NOTICE: I'd decided against an epilogue, but after some reviews, I think we do need one to answer a few questions before I drop off for a little bit.

Welcome back, Carlisle. It's nice to hear from your point of view once again. Blue Moon will be a short story, and it's named not just for the dhampir being a once in a blue moon occurrence, but for it being from Carlisle's point of view. (Unsure if I'm going to have it all from his POV, or switch back and forth.)

Edit to address issues cited: They will be researching and meeting a new character over the next four chapters, and the pregnancy won't be as horrible or as all-encompassing of their time and concentration after that, as it was in Breaking Dawn. There will be other things happening too, don't worry. Also, no Bella pregnancy.

Eclipse, Epilogue

Carlisle POV

Carys had not spoken for exactly two hours. Not since they had reached the private jet and she'd greeted the pilots and air hostess, chatted as they were seated on wide, almost couch-like chairs opposite each other, and then accepted a pitcher of water after takeoff.

Carlisle wished he was gifted, as Edward was so that he might hear what she was thinking. He wished he was gifted, as Alice was so that he might know how much longer he would need to endure her silence. He wished he was gifted, as Jasper was so that he might know how she was feeling. But he was not, and so he saw no end to the torment.

Carys' brows pinched together.

Carlisle's fingers twitched, his palms itched with the want to smooth the small line from her brow. He forced air into his lungs - and felt instant relief. He had not taken a breath since the silence had fallen over the cabin. It had been three hours since he told her the news, and then, that he had kept it from her for a week so that she might enjoy their wedding without worrying overmuch about the dhampir she was carrying.

The dhampir. The child. His child. Their child.

An impossibility, he had thought.

He had committed himself to research his kind; their makeup. How had he missed the potential?

As a human, he had been all too sure of what might happen if he took a wife. It was a very real possibility she would die in childbirth. It was so very common. It remained high, even now, but not as high as it was then. By estimations, some twelve-hundred women had died for every hundred-thousand births. Every birth a woman endured was a risk. It had plagued him at times - the thought of how much he wanted a child, and the cost it might have.

Carlisle had thought his immortal life would be free of that fear.

His own mother - Henrietta - had died giving him life. It stood to reason he knew the harm he could do. His father had never let him forget his first sin against the world. Carlisle doubted his father had loved Henrietta but her loss had been felt.

He recalled one of the foggy memories that had resisted the fire of transformation to come with him into this eternal life. The first time his father had told him what the loss of a wife had cost him. The literal cost of her death; her burial; the household accounts. Carlisle's loss of a mother had been ignored, rendered to nothingness in his father's eyes, never as important as that infernal issue of money and time better spent.

He had always known that it would be a deeper loss if he ever endured it himself.

And now, after three hundred and forty-three years of vampirism, it was here.

Carlisle's love for Carys could never be put into words, let alone calculated. If he lost her, his pain would be insurmountable. If, that was, once she had the facts required to make an informed decision - she chose to continue with the pregnancy...

If she was lost to childbirth, their child would never be made to feel it was their fault. It was not. It would be Carlisle's. His alone. A result of his hubristic belief that he knew better than the myths and legends; that he believed they had been fables and nothing more.

And if Carys decided to preserve her life, he would mourn their combined loss just as much as he knew she would. But he knew he would breathe a sigh of relief that he could be sure of her survival.

In other words, he was torn.

He loved their child already. He could lose his soulmate in the process.

Carlisle had gone over and over the matter in his mind whenever he was safe from prying ears. It was like to drive him mad.

The scientist, the doctor in him told him that preserving life - the life of the mother, of Carys - was his priority. His soul told him the same. Not to risk her loss in the midst of such uncertainty. To lose her would be a loss he would never recover from; a loss which would wreck him to the core. His heart agreed, but it whispered its happiness for them both. The back of his mind created images of what their child might look like.

A raven-haired, silver-tongued devil with a heart of gold and an intensely mischievous streak. They would - no, it would; he had to remember not to become attached too quickly - be as funny and kind as Carys. He tried to imagine what it might look like. Carys was mixed race. Her mother Amy had brown eyes, as did her parents. Carys' father had green eyes, his parents' had been blue. If he, Carlisle, was human and his blue-grey eyes remained unchanged, their child would have a three in four chance of inheriting Carys' stunning brown eyes (with that occasional addition of green when she was red-haired) and a one in four chance of his blue-grey.

Factoring in his vampirism, and it could be golden-eyed for all they knew. It was an entirely different ball game to anything he'd seen before.

If they followed the pregnancy successfully to term, he hoped it wouldn't inherit a carbon copy of Carys' eyes. It was a case of self-preservation. If it did, it would likely need only to turn a wide-eyed stare on him, and he would offer it the world or forgive it anything.

He listened to the sounds of the plane, sent his senses wide, followed the heartbeats and conversations of the air hostess and two pilots.

They were talking about their plans when they landed. The co-pilot's tone was coaxing as he asked whether the pilot would be interested in joining him on a night out after they had rested. The hostess laughed, reminding them both of the last time.

He listened closer and assured himself.

If he or Carys spoke, they would not be overheard; the humans were safely out of range, and there was no telltale buzzing of bugs or recording devices. Carys' heartbeat, her steady breath, the slight shift of her clothing as she adjusted her position were the only sounds in the cabin.

The dhampir she carried - their little sweeting, as he had taken to calling it - did not indicate its presence. Carlisle could not hear a heartbeat. The only reassurance came from its movements. Butterflies, Carys had called them. He had been able to feel them when he laid his hand over her belly, but they were not yet strong enough to be seen.

And as much as he wanted to lay his hand to her skin and once again feel the life they had created together, he could not. Not until he was assured she would not push him away. If she did so, he doubted he would have been able to bear it.

He'd thought it impossible, but his need for her had grown. Not just his insatiable desire for her, but his need to touch her, to be near to her, to feel the connection of his hand intertwined with hers. The few feet between them was a gaping chasm he was beyond desperate to cross.

"Darling," he whispered.

Carys' deep brown eyes flicked up to meet his. Flecked with gold and set within a darker circle, they had captured him from the moment he caught sight of them. They were so beautiful. They were almost the same brown as her skin in the height of summer, and he'd often marvelled over the fact. When he had thought he might lose her, he had begged her to open those eyes so that he could be assured of her.

They now held no sign of her thoughts.

"What can I do?" he asked. It was an effort to keep his voice calm.

The crinkle reappeared. She looked him over. It deepened. "Do?" she asked softly. "What do you mean?"

"What can I do," he repeated, "to make this right?"

"I don't understand what you're asking."

"To get you to talk to me, for a start. I know I should have told you before. I thought-"

Carys cut his sentence short. "You weren't breathing," she said, "I thought you were thinking about stuff. I didn't want to interrupt."

He had been thinking, but only because she had been. "No," he lied. "I was waiting for you." The truth.

"Oh..."

"Would you prefer I stopped talking?"

"No, I just..."

The pause in her sentence could only have lasted a moment and yet it stretched on, he felt, for an eternity.

"Just now, I was trying to remember," she explained.

"Remember what, darling?"

"What we said we would call a child if we were human."

The answer was instantaneous. "Henrietta Amy; Henry Findlay."

"Thanks..." Her long lashes, made longer by the artifice Alice had applied the morning before - had it really only been that long - lowered over her eyes. She stared down to where her hands laid against her small bump. She was barely showing and yet once you knew of her condition, it was clear it was no bloating. "I think I'm going to call it 'demon baby' for a bit if that's alright. Or 'Dhamph'. Dhamph the dhampir."

She may have been joking. He was so on edge, he could not tell. She had made similar jokes in the past, but it had been hypothetical.

Her voice, when next she spoke, was lower than a whisper. "Are the others on their way to London too?"

"No."

Her eyelids rose immediately, flaring wide. "What do you mean no?" she asked dully. "They know, don't they?"

"No. I haven't told them. I haven't told anyone but you." When she would have spoken, he caught the question in her eyes. "I was careful about my thoughts. Edward caught nothing; it was one reason I asked him to keep away from our minds yesterday."

"So you mean you... You worked it out last Friday, and you've been alone with your thoughts this whole time? You didn't let on to anyone?"

"I did talk to the little one," he admitted. "On Thursday night, after you were both fed. And we'd gone to bed together." It was an effort to his mind from wandering back, or from plotting course for if she ever let him touch her again. "When you were asleep. It has a habit of kicking up a fuss when you're sleeping."

"And when you're speaking... I think, at least."

"It's probably a coincidence. Foetuses usually begin to recognise voices around twenty-five weeks."

"But you've been talking to it."

"Only it and I knew of its existence. I didn't want it to feel lonely," he admitted with a hint of chagrin. "That's not to say that I expect it recognises anything. Or that I've become attached."

Her head tilted. "Why do you say that?"

"I don't want to make you feel as if I have a stance on whether or not you should choose to keep it."

"But you do have an opinion?" she queried.

"Yes." He had two. He simply couldn't be sure which one won out.

"And you're not going to tell me until I make my decision so that I make it based on myself and not on what you want."

"Yes."

"You did that when I was thinking of moving," she reminded him.

"Yes."

"Well, I want to know what you want to do."

"Whatever you choose, I'll stand by your decision. Either way, I'll-"

"No, I want you to tell me. We make big decisions together, remember? Please?"

"I can't do that. The choice is not mine to make."

"What if I said I wanted to keep it."

"Until you make your decision, I-"

"I have," she announced.

"You have?" He couldn't hide his surprise.

"Yes."

"You should know the risks before you can make an informed choice on the matter, my love."

Carys shifted in her seat. "Okay... Give me the facts... The ones you know."

"My memory is too foggy to be sure of much of it."

"But you're sure enough that I'm pregnant with the little demon child?" she asked.

"Yes," he told her. "And it wouldn't be a demon baby, love. It would be a vampire baby."

"Half-vampire baby," she insisted with a faint frown. "Don't forget my involvement in it."

Carlisle felt his lips quirk. "I couldn't if I tried." He had run it over in his mind - clinically - to try and work out if it had really been a result of one missed birth control pill, or if they had done something they hadn't before. It had been the missed pill, he was sure.

Carys looked around, her eyes rolling as she took in the area. "How far along am I?" she finally asked.

"Seventeen weeks, though you're likely further along in relative terms."

"Seventeen..."

"Yes."

"When you came home..."

"Yes."

"When I was-"

"Dressed as Cleopatra? Yes."

Carys blushed and shifted in her seat. "Any way you could nail it down to a place?"

"'Fraid not," he said, forcing down a smirk.

"We can't tell the others about that," she said, unable to meet his eye. "It's too embarrassing."

"Indeed."

"Why haven't you told them, again?" Carys looked up. "I mean. Why haven't you told them now that I know? Or why didn't you tell me while we were in Forks?"

"And have all the differing opinions?" he asked lightly. "I think not. We won't know enough until we can study the manuscripts and texts in the British Library."

"Okay..." Her lips firmed as she thought it over. "I guess you're right about the different opinions... Too many cooks and all that... But..."

"But?"

"I'd really like to know what you think about it," she persisted.

Carlisle shook his head. "I won't influence you in this, love."

"Please?"

He couldn't deny the plea in her gaze. Even if he wanted to. Before he could stop himself, he heard himself say:

"Both options have merits."

"Because I could die in childbirth," she reasoned. "Because it's a half-vampire and that means it's so much stronger and more of a risk than a human child."

"Yes. It's risk and reason enough to discuss the option," he agreed.

Carys hesitated. "This isn't an immortal child, is it?"

"No."

"Because... They're..." She frowned, concentrating. "They're children who were subjected to the transformation, but this one will be born."

"Indeed."

The mere thought of immortal children made his gut clench. He put it out of his mind for now. He had not explained them in their entirety as yet, had not told her that he'd met two when during his time with the Volturi, but he would need to address them so that she understood how different this was. She began to speak, and so he put the issue off for the next day when they could speak at length. When he would share what he had found in greater detail.

"It's gonna be a mixed-race mixed-species demon baby," Carys said as if it was a revelation that had only just occurred to her.

"Dhampir," he corrected.

"Cambion."

"Cambions are-"

Carys' brows raised high. "You ever met a demon or incubus?"

"No..."

"They're probably the same thing, then," she said. On the verge of a grumble, her insistence belied her embarrassment as much as the twin spots of deepened colour in her cheeks.

He held his tongue and changed tack. She was so very adorable when her feathers were ruffled. In an instant he settled to assuage her instead, saying:

"Merlin was supposedly a cambion."

Her face relaxed into a small smile. "I remember... Do you know what powers he had?" she asked, her burgeoning excitement clear as day. It sparked in her eyes, lighting them.

"Shapeshifting, sorcery, foresight, and the like," he reeled off with a smile of his own. So very adorable.

"Can you imagine if Merlin was real and Dhamph was mega talented like that? Not only would we have basically done the impossible and had enough sex to make a mythical being, but we'd also've made a freakishly talented one too!"

"It would be quite amazing," he agreed.

"Imagine it - we'd be like 'why's the house upside down again? Argh, Etta! Why?' and they'd say 'I don't know. It just happened'."

His smile deepened and he said wistfully, "Tantrums would be something else."

Carys grinned proudly, and Carlisle knew he had slipped up in some way. He wasn't exactly sure how just yet, but she would tell him, he was sure. He didn't want her to know that he had no idea what she was thinking.

"That wasn't entirely fair," he protested. It would cover him for whatever route her thoughts had taken.

"You want it. I want it. Why-"

Oh god.

Had it really been that easy?

"I don't want to lose you," he said firmly. "I cannot lose you. You're the one whose life is at risk, and you're the one playing host to a dhampir. It should be your decision in the end. I don't want you thinking you should choose because I want one thing or another."

"Which is why you want the facts, so that we know what's coming," she said with an understanding nod. The dark curls around her face drifted through the air, following the movement.

"Yes."

She nodded again - curtly, this time. "Okay. Forget we said anything."

The response threw him.

"I'm sorry?"

"I know you can't, but pretend we didn't say anything. We both want this - we've wanted it for a while. But it was hypothetical before, so that was different. Until we know what's coming, we should pretend I didn't say anything. You didn't say anything either. Let's get you your facts and go from there."

Carlisle watched her and said nothing. The seconds stretched on. She was understanding for now, but soon she would think again about what he'd done, and the anger would come. He deserved her anger. He expected it.

"What?" she finally asked. Eyeing him nervously, she patted a hand around her hair, still styled as it was for their wedding.

"I'm waiting," he replied.

Her voice grew confused. "What for?"

"The anger."

"Anger?"

"For not telling you sooner."

"Well..."

Carys leaned forward, assaulting him with her sweet scent. Honey and lemon and tea, with an irresistible sweetness that had grown in the past months to the point where he could have picked her out in a crowd of thousands. It called to him.

"Why didn't you tell me? Let's look at that. It was because you wanted to keep your promise that we could have a perfect wedding day, right?"

"Hmm."

"And you held on to it for a while," she said sympathetically, "just you and your thoughts. You must have gone crazy, worrying about it."

Perhaps she was forgetting what he had done in the past week.

"I fed you steak, in the hopes your blood lust would override your preference and I could feed you both without you cottoning on. I let the dhampir grow for a week for no other reason but a wedding. I kept your own pregnancy from you for that time. I convinced you that you were suffering from stress. I took you away from our house to feed you so that there was less chance of revelation."

Carys' eyes narrowed. Here it was. The annoyance... Only, it looked more like judgement. He deserved that, too.

"Do you want me to be annoyed at you?" she asked slowly. "'Cause, it sounds like you want me to be annoyed at you."

Where was the annoyance? The anger? He had no choice but to admit, "I'm confused by your reaction."

Carys smiled encouragingly. "You spent almost a week doing everything to keep me healthy and stress-free so I could have a perfect day, and then you dropped the news on me that my wildest, most impossible dream had come true."

"Yes, I-hold on." That didn't sound right.

"It's the most Carlisle thing I've ever heard."

"But-"

"If you're hoping I'll change my mind and be angry with you, you're going to be waiting a long time, love. I know who I married."

He frowned deeply. "You don't usually like it when I hide things from you."

Carys shrugged, dropping back against her seat. "We both thought I could have been pregnant before and dismissed it. We talked about it before. If either of us should have thought 'hold on, what if it's not a myth now I'm feeling these kicks', shouldn't it have been me? I didn't get my period after I stopped the pill in the hospital and I just let it go. If anything, I should be annoyed at myself.

"The only difference now is it's real. I didn't think I could be happier than I was yesterday, but I was wrong. Whatever we find, and whatever we decide to do, I'm happy now... But-" her voice changed, grew sad and determined "-I think you're right. Until we know the chances of survival and such... I want this - almost desperately so, but I don't want to die and leave you two alone."

Her inference was clear to him, and it stung him to the core. She thought he would blame their child. "I swear to you I would never treat our child as my father did me. I would never make it feel as if any of it was its fault. I would love it and cherish it."

"I know," she immediately assured him.

"Then why would you say such a thing?"

"That I don't want to leave you alone? Because I love you, you idiot, and I know you'd blame yourself. You weren't responsible for your mother's death, and you wouldn't be for mine. Besides. Dhamph would need someone around to say no to them once in a while. I don't want them turning into a mini-Edward just because I'm not around."

"Is that a criticism of my parenting?" he teased. Her words had had the desired effect, warming him through.

"No," she clarified with a mischievous smile of her own. "You did well with all the others." Her expression and voice softened. "It's affection for your compassion. Tell me you wouldn't be heartbroken, or that you can't see yourself giving in to Dhamph."

"I... I can't."

"Right. So." She clapped her hands to her thighs. "It stands to reason I should be there too... And... It's gonna sound ridiculous..."

"Tell me anyway?"

"If there's any chance I'll survive," she said hesitantly, wringing her hands in her lap, "any at all, I reckon I want to take the chance. If it's certain death we're talking about... If there's zero chance, I don't know... Everything in me says we're having a baby and that's what I want, but I... I don't want to die..."

Carlisle slid forward in his seat. He wanted to touch her, but he held himself back as he had so many times before. "And I don't want you to."

Carys cast him a hopeful look from beneath her long lashes. A moon-eyed stare, he was lost in her eyes. "So... London first? And then we talk and go to the island?"

He nodded his agreement. "London first and then we talk. And the island," he added quickly when she looked as if she was about to remind him. It depended on how long they had left, be her didn't tell her that in case it upset her. The text suggested they had time - eight or nine weeks if it was correct.

"Actually..." Glancing to the side, Carys' lips twisted. She flicked him an impish smile, and he knew whatever she asked, he would agree to. "Food first, and then London etcetera? I'm starving." Her request was simple and easily procured.

Carlisle chuckled and reached across to press the bell. "We can't have that."

The hostess' voice lifted from the cabin - not something Carys would have heard. "-no rest for the wicked!"

And the pilot replied, "What was the past hour?"

"Work," she said with an exasperated laugh. "You two are way more demanding than-"

"Carlisle?" Carys said worriedly, and he returned his undivided attention to her.

"Yes, love?"

"Why are you sitting so far away? I thought it was for take-off, but then I thought maybe you were mad at me for something. But you don't seem annoyed that I'm pregnant, and I can't work out what I might've done."

"I thought you were annoyed at me!" Carlisle threw himself from his seat to sit beside her, and she jumped - he had made the move in a fraction of a second. "Sorry, love."

"It's okay," she soothed, catching her breath, "I should be used to it by now."

He tried and failed to conceal his eagerness as he slid his arm across her shoulders, her silken curls stroking over his hand and wrist before they laid, a warm, familiar weight over his forearm. Home. His tension left him and deep-set contentment rose to take its place. "How is it? Can you feel it?"

Carys took his free hand in both of hers and drew it over to rest against her middle. A flurry of almost imperceptible movements. He shifted his palm to rest over the source.

The air hostess began to make her way from the cockpit.

When they landed, he would find the largest steak he could, he decided. When they reached the house, he would make sure both Carys and the dhampir were sated and full. They had so much more to speak about. He had so much to tell Carys, and it would be too sunny to venture forth the next day, so they could make the most of the time together.

On Monday morning they would start their search and go from there. Whatever happened, he would protect Carys with his last breath. She was everything...

He hadn't been home in more than a century - not to that house - but the couples he paid to live in part and look after the whole had kept it up to snuff. He had their agreement already. They had easily accepted his offer of a paid holiday so that he and Carys could have the house to themselves.

The house had been his first purchase, years after his father had died, long after it had been rebuilt following the Great Fire. He had had to rebuild it again over the centuries, but he wondered what she would think when he told her he was taking her home.

Not just home to London.

Home, his home.

Where he had been born and lived a human life.

But first...

"Darling?"

Carys smiled at him, stroking her hands over his. "Yes?"

"Do you know there's a bed on this plane?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could manage.

"Yes, Esme told me. She really just bought it, huh?"

"Yes." And now he had a rule against oversized birthday presents. Of course, Carys was exempt. "After you've eaten, I think should give you the tour..."

"Of the plane?" Carys laughed - a low, delighted sound that struck him in the gut and speared lower. "It's not that big, and I've already been on it twice."

It was a blow to his pride for a moment before he realised she couldn't have known how his mind would twist the words.

"No, not the plane," he murmured in her ear as the air hostess appeared. "The bed."

A/N: thank you to: Guest (thank you! Sweeting means darling, too, so it's his little darling, and Carys is his darling!), derniermom, eeeeaud, Momochan77, Nistereal, Rosiekay, BMBMDooDoo-Doo-Doo-Doo, JosieNightOwl, Guest (thank you!), CarlaPA, KEZZ 1, BubblyYork, chellekathrynnn, Jane (thank you, thank you so much), 0oKitteno0, seconddragon, jhaenox, Shelly J88, and silentmayhem for your reviews!