Esme sat back from the deer she drained, feeling uncomfortably full. It was the second one she drank and she wondered how all that blood fit inside her. The deer's neck was bent back at an unnatural angle and there were teeth marks in its throat – teeth marks that were unmistakably hers. A shiver went down her spine.

She'd grown up on a farm and was no stranger to animal death. It was a fact of life – the animals they raised were going to eventually become food. On top of that, farm animals tended to attract predators. One memorable winter, a weasel broke into their chicken coop and killed all of their hens. She remembered finding the broken coop door and inside, dead hens with chunks of flesh torn out of them.

But what made this so surreal was that the killing blow came from her own teeth. She was the predator now.

She heard tentative footsteps approach and Carlisle crouched beside her. He was apprehensive, studying her face closely. "Are you finished?"

The burn in her throat wasn't completely gone, but she didn't think she could force any more blood inside her. "Yes," she whispered. Carlisle held out his hand to help her up and she took it, despite not needing it. She stared at the deer carcass. "What now?"

"When we're done feeding, we bury the carcasses. We always have to clean up after a meal to help keep our presence a secret," Carlisle explained.

"We have to hide what we are?" Esme asked. The collective pronoun flowed automatically out of her mouth and she gave a little shake of her head. I am a vampire. It didn't feel real yet and part of her still thought that this had to be a dream.

"It's the foremost rule of this life – keeping our presence a secret from humans."

"We don't have shovels," Esme said.

Edward spoke up. "We just use our hands. It's faster that way."

They helped her dig the holes and bury the deer. With the blood on her hands still wet, they became absolutely filthy. Blood and dirt also covered the shirt she wore and somehow there was a giant hole in the right knee of her slacks. She didn't remember when that happened. She wondered how bad she looked, especially in comparison to how put together Carlisle and Edward were. "Whose clothes are these?" she asked.

"They're mine," Edward said.

"I'm sorry. I'll wash them for you," Esme offered.

He snorted. "I'm not sure they're salvageable." When he saw the distress on Esme's face, he said, "Don't worry about it, Esme. I ruined so many of my clothes when I first learned to hunt. They're easily replaceable."

"What happened to my own clothes?" Esme asked.

Carlisle rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "I had to change you out of them and burn them. They were covered in your blood and you would have started to smell it. It makes it harder to hunt animals if you've already smelled human blood."

Buried in the explanation was the implication that Carlisle saw her naked. Esme wondered if she should be more embarrassed by that than she was. If she thought hard to those murky hours between her jump and waking up in pain, she could remember Carlisle promising her that he was only changing her so she'd be more comfortable. She had no reason not to trust him. Besides, having recently given birth, she'd already suffered through the indignity of strangers seeing more of her body than she was used to. What was one more person added to the list? "That…sounds reasonable," Esme finally said.

"We can order new clothes for you," Carlisle told her, looking a bit relieved.

"I should hope so. I don't want to have to keep sharing my wardrobe," Edward joked.

Esme bit her lip. Certainly not if she was going to keep ruining them.

Edward's face fell. "Really, Esme. I'm not mad. I was joking."

She hugged herself and sighed. "Can we go back inside? I really want to clean up." She wanted to feel some semblance of normalcy. She couldn't do that with the blood and dirt on her hands.

Carlisle and Edward shared a glance. "There's just one thing," Carlisle said.

"What?" The word came out far more impatient than she meant it to.

"You're much stronger than you used to be as a human. You'll have to be very careful with everything you touch. Clothes are easily replaceable but damaging the bathroom would be more problematic. Neither of us are really great plumbers nor would it be a good idea to call in a human one while you're still so new to this life," Carlisle explained.

"I'm not going to trash your bathroom," Esme said incredulously. Why would they think that? She'd already lived through Charles breaking things in the house because he was mad. She'd never follow down that path.

"Not intentionally, no." Carlisle glanced around on the forest floor and then picked up a thick rock roughly the same size of his hand.

Esme stared when he held it out her. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"It's better to see what I mean. Take it and squeeze it."

Esme took it and she thought it should feel heavier than it did. She met Carlisle's eyes, feeling rather silly, and he gave her an encouraging nod. She curled her fingers around it as best she could – it was awkwardly shaped – and squeezed.

It easily broke apart in her hand as if it was a piece of rock candy. She dropped the broken shards in shock. "Oh!"

Edward pressed his lips in a line to hide a smile, but Carlisle remained serious. "Do you understand now?" he asked.

"Yes," Esme whispered.

"The strength takes time to get used to."

That was quite an understatement. "As does everything else, I imagine."

Carlisle allowed a tiny smile. "Yes. Shall we head back?"

Esme nodded and found herself automatically reaching for Carlisle's hand.

.

When they arrived back at the house, the sun was long past setting and Esme paused before going inside. She'd been so distracted by hunting that she didn't notice that the night wasn't so dark anymore. The light of the crescent moon was enough to make it seem like it was still day. She could clearly see details like the weathered wood of the porch steps and the chipped paint on the outside of the house and the grooves in tree bark. The moon had an iridescent halo around it and the stars flickered and danced, making the night sky seem impossibly alive. It had a million more stars than she ever remembered seeing.

"Are you coming?" Edward asked.

Esme jumped and realized Carlisle and Edward were watching her gawk at the sky. "Yes, sorry."

Once inside, Edward immediately disappeared upstairs. Esme stood awkwardly in front of the door, feeling like she shouldn't be there given how dirty she was. She took in the modest living room and details she didn't notice before – the bookshelves that were filled to the brim with books and music records, more books piled on end tables, a grandfather clock nestled in a corner, a marvelous grand piano where the dining room should be. All of it seemed quite ordinary and not like a couple of vampires lived here. A powerful wave of homesickness overtook her, though she wasn't sure what home she was missing and a strangled sob broke through her lips. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

"What is it?" Carlisle asked, eyes anxious.

"I don't know," Esme admitted, voice shaky. "It's all overwhelming."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Esme remembered him saying that over and over while she burned. "You keep saying that."

"I am the reason you are one of us. I acted without thinking about whether you would want this life. I feel responsible for how you feel about it, just as I am responsible for teaching you how to be a vampire." Despite his youthful face – a face that looked exactly the same as she remembered when she was sixteen – Carlisle suddenly seemed old and tired.

"That seems like too much responsibility," Esme said.

He gave a world-weary shrug. "It is what it is."

Edward came down the stairs with more clothes and a towel. "I can show you where the bathroom is," he offered.

In the privacy of bathroom, Esme moved carefully, not wanting to break anything. Taking off her shirt went very slowly as she coaxed each button undone. She supposed it didn't matter since the shirt was ruined anyway but she wanted to practice with something before daring to turn on the tub. It also gave her distraction from looking at her very disconcerting red eyes in the mirror. When she was finally naked, she noticed several more changes in her body besides the eyes. Her skin was smooth and pale everywhere, the scars from Charles and stretchmarks on her stomach were gone. The only scars that remained were crescent shaped teeth marks on her wrists and ankles. She reached up and felt them on her neck too. The bend in her right arm from fracture was gone and it no longer twinged when bent it. Her breasts no longer ached from milk coming in.

It seemed so perverse that her body should continue producing milk when her baby was gone, like it was mocking her. But it also felt profoundly wrong that signs that her baby existed should be erased.

With a choked back sob, Esme tried turning on the tub. She twisted the knob a centimeter at a time until water gushed out of the faucet in a flood. The water was deliciously warm when she got in and she got to work scrubbing herself clean. She thought about relaxing for a bit but the water became quickly too dirty for that and the water lost all its heat. As she dried off and dressed herself, she finally noticed Carlisle and Edward's conversation downstairs.

"The excuse that we're both sick can only last so long," Edward said. "I can pull out of school and stay with her while you work." He sounded rather cheerful at that thought.

"Or we can find somewhere else to live so I can be there to help too. I don't want to put all the responsibility on you."

"Do you really want to go through the process of moving with a newborn vampire? That would be harder than just staying. We didn't move from Chicago until I could control myself, remember?"

"My memory is sharp as ever, Edward. Weren't you resigned to staying in school?"

"Things have changed."

"I don't like the idea of leaving the both of you alone together. You are still a young vampire and her thirst would affect yours. It's probably better that we leave."

At that, Esme wrenched open the door, forgetting her strength. The doorknob came out of the door with a loud noise and wood splinters flying everywhere. "Oh no," she moaned as Carlisle and Edward came running up the steps to see what happened. She felt like she might die of mortification. She had been doing so well too. "I'm so sorry!"

Edward hid a smile behind his hand.

"Don't worry, Esme. It was bound to happen," Carlisle said soothingly. "While you have done really well so far, I knew that you wouldn't be perfect one hundred percent of the time with controlling your strength."

"I'll fix it," Esme offered, even though she wasn't sure how to. It couldn't be terribly difficult to learn, though.

"That's not necessary," Carlisle said.

"I feel that I should," Esme insisted, searching for any sign that Carlisle was upset.

He remained calm as ever as he replied, "Unlike plumbing, I do know how to fix doorknobs. I lost count of how many doorknobs Edward ruined in his first year."

"I thought you said your memory was still sharp," Edward muttered and Carlisle rolled his eyes. Esme let out a laugh despite herself.

Carlisle gave her a hesitant grin. "If it would make you feel better, you can help me fix it."

That sounded fair and Esme nodded in agreement.

"Was there something you wanted to say that made you come out in such a rush?" Edward asked.

Esme hesitated. "It's just…I heard you talking about leaving."

"It's a possibility we were discussing," Carlisle said. "Do you have an opinion?"

He seemed to genuinely want to hear it, like she remembered when she was younger. "I don't want to have to be on the run again. I know I'm new and I don't understand everything but can we please stay?"

Carlisle considered for a moment, glancing between Edward and Esme. Edward raised an eyebrow at him and nodded. "Well, it seems I'm outvoted here. We can stay for the time being."

Esme felt a knot in her chest loosen. She wouldn't have to leave the place where her son was buried so soon. Edward's expression flooded with pity, no doubt catching that thought. She wasn't altogether sure how she felt about his ability. What had he seen in her mind? She looked away, placing the broken door knob on the sink and picked up the bundle of soiled clothing. "What do you want to do with these?"

Edward held out his hands. "I'll take care of them."

As they headed back downstairs, Carlisle said, "I know you must have more questions."

"It's hard to know where to start," Esme replied.

"Start anywhere," Carlisle suggested, taking the armchair. Edward took the couch. When Esme remained standing, Carlisle waved a hand. "Please, make yourself at home."

Esme gingerly sat on the couch with Edward, not knowing what else to do. She didn't know if she could make herself comfortable here yet; she felt like an interloper. She twisted around to look at the dark windows and then at the clock. It was now past midnight and it dawned on her that she didn't feel tired at all. "It's late," she said.

"Are you wondering about sleeping?" Carlisle asked. Esme nodded. "We don't sleep at all."

Esme gaped. "Ever?"

"No, not at all."

"That sounds horrible." Sleep had been a refuge, the time where she could have a few hours of escape from her reality.

"It takes getting used to," Edward said. "That's why we have so many books and I have my music and piano. They're distractions to get out of our own heads for a while, though it is harder for me. I have not only my own thoughts, but everyone else's too."

"Is that your way of saying that you have it the worst?" Esme asked. Carlisle hid a laugh behind a fake cough.

"I didn't mean it that way," Edward said, affronted.

"You did, just a little," Carlisle contradicted.

Edward rolled his eyes.

Esme allowed a small smile. She gazed at Carlisle, marveling that he, of all people, was here. It seemed impossible that their paths would cross again. He was the idle dream of a teenager - an ideal she liked to remember for his kindness and encouragement. Everybody else thought that she seriously believed that she would one day marry him, especially Lena, who was jealous of her attachment to the memory of Carlisle. She wasn't that naïve. She never actually expected to meet him again or expected him to come back and declare his love.

"When can we expect you to settle down, Esme?" Mrs. Patterson asked.

Lena answered before Esme could with a mocking laugh. "Never. She's still got her heart set on that doctor."

"I'm not sixteen years old anymore, Lena!" Esme snapped.

Esme shook her head clear of the memory. "How are you here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Carlisle said with a small smile.

Esme shot a meaningful glance to Edward. "How much do you know already?"

"We know you were boarding and teaching at the primary school." Carlisle hesitated and a line appeared between his eyebrows, his eyes full of sorrow. "And we know you lost your baby."

"Mrs. Avery was worried when you didn't come back," Edward added.

"How do you know that?"

Edward rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I followed your scent into town to see if anyone would be looking for you."

Esme frowned. "Why?"

"The same reason we bury our kills – to keep our presence as secret as possible. Edward and I do interact with the humans, but we can't have people searching for you, not when you're so new," Carlisle said.

"If they searched for me and found me –" Esme started.

Carlisle's voice was grim. "You likely would not be able to control yourself. There are leaders in the vampire world who are not kind or understanding about uncontrollable newborns or vampires revealing themselves to humans."

Esme shivered. She didn't know if she wanted to know who these so-called leaders were.

"I don't think we have to worry about a search. Mrs. Avery seemed fairly reluctant to go to the police," Edward said.

No, Mrs. Avery wouldn't want to involve the police, not when she knew about Charles. She probably would never know what happened to Esme.

"Esme, you were running from your husband, weren't you? He hurt you?" Edward's eyes blazed with a strange intensity.

"Yes, but I don't want to talk about him," Esme said.

Carlisle shot a reproving look to Edward. "You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to."

Esme was grateful that he said that. She wouldn't know where to start with Charles and some things that happened with him were far too humiliating and private to speak about. "You look exactly how I remember," she said after a long pause, changing the subject.

Carlisle nodded. "That's another thing about being a vampire. We no longer age."

It seemed like the peculiarities of this new life would never end. "So I will never age?"

"Yes."

"You said you lived many places, before when you treated my leg. So is this where you went after you left Columbus?"

"You remember that?" Carlisle sounded incredulous.

"Of course," Esme said.

Carlisle's eyes were full of an emotion Esme couldn't name. "No, I traveled for a bit before settling in Chicago in 1917."

"That's where he met me," Edward chimed in. "I was born in 1901 and raised there. I had a fairly normal life until the Spanish influenza epidemic hit. My mother and father and I all became critically ill in 1918 and Carlisle turned me when I was dying. My mother begged him to save me and like with you, he couldn't save me by normal means. We stayed there while I learned how to control myself and then we moved here a year ago."

"So young," Esme whispered, her heart aching. Too many young people have died in recent years – from the influenza, from the war, from other random illnesses. How was it Edward should have been dying and her son died and yet Charles was still alive?

Edward stared at her with the same intense expression.

"And where did you come from originally, Carlisle?" Esme asked, turning away.

"I was born in London in 1640."

"1640?" Esme echoed faintly.

"Yes," Carlisle said, watching her reaction closely.

"You're over two hundred." His previous statement about no longer aging didn't seem quite big enough to cover that. She assumed he must have been born not that long before her.

"I'm quite a bit older than you and Edward, but I'm hardly the oldest vampire. There are many far older than I am."

Esme nodded to herself, unsure of what to say. At the same time, she noticed that the burn in her throat was becoming stronger.

"She's getting thirsty again," Edward said and started to stand up.

Esme couldn't stop the annoyed hiss that came out of her. "I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, embarrassed. "But please don't do that."

"I apologize, but I can feel your thirst and it affects my own. I feel that we should know when you're thirsty so one or both of us can go with you to hunt."

"And I'll tell you when I want to go. Not yet," Esme insisted, irritation lacing her voice. She didn't know how she was thirsty again already, not after those two deer she had earlier. But the swollen feeling was gone, her stomach feeling hollow as if she hadn't eaten for days. Maybe Edward was right about going now, but she only just got cleaned up and she didn't want to ruin any more of his clothes.

"I told you that I was joking about not wanting to share my wardrobe. It's not a problem if you ruin more."

Esme ignored him. "You were born in 1640?" she prompted Carlisle.

Carlisle had opened his mouth to intervene but he continued his story at Esme's prompting. "I was the only son of an Anglican pastor. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps to the clergy, but I couldn't conform to his harsh view of the world. He saw everything in black and white and was very enthusiastic in his persecution of Catholics and other religions. He also firmly believed in the existence of vampires and sought, however futile it was, to eradicate them." A bitter smile appeared on his face. "My father never found the real vampires, but they must have been watching him. The vampire who turned me didn't have noble intentions. He thought it would be funny to turn me - the son of the notorious vampire hater turned into a vampire. That was in 1670."

"That's quite a cruel joke," Esme said.

"Indeed." Carlisle hesitated and Esme had the feeling that he was wondering how much of his story to tell her at once. "After my transformation was over, I was horrified by what I had become. I left the city, away from the potential prey. Even now, I'm not sure how I managed to do that."

Esme swallowed against the burn in her throat, but it did no good.

"Carlisle," Edward warned.

"If you need to hunt, we can go. It's completely normal."

Stubbornly, Esme shook her head. "You were just saying you got out of the city without hunting."

Carlisle continued, watching Esme closely. "I spent time in the wilderness, trying to starve myself. Of course, that didn't work. It wasn't until a deer herd crossed my path and I attacked without thinking that I realized I could exist without being a monster."

Esme imagined it vividly in her head - the musky scent of the deer, the sound of hearts pumping, the hot blood filling her mouth - and she was on her feet. A low growl slipped out between her teeth, her throat a complete inferno.

Carlisle stood too and took her hand. "The rest of the story can be finished later. Edward's right."

"Of course I am," Edward muttered.

"Let's go hunting."

AN: *pressing the do-want-i-want button* You may have noticed I altered Carlisle's backstory a bit. It's mostly to make him a bit older to go along with how I've always pictured him. Thank you for reading, I'd love to hear from you!