This is quite a long one because I've smushed three months into one.

Thank you to magicbustrip and lucefatale for your reviews, and eeeeaud for your PM!

Chapter 12 - Forks, March, April and May 2004

MARCH

The last weeks of February passed by quickly for Carys, and before she knew it, it was March and she'd been in Forks for a full six months.

Whilst her homesickness hadn't completely left her, she'd given in to her friends' urging and spent more time with them again, forging the deeper connections which would one day mean more to her than she could ever know.

Carlisle, who she had once thought she would never be able to speak to again, had kept firmly to his word in the forest and checked in with Carys regularly over those weeks. At first, she'd been embarrassed about how he and Sarah seemed to alternate 'bumping' into her in the halls or staffroom, but she'd slowly become used to it and then found herself becoming more and more excited to see each of them throughout her working day.

Once they'd both begun to see enough of a change in her, their alternating visits had become less about checking she was okay and more about getting to see their friend and chat over the events of the day.

At the beginning of March, Carys had been eating her lunch in the staffroom when Carlisle had come in and it had occurred to her to ask about why Alice had been so sure he could help with her particular problem.

Carlisle had joined her at her table when she'd asked, and had forgotten all about the food he'd bought that day at the canteen as he explained his and his children's pasts - and therefore, Alice's reasoning.

"-after I lost my father as well, I started to feel as if England wasn't really the right place for me anymore. I went... Travelling for a while, and ended up in America, where I had some family and finished medical school." Carlisle paused for a moment, watching Carys as she struggled to control her sadness for him. It seemed to her almost as if it was a well-practised speech, which meant he'd likely had to justify himself many times over the years. "That's how I ended up adopting Edward, actually, his mother asked me to look after him before she died. He was very young, and I suppose I'd felt for so long as if there was this hole inside me... His entrance in my life... Well, the hole began to fill itself."

Carys held a hand out towards him, but she didn't think he noticed as he leaned back in his chair and stared at a spot over her shoulder.

"Over time," he continued, "I found and adopted or fostered my other children, ones who had no one else - ones like me. Though... It felt more as if Alice found me than the other way around!" He broke off with a laugh Carys couldn't quite decipher, but she joined in quickly. The emotion transformed his face and she thought for a moment about how young it made him look. "One day... She was just there... This tiny little person with huge eyes, staring up at me as if she knew exactly how well she'd fit in our family."

"And did she?" Carys asked cheekily, grinning across the table at him.

Carlisle's answering grin seemed to warm her heart and soul - he was so openly happy in that moment that she didn't want to say or do anything in case it made it disappear.

"She did. Completely. I think Alice is one of those people who makes it her life's work to force us all to follow our best path to happiness whether we like it or not."

"What're your other children like?" Carys questioned, settling back in her chair as she warmed her hands on her coffee.

"They're all..." Carlisle seemed to be lost for words as his eyes flitted around the staffroom. "They're all... I guess the easiest answer would be perfect in their own ways? The truth is I couldn't imagine life without them. Every one of them means the world to me." He watched Carys' expression and his eyes seemed to her to melt as she felt little tears spring up in her own. "Perhaps I should have chosen another description?"

"No," Carys told him with a smile as she wrapped her arms around herself and leaned her elbows on the table, "I just don't think-" She broke off, wondering if she should say what she wanted to.

"Please, go on?"

"... I don't think... I guess I just..." The words failed her, so she finished lamely. "You seem like a great dad is all. They're lucky they got you - I mean, not lucky-"

"I think I understand what you mean."

"You do?"

"I hope I do? Is that the same?" Carlisle chucked and Carys grinned through her blush.

"I mean, I'm sorry for everything you've all been through, I can't imagine your pain... But it just... It just seems like you love them all so much... It's lovely."

"Edward tells me I'm incredibly compassionate," Carlisle told her with a secret sort of smile.

"You probably have the patience of a saint as well!" Carys joked, which had Carlisle scoffing as he shook his head.

"I'm nothing close to a saint, I assure you Carys." Something in his eyes made Carys' heart skip a beat, and she was thankful yet again that he couldn't hear it as he sat up straighter and looked away from her for a second. "Besides, they're good kids. They don't get into trouble in town, they do well in school, and they're more... Introverted, than anything." Carlisle seemed to smirk slightly to himself when he told her they were introverted.

Carys didn't believe him for a second, not after meeting Rosalie and Alice, but she let it go with a dubious smile.

"So was I, but it didn't stop Findlay from having his hands full for a while. Or mum, now I think about it."

"Findlay?" Carlisle questioned, suddenly leaning forward and mirroring her pose. He seemed excited at the prospect of hearing more about her past.

"Findlay's my step-dad," Carys told him with a nod, looking down at her hands as she continued hesitantly, "mum met him when I was younger, after... My father... And he adopted me when I was a teenager..."

Carys and Carlisle sat together for the rest of her break, ignorant to the couple of people who came and went as she told him about her parents and he told her more about his children.

After that day the two of them spent more time together than they had before, and by the end of the month, Carys counted the good doctor as one of her friends.

By the time April rolled around, she felt more comfortable in his presence than most people in the small town.

If she stopped to wonder over how easily she'd come to know him or how quickly her homesickness began to ease as she did so, she might think it was strange. If she'd stopped to think more closely about that, she might also have thought it strange that all but one of their interactions took place either alone or when she bumped into him with his children.

If she did that, she might begin to wonder about how he seemed perpetually tired in varying degrees, or how careful he was that they never touched... Or how he always seemed to have an excuse as to why he wasn't eating or drinking around her despite constantly refilling or cradling his coffee mug.

But she didn't think about it, and so none of those other thoughts or questions crossed her mind.

Though... She did often wonder how Carlisle was able to take his children out of school and have time off work so easily for their camping trips... That one, she eventually put down to the differences between England and America.


APRIL

The most interesting thing to happen to Carys in April - because she didn't really count work or talking to Sarah (and Monica when she popped her head in) on their breaks, or the times she spent joking around the staffroom with Carlisle, or even the regular drinks she had with Sarah, Monica, and Richard as interesting enough to remember specifically years down the line - coincided once again with the end of the month.

As Carys stood in front of Richard, eyes wide, hands clasped together awkwardly at her waist, she thought this was definitely not something she'd forget in a hurry.

"I'm sorry... Erm... Say that again?" Carys asked, willing a hole to appear in the floor of the staffroom and swallow her up. She'd been surprised when he'd been there to begin with, but had believed him when he'd told her he was waiting for Sarah to finish so he could drive her home because she was having car troubles... Now, she wasn't quite so sure...

It almost seemed as if Richard... Her friend Richard... Was... Asking...?

"I thought maybe you'd like to go out?" He repeated with a handsome smile on his face and a coaxing tone.

"Out, just us two...?"

She must have got it wrong. This was Richard. They were friends. She knew he was handsome, but... She'd never thought about him like that before.

"Yeah, I thought we could get dinner or go catch a movie?" Richard spoke carefully as if he was calming a skittish horse rather than asking Carys on a date. It gave her pause. She wasn't sure she liked the way he said it.

Carys' eyes flickered unbidden in Carlisle's direction as he entered the staffroom quickly and headed for the coffee pot. Her mind raced, but Carlisle seemed not to have noticed the conversation happening a few feet away, and something told her that he wouldn't care if he had.

Friends or not, she doubted the doctor would be interested in her love life - but that didn't stop it being awkward for her that his timing had been so perfect...

She made a mental note to ask him about his secret girlfriend again when she next saw him so she could watch him squirm as he did the last time she'd brought it up. It had been nice to see him momentarily panic before she'd let him off the hook.

"Well?" Richard asked her after she'd stared, speechless, at him for a few more seconds. "When do you think you'll be free for a date?"

Carys missed Carlisle's swift turn in her peripheral vision because she was focused on Richard as if she was seeing him for the first time. It wasn't as if she didn't like him - they got on well, he made her laugh, they were friends, and knew she found him attractive. He just... She'd never...

"Carys?" Richard repeated her name when she'd remained silent for a moment too long.

She nodded slowly, and then promptly stopped nodding when she saw Richard's eyes light up. She blanched at her mistake.

"I'm sorry, Richard, I like you. I really do, I'm-"

"Just not looking for anything right now?" Richard asked her quietly, and Carys nodded.

"And I... Well, I don't want you to get the wrong idea... I just, erm... I know people say this a lot, but I guess I just-"

"Think of me as a friend?" Richard prompted, cutting across her again. She nodded. "Well... Then, I guess I'm hoping I didn't just make things awkward?"

"Not at all," Carys lied, her heartbeat increasing as she did so, "thanks for asking... I'm just not really looking for anything right now."

"So we can still hang out without things being weird?"

"Definitely," Carys answered with a grin and sigh of relief, "definitely."

"Great. Then I'll see you at the bar tomorrow for drinks?"

"Yup. I'll see you then."

Richard left the room without so much as a backward glance, and Carys let out a breath.

"I mean no offence Carys," Carlisle piped up after a minute from his position by the side of the room, watching her over the rim of his mug as he had when he'd caught her dancing months before, "but I've seen a lot of people asked out in my time, and that was... Particularly bad."

"No-one asked you." Carys argued quickly, whirling about and crossing her arms. Then she sighed again. Then moaned and dropped into a seat, covering her face with her hands. "Was it really that bad...?"

"Well... I don't know what you saw, Carys, but... To me, an... Objective observer, it seemed that you stared at that man as if he was telling you he'd just killed someone and needed you to help hide the body." Carlisle broke off as Carys moaned again and then continued, his grin growing. "Then... You nodded. You nodded, Carys."

"I did, didn't I?" Carys moaned, dropping her head to the table and turning her face to look across at him.

"You did," Carlisle confirmed, his sympathetic tone at odds with his expression, "which would suggest... That your answer was going to be positive. I, for one, was sure you were about to say yes."

"I just don't... I mean, he's..." Carys stared across the room at Carlisle for a few seconds before she hid her face again.

"Just a friend?" Carlisle finished for her when she fell silent, echoing Richard's words minutes before.

Carys nodded against her arms, waiting a few seconds before she turned to him again.

"You know, it's really not fair you keep seeing me like this..."

"How about," Carlisle began musingly as he crossed to the door, "next time something awkward happens to me, I'll come and let you know before anyone else finds out?"

"Deal."

Though she really doubted anything could happen to Carlisle which would be as bad what had just happened, he managed to prove her wrong a little more than a few weeks later.


MAY

"So... I have a small dilemma to put to you," Carlisle told Carys as he filled her coffee mug and then moved on to his own.

They stood side by side at the counter of the otherwise empty staffroom. It was the middle of May, and Carys felt more herself than she had for a while, due in part to Carlisle's friendship and in part to Monica, Sarah, and Richard's. Richard had seemed absolutely fine after she'd seen him in April and had even ended up using her as a wing-woman once when they'd gone out in Port Angeles with the others.

Carys looked to Carlisle as she shook two packets of sugar and ripped them to add to her coffee. "What kind of dilemma?"

"You remember I promised to tell you if something awkward happened to me?" Carlisle asked. He watched Carys nod and then waited until she had stirred her drink and was in the middle of a sip to continue. "Rosalie and Emmett are dating."

He grinned as coffee almost sprayed out of her mouth, and she would have glared at him if she wasn't so shocked. And interested. She tilted her head to the side as she fixed him with a wide-eyed stare.

"Dating... As in-"

"They are very much a couple."

"What!? Whoa. That's... That's a bit bigger than I thought it would be when you said it was a small dilemma!" Carys spluttered as she ran over and hastily took a seat at one of the tables, waving him urgently to sit across from her. Now, this was enough to make up for him watching her turn Richard down. "Nice tie by the way."

"Thank you, Rosalie got it for me."

"Was that before or after?" Carys asked, trying and failing to suppress her amusement.

Carlisle shook his head at her with a look on his face that said he was opposed to her reaction but amused by it all the same.

"Come! Come, sit!" Carys told him, motioning him to the seat again. "Tell me all about your house of incest!"

Carlisle's mouth dropped open in a scoff as he continued to shake his head, but he dutifully slid into the suggested seat all the same. He waited a moment before he sat back and ran a hand through his hair.

He looked to Carys as if he was still in shock - she couldn't blame him really.

"You know I know it's not actually incest, right?" Carys checked, and was rewarded with a nod before she continued on. "Well, how did you find out!?" Carys asked quietly, her tone and expression now screaming tell me more, immediately.

Carlisle hung his head slightly and then slumped backwards in his chair as he sighed heavily and eyed her from beneath his long curling eyelashes. Carys wished she could look half so elegant doing anything.

"They told me," he admitted, taking a sip of his coffee and wincing. "God, this coffee is so bad. I can't drink this." He placed his mug on the table and slid it away from himself as if offended by its continued presence in his eye-line.

"It's not the worst I've had, but you're right, it isn't good today," Carys laughed, before leaning in, eyes flashing with interest and excitement as she gestured about her. "Tell me, tell me! What happened? How did they do it? What did you say? What did you do?"

"Okay, okay... So. Rosalie came to me first and told me she wanted to be with Emmett - and that if I asked him, he would say he felt the same." Carlisle seemed wistful as if he was recalling something which had happened years ago rather than within the past few days or weeks. "So, of course, I brought Emmett in." Carys nodded as he paused then bit his lip and huffed. "And... Well, and what was I supposed to say? They're dating."

He threw his hands up as if in surrender and shrugged. He rubbed his forehead a moment later as if it was an afterthought.

"Well... How long has this been going on for?" Carys asked him seriously.

"A while. A long, long... Long while."

"Well... Shit."

They chuckled at her comment, and Carlisle nodded as he ran his hand through his hair again. "Indeed."

"Wow... I mean... Wow... That's a lot. No wonder you look so tired today!"

Carlisle gave her a lop-sided grin and crossed his arms. He did look somehow paler than usual, and the circles under his eyes were more pronounced. Even his eyes seemed to be taking something of a hit - they looked so much darker when he was exhausted like this.

"I thought you weren't supposed to point out when someone looked tired?" He asked her mocking a comment she'd made weeks before.

Carys wagged a finger at him.

"You're very much allowed to comment on it when someone's just told you their kids are-" she broke off into quiet laughter and pressed her fist to her mouth. A few seconds later Carlisle gave in and chuckled quietly along with her. "Are they going to tell everyone?" She asked once she'd recovered.

"If by everyone, you mean - are they going to go public at school with the news? - Yes. I'd be truly surprised if they didn't."

"Ah, young love..." Carys teased with a mockingly wistful expression on her face.

Carlisle emitted a sound that could well have been a snort if it wasn't so flawless.

"You're terrible," he told her. His hands seemed to twitch in her direction before he dropped them beneath the table and slid them into his trouser pockets.

"Oh come on, I mean... You're really telling me you didn't look at-" she broke off with a giggle and continued on through her laughter, "little Ros-alie and baby Emm-ett and think-" Carys broke off again, pressing a hand to her mouth and then waving it towards her face. "You didn-you didn't think, ahh, give it 10 years and there's a good match there!"

Carlisle watched her laughter with a small smile on his face. When she'd finally recovered herself and looked to be in the middle of a large gulp of her drink, he added, "I think Jasper and Alice are dating too."

Carlisle ducked out of his chair with the speed of someone who knew exactly what was about to happen, laughing loudly as Carys' hot coffee came flying out her mouth and nose.

"Oh, you absolute bastard!" Carys complained, rushing to the sink with her hand under her chin, trying to save her blouse from the worst of it.

When she'd managed to clean herself up as much as she could using kitchen towels, she threw the used napkins in the bin and raced towards Carlisle.

They both laughed as he ducked and weaved away from each one of her attempted hits, moving around the room as he tried and failed - it seemed to Carys - to move fast enough to get away completely, but just fast enough to stop her from slapping the back of his head or shoulders. She hoped he knew she wasn't honestly putting any force into her attempts, though it was a bit of a moot point as not a single one came close enough to catch him.

In the end, it was his pager which saved him, Carys not wanting to distract him from an urgent call. They sobered quickly, and he dodged one last light kick to the shin before heading towards the door.

"Have fun!" She called. Carlisle gave her a quizzical look over his shoulder which had her slapping herself on the forehead and slumping into a chair when he left the room.

Have fun? What sort of idiot...?

"Emmett's at reception so we can drive to the camping site together, so I will!" Carlisle told her, ducking his head back into the room with a laugh which only grew as she glared at him.

"One day, Carlisle I-don't-know-your-middle-name Cullen, I'm going to get you back for how you treat me!"

Carlisle grinned and disappeared a second later, leaving her with his response ringing in her ears.

"I'll be looking forward to it when you do."


A/N: I hope you like this chapter, and Carlisle and Carys' interactions. May was my favourite part to write, and one of the first scenes I wrote for them as well. As it's canon that Carlisle's had human friends as well as vampires over the years, I like to think it's okay he's letting his guard down more with her over time.

Just eight months left until Bella can come along and change things for them!

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts!