Daffodils

March 1, 1921
Ashland, WI

Carlisle was angry.

Well, not angry. Esme had to amend her understanding of that word. Charles had been angry. She remembered what anger looked like, sounded like, felt like against and within her body. If Carlisle was able to get angry, she certainly hadn't seen it yet, and where he was now wasn't that.

Carlisle was upset. That word better matched the draw in his brow, the tightness of his jaw. He paced his study, slowly, because the room was too small to afford him the room to move at his full speed.

Edward had come to her a week ago, in the garden, at night, the moonlight shading across both their bodies such that it made their skin seem to become a silvery shimmer. He'd sat across from her, his knees pulled to his chest, watching as she carefully put bulbs into the ground. It was still too early; the ground still likely to freeze. They were so much further north than London, the tiny rural enclave where she'd so freely swung from the branches of the huge crabapple tree in her front yard. At this time of year, the daffodils would already be starting to peek their way out from the thawing dirt, their orange and yellow-white heads cheerily greeting the tired Ohioan farmhands who were starting to prepare the fields. Her mother had always kept the beds neatly; ensuring that year after year a crop of the bright little flowers would appear just in time for St. David's Day.

And so she was planting them, in the moonlight, knowing that it would be several weeks before they made their appearance. Like everything, it was the time which had shifted. The way her body moved so much more quickly. The way she could perch in perfect stillness on a tree branch, no longer worried about taking a fall and fracturing her leg. The way death had stolen away from her in three days of agony, and she'd awoken to the kind, concerned face of this man she had never forgotten.

Carlisle.

She'd asked his name, ten years ago. She remembered the way his brow furrowed in confusion when he'd told her. The tiny hitch in his voice when he admitted that he didn't remember his mother. She hung onto every word, stored every flickering glance he'd given her. Even through the haze of the laudanum she'd remembered, and it had been so easy, sliding into this household with the kind doctor and the affable, but aloof, boy.

Edward had sat in the garden for a half hour, watching her dig, plant a bulb, and pat the earth back down, over and over, before he made clear his reason for coming outside.

"You have to tell him, Esme," he said, his tone hard and frustrated and she sighed.

She didn't want to burden Edward. He was a boy. His body had never filled out as it would have had he matured even a few years more. And even as an immortal, he was only twenty. The images that she tried valiantly to keep from her mind, lest he see them—she knew they hurt him. Charles' hands, the way they moved when she had displeased him, so fast she didn't even see them before she felt their impact. The constant fear. The way nothing was ever good enough—the groceries she bought, too expensive, the curtains she sewed with inexpert seams. Edward had heard the bellowing voice, felt her entire body tense at the sound of the good shoes crossing the threshold, the wool coat and hat finding their way to the hook by the door.

And what had happened over and over on the second floor, in the privacy of their bedroom—Edward had seen that, too.

"I can't," she told him.

"He has to know."

She shook her head.

"Esme…he cares for you. He has to know." The boy's voice was hard, frustrated.

The words caught her up short. He cared for her, she knew that much. He'd taught her to hunt, and he gave her things to read. He showered her with anything she wanted; dresses, furniture, even flowers when she asked. But he was so reserved, disappearing into his study when they weren't together.

"How will he take it," she whispered, and Edward only shook his head.

"I don't know," he'd said. "But he has to know."

So it had been three days ago, now, that she'd told Carlisle. And the gentle doctor had listened, and nodded, and gently touched her shoulder. She'd cried, the heaving tearless sobs that were now the mark of her new existence. And he'd comforted her, squeezing her shoulder, even stroking her cheek. When she felt calm, and he was certain of her security, he announced he was going to take a walk and disappeared for several hours.

And that had been that, she thought. He listened, and he absorbed her story, and it was one more thing about her that he simply took as part of her. She was grateful for the acceptance, pleased with the quiet way he'd accepted it. But it unraveled in the days after. The blond doctor withdrew. He stopped talking to her. Stopped touching her shoulder in the affectionate way he'd begun to before she'd given him the information. When she entered a room he flinched, looking away.

She felt…afraid of him, which seemed so uncharacteristic for Carlisle, the gentle man she'd met ten years ago and who had given her no reason to doubt him now. So she followed him here, to his study, where he had warmly invited her to join him anytime. He stood at once, began pacing, making her wonder if her presence was unwelcome.

He was so obviously upset.

"You're angry with me," she said quietly, and he became perfectly still at once. It was an eerie stillness, a stillness she was still getting used to. Carlisle was so good at human habits, and Edward only slightly less so, that when they stopped moving in the way their kind were able to, a perfect cessation of motion, not breathing, not so much as twitching—it still took her by surprise.

He shook his head. "I'm not angry with you."

"You've stopped touching me." Because she was undesirable? She supposed she deserved that.

He looked at her, his brow furrowed. "Have I?"

She nodded.

"I didn't realize." He came to her side, seated himself on the arm of the chair. He took her hand, placing it between both of his and caressing her knuckles.

"You're angry."

And in a flash, he was on the other side of the room, his back against the wall.

She swallowed. This much was right. "You're angry," she repeated.

He shook his head. "Not with you, Esme. Never with you."

"But you're angry."

He nodded, slowly, thrusting his hands into his hair. They clutched at the golden locks, squeezing frantically, intermittently as he began to pace again.

"I just… What beasts are we, men? To do this? I stopped touching you because I can't bear the thought that my hands might feel like—"

"You could never be him," she said quietly.

He shook his head. "You don't know that."

She shrank back into the chair, one of two luxurious ones he had installed in his study. For what reason, she suddenly wondered. Edward didn't need to sit, and neither did she. Carlisle was so perfect in his charade, in the nearly three centuries of masking himself as a human, that he rarely missed these finer details which so easily could go unnoticed.

What did he mean? At once, her former husband's face materialized in her mind. Already, as Edward and Carlisle told her it would, his visage was growing dimmer, less distinct, as though he were in a dream. He was becoming a faceless demon; her only memory his hands and his voice. But the memory of his fist was crystal clear…

Downstairs, the piano abruptly stopped.

"You could never be him," she repeated.

And he whirled. His eyes, the glorious amber eyes she loved, flashed dark. When he spoke, his voice was high pitched and rapid. "Do you know that, Esme? Do you know that I could somehow not be him? That I don't have it within me to hurt someone? Are you certain? Because I want to hurt him."

The shock of his words made her flinch, and he didn't miss it. His body lost a little of its tension. His shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, the fist she didn't realize he'd balled—did he know he'd done it?—released itself back flat.

"I want to hurt him so badly," he choked. "That's why I couldn't be near you. I can't let you see me this way."

His hand opened and closed again, as though it couldn't decide what to do.

She shrank back. "Please," she felt herself saying, and the words were old. She didn't mean to be begging Carlisle, of all people, but the begging felt familiar. "Please don't. Don't be upset."

"Esme, of course I'm upset!" he bellowed. "I love you!"

He stopped suddenly, swallowed, and staggered several steps backward

"You…" she tried to repeat the words but found they didn't make sense.

Carlisle seemed just as surprised as he repeated the words. "I…love you."

Esme didn't think about what she did next. Charles had said those words to her, what? Once? Maybe twice? Enough that they were already fading? She still wasn't used to the way her new body moved, to the fact that as Carlisle protested, she was stronger than he was, and would be for a good while. When she shoved him against the desk, it creaked and groaned under their combined weight; when she straddled him and pressed her hands against his jaw.

"I love you," he groaned again into her lips. The desk protested further.

"I love you," she repeated.

He placed his hands on her face, pulling her back from him so that she could look into his eyes. They were the orange gold, partway between when he'd hunted recently and when he would need to hunt immediately. She knew, now, after watching for weeks, how his eyes went from the flaxen gold, to the light yellow, to the darkness of old honeycomb before he set out to hunt again. Now they were just the right yellow; the pale color of the corona of the flower she had planted in the cold garden, weeks late.

And as she pressed her lips to his again, she realized that perhaps her daffodils had bloomed on St. David's Day, after all.

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