Just to let everyone know well in advance, I'm going to start messing with Twilight lore a bit. I've already popped in subtly that Carlisle is warmable (passively, not actively, cold) and I have a few other tweaks that will be made. Nothing too massive, but one thing is that the wolves will keep their long hair because I'm not here for the cultural erasure that happened there...
I can completely understand why most Carlisle stories stall or stop when we get to New Moon...
Chapter 7
Carys spent the morning after the party pottering around her small house - unable to stay still for long, and yet too lost in her thoughts for it to be suggested she was at all energetic.
In the cold light of day, Carys was far less assured in her decision to confront Bella about her wellbeing than she had been after breaking down the night before. She didn't want to alienate Bella completely, simply because she chose the wrong words, and yet she couldn't shake the feeling that she needed to be honest with her if anything was going to change.
Carys finally settled on her speech around ten o'clock and decided to drive over to Charlie and Bella's before too much of it slipped her mind. She could easily have walked there, and she often walked around town these days, but she needed the boost to her self confidence that came with the reminder of who she'd been. Who she still was.
Her car, a going-away present from Carlisle following the story they'd concocted about her injuries, that she'd been in a car crash, was now one of her favourite possessions. It was fast, sleek, beautiful in a way she'd never thought of a car being before, and the one thing Sandra couldn't openly complain about without showing her obvious jealousy.
When Carlisle had first suggested she might want a Porsche Boxster 986, she'd been more than a little unsure. But then they'd watched Legally Blonde and she'd seen it, fallen in love, and proposed a payment plan that fit them both.
Carys would pay him back: $100 a month for the next 45 years.
It was a terrible choice of car for her needs really; she could only give one person a ride at a time; she lived in the rainiest town in Washington so had no real use for the convertible aspect, but it drove like a dream, and sitting in the driver's seat boosted her confidence and lifted her spirits just a little.
The contract, taped to the bottom of her seat, was the real reason for that. It stated that no matter what happened, she was required to hand the payment to him in person. Beginning in December 2005, after a suitable grace period. Once a month. $100. No more, no less.
The payment, which they'd agreed upon before Carlisle had had to leave, was more of a courtesy than anything. Carys was paying Carlisle back with proceeds from betting with Emmett, and Alice's investments, but the $100 aspect meant a lot.
It was the same amount of money that had restarted their friendship over a year before - after Carlisle had overpaid her for the record she'd bought for Rosalie, and they'd then taken it in turns to hide the excess cash on each other.
The drive to Charlie and Bella's was quick - the traffic was sparse, and when Carys drew to a smooth halt in front of their house, she was glad to see Charlie's cruiser was missing from the driveway. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say to him after finding out about his friends the night before. Had he known why they were so against people talking to her? Had they told him the same?
Those questions, and the question of whether the Quileute in La Push knew what Carlisle was, had followed her through restless dreams the night before and woken her early that morning.
When she saw Charlie, she didn't want that to be in the forefront of her mind. She didn't want to ask him. She didn't want to want to ask him. Or have to.
Carys left her car on the street and headed up the path to the moderately large two-storey house, her hand raised before she reached the red door. She rapped her knuckles against the wood and was strangely pleased to hear how loudly she'd knocked - how assured the sound was to her ears, despite the way her hand shook.
There was no immediate response, not that Carys had expected one. She waited, tension rising, and tried to remember what she could of her speech before she knocked again, a few minutes later, and then slid her chilled hands into her coat pockets.
Finally, after what felt like a second age, during which she began to regret leaving home without her scarf or gloves, and wearing her second warmest coat, she glanced through the glass panel at the top of the door again and saw Bella begin to slowly descend the stairs.
Bella's head was bowed in such a way that she'd eased the door open before she appeared to register who was standing on the other side of it. When she did, her eyes flared momentarily.
"Charlie's not in right now," she whispered, dropping her gaze to the ground. "I'll tell him you came by."
Bella began to close the door again, and Carys was so thrown by the sound of her voice and the ease of the dismissal, that it was nearly shut before she thrust her hands out and stopped it.
Bella was so weak that when she tried to push against the resistance, she couldn't do anything. After a few seconds, she sighed heavily and opened it wide, the morning light and red paint contrasting against her pale skin and casting her to an unearthly hue.
"I'm going to tell you something," Carys told her, rushing over her words in her haste to get them out before her emotions caught up with her or Bella decided to close the door again. "And you're going to listen because I've prepared this whole speech and I don't know if I'll remember it all, so I need you to. Will you?"
Bella frowned, waited a few seconds, and eventually nodded; Carys sighed in relief and swallowed around a lump in her throat caused by her rising anxiousness.
"Okay, so now I don't know where to start, but... um... okay... Well, when I was a kid..." Carys took a deep breath, her hands itching to curl inwards or brush over her jeans. "When I was a kid... My parents used to argue all the time. And one day... Okay. One day..., my dad was driving, and they were arguing. And, and he got distracted, and we crashed."
Carys realised she could really have worded that one better when Bella's eyes widened, but the younger woman said nothing and made no attempt to encourage or dissuade her.
"Dad got some bruises," Carys explained, drawing out the word and shaking her head, looking to the corner of her vision as if it would help collect her thoughts. "Mum ended up with a couple of sprains...," Carys took another breath and unconsciously rubbed at her arm, which drew Bella's taciturn gaze. "I was in the back, but the way it happened, I ended up with a broken arm and concussion. They kept me in for a couple of days, and when I got out of the hospital, my Dad'd left.
"He'd just upped sticks and left. I mean, he saw my mum, but he... I don't know. Apparently he blamed himself. And now... I have to live with this- um, I'm not going to get into this and depress us more, but... Now, Edward's being selfish and putting himself above everyone else, and I'm angry and disappointed at him too. And..., and Alice is taking the wrong side." Carys' voice broke on a whine, and she had to steady her breath again.
Carys watched Bella for a moment before she continued, trying to gauge whether she was saying too much, digressing too much. There seemed to be a little more life in Bella's eyes than there had been when she'd first seen her, but it may have been a trick of the light. Despite the cold and the fact Bella was only wearing a thin hoodie and sweatpants, she didn't seem to notice the chill either.
"And I don't know if I can do this all over again. I'm breaking, Bella... And I've tr-try... I've tried for weeks with you, and I know it's selfish, but if you're just going to ignore me... Well, I guess what I'm saying is that Edward leaving was wrong-"
That captured more of Bella's attention, and Carys was unbelievably relieved to have such an active audience, though it didn't really help with her rambling. She had to admit she wasn't really prepared for Bella to actually be listening to her.
"-and eventually? You will feel better - though," Carys rushed on past an interjection that wasn't coming, "I know it doesn't feel like it, and it feels like it's easy to say when you're on the other side... But I can tell you because I'm not on the other side, exactly. And you don't have to talk to me, or your dad, but you do need to do something. Anything.
"Because this? This stuff? The not talking at all? Not eating? The staring? The skipping whole days? It's... I know your heart's broken... It's just. It's like you've left completely. And you're screaming, literally screaming.
"This is worse than I've ever seen." This was the hard part. The part where Carys had to tell Bella the truth and hope she could see it. "You're really ill, Bella, and pushing everyone away puts you at risk of losing so much more than a boy who's too selfish to-"
"He's not-" Bella cut off partway through her weak interjection, her eyes widening as if surprised the words came from her mouth.
Carys continued to temper her tone, speaking slowly and tenderly, conscious not to let her admitted anger at Edward affect her words. "He is, Bella. He's controlling and manipulative, and you deserve so much better. But... Look. I know we don't know each other too well, but I'd like to. And you need help, or-or something..."
"You don't get it...," Bella whispered, her voice scratchy and rusted from disuse; she hugged herself and shuddered.
"The depression?" Carys prompted gently. "Or help? Or?"
Bella hesitated. "I-I... I haven't checked out," she mumbled, and Carys was shocked to see the defensive sincerity in Bella's face. "I go to school. I go to work. My grades are good now. I-I cook."
"But you're not here, Bella," Carys appealed gently. "You're existing - barely. You're not living, and you're getting worse every day. You sit in your room, and you exist. You don't notice anything going on around you. This-"
"There isn't anyone. There's no one I can talk to. Alice and Edward le-le-they left."
"What about me?"
Bella stumbled, caught herself on the door jamb, and stared up at Carys with wide, wary eyes. "You?"
"Yeah. Me." Carys checked the street behind her and leaned in just enough that Bella could still hear her when she lowered her voice to a whisper. "See, we both know about vampires, we both know the Cullens, and we're both still here. You can talk to me until you're ready to talk to other people."
"But... But... No... You're leaving too-"
"What?"
"You keep saying Carlisle's coming back, and I need to get better, but you're-you're maybe getting married, and-"
Carys dropped her head back and clapped her hands over her eyes. Bella might as well have been her thirteen years before when she'd first been introduced to Findlay and ran off because she thought her mum was moving on and wouldn't want her anymore. Now she felt like screaming. Instead, she ran her hands over her hair and then focused her gaze on Bella again.
"I keep saying you need to get better and find yourself again. Carlisle's coming back and we're getting married one day, but those things don't mean we're leaving."
"They don't?"
"No, it just means we'll be together and-"
"You're staying?" The soft spark of hope in Bella's eyes made Carys' heart break in her chest.
She nodded sadly. "For a while, at least. But that's not the main thing. You're the main thing, Bella. You're not well, and you have so many people who want to see you get better..." Carys trailed off and watched a multitude of emotions cross Bella's face over the course of the next couple of minutes. It was as if she could see her thoughts on her face; it was so clear when one thought rose to the fore or was dismissed in favour of a sadder or happier one.
"I don't think I can," Bella mumbled suddenly, not quite meeting Carys' eye, and Carys was about to insist she could when she shuffled her feet and tipped her head. "Not today... I have work."
Carys let out a deep breath and grinned, shaking her head. That was a yes if ever she heard one. "That's fine! Then we do it another day."
"Okay..."
"Okay?"
Bella's expression had returned to its worrying state of complete neutrality. "Yeah. Okay."
"Good. Then, I'll get going," Carys told Bella, pointing over her shoulder, "but I'll maybe come get you... Next Saturday? After work, for a walk?"
Bella shook her head, distressed as if Carys were suggesting she took her out to the woods and left her there again. "I-uh, could we do something else?"
"Yeah, sure," Carys assured her, reaching towards her to place a soothing hand on her arm. Bella flinched away from her, and Carys felt a strange sense of deja vu. She tried not to let the reaction get to her, and shoved her hands back into her pockets. "Any ideas?"
"Not really. Something less... Romantic?"
A walk was romantic? A walk was romantic?
Carys supposed it could be in some way, but walks had always been cathartic - to her, at least. But she knew they weren't for everyone.
"Well, if not a walk, maybe we could go to Seattle or something?" Carys leaned to the side so that Bella's gaze fell on the car she'd not seen before. "Could drop the roof? It's a long drive, and we don't need to talk or anything, we can just-"
"Yes."
"Cool, well, I'll see you in the week maybe, but I'll pick you up on Saturday?"
Bella nodded slowly, and pressed both hands to the door, taking a deep steadying breath before she began to close it again.
Carys supposed that called an end to the conversation, but it had gone far better than she'd expected, and so she turned and headed back down the path with a sense of elation after the door clicked shut.
It wasn't much, but it was a start. And it was more than she'd expected when she decided to go there in the first place. Bella had been more than she'd expected.
She didn't think there would be much talking going on over the next few weeks - not from Bella's side - but it would be enough to get on with. If she could just get her out of the house, maybe something could change. Maybe something would spark back to life.
There was hope now. A hope she didn't have before. For the first time in more than seven weeks, Carys was hopeful one thing might go the way she wanted it to.
"Right." Carys slid into the driver's seat of her car and closed her eyes, dropping her head back against the headrest. After a couple of minutes, she gave into temptation, covered her face with her hands, and squealed to herself in triumph.
When squealing wasn't quite enough, she punched at the air, alternating hands, and was halfway through a victory dance when a knock on the window pulled her sharply out of her reverie.
Carys jumped halfway across the seats. The only thing that stopped her was her seatbelt.
The hand that had knocked on the window signalled for her to roll down her window, and so she did, hanging her head in shame.
"Er... Hi Charlie," she greeted lamely, poking her head out so that she could get a better angle to see his face. She'd recognised him instantly. It was the uniform.
"Hi Carys," Monica called from beside Charlie's cruiser which was parked behind Carys' car, grinning in a way that left Carys with no doubt over whether or not they'd both seen her.
Carys sank lower in her seat and popped her head back in her car, blushing.
Charlie's moustache twitched, and he sounded suspiciously gleeful when he spoke. "Should I ask?"
Carys shook her head.
"No?" Charlie prompted. Carys shook her head again, and he sighed. "I suppose it has to do with Bella? If you're that happ-"
"She talked to me!" Carys burst out. "She talked to me, Charlie!"
Charlie stared at her for a few moments, and then slowly but surely, a grin made its way across his face, splitting his features.
"She talked, huh?" He nodded and ran a hand through his hair, before dropping it to his hip, mirroring the actions of his other. "She really talked to you..."
His reaction, and Carys' excitement, weren't surprising. Bella hadn't so much as acknowledged her since Edward had left.
Carys nodded excitedly. "Properly and everyth-"
Charlie cut her off by slapping the roof of her car, and Carys could understand Rosalie's protectiveness over her Ferrari more than ever. "Lunch."
"What?"
"I've got to get going, but we'll talk about it at lunch," Charlie explained.
Carys was thankful for the reminder. She'd forgotten it was coming up that Monday.
There was one day a month when Monica, Sarah, Charlie, and Carys' shifts aligned in such a way that unless there was an emergency, they could have lunch together.
When Richard still lived in Forks, he'd join them, but since he'd left, they'd had to start ordering an extra plate of fries to replace the ones he'd usually have shared with them all.
A person who didn't like fries... She still couldn't quite get her head around it.
"Lunch," Carys agreed with a smile, jumping when he slapped the roof of her car again. "Jesus, Charlie, d'you know how much this car didn't cost me?"
Charlie fought with himself for a second before he started laughing. "Bring that up with your... What is it, Monica?" He called over, and Carys poked her head out of the car to watch their friend's reaction.
Monica was leaning against the car, dressed similarly to Charlie, and was in the middle of texting, but she looked up from her phone when called.
Charlie leaned his shoulders back and rocked on his heels. "What do you call Dr Cullen again?"
"When?" Monica queried, flipping her phone shut. "In front of him, or-?"
"To me, after the car," he clarified.
Carys' mouth dropped open, and she stared, as accusingly as she could to hide her interest, at the far too nonchalant Monica.
"Oh," Monica waved her hand through the air and returned to her text, flipping her phone again. "He's her sugar daddy."
Carys' mouth opened further, and she gasped in shock. "You. WHAT!?"
She floundered when Charlie and Monica burst out laughing. She couldn't exactly dispute the fact, and it was far too amusing, but she also felt like whining that, "He's just advanced me the car. I'm paying him back!" so that was exactly what she did.
They only laughed harder, and so she adopted a purse-lipped glare instead of laughing like she wanted to, and turned it on them both before rolling her window back up and driving off.
All pretence fell when she drew into her driveway five minutes later and found she had a text from Monica which read: Nothing wrong with being Schatze.
Carys bent over her steering wheel and laughed until she was gasping for breath and holding her stomach to try and ease the pain.
If anyone else - anyone else in Forks - had suggested Carlisle was her sugar daddy, she wouldn't have had the same reaction, because it wouldn't have been a friendly comment - it would have been a judgemental remark. But it was Monica, and it was absolutely hilarious.
It was so funny, that Carys cracked up all over again when she relayed the information to Esme that evening, whose responding laughter was so loud and prolonged that Carys was able to leave her phone on the counter and make herself a cup of tea in the time it took Esme to calm herself down.
Carlisle, on the other hand? Well, when she told him, it was a different story; Carys could practically feel the heat of his blush burning through the phone and across three centuries.
Despite how happy she'd been throughout the day, when she laid in bed that night, she stared at the ceiling, as usual, unable to summon sleep.
And while she laid there, waiting to fall into an exhausted slumber, her mind drifted back to the party - back to Seth's revelation and all that it entailed.
Before she could think too much about it, Carys pulled herself out of bed and headed downstairs. She searched the coat she'd worn the night before until she found the post-it on which Leah had scrawled her number.
Hoping Leah's prediction that her phone might be taken away the next day hadn't eventuated, Carys texted her and left her phone on the bedside table when she slipped back between the covers.
Ten minutes later, her phone buzzed. Leah had been wrong. She still had full phone privileges for the moment.
A day and a half later, with a burgeoning new friendship, progress with Bella, and the knowledge that she would be seeing Carlisle the next weekend all securely tucked under her belt, Carys managed to push away the sadness and loneliness which had, as usual, woken her up after a few restless hours, and enter the diner with a genuine smile on her face.
Her smile grew when she slid into the booth beside Sarah, and Monica slid out, leaving them with her phone pressed to her ear and a mutinous expression on her face.
"What's going on with her?" Carys asked, stuffing her coat in between them and nodding her head towards Monica, who had fallen to pacing back and forth between two tables.
Despite her uniform, none of the other occupants of the diner that lunchtime seemed at all perturbed by her agitation. Monica's reaction to professional and private issues was commonly understood. If it was related to the police, she rarely betrayed negative emotions in case she exacerbated a situation. If it was personal... Well, no one really liked getting on her bad side.
"Mmm!" Sarah flicked the page of her magazine and slid it across to Carys, swallowing a mouthful of coffee.
Carys tucked her hair behind her ear, stared down at the page Sarah indicated, and then shoved the magazine away and stole Sarah's untouched milkshake. The page, an article about how to spice things up in a long-distance relationship, was one she'd read two days before, but not one she wanted people to know she had.
"Sorry!" Sarah laughed, grabbing at her drink, but she gave up when Carys turned her body away and jabbed a new straw in the glass. "Fine, keep it. Mon's pissed because Richard-"
"The shit stole my jack," Monica complained, taking over the explanation when she returned.
"Your Jack?" Carys questioned, handing Sarah her milkshake when she tapped her on the shoulder. Her immediate thought wasn't that Monica was referring to a thing, but rather that maybe she hadn't been paying enough attention when Monica had listed off members of her family, and was confused by the reference to "Jack" having been stolen.
"Yeah," Monica grumbled. "My car jack. Richard borrowed it ages ago, and-"
Oh! Carys thought. Okay, that makes far more sense.
"It's hardly his fault you only just remembered you leant it to him, is it?" Sarah countered, earning herself a glare from her girlfriend, who picked her phone up from the table, dialed, and held it to her ear again as if trying to prove a point as much as deflecting Sarah's comment.
"Hey, you shit," Monica announced a second later, when she reached Richard's voicemail again. "I've been leaving you messages for days. Call. Me. Back. I need that jack, you hear me?" She snapped her phone shut, dropped it on the table, clapped her hands together, and lost all evidence of her ire. "The usual?"
"The usual," Sarah and Carys agreed in unison, before turning their attention to the magazine again, once Carys had turned to a less incriminating page.
They were just getting into an article about how to deal with stress in the workplace - and, admittedly, finding one or two of the pointers hilarious considering Sarah's job, when Charlie announced himself and slid across the seat opposite, dispensing of his coat in the same way Carys had.
"Any idea why Mon's been off today?" He queried, raising a hand in greeting to another customer.
"Her car jack," Carys explained distractedly, barely glancing up from the page. "Richard borrowed it, but now she needs it."
Charlie's sighing reply of, "Her jack?" was just resigned enough that Sarah and Carys slowly raised their heads and stared at him.
Carys was the first to work it out. "It's not hers, is it?"
"I'm never lending anything to anyone in this place again."
"Not even me?" Carys tried to make her face as innocent as possible when she asked, to match the sweet tone.
Charlie narrowed his eyes and huffed. "Not even you."
A/N: Sorry it's been most of a week since the last update! Long A/N below!
Thanks to: chellekathrynnn, GhostWriter71, Sting3, magicbustrip, Moi (I agree! Except Carlisle, because I just want to cuddle him haha! But I agree! And she'll be doing a lot soon!), KJB (I'm so happy you like it so much! Thank you for reading it! I love writing this story most of the time (NM is more of a slog though!)), Ella (Yes! Poor Carys - I hate doing this to her! She's good at hiding her feelings until they hit her at once, is our heroine. I'm so looking forward to Leah time too!), souverian, finediviner (see below!), Adela (I haven't decided if we'll see him see him when Carys does, but if we do, then within a chapter or two. If we don't, it might be a little longer sadly!), Love. Fiction. 2020, TDI-Ryro-Eclares, and lucefatale for your reviews!
A few people have asked about Carys being mixed race - her mum is black British, and her dad is white British. Her dad hasn't been described in the story, but her mum's heritage is referenced when we first meet her. The story's from Carys' pov, and her skin/skin colour is brought up a few times, most notably when she meets Bella, visits the Denali clan, and gets her compulsion to make her list about Carlisle.
I don't have a specific face claim for her, but Ella Balinska, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Antonia Thomas, Jasmine Cephas-Jones (in Hamilton specifically), or even a young Naomie Lenoir could fit the feel of her in different ways.
I hope that helps! :)
