Do You Hear What I Hear?

One

They had been out of the house for ten minutes when Edward decided that he missed his wife. He'd become distracted, moody. He had been thinking with a sigh only a few moments before that this might be a long weekend.

When Jasper, Emmett and Edward stopped to see Carlisle on their way to the new hunting range, he felt his spirits lift.

He still would rather be with Bella, but he couldn't help it. The atmosphere in the hospital was happy. The kids in the ward where they found their father were grinning and giggling, faces shining in the tiny, colourful lights that decorated the room. It was nighttime, and the Jolly Old Elf was making his rounds. He handed out candy canes, and tiny teddy bears to those who couldn't eat the sweets.

Edward felt his lips turning up, and he knew that his two brothers were doing the same thing next to him. They stood with their backs to the large windows at the end of the ward, watching the scene with a happy carelessness.

The mood changed abruptly.

"I met the real St. Nicholas, you know," Carlisle murmured quietly.

Edward shut his eyes tightly, wanting so desperately to cut himself off from his surroundings. He heard Jasper's thoughts become a jumble of curses, and heard Emmett offering some quick prayers to God—'Dear God I know I'm unfaithful, and I eat people sometimes but please please please please don't make me hear another one of these stories.'

"Really," Edward said noncommittally, not bothering to make it sound like a question, nor to feign any degree of interest. He knew that Carlisle would keep talking whether he thought anyone wanted him to. Edward opened his eyes and looked to his father, hoping to see some glimmer of sense in his face, but Carlisle's eyes were three hundred years away.

Three hundred years away with Santa Claus.

Contrary to popular belief, Carlisle had embarrassing parental moments, too. He was, after all, over three and a half centuries old. Though it was highly unlikely, Edward almost thought that Carlisle probably had walked uphill both ways to school. In the snow. It wasn't a claim the doctor had ever made, but Edward could picture it. Compared to all the other stories he'd heard, it actually seemed almost realistic.

"It was sometime in the really late 1600s," Carlisle sighed, tilting his head to the side.

We need an escape plan! Emmett's mind squeaked at Edward, and Jasper pleaded, Do something, Edward. You and Esme are the only ones who can reason with him when he's like this.

"St. Nicholas died a long, long time ago," Edward reminded his father gently.

Carlisle only scoffed, and raised one perfect eyebrow.

"Technically," he told the three boys, who were all staring at him with expressions lost between incredulity and fear. "So did all of you."

There was silence, or at least as much as could be managed in a room full of happy children.

"I'm sorry," Emmett said. "What exactly are you suggesting?"

All three of them were frozen in place, and Edward was amazed that his older brother had managed to find his voice. Carlisle's words were thick with implications. Suddenly Edward felt like his childhood was much farther than 100 years away, like it had fallen away, never to be touched or remembered or reflected upon again.

Carlisle only shrugged and looked back to the smiling children who were seated on the floor on the other side of the room. His hard skin glowed strangely in the coloured lights.

"Well," he said, "How else did you think he got around the world so fast?"

And Santa, talking to the kids who giggled and laughed before them, seemed to reply, "HO HO HO!"