The Leaving OOM

[themidnightson]

"Never mind. I can see that it's impossible. Thank you for your help."

He was choking on his words, on the amount of air it took to force his vocal cords to work to make them sound right. The smell of her blood was in every particle of the air in that all too small office hallway. He spun and dodged out, escape was the only option even as he could not keep his eyes from finding her face. No. God. Carlisle. No. He had to get out of there. He had to leave. Not smiling, not offering to help her, perhaps walk her to her locker, asking about where she lived and why she'd moved and if she'd like a ride with the roads as slick as they were....

He shoved the thoughts away as the breeze outside didn't help to alleviate the roaring inside of him. For all that he had to keep reminding himself not to be marble still or move as fast as his racing thoughts, Edward would have been shaking had he been human. He kept moving -- away from the office (away from her), away from the steps (away from her), away from the buildings (away from her), away from the boy who thought he'd appeared out of nowhere (away from her), glancing without seeing to find his siblings already in his car -- and slammed the door too hard when he slipped in.

Edward tried to control his mouth, but he was certain that sound -- the strangled, gasping, one not being able to pull enough clean air in -- was coming from him.

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[themidnightson]

There were no obscenties and no compliments, nothing sweet enough and sharp enough, as the future changed lightening fast.

Bella's scent would be overpowering, drawing him into her, a moth before a candleflame. Her wide brown frightened eyes, a hand thrown back, pale peach against the yellow of the cabinet. Her throat would warm, pulse racing so quickly against her thin skin, heart thundering through the room as he--

The steering wheel groaned beneath the sudden tension of his fingers digging into it.

"Stop!" He groaned struggling with the urge not to yell; not to turn the car around and take her now. He was not that person. He wasn't supposed to be.

[betagainstme]

"Sorry!" Her fingers twitched again at the window. The vision changed again, to show the snow again. Alaska. The Denalis.

"I'll miss you," She whispered. "No matter how short a time you're gone."

The turn was coming up; Alice set her hand on Edward's shoulder. "Drop us here. You should tell Carlisle yourself."

[themidnightson]

Carlisle. Carlisle. He had to tell Carlisle? He needed to see Carlisle. (How was he supposed to leave Carlisle, or Esme, again?)

Edward nodded, sharp and stiff, the car coming squealling to a sudden stop.

[betagainstme]

They piled out of the car, all of them except Alice. She knew they'd make her explain once Edward was on his way, but for now she had to speak to him herself.

Her fingers gripped his shoulder. "You will do the right thing." It wasn't a vision, it was what she knew. It was an order.

"She's Charlie Swan's only family. It would kill him, too."

[themidnightson]

He couldn't look at Alice when she touched him. Alice, who had his secret, the entire dissolution of his world, without his permission. Who had always had all of his secrets with every permission.

He couldn't look at Alice.

Her word slid through his mind, debated and discarded. He could still see that kitchen. He was still trying to cling to the pristine image of Carlisle's face. He couldn't be sure he would do the right thing even now, once she left him, trusting him to do the right thing.

Her last sentence caught.

"Yes," he said, hard and hollow and small.

Thinking of Charlie Swan -- and Carlisle.

[betagainstme]

Visions danced before her eyes, the good and the bad and they didn't stop as Edward fought with himself. Her eyebrows drew together with anxiety, and she slid out of the car, moving toward the others.

Her hand gripped her husband's as they ran through the forest, leaving Edward to his thoughts.

[themidnightson]

They were gone from view by the time he turned around, their thoughts a scatter of concern and confusion. Would Alice tell them? Would Alice keep the horrible truth to herself?

The tires squealed as the Volvo pealed back for the city and his thoughts shifted. Could he make it back to Bella before Alice, who would certainly be watching him closer now, could see the decision? Before the four of them could outstrip his car?

No.

He couldn't entertain those thoughts.

He couldn't think about her hand and her pulse and the curtain of her hair and how the scent of her blood would only be a garnish to the flavor of it.

Edward tried to shove the images away, hands tightening and foot pressing the pedal into the floor. The hospital was less than ten minutes away the way he was dodging in and out of traffic, disregarding every safety law Forks might have.

[ofthefamily]

A doctor's paperwork is neverending. Even for a doctor who never felt a need to sleep could find the process tiresome. Still, the process was not for Carlisle to change. After grand rounds, he peeled off his coat in the sparse office with the Dr. Carlisle Cullen, M.D. on the door, dropping himself into his chair to set to work.

There wasn't even time to pull the cap off of his fountain pen when he heard Edward coming up the hallway.

[themidnightson]

Every step he took was one that he debating running the opposite direction. What was the human adage? It was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission? Surely, Carlisle would forgive him. Carlisle...

He slid past a nurse with a cart, moving faster than he should have. He should have faked even noticing that it almost hit him. But he couldn't. He couldn't think beyond the door down the hallway and how he wasn't going to make it if he looked at anything else.

Edward only barely remembered not to tear the door off when he opened it.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle is out of his seat immediately; even if a human were watching, it would simply be a father concerned for the son who should obviously not be as distressed as he is.

"Edward?"

[themidnightson]

Was that what he looked like?

It was overwhelming. The look of fierce despair that curled madly. It was enough to make him lose any idea of what he was going to start with. Had he even thought of anything to say? What was there to say?

Carlisle was moving.

Real and right and concerned. He should be, too.

"I have to go, Carlisle," Edward barely felt the words leave his mouth. He couldn't disappoint him. He could do this - this thing that had him so driven to do it. And not doing it was pulling him apart.

He couldn't emphasize Carlisle's name enough in that one time.

"I have to go now."

[ofthefamily]

All Edward receives in reply to this plea is a blank look of uncomprehension.

"What's happened?"

Carlisle can't even begin to guess.

[themidnightson]

"Nothing." It was a snap, sudden and deliberate.

There were so many voice in the hospital and none of them, not even Carlisle's, was loud enough in his head to drown out the sudden urge to lie. To lie and say anything and track her down. She would be easy prey. Defenseless.

No. Oh. No. Not here. Not standing next to him.

"Yet." Edward was too still and he felt absolutely unable to be still. He had to be honest. He had to be. Carlisle...Carlisle would know what to do.

"But it will , if I stay."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle's stony features crack when he creases his forehead, still helplessly confused. He reaches out towards Edward's arm, trying to get him to slow down, make sense.

"I don't understand."

[themidnightson]

Edward cringed away from the touch, the way he hadn't been able to from Alice. (Did they know now?) He didn't deserve that. The concern and the compassion that radiated even mingled with the waves of confusion.

He had to make him understand.

How could he--he didn't want him to underst--he had to stop him--

"Have you ever.." Edward's voice faltered. It was barely a whisper, lightening fast, before he looked over toward a shelf, not even seeing it. "-has there ever been a time.."

He stopped. He wouldn't be able to take it back. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did it after the fact. He needed something to ground into, before he couldn't fight back any longer.

Edward took a deep breath and forced it out. "Has any person ever smelled better to you than the rest of them?" That wasn't even clear enough. People could smell slightly better--their scents were different, alike to them. He stressed, helpless for words that would explain. "Much better?"

[ofthefamily]

It takes Carlisle a second to process.

He hadn't turned Esme because of her smell, but Edward's question makes him think back to that time, finding Esme broken, lifting her up and wanting to hold her to him forever but not knowing if he could --

someone at the school

Just what Edward didn't need.

"Oh."

[themidnightson]

Oh?

Oh?

That was it?

That was supposed to keep him from wanting to tear off the door and go running so fast he'd feel like his fastest was dragging by snails for what this promised?

But Esme's face clouded into his mind and Edward felt his shoulders twinge and then sag. He could see Bella's body, broken and bleeding, in his mind. With no future on the other side of the act. Just an empty shell devoid of life.

That was what he had to offer her.

She was a person. He shouldn't have for that alone.

That it had even taken him this long to consider her.

And still he longed to push that aside, to explain feverishly the depth of want--of how much he wanted this, wanted her, wanted her death and the waste of her--how disgusted he was with himself.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle reaches towards Edward again, dropping one hand on his shoulder while the other digs through his pants pocket. He pulls out a simple key fob with two attachments. One for the Mercedes parked in the doctors' lot, one key for the house.

When you come back.

"Do what you must to resist, son. I will miss you. Here," Carlisle puts the keys in Edward's palm. "Take my car. It's faster."

[themidnightson]

Then it is the only option.

The only one.

Carlisle doesn't even think of the other. Edward felt some part of him snarl in bitter anger, as though it were the greatest betrayal, while the other crowded into a corner, felt the relief of the smallest promise that he could not do this terrible thing.

"Alice," Edward said, so low it's almost a lost in a sigh, hand closing to clutch around the key tight. "She saw the Denali."

[ofthefamily]

"It's a sensible choice."

The hand on Edward's shoulder gets used for a weak shove. If Carlisle doesn't make him go, he won't. Even though Carlisle doesn't want to do it.

"Go."

[themidnightson]

He won't. It's true.

He knows just making it out of the city is going to be the same hell as getting to Carlisle. He'll pass so many different exits that could lead him right back to where he does (doesn't does doesn't) want to go.

Edward nodded shuffling back.

He couldn't even think of anything else that could be said.

He looked back at Carlisle, wildly, wondering if he'd even be able to come back ever, and the next second the spot he'd been standing in was empty. If he didn't go now, he wouldn't be able to.

He has to go. She has to live.

Even if it takes everything else from him.