A/N: Originally each chapter was meant to be inspired by a nocturne but this first chapter is an Etude. Each chapter will instead be inspired by a different pianopiece but I just love the name! Etude in C minor is a piano piece by Chopin that I can picture Edward playing. Set shortly after Edward is changed. Carlisle/Edward but no slash just some father son bonding!

P.S. if piano terms ever need explaining please ask I'll be happy to enlighten you (I have been playing for 7 years)

Nefertiri

One – Etude in C minor op.25 no.12

Edward awoke from the daze of burning, fiery pain. His head was ringing slightly and his throat burned with thirst, a new kind of thirst. Something about him was different, he could tell that already. The dreary hospital surroundings had disappeared. He was lying on his back in an extremely comfortable bed. He sat up slowly, the old pain that had enveloped him was completely gone but his head was still ringing. He could hear people talking but the room he was in was seemingly empty. Edward scouted his surroundings. The room was decorated very tastefully in Victorian style and a large grand piano could be seen just out of the corner of his eye.

In one swift, fluid movement he was on his feet. A perceptible difference already met his eye as he rounded a corner and came face to face with his new self. Edward simply gawked. How? When? The last thing he could remember was the hospital and the nurse telling him that he wouldn't live much longer than his parents or siblings had. Then there was the Doctor, the Gabrielic angel of a doctor, with the perfect face and the sad tired eyes, telling Edward that he was going to die, but that he would do everything in his power to save Edward. Then there was the doctor's hand, cold as death itself, turning his head at an angle, exposing his neck so that the doctor could lean down and in to…The burning pain had engulfed him then and black flaring fire. He decided to ignore the newfound questions that burned in his head worse than the blaze had.

Edward walked over to the shiny Grand Emerson. The ivory was almost whiter than his skin and the ebony almost blacker than his eyes. He sat down playing imaginarily over the keys, his fingers gliding. It wouldn't hurt to play would it? His fingers itched to touch it. Music filled the air, the rich tone of the Emerson wafting around Edward as he played, surrounding himself in the fury of the song. It was a minor tune that was calming to him despite the furious nature of the song, reminding him of a time when he hadn't been sick, and was whirling Lydia around on the dance floor of the Ralston House where he had attended his last party. That time had seemed so long ago yet it had only been a couple weeks since the agony of pain that the Spanish influenza had provoked in his body. Lydia! What had happened to her? Had she contracted the disease too? He remembered that it had been himself to have first gotten it. And if Lydia his love was alive and well, where was she and was she worried, for him? Edward dismissed the thoughts almost immediately, it was not the time to be thinking about that, and continued to concentrate on his beautiful music.

"Hello,"

The single word uttered by the melodic voice startled him out of his trance. His music continued however uninterrupted. "Hello," he replied never even bothering to look to the owner of the voice.

"You play beautifully, even more beautifully than the last time I heard you at one of your concerts, Edward, before you got sick." Before you died.

That was cause enough for his music to stop abruptly. "What do you mean died!" Edward had stood up and in flurry of movement was standing inches away from the doctor's face.

With a force Edward could not have imagined possible he was flung across the length of the hotel room and landed on the bed. Less than half a second later the doctor was on top of him holding him forcefully down. His face was calm.

"You must listen and be patient with me Edward. My name is Doctor Carlisle Cullen and I was born the mid 1640's. You need to trust me," he added at the look on Edward's face. Slowly the pressure was released from Edward's shoulders and Carlisle allowed him to sit up. He walked over to the bedside table and picked up a glass of red liquid, and gave it to Edward.

"Drink that and listen.Your mother, Elizabeth, knew that she was going to die. She knew that her husband had died and that her other younger children had died. She knew that you, Edward, the first to contract the disease and the one who had gotten it the worst, was going to die too. It was her dying wish that I save your life whatever the cost. You, her first child and only son were very dear to her, and I vowed that I would save you. Then your mother died. Your health was deteriorating more quickly now and I had no time left to dig into the science of Medicine to help you, I had to do what ever necessary, at what ever the cost. I have been lonely for a very, very long time Edward and I knew that saving you was my first priority. If you don't mind I'd like to take you in, as my own son," Carlisle paused to look at Edward and then went on. "You were on the brink of death and I couldn't loose you then so I brought you somewhere that no one would be watching, and I saved you," The words were awkward in his perfect mouth. Explaining was something new to him, explaining this that was. "I had to change you, you would have died otherwise. Three days later you had finished the agonizing change that I had gone through once before as well, the change into, into…" Carlisle couldn't finish his sentence.

The change into a vampire. The words spoken in his thoughts were like words spoken aloud to Edward. The shock of this realization was evident on his face as Carlisle studied him.

Edward's mouth went dry and his breaths, which now felt strangely odd he noticed, came ragged. I'm dinking someone's blood. "I'm a, I'm a monster," And then he stopped breathing entirely, an odd feeling since it was no hard task any longer but strangely difficult to be without a sense of smell.

Carlisle noticed and smiled slightly. "You no longer have to breathe Edward; it is just sort of a reflex, out of habit more than necessity. When I was changed I acted the same way you did. I saw what a monster I had become, but I found a better way to survive. Instead of drinking human blood, I resisted the lure, the pull of the fragrance that human blood has, somehow and resigned myself to the wilderness where I found my thirst worse than the three day transformation I had just survived. I drank animal blood; it was no different than hunting was before. It was a humane way to exist with the world. I'm asking you to join me, Edward as I have no other companion but we can no longer stay here,"

"And why is that doctor?"

"You may call me Carlisle," he stood and went over to the bedside table. When I said in my thoughts that you were dead I meant it, both bodily and to the people of your world. He handed Edward a newspaper; the front head line stared him in the face.

Among many dead from the Influenza Epidemic is Piano prodigy Edward Anthony Masen. Family name dies with him.

You have died Edward, feel your heart, it no longer beats, you soul has been ripped from your body and taken away, were to I know not. Carlisle continued in his head. You are impenetrable Edward, hard as stone. You and I, we are inhuman Adonises, our looks are perfect, our age fixated in time. Vampires never change. You will be seventeen the rest of your immortal life Edward. We are like inhuman, devil gods, demons from Hell that will never die. But we don't have to be monsters, Edward; we can use our gifts for good. Our inhuman speed and agility, our refined senses they will become all that is good about us. I have studied medicine for a long time young man, I know more about my profession than anyone else on earth, I use my gift for good. "We don't have to be monsters, Edward," Carlisle repeated aloud sitting down next to him putting his hand on Edward's back comfortingly. Edward only nodded. Carlisle nodded back and smiled sadly. "I suppose that your throat is burning with thirst, shall we hunt?"

To Carlisle's immense surprise Edward shook his head. "No, my throat my burns with thirst but I need to rest, to take this all in," Edward stood up and once again walked over to the piano and sat down at the bench, his mind reclaiming the spot where he had left of with his Etude. The music flowed effortlessly as always and Carlisle sat down to listen as Edward played.

At the end of the song Carlisle applauded bringing a small smile to Edward's grim face. "Etude in C minor, op.25 no. 12, am I correct?" Edward nodded and reshuffled the music in his head; something more lively was in order, perhaps some Mozart. Alla Turca began to fill the room as Edwards's photographic memory began to spread the sheet music out on the stand. After every song Carlisle applauded and named the song. At the end of the private concert Edward stood and bowed, a stunning grin adorning his face. Nothing could make Edward as happy as his music. "Thank you for your support, Carlisle," Edward gave due his thanks to the doctor. "Thank you for," he paused in search of the appropriate words.

"You're welcome," Carlisle replied before Edward could continue and ushered him over to the door adding in his thoughts, for Edward's benefit, Time to hunt young one, soon we will have quenched your thirst, but for now compose yourself, you never know when these human will be up. It is the middle of the night!