I'm just putting it out there. I re-read the first chapter of New Moon, and Bella wasn't exactly subtle in her thoughts about Carlisle, was she? Someone had a definite crush there! Have to admit I got oddly jealous on Carys' behalf!
If anyone specifically wants to know what Carys' dress looks like, I'm thinking Anne Hathaway's burgundy dress from Ocean's 8 - just a suggestion.
Thank you to Joseph Cullen, Sting3, magicbustrip, Guest (you never know...), Katkloss (oh, I'm right there with you - don't worry, definitely no robot Carys here!), souverian, Ghostwriter71, Ella (you know what they say, we plan, God laughs... It's a few of us - trying to get rid of us after the furlough scheme ends here), Adela (:D), Moi (thank you, lovely! I'm going to try and make it as painless (for us) as possible!), Vera (yeah... Me too...), Love. Fiction. 2020, ASimpleTeenager, and BMBMDooDoo- Doo- Doo- Doo for your reviews! I might just have to leave the last chapter without specific dedications, if that's okay? I promise I will reply to all the PM'able reviews tomorrow.
Let's play guess the Easter Egg. I'll give you a hint, they don't teach American History in English schools...
Chapter 2
When Carys returned home late that afternoon, the preparations were well underway for Bella's party.
Hundreds of pink roses lined the steps to the house and filled the area with their heady fragrance, and by the time she entered the lounge, she was giving unreserved thanks she hadn't inherited her mother's hayfever; she wondered how the rest of the family, with their far more sensitive noses, were dealing with the onslaught.
Perhaps it was Alice's attempt to distract from the scent of Bella's blood, or simply that Alice had learned Bella liked the flowers and went overboard in order to meet the exorbitant budget she'd set aside for the occasion.
Either way, Carys could understand why most of the family was absent; she wished she'd been able to see Rosalie's face when she'd been confronted with the transformed space.
Jasper and Alice were darting about the large room in a blur; every few seconds, another bowl of blush pink roses appeared or was adjusted; pieces of furniture disappeared or were displaced to the wall as if they were drawn there by some invisible force rather than carefully removed.
At the end of the room, presents, perfectly wrapped in silver paper, a pink cake far too large for Bella and Carys to tackle alone, and a stack of crystal plates were laid across a small table that Carys knew for a fact was Carlisle's, and had been since he'd been gifted it in seventeen-ninety-nine when his one of his first patients, someone named Lafayette, returned to his native France.
Carys, by now far more used to the supernatural speed the family possessed than she had been when she'd first visited the house, strode for the stairs, confident Alice and Jasper would adjust course so as not to hit her.
She'd just reached for the bannister when Alice appeared in front of her, making her jump out of her skin for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
"Gah!" She exclaimed, twisting away, curling in on herself to protect her painfully stuttering heart.
"There's a dress laid out for you," Alice told her, standing two steps up and pressing onto her tiptoes to meet Carys' eye in a rare display of utter seriousness. "Carlisle's under strict orders not to help you when he gets home, so if you need assistance with the zip, ask Rosalie."
Carys readjusted her bag over her shoulder as she slowly straightened and tried to let go of the feeling that Alice could easily fill the role of Wednesday Addams if she were so inclined.
"And, when'll Bella and Edward be here exactly...?"
"Soon. And unless you want to miss the party, you'll get ready and come straight down."
It was obvious Alice hadn't entirely forgiven Carys for making Carlisle late Esme's going away party, a month before. In her defence, they were only two minutes late, and it was because he'd wanted to finish The Matrix, but it was apparently her fault for suggesting the film in the first place.
In retrospect, the thirty-minute interlude at the beginning of the celebrations, when Carys, Carlisle, Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper had taken to a corner and raved about different aspects of the movie hadn't won Carys any points - though it had given her something to bond with Rosalie over - their joint and near overwhelming admiration for Trinity.
Jasper's laughter seemed to echo around the room as he flashed about behind Carys. "I don' think Carlisle was ever the problem."
Carys turned to shoot him a distinctly unimpressed look.
"Oh, for the love of-" Alice threw her hands up in the air and sighed heavily as she hopped lightly down the stairs as one. "Just hurry, or you'll miss it."
Carys grinned to herself as she ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Reaching Carlisle's bedroom, she headed straight for the bathroom to shower; this was not the day to dally and risk Alice's ire.
When she'd showered, reapplied her makeup, pinned her hair within an inch of its life to sit in a low bun against her neck, and donned the long-sleeved red dress Alice had laid out for her, she met Carlisle in the hall.
Having returned after her and found himself banned from his own bedroom, Carlisle had simply relaxed the clothes he'd worn to work to fit the dress code, his light blue shirt unbuttoned at the collar and turned up at the cuffs, his scarf wrapped loosely around his neck despite his lack of coat or jacket.
He'd been waiting for her, leaning against the wall opposite the door, his hands clasped behind his back as if he were physically stopping himself from entering the room. Knowing him as she did, it was more than likely the case.
Carys grinned when he pushed off and straightened, ignoring the way he reacted to the dress which hugged her body to just below her knees, in favour of smoothing her palm over his scarf.
"You do know you don't have to wear this inside, don't you?"
Carlisle recovered himself and raised an eyebrow.
"I have to keep up the pretence I'm warm somehow, haven't I?"
They'd reached the end of the hall before Carys managed to control her laughter.
"Just sit by the radiator for a while, or better yet, wrap yourself in that electric blanket you got me. You'd be far less suspicious," she advised with a wink.
Carlisle chuckled and shook his head, running his hand up and down the side of her waist as they descended the stairs.
"You know, darling, when I fell in love with you, I didn't expect the constant judgement."
"You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into by the time you asked me out," she countered with a grin, "don't blame me 'cause you don't wanna admit it! If you wanted someone who wouldn't-" she stopped talking and huffed when Carlisle's scarf was discarded over her head and pooled across one of her shoulders.
She glared at him and smoothed her hand over her recently perfected hair, adjusting a now loosened pin.
Alice's tinkling voice called across the room as Emmett and Jasper laughed.
"Mom and Dad aren't arguing, are they?" she teased gleefully. "What'll Esme think?"
"Esme!?" Carys repeated excitedly. She looked about, and when she caught sight of the beautiful caramel-haired vampire by the piano, she ran down the stairs as quickly as she could in her heels, dropped the scarf on the bannister, strode across the room, and threw her arms around her. "Esme!"
"Carys!" Esme replied, returning the hug with equal enthusiasm, just as happy to see her friend as she was sad when she'd returned to college the month before. "How have you been?"
"Oh you know," Carys replied dryly, pulling away and exclaiming lightly over Esme's pink dress before she returned the exasperated expression to her face and nodded over her shoulder at Carlisle, now engrossed in conversation with Jasper by the foot of the stairs. "Blissfully happy, despite that one's best efforts, and all that." She turned back to Esme and clasped her cold hands in her warmer ones. "What about you? How's college? How'd the plans go down with the DeKensies?"
Esme was about to answer when Alice clapped her hands together and emitted a squeal not dissimilar to the ones Carys was prone to when overexcited.
"They're almost here!"
"She says that as if Carys isn't the only one who can't hear them," Rosalie complained with a dramatic sigh.
Carys and Esme shared a look and pressed hands again before they parted, a silent promise that they'd catch up later, and Carys followed Carlisle to stand by the front door. He placed his arm around her and gently stroked her upper arm as, sure enough, the roar of Bella's truck's engine came to her as well.
Carys had grown fond of Bella when they'd had the chance to spend a little time together, and found her similar to her father Charlie in more ways than she'd first imagined.
When they'd told Charlie, Sarah, and Monica in April that the two of them were together, Charlie and Sarah had admitted they'd assumed they'd been dating since the year before and had simply been keeping things private until they were ready to tell his children.
Carlisle hadn't missed a beat and had out and out lied, confirming their suspicions, and earning himself the cold shoulder from Carys for a couple of days, before she'd had to admit it made their progression far more understandable in her friends' eyes.
Carys now counted Charlie amongst her closest friends, and after that conversation and the dinner she and Carlisle had had with him a couple of weeks before, she'd begun to think Carlisle had always been rather enamoured with the man as well.
When Edward led Bella into the house a few minutes later, Carys laid her hand over Carlisle's and squeezed lightly in relief.
Bella, though not entirely happy or at ease, at least appeared not to entirely hate the idea.
"Happy birthday, Bella!" They called in unison, startling the 18-year-old for a moment before a reluctant smile spread across her blushing face.
Esme, ushered ahead of Carys and Carlisle by Edward, was the first to personally greet Bella. She kissed her forehead gently, and Carys was a little taken aback to realise how different, how much more hesitant and careful, Esme was with Bella when she pulled her in for a hug.
Carys took her turn next, though the hug she gave Bella was far more awkward for the two of them because Bella was so surprised by it.
Carys was pulling back by the time Bella thought to hug her back, and an uncomfortable second inning ensued where Bella's forehead connected rather painfully with the side of Carys' jaw.
Carys winced and pulled back, rubbing the offended area whilst Edward chuckled, earning himself a strangely apologetic half-glance from his girlfriend.
"I'm sorry, I just-"
"Went this way, I went that." Carys mimicked the movements that led to her injury with a grimace, still rubbing her now aching jaw. Bella hardly seemed to have hurt herself, or perhaps she was more used to the pain. "I'm sorry, I guess I suprised you."
"No, no, you're just a bit... Warm... And I'm just... I'm just super clumsy," Bella argued, sparing Edward another embarrassed look before she ducked her head.
Carys shot them suspicious glances, her hand falling to her side. "You're not..., I should've warned you first..."
After a few moments of awkwardness, where Emmett's barely concealed laughter was the only thing to break the silence, Carys darted Carlisle a look of appeal, and he stepped forward and swung his arm around Bella's shoulders, causing her blush to deepen.
"Sorry about this, Bella, we couldn't rein Alice in," he whispered in her ear loudly enough for Carys to hear.
Carys raised her eyebrows at the use of Bella's nickname from a man who saw nicknames as an intimacy and felt her face grow hot when Edward caught her eye.
Delayed embarrassment, she covered with a squirm, though it was obvious neither of them believed her.
Jasper coughed lightly from his position by the stairs, and Carys repaid him for his subtle reference to her jealousy by thinking about the saddest thing she could. She was leaning into it a moment later when a wave of intense tiredness rolled over her and she nearly stumbled.
"You haven't changed at all," Emmett complained, his teasing of Bella coming to Carys as if through a tunnel, "I expected a perceptible difference at least, but here you are, red-faced as usual."
"Thanks a lot," Bella muttered, oblivious to the silent struggle between Jasper and Carys, ducking her head again as the blush staining her cheeks darkened.
Emmett laughed harder, and Jasper finally released Carys so that she could blink herself back into the room.
"I have to step out for a second," Emmett announced smugly, adding an exaggerated wink at Alice and then jabbing a finger in Bella's direction for effect, "don't do anything funny while I'm gone."
"I'll try," Bella promised a little too quickly, and Emmett disappeared.
Carlisle returned to Carys' side when Alice skipped forward to take her turn with Bella, and Jasper greeted the teenager with a smile but firmly kept his distance.
Carys felt bad for him at times like these, the onslaught of the family's reaction to Bella's scent, Edward's reaction, in particular, was more difficult for him than their reaction to Carys - and that wasn't easy either. Sometimes, she wondered if Edward didn't make things harder than they needed to be, by warning him to keep his distance as often as he tended to.
"Time to open presents," Alice declared excitedly when she knew she had the full attention of the room, including Rosalie, who appeared faintly annoyed she'd been forced to attend, despite her mere presence alone inducing a mildly dazed expression from the younger human, the typical reaction to Rosalie's magnificent beauty.
Alice slid her hand into the crook of Bella's elbow and all but dragged her past her sister to the table by the far end of the room.
"Alice, I told you I didn't want anything," Bella complained, though her expression suggested she wasn't quite as upset as she said she was.
Alice interrupted Bella with a smug smile, placing a large silver box in her hands. "But I obviously didn't listen. Open it," she urged.
Bella lifted the box and all but shook it.
It neither made a sound that Carys could hear nor appeared heavy enough to carry anything. And yet, when Bella darted a glance in the direction of those watching her closely and ripped the paper from the box with very little care for the way in which it had been wrapped, Carys could see it was supposed to contain a device of some sort.
"A stereo," Carlisle whispered in her ear. "Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie got it for her."
Carys raised her head to get a better angle and nodded appreciatively; she was sure that Rosalie had been an all but completely silent partner.
Bella, without someone willing to let her into the secret, tried to clue herself in by opening the box, and then, after she'd blinked a few times, sparing Edward a quick glance over her shoulder. "Um... Thanks, guys...," she mumbled hesitantly.
Carys followed Bella's line of sight to Rosalie, whose lips tipped up at the sides the instant Jasper began to laugh.
"It's a stereo fer the truck," he explained, tipping his head towards the front door. "Emmett's jus' installing it now, so you can't return it."
Bella grinned, her face lit with the bright and honest expression. "Thanks, Jasper, Rosalie," she raised her voice and called more loudly, "thanks, Emmett!"
When Emmett's laughter reached them despite the distance, Bella laughed.
Carys wasn't sure it was the first laugh she'd heard from Bella, but it was by far the least conscious.
Emmett, as always, had that effect on people.
Alice bounced up and down, her high voice matching the excitement that poured from her and attracted Jasper to drift closer to share in the feeling, and thrust a far smaller box in Bella's direction. "Open this one next! It's mine and Edward's!"
Carys shared a speaking glance with Carlisle at the cold-blooded glare his son received for his involvement in the gift-giving, and despite not being close enough to actually hear what Bella said to him, Carys could imagine it was along the lines of "how could you?".
Emmett returned just in time to save Edward from answering, and announced his return in much the same words, pushing Jasper closer to the trio in his haste to get a good look at Bella's face when she opened it.
Carys, intrigued herself as to what a combined present from the two of them might look like, accepted Alice's wave to join them, ducking a little as she crossed Jasper, Esme, and Rosalie's eye line to hover by Alice's side, watching the unwrapping with just as much enthusiasm as her other half, who remained where she'd left him.
Edward brushed a strand of hair back from Bella's face, sparking a more intense version of the dazed expression she'd held when noticing Rosalie, and promised, "I didn't spend a dime."
Bella took a deep breath and shook herself, turning back to Alice and dropping the larger box to the table so that she could hold her hands out for the smaller one.
"Give it to me," she sighed.
Emmett's chuckle was filled with delight, and Carys shot him a brief grin.
Bella attacked the wrapping paper concealing her gift with as little regard for the time Alice had put in as she had the last one, jabbing her finger under one edge and running it sharply beneath the tape.
Carys' heart dropped and her blood turned to ice when Bella paused halfway and pulled her finger back to examine the small paper cut she'd received, from which a single drop of blood welled; Carys' vision blurred at the edges and time seemed to slow as she turned her head to look at Jasper.
Bella might have muttered something, but more than the sound of her soft voice, Carys couldn't register.
In a split second, Jasper's face contorted and transformed into a snarling, raging, animalistic grimace, his teeth gashing in anticipation.
Carys saw it all as if it were a video, played back at quarter speed; the muscles in his neck tensed and pulsed; his Adam's apple rippled above his open-necked shirt; the snarl emanating from his chest grew louder; he dropped to his haunches ready to attack.
"No!" Edward roared, snapping Carys out of her trance-like state and throwing himself at Bella, casting her back across the table as if she were little more than a ragdoll.
Carys dropped to her knees and curled in on herself as if that might save her from the combination of horror and terror, covering her head with her arms.
The sound of the crystal plates smashing accompanied the loud thud of Bella's return to earth and was followed almost imperceptibly quickly by the cake and scattered presents as they too hit the floor around her.
Something cold, hard, and blunt raked over Carys' shoulders and back, knocking the wind out of her before it was gone in an instant, in an almighty crash as Jasper slammed into Edward. She gasped as she was seized with a blinding pain; her arms dropped to her sides, unable to find the strength to hold them above her any longer.
Carys saw wood splinter below Edward's feet as he dug his heels in and fought the feral creature that had taken over Jasper, fought the snapping teeth inches from his face and powerful shoves that accompanied his desperation to fight his way to his prey. Carlisle fought alongside him, battling the wild desperation echoed in Jasper's eyes, matched only by the fathomless, deadened pits from which it emerged.
No trace of the Jasper she knew was left in that moment.
Emmett locked his arms around Jasper a second later and still, the no-longer-Jasper fought and struggled for dominance over his brothers and adoptive-father, his gaze locked on Bella.
Carys followed his gaze, her eyes rounding; the tears that had stung her eyes in the face of her own pain began to fall.
Bella was laid by the piano, dazed and disorientated, in the midst of the jagged, shattered, sharded remnants of the crystal plates.
Bella lifted her arm to stare at the long gash that had been ripped from elbow to wrist, from which blood pulsed in time with her quickened heart.
Carys didn't need to turn her head to see what Bella could as she slowly lifted her gaze from her ruined flesh; Carys could see it reflected in Bella's wide eyes, glassy from shock and increasing fear.
Bella stared out.
And six ravenous vampires stared right back.
