Chapter 38:
An Accidental Need
Sometimes things were still so daunting to think about.
Sometimes she still found herself, scrunched up on the very edge of the bed, unable to bear being in the dark alone any longer. Some nights she couldn't daydream her way seamlessly through to the sunrise.
Once Edward came to her in the night. She sent him quiet pictures of the child who haunted her mind, and he held her hand and told her it was all over. But she still thought about it.
It was impossible to cast a perfect memory in iron and never look upon it again.
The sky was soft outside her bedroom windows. It was blanket-like, stretching forever, covering the stars beyond with a layer of smoky indigo haze. There were fine tendrils of palest blue creeping over the edge of the horizon, like the stars had melted and sunk to the bottom, leaving ghostly trails in their wake. Esme longed to touch them, longed to feel that something beyond this house held promise for her.
But the bright, wild blue became the eyes of the child, and she turned her face away from the sky at once.
That fire inside her chest was still burning strong, charring the bottom of her heart with each passing hour. No matter how many gentle confessions of sharing this pain Carlisle offered her, he could never fully quench this fire...and she could never fully quench his.
All they could do was try. And at the time, trying seemed to be enough.
But when it left her alone at night, Esme began to doubt its subtle powers.
She had imagined Carlisle as a young, helpless boy, being beaten by his father. She had imagined how his small, pale hands would look with the tender pink gashes drawn straight through the center of his smarting palms. She was filled with rage as she envisioned it. If Carlisle's father had only known he was desecrating the hands of the man who would one day be a healer; that his son would one day make it his duty to save lives and touch souls.
How could a father be so heartless?
Esme's eyes glistened with pity, imagining the terrors her loving doctor once had to endure. These images, once branded in her mind, were now just as impossible to erase as the innocent face of her victim...
Carlisle had once told her these kinds of thoughts would break through every now and again. He had told her not to fear them, not to repress them. He expected her to know bravery as only a warrior would. Though taking Carlisle's advice was frightfully easy, it was more difficult than she thought it would be to follow through with it.
At night Esme surrendered to these kinds of thoughts again. The darkness fed them power, and they were stronger than ever before. Her worries sickened her here in the dark, looming around her like unfriendly shadows stalking an unsuspecting maiden. Distractions were plenty, but the memories of her murder came crashing ruthlessly in, brushing away all barriers she had ever built to protect herself from them.
Esme waited for Edward to come and save her from the familiar torment. He must have heard the waves of her distress, must have heard that the ocean of her despair was especially angry tonight. He always came to her when he heard these nightly episodes. He always came to offer his help.
Tonight, he simply had chosen not to come. He had left her to fend for herself.
Rather than surrender to the evil trickery of this dark bedroom alone, Esme somehow summoned the courage to seek out Carlisle in Edward's absence.
This time when she opened the door to peek out of her bedroom, she felt less like a child who feared the dark. This time she felt like a daring damsel, plotting to escape evil spirits. In her footsteps, she felt a weight of maturity, a sense of direction. She knew where she was going; she knew the man she sought.
Acting out a single page of a dark fairy tale, Esme rushed through the hall and down the stairs, her relief building inside of her as she reached the haven where he was usually found. She looked for him in his study, but he was absent from the room. Quickly, her senses directed her back through the winding corridors, following his scent, curiously enough, to the kitchen. Gently, she pushed open the door and found him standing before the counter with a measuring tube of some kind in one hand, a medicine bottle in the other.
There were candles around the counter, at least a dozen of them. Even though there were several oil lamps specifically placed there for kitchen use, Carlisle made use of none. The slim steeples of wax blazed softly around him, dancing quietly from the breeze of her entry. It looked as if he were performing some strange nightly ritual before an altar.
It also looked oddly inviting.
Carlisle stared up in surprise at her unexpected entrance, his fingers wavering with the threat to ruin whatever fragile concoction he was preparing.
"May I stay in here?" she asked, feeling like a homeless woman begging for shelter for the night.
Luckily, this homeless woman had come to the door of the most compassionate soul on earth.
"Of course," he whispered. It unsettled her that his voice had not been a bit stronger, but she welcomed herself in nonetheless. Cautious not to disrupt the creative process of his medicinal meddling, she approached him slowly from the side, casually leaning against the counter to watch.
"Are you feeling well?" he asked quietly.
"Mmhm," she replied absently. "Edward and I hunted this morning."
"Good," he whispered again. It was nighttime, yes, but why should he keep his voice so low? Perhaps he just was so used to being around sleeping patients.
Esme's eyes were distracted by the careful motions of Carlisle's hands as he tipped the medicine bottle to fill a small, clear tube with a dark, poison-scented liquid.
Hand held to her stomach, Esme grew squeamish as she briefly considered that some unfortunate human might have to ingest the stuff.
"Carlisle?" she inquired, his quietness rubbing off on her.
"Hm?" Even that tiny hum of a question sounded so warm coming from him.
She sighed. "What are you making?"
"I'm not making anything—just measuring out proper doses of medicine for each of my patients," he explained as if she were just a curious child. It must have been obvious that she was in a somewhat delicate state right then.
"Oh."
Her eyes drifted up the length of his arm until they rested on his profile. That profile had become so painfully familiar to her. There was a noble strength to the classical angles, but something about Carlisle's profile had always struck Esme as being inherently sad. She didn't know why, but it was perhaps her sensitivity as an artist that led her to find a melancholic softness to the slope of his cheeks, the rise of his forehead, the dip of his nose, the line of his jaw. Candlelight was disturbingly kind to his face.
A pang hit her heart as his eyelashes closed and opened slowly, as his chin lifted slightly, and a soft breath left his lips.
She wanted to tell him every one of her secrets because of the way he had blinked, the way he had tilted his head back, the way he had breathed.
He clearly sensed her stare, and it showed in the set of his features then. She would have looked away, but why would any woman look away from such beauty?
"You usually prefer to stay upstairs during the night," his comforting voice came into the silence. "What brought you down here?"
I was lonely.
She longed to say it, her lips just aching with the words. I am lonely until I am by your side.
But instead, she revealed the reason behind her loneliness.
"You remember when you told me that I would have certain... thoughts, sometimes? And that I shouldn't try to ignore them when they came about?"
She felt his curiosity.
"More memories?" he supposed, almost sounding hopeful.
"It's a little different than that," she whispered cautiously, knowing she was bordering discomfort with the subject at hand. Carlisle took a quiet breath, and though she wasn't even looking at him, she could sense that he had glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
"Do you want to talk about it?" His voice was so gentle it made her want to sob.
Before she could control the action, she had reached out for him, her fingers clasping his sweater against his side. At first it seemed he hadn't noticed, but as soon as her clutch on him tightened, he dropped everything to tend to her. Quite literally, dropped everything in his hands. The heavy scent of the medicine made her stomach twist as the dark syrup bled across the counter from where it had spilled. Even the candle flames around them seemed to tremble in fright.
"Esme—" His voice was urgent now. Not quiet. Not a whisper.
Her hands gripped the front of his shirt, quivering all over uncontrollably as he turned to face her. "Do you think the mother is dying from the grief of losing her child?"
He released the breath he had been holding in a slow, sweet gust across her forehead, and she shivered. His lips were tremulous with unspoken and inadequate words, struggling to think of something to say. He looked so desperate, so lost, yet so determined, so fixated on offering some kind of help to her.
The strain of his frustration slipped away, freeing his jaw to move slowly in speech. "Esme...You cannot worry over things like that."
"I must worry. What else can I do?" she gasped, sputtering in outrage that he would even consider it possible that she not worry. "I have nothing else, Carlisle. My heart aches, so terribly, because I know what it is like to lose a child! Somewhere out there, a woman is in mourning, and it is all my fault—"
"Children are lost every day, Esme. Every day," his voice verged on being harsh with the effort to make her understand. She was shocked by the outright discomfort in his words at first. Just as quickly as his voice had risen, it dropped again to the patient murmur she knew. "It is a fact of life. It will happen whether we choose to ignore it or acknowledge it. But we mustn't obsess over it. You're only destroying yourself by thinking of things like that."
The logic coming from Carlisle's lips suddenly filled her in forces unintended. They were never more the lips of a doctor than they were now – the soft, pink, delicate bows of flesh made for speaking truth. She breathed raggedly, trying to absorb his good sense as her heart thumped wildly in her imagination.
"I must be filled with demons," she sobbed.
His arms swung around her fiercely, pulling her in against him. The wonderful force of it almost knocked her breathless. "Esme, that is preposterous."
"I don't want to think about terrible things anymore," she whimpered, shaking her head against his chest as if to rub away the thoughts from her mind. "I just want to forget everything and move on!"
His hands held firmly to her back as she shuddered through the sobs, and only when her body was too tired to carry on did he allow his arms to release her. He took her head between both his hands and gazed at her for a long time, as if the heat of his stare would somehow melt away the grief, if he only stared long enough.
"Esme, do you know how many times a day 'terrible things' will cross my mind?" he whispered. "Countless," he answered himself. "But I trust that the pain holds a purpose. I know that, in the end, something good will always come out of something evil." His voice softened as the edge of his finger stroked across her cheek.
"But why can't I forget this? Why can I not put it behind me?" she demanded pitifully.
As he saw her agony, his expression changed to a look of purest, strangest admiration. It almost floored her, the utter fondness that flooded his eyes, and she wondered why her hopeless questions had struck him in such a way.
Her eyes furrowed as he cupped her cheeks against his palms and lifted her face ever so slightly to receive the fullness of his gaze.
"Because you have a reckless heart, Esme," he declared breathlessly, his words lighting a welcome fire in her heart. "And that is a wonderful thing. It is a gift." His brows arched lightly over his sparkling eyes, dimples blossoming shyly in his cheeks as he allowed himself to smile. "I know that it can feel like a curse, but you must believe me when I tell you that it is anything but. You have every reason to rejoice in the fierceness of your sympathy, your compassion..."
She almost laughed. "Rejoice? Forgive me, but rejoicing is the last thing I feel like doing these days."
His eyes saddened at her thoughtless comment, and she instantly regretted her words. Before she could apologize, he interrupted her with a forgiving whisper.
"Surely you can find that for every terrible thought you have, a wonderful thought will always have the power to chase it away."
What he had said was undeniable, and proven just from the plethora of wonderful thoughts that rushed through her mind as his touch streamed over her face. She could only gather that the wonderful thoughts Carlisle gave her just by being present were chasing away the terrible thoughts as he spoke...
Esme blinked over venom-coated eyes and sighed, still quivering from her cry. "Tell me something wonderful?" she pleaded.
He looked at first sad, then relieved, then gently amused, his golden eyes rekindling their warm fire of kindness she knew so well. "Tomorrow there will be sunshine," he whispered, and this time she accepted his quiet pitch with grateful ears.
"How do you know that?" she asked with a weak, dubious smile.
"Just a feeling," he sighed pensively, stroking back a silky curl from her forehead. "Can't you feel when the sun is coming?" he asked, as though everyone had uncanny perception of oncoming weather.
Her smile was not so weak as she caught the flash of humor in his gentle eyes. "Sometimes."
"Do you not feel it now?" he asked with a glimpse at the window, daring her to challenge his hopeful prediction.
Blindly, Esme gave a slow nod of her head, not even bothering spare a glance for the window when his face was so close. Sunshine or not, no light could be brighter than the light she found in Carlisle's gaze.
"I think I do," she agreed. And she quivered no more.
-}0{-
It was indeed a very sunny day that followed the long, cold night. Edward had left for the post office well before the sun had risen, but his return was made with haste as he came dangerously close to being seen in the daylight. If it had been Carlisle caught outside, he would have never made it in time. Edward's speed was an endless blessing.
The boy burst through the doors with his overfilled satchel spilling papers all over the floor. He groaned and scooped up the mess in his rush to get inside, as if the sunlight refracting off his skin were painful to endure any longer.
"Have you been to the post office lately?" Edward asked his father as he entered the sitting room, his tone darkened by suspicion.
Carlisle looked up, his eyes a bit wider, innocently startled. "No..." he began warily, sensing his son's distress.
Edward sighed as patiently as possible. "Well, they're very angry with you."
"What for?"
"Precisely that," the teenager laughed curtly. "You never go. I always pick up our mail. They wonder where the hell you are all of the time. Do you know what it's like for me to go in there and hear their suspicious little thoughts beating around my head?" He twirled a finger theatrically in the air beside his temple.
Carlisle straightened, rubbing the tension from the soft space between his eyes with the pad of his thumb. "What business is it of theirs if I send my nephew to retrieve my mail?"
Edward leaned against the door jamb with a shrug. "There's something about the confidentiality. They have these new laws going around. They're thinking of only allowing the addressed person to pick up his mail."
Carlisle laughed humorlessly as he slid the writing desk drawer shut. "Well that can't be going over well with everyone else."
"I never said it was, but you have to show your face there once in a while," Edward warned. "Mr. Sageman thinks I'm keeping the envelopes with money in them for myself."
Carlisle discreetly covered his lips with one hand.
"It's not amusing, Carlisle."
"I'm sorry."
"Just—Fix it, will you?" Edward's eyes were disconcertingly pleading, his voice surprisingly soft though he spoke a clear demand. "Fix it..."
He was trying to say something more.
Carlisle caught onto this rapidly, his eyes opening gently as he stepped forward.
"Son..."
Edward habitually took a step back, his back stiffening. "I know. I'm sorry, Carlisle. I'm just...a little restless." There was a noticeable shudder of shame in the boy's low voice.
Carlisle glanced uneasily back at Esme, who shifted in uncertainty, aware that her presence may not have been favored during what was likely a more private conversation.
"Do you want to try the academy again?" Carlisle asked Edward softly.
For a moment the boy looked surprised, and slightly proud that his father would consider this.
"I've...been thinking about it."
A small, careworn smile crossed Carlisle's lips. "That's good."
Edward smiled wryly in return, his eyes flicking to Esme once again. Then his smile faded.
"But—I wouldn't want to leave Esme behind unless she felt ready to be on her own."
Carlisle's head turned around instantly to find the quiet woman behind him, his face all but agonized by inconsideration. For a minute, both men stared silently at her, and her heart slowly crumbled, silently summarizing all the ways she was a hindrance to their hopes of leading a normal life.
With a pained smile of apology, Carlisle turned back to his son and whispered, "We'll discuss it another time, Edward."
Nodding solemnly, Edward excused himself from the room.
Several tense moments after his departure, the predictable glitter of piano keys echoed through the hall. Carlisle closed the door carefully before turning back to Esme.
At the stab of his gentle eyes, she rose from her chair and walked ghostlike toward the frosty window.
"I keep him in the house," she murmured tonelessly. "All of the time... He feels trapped here, all because of me."
"Esme..." The doctor's voice was so close behind her, almost moaning her name. It was a forceful drawl, but soft enough to frustrate her, to ignite within her a fierce need to feel some sort of vibration. Despite his closeness, she felt nothing.
"It's so unfair to him," she mourned, touching the window with delicate, wistful fingers.
Carlisle's hand pressed flush against the cold glass, beside and a little above her own. Together they pretended to touch the horizon as their pale fingers brushed the treetops and encouraged the frost.
"We all make sacrifices to keep one another safe," Carlisle told her, his voice low, tired, but hopelessly patient. She was surprised to catch the warmth of his mood as he continued on a lighter note, "You've made him feel like a hero, Esme. Truly." She couldn't help but smile sadly at the faint truth in his words. Carlisle's voice was just a breath against the shell of her ear. "Trust me when I tell you this: Edward thoroughly enjoys his role as your caregiver while I am away."
The temptation to fall back against the warm chest behind her was almost impossible to resist.
Her thoughts were certain, but her tone was dubious. "How do you know that?"
"I know my son well enough," he implied enigmatically. "He loves watching over you."
As the sound of the piano softened, her breath shortened. Carlisle's hand caressed the sky through the window, melting the frost on his way toward her hand. Gently, he collected her weak wrist and guided her hand back down to earth.
"I love watching over you."
A tiny explosion of innocent pleasure burst beneath her breast.
"You do?"
"Yes," he whispered fervently. "Do not ever think of yourself as a burden, because you could never be a burden to us."
A warm wave of relief curled around her toes, stretching lazily up her body until it settled in her heart. Carlisle must have felt it too. His body seemed to relax behind her, his hand cupped surely around her wrist, slowly lowering to her side.
"Regardless of being the reason we must stay inside so often, you must remember that Edward and I are male," he teased quietly, "Naturally we enjoy protecting the female."
A shy giggle whispered in her throat as she leaned back gratefully against his arm.
Carlisle sighed, his breath thick with the beauty of sheer contentment.
"One of these days, Esme," he said, his voice heavy, sure, but longing all the same. "I cannot remind you enough. One day you will wonder how it all seemed so hopeless..."
-}0{-
She believed him.
Truly, honestly, she did.
But a bit of that faith wore away with every nuisance of an obstacle that plucked her path.
There were incidents. Occasionally, there were times when she was so utterly and entirely through with this feeling of having no control. These were called "incidents."
They were not "accidents," because an accident held no purpose, no motivation from the start. An incident occurred when one started out on the wrong foot from the beginning. Accidents sneaked up from behind her while incidents blasted her from the front.
The panic set in whenever she caught the scent. Edward tried to catch her before it happened, but sometimes he was too late. Sometimes he was just as panicked. Those times were the worst.
She never knew when it would rear its head. She could be sitting alone by the fireplace with a book in her lap, her eyes shifting around the room, always wary, but never wary enough. Like a great blaze of ruptured power, it would tumble over her, send her bolting from her chair, the pages scattered on the floor like large paper leaves. Her footsteps took her down the stairs, each pound growing further and further away in her ears, their echoes heavier as she reached rock bottom.
This was exactly how it happened.
She found him standing there, half-way through the front door, full in the open threshold. He looked so much like the end of everything, so much like the answer to everything. His body blocked bits of sun rays which twinkled haphazardly upon his golden hair, his face spattered with wretched concern as she flashed down the stairs to bump into him. Hard.
His body refused hers, as was the law of physics to serve. With a tough crack, she was sent backward on her heels, but her arms had somehow become linked around his shoulders. She was pasted impressively against him. So tight.
Her mind screamed for help, but the request was senseless in silence.
Carlisle was stunned, and he was absolutely still as if this were the most frightening thing that had ever happened to him. And he was beautiful throughout all of it. So tall and...hard, and...beautiful.
Before Esme's eyes there were little cotton fibers, pure and white, dancing in tiny strains to taunt her. She wanted something from them, but they would not give it to her. Her nose was pressed into something soft and slightly crisp. Her chin was bedded in more dancing fibers, and her face was warm and comfortable, but her senses were bristling with fire.
What on earth was happening?
It took her a long moment to adjust, to find her bearings and realize...
Her face was buried in Carlisle's sweater.
"It's just me. It's just me..." he was murmuring, his soft words sounding slightly drunken in her muddled ears.
But her nose was tingling with dulcet hope, her throat was simmering for the quench it had been falsely promised, her eyes were watering with thick, gelatin-like venom.
There was blood somewhere on his person.
Through some tender manipulation, Carlisle managed to bring Esme's head up, coaxing her nose away from the tainted cotton.
"Shh, look," he said in a low voice, then suddenly repeated it, firmer. "Look, Esme."
Her eyes focused slowly on something that looked like smooth, pale pink ceramic. The closer she looked, the clearer its texture became in her mind. It looked more and more appealing, more like something she should reach up and touch... So she did.
The tips of her fingers collapsed against the strange texture. It was stiff as it had looked to be, but it gave beneath her touch the slightest bit, like cool white clay. There was a tenseness about it as her fingers explored further, then a noticeable strain beneath the surface...like flickering muscle.
And when she came to her senses, she realized the texture she had been feeling was Carlisle's neck.
"It's only on my clothes," he told her, his voice deep and secretive.
The backs of her knees felt a familiar prickling of mildly pleasant heat.
"What...?" Her own voice was unrecognizable, still fuzzy and half-asleep.
"See?" His whisper was warm on her forehead as he carefully tugged the sides of his sweater apart to show her the tiny sprinkle of blood marks on the white fabric beneath.
Esme was embarrassingly shocked that her reaction was so strong for something so small and insignificant.
Her hands fell away from his body, shaking violently from the horror of it all. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she tried to think up a proper apology, but her mouth was too dry to speak.
"You're fine. You're fine," Carlisle soothed, rubbing her back with one hand while the other redid the buttons on his sweater. "Shh, it's nothing, dear. You're fine."
But she was not fine. She was not fine if just a dot of dry blood could send her into such a frenzy. Whatever progress she had once made with Carlisle's aid was worth nothing now. Not after her accident.
As she was wont to do these days, Esme broke apart in a pitiful hurricane of humiliated sobs.
Carlisle was miraculously underwhelmed by her reaction, and this reassured her just the faintest bit. This obstacle was something that would haunt her for a long time to come. Carlisle's hesitant words that this was only just the beginning made Esme's hopes bleed. She knew it was true that she still had a ways to go in perfecting her control, and now she knew that pretending it was all over would only amplify that truth.
"Shhh... It was my fault," he murmured regretfully, his embrace struggling around her back. "I should have forewarned you."
Esme stabbed at his heart once with a frustrated fist. She was so sick of him always placing the blame on himself. It only made her feel more guilty. It had to stop.
Partly stunned, Carlisle seemed to read her unappreciative gesture quite clearly. His mouth closed, and she heard his breath shorten above her. Then he brought his hand across her shoulder to lift the edge of one fallen sleeve off her dress.
She looked up, softly startled at his unexpected adjustment. He smiled wanly in return, but his eyes were somewhere else entirely – somewhere dark and reclusive. Somewhere she wanted to be as well...
"Better now?"
Her head panicked as a fresh wave of the scent assaulted her nose. His voice was drifting away again.
Carlisle immediately unwrapped Esme from his arms and drew back, putting a small distance of safety between their bodies.
"Esme," he warned, and she supposed his voice was sharp, but she could scarcely hear it.
The little red spots were prancing before her eyes again.
"Let me go, dear," he was pleading, but she didn't know why. "Esme, let go."
The shadows of his voice were patient but urgent, scraping out the muttering seduction in her ears. Grasping the last coherent thought that managed to make it into her mind, Esme looked down and found her fingers snagged onto the front of his sweater.
Without looking at him, she tore her hand away, pulling bits of sweet cottony fibers beneath her nails. She whimpered, and Carlisle touched her arm briefly before heading for the hall. "Do not move," he ordered.
Esme leaned pathetically against the banister, her head lying on her elbow as she peered through strands of her hair to watch him disappear from sight.
It felt like her heart was drumming inside of her, like her eyes and nose were burning, just waiting for blood. It was a gloriously terrible feeling. Only Carlisle could help it go away.
Unthinkingly, Esme lifted her head, the silky tresses of hair parting way for her eyes as she did so. Her ears were roused to several curious sounds coming from the sitting room, just a few steps out of her way. Instinct led her to move in the direction of the strange ambiance. It was promising, though she knew not what it promised.
Something in the ground called for her feet to come back to their previous spot, but she ignored it. All that mattered were those soft, swishing, scraping sounds in the next room.
Her curious scarlet eyes blinked in the crevice of the partly opened door. Carlisle was there, standing before the glow of the fireplace, his hands finishing up the last buttons on his sweater. Her heart warmed fondly as he pulled the thick piece of clothing away with a sigh. She expected him to set it aside on the sofa or a nearby chair, or even on the floor, but with a fling of his hand, he cast it into the fire.
Her eyes narrowed in confusion as he stood back cautiously from the blaze. His silhouette darkened, saturated by a flimsy frame of red and orange flames. She almost opened the door then. She almost went inside to make her presence known.
But he was still busy with something in front of the fire. His movements were not so clear in the darkness, but her eyes were sharper than she gave them credit to be. His wrists were twisting in front of his chest, his hands traveling further down, each second or two punctuated by a quiet plucking sound...
She almost ran away. But her feet were married to the ground.
He breathed heavily, as if a great weight were being taken off his shoulders. But the thin cotton shirt he wore weighed next to nothing.
The crackling fire seemed to purr as he slid the fabric off one arm, then the other. Esme's thoughts were lightheaded, flustered and hot, as she watched Carlisle disrobe himself before the trembling flames.
She tried not to look – she wasn't really looking. Perhaps she would have been if the lighting had not been so poor.
The sight itself was frustratingly muted by the contrast of glowing red behind his deep black silhouette. A warm splash of soft firelight slipped around his side, highlighting the chiseled geography of muscle across his torso. But it was just an instant for her wandering eyes – just one seizing moment when she saw it – where her tongue felt weak and her body was stricken with a warm, wanton vulnerability.
The image settled itself quietly inside her memory like hot glue. Just his body – heavy, masculine, tall, smooth, and utterly innocent to the caress of her eyes.
He lifted one exquisite arm and, with a ripple of fine, pale skin, tossed the blood-stained shirt into the fire.
The sudden spice of venom streamed beneath her tongue, an immediate danger to her whereabouts. Terrified, Esme took off for the staircase, barely touching the floor as she ran.
The wild call of the blood was gone now, destroyed by the hands of her caring doctor. He was doing all of this for her. Hushing her, reassuring her, undressing himself...all for her own good. Esme felt so terribly guilty to think of this.
She listened to his movements, faster even than hers had been, up the steps and down the hall. The slip of fabric against skin taunted her yet again, and she guessed he was redressing himself. A part of her was almost disappointed that he had chosen to behave so properly. Of course, it would be utterly ridiculous and awkward for them both if he were to intrude upon her with nothing covering his torso...
"Esme?" he called to her, his voice sweet and hushed.
"Here," she replied in a catching breath as his shadow appeared on the door to her library. He carefully nudged the door with his knuckles and peeked around the side before stepping in.
His eyes showed concern for her, and it was only natural. She was seated on the very edge of her reading chair, her hands clutching her knees, still trembling with the after-effects of something that had yet to be determined.
"It will happen again," she said stoically.
Carlisle brushed his fingers through his hair and stepped over to her. Her eyes met with his belly briefly before he reached down to drag the coffee table closer so he could sit across from her. From the new angle, her eyes were looking down into his, just slightly. Somehow this was comforting to her. He was looking up at her.
"You should not worry yourself over when it will happen again," he said, reiterating her concern. "Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and accept whichever comes along."
He said this as if it were simple to accept and to practice. As if innocent lives were not at stake.
His elbows were resting on his knees, and his hands were folded, suspended between them. Her eyes got caught on his white fingers where they were loosely laced together, and he twitched under her intrusive stare. Self-consciously, he drew his knees closer together – ever so slightly – but she noticed, and her stomach stirred as she looked quickly away.
"It's so easy for you," she quietly accused.
Carlisle sighed. "Esme, I grow weary of reminding you: it was not always so simple for me. Neither was it for Edward," his voice was slightly frustrated as he said this, and Esme cringed. Carefully, he smoothed his tone to a gentler one. "It was heartbreaking for us both, just as it is for you."
Quite suddenly, Esme felt her guilt amplify. Was she being ungrateful by voicing her distress all of the time? Should she apologize for feeling so sorry for herself?
Her mouth opened to speak, but she could summon no words. Instead, her lower lip trembled as Carlisle's face grew sullen. He seemed to be caught in a struggle of his own, his tongue peeking out against his teeth every so often as if he were longing to say something. Finally when he spoke, his voice was shy and uncertain, so hopeful she wanted to cry.
"If I may say so, your…circumstances are…fortunate…"
Their eyes met, and the hope was reflected between them.
Fortunate. Oh, she was so much more than fortunate. She was blessed.
Her hand reached out instinctively and found his. His fingers were cool to the touch, not as warm as she had thought they would be. Carlisle breathed deeply, closing his eyes in submission as his hand opened up for her. She set her palm graciously into his, and his hand swallowed hers whole.
"Yes, I am fortunate to have you," she amended, her throat tight. "Both of you."
Always the last-second thought.
Carlisle did something rather remarkable then. Curiously, his free hand lifted from his lap to mingle with their one-to-one connection. Esme's breath shortened as his fingers blossomed around her hand, opening her to the light. He stared for a moment or two, then slowly turned her hand around to lie palm up in his grasp. Both his hands cupped her hand from underneath, holding her steady for his eyes to swallow every detail.
Two of his hands, around one of hers. The attention was overwhelming enough, but when his fingers began to trace the inside of her palm, she almost had to pull her hand away. Carlisle could be so indecent with his touch sometimes... She could only suppose it had something to do with never being touched in a loving manner as a child.
"If you were exposed to blood more often, I think you would find it less intimidating…" he suggested quietly. But as his thumb pressed lightly into the inside of her smallest finger, she could take no more.
She shuddered away.
"You did it once before," he reminded, his voice low. "You were doing so well, Esme."
Her hand was still trembling from being held by his, and she conveniently slid it between the cushions so he wouldn't see.
"But it wasn't enough," she added gloomily.
"Stop that," he reprimanded in a soft sort of hiss. She bowed her head down to hide, but he caught her chin with one deft finger. "Look at me," he commanded gently. She met his eyes – so kind, she could taste the kindness there.
Carlisle cocked his head to the side, curious, confounded. "What are you afraid of?"
His lips were small and soft. She blinked, remembering her fear.
"I'm afraid of failing," she admitted shamefully, but her eyes did not draw away from his. They were stuck now. The honey in his gaze was like glue.
His finger drifted away from her jaw, and his hand laid upon her shaking knee in concern. "I once feared the same. Sometimes I still do," he whispered, "but nothing good comes from running away. Good things can come from failure."
As much as he tried to be positive, Esme felt that her heart was already well past its breaking point.
"I don't know if I can take any more pain, Carlisle," she whispered in agony, her head shaking idly back and forth. Somehow he must have known she wanted someplace to rest her head.
Almost cautiously, he leaned forward to accommodate her forehead with one sturdy shoulder. One shoulder she had moments ago seen nude in the glow of dim red firelight.
Her eyes prickled with guilt, but her cheek burrowed further into his neck, too grateful for the closeness to refuse any of it.
"Esme, I would never cause you pain if I could help it. You must know that," he whispered fervently, mapping a utopian landscape with his hands across her slender back.
"I know..." she mumbled into his shoulder.
"You refuse me out of fear," he said sadly, his voice so small it stung her ear.
She instantly pulled back to stare at his face. "I don't refuse you."
"You refuse what I am offering you," he said, his forehead creasing, a pout on his lips.
"I don't mean to," she stammered, flustered by the image of his despondence. "I just…I—"
"Please, Esme." He took her shoulder into his hand and stared deeply into her eyes. "I want to help you."
He was asking so little of her. He asked only for her to let him help her. She could see that he almost needed it.
Esme bit her lip, embarrassed to admit the truth for why she was so reluctant. But Carlisle himself had been brave enough to show her many truths, none of which had done good deeds for his pride. She could spare at least one for him.
"I don't want you to see me fail," she whispered, her eyes drawn down to her lap.
His response was gruff, raw and bare. "You have seen me fail," he said.
She looked up to meet his steely eyes.
"How can you still believe in me?" she asked, no longer bothering to hide her need.
Still staring hard, his hand on her shoulder slowly traveled to cradle the back of her neck. Her hair fluttered as his fingers navigated through the strands, her skin prickling like cool fire where he touched her bare skin. Her head was entirely at his mercy, she was literally in his hand. The position was blatantly fair for him to tilt her neck back and support her with blissful ease as he kissed her…
"Because I can see that you want this, Esme."
Want…this? Her mind was a flurry. What was this? What was he referring to?
Her throat offered a timid little noise of confusion.
"You want to believe in yourself," he whispered, the kindness in his gaze making her heart tingle. "And I do believe in you, Esme. I always have, and I always will."
Surprising them both, she laughed – out of nerves, out of pure relief, out of despicable joy. Out of sheer giddiness, from the way he was repeating her name. Nearly every time he addressed her, he used it. And it sounded softer and softer every time he said it.
He looked torn between uncertain happiness and plain confusion.
"Is this humorous?" he asked. The rapt kindness in his eyes fluttered out of focus for a moment.
Relieved, she shook her head and reached up to touch his hand on her neck. "I just needed to hear you say that."
He laughed a bit himself, sobered by the relief in her smile. His eyes slipped along the slopes of her face, curious, but happily intense.
"So you'll try again?"
She bit her lip, just to make him worry a little. Just to see the way his eyes sparkled with concern. She would ease his worry soon enough.
"Esme," he prompted, neither fond nor factual. Just her name.
"Yes... I will try." She held his hand more firmly. "When should we do it?" she asked, smiling lightly.
He swallowed hard, but she could see the tones of a more pronounced smile being born on his lips. "Soon," he replied. "Very...soon."
"Do you think I'm ready?"
Taking a deep breath, he reversed her question. "Do you think you're ready?"
Her eyes briefly lowered to their hands, then back to his beautiful face. "Yes."
He smiled without restraint then, and her heart took flight.
"Then we'll begin again tomorrow."
A/N: Here we see Esme is slowly readjusting to accept her ongoing struggle with blood-lust. Naturally, I'd imagined that after the traumatic experience of killing a human, she would be reluctant to be exposed to any human's blood again, especially around Carlisle. Esme struggles with confidence, but a major part of her story which we will be seeing soon deals with how she becomes stronger and more secure as both a vampire and as Carlisle's equal. It's a slow journey, but she's going to surprise herself with her newfound strength in the chapters to come.