A/N: This has been sitting on my computer for a few years now. Figured I'd put it up. In all that time, still hasn't been beta'd.

I may add more chapters. I have the story done in my head, I just have to find the patience to actually type it out.

( O )

It could have been a worse day. The campus was beautiful in a dreary sort of way, the last vestiges of fall clinging to dark, bare branches. I strode through the quad as students hunched their shoulders to face the wind, whipping up the leaves and their hair as they went, faces flushed, ears red.

As I passed one building, there were a group of students huddled together near the steps, hunching over something, draped in scarves and sweaters.

"This is ridiculous!" One of the voices caught the wind and whipped through the quad. "Nothing here is labeled!"

"I think it's this way," another voice said, quieter, a chatter in the syllables.

I continued down the path, making my way to the large, ivy-covered building before me. It had clearly been renovated, the large glass doors not fitting at all with the historical exterior. Esmé wouldn't like it. I chuckled to myself.

The glass doors whirred open as I came closer, and the wind blew through the vestibule, whipping up papers. A few students looked around, glaring at me for letting in the cold. Others wrapped sweaters and head scarves closer to them. There wasn't much noise, except for the scratching of pens, the occasional squeak of a highlighter, a few hushed, hurried whispers. The smell of burnt coffee lingered in the air as I walked through the expansive lobby, making my way toward the staircase.

I treaded quietly, careful not too make too much noise. I succeeded too well—one student jumped as I came into his line of sight at the top of the stairwell.

I was up a few floors before I consulted the map as an unneeded reminder, finding room 419 down a winding hall. It was open and presumably airy, when the skylights were full of sun instead of drizzle. I walked quietly through the carpeted halls until I came to a light birch colored door, slightly ajar.

"Good morning, Professor Cullen," the receptionist said amicably, smiling at me as I walked in.

"Oh, not professor yet, Todd," I said, unbuttoning my jacket and hanging it on the rack behind the door. "Just here as a favor for a friend. I keep my feet firmly planted in the hospital."

He chuckled. "Professor McKellen is in his office, he said to send you back when you get here."

I thanked him and made my way down the secondary hall, past the row of faculty offices with shut doors. I could smell the peppermint tea before I got to his office. I turned the corner and leaned on the doorframe.

My friend was sitting at his desk, clutching his mug, eyes closed, breathing deeply. The space heater in the corner was pumping arid heat and there were faint sounds playing from the computer in front of him.

I knocked lightly on the doorframe, leaning into his office. "Is this a good time?" I said.

Bryan jumped, sloshing his tea down the front of his shirt. "Carlisle!" he exclaimed, then groaned as he looked down at his shirt. "Made a mess of myself," he said, standing to extend a hand. "Please, do come in."

I entered, shaking his hand and taking a seat. "Thank you for the invite."

"Of course!" Bryan said. "I'm thrilled you took it. These students are mostly interested in developmental work, and there's been too many surgeons for guest lecturers."

I raised an eyebrow. "Bryan, you do know my day job?"

He waved his hand impatiently. "Yes, yes, but you aren't like them. Making it all about the fancy car, big house, the salary. The kids are starting to get discouraged, thinking that's the only way to pay off their student loans. At least you're doing something good with your education."

"To be fair," I said, "surgeons can do good, even with the big house and fancy car."

Bryan rolled his eyes good naturedly. "But the car helps."

"The car helps."

Bryan clicked a few things on his computer and then shut the lid, turning toward me and leaning forward. "So how are things? It's been too long. The new house working out alright?"

"Not so new anymore," I said, crossing my legs. "But it feels like it, after Esmé got her hands on it. It was quite the hassle, the paperwork."

Bryan laughed. "It's your own fault for wanting to renovate a historical building. But if I'd trust anyone to move into a Civil War manor, it'd be your family."

"Tell that to my heating bill," I said. "We're still working on the draft."

Bryan waved his hand at me. "I'm sure Esmé is enjoying the project. And the kids?"

"All is well, all is well. Alice took the semester off from Pratt to help Esmé with the finishing touches on the house. Jasper is studying philosophy, but he comes home often to visit. Emmett is still in China—from what I can tell, his Mandarin is coming along well enough that he wants to stay another year. Rosalie was just hired as an engineer at Tesla; she's going to be working on their proposed line of self-driving cars. It's all very hush-hush, apparently, but she wowed them during the practical test. And Edward is—"

Heartbroken? Delusional? A recluse? Frightening his mother and siblings? Possibly suicidal?

"—fine," I finished. "In law school."

"What an accomplished family," Bryan said. "Can't one of them move to Arizona and just open up a new age bookstore? Stop making the rest of us look like bad parents for not having a team of prodigies?"

"Emmett keeps threatening he's going to become a full-time streamer," I said gravely. "Whatever that means."

( O )

"This is Doctor Cullen," Bryan was saying, "a dear friend of mine and both a wonderful surgeon and physician. He currently works as an oncologist up at Saint Francis' pediatric ward, specializing in spinal cord neoplasms."

A few of the students were looking up at their professor, but most of them on their laptops, staring at screens, doodling away on notebook papers. For those who were looking at the head of the class, they were having difficulty keeping their attention on their professor, their eyes consistently darting back to me.

"He's young, isn't he?" one young man muttered to a friend sitting next to him.

"Maybe he's had work done," his friend shrugged. A girl behind them shushed the pair.

"But I asked Doctor Cullen here today not to talk about slicing up kids," Bryan said, a chuckle in his voice, "but because he's done quite a bit of international work, most recently during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa."

A few more students stirred, looking up. I sat contentedly, hands folded smartly over my crossed knee.

"As this is – yes, Darnell, put your hand down, I already know you did two years with the Peace Corp – as this is a topic of interest to many of you, I thought I'd bring him in to answer questions you have about doing developmental and social work."

Bryan gestured to me and I rose, making my way to the front of the class.

"I don't have a lecture prepared," I said, standing with one hand in my pocket. "Professor McKellan covered most of it: I work as a pediatric oncologist and have the pleasure of being able to travel fairly frequently to underserved medical areas. My hospital is quite supportive and accommodating of any international work I feel called to.

"Every summer, I work with an NGO that works with children with cancer. Many of these areas have basic treatments for cancer, but more advanced cases require surgery to fully remove the tumors. Pediatric surgery is a different beast, so I travel to areas that otherwise may not have the appropriate surgical team. Sometimes overseas, but often in poverty-stricken areas of the United States, such as Appalachia.

"In addition to that, I have worked, as Professor McKellan said, in crisis environments. In addition to my time in West Africa, I worked in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, and have spent time in other regions after catastrophes."

I smiled. "My full CV is longer and more boring. I think I've distilled the most interesting bits. Professor McKellan told me this group is very interested in medical work for underserved communities. Please feel free to pick my brain."

The class murmured amongst themselves for a moment, and I smiled serenely. I knew I looked younger than I was, and even pretending I'd only been working for a decade or so, I still had more on my resume than they'd likely expected.

A young woman with long dark hair raised her hand. I smiled at her in an invitation to speak.

"I'm very interested in Doctors Without Borders," she said, drumming her fingers on her desk, "but my family insists that it's too dangerous. Did your family panic when you said you were going to fight Ebola, and how did you handle it?"

"Excellent question," I said. "First, Doctors Without Borders is a wonderful program, and I would highly encourage you to follow that path. It does vital work and they need good people."

The young woman beamed.

"To answer your question, my wife and children were slightly concerned, of course," I waved my hand, "but they knew how crucial the need was for skilled medical support."

It wasn't untrue. Esmé had been concerned, albeit not from a fear of me catching the disease. "What will you eat?" she had asked me, brows furrowed. "How will you eat? There's not much wildlife."

"You're married with children?" the woman said, her eyes widening slightly. A woman in the back of the room nudged her seatmate. "Figures," I heard her mutter.

I smiled. "I am, yes."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she interjected, blushing bright red. "I just assumed—you look very young—I just thought when Professor McKellan said you were a surgeon who did overseas work, I figured you didn't have a family."

A murmur of agreement flittered around the classroom.

"It's perfectly alright, no offense taken," I said. "My wife is an architect, so she's able to make her own hours," I said, "and my children are quite old enough to take care of themselves. It makes it much easier for me to lend my time to underserved hospitals."

The woman paused for a moment. "I'm going a bit off topic here," she started.

I waved my hand. "Feel free."

"Well, my son was born just a few months ago, and I'm already having trouble handling everything. When my wife's maternity leave is up…" she trailed off.

"Ah, the elusive work-life balance," I chuckled. "All of my children were adopted well into their teenage years, so I've never had the pleasure of balancing being on-call while taking care of little ones."

"That must be nice," the woman sighed.

( O )

"Thank you again," Bryan was saying to Carlisle. Students were packing up, shoving laptops and papers into bags and leaving the lecture hall. "Appreciate you making the trek out here."

"Not a problem," Carlisle said, pulling his gloves on. "I'm happy to do it. Get some of them interested in overseas work."

"That's the plan!" Bryan said. "Too many—"

"Surgeons, I know," Carlisle said, smiling. The men embraced and then Carlisle made his way out of Bryan's office, down the small hallway, waved goodbye to Todd and made his exit.

The wind was worse now, slicing through the gaps between buildings. Carlisle looked at his watch: His flight wasn't for a few hours. I could just run home, he thought, then looked down at his briefcase in hand. No, not worth the trouble. It wouldn't kill him to spend a few hours in an airport terminal.

He started to walk toward the edge of campus, where he could hopefully pick up a taxi. The few unlucky students caught outside were half-jogging against the wind, trying to get inside as soon as possible. As he leisurely walked past, he spotted a coffee shop diagonally across the path.

It'll look good to have a hot coffee on a cold day. Another accessory for show, like his woolen coat and leather gloves. Something to say this November day was sapping his warmth as well. Carlisle made a slight detour and crossed the expansive quad, fallen leaves crunching under his feet on the pavement, careful to avoid the muddy grass.

The bell above the door rang out as he entered the cramped shop, the line winding its way around small sets of tables and chairs. Getting in line, he pulled his gloves off and stuffed them into his pocket, pecking out a message to Esmé.

The door kept opening, the little bell dinging out, the wind whipping its way into the small space. The line moved quickly enough through the shop, and by the time Carlisle got to the cashier, he picked a random order off the menu and stepped to the side to wait for his name to be called out.

The bell dinged again and the door thudded open, then shut. Carlisle heard the barista call out his name and he looked up, smiled, and froze.

One hand on his phone, as people bustled around him to get to the creamer station, Carlisle stared at the barista counter. It was Bella, standing in line at the coffee shop, standing and laughing with others as they stamped their feet and rubbed their hands together. Bella had her hand buried in a large black purse, rummaging around and withdrawing a small patterned wallet.

She leaned over the counter, her hair dyed a brassy orange, strands tucked behind her ear. She said her order to the woman, then handed over a few bills and dropped the rest in the tip jar. Her turned to her friends and smile warmly, lips dry and chapped.

Carlisle was standing in people's way and made no attempt to move. Someone reached around him to get the sugar, glaring. Bella and her friends had moved over to a high top table, waiting for their orders.

Had she lost weight? She had, Carlisle could see her ankle bones pressing against the stretched fabric of her pantyhose, legs like sticks as she leaned on the table behind her, waiting for her name to be called. Her black ballet flats were worn, the leather peeling away from the sides.

And in what seemed like seconds, or maybe it was years, long enough for Carlisle's name to be called multiple times and his drink abandoned on the counter, waiting for someone to claim it – Bella's name rang out, she stepped forward to take it, and when she turned back, she locked eyes with Carlisle, still standing in front of the creamer.

Bella dropped her quad-shot venti vanilla latte on the floor and it smashed everywhere, flicks of coffee splatting around in a circular radius.

She stood there frozen for another moment, until finally the mess wrenched her eyes away from Carlisle's and a friend was thrusting a wad of napkins in her hands, she was apologizing wildly to the barista who had come out to mop up the mess, not listening as her friends asked her if she wanted to reorder, hot coffee dripping down her jacket

It couldn't have been more than a second later when she looked back up, eyes wild, but Carlisle was gone, a girl in a red coat standing where he was just a moment ago, shaking sugar packets into her coffee.

She stumbled toward the exit, ignoring her friends' worried voices, the ringing of the bell as she pushed past a group of people trying to enter. The wind had picked up, whipping her hair around, and she threw a hand to her face to push it back, peering through the strands, looking around, seeing nothing—a few groups of students here, someone walking their dog

She kept running, stumbling, making no note of anyone around her, banging into a few groups of people, her coffee soaked documents falling from her purse and splaying out across the concrete. She made no attempt to pick them up, to stop, to mutter an apology—she just kept going, feet dragging on behind her, no idea where she was trying to go, just looking around for anything, a flash of pale skin like paint strokes.

But Carlisle and his black pea coat had disappeared into the gray day, and Bella stopped short in the middle of a grassy area, her shoes squelching in the muddy ground.

She knew he was there, she knew he was watching her. She felt his eyes, staying just out of sight, and she kept looking around, but finally stopped short, falling to her knees on the quad, her knees sinking into the soft ground, moisture from the ground seeping into her tights.

Her bag was splayed next to her. Hands shaking, fingertips red and knuckles white, she groped around in the mess, shaking hands looking for her lighter.