Thank you to magicbustrip, souverian, paninihead, bludaze, eeeeaud, and Love. Fiction. 2020 for your reviews! I've either replied already, or I'll reply asap.
Chapter 11
I'd just like to start off by saying this chapter isn't Edward bashing if you're a huge fan of his, but it is Carys laying down the law about his actions.
"... and he's just been... Okay... Right. And he's been doing this even though you talked to him and explained it was wrong?"
Carlisle nodded and sighed, resting his head back against the sofa. "He thinks he has no other choice, that he needs to protect her, to watch over her."
Carys kissed her teeth and nodded to herself, her brow creasing as she stared at the blank screen of the television. "Mhmm... Mhmm... Mhmm..."
"You don't sound too-" Carlisle began, sitting up.
"Carlisle," Carys whispered, trying to temper the heat of her fury, "I'm rarely angry - truly, completely angry. But I am right now and I think it might be best for our relationship if I spent the night alone."
Carlisle's eyes widened as he reached towards her.
She stood up quickly, her jaw clenched as she moved out of range of his arms.
"Carlisle...," she warned softly, her eyes flashing. "I need some time to calm down. If I don't, I will probably go out, find Edward, and rip him a-!" She stopped mid-sentence, taking a calming breath as she closed her eyes briefly and sent a quick prayer to a God she wasn't sure she believed in to give her strength. "I either need to find your son and explain to him EXACTLY what is wrong with him, or you need to leave because I-"
She turned away from him, taking deep, calming breaths.
"My love..."
"Carlisle, please. I don't want to take this out on you. I don't want-" Carys pressed her hand to her lips.
"I was going to ask if you'd prefer me to drive, or if you'd like to."
"What?" Carys asked in surprise, turning to stare at him blankly. She hadn't heard him move, but he was suddenly by the door and was wearing his coat.
Carlisle held up a set of keys as he removed her coat from the rack and held it out to her. "Edward has done something wrong, and I'm not ignorant of that fact," he declared. "I only ask that if you confront him, you allow me to be there with you."
Carys' anger left her for a second as she continued to stare at him in shock. He was really happy for her to-
"You're really okay with me storming into your house and just- well, probably yelling my head off at your son?" She asked incredulously.
"Everyone deserved to be heard, my love," he explained quietly as if he were talking about the weather rather than Carys' fury at his favourite child. "Just because I haven't been, doesn't mean you don't have the right to be. You're understandably angry at Edward, and if you want or need to confront him then I hope you know me well enough to know that I wouldn't stand in your way."
Carys nodded slowly and thought over what she wanted, what Edward had done.
It was as if a spark re-lit the fire inside her, and her body tensed again, her jaw clenched.
She toed on her shoes as she let out a small angry sound from the back of her throat, and grabbed her coat from Carlisle's hand, following him out of the door.
"Right. You!"
Carys pointed at Edward as she stormed into the Cullen's lounge fifteen minutes later, the drive only allowing her anger to seethe and grow as she thought over what she might say to Carlisle's son.
Edward turned away from the piano slowly with a raised eyebrow. "Do you really need to think so loud?" He asked with a sigh, which only compounded her feelings towards him at that moment. "Look-"
"Do. Not. 'Look'. Me, Edward Cullen," Carys informed him, a deceptive softness to her voice as she pressed her still trembling hands together to hide the worst of her physical reaction to her anger. "Do not cut across me. Do not interrupt. Do not say a word unless I tell you to. Do you understand me?"
Edward held his hands up in front of him in what Carys saw as a mockery of a supplicant gesture. "Carys, I really don't think-," he began dismissively.
Carys' eyes flashed in warning as she advanced slowly towards him, the tone and volume of her voice remaining the same. "Have you or have you not been breaking into a teenage girl's bedroom, examining her belongings, and watching her sleep without her consent?"
He appeared a little taken aback as she cut across him before he nodded. "Howe-"
"Now," she whispered, cutting across him again as her narrowed eyes darkened with anger. "Would you rather we had this out human to vampire in front of whichever members of your family can currently hear us, or are you going to listen to what I'm thinking? Because I'm going to be very clear with you Edward, and I've decided to be incredibly gracious and give you the choice. Which would you prefer?"
Edward sighed, crossing his arms at his chest as he inclined his head. "I would prefer we had this discussion somewhat privately."
"Well." Carys maintained eye contact as she forced herself to think of each of her actions in turn, removing her coat slowly and placing it over the arm of the sofa closest to her. She carefully twitched the sleeves of her jumper back into place and took a seat on the arm of one of the armchairs, crossing one leg under the other for support.
"Right," She thought curtly as she looked down at him, her position giving her a small advantage despite the difference in their heights. "Can you hear me well enough?"
He nodded, seemingly unsure now of the position he held in the conversation.
Carys examined a loose thread on her cuff before she turned back to him with a deceptively sweet smile which failed to meet her eyes.
"Well then," she began quietly. "Though I am clearly not your mother, your father, or your sibling, I am a human. And I'm NOT someone who will sugar coat this for you. Both of those things, and far far more qualify my anger right now. So. I suppose we'll begin with... Did Carlisle, Esme, or your human parents raise you to completely disrespect women and their rights?"
He shook his head, seemingly thrown again by the tone and calm of her questioning.
"I hoped not..." She sucked in a breath and raised her eyebrows a little, affecting an expression of mild interest as she tilted her head slightly. "How old are you, Edward? Your full age."
He stared at her for a couple of seconds before he answered. "I'm one hundred and four years old."
"How old were you when you were changed? How old were you when you were frozen developmentally, I should say?"
"Seventeen..." He scoffed. "You know this..."
"Ah, of course, I know this, Edward. I was simply wondering IF YOU KNEW THIS?!"
Edward winced as she shouted at the top of her mental lungs, her shoulders tensing as she did so before she relaxed and she dropped back to her otherwise conversational tone.
"Have you ever heard of the saying 'I wasn't born yesterday', Edward? I'm sure you have... I only ask, because you say you're seventeen, that you're one hundred and four, but that can't be true, because IF YOU WEREN'T BORN YESTERDAY, YOU WOULDN'T BE DOING WHAT YOU ARE! YOU ARE A GROWN MAN, EDWARD-"
"Anthony Masen," he supplied quietly, seeing where her mind was going. It threw her a little that he was helping rather than dissuading her, but she forced herself not to let him see that, or to let it send her off course.
Her eyes widened a little she dropped her chin and fixed him with a glare. "EDWARD ANTHONY MASEN CULLEN. Let me repeat. You were frozen at the age of SEVENTEEN. You are now OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. What on EARTH makes you think you can stalk Bella and break into her home like this? That it could be in ANY WAY OKAY!?
"Now..." Her mental voice dropped back to appear quietly, mildly intrigued as she leaned back a little and adjusted her position, licking her lips as she did so. "The fact that you're listening to me at all so far makes me think of two things. One - your loyalty to your father suggests that you give me the time of day. And two - and I really, really hope this is true - that some part of you recognises and acknowledges your actions are wrong. Am I at all correct in that assumption?"
He nodded again, slowly this time, not quite meeting her eye.
Carys' eyes shifted as she shook her head, her brow creasing with the disappointment that infused her mental voice. "Look me in the eye and tell me Edward, am I wrong?"
"No," he murmured, "I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I-" He glanced in Carlisle's direction and then met her gaze head-on. "-need to protect her."
"Do you think that you're somehow protecting her by invading her privacy, invading her home, her BEDROOM!? If you feel that strongly about her, you talk to her, Edward," she appealed, surprising him with the sudden change of tone. "You get to know her. You DO NOT invade her privacy and place of sanctuary. What on earth can you be protecting her from that involves that level of invasion? Because I know it's not Charlie. Is it?"
"No!" He denied vehemently, sitting forward a little on the piano stool as he shook his head.
"Good. Then from what Carlisle's told me, I know that Bella is your... Blood...-"
"Singer," he completed hesitantly as he stared resolutely at the other arm of the chair she occupied.
"Right. Your blood singer. You even had to leave town for a week just so that you wouldn't kill her. Is that correct?"
"Yes..."
"Well, then who and what in the world are you protecting her from, Edward? Don't say you're doing this to protect her from her bloody duvet cover or something... WE ALL KNOW. YOU KNOW. That this is COMPLETELY unacceptable behaviour FROM ANYONE, no matter who they are!
"If what's Carlisle's told me is right - if Alice is right, and Isabella Swan is the love of your eternal life, do you really want her to be at any greater risk than you need her to be because she doesn't know that you're there!? Do you really want her to wake up one night, see you there, and be as frightened out of her mind as pretty much all humans would be? Not just because you're a vampire, but because you're a STRANGER IN HER HOME!? Do you REALLY think that's acceptable? BECAUSE I SURE AS HELL DON'T. Do you really think you can justify your actions by saying you're protecting her?"
She shook her head at him, trying to control her mental voice that she didn't shout all her words, but rather focused on persuasion. She wanted to shout at him - wanted to shout at the top of her mental lungs, but he knew that already, and she needed to concentrate on making her thoughts coherent rather than the jumble they usually became when she was confronting someone.
She was sure he knew that as he sat still and allowed her a few seconds to sort through her mind, to decide what she was going to say next.
"My mother taught me that if you can't justify your actions to someone else, then you sure as HELL can't justify them to yourself.
"And if you can't accept that on its own, then that leaves me no choice but to fall back on the old question that shouldn't even have to be asked because you should already understand how you should treat others - regardless of who they are to you.
"What if it was ANOTHER MAN doing this to Bella? What would YOU, IN PARTICULAR, do or think if you came across someone so much as thinking about entering a woman's - a teenage girl's - bedroom without their PERMISSION? If they were thinking that in the first place, let alone if they felt some compulsion to-"
"Stop." Edward held up his hands and spoke weakly. He looked as if he'd somehow paled, though she knew it wasn't possible. "Stop..."
"Do you understand how incredibly inappropriate, immoral, how dishonourable, how BLATANTLY DISRESPECTFUL and-" she tossed her head "-entirely despicable your actions have been?"
"Yes..." He whispered slowly through the thick blanket of silence in the room - in the whole house, it seemed.
"If you were human, and I caught you doing something like this, I would inform not only the police but every single woman in this town - Bella first. I would march to her house and tell her exactly what you have been doing, when, and how.
"I do not give a flying fuck if you are a vampire, Edward. Being a vampire does not allow you to treat ANYONE as if they don't have the same rights you would expect to have. Do. You. Understand. Me?"
He blinked slowly, and she took that for assent even as she realised she'd spoken that last aloud.
She took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring as she slowly leaned forwards, clasping her hands around her knee. She knew he could see flashes of moments where she'd felt scared or threatened in the presence of others. She knew he could likely see more than she thought he could.
Edward frowned and dropped his head a little, staring at his hands.
"If you choose to follow this path, do not DARE tell me, or anyone else, that it's because you have no choice. You do. Being a vampire only allows you so much. If you choose to drink the blood of humans rather than the blood of animals, that is your choice, and you and your conscience would need to reconcile that as part of your nature. BUT if you choose to continue on the way you are, then know this: it is NOT part of your nature. You know well enough that it is not a need that you can't fulfil by speaking to Bella, getting to know her in a normal way, and gaining her consent to watch over her IF she wishes to grant it.
"This is entirely your decision, your thought process, your informed choice. You have a choice, Edward. And you need to make it RIGHT now. You are not a child, you have not been a child for a very, very long time, and you cannot be allowed to hide behind your frozen age and the fact that you're in high school. BECAUSE NEITHER OF THOSE EXCUSE YOUR BEHAVIOUR!"
Carys refused to apologise for the fact that she'd slipped back into verbal speech again, and to ignore the small crash she heard from the floor above, as she forced herself back.
"I have no idea what you'll do, but I hope you will understand and leave her alone until you're willing and ready to engage in a healthy and non-intrusive way. Whether or not she's willing to get to know you and to let you get to know her, is HER choice, and ultimately one which you've attempted to run rough-shod over with your actions. Now. What is it going to be, Edward?"
"Well-"
"Edward," she said, speaking softly, and clearly so that he had no way of ignoring or dismissing her words as 'emotional'. "I don't know you as well as your family. I haven't spent upwards of fifty years with you as they have... But I do know that you must recognise that you cannot act like this. I like to think that after a hundred years on this earth, you might have somehow developed some respect for women even if you had none to begin with. That you might have some understanding of what threatens us on a daily basis. I know that you know what you've done is wrong because there is no way in hell you can't see it. So I will simply ask you to look me in the eye and tell me you understand that? That you understand why I, a woman who hardly knows you, am so horrified by your actions? That you know you must stop this immediately?"
"Edward?" Esme's gentle voice cut across the tension in the room.
She stood staring at him from the door, still wearing her coat and holding two large suitcases in one hand as if she'd just arrived.
Carys wouldn't have been surprised if Edward had hung his head and shuffled his feet, the way he looked at Esme in that moment.
"Well?" Esme added, raising her eyebrows when he remained silent.
He looked between Carys and Esme, then stared at Carlisle as he nodded and then shook his head. "I'll try. I'll try to protect her without invading her home again."
"That's all we can ask," Esme told him, smiling warmly as she sighed in apparent relief.
Carys shook her head slightly at her friend, and Esme frowned her confusion before she turned back to Edward.
Carlisle, she noted, still hadn't taken his eyes off his son.
"I've had enough of 'I'll try' in my life to know what it really means, Edward. Either you're going to stop, or you're not. I'll try means you'll do it again and expect Carlisle and Esme to forgive you when you do because they love you so deeply, so unconditionally. It's a yes or no question, Edward. Are you going to continue to ignore Bella's rights, freedoms, and consent because you know your family will ultimately forgive you, or are you going to do the right thing? Yes? Or. No?"
Edward studied her for a moment, then glanced at Carlisle who continued to stare at his son with calm intent.
"You already know where I stand," he told him simply.
"No," Edward said finally, turning back to Carys. "No, but I will keep watch over her when I feel she's at risk."
"Not in or around her house," she insisted quietly, jabbing a finger against her thigh to emphasise her words.
"No," he conceded slowly after a moment, staring at her with renewed surprise. "No, not until she gives me permission."
Carys nodded and felt her anger begin to leave her as she stood from the chair. "Right. Well. Good," she supplied softly. She began to turn away when Edward smirked and her eyes narrowed again as she rounded on him. "Are you laughing at me, Edward?"
His eyes widened as he blanched. "No. Not at all." He pointed above them. "Emmett thinks you sound like his Ma."
Carys took a slow breath.
"She sounds like a strong woman," she informed him quietly, raising her eyebrows a little.
"She was," he agreed, nodding quickly. "He's terrified."
"Well then," she murmured, feeling suddenly exhausted as she ran a hand over her brow. "He'd better not incur my wrath any time soon..." She turned and walked across to Carlisle, running her hand over his forearm as she looked to the door. "Would you mind driving me home again?" She asked him tiredly.
Carlisle nodded and curled his hand over the side of her waist as he guided her back to his car and waited for her to get settled before setting off.
As her anger left her completely, her exhaustion only grew, along with a sense of sadness and the feeling she should apologise. Not for what she said, she stood by that, but to Carlisle for the way in which her anger had taken over completely.
He remained silent as he cut off the engine and pressed back against his seat, rubbing a hand over the side of his neck.
"I know what you're going to say, Carlisle..." Carys informed him slowly as her gaze fell to her hands, clasped loosely in her lap.
"Do you?" He asked, finally glancing in her direction.
"You're going to say I was too harsh," she explained, turning in her seat. "There's a reason you haven't looked at me since I went off on Edward-"
"Sometimes I can be blinded by my love for my children," he began when she paused, "the compassion I hold for them, especially when it comes to Edward. Compassion only got so far with him this time, and so I called Esme to see if she could persuade him." He turned to meet her eye, and she blushed at the passion she was surprised to see burning in the depths of his golden eyes. "You... You were magnificent... Edward wasn't exaggerating when he told you that Emmett was terrified at how similar you sounded to his mother... I hadn't thought that humanity was what Edward needed to persuade him."
"So... You're not annoyed?" She questioned slowly, glancing at his shoulder.
Carlisle waited for her to meet his gaze again before he looked towards the forest.
"Carys, not three days ago, you were still apprehensive about vampires... Tonight, you were so firm in your anger at Edward's actions, so strong in your conviction that he was wrong, that you flew past your fear of what he was and gave him a complete dressing down. You were so human that you didn't just stand up to a vampire, you overruled him, gave no quarter, shamed him in a way his siblings couldn't, and forced him to listen to you in a way that I was unable. Even when Esme thought his trying was enough, you reminded him that it was not... Annoyed is the last emotion I feel at the moment."
"Oh..."
Carlisle reached across and tilted her chin up so that he could kiss her - deeply, passionately, in a way that robbed them both of breath.
He stroked her cheek as he closed his eyes briefly, but when he opened his eyes to look at her again, his expression grew wary. "I... I feel you should know that when you joined the hospital, I-"
"Watched me?" Carys asked, regaining her senses. "I guessed, Carlisle... But I thought it was only at the hospital?"
"It was," he agreed seriously.
"Then it's not really the same thing, is it?" She asked with a small half-smile, relieved with what he'd told her. "But don't think I wasn't two minutes from leaving."
He nodded solemnly and frowned for a moment.
Carys waited, knowing from his expression that there was something more.
"And Rosalie once broke into your grandparents' house so that she could remove the rec-"
"I KNEW IT!" Carys exclaimed, far louder than she meant to. She placed a hand on Carlisle's arm when he stilled completely. "But... I guess I think it's a bit different too..." When he looked confused, she took a breath and explained herself. "She was trying to hide what you were to protect her family, and she was only there briefly I imagine?" He nodded and she mirrored his action. "Then I can understand that... In a way... Carlisle..."
"You look exhausted," Carlisle observed, pressing another kiss to her lips before he pulled away.
Crossing impossibly quickly around to the passenger's door, he opened it and lifted her into his arms.
"I could get used to this," Carys murmured quietly as she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face against his shoulder.
She smiled sleepily as he carried her to her door and felt around her coat for her keys, but she was asleep before they entered.
A/N: I was as surprised by this as you. I debated stopping the story for a bit because I wasn't sure what to do once it cemented itself over the past day and a half, but it did.. The original notes for this chapter were: finds it weird about Edward and isn't happy, not unleashes a righteous fury upon him.
I think it does show the difference between Carys truly angry to her taking on a role with Alice in the flashforward though at least.
