Alrighties, apologies to begin with. I'm guessing most of you will have probably forgotten the story by now, but I blame myself completely, since I haven't updated in MONTHS. So, I'm very, very, VERY sorry -writer's block is a total femaledog. But I have been trying very hard, in the past month or so to make up for the non-updation... you'll see by the end of the chapter!

Also, I HAVE FINALLY CROSSED A HUNDRED REVIEWS! Lots of love and hugses to all those wonderful readers out there. If you've reviewed and I haven't replied, it's because I'm a totally erratic femaledog, but do not for one moment think your precious review went unheeded. Each and every one of those goodies mean a lot to me, so thank you all very, very much for your support.

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Deadlock

Somehow, a whole month passed. When I look back on those few weeks, I never do so with any amount of contentment. After that harrowing day, we neither of us felt strong enough to attempt further arguments and discord. And so, we completely abandoned the topic.

On the surface, everything seemed fine. Carlisle was as assiduously caring as ever, as I was to him. We spent the days mostly in bed, our passion sharply increasing to violent levels. Perhaps we both thought it could fill the sudden void that had been left in our understanding of each other, or maybe it was a form of fervent apology for all the harsh words and the drama. But whatever it was, the void still remained, tugging at our consciences and poisoning the bliss that was our married life. The void was faith.

It was the nights that really took a toll on me. Carlisle would depart to the hospital for his usual shift, and I would be left alone, brooding and despaired. Every night, I never failed to settle into a chair which I'd drag in front of our full-length mirror. And every night, I'd simply stare at my reflection, at just one single facet of me: my eyes.

They reminded me of my naïve, innocent life as a Newborn, nearly seven years ago. But how happy I had been then! The scarlet eyes were merely a sign, a symbol that denoted my beginning in a new life, as a new person. But now, my eyes simply screamed murder. Every night I'd sit and gaze at them unseeingly, sometimes patiently watching them to see if the red was at least dulling to console my ragged guilt. No such luck.

And so, every night, as I'd sit gazing into my soulless red eyes, I'd think of nothing but the Void. Because according to me, the only loss in faith pertained to me –that if Carlisle had lost his faith in me, I certainly hadn't lost my faith in him. I had simply lost faith in myself.

I had had similar thoughts before –close to the end of my human life –but then, the bigger loss of faith in that case concerned the entire planet. I had lost faith in the world, in the justness of things, and had opted to end my sufferings, once and for all. But I had never, never lost faith in myself.

I had lost so much faith in myself that I hadn't even gone hunting. I'd found, to my distaste, that feeding on human blood kept my thirst-frenzy away for a long time; unlike animal blood, on which we had to keep gorging like leeches every now and then. Thus, my sudden abstinence didn't affect me too adversely, and although Carlisle tried to reason with me, even he let off quickly, perhaps already knowing exactly how long a human-fed vampire could endure. Or perhaps he could see how little I trusted myself –so little that the very subject of hunting gave me a sort of gag reflex.

One may wonder why Carlisle wouldn't do anything more to ease my troubles… I too wondered very, very briefly, before acquitting him completely after he did try to assuage me, just once. That attempt was a disaster, so I think he was justified in fearing another such mishap.

We had been in bed, of course(the fourth new bed that week), and we had taken a slight pause because the bed was creaking ominously, when he tried to broach the subject.

"Esme, love," he said softly, his fingers drawing languorous circles on my back, "maybe it's time we went hunting again."

I stiffened up immediately and his doodling stopped.

"No," I said in a low voice.

Slowly his hands shifted to cup my face. "My darling… you have to feed."

"No."

"Esme-"

"No!"

I wrenched myself away from his arms, his fingers screeching on my skin as we parted.

"I don't want to, Carlisle," I said tersely, standing in the middle of the room, while he stared at me from the bed, stunned. "I do not wish it. Please don't make me."

"You will eventually have to hunt again, my dear," he said gently.

"I'm aware of it," I snapped harshly.

"And you needn't worry, I'll be accompanying you-"

"I'm aware of that as well."

Carlisle paused, and I realised belatedly that my words were very rude.

"I'm sorry if you'd rather hunt alone, but-"

"Carlisle-"

"I'm afraid there's no getting rid of me. I will hunt with you." He sounded a little like he was admonishing a child. It was that image that managed to calm me.

"I know, Carlisle," I said softly. "That day will come when it does. It's just not today."

Carlisle sighed. "Do you want to do the same mistake you did last time, then?" –he asked quietly. "Straining your craving to breaking point and then losing control?"

Although his tone was mild and anything but accusatory, I found myself getting infuriated. "Last time I didn't hunt sooner because I thought I had better things to do. You were there –did you think all that time together was a mistake, then?" –I spat.

"Esme, my love," he said hurriedly, "you know I didn't mean that."

"Then stop nagging me!"

Two seconds of silence passed, both of us overwhelmed by my raised voice.

"Esme," he began anew, even more slowly than before, "darling. Do stop and think for a moment. I'm hardly the nagging type, am I?" A small amused smile crept on his face. The ridiculousness of that idea hit me at the same moment, and my shoulders, which had been stiffened in defiance, slumped.

"I… I'm sorry, Carlisle," I said quietly and trudged to the bed to melt into his waiting arms. "I didn't mean to yell."

He kissed me softly on my head, embracing me tightly. "I know."

"Just… don't let's talk about it."

I felt, rather than heard, him sigh softly. Nevertheless, he said, "As you wish."

And that was where the matter ended.

About a week after that argument, I decided to try hunting myself. Carlisle was in the hospital, and I was secretly convinced that hunting in night-time was best –no self-respecting human could be found alone deep in the woods this close to winter.

But I couldn't. I'd barely gone half a mile in when I smelt my old trail –and Carlisle's –the trail we'd made on our return from my massacre. All the words and emotions of that day came crashing down upon me, and, for lack of a better word, I bolted. I ran and did not dare look back. I had the eeriest feeling that my kill was somehow watching me, that abominable leer on his face.

That night was the worst, when I sat down and wondered how I'd ever hunt. I didn't think I would ever want to carry out an act which disgusted me so much, but then again, I had to do it, for the sake of survival. How would I ever force myself to do it again?

Carlisle knew about my sojourn immediately when he came home the next morning. When I asked him how, he admitted sheepishly that he had been checking for my track every day, hoping that I would face my fears.

"I tried, Carlisle," I berated myself. "I tried to face them, but I couldn't. I just couldn't."

As usual he refused to find any fault in me. "It was a start, my love. You will find your strength once more, I am sure of it."

I disagreed, but didn't say anything. Carlisle, I had discovered, for all his mildness had stubbornness to rival that of Edward's.

So, just to spite his unchanging optimism, I didn't even step outside the house the next day. When he returned home, he did not show any sign of disappointment, which irked me. Instead, he looked almost excited. After our usual passionate greeting(no amount of childish temper could dampen my delight at his return), he handed me a small package, his eyes twinkling.

"I've got you something."

I looked at it curiously, hesitating to unwrap the plain brown wrapper.

"Go on," Carlisle urged me softly, encircling my waist with his arms and looking at it over my shoulder.

I complied and carefully tore away the wrapper to discover a small, velvet box, the kind that were used to keep jewellery.

My prickly mood, which had momentarily dulled at his arrival, suddenly rose to the fore again.

"Carlisle, what's this?"

"Open it."

I did. And glimmering at me from within, resting on old blue velvet, were a pair of diamond and ruby earrings. The work was exquisite and the stones were absolutely breathtaking in their flawlessness.

I shrugged away from Carlisle's embrace and faced him. "What is this?" –I demanded, brandishing the earrings.

Carlisle appeared confused at my obvious disgruntlement. "A gift, my darling, what else?"

"Why?"

"Do I need a reason?"

"Of course."

"The fact that I love you does not suffice?"

I huffed, frustrated. "You don't need these-" I shook the box violently, "to tell me you love me, Carlisle! What are they really for?"

He was infuriatingly calm as he answered, "Well, my clever little wife, they also serve to be a sort of reward for your effort yesterday." He smiled and said softly, "You did good, my dear. You deserve them."

The next moment I did something so spontaneously that I shocked both of us. With a blur of movement, I raised the box over my head and threw it onto our wooden floor. The box flew apart into pieces, the wooden board flooring cracked and several of the stones in the earrings turned to powder.

"I do not deserve them," I said thickly. "I don't."

Carlisle's shocked expression quickly turned to one of sadness and sympathy. "Esme, my darling-"

"Don't you understand?" –I cried. "I can't –I can't do this anymore, Carlisle. I can't bear it. You're burdening me! You're burdening me with your faith and your irrational, ill-placed, stupid trust!"

"My trust," Carlisle said firmly, "is neither ill-placed nor irrational."

"Stop it!" –I all but screeched. "Please, Carlisle. Stop it, stop being so maddeningly calm, so –so infuriatingly complacent. Please, I've had enough!"

My voice echoed in the sudden silence. Carlisle was frozen, as though in shock, but I somehow sensed it was something more –his expression reminded me of our big fight after Edward's departure. The seconds ticked past and I felt worse with each passing moment. Finally, when my guilt and my frustration reached fever pitch, I broke the silence with a shaky –"Carlisle…"

He silenced me with a raised palm. "Esme," he said, his voice curiously toneless, "It's… alright. I –I will not bother you about this again." I tried to speak but he cut me off with a long, hard kiss that caught me completely by surprise. "I don't like this," he said softly, "I don't want us to be like this. I love you so much-" here his voice broke, and I nearly melted at the obvious sign of deep emotion, "-and I want to spend our every moment together proving that to you, not –not like this."

Slowly, I raised my hands, which had been hanging limply at my side, to caress his face. "You don't need to prove anything, my darling," I whispered. "Surely you know that."

Needless to say, that tiff ended right there, both of us unwilling to even think back on it.

Later that evening, after our intense day together, I had hoped my mood to be a little on the brighter side, but the moment Carlisle stepped outside the house, all I could see was the dead man, his mangled neck dripping blood onto our carpet, the shattered rubies from the earrings matching the blood perfectly…

I was going mad.

The hopelessness of the situation was literally enough to make me tear out a few hairs from my head, until the momentary pain and the vain realisation that it would never grow back stopped me.

What am I going to do? –I asked myself again and again over the next few days. The situation was simply getting worse and worse. Carlisle and I barely spoke, and the reason was obvious: both of us were afraid we'd descend into more heady arguments. Every moment I spent with him was overflowing with violent passion, every moment away from him was filled with the pain of happy remembrances and the despair at present circumstances. And I still could not bring myself to hunt. I tried, I did, but… it never worked. I never could go a few steps beyond the backyard. I just couldn't.

Such was the state of my life, when the 24th of September came.

Our anniversary.

Carlisle had left as usual to the hospital the previous night. I didn't even dare suggest him to apply for a day's leave. Our marriage was already on such turbulent grounds; on what basis could I even pretend to celebrate that kind of union? Carlisle felt the same way, I think, because he didn't say a word either. We were very ostentatiously normal in our behaviour, and I bid him goodbye on the eve of our anniversary with no reduction nor increase of my usual fervour.

But there the normalcy ended.

I must add here as a side note: we rarely received any mail. A year after our marriage, Carlisle had finally dared to subscribe to a popular medical magazine that came out once a month –this was our only regular correspondence, which would definitely end when we moved out of Chippewa Falls. Bank statements arrived at various times of the year without any real pattern since Carlisle had numerous accounts to spread out the storage of ready cash. And yes, I mean just 'ready cash' for emergencies(hasty departures, for example) –just a small portion of the immense wealth that Carlisle had accumulated in his two-and-a-half centuries of existence.

So I wasn't surprised when I noticed two important-looking envelopes in our scarcely-used mailbox. As I gathered them up, I noticed a third object in the box –a postcard. My mind leaped to the one and only possible sender.

Edward.

I rushed inside and flung the bank statements away, keeping my eyes trained on the beautifully painted picture that was the postcard. It was a bridge –a pristine white bridge over a blue river. A steamboat chugged down the river and green foliage bordered the scene prettily. I turned it around hastily to see the return address.

Minneapolis, Minnesota.

That wasn't too far away at all! My heart leaped at Edward's proximity. It was then that I noticed his neat handwriting. I think I was only expecting this postcard to be a sort of flag to his location. I wasn't expecting him to write anything.

Carlisle and Esme,

In solitude, where one is least alone, I think of you both and hope that you remain as happy as I remember from our glorious years together.

Have a wonderful Anniversary.

Edward

The few lines, curiously impersonal, and yet intimate at the same time, left me frozen, my mind all a-flutter. What was I doing? We did have so many glorious years together –how could we disregard such joy?

It was barely twenty minutes after Carlisle had left. Tucking Edward's postcard into my belt, I strode into the backyard, keeping my emotions in check with tremendous effort. As rocky as our married state was, I simply could not disregard the momentousness of the day. I loved him, more than my life, more than the lives of any amount of humans that I'd slaughter. It was as simple as that. As I stepped into the woods beyond our yard, I felt the familiar guilt and despair creeping up my spine. Smashing my teeth together, I willed myself to keep walking. Go back, a voice nagged at me from the back of my head, a voice I was very much used to. You're a monster. You'll make it worse. You'll kill more innocents. Go back.

If I could cry, tears would have been pouring incessantly from my eyes all the while. Although it seemed to me my tread was slower and more laboured than usual, I was walking in the normal pace of a human. Still, it wasn't a good sign. I should have been running by then. My eyes were burning with the lack of any tears, my chest felt congested –so congested, in fact, that I nearly gave up trying to breathe. But I remembered that not-breathing had gotten me into this mess –never again would I make that mistake.

I finally reached the point at which Carlisle and I had paused on our return from my crime, when he had offered me his coat to cover my shirtless torso. There, I paused, almost infinitesimally. The voice was screaming in my head by now.

Go back! You're a monster! GO BACK!

"NO!" –I screeched suddenly, my hands covering my ears, my scream echoing for miles in the silent woods. No, no, no! I was not a monster. I was Esme Cullen, a vampire with sensibilities, a vampire who was once human, who could and would make mistakes. Most importantly, I was Carlisle Cullen's wife. I would do this –just because I loved him so.

So I broke into a run.

I was running after weeks, and the feeling was exhilarating. All my fear, my guilt, my doubts, were left behind in the fringe of the forest near my home. I was, at that moment, one with the wind –I was the wind. An ephemeral creature, a magnificent whirlwind of terrifying beauty. There was nothing else, no other thought, no other desire. I was the huntress.

I sought my prey.

It was easy, too shockingly easy. I made no mistakes whatsoever. The wind guided me, I smelt the herd in advance, I stayed away from the wind blowing in their direction, I chose one calmly from a distance and hunted it down with admirable precision. Not a drop of blood fell on my white dress.

Before I knew it, I had tracked another unsuspecting creature and sated my thirst completely. The smoothness of the entire operation shocked me. I was worried about this?

I stood near the drained carcass of my second kill, lost in thought. All that uneasiness, all the angst, all the drama –and it came down to this? I think I was secretly expecting fanfare. Or at least applause. It made me feel like I had wasted the previous weeks away with all the tension, instead of spending them blissfully in Carlisle's arms.

But, no. The last few weeks did mean something. If we had suffered, we had done so to rise from the ashes of the troubles, happier and more in love than before. Carlisle had learnt about my self-expectant issues and I… well, I didn't exactly know what Carlisle had done, but at least I knew he had done something. It's a start, I told myself. He would tell me eventually –after all, we had all eternity together.

Smiling lightly, remembering how the word 'eternity' had just about made us go crazy every time we mentioned it during our so-called engagement, I suddenly realised what to do.

I would go to the clearing. I would face my demons. I had already made it halfway, and I knew, with some inbuilt certainty, that when I would complete the journey of forgiveness, Carlisle would be there, waiting for me.

I turned my sights northwards instantly and broke into a run. Carlisle would be there, I just knew it. Perhaps he'd accuse me again of blind faith, but I wouldn't be wrong, would I?

I burst into the clearing sooner than I thought I would, but I knew it immediately and skidded to a stop, sending leaves flying everywhere. I did not need superior senses to tell me –Carlisle was not there.

Disappointment threatened to crash over me, gnawing at the edges of my newly healing mind. I almost fell into my lowest state of depression yet again, but… as I said, I almost did.

Carlisle had been here. Recently. That very fact set my nerves afire, the vampire equivalent of a furiously thumping heart, I'd discovered. I easily found his scent on the trunk of a tree… which continued upwards. He had climbed a tree?

Without hesitation I shimmied up the tree, the bark and the twigs scraping my skin harmlessly.

There.

A square canvas package was nestled in the crook of a sturdy, wide branch. I carefully lifted the package and sat in its place, finding it to be a perfectly comfortable perch. I undid the package hurriedly, ripping pieces of canvas off in the process to find… a leather briefcase.

So Carlisle had bought me a leather briefcase for our anniversary. How… thoughtful? I paused at that thought, then laughed it away.

I opened it a lot more gently than I had the canvas, and nestled inside was a neat bundle of papers with writing all over them. I pulled the sheaf out with a thrill, recognising Carlisle's handwriting. Goodness, he'd written pages and pages.

On top of the sheaf was a thicker sheet of paper, folded twice. I took a deep breath. This was it. I unfolded the top sheet slowly, the nerves in my fingers trilling with energy.

It was a letter. And it was the most beautiful letter I had ever received.

Esme,

I am so proud of you, my dearest. I knew you would come tonight. I did tell you my trust was not ill-placed, didn't I? Well, now you know –I place my trust in your love for me. It is the one thing that I am forever certain of, and I was a fool not to acknowledge it sooner. And so, to demonstrate the depth of my trust, I give you the story of my life –myself, bared open, the man behind the doctor, the man you love so absolutely and the man who loves you so much that he'd rather live behind a mask for eternity than lose you.

I love you so very much, my dear. And it is only because I know you love me as well, that I give you this narrative; the story of a monster, who chased redemption for centuries before he was offered it by a dryad in forest green…

Happy Anniversary, my love.

Carlisle

A/N: Oh, yes! Carlisle's POV in the offing! Can it be true? Next chapter for more details...

Also, did you notice the pic for my fic?(*gigglerhymegiggle*) An authentic pic of a 1920's couple(or so Google tells me). My new idea, thanks to ff. net's new Image feature -the image for the story will keep changing with its progression through the years! Doesn't that sound awesome!

And, while we're on images, the link to a picture of Edward's postcard is on my profile(yes, IT'S REAL -again, according to Google).