6:09:01

Carlisle took a deep breath before he entered the hospital room, much like he usually did with his other patients, even though it wasn't necessary. His family had called him earlier, warning him about the fact that the Swan sisters were beginning to notice that they weren't as human as they thought they were coming off as. And although he rarely ever showed it, Carlisle worried. He worried about the possibility of one of the Swan sister's speaking to others about their doubts, about the fact that Emery had noticed Rosalie and Emmett speeding their way out of the school. He worried about the behavior Edward emitted while he was around his blood singer.

Forcing his body to look as relaxed, he lowered his shoulders and fixed his posture, before closing the door behind him and facing the small family.

"Emery Swan." He announced, smiling as easily as could be in the situation, looking up at the girl who had a look of numbness on her face. 

Confusion swept through the Cullen's mind as he pondered why she didn't look up at him with wonder or questioning, but quickly looked at her file and realized she was terminal.

And that she was going to find out today how much longer she would have.

Carlisle felt his cold, empty stomach churn in dread for the first time in over a century.

Alice and Japer didn't know that their mate was dying.

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Emery barely turned her head at the sound of her name being called, her eyes trained on the blurred poster in front of her, resting on the too white wall. Her stomach clenched with nausea, sweat prickling her forehead with nerves she didn't know would show up.

For years she knew that she was getting worse, that she was going to die. But for some reason, the idea of it all truly coming to an end made her want to run. It made her want to cry. The idea making her already blurry eyesight much worse than it was. She thanked the fact that the bed she was sitting on was facing the middle of the room and not over to her father and sister, the latter probably too busy staring at the face of the father of the boy she was infatuated with.

Emery forced her eyes to meet her new primary doctor, her misty brown eyes immediately capturing a golden honey as soon as her eyes swept to the right.

The doctor introduced himself with a careless smile, although the eldest Swan could detect the tenseness in his shoulder from a mile away. Although she didn't particularly know the reason of his nervousness, it gave her comfort knowing that she wasn't the only one on edge.

"I'm just going to check your vitals, and then we'll get into it, alright?" He asked gently, gently squeezing her shoulder in comfort as he noticed her wide eyes and the clamminess of her skin.

Jerking her head in a nod, she willed herself to relax as the familiar tightness of the blood pressure cuff tightened around her upper right arm.

And if her father and sister noticed the fact that Carlisle purposefully took his time on checking her vitals and then doing it again, as if to give them time to breath and relax for another moment, no one spoke up about it. Although the air in the room lost some of it's tension, and Emery finally relaxed into the hold of the doctor as he steadily kept a hand on her shoulder as he checked her pulse on her back.

"Any serious problems with breathing at the moment?" Carlisle asked, pretending that he listened through the scope, even through he could hear her unsteady and erratic heartbeat before he even entered the room.

Emery shook her head and blushed as the doctor tapped her shoulder to stay still, an almost amused look in his eye as he momentarily caught her eye.

"The medicine they put me on and the inhaler they gave me is helping just fine, even though sometimes I get really dizzy at times and my eyesight gets blurry." She explained, crossing her legs and stretching out her arms soreness as the doctor grabbed a chair and rolled it over, his hands turning the pages in her thick file.

"And you know that today you're going to find out how long you'll have if you continue without the chemotherapy?" He asked in a calm voice, noticing the way her fingers began to clench around the long sleeves of her cardigan.

Nodding, Emery responded verbally as steadily as she could, refusing to make eye contact with the doctor she knew was looking at her with pity.

"May I know why you've stopped your chemo?" Carlisle asked, resting the now closed folder on his lap, glancing at the other family members that sat on the edge of their chairs, with anxious looks on their faces.

"Well, spending the last few years of my life curled over a toilet seat and living inside of a hospital as per usual isn't something I'd see myself particularly enjoying." She said with a tone of finality and tenseness, as if she'd said it already a thousand times.

Carlisle hummed as he looked at the girl with pity and understanding, a strange sense of wanting to comfort the ill girl pulsing through it.

"Well, your based on your chart and your records, it's a blessing that you've even made it this far," He began, glancing over and seeing her father, the Chief, glance over at his daughter with blurry eyes and a heavy heart.

The girl sitting next to him looked as if she wanted to cry and bolt out of the room all at once, and he automatically assumed that she must be Bella, the mate of his adoptive son.

Glancing back at his patient, he noticed that she now looked at him with clearer eyes, a look of false confidence on her face, after she looked over at her now devastated looking family.

"You would've had up to three years with the chemotherapy, but since you've stopped the progression of your treatments, you only have about two to seven more months to live if you continue out with your plan of just sticking to your medication."

Carlisle sat there with tense shoulders as he readied himself for the girl to burst out in tears, or at least show some sort of heartbreak like the others in the room.

Bella sat there with widened and teary eyes, her body beginning to still in shock. While their father tightened his grip on his chair, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

"I'll continue like this." Emery said finally, wincing as her father stood up and excused himself from the room, quickly closing the door behind him. Emery's eyes began to burn, and she looked down at her lap, as she heard the hesitant footsteps of her sister follow their dad out of the room and the door close once again.

"There are other options, Emery." Carlisle said gently, meeting eyes with the now emotional teenager. After finally allowing herself to cry after her family left the room, Emery broke down in front of the vampire, her body beginning to wrack from the power of her sobs.

Carlisle could do nothing but watch as the girl in front of him broke down in fear, wishing he could help the girl that was adamant on dying on her own terms.

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Emery nodded tiredly as she stood up from the reception offices uncomfortable chair with a card that had her next appointment scheduled with her new doctor, thanking the woman in front of her and making her way over to her family, that stood near the elevator.

After quietly handing the card and the other paperwork over to her father, she smiled weakly as her younger sister tightly held her hand on the way down to the first floor, and quickly stopped herself from following her father out of the elevator once the doors opened. 

There stood Alice and Jasper, who stared at her, worried, their golden eyes darkening as they took in her red eyes and exhausted state.

Finding the energy to look back at them through the glass door that was the exit, as her father guided her out with a light arm around her shoulder, she made eye contact with the duo, as if letting them know she would be okay.

Even if they didn't know what was wrong in the first place.

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"What's going on? Why was Emery here at the hospital, Carlisle?" Alice asked Carlisle, as her and Jasper made their way into his now empty office, her shoulders tense.

Carlisle looked up from his cellphone and grinned as he took in the look of worry on their faces, unable to hold back on his teasing.

"Didn't take you guys long enough to get here." He said in a playful tone, hiding his emotions from his adoptive children, knowing that Jasper could feel his worry.

Said boy looked at him through squinted eyes, and Carlisle looked away, acting as if he never met eyes with the vampire.

"Carlisle." Jasper said in an even tone, although his posture showed something entirely different. "Do you mind letting us know what's going on?"

Carlisle sighed as he made direct contact with the now worried and irritated vampires, standing up from his desk.

"It is not my place to speak of such things, and if you think that just because my patient is your mate, you are surely wrong." He said with a sharp tone, taking the other two vampires by shock.

Carlisle walked past his children with a hard look in his eye, but sighed as he made his way down the hall and away from them. He knew that it was going to pain them when they found out the truth, but it wasn't his place to say.

And only time will tell.