April 7th, 2006; Right after the New Moon Epilogue

[themidnightson]

Edward is, for lack of a better word, irritated.

He'd usually be with Bella right now, during her 'Official Visting Hours,' but thanks to the mongrel, she's now being grounded on top of being 'grounded until Charlie decided otherwise.' He'd been smart enough not to ask. Just to let his fingers tighten only ever so gently to squeeze Bella's before, with a single nod and "Cheif Swan" to her father, followed by a quiet "I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Not evening pausing to brush his fingertips or lips against her face, or to tell her he'd be there, later tonight, once Charlie was asleep. She knew that already. Even if her fingers had clutched harder for a second right as he pulled away.

Though he hadn't left until Charlie stopped yelling about the stupidity of everything related to the red motorcycle parked by his cruiser and how she'd 'be lucky to see freedom before he was in the ground.' Charle had gone back to the game he was watching before realizing the bike just appeared. Bella had stomped off, muttering about 'killing Jake' to start dinner, and he'd finally turned the Volvo toward home.

He doesn't think about going anywhere else but home. He knows what the only next step is, and there are hours yet until the sun will set, and even hours from then until he'll need to be back. He parked the car in the garage, at least threw a look in on most of everyone watching the tv (two more deaths in Seattle; a weird recurrence), and headed straight up the stairs.

Taking less time between the bottom of the stairs and standing behind one of the chairs in front of Carlisle's desk, hand resting on the top of it, than he'd taken between his car and the stairs themselves. "Are you busy?"

Comments

[ofthefamily]

But it's not good either.

"Well, sit then. You're making me feel like I am being evaluated."

[themidnightson]

Part of it, that he hadn't? Was that strange space between what once wouldn't have been even a thought, and what might still very well be too much an imposition. Even now. But he easily shifts. Faster than a blink. In the chair, rather than behind it. Crooked more than straight forward. Back against a corner. Leg crossed, the slight peek of a sock under jeans. Maybe the slightest effort to make it somehow normal?

It's not five stars. But it is what it's supposed to be. Both what the boy wanted, and what Edward was always supposed to do. Since time immemorial.

"The Black boy--" And he can make his tone even enough, head against the back of the chair, eyes not sharp, but he feels not need to label the child as more than what he is. It's nice that every phrase in his head still. "--decided to pay a visit to Bella's to see me."



"To remind us about the terms of the treaty."
As though they didn't all swear to it.


The one that had no boundary to confine itself.
Across the whole of the United State. The whole world.
The one Carlisle crashed through, and Bella was clinging to.

[ofthefamily]

I was wondering when that would happen.

After a moment: "I don't appreciate the fact that it was Jacob seeing you about it, rather than myself. Or that it was Jacob doing so at all.

"But it was to be expected."

[themidnightson]

They all were.

"I'm not sure they know that he did."

His thoughts had been a livid childish roil of stacking up getting Bella more grounded, and his family to remember what the ground rules were, as though either could actually make it impossible for Edward to be near her.

"It wasn't quite as official as if his father, or his alpha had sent him."

It was very clearly an attempt to thwart him.

There was the mar of frown, before he added,
"He seems to have about as much control as expected, too."

Which was basically almost none. That, more than anything else, made him want to invent a thousand ways to make sure he couldn't find himself anywhere near Bella. Even if this Jacob Black wasn't one of the true Children of the Moon, he was dangerous and his control was the tencile strength of a rubberband.

[ofthefamily]

Still. It needs to be dealt with - and before Edward or Bella aggravate the situation beyond repair.

Or Jacob.

Humans.

Carlisle scratches absently at his hairline for a moment while he's thinking about...well, nothing very concretely. He's doing well to not lash out, for how impotent he feels.

If anything, he's just tired.

"I'll reach out to the elders."

[themidnightson]

Edward's head, forever artfully messy hair mussing, as he rolled it to lean on one side of that corner he'd ensconced. He looked at Carlisle through heavy brows. "Because somehow that will help the circumstances?"

It wouldn't calm anything down.
It's just ... well. It's just very Carlisle.


They could very well be about to start a promised-war with a pack of Quileute shapeshifters, who already hated them, treaty or not, and Carlisle was going to officially start that tête-à-tête with a phone call. With the same simple, straightforwardness of his answer when Bella made them vote.

"He nearly lost it, in broad daylight, when she told him it wasn't his business."

Graduation was so close. For every moment Bella said every minute drug and every day was a year, it felt like it was already there, against the back of his neck, as he looked up at the ceiling.

[ofthefamily]

"What else would you have me do then, Edward? Sit here and do nothing? Phenomenal."

Carlisle surprises himself with the flare of actual anger that rises in him.

"What else should I know that I can't help with?"

[themidnightson]

Edward doesn't even raise to the bait of that one. Doesn't even pretend to look surprised or in need of pointing out that Carlisle is the one who chose this. Who agreed to change Bella. Carlisle is already the one among them who will be doing the least of nothing. So far.

It's not worth the fight, because Edward has already lost it.
With him. And Alice, Esme, Emmett, Jasper.
(Even with proposing.)


And. Carlisle's already done the worst he can do.
Twice. (Except. Telling him to get out.

Except that. He wonders if he's still waiting for it.
Even knowing it's stupid, even knowing he won't,
it still sits there. Deserved. Too.)




Instead.


Edward uncrossed his leg, and pulled it up, the edge of his heel on the edge of the chair as he made himself go through it again. Meticulously, with an unfocused blink, like his memory was a textbook that only happened to tangentially belong to him. Hand curling, fingertips pressing a loose, unmoving pattern, against the top of that shin, bracer resting to one side, just below his knee, on that same wrist.

"I thanked him for keeping Bella alive when I didn't." Unapologetic. Unshamed. He's not entirely remiss in paying respects that mean both nothing and everything, after all. (He can hear Aro, again. Saying, with manic delight, how like Carlisle he is.)

"Asked him whether they'd spotted Victoria again, since we haven't since we all got back. But they haven't either. Not since the first time Alice came back." Before kidnapping Bella, some plane tickets, a yellow Porsche, and him. Or something like that.

[ofthefamily]

"Small favors."

[themidnightson]

Edward blinked, focus returning back to Carlisle's face still and ever right in front of him the whole time, never once looking away, right over his knee. He doesn't hide from Carlisle. Not behind any mask, or silence nor twist of erudite words, or even in his own head. Not since that first night they went out. He stays Edward's main focus in this space that is completely his. Even Alice couldn't truly claim the same; but Alice never needed that from him, and he's never begrudged what Carlisle does have them of.

Even now, I am just wanting to help you

I can't ever send you away

What does [matter]?

Love. And Perseverance.

There's a soft, ironic hmph first, catching the back of his throat.

"For now." He wishes he could be comforted by it.
But he can't. It tugs at his expression. His eyes.

"Alice hasn't seen anything new on that either. She's still slipping through Alice's fingers, making and unmaking decisions." That part hasn't changed any since the whole family learned from Alice about Victoria's terrorizing of Bella, and how she started first with sending Laurant, straight from The Denali, to his destruction here by the wolves.

He feels the casual flick of her attention to him, them, at her name.

"Victoria has to be doing something out there." The last with a note of frustration. He's never more wanted his sister's gift, but even she can't see this. He just wants to know. What to do. How to keep them (her) all safe now. "She can't have given up just because we're all here."

[ofthefamily]

"Of course she hasn't."

Nobody ever just gives up in their world. Not unless something more important to them comes along, or more unique.

And Carlisle's family wins in the latter category, at the very least.

"But we have bigger problems, wouldn't you agree?"

[themidnightson]

Edward's fingers spread, curling over the top of his jean'd shin rather than leaving his fingers pressed. There's straightening of his mouth, though his shoulder leans into the chairside. Undenied and without hesitation; "Eventually."

The same as they agreed the first time. When it was the first subject they started with that first night, before they even made it out of Milliways, before he'd even agreed to let Carlisle take him to the woods. To help him, even if Carlisle would not help himself. Wouldn't leave him to, or have him leave either.

Then, almost as though from somewhere, far, far else than the first word. Almost more necessity than he knew until it suddenly stumbled into his teeth and off his tongue. Somewhere that he actually couldn't touch that first night, but has been slowly growing.

"You said we'd be able to handle them." That first night. We. The Family.

There's a question in it, but even Edward wouldn't be able to say what it questioned. Except that he didn't have it in him to disbelieve Carlisle (amazing, Carlisle was right); that he might have been gripping those words, Carlisle's words, drawing blood from that stone given to him; because Carlisle did best them once. Is the reason for all of them.

Could, again?

Even more so, now, like in Milliways?

With him and Alice to see it decided, to warn them incoming;
with the whole family, ready, at Carlisle's back when they arrived?


But Aro. Aro is in his head now, too.
Not just the demon-king of those twenty years.
His actual mind. His actual thoughts. Even now.



And he can't tell, even when he's alone, or in the long quiet hours Bella sleeps, if it drips a poisoned asp of doubt-better-called-fear, a century late, in his ear, or leaves him only desperately bearing even further down on the only faith never shattered, never given reason to doubt in his existence. Sits there, a fissure in his facial features, pressed between his eyebrows. That he could never let Bella, or even Alice, see. Not this. Not them.

[ofthefamily]

"And I believe that. I do.

"But bugger me if I know how."

And that's it, isn't it --

-- turn Isabella to save the family, Edward disapproves, likely forever --
-- not turn (kill) her, endanger the family --
-- Oh, maybe he can turn himself over to the Dais, but he's got no talent --
-- Esme would kill me herself before I got to the airport --

-- Carlisle has less than no plan. And he needs one. But all he has right now is a distinct impression that he might crawl out of his own skin.

"I'm going for a walk." Run.

[themidnightson]

Edward grimaces. It's almost a flinch. Only almost. He's been doing good at trying to keep from reacting to the worst any of them might think. Because they have the right to it. He knows, even accepts, that he deserves it. And maybe if it was anyone else (anyone else not Alice), he could have managed it with grace. As if he didn't hear it.

But he's not supposed to shut down, or shut up, here. With Carlisle. But it's worse. It's so much worse than even Alice's hyperventilating consideration spirals. To think about Carlisle sacrificing himself. To Aro. Especially after all he's seen of Aro's thoughts. Those about Carlisle. Carved unblinking into his memory of those days.

Like it's the price and he'd be willing to pay it, to amend Edward's greatest fuck up, ever. And somewhere in his head, off to the side he thinks. That's not how the story goes. That's not the myth either. Daedelus doesn't pay for Icarus' sins, except in bitter grief. He doesn't want that. Pushes it. Willing himself to focus on Carlisle, the rock at the center of the storm.

"Do you-" But the questions speed, almost too fast, almost touched anxious, stops with a second's late recognition of the presumption.

And even before he can close his mouth. His own thought from seconds ago comes back. He's not supposed to shut up, and he only has nearly ninety years of experience with the fact Carlisle can be driven to distraction by the moments Edward, for all his books and vocabulary, can't seem to finish a single sentence set alone. It's such a stupidly simple set of four words, too.

"Do you want company?"

He doesn't want to presume. (He does.) Which seems stupid. Given how this all started, and being told to sit. (Given what Carlisle says everytime he ever puts that feeling into words.) But it's still different, too. He came to tell Carlisle what he was supposed to, to do what he's always done for them. (Before.) Presuming on privacy is even less certain that requirement, even though they always seem to end up that way by the end, alone, somewhere, too?

It should be easy. It used to be easy. It isn't. Not with everything on the floor everywhere around their family. Not torn between knowing he would absolutely deserve a no, and somehow being too aware, as he asks, that he still wants it to be a yes.

[ofthefamily]

Does he?

No. Not really.

But that's not how any of this works.

Five minute head start.

"Esme! I'm going out!" Carlisle announces to his wife by way of the entire house, then leaves full speed out the front door.

[themidnightson]

Edward does not have to blink, but he does. At the sudden emptiness of the chair. At that yes made out of no. At the uncertain curiosity of those of the family listening, from the tv room, where, for them, it went Edward's from question to Carlisle and his shout to Esme. I, not we. They are a family of eggshells and fault lines, even as they mend, and they all know it.

Leaving Edward in his leather chair, facing that empty desk chair, full instead of a person with that lingering, redoubling yes-of-no. The way it should be enough of straight shot that it was the first answer, and that he doesn't want to impose on that. Pain. Anger. Confusion. Hurt. Carlisle's. The way that's not how any of that works either. Especially not with the two of them that live as much in his head as they can from where they are.

He has to let them choose the answer they want the final one to be.
Choose to choose, choose to say, even if it's just thinking, too.

When even though it wells heavier guilt against the hard, still spot in his chest. Landing, unquestionably there, and in the knotted, rocky shoal of his guts. When he thinks, very briefly about whether to stay, whether to not make it worse, and in turn has to face the stupidity of how stupid and worse that would be, when Carlisle's answer was a time limit on when to appear. (Not with the number of times he's already been yelled at for even saying he would, if it was wanted.)



Because it means there is only one thing to do.
The thing he's ever and always (supposed) to do: follow Carlisle.





Which is exactly what he does;

after the next four minutes and fifty-two more seconds pass.




Edward doesn't make an announcement of any kind, and he's not out the door before it's inside his head, barely halfway down the stairs, his decision to finally move dominoing into a vision in Alice's head

("it's fine really;" Alice answering someone else, and meaning it, not Edward's lie, but Alice's reassuring promise, a few seconds from now, when he'll already be half a mile or more away; answering whatever the amorphous just-prior asked question was, now that they were both gone, was, translating Edward, or Edward and Carlisle, now, or the family itself from-the-future-to-the-present in the longest of long-term unchangeables, for whichever of them it is, the way she always can)

He should thank her, again. Apologize, again. Both for the same thing. Always the same thing. He doesn't deserve either of them, any of them, back. But he'll think about that later, when he's not canceling down the space between himself and Carlisle at the edge of his thoughts.

[ofthefamily]

Those poor fir trees.

Carlisle is in the general direction of the baseball field the family uses now and then. (It's been awhile.)

By the time Edward arrives, Carlisle has felled 3 of them. He'd meant to have more done by now, but Edward's always been fast.

He hears Edward approach and all Carlisle can think about was how childish he must seem.

[themidnightson]

He knows, before he gets there. He doesn't have the liberty not to. It's a painful physical description, visual display of Carlisle's answer. It makes him want to leave. It makes him want to cross the distance left in less than half a second, and be right next to him. It makes him standstill.

It feels almost too private to be allowed to see;
and to know he can't walk away from.




"The trees didn't do anything to you."

It's not a reprimand. It's barely a whisper.

If he knew how to say anything close to those three words Carlisle chose watching him over the carnage of bodies, overfeeding to glut starvation, it would belong here. In this second. As it changes from being through Carlisle's eyes to through his own. Maybe it would be better for Carlisle if he did hit Edward instead of a tree. If somehow that was what Carlisle actually needed under all of this.

[ofthefamily]

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale again because it's stalling for time like crazy.

He's not violent. He's not.






"I hate being the restrained one."

[themidnightson]

He has a point, and maybe it's the only answer for a violence so deep without any physical scars to point to.




Reconciles for, "Then don't be."

He starts walking toward Carlisle,
but at a slower pace. "No one else is here."

No one else would know. Who would Edward ever tell?

Edward has never demanded he be anything other than what he is. Has to be. He doesn't hold any of what happened against Carlisle. Not really. Not when it comes down to it. Not even when he does. He caused this. He did. Only himself.

He caused every bit of all of this.
Not Carlisle. Or Alice. Or Jasper.

This isn't on any of them.

They were all just picking up the pieces after him.

[ofthefamily]

"You are. You're here. You weren't, then you were. And I can't -- do anything -- "

The bark shatters with Carlisle's foot through the center like it's cardboard.

[themidnightson]

"I know."




"I left." But that's not good enough, is it.
That's still. That's still too big. Too ... everyone.


Say it.
Say it.
Say it.

Say it anyway.
Say it even if it won't change --

Say it because it matters,
because it all fucking matters,
and it always will somehow, too,

so much, too much;

"I left you."


He did this. This. This turmoil made of Carlisle's peace. His life. His world. His family. His marriage. His relationship with his daughter. His relationship with his sanity. He did this. He sent them away, and all the best intentions fucked right off with the rest of Edward's sanity, piece by piece by piece, as he stole everyone else's with him.

He doesn't get to claim innocence when they're all bleeding; when Carlisle is.

"You can do whatever you need to -- want to. I won't stop you." Not even if it really is himself. "I deserve it. I know that. Even if wasn't supposed to have gone like this, that doesn't matter anymore. Because it all did. I fucked up everything, and I fucked over everyone."

[ofthefamily]

"You deserve what? What -- th -- this?" Carlisle reaches and grabs the shambles of a piece of fir tree. "That I splinter you like I splintered this?"

He chucks it wildly - curveball, in better times - at Edward.

"You fucking idiot. I don't want to hurt you. I want to hurt Them! And I can't! And I lived with Them! For years! And you went -- you went there to die!"

-- sprint toward Edward, stopping on a dime, almost nose to nose.

"And my daughter. And a human, saved you.

"I want -- so much -- to light Aro afire right now. How dare they touch my children. Fuck."

[themidnightson]

Maybe?

But he has little time to question himself watching a tree miss him by a few good feet. Thrown by a man who knows precision down to a surgical degree.

Somewhere somewhere there's the faintest hint of Esme's voice, the reminder of something old. About the family. But then, just as suddenly, he can't hear her. See her. See anything. There is nothing in existence except the fierce, rage-burned gold of Carlisle's eyes suddenly an inch in front of his. Snapping a jagged, sharp inhale through his teeth that his body will never need, but wrings from him as impossible to have controlled.

When it's all he can do as coiled flinch happens at the same time as reaching out grab Carlisle's shirt, both reflexes without thought from opposites sides of his existence, reflections of Carlisle's words, the anger and anguish, even as he clings to the last words. "I'm okay." Even if the grip of his knuckles might make that not seem as much backed up. "Alice is okay."

He just said he might rather be hit, or splintered in some small (hopefully?) survivable parts, by Carlisle, and somehow he's trying to say those words? Too? A second later? The amount to how fucked up he was really wasn't even a countable amount, was it?

And is it true, is it even a little true, with everything coming, with everything screaming on the inside of his head. With how much Aro would be delighted to have caused even this. That same clap of hands, and that same oily, manic 'Delightful!' as when he walked back in with Alice and Bella.

"She wasn't there more than a few hours."
Even that was too long. "He didn't."

At least it wasn't longer.

At least they had no time for anything else.
(But it's in her head, too, now. In their futures.)

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle is supposed to be the restrained one.

But he's breathing shakily for someone who doesn't need oxygen, looking down at Edward's hands to shoulders to over his hair, back down the other side and up the other arm.

"You're okay. Alice is okay."

It doesn't seem real, and the panic seeping away from him would make a human Carlisle's hands tremor.