Vapour drifted gently up from the sodden forest floor, as the sun finally penetrated the parting storm clouds. The late summer deluges were often more sudden and fierce than the persistent drizzle which accompanied most of the rest of the year and all forms of life had taken shelter till it passed. The air was thick and warm, like entering a bathroom moments after someone has finished a hot shower, and the dark earthy scents of growth and decay were intense. The only sounds were the rhythmic plops of water dripping down through the canopy from leaf to leaf and the minute scuffles in the undergrowth as tiny creatures ventured out to resume their foraging.

A young doe twitched as several splashes of water touched her hide and cautiously sniffed the air. Her large brown eyes surveyed the trail in front of her and her ears gently rotated taking in the tiny noises all around. She dipped her slender neck and allowed her tongue to flick over some tender shoots before pulling them into her mouth and nibbling daintily.

An instinct for survival made her freeze as an unnatural disturbance of the air downwind of her caught her attention. She stared intently into the surrounding undergrowth, her nostrils flaring briefly as she caught the scent of the approaching creature. Painfully her heart pounded in her chest as a flood of adrenalin prepared her for flight, but it was upon her before she could even turn to escape. She was aware of a powerful force restraining her entire body and a strange cracking sound from within, but mercifully her eyes dimmed and she knew nothing of the razor sharp teeth ripping into the soft flesh protecting her throat.

Jasper drank with practised ease. It was his third kill in succession and his thirst was completely sated. As he rotated the carcass, allowing gravity to assist the flow of blood into his mouth, he let his thoughts wander to other things. Emmett had been right when he said the hunting was good in this area. Although the human population was far greater than when the Cullens had previously resided in the locality, the wilderness was so vast that the animal population remained plentiful. And even discounting the forbidden Quileute territory, they could still venture for hundreds of miles along the untouched mountain ranges right into Canada if they so wished. Deer would do for now but he was longing to take a more extended trip to find mountain lion or bear.

Jasper wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned to find a suitable tree or rock under which to stow the carcass. A flash of colour caught his eye. A colour which should not be there in the middle of this forest, fifty miles from the nearest track. A pale colour. A human colour. Jasper stared intently at the colour which gazed back at him in terror.

Neither of them moved. It was a young boy huddled in the middle of a thorny shrub, his knees drawn tight to his chest and his arms wrapped around them protectively. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths and his eyes remained locked on Jasper's face. Slowly Jasper crouched down, still watching the boy, until he was seated on the ground in what he hoped was a non-threatening posture. His lips barely moved as he murmured to his brother.

"Emmett, I need you to keep your distance from me and return with Carlisle as soon as possible. We've got trouble."

Emmett sensed the urgency in Jasper's tone and unquestioningly set off to do as he asked. As he sped through the trees he wondered what the trouble could be.

Jasper heard his brother's footfalls fading in the distance and felt reassured that soon this would be out of his hands. The boy hadn't moved an inch and Jasper thought it best to do the same. He was still sensing a tremendous amount of fear from the boy but the earlier element of panic seemed to have diminished. He considered simply using his skills to get the boy to relax but something held him back. He wanted Carlisle to get an honest appraisal of the situation before he took any action. Watching the boy he was suddenly struck by the most obvious thought. How was it that he hadn't sensed the human there before? Now that he was focussed he could hear the steady if rather rapid thump of the boy's heart although he would have expected it to sound much louder than this. He flared his nostrils and scented the air. The boy visibly flinched and half closed his eyes in anticipation of attack. Way to go Jasper. Why don't you just lick your lips while you're at it! He berated himself for the foolish move but puzzled over the fact that, that brief intake of air had told him nothing. It was as if the boy wasn't there! He clearly smelt the shrub, the rocks scattered about, the musky scent left by an animal which had marked its territory; everything except a human.

Thirty miles away, Emmett and Carlisle were dashing at top speed back to the scene. Emmett had been unable to provide Carlisle with any clue whatsoever as to the 'trouble' Jasper spoke of. Carlisle hoped to God that there hadn't been a slip but Emmett reassured him there had been no humans anywhere near the vicinity in which they were hunting. As they came within hearing range of Jasper he again murmured for them to approach him from behind very cautiously.

The two Cullen men neared the small clearing and saw exactly what the problem was.

"He witnessed me hunting," whispered Jasper. "Do you notice how he has no scent? And his pulse is barely audible."

Carlisle looked at the frail creature who was shivering slightly, whether from fear or cold was unknown, and the doctor in him took over.

"Jasper, I need you and Emmett to move back out of sight for the moment," he ordered. His sons complied immediately and the boy turned his gaze to the clear topaz eyes of Carlisle, who smiled benignly at him.

"Well now, it must be awfully prickly in the middle of that bush," he began, using his most alluring smile on the boy. "How about you come and sit here where it's a little more comfortable?"

The boy's eyes briefly flickered to where Carlisle patted the ground but he remained resolutely where he was.

Carlisle gently extended one hand. "I know you are feeling very afraid right now, and you have absolutely no reason to trust me yet. But I promise you I mean you no harm."

Still the boy didn't move.

Carlisle's lips hardly moved as he asked Jasper for an assessment of the boy's emotional state. Jasper reported that his fear had subsided considerably but had been replaced by suspicion. Carlisle sighed; this wasn't going to be easy. He decided to give the boy a little time to perhaps realise he wasn't under threat and sat back on the wet ground and doodled amongst the leaves with a small stick.

How on earth has this child come to be so far from human habitation? He wondered. Does he have parents similarly lost out here? Has something worse happened to them? He also pondered the boy's strange absence of scent. It was very unnerving, almost as if the boy simply absorbed the scents of the things around him and projected them back. And his pulse sounded very faint too. Not weak, just very, very quiet. Carlisle smiled to himself that this might be the first human he would actually need to use his stethoscope on.

His heightened sense of hearing detected a slight movement from the shrub and he resisted the urge to look up. The boy wasn't actually changing position but he appeared to be moving something around. Surreptitiously he turned his head just enough to see the boy in his peripheral vision. The boy was still in the shrub but now he held a small blue object in his hands. He was rotating it round and round and now and then held it up to his face.

"Can you see what he's holding?"

"It's made of fabric," murmured Emmett from his vantage point. "He pulled it out of his pocket. I think it's a soft toy of some kind."

Carlisle took this as a good sign. The boy was relaxing his vigil at last.

"I may be here for a while," he said. "I need one of you to inform the others of what's happening and to collect some warm clothing and a blanket. The other must bring some suitable food from the grocery store."

Only Carlisle heard the gentle rustle of leaves underfoot as they ran to do his bidding.

Over three hundred years of experience had taught Carlisle to mimic human mannerisms expertly. He slowly stretched out his legs in front of him and massaged his lower back as if sitting there was making him ache.

"It's very peaceful here, don't you think?" he said, still doodling absent-mindedly with the stick. "I love to go for long walks, especially if I've had a hard day at work. My name's Carlisle, by the way. What's yours?"

Glancing up he saw the child pressing the blue toy firmly over his mouth. He seemed to be breathing in its scent as he sat frowning at Carlisle.

Carlisle stretched even further until he was laying full length on the forest floor, and propped himself up on one elbow, facing the boy. He smiled.

"We're being so quiet there's a little squirrel come to see what we're up to," he said soothingly, and pointed with the stick into the branches to the right of the boy's head.

The boy turned to look where Carlisle was pointing and saw the creature peering at him nervously. As soon as it knew it was being watched, its tail twitched and it bounded lithely from limb to limb before leaping onto a larger tree and disappearing behind the trunk. The boy kept his face turned towards the squirrel's escape route but allowed his eyes to glance over to Carlisle as if to catch him in some deceptive move. But Carlisle was still exactly where he'd been before. The boy's eyes drifted to the left of Carlisle and one finger pointed cautiously.

Carlisle turned to see what the child was indicating and spotted another squirrel engaged in nibbling on a ripe beech nut. Internally Carlisle relaxed. Dialogue had been established, albeit tentatively. The way for communication was open.

Jasper and Emmett were returning at a pace and Carlisle gave his instructions to them as soon as they were within hearing range. Jasper, the smaller of the two, appeared at the edge of the clearing, in easy view of the boy. He was carrying several items which he placed on the ground before sitting down cross-legged. All the while he kept his gaze on Carlisle and didn't regard the boy once. As expected the boy reacted instinctively to the reappearance of Jasper. His heart rate soared and his breathing once more became shallow and rapid. His muscles tensed and he curled into himself more tightly than ever.

"Hello Jasper," said Carlisle brightly, using the same volume as a human. "Thank you so much for bringing those things. Would you be so kind as to bring them over to me?"

"Sure Dad," replied Jasper cheerfully. Slowly he moved across till he was just behind Carlisle before handing the bag of items to him.

"Hmmm," said Carlisle, peering into the bag. "Now, let's see what we've got here."

Knowing the boy's attention was riveted on him, he slowly drew the items out of the bag one at a time.

"Oh, what a lovely warm jacket!" exclaimed Carlisle. "Just the thing for being out in this showery weather." He held the coat up to admire it before laying it on the ground where the boy could clearly see.

"Ah, the picnic blanket!" Carlisle opened out the thick fleecy blanket and moved so that he was now seated on one edge of it. "Oh that feels so much better. That damp ground was beginning to make my bones ache."

"His eyes are on the bag, Carlisle," reported Emmett who was watching just out of sight.

"Yes," agreed Jasper. "Curiosity is his over-riding emotion right now."

Carlisle smiled. "Well thank you, Son. You've brought everything I need. Why don't you run along home now and see if Mom has any chores that need doing."

Slowly Jasper got up and walked nonchalantly out of the clearing, appearing at Emmett's side a second later. It was Carlisle's intention to act as if sitting out in the middle of the isolated forest was completely normal, human behaviour and to perhaps coax the boy into coming with him voluntarily. They could have taken the easy route of course. Jasper could have put him to sleep by projecting a deep sense of drowsiness and they could have carried him to the house within half an hour. But at some point the boy would have awakened and they would still have to deal with the fear and mistrust. No, better to try and establish some bond from the get go.

Carlisle looked into the bag again and sighed loudly with pleasure. He noticed that the boy had changed to a kneeling position as if to get a better view of what might emerge next from the bag. Slowly, Carlisle reached in and withdrew a banana and a bar of chocolate. He placed them gently in the centre of the picnic blanket and noted that the boy's eyes were fixed on them. He had also swallowed a couple of times in succession.

"He's brought far too much for me as usual," chuckled Carlisle. "I'd love it if you could help me with some of this."

The boy swallowed again and Carlisle knew his saliva glands were going into overdrive at the sight of the food. From the gaunt appearance of the boy, he guessed it had been a while since he'd eaten. He moved the items of food to the very edge of the blanket nearest the boy before lying down on his back with his hands behind his head.

"Help yourself," he said, before closing his eyes in a picture of contentment.

Minutes past and just as Carlisle felt that his plan had failed there was a soft scuffling noise. He sensed the edge of the blanket tense a little as if a weight was stretching it and then smelt the overwhelmingly strong scent of banana. The gulping noises told him that the fruit had been rapidly demolished and from the rustling it seemed the chocolate was headed the same way.

Very softly he murmured, "There's plenty more in the bag. Eat as much as you like." And with minimal movement he nudged the carrier bag partway towards the boy. Hopefully the bread rolls, piece of cheese and apple would be similarly welcomed, though he suspected the cabbage and onion would remain untouched. Apparently he was going to have to explain human eating habits in a little more detail to his children for future reference.

As the boy finished eating the food, Carlisle opened his eyes and faced the child.

"Good boy," he said approvingly. "You must be feeling a little better now?"

The tiniest movement indicated the boy nodding his head.

"Will you put this jacket around your shoulders too?" He continued. "I'd hate for you to catch cold out here."

The jacket inched its way towards the boy who cautiously placed it around himself.

"It's going to get dark soon," said Carlisle, looking up at the sky. "I would feel much happier knowing you were somewhere safe and warm for the night. I've plenty of room in my home if you'd care to come with me. My wife and children won't pester you too much and at least you could get some rest. I can't imagine sleeping out here in the open will be much fun. You could have something warm to eat as well. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

This was it, make or break. He'd done about as much as he could to make the child see he was no threat. The choice was his now.

Pressing the blue toy to his face the child appeared to be thinking. He had rather a resigned expression on his face as he glanced around himself. Without looking at Carlisle he slowly nodded.

After an hour's trek they came to the jeep parked neatly between two huge oak trees. After Carlisle and the boy left the clearing Jasper and Emmett had circled round back to the house before bringing the jeep as near as they could. There was no marked trail but with Rosalie's adaptations to the suspension and gearing, the vehicle could easily handle the rough terrain. Carlisle strapped the exhausted boy into the passenger seat and tucked the blanket around his knees. They had driven less than twenty yards before the child's head sagged onto his chest and he was sound asleep.

As they drove along slowly Carlisle took a good look at the boy. He was rather thin and small with a pale complexion and unkempt brown hair which flopped across his eyelids. Now that he could study him he realised he was older than he'd first imagined. The size of his hands and the development of his jaw line meant the boy had to be around fifteen or sixteen. The curious attachment to the blue toy had been rather misleading, though Carlisle supposed even the most macho of men would regress a little having witnessed a vampire feeding first hand. Of more concern to Carlisle was the visible bruising around the boy's neck, displaying a multitude of shades of green and yellow. Perhaps he wasn't so much lost as escaped.