Disclaimer: I continue to own absolutely nothing written about here. If this changes, I will let you know.
A/N: Sorry a million times for the length of time it took to get this up. I move into my dorm on Wednesday, so I've been packing. Chapter Five is in the works, plus an epilogue where someone takes a trip to Italy… Enjoy, and please review. They make my day.

"Esme?"

Esme looked up, and sighed when she saw Alice and Edward framed in the doorway of her sitting room. The others had insisted on taking Carlisle hunting, but it seemed as though her two most perceptive children had something they wanted to say. She braced herself, setting aside the book she'd been staring at, and turned, waiting for condemnation.

As ever, they surprised her. Alice moved first, flying across the room into her arms, clinging to her.

"Oh, Esme!" she cried, hiding her face in Esme's shoulder. Esme stroked her spiky hair as Edward approached, his face a mask of abject despair. She reached for him with her other hand, and he took it shakily, sinking to his knees beside her. The three sat together in silence for a long moment, before someone finally broke the grief-filled air.

"Why?"

Esme closed her eyes, but opened them again swiftly, images flooding her mind too quickly to stop.

"It was…what I had to do, to get Carlisle back. It was my only option." Alice looked up at her.

"Have you told him?"

Esme shook her head hard, and Edward stroked her hand gently.

"No. No, I haven't. I can't…it…would destroy us." Her daughter stared at her in shock.

"You have to tell him! Esme, Mother, you can't keep this inside, it'll destroy YOU!" She stood, leaving Esme feeling strangely adrift without her tiny anchor, and looked at Edward. He nodded, and stood also.

"Esme…if you don't tell Carlisle, we will."

She felt her heart sink, the same feeling of closing in walls, the feeling of being trapped. Tell her husband? Tell him, that his oldest friend had belittled, abused and raped his wife? He'd never believe her. And even if he did…he'd never look at her the same. She would be broken to his perfect eyes, tainted goods.

She couldn't risk her heart to that.

"You can't…please, Edward. I can't…I can't bear to tell him."

"Tell me what?" Esme froze, looking past her children, to where Carlisle was standing in the doorway. His eyes were molten gold, sparkling from a fresh kill. He patted Edward on the shoulder as he passed, coming to sit in the chair adjacent to her.

"Tell me what, love?" Esme looked at Alice and Edward desperately, but both of them where quietly slipping out. Alice met her eyes before she pulled the door shut, reassuring and encouraging. Esme took a deep breath. Maybe she could do this. And her children would be right outside. They didn't judge her for her choice. And if they didn't, how could her husband, who loved her above all things?

Didn't he?

Carlisle reached for her hand. "You should have come with us, Esme. It's beautiful outside." His other hand touched her face, pulling her eyes up to meet his. "When did you last hunt, love? Your eyes are dark." She pulled away from his hand, looking back at her lap.

"I fed when I was in Italy. I haven't really been…in the mood for a hunt since." Carlisle pursed his lips, and she heard the question before he asked it.

"Esme…what happened in Volterra? I get the feeling that you're not telling me everything. What happened when you spoke to Aro?"

She flinched before she could stop herself, and this time, he didn't miss it.
"Something did happen, didn't it? Esme, you've got to tell me, what did Aro say to you?
She shook her head. "Please, don't ask me that. Don't ask me about him, I can't tell you." She looked up at him, dark eyes pleading. He moved to kneel in front of her, clasping her face in his hands.

"Esme, you're scaring me. Please, what happened? You can tell me. I won't hurt you."

She gasped, pain welling up from her stomach to her heart, and her secret, her shameful choice that she would never have changed, swelled in her soul, forcing the words from her mouth.
"Aro made a deal with me." She said, her mind still reeling. "He would release you to me, and let us leave in peace, if…" she stopped, tearing away from his hands, unable to look at him as she told him of all the betrayals he'd suffered while he was locked in a cell.

"If I gave myself to him."

The room seemed to shrink in the silence that followed. She dared a look at her husband, unable to continue to sit in the dead air.

His face broke her heart all over again. His eyes were begging her to tell him it wasn't true. The war between disbelief that his friend could do something so unthinkable, and the knowledge that his wife would never lie to him was clear to see, and she wished she could tell him it wasn't true, and save him from the pain.

"He…he forced himself upon you? And you, you permitted it, to save me?" Esme nodded, biting hard into her lower lip, aching to throw herself into his arms. His hands left her face and he stood, staring down at her in horror.

"How could you?"

Her children had been wrong. She shut her eyes, trying to block out his face, his pained expression. He couldn't forgive her this. Aro had been right. She had given away her faithfulness to Carlisle, and no matter how good the intentions, it was still a black mark she could never erase.

She heard him turn and leave the room, heard the flurried whispers between him and Edward, heard Alice rush across the room to her, felt her arms go around her, before everything around her faded in the roar of grief that swept through her body, and crushed her.