"You Can Quote Me On This" Contest
Author(s): NJP00 and outofmytree
Title: Leave Out All The Rest
Word count: 6,062
Quote: "The spirit's I summoned up I now can't rid myself of"
Pairing: Carlisle and OC
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer may have admitted to writing fanfiction, but this is not the fiction she wrote. I borrowed her characters and then added a few of my own.
"The spirit's I summoned up I now can't rid myself of. Ha! I should know better" he said to the room and his words echoed back at him.
"Went to the well one too many times" he said, and again the words reverberated back to him like mocking laughter. Hearing the words made them real and if he had been human if his soul were still intact he would have wept. But instead he merely stared through the dust motes and grime to the huddled form in the corner of the warehouse. "Silly old man" he whispered before standing up slowly and beginning to walk toward the crumpled blond headed beauty with whom he had shared so much.
"Now you must end her" he said in a strange tone that both conveyed affection, frustration and remorse. In still a quieter voice barely above a whisper and before he got to the crumpled beauties side he repeated "Silly old man".
Going about the destruction she fought him every step of the way. Through shear force of will he managed to take her head off and break her up limb by limb. The fire he made in the centre of this place that had already seen so much violence began to rise and the heat drove him back. As the warehouse filled with smoke he turned and opened the door letting the fresh air fuel the fire that would ensure nothing would survive. He ran back towards the forest nearby and hid, waiting until the fire engine appeared and he knew the fire wouldn't take any of the other buildings.
As he walked into the house Esme rose to greet him.
"Its over" he said as they hugged, both feeling guilty for their mistakes, both wishing for strength.
It had started so innocently. Since the stand off with the Volturi, it had been a quiet couple of years. The whole family had been left alone and life had taken on a normality that had not been enjoyed by the Cullens since Edward had met Bella. The majority of the family had taken the time to do some traveling. All of the couples had at one time or another taken extended vacations away from Forks to various places. There was a current challenge between Edward, Bella, Jasper and Alice to find the next 'permanent' home of the Cullens. Apparently Alice was being good and trying not to use what she knew to influence the game but it was really just a race to see how long before Alice got bored.
Emmett and Rosalie had been playing too but had returned home a week ago to help Rosalie and Carlisle with a long overdue remodeling of the house. His wife had not been happy with the house in Forks since the last rebuild.
Carlisle had left Esme and Rosalie pouring over fabric swatches as he had gone to the hospital. Today was turning into the same day he had worked for the last few years - there had been no emergencies and no traumas. The most excitement had been a concussion after a hiker had slipped on a rock near the river and bashed his head. The truth was Carlisle liked the calm. When nothing happened he was reasonably sure no one was getting hurt, although he had learned over his many years never to completely relax. He finished with the hiker, telling him to get plenty of rest and was walking back to reception to pick up his next patient file, and to ask someone to call the hiker a taxi when over the public address system came the message
"Dr Cullen to main reception please. Dr Cullen to main reception you have a phone call..."
He reached the reception as the message ended and the girl behind there smiled at him.
"You got here fast."
"I always move fast at the sound of your lovely voice."
The giggling from the receptionist meant that he almost didn't hear who it was as he picked up the phone.
"Dr Cullen here"
"Ahh just the man I want" a deep voice said. The mobile phone reception was very bad but the voice was very recognisable as Dr Snow. A doctor who was Carlisle's closest friend at the hospital.
"Ahh Henry what can I do for you?" he said grinning
"I've made a bit of a mess of things."
"Really, what have you done and why do I feel a favour in the near future?" Carlisle's curiosity rose as Doctor Snow spoke.
"Turn around and look toward the main entrance"
Carlisle without putting the phone down turned slightly and looked where he was told. Standing near the door all wrapped up against the cold stood three people looking totally out of place "Do you mean the three young people?"
"That I do they are my students. At least for the next 6 months" Snow said a note of delight in his voice
"I'm still not sure what..." Carlisle said genuinely confused
"Do you remember my daughter Rebecca?" Snow seemed to ask out of no where
"Yes the one that married the ridiculous writer."
"That's the one" Snow said "She's gone and got herself pregnant and..."
"She wants you to be there for her?"
"Ah, Carlisle, I always could rely on you. I have managed to cover my responsibilities at the hospital and am taking a sabbatical but I need you to look after these kids and show them how to be doctors."
The opportunity to teach a new generation? There was no way Carlisle could refuse.
"Of course Henry. Leave it to me."
A favour. It was just a favour. Even the most horrible things start with the most innocent of moments.
The students themselves were quite young in the way that all medical students are. There many years of medical school had made them only older in age but not in mind. They had kept the curiosity and wanted to know how life in a small town differed from a medical stand point compared to the hospitals they had started their internships in Seattle and Port Angeles. They had done 6 months at each of the hospitals and was finishing out at forks before they took their exams.
David was the 'smart one'. He didn't mind being a stereotype - tall and half Chinese, he was hoping to become a surgeon. He was always first with his hand up, the one with all the answers… and didn't he know it. Albie was a nice guy with a great attitude and bed side manner. He was also a good diagnostician - very good at figuring out what was wrong with people.
Finally there was Christine. She was the middle distance. She was incredibly intelligent and personable. She had a… quality that made you just… She was a linchpin in the team.
Carlisle liked them all. He had intended to start them off slowly, letting them watch how he dealt with patients and firing questions at them to check their knowledge. He became very impressed with their work and let them take the lead quicker than he would normally. The residents of Forks became enamoured with them and it became almost a campaign to make them stay.
Carlisle told many stories of the three children at home. Esme became particularly interested in the various methods they used - the cool detachment of David and Albie's friendlier approach.
It had been Esme who had first pointed out that there was something unusual about Christine. Carlisle had finished telling her about a woman had refused to accept his diagnosis and had caused considerable annoyance to the hospital in trying to find the same answer over and over. Christine had spent five minutes with her and the woman had left not only accepting the diagnosis but had left with an apology on her lips.
"It was amazing. The patient came back in this afternoon with a bunch of flowers for Christine ."
Esme smiled. It was the same smile she had when Alice had told them all what it meant when Bella came into Edward's life. She had a way of seeing through things to the inner truth of any situation.
"What?" he said after the silence stretched out for a while.
"I'm not sure yet but there's definitely something" Esme responded cryptically.
She wouldn't elaborate on what she meant and no amount of begging would get her to move. The days turned into weeks and then into months. The students had become loved members of the hospital and the town. Carlisle hoped that they would stay on after their exams and take up permanent residency here.
About ten weeks into the student's stay there was an incident.
There had been a car crash with two local teens. This was not unusual in a town like Forks where it rains regularly and the temperatures are low enough to freeze the kids were constantly coming off the road as they hadn't quite figured out how to drive in the slush and ice.
One young girl had been found a good hundred metres away from the car. She had been bleeding for some time and was having some kind of convulsions. Before she died she managed to scream a few words about a pale woman who had made the car swerve off the road. The driver, her boyfriend, had bled out at the scene.
Carlisle immediately put a call in to Alice who confirmed that the female vampire was merely passing by when the young kid had caught her eye. She promised to keep an eye on the situation but admitted she did not like following her because the decisions the nomad was making made Alice hungry. Carlisle told her she could stop following her when she was far enough away to cause no threat and showed no intention of coming back. The pack increased their patrol to include the town for the first time in years.
Life quickly returned to normal. Carlisle and Esme began to suffer a little from empty nest syndrome. Emmett and Rose returned and it had to be said that both Esme and Carlisle were beginning to suffer a little from empty nest syndrome. Although Emmett and Rose were only away for a week here and there, they were spending more time out… or in, spending time on their own.
Another aspect of being alone was that they needed to while away the hours and this caused them to regularly watch films. Their DVD collection had increased dramatically over the last few years and the genres they had available to them ranged from early fifties light hearted comedies to modern day slasher flicks that genuinely made Esme hungry.
Winter came and brought with it the usual aches and sprains brought on by the cold and wet. There was only one interesting case for the entire month of November; it had been passed off as something simple and passed off to the students for them to practice on. The diagnosis they came back with was complicated and rare and right. Had they not found the easily missed symptoms old Mrs Hodgson would had died. When Carlisle spoke to the three of them he discovered that it had been Christine that had found the pertinent symptom. The other two had done the research that had lead to the diagnosis.
On the way home Carlisle was full of optimism. He was sure that the students were going to end up being the best doctoring team in the world. When he got home he could barely contain himself and the story of the days events spilled out of him. Esme listened contentedly asking questions in the right places and equaling the excitement that he himself felt. At the end of the story they both fell silent. Esme was pondering something and Carlisle waited to see what it was she was about to say.
"She has potential." was the statement she made
"They all do."
"You misunderstand me, my love" Esme said with a wide smile. "She, Christine, has talent."
"I know, I've said that all along"
"I mean a talent like Edward, Alice, Jasper or Bella." Esme said getting up off the couch and beginning to pace the room.
"What..." Carlisle stammered as the penny dropped "She's definitely human"
"So was Bella, and it didn't stop her being able to shield Edward's mind reading or Aro's for that matter"
"What exactly do you think she can do?" Carlisle said slowly understanding the reasoning but not the conclusion.
"Convince people, get them to talk about the things they can't talk about." Esme said triumphantly, as she walked over to the shelf where all of the family's DVDs were kept and selected one before moving back to her husband and casually tossing the disk case on the seat next to him.
Carlisle picked it up and read the title.
"PUSH? Isn't that the one with the actress that looks like a punk rock Jane?
Esme chuckled and then continued.
"She didn't diagnose them in the traditional sense, Carlisle. People don't want to talk about everything that is wrong with them and she 'convinced' them to. Or maybe…"
Esme's face clouded as she considered the darker side.
"What is it?"
"What if she… No… It's not possible."
Carlisle opened his mouth to speak but Esme put her finger on his lips to stop him. The events of the past few years had stopped Esme's ability to only see the good in people. Everything had changed and had made her harder. She preferred to believe in the light but saw the shadows too. She considered everything twice now.
"What if the people she has been diagnosing with all these exotic diseases didn't have them. What if her talent is so powerful that she can convince people that they are having the symptoms and then the body develops them in just the right amount to be cured by the treatments she convinces them would cure them… Combining the real symptoms and whatever she made up would make everything more exciting and gets her the recognition she wants and thinks she deserves."
Carlisle was watching Esme and she dug further and further into the dark. He stood up and took her into his arms and held her until she stopped. They both sat in silence for an hour until Esme looked up at him.
"It doesn't detract from the good she could do." She said with a smile.
"The good she could do if was turned?" Carlisle questioned.
A gasp from behind them made them aware their conversation was not private.
"You can't... Not again. You can't do it again." Rosalie said before pushing Carlisle out of the way with real force and running out of the door.
Carlisle called Emmett who was away getting a new car for Rose to take apart. Emmett agreed to call when he had found her. They waited in all night but when dawn rose Carlisle had to go back to the hospital. He picked up his beeper and discovered that in the night's distraction he had forgotten to put it on charge.
When he got to the hospital everyone seemed in shock.
"What happened?" he asked the receptionist who was in tears.
"Oh, Dr. Cullen. They were found in the car park, they are saying it was an animal attack."
"They?"
"Albie, Christine and David."
Carlisle sat down as his knees felt weak. The receptionist went on to tell him that they looked as if they had been torn to shreds.
"It happened so quickly and nobody heard a thing. David was dead before they got him back inside the building and Albie died about an hour ago. Christine is in surgery being stabilised. We are waiting for a transport team to come from Port Angeles so we can get her to better facilities."
Carlisle ran to the operating room to see what was being done and found a lot of despondent faces. Her heart beat was faint and fading. She was linked up to machines that were living for her. She was dead in all the ways but finally.
"The animal that got her must have had some kind of disease. The fever is eating her alive. I don't know what to do with her and the transport hasn't arrived yet."
"Ill take her." Carlisle said. "I can drive quicker than anyone else here."
"Are you sure Carlisle?"
Carlisle smiled a little. "No, I'm not sure but it's the only way."
While they hurried getting her ready Carlisle called Esme to let her know what was going on.
"I already know."
They both said together, "Alice."
"She says that she is already arranging for the records at Port Angeles to show Dead On Arrival and that everyone is coming home to help."
"Did she say anything about… Rosalie?"
Esme sighed. "She is watching out for her. She doesn't know what she is thinking. Changing her mind every few moments."
Carlisle got into the ambulance and drove away from the hospital turning down the highway and pulling away. He had barely left the town when she started to fade. He pulled off the road and got into the back as he called Alice.
"Will she survive?"
"Don't wait. Do it now. She will turn."
As Carlisle bit into Christine's skin he felt the hunger take over for a moment. He knew that he would be able to stop, and stop he did when she took her first breath in and then let out the most enormous scream.
He strapped her down and drove as quickly as he could to the only place he could think of. Esme stayed with Christine in a small deserted warehouse on the docks of Neah Bay.
Carlisle slowly drove the ambulance back to Forks with the news that Christine had died before reaching the hospital at Port Angeles. Alice had arranged for a report to appear in the hospital's records detailing an intern's observations, should anyone ask. No one did. Carlisle sat with the hospital staff while they had a moment of silence for the students and then left to go home to be with his wife. He asked for a week off and was given it.
There was still no sign of Rose. She had phoned Emmett and told his she needed a few days on her own to calm down. She didn't want to say or do anything that would make anyone angry. Emmett tried to ask her if she had done anything already to make people angry and she laughed and told him that she was always making people angry. Alice was tracking her credit card purchases and they knew she had bought a new set of clothes on the border, and put a call in to Kate who was at the house in Denali to keep an eye out for her.
"Thank you Alice." Carlisle was driving back to Neah Bay in the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG that Esme had given him for an anniversary present a few years ago. It wasn't the fastest car he had (even though it was going faster than the compulsory 155mph limit installed in the car - thank you Rose) but he knew he would need something with more than two seats this time.
"Oh Carlisle, I'm just sorry I can't tell you.."
"If Rose killed the students?"
"Yes… I am so sorry. She won't think about it and is… She's just so full of rage!"
Carlisle sighed. Rose had caught him and Esme in the middle of a moment that would have looked so bad to someone who had been hurt by envy of the newest members of the Cullen clan. He knew that Rose had spent some time after the Volturi standoff looking for any way she could have a child of her own…
"I will keep looking though. Although I believe we won't really know until we put her in a room with Edward and Jasper."
"True. When will you all be home?"
"Before you are. And don't worry. I'll call Jacob and make sure he tells the Makah what is going on."
Carlisle got to the warehouse shortly before dawn. He pulled the car into the warehouse and closed the door. Esme, sitting next to the screaming body of Christine, was looking concerned.
"This isn't like Bella or Rosalie."
"Every time is different. It's just the end result that is the same."
They watched as her wounds healed themselves and then as her skin hardened. On the morning of the third day the sunlight invaded the darkness through a crack in the wall and hit Christine's cheekbone. As the light fractured into a million diamond points Christine let out one last scream and then was abruptly silent.
She threw herself at the bleeding body of a stag that Esme had collected the day before and drank instinctually. The stillness of her body, as she drank, let her hear the waves outside and the creaking of the boats moored in the harbour. She heard the heartbeat of a fisherman sitting on the jetty a mile away and wanted the blood that flowed through it. She listened to that heartbeat and the creaking and the waves and listened to every word Dr. Cullen said to her about coming home with him, about how he was going to teach her to be a vampire without killing anyone.
Christine lifted her head from the stag and nodded her head knowing that she was agreeing to something but not sure what. "Please. More."
Dr. Cullen's wife stepped forwards and spoke, "We have more blood for you in the car. We have to take you home so we can help you."
Christine was in the back seat before the sentence was finished. Esme chuckled and whispered to Carlisle. It sounded like she was shouting.
"Time to start chasing the children around again."
Children? Is that was I am, a child? I will learn like a child, Christine thought, and then find my way.
From the moment Christine entered the house and met the people who were to be her new family she knew that things were going to be easier and more difficult than she had ever imagined. She knew there were more but that Rose and Emmett were away for a while. The hunger she felt was so intense that the cowboy had to leave the house for long periods of time. His little wife was so perky in her attempts to help that Christine found it easier to acquiesce to her constant demands. She didn't really like the clothes that she was given though. Bella helped her to avoid the constant dressing up and her husband helped Christine with her constant studies. If you wanted to be a doctor then be a doctor, he had said to her coolly one day when she had asked him what the point was.
"You will control yourself one day. Then you have the rest of your existence to do whatever you want."
"When?"
Edward and Bella sat with her and told Christine that it is different for everyone. Jasper and Bella were the newest Cullens. Jasper was still struggling day to day whilst Bella…
"It took only a few hours for you, didn't it my love?"
Bella smiled, "Only because I had more interesting things to do."
Edward and Bella had disappeared to their little cottage then leaving Christine unsatisfied and frustrated with herself.
"Why can't I stop wanting to kill everyone?"
"You will in time. It takes patience and practice." Carlisle took Christine out for a hunt about three months after her change.
"I don't want to be patient! I want my life back!"
"You can have your life back if you are careful. You can still be a doctor. You can still help people."
"I don't want to help people I want to kill them!"
The shocked look on Carlisle's face terrified Christine. What had she said? She would give anything to make him forget she had said that. Please forget Carlisle. Please!
Carlisle looked at her pleading eyes and seemed temporarily stunned. He shook his head and laughed.
"I must be getting old. I can't remember what we were talking about."
Christine nervously giggled and then shrugged, "Can't have been important."
Another month went by and Edward and Bella left. Christine had gotten very good at hiding her thoughts from Edward and he didn't like to admit he was more than a little worried about the newest member of his family. He told Renesmee and Jacob to stay away from the house when he wasn't there to read her and implored Jasper and Alice to keep a close eye on Christine. There was something he didn't like but he couldn't put his finger on it. Jasper told him that he had felt nothing but good intentions coming from Christine except for the understandable frustration at her inability to completely control the hunger. Emmett returned from his travels without Rose, explaining that curiosity had gotten the better of him, and that Rosalie was just being daft now. He knew in his heart that Rose had not been the one who had attacked the students but she was just refusing to confirm or deny it.
"She told me that we all just think the worst of her anyway so what did it matter what she said."
Christine had just finished her daily session of meditation, lead by Esme, and came down the stairs at that point. After introductions had been made, had asked "So, what power do you have, Emmett?"
Emmett laughed and Alice answered for him, "The power of smashing and breaking the most expensive piece of furniture in any room."
When Christine learned that he wasn't going to read her future or thoughts or feelings she relaxed around him and Emmett took up her training and daily hunts. It helped him get over Rosalie's stubbornness and it gave Christine someone to practice her power on.
Esme had been watching Christine carefully, waiting for the power to come out. She tried mind exercises with her, as did Carlisle, but to no avail. Esme and Carlisle had spoken to Christine about the possibility of there being a power but not to be concerned if nothing developed. Christine knew that they had spoken to her on four separate occasions about the same thing but that neither of them knew it. She made sure that even the slightest possibility she could do something like that wasn't in their heads.
About six months into Christine's life as a vampire Alice and Jasper went away for a weekend. It was the first time since her change that Christine had been alone with, as she referred to them, the 'powerless' members of the family. After they waved them off Emmett punched Christine on the arm,
"Come on, we're going bear hunting."
"That hurt Emmett."
"Oh, poor Christine! You are so breakable, like you're made of crystal! Come on Crystalline Christine!" He ran off into the woods and Christine followed yelling that she would show him what she was made of. Esme leaned up to her husband and put her arms round him.
"Do you realise, my love, that we are alone?"
Carlisle raised an eyebrow, "Really? Does this mean we should clean the kid's rooms or something?"
Esme took his hand and led him back inside, "Something."
The sun felt warm on Christine's skin as she ran through the woods. She could smell a herd of deer nearby and yelled at Emmett that she wanted to stop,
"No, we are going to the mountains for bear today."
Christine would have followed him anywhere and she was intrigued to see Emm's favourite sport.
A few hours and a few bears later they sat on a rock watching the sunset over the forest below them. Christine turned to Emmett as he was telling her that he and Rose loved sitting here after a good hunt.
"Why hasn't Rose come home?"
"Many many reasons. None of them good."
"Is it because of me?"
"A little… Don't worry about it. Rose is an acquired taste, but once you get to love her it sticks forever."
Christine sighed, knowing that Emmett would never feel that way about her, and fixed him with her gaze as she had done a number of times. I could make him forget about Rose and make him love me but it wouldn't be real.
"Emmett," she said as she started to formulate a new plan. "I think you should go and get Rose. Tell her everything is okay. You need to be together. Everyone should be with the one they love."
Emmett murmured his agreement and got up.
"You don't mind if I leave you here? You can get home by yourself?"
"I'll be fine Emmett. Say hello to Rosalie for me."
He smiled and was gone.
Christine stood up and filled her lungs with the rapidly cooling air. She was free to do what she wanted. What did she want? As she reached the bottom of the mountain a new smell entered her nose, and she heard the sound her soul ached for. A human heartbeat. The venom pooled in her mouth. No. I can't. She tried to make herself sit and meditate until the heartbeat went away but the human moved to slowly and the beat was so loud. So so loud.
The phone rang on the floor where it had been thrown by Esme. Carlisle and her were both tangled in the sheets on their bed and it took her a moment longer than usual to answer the phone.
"Esme. Quickly. If you move quickly you can stop her from doing worse."
"Alice? What is wrong?"
Carlisle stood up worried.
"Christine. She is going to kill so many people. She has already killed one - an elderly hiker but now she is running. She feels guilty about what she did but she doesn't want to stop."
"Where?" Esme and Carlisle were pulling clothes on as Alice described the horror.
"Children. There are five children on the bus and fifteen adults. She will kill them all unless you stop her."
"Where?"
"The coast. Follow the highway."
The bus had pulled over about a mile outside the town. The community group had been to Seattle for a day trip and everyone was tired. The youngest boy was throwing up in the tree line after eating too much chocolate. His mother turned from him for only a minute apologising again to everyone on the bus. She turned back and he was gone. No one heard his scream as Christine grabbed him and pulled him up into the trees breaking his neck and drinking him dry before he hit the ground again. His mother's scream as her dead son's bones cracked on the road in front of her was cut off quickly by a whirlwind of horror. The driver pulled the lever to close the door as Christine drank the woman and then screamed through the windows at him.
Carlisle and Esme could smell the blood on the wind. They ran as fast as they could and arrived just in time to see Christine ripping the doors from the side of the bus. The driver stood up and put his hands out to stop her. She grabbed him and launched his body through the wind screen before turning to the next passenger and pulling him out of his seat. Esme caught the driver and put him on the ground carefully as Carlisle jumped through the window and grabbed Christine. She had already bitten the man and started to drink. There was nothing Carlisle could do for him but he was determined to stop the killing there.
The others on the bus were all screaming, huddling at the back trying to hide. The noise was enough to let Carlisle know that this was the last night he would allow Christine to live.
Christine howled at Carlisle and he tried to get his arms around her neck. She pushed him back and then leapt at the huddled group. Carlisle grabbed at her leg and stopped her.
Esme entered the bus as Christine kicked out and escaped again.
"Get these people out of here Esme!"
Esme started the engine again and drove the bus as Christine embedded her teeth into a teenager's shoulder. The delight she felt was pouring out of her as freely as the blood. Carlisle rushed her and smashed her out of the back window of the bus over the heads of the others and crashed into the tarmac.
As they landed and rolled to face each other their looks could not have been more different. Carlisle had a serene look of impassive determination and Christine was wild. Her throat growling and with hatred burning from her now bright red eyes. The look of predatory rage was so different from that of the calm and competent girl he had known. It was hopeless. He had lost her.
The sound of the bus retreating brought forth a scream form Christine and she ran towards it. Carlisle caught her and picked her up by her neck before smashing her head on the ground. Stunned she lay still for a moment before leaping up and barreling towards Carlisle again. He put his legs up and flipped her over the top. She somersaulted back into a standing position and then ran at him again. How Carlisle wished Emmett or Jasper were there with him. What would they do? Memories of fights of the past came back and he sidestepped her attack before smashing her into the ground again. He heard the crack of her skull over the crack it caused in the road. He needed to trap her somewhere. He picked her up as she seemed a little groggy and made for the place she had come into the world.
The stillness… the waves and the creaking of the boats. Hundreds of heartbeats nearby. The beating in that needed to stop and the words of Carlisle. They flowed in her head like the blood she wanted to drink, that she must drink again.
"Tell me you're still in there Christine." Carlisle begged her.
A roar of animalistic rage as she ran toward him in an attempt to escape. He easily caught her and slammed her down to the floor. Keeping her pinned to the ground with one hand he could smell the human blood on her breath and he felt his heart break.
"Why didn't you tell us how difficult it was for you? You could have talked to me or any of us - we have all struggled!"
She growled in response and struggled against the grip she knew she would make him loosen.
"We will take you somewhere more remote. We can go to Denali and start again. Every member has had setbacks and it will be difficult."
"I'm going to have to end this" he muttered. The growling and the rage seemed to subside momentarily as that announcement broke through. Shocked that anything had he let go and moved backwards as her eyes flew open.
"Then do it. End this. I can't live in your cage anymore." she said and glared at him as he let her sit up.
Thinking for the briefest of moments that there was a hope he took a step backwards. Immediately she leapt from the sitting position and landed on top of Carlisle's chest making him fall backwards so that the situation was reversed. Looking down at the startled face of Carlisle she tried to sink her teeth into his neck. Carlisle switched his weight and was able to throw her back against a wall. As she collapsed to the floor he walked towards her.
"I don't want to kill you Christine! You give me no choices but the wrong ones. If only you had admitted the weaknesses you felt. You would have been the perfect… The perfect apprentice." A quote from one of his favourite books - The Sorcerer's Apprentice - leapt into his head as he walked towards her again. He almost laughed as it's poignance struck him. The things he had done, the people he had changed would be with him forever. Whatever he did here he would never be able to forget, never be able to change what had already happened.
"The spirit's I summoned up I now can't rid myself of."
Epilogue
Carlisle returned home where Esme was waiting for him. She took him into her arms and held him while his body trembled with sobs. When she asked him what happened he merely shook his head and told her that he didn't have the words at that moment in time.
Esme called the family and they all headed to the flights that Alice had already arranged. Then Esme put Carlisle in the car and started the long drive to Sycamore, Illinois to another of their houses.
A few days passed and Alice, Jasper, Edward and Bella arrived in a flurry of concern and grief. All of them were blaming themselves for having not sensed Christine's struggle in their various ways. Carlisle was with them in their shame but could not offer any words of comfort. They all sat down together and waited for the last couple that completed their family.
Another day passed with no word to say whether or not Emmett and Rose would be making an appearance and Carlisle closed his eyes and took an unnecessary breath.
"I was waiting for everyone before I told you what happened but…" and then he sighed.
He stood and gazed out of the window as the sunset shone through the huge windows and made his face glow.
"I failed Christine…"
The family erupted with noise and it took Esme to calm them down again so Carlisle could speak.
His tale was brief and he had to stop a number of times to pull himself together. He laughed as he remembered shouting that ridiculous quote at Christine.
"...She must have thought I was going crazy. And then she stood up to face me and was still. She looked me in the eye and told me to do it, to end her pain. And so I…"
His voice cracked and he looked at Edward who saw the images in Carlisle's head and continued.
"She whispered 'thank you' and then Carlisle kissed her forehead and broke her neck as quickly and painlessly as possible. He lay her body down on the floor and then lit it on fire. He waited until the flames had burned out and then waited until the ash cooled. He gathered the ash in a bucket and then went out onto the dock and cast it into the sea as the sun rose."
The silence that followed Edward's speech was unbroken by anybody in the room. They could all hear the birds twittering as they flew overhead and they could all hear the trees moving in the breeze that still carried parts of Christine.
The last ray of light dimmed and as the night arrived Carlisle broke the silence.
"I failed her. I failed you all."
"You failed no one." Rosalie stepped out of the shadows and towards Carlisle. "You failed no one."
"Rosalie."
She walked into the middle of the room holding Emmett's hand tightly. She looked at Edward and Jasper and raised an eyebrow.
"Tell them."
Jasper started, "You feel angry, guilty, sad, what am I supposed to say, Rosalie?"
"Edward."
"You heard what Carlisle and Esme were talking that night and you thought about how they were taking Christine's choice away like they took…" Edward stopped.
"Like we took your choice away." Esme walked towards Rosalie who started to tremble a little.
"It's okay, babe." Emmett whispered.
"I… I just didn't want to be here when… I didn't want to look in the face of the person… I didn't want to see the face of the someone who had the most important, the last decision they could make taken away from them."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Carlisle whispered.
"I didn't want to disappoint you. I only ever want to make you happy."
"Disappoint me?" Carlisle grabbed Rosalie and hugged her until she let go of Emmett and put both arms around Carlisle. "You amaze me every day."
"You thought I killed your students."
"No."
"I didn't."
"I know."
Rosalie smiled as the family surrounded her. Edward hung back for a moment and then joined the family. Rose looked at him and then begged him to let her have this moment. Edward nodded, for the good of his family he would keep the secrets again and again and again.
As everyone separated into their couples and then melted away into their corners, Rosalie whispered to Edward, "I didn't mean to."
He nodded and then walked out with Bella.
Carlisle and Esme watched their family and waited until no one was paying attention.
"I don't know how long I can lie to them."
"She fought you all the way."
"Yes. She looked me in the eye as I ripped her apart. She looked me in the eye and I murdered her."
The dawn rose as Esme brought Carlisle's head down to her shoulder.