(no subject)

[themidnightson]

The house had never seemed small, but left to pack it and watch over Esme --

I need to do this. If someone had treated you this horribly I would ha-- please, Edward.





"Go."

-- while Carlisle is away, he can't tell how there was such ample space anymore. The rooms tumble into each other and he's distracted by her thoughts, as much as by her every move and step, even as his hands continue, monotonously, to pack boxes.

Comments

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

Esme nods. "It's a lot," she says.

Which is over-simplifying things, but true nonetheless.

"What condition did he find you in?"

She's subtly asking if he was an attempted suicide like she was.

[themidnightson]

"I was dying of influenza in a hospital in Chicago where he'd come to work," Edward said, simple and remote, without being detached. He'd been dying even the first time he'd met Carlisle, the then Dr. Cullen.

He still felt little of that time. He could see it pristinely through Carlisle's shared memory, but his own was gray and grainy and thin as sand.

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

"He fixed my broken leg when I was sixteen," Esme says, the memory of that day and her reaction to the handsome young doctor very clear in her mind.

[themidnightson]

Very, very clear.



Edward cleared his throat lightly, one hand lingering on the lip of a drawer. The other was rubbing the side of his neck. "There is something else you should know, too, since you've decided to stay."

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

"What's that?" Esme asks cautiously.

[themidnightson]

"After; when I woke up, things were different for me--" He was speaking in a slow, smooth, even tone. It's possibly just as much informative as it is a subtle warning and apology. Except it's acceptingly unrepentant.

"I could hear the thoughts of the people around me."



And those not so close to around him, too.

But that was more specific than she needed now.

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

Esme stares at him.

Oh, God, does that mean he knows about Charles? And why I was on that cliff? Oh, please no no no.

Then another horrible thought hits her.

"Does that happen for all vampires?"

[themidnightson]

"No." Edward shook his head, listening the self-reflexive horror. The rightful reaction to the wall of her privacy having been shattered. "It's just me as far as Carlisle knows, though there are others with different gifts like it and far different from it that he's met."

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

"So you... you know everything about me and my past."

There's a heaviness in her voice at the statement. She wonders if Carlisle knows, if he will want her to stay once he finds out.

[themidnightson]

"Everything is--" Edward hedged, with a small frown for the topic and the doubt of Carlisle. She would never get off that easy. "--subjective. I know what you've thought of in the last few days while I was here. It's not omnipresent. I can't pull whatever I want to know from your mind--"

Beat.

"--I wouldn't if I could."

He so would. Especially given this situation.

"It's only the present moment." Only cataloged for all time.

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

"So anything I've thought about around you, you know."

That... doesn't make her feel any better, honestly.

"Does Carlisle have any abilities I should be aware of?"

[themidnightson]

Edward's lips curled ruefully against his wishes, his hands finally started moving things again.

"Idealism. An inability to ask first, backed up by a need to apologize by not apologizing later. His dedication to his work--" There's a faint pause, for examples he can't give, ones he doesn't feel he knows her well enough to say or doesn't want to have to share with her anymore than he already must, before with a shake of his head.

"Not the way you mean."

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

Esme nods.

She senses that there is something Edward isn't telling her, but she's not going to pry.

"Are there... many others like us out there?"

[themidnightson]

"I am uncertain," Edward conceded with some reluctance. "I know there are groups of them in other places, but they do not exist everywhere. You are the second one I've met, after him."

There's something disturbing about that fact on close examination.

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

"So before three years ago, Carlisle was alone?"

That makes her sad.

[themidnightson]

Edward's expression was blanker than it needed to be. One day she'd recognize the herald of an almost frown, but for now it's just the absence of too much.

"You'll have time to ask him about his story once he returns." Because even if Edward knew more than he'd ever been told, he knew it wasn't his to give out, anymore than Esme's had been something he felt to give out in completion to Carlisle.

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

Esme nods. "I will do that."

She turns her attention back to the books she is packing and is successful at holding the most important question she has at bay for a few minutes.

"Did you tell him?"

[themidnightson]

Edward didn't stop moving.

"Yes, and no."

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

Yes and no.

She has no idea what that's supposed to mean.

"Would you mind elaborating please?" she asks, trying carefully to keep her voice steady.

[themidnightson]

"He has a very general idea of what happened to you," Edward clarified. One that had nothing on the flicker of memories that surfaced unbidden into Edward's own memory. Things he could have lived without having shoved into his head.

"About your husband, and your leaving him, but none of the specifics." Not the abuse, not her child, and not the suicide; which he was subtly trying not to shove into her face that he did have.

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

She does pick up on his underlying meaning and is more grateful that she realized.

"Thank you," she says quietly.

[themidnightson]

Edward shrugged, faintly just the rise and drop of shoulders, bronze hair swaying with the movement. Deep relief and sharp annoyance in one swell at the words, at how deeply they were meant and of the division he'd created in himself for them.

"It's not my place--you didn't choose for me to know."

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

Esme nods and turns back to her work.

There's one thought she can't get out of her head though and it's a question she will never allow herself to speak out loud.

Why doesn't Edward like me?

Mostly she's worried that Edward's disapproval will lead to Carlisle casting her out and the thought of being on her own terrifies her.

[themidnightson]

She's so soft, too soft, it's almost indefensible the way her mind winds through everything.

"If it helps," the words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself. He hadn't mean, didn't need, to be consoling her, and yet couldn't let her... "I don't specifically dislike you. This is new for me, too."

[mamavamp.livejournal.com]

It does help, some.

Esme looks up from the box she is meticulously organizing. "You resent having someone new in your life?"