Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, it belongs to Stephenie Meyer and Summit Entertainment, etc. I make no profit off of this story.
A/N: A scene with Carlisle and Renesmee floated through my mind a while back and I loved it so much that I had to write a story about it. This is the first of two one-shots.
Emotionless
Mountain upon unscaled mountain of ancient, half-indecipherable texts, manuscripts, books, and scrolls littered the elegant study on the second floor of the Cullen home; so widely and so frequently that it became more challenging by the day to tell where wall ended and floor began. The vast collection of history and personal accounts, strewn carelessly everywhere there was free (or at least partially so) space, invaded even the minutest of glances away from the ceiling. Glued as Carlisle's eyes were to the online texts that he hoped would supplement what he considered to be his "meager" physical supply, Esme doubted her husband even realized a ceiling was above his head anyway.
Ever since Bella's first night as an immortal, Carlisle had behaved as a man possessed with his work. Considering his normal work ethic, that was no mean feat. For two decades after her new life with Carlisle and Edward had begun, Esme lived with her soon-to-be-husband's insatiable need to work whenever he had the smallest window of opportunity. She knew he was happy with his family and enjoyed every moment he spent with them, but for so long Carlisle's life had been about his spiritual mission as a doctor. So long that it was difficult for him to adjust to a life without that self-same work consuming at least half of every day. Upon Edward's return in 1932, that all began to change. Seeing how he might have gone wrong in spending so much time away, Carlisle made every effort to be home more often than he was at work. Edward had been pleased at the attention, but also unhappy that the thing his father loved so much was being limited drastically.
Of course, when Rosalie arrived on the scene, Edward and Carlisle were only too happy to spend time together and avoid the unbelievably bitter young woman. Esme could not blame them, particularly as Rosalie had been so furious at both of them for the first decade. But after Emmett, Jasper, and Alice had all joined the family, Carlisle seemed to grow even more powerfully back into the role of a workaholic. Bella's entrance in their lives soon limited that, but only because the girl required so much medical attention herself. Even so, nothing Esme had ever seen could rival the current tendencies that Carlisle was displaying.
"Carlisle?" she questioned quietly, sighing once she realized her husband heard absolutely nothing through his absorption. Daunted by this single-minded ferocity, but unwilling to give up so simply, Esme tried again and tried louder, "Carlisle? Please?"
Still nothing. Black eyes never wavered from the bright laptop screen as it cast a sheen of periwinkle across Carlisle's smooth features.
Jasper's familiar sigh came from behind Esme, and she started only vaguely in response. Finding her empathic son around whenever Carlisle was the most unreachable was commonplace these days. Despite Carlisle's strength of will around blood, it was uncomfortable, irritating, and distracting to go without hunting for as long as he had been of late. This required that Carlisle get out and hunt at some point. That, in turn, required Carlisle to leave his work, which was something he almost always refused to do anymore. Ultimately, Jasper had to force Carlisle's compulsion to hunt. It was never a pretty situation, but Carlisle had yet to lash out because of the enforcement. Oh he tended to sigh with exasperation, impatience, and frustration all right, but that was the extent of it.
Looking over at her son, Esme allowed her curiosity to present the question of how Carlisle was doing. With a heavy sigh, Jasper answered softly in his calm baritone, "He's the same as usual. Too obsessed, too lost in his work. I don't know how we can wake him up from this workload without physical restraint, Esme. It's becomin' a serious debilitation."
"I know," she admitted tentatively, rubbing her thumb with the neighboring index finger out of hazy anxiety for her husband. "It's just... well..."
"The idea of forcin' his hand," Jasper sighed again with a tired nod, his tone much more depressed than before. "Honestly, I do know what you mean. I won't enjoy it if I have to do that. Believe me, I won't."
"Of course you won't, Jasper," Esme smiled with deep understanding at her scarred son; the look on his face filled her with sympathy and pity. Jasper's memories surely held unhappy moments when he was forced to use this precise action against his better judgment. That alone would make him upset, let alone using such a tactic on Carlisle, of all people. "I never thought you would."
He gave her a half-convincing smile of gratitude for her kindness and her pity. Only from Esme would the self-reliant Texan accept pity of any kind; he realized now that it was merely in her nature.
"I think we'll leave him for now," Esme exhaled in resignation. "He only hunted four days ago, after all. That's not a very long stretch, even for the rest of us."
"You're right," Jasper nodded his assent grudgingly, "I just... keep hopin' that one of these times I snap him out of it, he'll stay lucid for good. It seems to be botherin' me more than usual today. You'll have to forgive me."
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," said Esme kindly, reaching up to pat her son's cheek dotingly. "Nothing about this is easy for any of us. Edward is having a very difficult time, too. Not hearing Carlisle's thoughts for this long... It's getting to him just like the lack of emotion is getting to you."
"Worse, I think," Jasper shook his head mildly, "because Edward's so accustomed to havin' Carlisle's thoughts there in his head. It's been that way from the moment he woke to this life."
"Carlisle drives Edward a bit mad, though," Esme smiled indulgently. "Always philosophizing and the like. And of course his constant theories about Bella's change or the wolves' metabolism… You know how Carlisle is."
"Edward may groan about hearing those thoughts once in a great while," Jasper interrupted with a wry smile, "but he's a lot more sentimental about that sort of thing than he'd have us all believe."
"Don't say that too loudly," Esme bemoaned, biting her lip to stop from grinning. "Edward would have our heads if he heard."
"Good he isn't here, then," Jasper grinned openly, plainly attempting to overcome the depressed atmosphere of the house. "Why don't you try paintin' Renesmee again? Jacob was in the way of the last one."
The disdain Jasper accorded the name of the Quileute boy made Esme frown slightly. "That boy has been very helpful to us and to Bella over the past couple of years. And he's excellent with Nessie."
"Doesn't mean I have to like him," the southern vampire retorted sharply. "And kindly don't call her Nessie. Bella and Edward named her Renesmee for a reason."
"You sound like Rose," was Esme's displeased reply. Jasper's only recourse was to shrug and move down the hallway. Strangely upset by her son's emotionless reaction, Esme watched his back until he disappeared behind the door of his and Alice's room before turning away. It wasn't until she looked back to the form of her husband, still gazing solidly and emotionlessly at the computer screen, that Esme realized why it bothered her for Jasper to lack any feeling in his gesture. Biting back a weary and frustrated sigh, the maternal vampire headed back downstairs at a human pace, if only to savor a moment of clarity.
In the main room, Rosalie was playing with Renesmee as usual, some form of match game going on between them at high speed. Bella seemed preoccupied with Alice's latest plans for another of Renesmee's many beloved scrapbooks. Sketches upon sketches of page arrangements, potential photographs to take, and captions to write, as well as a list of items needed to finish the task, were laid out across the width and breadth of the dining table and most of the floor on that side of the room.
Smiling (albeit a bit wanly thanks to Carlisle's estrangement) at the obvious dedication of her children to dear little Renesmee, Esme seated herself beside Bella at the dining table in an effort to ease her overwhelming task.
"How is it coming along?"
"Terrible," Bella grumbled half-heartedly, eyes shifting to take in the sight of her swiftly growing child. Deliberating for only a moment, Esme's newest child rushed out a whispered response, "I can't stop thinking about losing her, Esme! Every moment that Edward and I spend away from her is so painful. Something always changes in some tiny way by the time we come back. Is it wrong for us to have this much joy in our lives? Is that why she's going to be taken away from us? I don't see why we can't be allowed such enormous happiness this one time. Not just me and Edward, but all of us."
The more words that spilled from Bella's mouth, the harder it became to listen. Esme knew only too well what Bella was feeling in that moment. Even after all those years and the fading of her human memories, Esme could still remember the harrowing expectation of loss, the pain of knowing that her baby would not live past a few days of life. In some ways, Esme wondered now if her experience wasn't the easier of the two. She'd barely known her boy – her poor little John – before he died and thus Esme had few expectations for their relationship and his future. With Bella and Edward, there was time to know Renesmee intricately and come away realizing she would never grow into all she had the potential to be.
A stifled sob escaped Bella in time with Esme's, startling Renesmee out of her game with an increasingly distressed Rosalie. Not oblivious to what was happening to her mother and grandmother (not as much as Esme would have liked, at any rate), the darling girl returned to her game with a look of intense suspicion. Having seen the young one's curious doubts, Rosalie renewed their word game with a vigor that left Esme feeling somehow more depressed than before. Renesmee did not look satisfied and Esme was certain that child knew exactly what was bothering them all. Perhaps Edward had even explained it to her; Bella said it was impossible for her to explain such a horrible subject with her baby, but Edward knew how ill events could go if Renesmee went on in ignorance. It was actually familiar territory for Esme's 'firstborn' son.
"We'll do everything we can to save her, sweetie," whispered Esme unhappily, "And we'll do whatever it takes to give her the fullest possible life. There's just nothing else we can do."
"I know," Bella breathed raggedly, though quietly. "As much as it hurts me, I do know."
In a fit of emotion, the distraught young mother rapidly accepted the embrace of Esme's open arms. Silence descended between them, and through it all Esme began to feel angry at Carlisle for the first time in many years. Why on earth was he wasting all of his time staring at texts and computers, when he could be spoiling his only grandchild? After all that Esme had gone through when she lost her baby boy years before, was Carlisle still so ignorant of how the loss of this baby was going to affect them all? Her husband surely could not be so stupid, so thoughtless.
Just when she was prepared to rush upstairs and argue her point vehemently with Carlisle, Esme heard the tinkling sound of ivory and ebony keys. The distraction was enough to draw her eyes around to the piano, at which Rosalie was seated while Renesmee remained sitting on the sofa with her small arms crossed in defiance.
"You should practice so Daddy can hear how much you've learned," Rosalie crooned in her sweetest tone, her use of the word 'daddy' not tainted in the slightest by sarcasm. With the joy of Renesmee a combined family effort now, Edward and Rosalie had changed the dynamics of their relationship almost one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. On the odd occasion the two siblings fought, it was not serious like it once was. Esme breathed a sigh of relief for that miracle.
Renesmee squirmed defiantly for some minutes while Rosalie played a gentle melody, almost a lullaby. At last the little girl huffed without any actual sound escaping her. Rosalie instantly stopped playing to retrieve her niece and then return to the piano. Smiling graciously, the blonde led her niece's hands to the proper position for a song she had been learning that week.
Anger mostly dissipated, Esme settled into her seat with a sad sigh for Carlisle's negligence.
"He wouldn't be so thoughtless, Esme," Bella said suddenly, her voice strangely understanding. Esme's head whipped around in shock. Bella only smiled slightly. "Carlisle doesn't do things like this unless he has a true purpose. You know he wouldn't do that to Renesmee, especially. He loves her."
"Maybe," Esme grudgingly accepted, "but I'm not sure he even realizes he's being thoughtless. He can be so absorbed in work that he forgets other people are there."
"I don't believe that," was all Bella said, moving to take a seat on the sofa for her daughter's impromptu concert.
Esme was left hanging, with that challenging remark ringing through her mind, for such a long time that Renesmee had played three pieces by the time her grandmother came around. In the course of defining exactly what Bella believed and why, Esme only confirmed that her newest daughter must have some idea of what Carlisle was doing. But that only frustrated the mother of six more stringently. Why did Bella know, but the man's own wife did not? A twinge of hurt entered Esme's mind before she could help it.
Heaven only knew what Jasper had been put through over the last couple hours, what with three females going over a range of emotions as vast as the sea. Nevertheless, Esme could hardly stop herself from feeling and settled for allowing her apology to be felt yet not spoken.
"I don't know, sweetie." Rosalie's voice startled Esme into looking up. Renesmee must have asked her something, but Esme could not guess what.
"Momma," a second voice spoke up. It took a moment for the second voice to register in Esme's mind, even while staring right at its source. She had never heard that voice before, but the caramel-haired vampire would know the sparkling sound anywhere. Shocked, Esme watched Renesmee looking back at Bella from her spot on the piano bench. Confusion and longing were written all over that cherubic face. Their special little baby, the Cullens' own tiny treasure, had spoken her first word. By the looks on Bella's and Rosalie's faces, their shock was equally as paramount. And Bella nearly fell out of her seat on the sofa as the word stretched into a full sentence, "where is Grandpa?"
Momma, where is grandpa?
Esme's heart hurt that the first words from her granddaughter's mouth were a question of where her grandfather was. Carlisle should have been there. He shouldn't have been working away his life while such a precious commodity was being used up!
Bella moved just enough past her frozen state of shock to answer her daughter, "I don't know, baby."
Indignation grew to such a great degree within Esme that she stood suddenly, anger skyrocketing as she thought of Carlisle's ignorance. Never before had she been so angry with him. Determined, Esme made a move to head upstairs and tell him what was what. Before she made it two steps forward, a powerful force yanked her backwards; she nearly stumbled, vampire grace notwithstanding. To her wonderment, it was Edward's grip on her upper arm that was so terribly wild.
The others had returned, then. Indeed, Alice spoke in whispers with Bella across the room and from the corner of her eye, Esme caught sight of Renesmee giggling with Rosalie and a newly returned Emmett.
"Don't you dare say a word to him!" Edward spoke fiercely, but at a level too low for most ears in the room to hear, let alone Carlisle's up on the second floor. The commanding tone rankled immediately.
"He's in the wrong," Esme partly hissed back, still simmering in frustration. "And clearly he's too foolish to realize it without being told of his mistakes!"
"He's hurting!" Edward snapped, grip tightening when Esme attempted to remove herself from it. "If you go up there now, you'll drive him into a fit of self-loathing and depression. Not that I'll let you, anyway. I refuse to allow you to hurt him in a fit of temper! Now stop struggling or Jasper will impose calm whether you like it or not."
Sure enough, Jasper was standing not two feet way, face set determinedly and long arms crossed. Scowling, Esme exhaled through her teeth, yanked her arm out of Edward's crushing grip, and sat back down in defeat. Edward and Jasper did not move, but remained in their positions with ready stances. The slightest attempt to head upstairs as planned and Esme would be stopped instantly, of that she had no doubt.
Rosalie, eyeing the situation from where she hovered above her niece, seemed to decide upon a swift bit of action to prevent a scene. The blonde began to pull her niece away, with the invitation that she could play for her daddy now that he was home. The little girl's face brightened like halogen compared to fluorescents and she gladly allowed her beautiful aunt to lift her up and carry her across to the piano for the second time that evening. Esme's anger did not dissipate throughout any of Renesmee's song, nor did Edward remove cold eyes from his mother's defiant face.
In some part of her subconscious mind, Esme recognized how amazing it really was for Edward to keep such a cold gaze and yet respond to his daughter with grandiose warmth and affection. At one point, Edward replied to an unspoken plea of his daughter's, "You're playing beautifully, sweetheart." And still his eyes locked on Esme's with pure dissent buried in them.
Their stare-down did not last nearly as long as it felt like to Esme, when Edward's face contorted drastically, in unison with Jasper's. The mother in Esme reared up and yelled at her to stop being petulant over Carlisle and help her – their – sons instead. She could do nothing, however.
For from the second floor, there came a furious muffled cry and a wild, obnoxiously loud crash. Enormous windows, at least two of them, sounded as though they had been smashed with brute force. Esme found herself frozen, as did most everyone else. Jasper, though, became a trembling mess of rage, eyes solid black and menacing as they had ever been. Renesmee stopped playing with a surprised look on her face, but to her grandmother's disbelief, the girl's features morphed into understanding deeper than any week-old child should have.
Edward suddenly shot up from his seat and gracefully – if too rapidly – swept Renesmee into his arms and disappeared with her up the stairs.
While it felt idiotic to remain locked where they were, no one could make themselves move except Alice, who pulled Jasper outside to calm him down. None of it made any sense to Esme. If Jasper and Alice were not worried about fighting and Edward had even taken his baby girl up to the scene of the disturbance, then there could not possibly be an intruder.
But if that was true, then Esme could hardly imagine what happened to cause such a hideous clamor.
A/N: I think Esme would probably react this way about a baby in their lives, especially after what happened to her own child.
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