A/N: An absolutely AU idea that I could not get out of my head... this is my first fanfic and I hope it won't be the last. Regardless, I hope there is some enjoyment to be found in this, because I really loved writing about these two.
"if you ever find yourself on this side of town
just know you've got a place to sleep
just know that you'll be safe with me"
- 'lover of mine' by john vincent iii
She thought her nerves would be rioting in her stomach, her heartbeat picking up the closer she drew to the edge of the cliff, the edge of her life. But that's what has finally led her here, isn't it? The lack of feeling?
Her son is gone; the home of her body emptied of his presence, her arms too. There's nothing left, nothing to live for.
She's left her home, her family, her abuser. Ran away with the naive idea that she and her newborn child would have a new life together, a fresh start.
She was a fool. How could she ever believe that a new life was meant for her?
Her eyes sting, but the tears don't come. She thinks she's emptied of those too.
Esme takes another step forward, the wind whispering along her neck, coaxing her forward, the waves calling her to join in their crash against the rocks below.
This life was never meant for her, she knows that now.
The breath shudders past her chapped lips.
This was inevitable.
She's balancing on the true edge now, all she has to do is lean forward. Her bare toes flex in the grass for one last time, her heart accelerating ever so slightly as she finally lets go and falls forward.
One moment she's falling and the next, she is not.
Esme's eyes flutter open, her brow furrowing at the grey sky above, the sound of waves still all around. Something is holding her, a cool embrace carrying her.
"I didn't even feel it," she mumbles, glancing up to see what has her. Only to realize it is a who. "Dr. Cullen?"
She remembers him vividly from her youth, those beautiful golden eyes, the perfectly combed blond hair, the compassion that radiates from his very presence.
She has always struggled with her belief in God, but if this is her escort to the afterlife, she has to say she appreciates His thoughtfulness. Her childhood doctor from a decade ago is as close to angels as she ever came.
But her guardian angel... he doesn't look happy with her at all.
"What were you doing?" he whispers. The clutch of his hands under her knees, at her shoulder, where he's carrying her, tightens. "Why would you... what were you thinking?"
Suddenly, she is struck by the idea that maybe she is not yet dead after all.
"Did you save me?" Esme hisses, eyes tearing from his gaze to look around them. They're standing on a cluster of rocks amidst the ocean, beneath the cliff. Where she was supposed to land. "How did you... why?"
She looks back at him, torn between the urge to sob and smack him.
"Why?" he questions incredulously. "Ms. Platt-"
"You remember me?" she cuts in, shaking her head and shifting in his grasp.
He quickly sets her on her own two feet. An involuntary shiver wracks her bones as her bare toes touch the frigid surface of the rock, the chilled spray of the waves licking at her calves.
"Of course, I remember you, I - you were my patient."
"Ten years ago," she argues, gripping his waist when her knees threaten to give out as the leftover adrenaline floods through her. "Dr. Cullen, I-" The tears do come now. What has he done? How could this have happened? "You can't, this isn't - please, god, please" she chokes out. "Let me die."
She bows her head, letting it come into contact with his chest. The idea of continuing on, of living with it, with everything... she can't.
"Shh, Esme, please," he whispers and she realizes she's sobbing, ugly and painfully into the sweater against her forehead. "I couldn't. I couldn't. I'm so sorry."
His hand gently touches the back of her head, skimming deft fingers through her tangled hair. Her body threatens to shudder at the touch, jerk away from it, but... it's the first time in so long that someone has treated her with such care, such gentleness. With something that promises he won't hurt her.
Carlisle didn't think about the next move, what to do after he saved her.
She cries herself into silence, her face red and her eyes swollen. Numbed. She remains leaning against him, a series of small tremors rippling through her body every few seconds.
"Ms. Platt," he calls to her, scared to move, to spook her. "Is there somewhere I can take you? I... we're a bit of a long way from Ohio, do you have family here now?"
Her breath catches, her chest shuddering as she shakes her head.
"No," she rasps, barely audible above the crash of the waves around her. He really needs to get her back on dry land, away from the waters and the god-forsaken cliff she tried to jump from. "He's gone."
"He?" Carlisle repeats softly.
Esme lifts her head, her cheeks tear-stained and her lips still trembling. "My son, Dr. Cullen. I... I just had a baby and he didn't make it. I couldn't even save my baby."
Her shoulders collapse and she wraps her arms around herself, trying to keep the shudders of her body contained.
If he had a heart, he thinks it would have stuttered in his chest, cracked for her.
"Oh, Esme," he exhales, relishing the rare sound of her name in his mouth. "I'm so sorry... let me get you out of here. Let me take you somewhere safe and you can tell me more about all that has happened."
"Safe?" she echoes, a feral spark of something dark registering in her gaze. "Charles."
Her spine stiffens and she instinctively moves closer to Carlisle. She's afraid, he notes, afraid of this Charles person.
"No one is going to hurt you," he swears, but there is more than mere comfort in the words. He means it.
Esme blinks and shifts her attention once more to his face, but this time, it's as if she's truly seeing him for the first time. Her brow creases, confusion tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"How can this be real? How... could you have possibly-" Her head tilts back, eyes flicking from the cliff above their heads and back to him again. "How could you have stopped me?"
He doesn't know how to answer, how to possibly begin to cover the truth.
He doesn't really want to.
Carlisle carefully takes one of her hands in his own, squeezing it with the most minuscule portion of his strength.
"I'll show you, but you have to trust me. I know it's asking so much-"
"I do," she interrupts, those glassy eyes staring up at him with far more trust than he's ever deserved. Her brow furrows a little, as if the concept is simple. "I trusted you then, I trust you now."
"Then hold on."
Esme is still clinging to his neck even though they've been back on the ground for at least five minutes now.
"I'm so sorry I've frightened you," Doctor Cullen tells her for what has to be the third time, but sounding no less earnest.
After he picked her up and practically flew from the outcropping of rocks amidst the sea, rising from the surface of the ocean's edge to the dry land up above, he had carried her to a nearby fallen tree, gingerly placed her to sit upon the trunk. It's how they've remained in the last few minutes, with his mouth murmuring a stream of apologies and his body leaning over hers, bowed by the latch of her arms, but not seeming to be taxed by the position.
She is supposed to be dead, broken like waves against the rocks and carried out to sea. Instead, she is sitting with a man with... with what? Superhuman abilities? A devil in disguise of a beautiful man?
"What are you?" she finally manages to ask, pushing past the stiffness in her arms to relinquish their hold.
Doctor Cullen bows his head, his eyes falling closed as if in prayer.
"I'm afraid that it may come as an even greater fright to you."
She swallows hard. "You do not seem to mean me any harm. Unless you have only saved my life to torture me further."
His head lifts immediately, his eyes stricken as they land upon her. "No, never. I may be a monster, but I couldn't... my intention could never be to hurt you."
The intensity has her taken aback, but she holds his gaze. "A monster?"
It certainly isn't a word she would have associated with the soft-spoken doctor beside her. She can still remember with clarity the way in which he treated her ten years ago, with delicate hands and a genuine smile, eyes that held hers for a moment too long.
She never managed to forget him, more than likely because Charles made her wish even more for the first man to ever make her heart skip. She could never help thinking how she wished it had been him she exchanged vows with. Esme always managed to convince herself that Doctor Cullen would have healed her wounds, not bestowed more upon her.
"I am sure you have heard certain myths, legends of immortal creatures?" he begins, lowering to sit near her, leaving a large gap of space between them.
Esme nods, childish tales of magical sea creatures and monsters under the cloak of darkness in the woods flittering across her brain. "Some."
He twines his hands together between his knees. "What about vampires?"
It takes a moment for the correlation to register, what he's trying to tell her.
"I am... impossibly fast, incredibly strong. There is little in this world that could truly hurt - let alone kill - me," Doctor Cullen continues. "I'm dangerous and it would serve you best to stay far away from me."
Her head is spinning so fast that she has to squeeze her eyes shut, nearly buries her face in her hands, but wait-
"Stay away from you?" she repeats, meeting his forlorn expression staring back at her. As if waiting for her to react with the utmost amount of fear and hatred towards him.
And perhaps she should, if what he is saying is true and not some post suicide hallucination of hers. If her former doctor is actually a vampire.
"I do not... feed on humans," he tells her quickly. "I survive only on the blood of animals, but I am aware it does not change who I am, what I am. I could never expect-"
"I know you won't hurt me," she breathes, her swollen eyes feeling heavy, her entire body weighed down by exhaustion and a fresh wave of despair. "Can you take me to the place you spoke of, to safety?"
"Of course," he answers, rising in what feels like a flash. "And Esme?"
Before she realizes what is happening, he is easing his arms beneath her legs, the curve of her spine, and carrying her bridal style against him once more.
She hums in response, giving up on the idea of remaining conscious any longer and leaning into the wall of his chest against her cheek instead.
"Please, call me Carlisle."
Her lips quirk. This has been quite a lovely dream.