Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga and all characters associated with it are the property of Stephenie Meyer. The poem used at the beginning of this chapter is the property of the Trustees of the E. E. Cummings Trust. Neither belong to me.

I

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fare(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in by e. e. cummings

January, 1921

The thin sheet of black ice that shrouded the ground like clockwork every January, although the most visually stunning, was the hidden enemy of those who walked upon it, Carlisle concluded. Full of equal amounts of merriment and whisky, the humans who walked upon the glass-like layer believed themselves to be immune to its assault until they found themselves sprawled upon it.

It was in this light that the hospital was brought into a monotonous routine. The winter, filled with injuries sustained from falls or the chill, the summer, a vast majority of cases being sunstroke or burns of the extreme variety. They were punctuated by other cases that differed, automobile accidents seeing a paticular rise with the technological advancements of the decade, but Carlisle remained surprised at how utterally against humans the world seemed to be. This was very much the case tonight.

Carlisle turned and walked back to the shared office, finding it empty as he entered and filed the paper file he carried in the aluminium cabinet. Footsteps approached from behind, those that he wouldn't have heard from had he been human. He purposely fumbled over the cabinet for a few more seconds, only turning when he was sure that Doctor Williams was leaning on the cabinet behind him, propped up on his elbow.

"A body has just been brought into the morgue. I'm sorry to ask, yet again, but would you mind?" Both had often been on the long night shifts at the understaffed hospital. The dark circles under Carlisle's eyes and his pale skin gave the impression of fatigue. Doctor Williams' similar circles and slump as he stood demonstrated his very much real fatigue.

"No, not at all," Carlisle said as he held up one hand to stop the other doctor. "Were they pronounced at the scene?"

Doctor Williams shook his head. "They brought her in, but I pronounced the death. It would be near to impossible for anyone to survive the multitude or severity of the damage she suffered," He said, shrugging. "From what neighbours have said, she had a fondness for evening walks upon the pathways near the cliff; there's a lot of fog out there at the moment, the fishermen who found her are pretty sure she fell,"

Carlisle nodded. "Have any family been in contact?"

Again, he shook his head. "She lived on her own, and had no known family, not that anyone knew of at least. I think she stayed quite distant from the community, they hadn't seen much of her at all," He sighed. "It's a shame, she wasn't much older than my own daughter."

"You should go home to your family," Carlisle said. He couldn't help but see some of his own experiences in this isolated Jane Doe, but he didn't like to dwell on the similarities. As callous as it may have felt, if he were to dwell on every pitied past, he would remain trapped in the same cycle of thoughts. He pulled on his coat for appearances, picked up his briefcase and he left the office, "I'll fill in the paperwork on my way out,"

He heard a final thanks as he left the office and walked in the direction of the morgue. The blood, now much less of a pull to Carlisle, was a common scent throughout the veins of the hospital. It surrounded him but no longer taunted him. He wasn't surprised by the earthy undertones, the scents of lake water, plant life and dirt. As he walked closer to the morgue the scent so inconsiderably hidden beneath all of this sprung on him, like a cat waiting to pounce. Sandalwood and ginger, so distinctive that it couldn't be. Underneath all of the aromas intermingling with each other in their complex dance, one thing struggled for his attention. A struggling thump of a heart beat was being smothered beneath everything that originally fought for his attention. Oh, this was no corpse.

This was so certainly, so undeniably and inherently her that it broke him. His marble hard exterior cracked as easily as glass. He wondered, for a short second, whether he should have turned that very minute and ran faster than he should have in the presence of any human, like he had ten years ago in 1911. He was pulled forwards and this time he allowed that invisible pull to have its wicked way with him.

There she lay, her whole body covered by a sheet of pure white stained crimson. Her heart beat on, the slow and faint thumps pulling him closer and closer. Carlisle willingly let it do so.

The heavy metal door slammed behind him as he reached out to grab the edge of the sheet covering her. A wave of the boldest but purest caramel hair, closed eyelids which he knew hid eyes the colour of dry bark, and a wonderfully heart-shaped face.

"Oh, Esme, what happened to you?"

The once vibrant sixteen year old lay before him; her face was slightly more angular than it had been, her body remained slim, but was much softer. She had recently given birth, he could see that as clear as day, but the rest of how she had wound up in this situation was as unclear as fog, muddled and hazed. Her limbs protruded from her torso at abnormal language, contorted in a fashion unfixable for even the most precise handy work. Her lips, pink with undertones of a vile grey, were parted to reveal the blood pooled in her mouth, trickling from the corner in one long winding path. The lone path ran over her chin, between the valley of her breasts and pooled in the shallow dip of her naval. The rest of her body was covered in blood and dirt from where she must have landed. Her skin, which he once remembered to hold a natural tan, had turned to a sickly shade of grey. Not one surface of her skin remained untouched by the horrors she must have seen. Her own blood had wrecked havoc over her body, and her slowing heartbeat reminded him of that.

She had moved from the little farm in the outskirts of Ohio, something which she had spoke of ten years ago, but he could tell this wasn't all that had happened in the last ten years. Apart from the wounds she had received from her fall, there were others; there was a scar on her forehead and eyebrow, Carlisle could feel the poorly healed bones in her wrist. There were other poorly healed breaks as well to her ribs and nose when he looked closer. What had Esme been through to get here?

"Oh, Esme," he repeated, dumbfounded but only able to pity her.

He thought of Edward. Edward was young, too young for this life perhaps. He had been angry consistently throughout his newborn year, and slowly, in the two years his energy hadn't diminished, but he had begun to accept the life Carlisle had given him. He became happier in his new found strength and indestructibleness, despite remaining a teenager through and through. He revelled in his gift and his inhuman strength and this brought Carlisle joy. He missed his parents, particularly his mother. It would have been bizarre for him not to.

Carlisle couldn't imagine how Edward would react if he were to bring Esme home. He may accuse him of being selfish, subjecting another to our existence. He may resent him, and believe this was an attempt of Carlisle's to replace his mother. He may even become hostile.

But what would happen if Carlisle were to leave her? He and Edward had been reasonably content for the last three years, the addition of Esme to their group would change their situation entirely. Carlisle doubted whether he could be content knowing that he had left Esme in the morgue while the glimmer of life within her trickled through his hands like sand. The situation was entirely in his hands, but slowly slipping through as her heart beat grew slower and more feeble. His brain said to run, but his own still heart screamed the opposite.

His proverbial heart conquered in an easy victory.

Reluctantly he moved from where he knelt at the side of her gurney, and turned to the paperwork he had abandoned on the table. Faster than he would have done so in any other situation, he filled out the necessary information, and at the bottom, scrawled one last messy note.

Cadaver donated to University of Wisconsin Medical School

With no known family, there would be no suspicion around the donation, and by the time another ventured into the morgue, they would merely suspect that she had already been transported to the medical school. He filed the paperwork and turned back to Esme, where she still fought feebly on.

"Hold on, Esme," He didn't know if she could hear him, and if she could, he still didn't know if she would be able to make any sense of his whispered reassurances. He couldn't deny that they weren't even for his own gain, as he repeated her name like a prayer.

In order to protect body her modesty and shield her from the cold, he took off his coat and wrapped it around Esme, pulling it so that it lay snugly around her, holding her within it as he would wrap a glass ornament in newspaper. Her heart still thumped, although growing slower and slower with every beat, on the verge of collapse from exhaustion. He gathered her into his arms with ease, but cringed at how loosely she lay in his arms.

Knowing that the trail behind the hospital was relatively unlit, and that it would eventually lead him to the house that he and Edward shared in the most deserted section of forest, he took this route, abandoning the recently brought car at the hospital.

Carlisle ran, much faster than he believed he ever had before, but this movement still seemed so painstakingly slow as he listened Esme's heartbeat, and practically felt the heat leaving her body. He held her close to his own body, and was all too aware of her blood seeping through the thick wool of his coat and onto his jumper and shirt. This only prompted him to hold her tighter than him, as if under the impression that world was waiting to take her away from him again.

For a split second he wondered if this was a sick game that fate was playing with him. They had been brought back together through a random series of events, but was fate only dangling her in front of him, just to take her away again? If he slept, he would have thought he was dreaming.

Esme's head hung back and her climbs hung limply at her side; another reminder of her life slowly trickling away, a reason for Carlisle to truly use every resource in his possession to save her, and a reason for him to push his legs to move even faster than they had ever moved before. However fast he ran, it didn't seem fast enough.

He was unsure as to whether any of the words he whispered to Esme, asking, telling, begging, her to hold on, actually formed coherent sentences. Carlisle did however hope that he was coming within the range for Edward to be able to hear him and would be able to gain some warning from the muddle inside of his head about the catalyst he was planning on bringing into their lives.

Edward did hear. As Carlisle approached the small house engulfed in amongst the trees, a faint light came from the front door, which hung open, and Edward stood beside it. His jaw gaped open, but he stood frozen on the front porch and his hair fell forwards, strands of bronze covering his eyes. Edward didn't utter a word until Carlisle rushed past him on the steps and through the doorway.

Edward followed Carlisle, slamming the door so hard that Carlisle was surprised the panelling around the door frame didn't break. "What are you doing?" Edward shouted, his voice uncharacteristically trembling, as Carlisle lay Esme on the sofa. Carlisle was almost completely oblivious to Edward as he knelt at her side, pulling the collar of his coat down slightly to give himself access to the jugular.

You know what I'm doing.

Her heartbeat was little more than a flicker now, and Carlisle leant down until his nose brushed against Esme's hair, only causing the venom to flow unguarded into his mouth even more than it had already done. He felt the slightest trickle from the corner of his mouth.

Carlisle was only mildly aware of Edward standing behind them, his eyes fixed on Esme in a mixture of horror and confusion. This had little impact on him, as without hesitation Carlisle sank his teeth into the skin of her neck, as it parted like water under his strength to release a tsunami of blood, and allow his venom into her bloodstream in exchange. Carlisle allowed his venom to enter into the open bite on her neck for as long as he dared before pulling away and spitting the blood that filled his mouth onto the floorboards next to him, despite all of his deepest instinctive telling him to savour each drop of the precious elixir.

"Carlisle," Edward's voice was tense. He turned to see Edward, his eyes darkened significantly, rooted to the ground like a tree that had been there for centuries, staring at them. One hand was clutching at his throat, while the other smothered his mouth and nose. It was only then that he recognised that not only was Esme covered in her own blood, but he was now covered as well. The white shirt he wore was completely stained crimson and blood had seeped through to the under-shirt he wore beneath. His white skin was stained on his neck and along his jawline, as were his lips. Carlisle felt like he looked more like the vampire of fiction that he had ever before in his years. Edward's thirst had been pushed to the limit as he backed towards the door. "I can't stay," he all but gasped as he left the house.

You'll come back? Edward looked back at him and nodded, just before disappearing into the dense forest.

Carlisle turned all of his attention back to Esme. She hadn't moved an inch since he had bitten her, but he could tell that his efforts had been enough to increase her heart rate in the slightest. Concerned that this wasn't enough to push her through the transformation, he pulled the collar of the coat aside and sank his teeth into the skin under each arm. She hadn't moved like Edward had, or even made a sound of protest. Was he too late? No, it wasn't. She didn't move as suddenly as Edward had at this stage, but he hadn't suffered damage like she had. A gurgling sound emitted from her throat. It was quiet, but that one sound was all of the reassurance he needed. Her eyelids flickered a fraction, the whites of her eyes being visible for less than a second, more than enough time to reassure Carlisle.

Strangely he found himself smiling. From here onwards he could be sure that Esme would be able to see it through the transformation, and he wondered, for a split second, whether her spinal damage would mean that the beginning of the transformation, before any of the healing took place, would be painless as she remained numb. He couldn't be sure of this until Edward came back, but she expressed no pain as Edward had.

"You're going to be alright," he reassured her, but there was also a high possibility that he was similarly reassuring himself, knowing that Esme would survive the transformation. As if on cue, he heard the faintest sound originating from the very core of her body, almost silenced by the rapidly speeding up beat of her heart. It could only be compared to the crackling of embers in a fire, and Carlisle know, as the healing of her bones began, this would soon lead to Esme becoming aware of the burning carried through her body by his venom.

In that moment however all Carlisle could do was sit at her side, his position on his knees unchanged, as he watched the healing process with fully consuming curiosity. It happened slowly at first, as the crackling sound continued and her bones mended themselves before him, first her spine, and then spreading to the other breaks throughout her body. In wonder, he looked on as her unnaturally twisted wrists straightened, and her legs slowly shifted back into a normal position. He had witnessed transformations many times before, but not one of this nature. This was an alien experience, but as time went on, he became more and more at ease at Esme's side.

When Esme's fingers grasped the sleeve of his coat, Carlisle knew that her internal injuries were healing as well, including the spinal cord, along with all feeling in her body. There was nothing he could do to even touch at the pain that the burning brought, but he soaked a dishcloth from the kitchen with cold water, and laid it across her forehead in hopes that it would provide some light relief. Esme's legs thumped against the cushions of the sofa as she kicked them, but he took both of her arms in his own this hands this time, and tried to wrap her upper body in his arms, although this proved to be difficult as Esme's movements became more violent and erratic. Edward had once admitted that when Carlisle had held him still during his transformation, the burning lessened a fraction.

Esme had started to cry out as the abrasions to her skin stitched themselves together, and Carlisle could now see that as her external injuries disappeared, her external pain only worsened. He held her closely as she threw her head back and cried out; she sobbed and screamed, all while he leant close so his lips were right at her ear and spoke to her. He didn't know if she could hear him at this stage, or comprehend what he told her, but Carlisle reassured and comforted her, sometimes full coherent sentences, but other times only the most important snippets.

Carlisle didn't know how long they stayed like that, he hadn't been keeping track. But he gripped both of her hands in his own, and although she fought against his grasp at first, her struggle seemed to fade slowly. The light of the moon was visible when he looked up through the window and feel the drop in temperature through the gap at the bottom of the door. This told Carlisle that the first day of the transformation had passed.

All traces of injury, excluding the now dried blood covering her skin and matting her hair, had disappeared. She was far from at peace, struggling more than ever on the sofa, her back arched and her knuckles white as she cried out, her face tear streaked and her expression troubled.

Reluctantly Carlisle left her side, only to return minutes later with a basin of cold water and sponge. He washed over her body with the sponge, soaking her skin and ridding her of the shell-like dried blood that covered her. Meticulously he carried on until the water from the wrung out sponge ran clear and the bucket was full of the all-invasive translucent red.

In a brief moment of silence between Esme's surges of pain, he sat back and watched. Without the blood caked onto her skin and in her hair, she could have been sleeping. Of course it would have been a restless sleep. Even when she didn't make a sound, she turned her head from side to side with her brow furrowed and her eyelids squeezed tight shut. Her mouth hung open ever so slightly, and if he listened closely, he could hear a quiet expression of pain. This was an interval in her transformation; one that brought welcome relief. These moments were brief but valued, as for the majority of the time that he watched her, she continued to cry, scream and wail.

Esme was ever-changing. Her hair, now clean and void of the blood, was still damp, but where it was beginning to dry he could see the caramel that he thought of so fondly. Her complexion had developed from a sickly grey to the palest of pinks, the colour of a pink rose so light that it would have looked white to the untrained eye. Her features changed very little, perhaps sharpened and refined, but she had changed very little from the last time he saw her. Carlisle wondered if she had changed much at all in the last ten years. He hoped she hadn't. He hoped that despite whatever had happened to her since they met, she had retained the light that burned within her, that her spirit hadn't been filed down until it didn't resemble any essence of Esme. He hoped she had been sudden. It seemed irrational, he thought, that he should know so much of someone he had known for a mere few days.

Selfishly, Carlisle hoped that Edward would come home and tell him about her. He could see Esme becoming more conscious of him and her surroundings. She had feebly wrapped her fingers around his as he held her hands, and he knew he could never bring himself to shake her touch away. Perhaps Edward's ability would work on her now? Edward could fill in the blank space that was the last ten years, tell him how aware Esme was, tell him about her.

His insatiable thirst for knowledge had now moved on to Esme, but it could not be quenched. They were alone in the poky drawing room, the two of them illuminated in the same light of the fire He had burnt both his clothes and the coat, knowing the smell of human blood would be overwhelming for Esme and Edward alike. Carlisle had instead dressed Esme in a button-down shirt and slacks of his own, cinched at the waist with a belt, and left her feet bare. The clothes drowned her, and he was sure that Edward's would have been a better fit. Carlisle was still unsure as to how Edward would react to her though. He initial reaction hadn't been at all telling. Although Edward as mentally a twenty year old, a large part of him was still seventeen, both inside and out.

Carlisle didn't know how Edward would react to Esme. He didn't know how willingly he would accept her, if he would want her with them, or how he would treat her.

Carlisle himself was surprised that this didn't bother him as much as he thought it should have. He hoped Edward would warm to Esme, but he didn't want to leave her again.

Then he heard those all familiar heavy footsteps on the ground outside, kicking dirt as if instinctively as they went. Edward entered into Carlisle's field of vision. Edward was ironically hard to read in this moment. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes pointed down, a seemingly sombre gesture, but Carlisle knew this was a neutral stance for him. Edward was no open book, his pages were blank to anyone but himself. There were moments of clarity in which he felt himself growing closer to Edward, and moments in which Edward would turn to Carlisle for guidance, but these were punctuated by Edward's cautiousness and Carlisle's comfort in solitude.

Carlisle left Esme's side to open the door. It was a gesture of welcoming and acceptance more than anything. Both of them knew this and Edward returned his acceptance, and willingly walked straight through the door passed Carlisle. He watched Edward as he approached the sofa where Esme lay. Edward sat on the edge of the walnut coffee table and watched her with a strangely cautious curiosity.

"Why her, in particular, then?" Edward looked up at Carlisle, who was still stood at the door.

"Her name is Esme," Edward remained silent, now watching Carlisle with a raised eyebrow. "I met her ten years ago, when she was sixteen," Carlisle didn't need to be prompted to recall the memory in perfectly refined detail. He watched as Edward processed the detail, coming to his own silent conclusion and nodding slowly.

"She remembers you," he stated, this time boding to Esme. "She cannot place your voice yet, but she remembers it. Her human memories are adjusting themselves, reorganising."

Carlisle suddenly found himself self conscious of his every word. "What else does Esme remember?"

"Apart from you? She remembers who she is. I'm not getting whole memories, snippets more so. I can see a newborn child. Sick, apparently. I can see a cliff-"

"Yes, she fell," Carlisle retorted.

There was a concern behind Edward's eyes. It was a strange mix of horror and confusion. He looked Carlisle straight in the eyes with the lines of someone much older than himself upon his forehead. "No, she jumped, Carlisle," Edward looked down at Esme on the sofa. "That memory is the clearest of all of them. The baby and then the cliff,"

Carlisle pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and pointer finger. "No, no." He all but moaned under his breath.

Edward's expression moved to one of mild distress. "Carlisle, Esme thinks she's dying, being punished..."

In any other time Carlisle would have tried to offer some comfort to Edward, as much as he would accept, but he made the quickest movement he had made in the last three days. He leaned across Edward and grasped both of Esme's hands where they lay at her side. She seemed exhausted by the transformation, but he hoped that it was a sign of the burning waning. She lay in silence except for her laboured breathing, and her eyes were parted slightly. Carlisle could have fooled himself to believe that she was watching him, but he knew it was likely that she could see very little at all, if not only darkness, even in the later stages of her transformation. She cried silently as the very last of the human fluids departed from her body.

"No," Carlisle repeated once again. "Esme, please listen to me. You deserve no suffering, and I will do-" He stopped briefly, correcting himself, "-have done, all that is in my capabilities to stop it," Carlisle felt as if he had entered a contract with Esme, as he had done with Edward three years ago. He had a duty to guide them in this life, being the one who brought them into it himself. He carried on, reassuring Esme, repeating himself over and over as his promise became a mantra.

He was mildly aware of Edward beside them and he looked up at him from where he sat next to Esme. "Is it too much? You could-"

Edward shook his head. He wore the strangest of fond smiles that Carlisle could not read. "No, I will stay," Edward reassured "Her memories are becoming clearer, and her heart is making the final push. I give her an hour."

Carlisle nodded, surprised that he hadn't noticed himself, that Esme was so close to awakening. He knew he should have felt pleased, but nerves washed over him.

"I shouldn't of done this." She committed suicide. I denied her what she wanted.

"No, Carlisle. She recognises and remembers you more clearly now." Edward smiled, this time the pages of his book were full of Edward's spider like scrawl. I am no psychic, and I know what she wanted three days ago as if they had been my own thoughts, but the more you speak to her, the more her thoughts change."

Carlisle didn't need another cue to turn back to Esme.

Author's note: I came across a copy of a Carlisle/Esme fan-fiction that I wrote when I was 12 (I am now 18!) and it was awful, thankfully never uploaded. I haven't touched anything related to twilight since this time really, but I wanted to have a go at rewriting it to see how my writing had changed, so here we go! I have a lot of time on my hands before I go off to university in two months, but it can take me a while to write a chapter and even longer to edit it (I'm dyslexic, perhaps that explains it!) I would really love it if you told me what you thought of my first chapter.