So, England's been locked down again, my housemates are going away, most of my family's in the Red Zone (Tier 4), and the country's only allowed to visit family (ones who aren't in the Red Zone) on Christmas Day. Long story short, shout-out (times a million) to my twin (same low tier as me, but two hours away) who's driving to socially distance for an hour while exchanging gifts on the day - the real Christmas gift is seeing her!
Eclipse, Chapter 1
"I'm going to find the perfect dress if it kills me," Carys muttered darkly to herself.
"I hope not," Carlisle said, strolling to join her.
It was a wonder he'd come back at all. The supermarket had put a sale on ranch dressing, and Carys had left him ten minutes before, when his marvelling over the various types and how they differed from one another went on a little too long. She didn't miss the fact he'd added a bottle to the trolley despite it not being on the list.
Carys, for herself, was dawdling, tired and disappointed after spending the past two and a half days in New York with no wedding dress to show for it. She'd loved the city enough to know she would have felt different if the shopping hadn't been the main point of their trip.
There were less than three months to go, and she was beginning to worry she'd have to give up on finding the right one.
"Oh, you know what I mean," she complained, leaning against him.
She gave up the effort of pushing at his stone hard side when he failed to budge, instead pointing towards a box on the end of an aisle. He grabbed it, brought it back, and they continued on.
"I would've thought you're old and ugly enough to know how frustrating this is," she complained. "I've been looking for a month now."
Carlisle barely raised an eyebrow. "I'm ugly now, am I? Gosh. The years must be taking more than I expected."
"Well, maybe not ugly..." No, Carys, and everyone else he'd ever met, knew Carlisle was far, far too good looking to be accused of being anything other than handsome in the extreme. "But you're definitely old enough."
A handful of items which were on the list joined the ranch and other groceries at the bottom of the trolley.
"Ah, well, I'm not as old as some," he observed dryly.
"You were born before gravity," Carys whispered after him when he strolled on ahead, despite how empty the supermarket appeared. "You literally got excited hearing about it for the first time. And, you were forty-seven when Isaac found it!"
He narrowed his eyes and dropped something else in, consulting the list she held in one hand despite having memorised it as she wrote it on the drive back from Portland airport. "I wasn't born before gravity, I was simply born..."
"Yes...?" She raised her eyebrows and waited with baited breath.
"Before... You were born before the Web and disposable cameras," Carlisle countered, uncomfortable in defeat, "and so I hardly think you have a leg to stand on. Tiredness is making you crabby, love." He adopted a lighter, teasing tone. "How many dresses have you tried on now?"
Carys' grin wavered and fell. "In total, or this weekend? 'Cause I think you know both. And believe me, I wish I could just find it, but I feel like..."
He dropped a kiss to her hair, squeezing the side of her waist. "I know, you want it to be perfect. Don't worry, I'll make sure you'll find the right one."
"What're you gonna do?" Carys grumbled. "Design it for me?"
Carlisle laughed heartily, the column of his throat exposed as he tossed his head back, his collar length golden hair catching the light.
"Unlike you," he said, straightening, "I enjoyed myself this weekend, darling - but no matter how long it takes, you'll have the right one."
Carys didn't exactly see him wink, but she was sure he had done. He meant he'd enjoyed seeing the more revealing dresses she'd tried. He'd certainly made his appreciation clear enough the night before.
From the moment he'd suggested he came with her dress shopping, she knew she wasn't going to find it that weekend. He wouldn't have risked seeing it before the day.
He'd instead spent half the appointments sketching her, and the other half making faces at her behind various people's backs, cheering her up.
"Well how're you planning that?" Carys asked.
Carlisle tapped his nose.
"So you're going to throw money at it," she whispered under her breath.
Carlisle didn't answer. He was distracted, choosing between two milk bottles of varying size. He held them up. "Do we know if Bella's going to be visiting in the next week or two?"
As Carys only really needed milk for cooking, her answer would affect the selection.
She pointed to the smaller of the two, thankful for the turn in conversation. "Don't think so. She's still grounded... For now, anyway."
Having discarded one bottle and dropped the other one to the trolley, Carlisle moved on to cheese. Speaking over his shoulder, his back to her, he asked, "Has he decided either way, or is he still deliberating?"
Carys sighed, resting her forearms on the trolley as she slowly pushed it on towards the chilled meats. He meant Charlie, and whether or not he was planning on lifting Bella's restrictions.
"He's swaying towards letting her go..."
Carys secretly hoped he wouldn't - so much so that she'd had to actively avoid thinking about it on the off chance Edward might hear. Bella had been grounded, as Edward had, following their trip to Volterra. And then, to top it all, Jacob had visited her a few weeks later and dropped her motorcycle off.
His trip had been two fold - to get Bella grounded so that she was kept from Edward (which worked insomuch as she was grounded further), and to speak to the vampire himself, to remind him that the treaty stopped the Cullens from biting humans from or in Forks and the surrounding Native lands.
Carys still seethed at the cheek of it all. Not so much getting Bella grounded - she thought that was funny - but more so the treaty.
Jacob had been the first to break the treaty by telling Bella what the Cullens were in the first place. Leah hadn't quite broken any rules when they'd shared limited information because: for one, she already knew; for two (if Jacob was being technical, she was going to join him) - Carys wasn't a pale face as he put it. Bella was.
It was just the type of thing Leah would have laughed at, if she was still talking to Carys. She wasn't - she'd refused all contact since the last time she'd visited, just as she'd said she would. The wolves made mortal enemies of vampires. Even though the Cullens maintained a different lifestyle, Carys had to accept that - for now, at least, as she hoped it might change in the future - there was no getting past it all. Leah was in one camp, and she was all but in another.
Carys' main issue now was that if Bella was free, Edward would want to be free. He'd not once grumbled or complained, as per the conditions he'd agreed to, but neither had Bella to Charlie. That, in her mind, put them in cahoots. Edward's punishment could only be lifted by her... If Bella started coming to the house as much as Alice went to hers, it might be expected by the three of them that she made things easier all round and let him off a bit.
Carlisle, as always, didn't mind that Carys was occupied by her own thoughts as they finished their shop and loaded the groceries into his car. They made small talk every so often, but as none of her thoughts changed the tenor of her breathing or heartbeat, he saw no reason to interrupt.
That was, until they reached the house and carried the bags inside. Then, he disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, returned, captured her lips in a burning kiss despite the coolness of his skin, and began to back her towards the downstairs bathroom.
His molten gold eyes were dark and intent when she stopped herself from falling under his spell again and pushed at his chest.
"The shop," she gasped, only half-heartedly batting at his questing hands.
Carlisle's lips trailed a path of cold fire along her jaw. He touched his tongue to the sensitive spot behind her ear, and she melted.
"Can wait," he murmured against her skin, his low, smooth voice enticing her.
Carys shook herself free both mentally and physically. She narrowed her eyes at him. It wasn't fair for him to addle her senses like that - as a vampire, his scent, voice, looks, everything about him drew humans in, attracting them to him. It was doubly unfair that she was in love with him as he was her. Triply so that he was staring into her eyes, making silent promises as to how worth her while he would make the interlude.
"Carys!"
Saved by the bell.
Jumping, Carys looked round and up. Esme was standing on the landing, her heart shaped face hardened further by an expression which didn't appear to be meant for Carys at all, rather a remainder of some recent upset.
Carlisle groaned behind Carys and slinked off towards the kitchen.
"Be there in a sec, wait for me!" she called after him. Shrugging out of her coat, she threw it over the banister and hot footed it to Esme's side. "What's up?"
"Rosalie wants the back of her bridesmaid's dress dropped again," Esme explained with a long suffering sigh, leading the way to Rosalie's bedroom. "She won't accept half an inch. No, it has to be more... See?"
Esme waved her arm as she entered the room, and Carys hung by the door, poking her head in.
"Let me see?" she asked Rosalie - who was wearing the sleeveless velvet and silk dress they'd chosen for her.
It flowed over her form, touching the ground when she stood still, despite her high golden heels. Carys indicated with her index finger that she should turn on the podium erected opposite her mirror when the only other choice was to enter the room.
As Rosalie knew and understood, but the others didn't, Carys was still a little struck by just how large Rosalie and Emmett's mirror was when the curtains were open. Having spent more time in the vampire's room over the past few weeks - since she had told Carys her story and, a week later, admitted she might, possibly, like her after all - it wasn't quite as jarring, but Carys was unused to seeing her reflection quite so much.
Rosalie did as she was bade, and Carys deliberated for a spilt second.
"No," she announced after barely a glance at Alice, who darted to the centre of the room in a golden feathered dress that swamped her petite frame. She looked like an creepy golden goose. "Not at my wedding."
Alice's lips twisted as she grumbled something Carys didn't catch, and disappeared again.
Turning back to Rosalie, Carys said, "If you extend the silk, you can make a cowl at the back. Drop it a few inches, then go with your Hollywood hair, and it'll look like-"
Rosalie grinned. "Silver screen glamour! That's exactly what I said."
She turned an arch look on Esme - who rolled her eyes and sighed in defeat - then mouthed a rare thank you to Carys, who nodded and made a swift exit.
"Can't say I'm not glad I'm not the only one having problems with their outfit," Carys announced a couple of minutes later, as she walked into the kitchen. She stopped dead, hands outstretched, looking around. "Where's it all gone?"
"I already put it away," Carlisle said, trying not to appear guilty from his position by the fridge.
Carys narrowed her eyes. "So get it all out again then."
He groaned, then waited for Carys to make her way to the table and came up behind her, slipping a pleasantly warmed hand up her top. It came to rest on the underside of her right breast.
"Uh," Carys squeaked, her brow furrowed as she stared down at the offending interloper. "Excuse me, what exactly are you supposed to be doing?"
"I'm checking your heartbeat," Carlisle innocently replied as his hand flexed and inched upwards.
"Right." Carys pointed towards her chest. "What kind of schools have you been studying at for the past two hundred years? 'Cause last time I checked, funnily enough, my heart was a little higher, and on the other side."
"Oh, my sincerest apologies." Carlisle shifted his hand over and up, cupping her breast. "How's that?"
Carys laughed, pushing his hand down and away. "Food shop, Carlisle."
"Why does everything human have to be at a human pace? Surely you must get bored by it," Carlisle sighed against her hair.
He might have sounded a little less interested in her response if he wanted to make a proper complaint.
Carys turned in his arms, looking up at him with what he had once affectionately termed "calf eyes", and frowned sadly.
"Please?"
He wrinkled his nose but acquiesced, darting about, before - so quickly her head span - the table was covered in groceries and he was standing on the other side.
"Happy now?"
She grinned. "Very."
They set to, opening and closing cupboards and the fridge/freezer, moving about the kitchen as if part of an elaborate dance. It was this part that Carys enjoyed about it - the domesticity of it all. She found it much less boring or tedious when she could do it with him.
Esme and Rosalie joined them a couple of minutes later, selecting things to put away with a lot more consideration than Carys or Carlisle. With four of them involved, it halved the time but doubled the enjoyment. Especially, when Esme admitted she'd been born before bread was sliced like the loaf she was holding, and Rosalie and Carlisle admitted they had been too.
They all looked at her, expecting a response, but she held her tongue which made them grin. Three vampires ranging from intensely to unbelievably beautiful grinning indulgently at her made Carys blush, which turned their grins to laughter. She found herself joining in when Carlisle wrapped an arm around her waist, tucking her against his side.
Pressing one burning cheek to his shoulder, she asked, "Where're the boys?"
Rose answered, hopping up to recline on one of the kitchen counters, her now jean-clad ankles crossed, looking far more like a fifties star than was fair.
"Emmett took Edward to watch him hunt - he counts it as a loophole. You don't mind, do you? They haven't hunted together in ages now that their cycles are out of sync."
Even if Carys had minded - which she didn't - Rosalie's phrasing would have changed her mind. "That's cool - and adorable," she assured her. "Jasper?"
"Right here," Jasper drawled from the doorway.
Carys grinned at him, and he glared at her. She was confused and a little saddened by his reaction. He countered with a rush of elation as Alice joined him and his eyes flickered momentarily between the two of them meaningfully.
Ah, thought Carys, the dress.
He accepted her understanding with pride, glaring through it all as Alice no doubt expected him on her side.
"Look," Carys said aloud, their exchange having been missed by the room at large, "it's just more of a dancing-" Worry. "-or-or-more of a... Going out out dress-" Pride. "-than a formal one, wouldn't you say?"
"But it's couture," Alice said, obviously displeased, but likewise appreciative that Carys didn't exactly hate it. "And you said we could wear whatever we liked as long as it fit with everyone else somehow."
Carys dampened a victorious grin. "I'm sure you must have noticed it only matched Rosalie's heels today then?" she appealed, as if she was far less understanding of these things than Alice was - which, in many a sense was true, but didn't mean she'd missed that silver seemed to have made it into the theme over gold. "Esme's going green and silver as well... Besides, it didn't quite seem like it was... You, you know? Your style. I mean, I know you take risks and all..."
Alice perked up. "I suppose I can keep it for something else," she announced to the room at large, before skipping quickly towards the back door and launching herself out of the house.
They waited for a few moments before the vampires in the room visibly exhaled. Carys joined them. They stiffened, and Jasper sighed, heading out after his wife.
"She said she saw that," Esme told Carys. "They're gone now, so I can say: thank you."
"It couldn't have been quite so bad as all that, surely?" said Carlisle gently, defending Alice. "Whatever it-"
"She looked like a mascot," Rosalie interjected, looking and sounding bored. "It was the gold one again. You know, feathers from here to here."
Carlisle shuddered. "I thought we agreed she'd lost that one between moves back in the seventies?"
Rosalie rolled her eyes and leaned back. "This is Alice. She either had two, or she harboured a replacement. She's only doing it because you won't let her plan the wedding."
"When there's so little for her to do?" Carys asked. "Its... I mean, we'd already roped you in when she asked."
Rosalie preened and flipped her hair over one shoulder.
Before Carys had known about why Rosalie remarried Emmett at every available opportunity, she'd asked for her help in organising the wedding on short notice. She was by far the most experienced of them all in that regard, and her help had sometimes been the only thing that stopped Carys and Carlisle from going spare.
As far as she knew, Alice was already brainstorming Bella and Edward's wedding despite Bella's refusal of his proposal thus far. Carys therefore doubted Alice was actually upset. She would have told Carys if she was. Above all, it had taken her a little longer than Jasper to re-ingratiate herself with Carys or Carlisle.
Edward was still not quite there just yet, and he knew it.
The wider conversation thereafter made a predicable turn back towards the wedding and Carlisle's secret honeymoon plans. Alice rejoined them the instant they started talking about decorations, but Jasper remained absent.
An hour later, Carys finished off the last of her mac 'n' cheese, then yawned, stretching as she took her plate to the sink.
Carlisle's arms wrapped around her, keeping her upright through a wave of dizziness and sudden bodily exhaustion.
"And with that," he announced, "it's time for our human to sleep."
"Just sleep," Esme admonished in advance, taking Carys' plate.
Carys stifled a giggling yawn.
"I think you're determined to embarrass me, Esme," said Carlisle.
"Oh, I truly am," she teased as they left the room.
"Wait." Carys stopped just before they reached turn into the living room section of the floor. "Is Jasper still around? Argh! I didn't mean do an Alice!"
Jasper had appeared before her, making her jump out of her skin.
"Sorry." Smirking knowingly, he was all but smugly insincere.
"Did you see the Sunday papers?"
"Ah." His smirk fell, replaced by a grave expression. "It'll be in the locals tomorrow." The way he said it, it sounded like t'morrah.
The vampires in Seattle were growing bolder again. This time they were leaving bodies around, failing to hide as many. There was no doubt about a serial killer on the loose in the city - it had reached at far as the New York papers that morning.
They were all keeping an eye on the situation, trying to learn more about them as they were so nearby. Notably, they couldn't be sure just how many there were - whether it was limited to the few Carys had proof of, or not.
"Five in a week though, they're getting sloppier. Does that mean there're more of them, or they've killed the one keeping them in check?"
"You can talk about this tomorrow," Carlisle cut in before Jasper could respond.
Carys whined. "But-"
"Tomorrow."
"But-"
Carlisle ducked, wrapping one arm around the back of her knees as he shouldered her waist. Flipping her over his back, he straightened and headed smoothly for the stairs.
"Jasper!" Carys called, pushing up to see him. "I've got work tomorrow! Drive me?"
"I promise," he called back as Carlisle sped up so much that Carys had to close her eyes. "Can't be sure there are more, but ya right, they're-"
Carlisle kicked the bedroom door shut behind them, cutting off the rest of what Jasper had to say. A second of weightlessness later, Carys landed in a heap on the bed.
She pressed up onto her elbows and watched him, smiling invitingly now, but he avoided her gaze in favour of picking up where he'd left off in his book, sinking down onto the small settee he'd added to the bedroom furniture a couple of weeks before.
Carys sighed, dropping onto her back. His silence didn't bother her. She knew him better than to let it. What did now bother her was that he'd been serious about her need for sleep.
After careful consideration, she reached down, tugging the leg of her jeans up over her ankle.
"If you're going to try and seduce me, I feel duty bound to remind you," Carlisle said, eyeing her over the top of his book, "ankles weren't for another couple of hundred years. You could be half naked before I was close to being shocked - it's one of the reasons Cromwell banned everything."
Of course... And then Charles brought all the fun back, along with the monarchy - more, even. And then Carlisle was traveling Europe. Still... Carys wondered...
Carlisle shifted, sighed, and turned a page. It was a lost cause. He was adamant.
A/N: Thank you to: chellekathrynnn, JosieNightOwl, Ghostwriter71, BMBMDooDoo- Doo- Doo- Doo, Ella (75 - I like to think Leah realised she was running out of things and had lost her friends, and like you said, wanted to know that in the end, she still had Carys at least. Leah wouldn't have gone there if she didn't want to. 76 - I think the way he thinks and talks about her definitely plays a part in how Bella sees her and how she sees Bella, whether or not Bella realises that!), Anita Simons, jhaenox, TDI- Ryro- Eclares, souverian, nazarova. sofka, ReadLikeHermione, CarlaPA, QualityBean, eeeeaud, Yourfan (you're completely right - I think that's why in Breaking Dawn she was so instantly protective of Bella - not just because there would be a baby in the house, but because she was fighting for Bella's right to choose. If we saw it from Rosalie's POV, I expect it would be very different), and Sting3 (x loads!).
