Carlisle stared numbly at his phone.

Alice still hadn't called.

She knew, there was no question of that. Alice, with her gift, could never not know.

Even if she'd missed–the moment it happened, she would see an empty future where Edward Cullen had once been. And she would look, no matter what terrible things she'd seen for Edward during his captivity, she wouldn't be able to help herself. She had to have looked, which meant she knew.

And yet, she hadn't called.

Nor had Rosalie or Emmett.

Carlisle thought that the moment he heard Demetri, Jane, and Marcus' unaccompanied footsteps, the moment Demetri broke the news, and the moment it all became so horribly real as Marcus offered his condolences–

He'd thought that, surely, that would be the worst moment of his life.

Edward was dead, before those moments he hadn't been but now, now Carlisle would have to spend the rest of eternity in this new state of being: one where Edward was dead.

And that would never, ever, change.

And then the hours had passed, and he had realized that his family hadn't called. They knew, surely they had to know, yet–

They hadn't even called to comfort Esme.

Jasper placed a hand on Carlisle's shoulder, saying nothing. That he was using his gift now was the only reason Carlisle had been able to gather his thoughts and look at this phone in the first place.

Carlisle was grateful though–it made him afraid for the moments when Jasper wouldn't be there and Carlisle would have to stand on his own two feet again. Soon, when he did what he had to, that time would come and–and he'd have to force himself to recognize that he lived in a world where Edward no longer existed without the artificial calm clearing his thoughts.

Carlisle looked at his phone.

Alice had not called, nor had anyone else, and if there was a chance they didn't know–then Carlisle had to tell them.

He opened his phone, and with a press on the speed dial button he was ringing Rosalie.

The phone rang once, twice.

Esme flinched at the noise, however, she didn't turn to face him. She was still staring blindly at the wall as she had been for the past hour. As Carlisle himself had been, as if by doing nothing the universe might reveal that it was all one cruel, horrible, joke or–or that Demetri was mistaken and Edward had managed to escape somewhere (nevermind that Demetri, per his gift, could never be mistaken in this).

It kept ringing.

Carlisle felt dread rising in him at the thought that Rosalie might not even pick up.

If she wouldn't speak to him, if he had to lose a daughter as well as a son–

Perhaps he'd lost her already, but, god, he needed to hear her voice.

"I can call her," Jasper said softly, squeezing Carlisle's shoulder, "If she doesn't answer, I can call. She may not realize–exactly where I am."

But then, at the very last dial, she picked up.

"Hello, Carlisle."

Her voice was… closed off, guarded, as if those two words had been two too many already.

"Rosalie!" Carlisle breathed. "Thank god."

Rosalie didn't respond. Emmett, who had to be close by, was unnaturally silent in a way he never was. Emmett always liked to believe he was party to everyone else's phone conversations, made it a perpetual habit of butting in with this or that joke, but listening to the other end Carlisle had no idea if he was even there.

"Rosalie," Carlisle continued, aware of how hoarse his voice was, how desperate he sounded. "I need to tell you something."

Silence, not even the sound of breathing. Then–

As if she scarcely dared to believe it, she breathed, "Carlisle, is that you?"

Carlisle paused in incomprehension.

"Carlisle," Rosalie whispered again, "are you– yourself?"

He caught the edge of hope in her voice.

Quietly enough that Rosalie wouldn't hear on the other end, Jasper instructed, "Lie."

His eyes, while lighter than Carlisle's, seemed flat and dark. There was nothing in them, no pity, no compassion, only a stark resolve and unshakable conviction.

"Tell her you're in Florence," Jasper continued, "That you begged a trip away from Volterra, with only Esme to accompany you."

Esme turned slowly to look at Jasper, her eyes wide and uncomprehending.

"If you don't," Jasper continued, "she will never listen to the rest of it."

"I'm in Florence," Carlisle breathed. "Aro– he agreed to let me take Esme on a trip to see the Duomo. It's just us."

"Thank god," Rosalie said in turn, she clapped a hand to her mouth and let out a desperate laugh, "Emmett–Carlisle and Esme, oh my god, Carlisle, you can't stay in Florence. It's too close, that's barely a bus ride away! You have to leave now–are they watching you? When do they expect you back?"

"I have a few hours," Carlisle lied, the words falling off his tongue easily, the usually ever-present urge to ramble completely absent.

"Dammit, Carlisle, you need to–"

"There's something I have to tell you," Carlisle continued, "It's–more important than what's happening with Esme and me."

"What could possibly be more important–"

"Have you talked to Alice?" Carlisle asked first.

There was a long pause on the other end then, "No, no, Emmett and I haven't heard from Alice or Jasper in days. They're fine, they're keeping very clear of Volterra. If anyone can keep themselves afloat in all this, it's them."

Carlisle couldn't keep it in anymore.

In a sob, he said, "Edward is dead, Rosalie."

He clamped a desperate hand in front of his mouth to muffle any sobs, and leaned into Jasper, letting Jasper give him the strength to not collapse then and there.

There was a long silence.

"What?" Rosalie asked.

"Edward–made contact with the Romanians, I don't know if you know of them, but they were old enemies of the Volturi," Carlisle said, forcing himself to hold onto the artificial calm Jasper was pouring into him, "Edward had hoped that they might–help rescue myself and Esme, possibly Bella. They decided he had more use as a hostage. However, they became–bored and murdered him before he could be rescued."

"I don't understand," Rosalie said, and he could just picture the way she was shaking her head, maybe taking a step back, as she said it - she'd always been one for very clear body language and gestures, and he knew every one of her little tics.

God, he missed her.

"I don't either," Carlisle whispered brokenly, "But–it's true, he's dead."

"How do you know?" Rosalie said. "If– if you haven't talked to Alice–"

"Demetri told me," Carlisle replied.

"Tell her that's why Aro let you go," Jasper instructed quietly.

"That's why Aro let you- me go," Carlisle recited, barely catching himself.

"Did you see the body?" Rosalie asked, an edge to her voice, "Did you, personally, see it happen?"

"Rosalie, there's nothing to see," Carlisle whispered. "There's only ashes. I– I don't want to see it, I can't."

"They're lying to you," Rosalie said, "I don't know how much time you have, I don't know how–how clearly you're thinking, but he must still be out there. This–they're using this to break you, Carlisle. If you believe this then you will never leave, they'll make you think you have nothing left!"

"That's not why I'm-" Carlisle began, but Jasper made a frantic shushing gesture.

Esme suddenly found movement, she darted across the room and snatched the phone from Carlisle's hand, "Rosalie! Rosalie, we're not–we're not brainwashed, we've never been brainwashed, and they're not lying to us! I know Edward thought–I know he was scared–but we're all just fine and you have to believe us!"

There was silence on the other line.

Jasper stood, paced the room and put his hands behind his head, letting out a long exhale as if that might help separate him from this phone call.

Esme continued, her voice breaking up into sobs, "Aro sent a rescue mission– he's not who you think he is, he did everything he could. He's even offered to hold a funeral service. Please, Rose," Esme's voice broke into sobs, "I'm begging you, please, you have to come back. I need to see you, we need to- to mourn together, to- oh, god," Esme's knees hit the floor, as she began openly crying, "Edward is- is dead - won't you please, please, come?"

Rosalie hung up.

The line suddenly went dead.

Carlisle mechanically redialed, the line rang a few times, only to once again dramatically end. Rosalie had ended the call before even picking up. A third time and there was no ringing, a message played that Carlisle had reached an unregistered number–she'd blocked his phone.

Esme stared at the phone in horror, her body wracking with sobs as she sank further towards the floor.

She looked desperately towards Jasper, as if he might give her– something, anything, anything at all.

"I can call," Jasper restated, not looking at either of them as he said it, "If she hasn't talked to Alice, then she doesn't know where I am. I can–pretend I spoke with Alice and heard the news from her."

"Esme," he said, and placed a hand on her shoulder, "please, you need to be quiet."

Carlisle was just staring dumbly at his phone. She–she hadn't even said goodbye. She never had, she'd left Volterra without telling him goodbye and now…

He had no illusions that this was it, she would never speak with him again. If he borrowed a phone from the Volturi, she'd answer guardedly, but the moment she heard his voice she'd hang up and block the number.

In one day he had lost both Rosalie and Edward. He would never hear either of their voices again, and– he never got to say goodbye to either.

And they would never accept that Edward was dead. If they ever did, when Alice told them–they would believe that Aro had murdered him and that Carlisle and Esme had smilingly agreed to it.

"Alice," Carlisle said mechanically.

She hadn't called, and whatever news he brought her was probably old news at that, but–

If he was to lose all his children, then he would rather do it all at once than drag it out.

Jasper said nothing, simply sat back down, letting out a long sigh as he stared down at the floor.

He selected her number, waited, then was met with a message that he had tried to reach an unregistered number.

Esme continued sobbing, the only sound in the room.

Jasper reached into his pocket reluctantly, took out his own phone, and tried the same. He, too, was met with an unregistered number.

"She must have blocked me when I decided to leave for Volterra," Jasper said quietly as he carefully put the phone back into his pocket.

The three of them sat in silence, interrupted only by Esme's sobbing, and there was not a word of who they'd contact next.

Finally, it was Jasper who said, "The Denali."

"If Alice won't speak to us," Jasper continued, "If Rosalie and Emmett won't listen–they'll tell them. At the very least, they'll pass on the message."

Carlisle closed his eyes.

The Denali.

He– he wasn't sure if he had the energy for that.

Seeming to read his mind, Jasper placed a hand on Carlisle's shoulder, and Carlisle felt composure and strength that wasn't his seep into him.

This was simply the first steps of the rest of his life. When he was through with these phone calls, when all ties to his past life and his family had been cut–there would be Edward's funeral, attended by strangers that he'd detested and suspected of the most vile acts imaginable. Then, then there would be Bella and–

And thank god there was Bella, Carlisle thought with an almost manic mirth. Bella was his twelve hour shifts at the hospital, dying Bella with her miraculous, horrifying, child and pregnancy was going to require all his attention and all his concentration. He was going to have to use everything he'd ever learned, every ounce of control he'd ever gained, to see this through. Carlisle could not afford to fade away so long as Bella Swan needed him.

As much as he would try to keep Bella alive–she would have to keep him alive as well.

"Do you want to call, or do you want me to do it?" Jasper asked quietly.

Wordlessly, Carlisle began scrolling through the contacts in his phone.

He didn't want to, he desperately didn't want to, but–

For as long as he was doing these things, calling around, trying to reach people who didn't want to be reached with word of Edward's passing, then Edward was– not alive, but he wasn't a thing entirely of the past either.

He hovered over Tanya's name. Ordinarily–Tanya was the easiest to speak with, the de facto head of the Denali after Sasha's passing. However, she'd–she'd been–perhaps not close with Edward, but she'd been very fond of him. She'd certainly been interested in him, much to Edward's panic. She deserved to know, but he didn't want her to have to be the one to tell her sisters and the others.

And Eleazar was the one who had first spoken Chelsea's name, who had sown the suspicions of brainwashing and drugs in the minds of Edward, Alice, Rosalie, and Emmett.

Eleazar, who had been in Volterra for so long, who had been Aro's advisor when it came to the gifts among his guard and a trusted member–

He should have known better.

He had to know better.

Why he'd said what he'd said to Edward–why he'd talked about Chelsea or Corin at all, that was beyond Carlisle. What good he'd thought would come of that, when Edward had already returned home such a wreck, was well and truly beyond Carlisle.

Carlisle didn't want to start spreading the blame, to start looking for people to blame for Edward's death. The Romanians had killed him, and Edward had made the choices that led to that. If Carlisle started looking for people to blame, he would blame Eleazar for letting Edward know about those gifts, Amun for unintentionally leading Edward to the Romanians doorstep, Jane, Marcus, and Demetri for not being faster, Sulpicia for having come up with the scheme that caused Edward such distress, he would– he would blame everyone.

Most of all he'd blame himself for having taken his family to Volterra in the first place, where Edward met Bella Swan, was sent home, heard a wild excuse involving laundry and bathrobes, and–

To go down that path would be the path to madness.

Edward's death was–a series of unfortunate accidents and miscommunications.

Carlisle had seen enough bereft humans in his life as a doctor, been blamed for illnesses, deaths, and everything in between more times than he could count, seen them blame themselves, the deceased, and God himself as well.

It never helped them.

The only path forwards for Carlisle, no matter how cruel, no matter how unbearable it seemed, was to– to accept what had happened, somehow, and to learn to live with it. If only for Esme's sake, to keep her from drowning.

If he didn't, he would become as Marcus had once been.

What was important was that Eleazar had been a member of the Volturi. He had a gift that allowed him to evaluate the gifts of others. He had spoken not only with Aro but with the guard themselves, about very deep nuances of each of their gifts that Carlisle himself might not know.

If Carlisle had to call anyone, he would not call the one he had to waste time convincing he was of sound mind. Which, Carlisle supposed, made his choice for him.

He called Eleazar.

The phone rang again, not so long as it had with Rosalie the first time, but not so short that it was clear he'd been hung up on.

Somewhere on about the third ring, Eleazar picked up, "Carlisle, what a pleasant surprise! I never hear from you."

Carlisle opened his mouth to say– he didn't even know what.

"Now, Carlisle, I suspect I know why you're calling," Eleazar barreled on, "See, Alice had this–vision about a week ago, about you and Sulpicia and Esme and Aro and–Well, I have no explanation for it. I told them as much, I told them that Aro would never be interested in someone like Esme, wonderful though she is. Let alone you trusted with Sulpicia, I told them that even I had not been allowed to–"

"Edward is dead." Carlisle stated.

"Please don't interrupt, I– sorry, what?" Eleazar sounded more confused than anything else.

"Demetri confirmed it."

"Oh," Eleazar did not sound surprised, his instead was the voice of a man who'd been caught in a very awkward situation and wasn't quite sure what to say, "Oh, well–I knew he had contacted your Egyptian friend. Of course, I thought–he'd be simply sent on his way. Why, if I'd known-"

"Is Alice still with you?" Carlisle interrupted.

"Carlisle, I understand you're upset, but please, let me finish," Eleazar said patiently.

"Is Alice there?" Carlisle interjected.

"Yes," Eleazar said in a huff, "Technically. She–may have run out of the house a day ago now, Tanya thinks she went into the National Park somewhere. Irina found her for a few moments and she was–"

Carlisle leaned forwards, as if that would bring him closer to Alice. "Did she say anything?"

"...I regret to inform you she was–gibbering like a madwoman," Eleazar said, and Carlisle could almost imagine him wincing, "Walking around in a daze, barely seeing anything, kept talking to herself saying 'but what if she did this–' or 'there's nothing there' or… Well some of it made no damn sense at all."

"She'd seen her brother die," Carlisle said unsteadily. "You expect her to make a lot of sense after that?"

"Well she didn't say that," Eleazar huffed.

"Eleazar–" Carlisle began, and then he could no longer hold it in. "Why did you say what you said? To Edward? About Chelsea, about Corin– do you have any idea the damage you've done?!"

"That I've done?" Eleazar asked, sounding a little insulted, "If I've done any damage, then it's only by speaking the truth. Edward asked and I told him, and I realize that you weren't exactly informed enough to answer questions in my place, but I won't be blamed–"

"My children think Esme and I have been brainwashed and raped!" Carlisle erupted. "You let them believe complete falsehoods about what Corin does, that she can make people not understand–"

"Now, that was Edward," Eleazar said, "He jumped to his own conclusions. You can ask Jasper, if he's in Volterra already, I told Edward that there was simply no possibility that those visions had ever occurred."

"They occurred!" Carlisle barked.

There was a silence on the other end of the phone, and before Eleazar could say anything Carlisle continued, "I was Aro's lover for years, the affair has been resumed, and that's all beside the point because you let my children believe things that are blatantly untrue!"

"Now Carlisle, I realize that Corin is a–heady experience to the uninitiated. I would not be surprised if, as your mind wandered under her haze, you hallucinated certain–fantasies you may have held for years," Eleazar said, his voice at first shaking then growing calmer as he kept speaking, growing confident even.

"Are you–" Carlisle shook his head in disbelief. "Are you insane? Eleazar, that's– that's not what Corin does – at all - she gets you high, you're lying on the floor having a grand time counting cracks in the ceiling over and over! That's it, that's all she does!"

"Hang up," Jasper said, "I can't listen to this."

"I am perfectly sound in mind," Eleazar responded, speaking louder as if to drown Jasper out, "I can't say as much for your daughter, Alice! In fact, given her recent bout of madness, I wouldn't be surprised had she hallucinated all her visions ever since you arrived in Volterra! Her gift is failing her and it has cracked her mind!"

"I'm starting to see why Caius called you a–" he looked up at Jasper, and positively growled the following words, past the point of catty delivery, "was it 'useless jackass'?"

"She saw Aro, king of the world, scrubbing at tiles with you in his bathrobe!" Eleazar shouted, now screaming into the phone, loud enough that Carlisle was sure that Aro could hear it all the way in his study, "In what possible universe could that have occurred?"

"This one, and he looked quite fetching doing it," Carlisle answered with quiet fury, and this time he did make it catty.

"Well I refuse to live in this universe then," Eleazar said, "Just as I refuse to continue this conversation, I refuse to deal with your–your gibbering daughter, and I refuse to accept blame for Edward's paranoia, stupidity, and untimely death!"

Then, because he apparently couldn't help himself, he screamed "BYE!"

He hung up.

"Well," Jasper said dryly in the aftermath, "If we're lucky, he'll tell everyone else. I doubt they will now accept our phone calls."

Carlisle rubbed a hand over his face.

"I–" Carlisle said only to stop.

No, he would be spending the rest of his life tending to Bella. At least, the rest of his life that he was willing to put the effort into imagining at the moment.

"I think I'll go see Corin," he sighed, and got up.

He threw a look at Esme, about to offer her to come with, but–

Would she be able to leave?

Would he be able to leave, for that matter, if he allowed himself to escape all this pain? He remembered, now, that Aro told him that Marcus–Marcus was the only one of them who had never made even the remote habit of accepting Corin's influence.

He'd tried it once, Aro said, then never again.

Corin's gift was not something those who were– unwell, should entangle themselves with.

"Not Corin," he corrected.

He kissed Esme's cheek, and looked at Jasper.

Esme–She needed him, she would need him in the time to come, but Carlisle–he didn't think he could help her now. He felt barely able to move on his own two feet, to process what had happened for himself. He could not–he was a pillar of support for no one, least of all Esme who in so short a time had lost so much.

If he was to help her–he'd have to find a way to move forward on his own.

"I'll stay with her," Jasper promised, and went to sit on the floor next to Esme, drawing her into his arms, where she continued sobbing.

'Thank you', Carlisle mouthed at him, not trusting his emotionally numb state to be able to convey anything close to gratitude, for all that he meant it.

And truly–

Jasper had been like a son to him, but in a less– filial way than Edward, he had not been one Carlisle regarded as his child as he did Edward and Rosalie, and even Alice. Like Emmett, Jasper had been a fellow adult in the household, one who in any other life would have been a brother rather than a son.

But he was, indubitably and irrevocably, family.

And to have him, the last one he would have expected from his family that had been so numerous only a week before, in this time, to trust that he, at least, would not leave, would not hang up, would not block Carlisle's number and disappear out of his life when he needed him most, meant more than even Jasper's gift could ever convey.

And then Esme, who when at a crossroads had chosen Carlisle above it all, and even now that she saw the price she had paid, did not falter.

Here, on the floor, was the family that would follow Carlisle to the ends of the earth.

Jasper offered a weary smile back, no doubt having caught these emotions.

With that, Carlisle left the room.