the room. "Knock, knock…may I come in?"

I jumped to my feet. "Esme! What are you doing here?"

"Aren't you glad to see me?" she asked, pouting in mock disappointment.

"Of course I am, but…you never come here." Partly at my request; I trusted she would be able to keep her control, but I hated the thought of my Esme being tortured more than necessary.

She smiled. "I brought a picnic lunch for you." She pulled the door shut, reaching behind her to twist the lock. For the first time I saw the cooler she was carrying, and venom pooled in my mouth as I thought of what she must somehow have brought me. "Esme," I whispered raggedly, dropping almost limply into my chair, "thou had better not be teasing me, love."

She smiled, setting the cooler on my desk and lifting the lid to reveal eighteen thermos bottles. "It should still be warm," she murmured, twisting the top off one and pouring the contents into the tall coffee mug that sat on the corner of my desk.

I snatched the cup almost before she had finished, all semblance of control gone as I gulped ravenously at the life-giving fluid. In seconds the cup was empty, and I held it out blindly for Esme to fill.

After my third cup I looked up, my vision and sanity returning as my thirst eased. Esme sat perched on the front of my desk, ready to pour more blood for me. "I'm sorry…would you like some, Esme?"

She laughed, lifting pale gold eyes to mine as she filled the cup again. "I already ate…it's all yours, Carlisle."

After emptying half the thermoses, I was finally able to slow down, to savor the salty-sweet richness of the blood. I wondered sometimes if by now I would actually even like the taste of human blood. Mightn't I find it too sweet, nauseatingly rich?

I leaned back in the chair with my last mug of blood, sipping it as if it had been the coffee the cup was meant to contain. "Sure you won't have some, Esme?" I teased, leaning forward with a glint in my eye as I handed her the empty cup.

Her soft mouth met mine, licking the last traces of blood from my lip. She tasted almost as good…better… than the blood had. "Thank you," I murmured.

Esme smiled as she pulled back. "I'll wash this out for you," she said softly, picking up the mug and disappearing into the little bathroom off my office.

It was then that I began to think about the timing of what she had done; I had been too thirsty to consider it before. "Esme," I said suddenly, "I'm grateful, but…why now? I've been thirsty all week; why did you bring me blood now with only a few hours left until I can go hunting? What…did Alice 'see'?" My voice dropped to a whisper; did I truly want to know what the catalyst had been?

Esme came forward slowly, setting the mug back in its place on the corner of my desk without looking up. "Emergency open-heart surgery," she said in a low voice. "It will take seven hours."

I felt a moment's surprise that they would ask a man who had had little sleep for a week to do such a delicate job…but then, I was the only surgeon qualified… So it would have been longer than I had expected, but with something other than my thirst to focus on, that wouldn't have been so bad…unless… Oh.

"No," I whispered. "Esme. I wouldn't have… She didn't 'see'…?"

Esme reached up, cupping my face in her hand as she looked into my eyes with her gaze full of perfect faith and love. "What do you think, Carlisle?" she asked softly.

I drew a deep breath. "No," I said with quiet assurance. "I wouldn't have lost control." Whatever future Alice had seen glimpses of as my resolve wavered in the face of my thirst, my three hundred-plus years of control would have stood me in good stead; I wouldn't have given in. I knew that in the very core of my being, and as Esme smiled at me, I realized that she knew it too.

"Would you bet against Alice, Esme?" I questioned, pulling her into my arms.

She leaned her head back against my shoulder. "On you, Carlisle? Every time."

A/N: Of course, Esme is purposely not telling Carlisle exactly what Alice "saw." She realizes that if he knows she "saw" him losing control, he'll feel almost as guilty as if he really had. Even if he comes to the same conclusion, that Alice was wrong, he'll always wonder in the back of his mind if she was right.

On the other hand, if he knew she didn't "see" him losing control, then he's simply betting on Alice; his conclusion wouldn't have the same weight to it as knowing that no matter what Alice "sees," there are some things that will never happen.

Personally, I doubt Alice "saw" him falling on his patient and then of necessity killing every human witness. More likely his thirst distracted him from his work instead of the other way around, and he made some fatal error in judgment.

That would be almost as bad in his mind; his disregard for his own needs resulting in a patient's death. But it would be only one death, and it wouldn't reveal his true nature. If the surgery was delicate enough, it might not even be considered his fault by the humans. Barbie

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