Sorry this is so late in the day... Guess who had an accidental 7-hour afternoon nap and then realised they've been serving us up some Jane Austen/pandemic realness in that it took Carys and Carlisle almost a year to touch for the first time? I've written part of the next chapter, and I'm happy to tell you there might just be a hug in there... Bestill my beating heart, am I right?

Thank you eeeeaud, Guest, and Anita for your reviews! I wanted this to be a slower burn than Bella and Edward were, and I'm so happy you like it!

Chapter 15 - Seattle, September 2004

In September, Carys was visiting her step-grandparents in Seattle one weekend when she bumped into the last two people she could have expected to see.

Her parents had told her they were worried about how Findlay's dad was getting on, having had a health scare the month before, and asked her to check in and let them know how he was really doing. Carys was pretty sure that however he was feeling, he was putting on a particularly good face for her because when he decided to take her to a small record shop he'd frequented since the 1970s she hadn't missed the look of relief on his wife's face.

Carys decided she should suggest Findlay and her mum came to visit in October or November instead of over Christmas when she spoke to them so they could see for themselves and maybe get to the bottom of things. She was just working out how to put in her next email home without worrying them too much when her name was called.

"Carys!"

She whirled. She'd recognised the source of the bell-like voice as soon as she'd heard it, but it was still nice to see the grinning face to match.

"Alice!" Carys replied happily, leaving her gaping relatives and crossing the shop to where Alice and her sister Rosalie stood by the small offering of rarer pressings.

Rosalie looked far less excited than her sister at the sudden arrival, and spared Carys a brief glance before she returned to stare resolutely at the cover of the Ella Fitzgerald record she held.

"How are you?" Alice asked her, looking up at Carys with the huge eyes Carlisle had been describing so many months before. "You promised we'd see each other again soon, remember? That was months ago!"

"I'm sorry," Carys told her, not mentioning that she'd forgotten or that it would have been more than a little strange for her to actively seek out a teenager, "I must have got caught up with things."

"Well, you have to-" Alice cut off halfway through her sentence as she gasped, her eyes losing focus.

Rosalie darted a look to her sister and then immediately stepped in front of her to shield her from view when she noticed Carys' confusion.

"Is she alright?" Carys asked hesitantly, wondering if she should go and find someone.

"She's fine." Rosalie crossed her arms across her chest and sounded as if she somehow thought Carys had been responsible for her sister's reaction. "She does this sometimes. You can leave now." She made a shooing motion with the record she still held as an annoyed frown crossed her impossibly beautiful face.

"If it's a-"

"I said she's fine, and you can leave."

Carys was suddenly thrown back to being told off in secondary school, and blinked at Rosalie for a moment in shock.

Alice gasped again behind Rosalie, and Carys' eyes grew round as she tried to look past the tall blonde to see the far smaller brunette. Rosalie's glare intensified, and Carys stepped back with a feeling of fear she couldn't quite put her finger on.

A moment later, Alice popped out from behind her sister, the faraway look having not completely left her yet as she murmured something urgently under her breath that Carys didn't catch but had Rosalie stiffening.

Carys' nervous gaze flickered between the two of teenagers for a second before she licked her lips and settled her gaze upon Alice's now worried expression. She shook herself mentally. She was twenty-two. It was silly of her to get scared by a teenager's glare. So silly, it bordered on ridiculous.

She was so focused on willing her heartbeat to calm down that she barely noticed the elbow Alice jabbed into Rosalie's side or how they looked at each other before Rosalie rolled her eyes and spoke.

"Nice earrings."

"Er-thank you..." Carys tugged lightly at one of them, rubbing her thumb over the back of it as she felt the comforting familiarity of the pearl flick against her skin. "They were a gift."

Did Carlisle's children know he'd given them to her as a present?

"Well, they're beautiful." Rosalie's tone suggested she wasn't very happy that she was speaking at all, let alone complimenting Carys on her jewellery, but it did the trick because Carys' eyes lit up again as she forgot her momentary panic.

"Thank you, I love them," Carys told her, feeling mildly incredulous that she'd garnered Rosalie's approval in some way, even if it was for something she had absolutely no control over.

Rosalie returned to stare at the record she still held, and Carys quickly realised she'd been dismissed again. As for Alice, she seemed content to stand silently until Carys left, seemingly having forgotten the conversation she'd started, though the worried look hadn't left her face and she seemed increasingly agitated.

"Are you okay?" Carys asked, ignoring the look of annoyance Rosalie shot her.

"Me?" Alice asked, as if she was surprised Carys was still there at all. "I'm fine." After a moment, she added, "I get headaches," as if it was as well practised a response as Carlisle's story of how he met his children. Carys filed it away to think about later, along with how this was far and away the most stilted conversation she'd had since she'd spoken to Charlie Swan for the first time almost a year before.

"If you're sure...?"

"Yes, she's fine... We were about to leave anyway." Rosalie cut across Carys whilst she returned the record to its place. She seemed incredibly sad and almost worried to leave it behind as she placed a hand on Alice's arm and began to guide her away. A moment before they left the aisle, Rosalie turned, and as if it was physically painful for her to say, added, "thank you for your concern."

Though Alice gave her a slightly distant wave goodbye, Carys wasn't entirely sure if she hadn't done so out of courtesy more than anything else. Her replying wave was missed by both sisters as they turned towards the door and left the shop quickly, leaving her to stare after them in confusion.


That night, after writing an email to her parents, Carys sat in Findlay's childhood bedroom for hours, staring blindly at the wall as question after question was raised, worried over, and eventually left unanswered.

As the first few rays of morning light lit the room, she reached across to the nightstand and lifted the record she'd laid there. The same one Rosalie had so sadly abandoned in the shop to help her sister.

She wasn't sure what had made her buy it in the first place, but the longer she'd stared at the crowd in the picture on the back, the more she marvelled over how similar Rosalie's profile looked to the profile of a woman sitting at the back of the theatre. It wasn't something she'd have noticed if she'd not studied it so closely for hours after she'd returned to her step-grandparents' house, but since she had...

Carys put aside the niggling doubt in her mind and wondered again at how stupid she'd been to spend $200 she didn't really have on a single record.

It wasn't the pressing itself that made it so expensive, the store owner had told her. It was the sleeve that was the rarity. So few of them had been printed with the picture of the crowd that night in the first place, and far fewer remained in circulation. That one had only come in the day before, and he was amazed two people had been so interested in it already. Whilst it was rare, it wasn't something that made it particularly sought after by non-collectors.

As she returned the record to the nightstand and turned off the lamp, Carys decided she must just be thinking too much into things. She'd give Carlisle the record when she next saw him, and she'd just ask him about Alice and Rosalie when she did.


When Carys was woken up by a noise at the window a couple of hours later, her attention was instantly captured by the record again.

Holding it above her, she wondered about how her mind must have been playing tricks on her. Everything about it was exactly the same, but in the cold light of day the blonde woman she'd thought looked so much like Rosalie... Well, now she looked with fresh eyes, the woman was perhaps a little similar but nothing close to what she'd convinced herself the night before.

Carys returned the record to its place and stared at the ceiling with a new understanding and appreciation of how Catherine Morland must have felt the morning after she'd arrived at Northanger Abbey.

A/N: This chapter is kind of split in two, so the next chapter will pick up in September again, though it'll be much longer and include October and November as well. Blame the nap, not me?

Let's see how long this short break lasts!