Olympic National forest, near the town of Forks.

A small elk wanders through the thick forest, cautiously picking its way through the moss covered trees as a driving rain pours down, thick enough to penetrate to the ground through the dense canopy of leaves and branches overhead. It stops, bending its head downward to nibble at something on the forest floor.

The elks ear twitches; it heard what sounded like soft, slow footsteps from somewhere nearby. The sound come closer, and the does head snaps up. The animal carefully swept its eyes around the green world around it, trying to find the source of the footsteps that had startled it.

A twig snapped nearby, and the doe suddenly blots away from the sound, its hoofs churning up the soft moss that covered the ground as it makes a break for safety. Form behind the fleeing animal, a feral snarl erupts and a creature flings itself forward at blinding speed, intent on the kill.

It was tackled out of the air in mid pounce by a creature that seemed to move at an even more impossible speed.

The mountain lion snarls in fury and swiped at its attacker with its razor sharp claws, but its struggle quickly ended as it neck was yanked sharply to the side, breaking it cleanly.

The massive cat twitched a few more times, than went still.

The last thing he saw was his killer, a very fragile looking human female with short black hair bringing her mouth down to his neck before sinking her teeth in it.

"Alice, you can be such a brat."

The girl looked up from her meal; the mountain lion blood smeared across her mouth seemed to glint as she smiled back at her bronze haired brother.

"To bad, so sad Edward. Besides you think I'd let this guy kill poor Bambi just so you could catch up first?"

Edward rolled his eyes at his younger sister,

"How can something so small…" he began,

"…be so annoying?" Alice finished.

Edward rolled his dark eyes at his sister.

"Well I'm still hungry, so if you're not going to share…"

Alice raised an eyebrow before going back to the mountain lions neck.

Edward shook his head and huffed as the tangy scent of the mountain lions blood filled his nostrils.

"I think I'm in the mood for elk, anyway" he said, before running off in the direction the doe had been running.

"Jerk!" Alice shouted after him, before draining the rest of the mountain lions blood and standing up.

"You can be just a little sick sometimes, you know that?"

Alice turned to find another vampire darting through the trees towards her. The newcomer gracefully came to a stop next to Alice and the remains of her meal.

"Sorry." Alice said, sounding abashed, "Sometimes we do treat this as a game, don't we?" she asked her newest sister.

Bella sighed heavily before looking over at her sister,

"You already know I forgive you, right?"

"Of course I do. But it's best to keep up appearances." Alice said, smiling.

Bella sent her friend a dubious look before taking a deep breathe. She held it in for a few moments before taking off after Edward;

"I guess I'll have to settle for Bambi's mom, right?" she called of her shoulder.

"Now who's the sick one?" Alice shouted back.

Bella laughed as she disappeared into the deep woods.

Shaking her head in wonder, Alice took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped the blood from around her mouth.

Suddenly, she stopped and stood frozen, her topaz eyes going blank. She was rigid for a few moments, and then slowly some sense returned to her eyes and she looked around the clearing slowly,

"Oh my," she whispered, "This is going to get very ugly."

And then the small female vampire fell limply to the ground, her still wide eyes staring senselessly up at the sky.

Over a hundred miles away, at one of Seattle's most prestigious teaching hospitals, a bored looking man with a rumpled suit and gaunt, imposing features stared dubiously onwards with ice blue eyes as a doctor in a white lab used a PowerPoint presentation and a chemical model to demonstrate a new treatment for autoimmune disorders.

"This is a complete and utter waste of time." he grouched to the dark haired woman sitting next to him in the packed auditorium.

"I'm sorry if you think learning about new treatments is a waste of time, Dr. House." she whispered harshly.

House sent the woman a jaundiced glare,

"When did I ever give you the impression I care about treatment? When I last looked, all the doctorates on my walls all said Diagnostic Medicine on them, which last time I checked, means I'm supposed to diagnose people, not treat them. But how should I know? I printed 'em off the internet anyway."

Dr. Cuddy rolled her eyes,

"If you could look past your misanthropic disdain for actually treating your patients for a moment, you might remember that you're scheduled to speak at this symposium of diagnostic medicine the day after tomorrow. Which is why you're here."

"No, I'm here because you…shanghaied me into giving a speech to all these idiots."

"Oh, I did not shanghai you into anything, House."

"You threatened to pull my clearances if I didn't do this. Again."

"And if you just pretended to act like a normal doctor and fulfill your obligations just once maybe I wouldn't have had to do that. Now shush, I'm trying to hear."

House opened his mouth to keep arguing, but was silenced by a particularly venomous glare from Cuddy.

Sulking, house reached into his suit coat and pulled out a bottle of vicodin. He opened it and popped one of the white pills in his mouth, before washing it down with a swig from the soda can sitting on the arm rest of his seat.

He glanced across the isle and saw that a doctor across the aisle was staring at him.

"Care for one?" house asked offering the bottle of painkillers,

"No, thank you."

"You sure? It might bring some color to your face?"

Cuddy glanced over and found her cantankerous employee was talking to a young looking doctor with strikingly pale skin, and blond hair.

"House! Stop it." she hissed, whacking him on the leg.

"Hey, just cause you brought me doesn't mean I have to play nice with the other kids."

Cuddy rolled her eyes and turned to apologize to the other doctor.

Before she could say anything, he pulled a cell phone out of his jacket and flipped it open.

"Jasper I told you all that I'd be busy all day…what do you mean?...how long?"

Cuddy frowned; the unknown doctor sounded worried. All at once he began speaking very fast too fast for her to keep up.

House glanced over as well.

Suddenly, the blond doctor shot to his feet and rushed out the door.

Cuddy and House looked at each other.

"What was that about?" House asked.

"Maybe he had to see a patient."

House looked dubious,

"Come on…who rushes off that quickly to talk to sick people?"

"Not falling for it, House."

"Fine." House grunted, before pulling out a sleek black MP3 player and tucking the head phones into his ears, "Did you know they have all the seasons of General Hospital on The Pirate Bay now?"

"You illegally downloaded every season?" Cuddy asked, incredulously.

"Yeah. But don't worry, I used the computer in the pediatrics lounge so the feds won't trace it back to me." House cocked his head "Funny how the morons in our government can't find an Arab guy who lives in a cave but they can nail spotty teenagers for downloading a few Britney songs without paying, isn't it?'

Cuddy rolled her eyes again.

Outside, the hospitals parking garage, Carlisle Cullen slammed the door of his Mercedes behind him and quickly started the engine. As the engine roared to life, he continued to speak on his cell phone to his desperate adopted son,

"Jasper, please, try to stay calm."

On any other day, telling the mood altering vampire to remain calm might seem ironic. But not today.

"She just collapsed in the forest? What were you doing?"

Carlisle slammed the car in gear and began to speed through the garage.

"Did anyone collect the mountain lion?...have Edward and Bella try and locate the corpse, please. I'm going to need to run some tests…I see. Well ask Emmet or Rosalie to do it, then. Than you. I'm on my way…and Jasper? I'm sorry." Carlisle snapped the phone shut and tossed it unto the leather passenger seat of the Mercedes with enough force that it bounced off and smacked into the side door.

Carlisle shook his head in frustration, even as he rushed back to Forks.

His daughter had slipped into a coma.

With seemingly no discernable cause, and against all odds, her nearly invincible vampire body had stopped working.

And he had no idea why.