Title: Half
Genre: Family/Hurt/Comfort
Character(s): Edward, Carlisle, OCs
Summary: Carlisle has kept a secret from Edward and the entire Cullen family for a hundred years. A secret from Edward's time in the hospital when he was turned. Now Carlisle knows it is time to get this off his chest how will the Cullens? More importantly, how will Edward?
Disclaimer: AU. May be a bit OOC, if so I apologize. Just so all of you know I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT OR ANYTHING YOU RECOGNIZE FROM THE SERIES. THEY BELONG TO THE WONDERFUL STEPHANIE MEYER.
Jade eyes stared up at Carlisle Cullen from under sweaty copper colored hair. Carlisle Cullen was disturbed greatly by Elizabeth Masen's pleading, feverish eyes. Carlisle pitied this poor women, her husband was dead, she was dying and her two eldest sons lay one on either side of her fighting to just hold on.
When Elizabeth had been more lucid she had talked to Carlisle for hours about her family. About how she and her husband had been madly in love since childhood and had been married for nineteen years. She told him about their children, about how Edward and James her identical twin sons who lay panting for breath on either side of her couldn't wait to turn eighteen and sign up to fight in the war, but she and her husband wanted them to follow their passions of music and learning not go and risk their lives before they really began.
She told him about her other children, about her younger sons Michael, William, Thomas, Nicholas and Peter and about her daughters Margaret, Catherine and Alma, how she was so glad that they were in the country and safe from catching the Spanish Influenza.
The Masens had been under Carlisle's care for almost two weeks when the three remaining took a turn for the worst. Carlisle knew that the mother only had a matter of hours and the two sons probably wouldn't last much longer than their mother. While on one of his rounds around the ward where the influenza patients were kept Elizabeth Masen stopped him and asked him if he had a moment to talk over a serious matter.
"I know I am dying." she began "And I know my sons probably won't survive long either. So I beg you as my dying wish save them."
"I will do everything in my power to save Edward and James." Carlisle responded warmly.
"Yes. You must do everything in your power. What others can not do that is what you must do for my boys." It was getting more difficult for Elizabeth to breathe and Carlisle was feeling great sympathy for her and her family. With a final glance at each of her sons who Carlisle noticed looked so much like her, Elizabeth Masen took her last breath and died holding on to the hand of Carlisle Cullen.
Carlisle took a moment to ponder what he was about to do to these boys how he would change their lives forever. Carlisle worked swiftly to get Elizabeth's body down to the morgue. No one gave Carlisle a second glance as he rolled the gurney with Elizabeth's body on it down the hall. It was difficult to find a place to lay Elizabeth in the morgue without placing her on another body but he somehow managed.
Half racing back to the room where both boys lay at human speed he was faced with a slight dilemma, how on earth was he going to get two seventeen year olds out of the hospital without anyone noticing?
Carlisle paced for a minute before deciding he would just have to pretend the boys were dead and he was taking them down to the morgue to join their mother. Gently he picked up James and placed him on one gurney with his brother, and then he carefully pushed the pair down towards the morgue. He received a few sympathetic looks from nurses who knew who the boys were. As soon as he reached the morgue he picked one boy in each of his arms and sprinted out the back door, knowing that he would never be back.
Carlisle paused to look back and make sure no one was coming out the back door. Knowing that some day after enough time had passed he and the boys would probably be back but not for many years. He tried to preserve these memories so he could share them with his new sons when they could not remember their human years.
He also stopped for a brief and hurried moment outside their old home. Then he was off running so fast in the direction of his home that no human could see him or his two young charges.