themidnightson | Forks -- March 27, 2010

Everyone knows he's coming before he hits the door.
He isn't making an effort to be quiet as he walks to the house.

And it isn't as though he misses the looks they exchange with each other. Relieved and conflicted, so many different emotions. Hands that end up in other hands. Still, when he does open the door and then close it, quietly, it's like everything pauses. Not exactly. Electronics are still on, screens making noise, but there's a static stillness.

They know where each other are.
All home. All accounted for.

It can only be him.

He walked toward the staircase, making it one step up before he has to look over.

Jasper's gaze was even elusive, already too in tune with everything he was feeling, and Alice smiled, wobbly but bright. Rose looked away, only to elbow Emmett for good measure as if she could read his mind for what he was planning to say, which earned the first sound of theirs to break the silence at a What?.

Edward meant to say something. That was what you did when everyone was waiting on something. His hand lay on the railing and he looked over them. The so many different facets, different reactions and emotions and opinions. How much damage. And the strange, uncomfortable, yet obvious, relief his presence brought them in different way without relaxing them.

There really weren't words.

He met their eyes and then headed up the stairs.
No one was all that surprised or disappointed by it.

As Edward neared the second floor, conversation started back up in the living room with Jasper commenting on vacuousness of the woman rambling about What Not To Wear still. It wasn't an easy starting line, but it worked. Especially when Alice frowned and Rose threw a pillow at his head, which he ducked and Alice had to deflect straight back to them.

The anxious tension was still there, but so was the riotous assortment of voices suddenly. Which left two. Esme was another floor above, paused in the act of sorting something, listening, and Carlisle was ---

"Seriously?" is quiet, right outside the study door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ofthefamily

BrainAge is quietly chirping at Carlisle from his Nintendo DS in his hands.

Rather amused, "Don't judge. Come in."

From:

themidnightson

The door open, the door closed.

There are only a few boxes left. The furniture is all where it always was, but other things are shifted into new places. Books and papers. Somehow that is both comforting and annoying.

It's easier to stay with the topic, than his thoughts. "What is that?"

From:

ofthefamily

"A game called BrainAge? It's not actually out for distribution just yet, but Alice saw it and thought I'd be amused."

As if it was a completely normal topic shift: "How long has it been for you, since you left Milliways?"

From:

themidnightson

"An hour."

Beat. "And however long it took to walk."

From:

ofthefamily

"Mmm."

It's been more like fourteen, for Carlisle. Just asking for reference. It's all skewed, when you start to include the end of the universe in things.

Ready to go?

From:

themidnightson

"No," is probably honest, with the semi-flat look that accompanied it. And "--but--" as he gave a slightly distant roll and shrug of his shoulders as though to point out nothing ever was right now, so it wasn't nearly a refusal.

He'd made it thus far, hadn't he.

From:

ofthefamily

All he can do is move forward. (He doesn't know what would be the better option than that here.)

He closes down the game and stands from behind his desk, more casually dressed than is his habit - he'd changed for hunting.

From:

themidnightson

Even further away from her. The end of Space and Time had a doorway directly back. Now he'd actually be space as well as time away from her. Even if it was a necessity. All of this in different parts and in different ways.

Edward nodded toward the door, before turning toward it.

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle walks out slightly ahead of Edward, trying to make himself feel like he isn't being watched.

"Esme?" Carlisle calls. "We're going out for a bit."

From:

sheisourheart

She hadn't been too far away.

But at the address, she appeared at the base of the stairs between the second and third floor. There is a lingering look between Carlilse, and Edward steps behind Carlilse.

"If you two are going to be long, would you mind picking up more heavy mounting screws for the paintings?"

From:

ofthefamily

"I doubt we will be out that long, but I will not forget to pick them up later if needs be." A tight-lipped kind of smile; trying to make provisions.

From:

sheisourheart

Except that even tight-lipped, it's still a smile. Something he hasn't been doing for months. Esme smiled, easier than anyone else there. Leaned up and placed a kiss on Carlisle's cheek. "Thank you."

He wasn't exactly looking or not looking, when she stepped back. Waiting. Standing there. A tiny island even inside. Again. Edward?

From:

themidnightson

Edward raised his gaze.

Bereft of what he was supposed to be seeing. The fierceness of her demand at the airport lingered in his ears when he met her eyes. A surfeit of love and satisfaction did not make the grief and helplessness any less present in her.

He should say something here, too. But all the words weren't there.
Esme most of all. The gentlest. Who he'd sworn to keep from upsetting.

From:

sheisourheart

Neither of you will listen if I tell you not to go hard on the other, will you?

"I had some ideas for how you might want to change your room." Given the obvious. And the way he was staying away at nights, and the reason for it. "If you'd like to see later."

From:

themidnightson

The first got a strange reflective impulse.
The faintest tug at the edge of his mouth.

More straight than up.

But he settled for nodding a few seconds later. It's more bare than anything else, but he could manage that for her. "I'd be glad to."

From:

sheisourheart

It is slightly teasing, when Esme, turned toward the stairs.
"It'll be less tortuous than that. I promise. Just two or three suggestions."

Everything was quite serious. Beyond that even. But she'd been there. Years and years ago. When Edward wouldn't have looked up or managed the sentence. When haunted looked red instead of black and home took years instead of months.

It wouldn't be anywhere near easy, but she was aware of how much worse could have been. They were together. All of them. And there were other acknowledgments for how and why that had to be made and made room for now.

She made a shooing motion with her right hand,
"Don't wait on me. I'll be here all night."

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle kisses Esme's cheek as he walks back to the stairs to descend, heading out.

(Alice jokes something about the game from upstairs. Jasper chortles at her, in his way.)

"Do you have any preferences?" Once outside.

From:

themidnightson

Not being far from Bella? Not being insane? Not having to see himself through others again? Not seeing his physical self at a fitting age for the level of idiocy and feeling the endless accumulation of all his days balanced on top of him?

Edward shook his head, "No."

Edited Date: 2010-11-30 08:43 pm (UTC)

From:

ofthefamily

Over the river it is.

It's close. Carlisle's not stupid.

Carlisle runs faster than he has since the previous summer. When he takes the river, launching himself at a high leap towards the opposite bank, it helps to get him into the mindset where he needs to be.

Just take care of the task.

Leave it behind. Just for an hour or two.

From:

themidnightson

Edward followed, but without passing, without anything but direction. Following more than running itself, as though there could be nothing else to do with it. That there once hadn't been.

Trees and the ground never honestly blurring to his sides even as they passed through everything. Pushing onward. Further and further and further into untouched wilderness. Barely hesitating when heading through the brush, not instantly charging or fixating on any of the smaller beasts and creatures which ran terrified from them.

From:

ofthefamily

No one in the family has done much hunting since being back as yet - it takes longer than it used to to find suitable prey.

Carlisle skids on his feet to a halt when he smells the small group of worthwhile targets.

From:

themidnightson

It's easy to match. He's been stopping himself for so long. Animals. People. The sound of survival in any and all forms. Fingers brushing a tree, soundless as the glance between Carlisle and quarry.

From:

ofthefamily

You can --

Go first.

Go quickly.

Go, and then leave?

If he wanted.

From:

themidnightson

There's no change in him. In a want that has no want. In a space that can't help hearing every thing Carlisle doesn't say, and the wisps of what is behind those. He tipped his head partly to the sided, no shift to his facial features, only an acquiesce --

-- and leap.

It's all declarative memory (the seeming action of doing what a million memories say he could never forget, passionless precision and focus) until he bites down.

Bones break under his hands at a staggering vertigo against flavor, the spray of blood into his mouth. The first elk didn't have time to call out no less see death approaching. A wash of green and red.

The second was terrified, and its heart pounding out a rhythm a band could never hope to touch, tried to fight him off. Broke it own shin in the attempt, before Edward returned the favor of breaking its back with a snarl and taking out part of a tree in the process. Fodder fallen at his feet.

There isn't any hesitation now. Only taking.

𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝖔𝖋 𝕮𝖆𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖑𝖊

Forks -- March 27, 2010

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