Thank you to Courtney-Tamara, magicbustrip, and Guest for your reviews. I've gone back and added a note to the top of Chapter 5 to explain the flashforwards.

Chapter 13 - Forks, June and July 2004

June

June wasn't Carys' favourite month of the year, but it did include one of her favourite days...

Her birthday.

Whilst she didn't usually celebrate with a party, she'd never had them as a child and so wasn't used to them anyway, she usually made sure to take a couple of days out of her usual routine to spend doing things she wanted to.

If there was a book she wanted to read, she'd carve out some time to read it. If she had a new DVD she'd been planning on watching and hadn't got round to yet, she'd watch it. If there was a particularly good looking cake she wanted to eat the whole of without anyone saying a word, she'd buy it.

Safe to say, Carys enjoyed herself over the 17th of June... Or, at least, she did since having finished school, when she didn't have to worry about tests or classes anymore.

As her birthday fell on a Thursday in 2004, she'd decided to take the Friday and Monday off which meant she had an extra-long weekend coming as soon as she clocked out. She didn't mind the fact it meant she'd have to work through half her birthday because it meant she could see a couple of her friends on the day itself.

She planned on grabbing dinner from the diner on her way home to go with the bottle of prosecco she'd got in, and dancing around her little lounge before she popped on a film and worked through the biggest cake she'd been able to find when she'd gone food shopping the day before.

Having a working birthday also meant she could share the sweets she'd bought when she'd visited Seattle the weekend before, and give Carlisle and Sarah the boxes of chocolates she'd got for them too.

Bringing in sweets for everyone to share on her birthday was a tradition which had started in primary school and continued on throughout Carys' life. The only time she'd thought about not doing it was her first year of university when she wondered if people might make fun of her for it. Instead, her friends had loved the idea, so she'd never been worried about it again.

It was just something she did, and she didn't think it was really that unusual.

Other people brought in cakes, she brought in sweets. Or, candy, as it was called in America.

The boxes of chocolates were a new idea, and not one she planned on making it a regular thing. As Sarah and Carlisle had been such good friends to her during the months when she was finding things hard, she'd wanted to give them an extra little token of her thanks.


In the end, Carys had kept her actual birthday relatively quiet after having bumped into Sarah in the parking lot that morning and given her her gift.

Sarah had nearly convinced Carys that she should give in and just invite people to the bar, but she'd given up a moment too soon and so at the end of the day, Carys was one errand away from getting in her car and having a long weekend of relaxation. She'd even managed to convince her coworkers that her birthday was on the weekend which was why she was sharing sweets now, and they'd agreed it made no sense to go out that night.

Carys ended up coming across the Carlisle whilst she was heading for the exit, having just about given up on finding him before the weekend. The hospital had been uncharacteristically busy that day, which had kept both Sarah and him on the wards and had made for a fruitless 20 minute search after she'd left the administration office.

"Carlisle!" Carys called as she approached him, and was rewarded with a smile that lit up his face and golden eyes.

"Carys," he sounded almost relieved, "I didn't think I was going to see you today."

"You probably wouldn't have," Carys confirmed, "I gave up trying to find you but I'm off for the next few days so I'm glad I did. I wanted to give you these before I left!"

Carys held up the wrapped box of chocolates and he took her offering with a genuinely surprised smile.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"It's not much, just some chocolates. I just wanted to give you something to say thank you for your friendship over the past few months. I really don't think I could have managed to stay as long as I have in Forks without you." Carys frowned a little when Carlisle seemed to start, and then worried she'd somehow upset him, continued quickly in a joking manner, "I know it's not much, but flights to London're a bit more expensive than I remembered!"

Carys watched, increasingly confused, as Carlisle appeared to freeze completely. It seemed as if he'd turned to stone for a second or two before a small well-practised smile graced his lips and golden eyes met hers. If she was being fanciful, she'd say there was an intense fear in his eyes before he blinked and it was gone.

"I hadn't realised you were leaving us."

Carlisle's voice sounded normal, but... There was something she couldn't pinpoint about the way he'd said the words...

"Next month!" Carys announced happily, wrapping her arms around herself. "I honestly can't wait!"

One of Carlisle's hands shook slightly. He dropped the hand holding the box to his side as he spoke quietly, in a strangely hollow tone. "Next month... Next month?"

"Yup, you were right, sometimes you just need to get home for a-Carlisle, are you okay?" She asked, leaning in slightly. When he didn't say anything, she reached across and lightly touched his upper arm. She blushed slightly as she tried not to think about how much he must exercise for his bicep to be so hard - it was hardly the right time for the thought to cross her mind, nor was it the right time for her to realise they'd never actually touched before.

"Yes," Carlisle told her, taking a step back, Carys' hand falling to her side as he did so. It was as if the touch had brought him back down to earth. "I'm sorry, it's been a long day." He cleared his throat. "So you're going back to London?"

"I mean, it's only for a week and a half, but-"

"A week and a half?" Carlisle sounded calmly incredulous. "I thought you meant-" He broke off as he took a deep breath. "I thought you were giving me these as a goodbye. You nearly gave me a-" he broke off again before he said heart attack but Carys imagined that was what he was about to say.

Carys gasped as shook her head quickly despite her happiness that her friendship clearly meant as much to him as it did to her.

"No! Not at all! I'm sorry! No, they're birthday chocolates!"

"It's not my birthday..." Carlisle told her, now the confused party in the conversation.

"No," Carys grinned, "it's mine!"

"Dr Cullen, we need you urgently!"

Carlisle reacted immediately to the call, throwing Carys a quick "I'm sorry, I have to go, but thank you" before heading off to deal with the emergency. His reaction and lack of birthday wishes didn't bother her at all, she understood he had to go, but something in that moment made her pause.

She didn't know what it was that made her realise...

It might have been how worried he'd seemed when he thought she was leaving, or... The way he'd smiled when she'd come upon him... Or how he'd thought to thank her quickly for her present before rushing off... Or how relieved he'd been that she wasn't leaving...

Well, absolutely anything could have done it really.

Whatever it was... She knew she had a problem... A big one.

She didn't have a crush on Carlisle Cullen as she'd thought at the start of the year. Nor did she just think of him as a good friend as she'd been trying to tell herself for the past few months.

No.

She was in love with him.

Shit.


July

After realising she was in love with a man who not only (if the continued gossip was to be believed, and she was assured by multiple people that it was) had a girlfriend, but was also impossibly perfect, her friend, and definitely wouldn't be interested in her even if he were single, Carys decided to take the mature approach to her situation.

She avoided him.

For the last week and a half of June and the first two weeks of July, Carys Vale actively avoided any and all contact with Carlisle Cullen.

For the next week and a half after that, she was in a completely different country.

Yup. The mature approach.

Carys just wished the mature approach hadn't made her miss him so much that he'd occupied the majority of her thoughts whilst she was in London.

That had been especially annoying because try as she might, she couldn't remember having done anything other than think about him and sleep whilst she was there, and so had to actively lie about how much she'd enjoyed her trip when she returned to Forks towards the end of the month.

At least she'd spent time thinking about him outside sometimes as well, which meant she had enough of a tan to pretend she'd purposefully spent time sunbathing.


In the end, due to a combination of Carys' continued and active avoidance of her friend and his camping trip at the end of the month, it was August before she spoke to Carlisle again.

When they did finally see each other, it was Edward of all people who orchestrated the meeting.

Though he didn't particularly want to admit it to Carlisle, he was sure his father could guess that his interference was largely due to having reached breaking point with Carlisle's continued replaying of the last time he'd seen Carys and how he could or should have done things differently.

It was a testament to how often and deeply Carlisle was overthinking their interaction and Carys' subsequent avoidance of him, that Edward couldn't always ignore the thoughts as he usually would out of courtesy.

In the end, making sure the two bumped into each other one weekend in August just seemed easier than trying to explain to Carlisle once again that he hadn't said or done anything wrong, and that it was, in fact, quite the opposite.

A/N: I know this one is bad, I do. I don't know what happened with it, it's just... It's written, it's here, and it's bad, but I can't work out how to fix it.

I'm tempted to take tomorrow off so there's a bit less pressure on getting the next chapter out so I can work out what to do with August.

P.s. Edward is just trying to ease Carlisle's mind, and he doesn't expect anything to happen between them because of Carlisle continuing to hold himself back from getting too close to her.