17. En Route

"They're just contacts, Carlisle," muttered Rosalie, as I flinched again at my reflection in the plane windows.

"Of course," I said, but the image of my own crimson eyes was burned permanently into my mind.

Rosalie, naturally, had aquired her own set of contacts, and was wearing them now, as she sat next to me on the plane. Red eyes on Rosalie, I was ashamed to admit, were less disturbing than seeing them on myself.

"You haven't done anything wrong," said Rose as she adjusted her dark sunglasses, her voice firm. "We'll solve this conflict in Ireland and be home by the day after tomorrow. Then you can take those stupid things out."

I looked steadily at the seat in front of me, tracing the repeating pattern of the upholstery with my mind. If only I could be as sure, or perhaps as foolishly optimistic, as Rose. Personally, I had no confidence in regards to dealing with this unorthodox situation. How did one respond to such an odd circumstance? "Don't worry about me, Rose. I'll survive the contacts." The unspoken question hung before us: Would we survive anything after the plane touched ground?

I took a calming breath and waited for the stewardess to pass. "Rose," I said in a low tone, "you know you don't have to come with me. You can land in Dublin and turn right around for America. You only have to stay away from Edward and Alice until--"

"Until what?" she asked back in a sharp whisper, giving the man across the aisle from us a cool glare. "Until it's too late to help you? Until you're dead? I can't do that, Carlisle, you know that."

"Rose, Emmett--"

"He would have done the same," she answered, though I could see mentioning Emmett had caused her pain. "You would never leave one of us to fight alone, so how could I leave you?"

"I pray it won't come to that."

"You know it will, it already has. This woman has it in for someone, and we think it's you. So do you expect me, in good conscience, to dump you off on the runway, send you to your death, and then just get back on a plane for America?"

I have to keep you safe! I wanted to yell, but kept my voice a few decibels too low for humans to hear. "I could never forgive myself if something happened to you, Rose."

"It's not your decision, Carlisle. Just deal with it."

Easy for her to say! I gave it one more shot. "It was necessary to bring you this far, but I'll have plenty of help from Siobhan's coven once I reach Ireland. You won't be my only ally, Rosalie. In fact, if I bring too large a force with me, the woman might choose to fight us rather than parley."

"Why even pretend, Carlisle?" Rosalie looked away from me, her hands gripping the armrests of her seat. "I know why you chose me to come with you. I don't hold it against you, and I want to come with you still, for my own reasons."

Baffled, I stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"You chose me to help you because I'm the one you're willing to sacrifice," she said in a level voice.

"I beg your pardon?" I was so confused.

"I'm not as easy to get along with as the others, I know. I can be a real pain, sometimes. It just makes sense that you would plan for me to come."

Now I was angry. "Rosalie Lillian Hale-Cullen! How could you even think that!" That was all I could spit out for the fisrt few seconds, I was so furious. Had I given Rose such a low estimation of my love for her? "I would never, ever choose one of you to die for me! Never! I love you as much as the others, Rose!"

Her pleading eyes met mine. "Really?"

"Yes!" How could I make it any more clear? "You just happened to find the schedule for plane flights on the computer! If it had been Jasper or Alice, or any of them, I would have asked them to stay quiet!"

She slumped back in her seat, relief radiating from her. "Are you just saying that to make me feel better?" I didn't grace that question with an answer. "No, I guess you wouldn't lie to me," she sighed, letting her head sink into her headrest. "I'm sorry, Carlisle--" her lip twisted. "I've been saying that a lot, lately."

"Sorry?" I queried, wondering just what happened between her and the rest of the family.

"Yes. I apologized to Edward, of all people. I begged Emmett to forgive me. I even went so far as to ask for Bella's forgiveness." She twitched with remorse. "Oh no, I forgot Esme! She must think I hate her."

"Esme could never think that. She knows all her children love her."

Rose must have read my tormented expression accurately, because a moment later she added in a softer tone, "If Esme knows I love her, Carlisle, there's no conceivable way she could forget you love her."

"I intentionally tried to make it clear I didn't love her enough," I said, staring at my hands resting on my knees.

"You didn't succeed," snorted Rose. But then I felt her hand on my shoulder. "Esme could never think you haven't loved her. You love her above all else, and after so many years--" she cut off, strangely silent.

"Rose?" I turned to look at her, and found her facing away from me, with her hand delicately covering her face. "Oh, Rose." I leaned over and pulled her to me. "Emmett loves you, Rose." She tried not to sob as her head dropped onto my shoulder. "Whatever you said to him before you left, he'll forgive. Emmett won't hold anything against you."

"You don't know." She cried between words. "You can't know. It was the worst argument we've had-- ever. Emmett's never spoken to me like that before, and I--I told him about you, Carlisle, I couldn't help it!"

"Shhhh," I held her tighter. "It's all right, Rose, it will be all right."

"No, it won't! I called him heartless, and he said I was a hypocrite! I'm not a hypocrite, Carlisle! I know I'm selfish and vain, and--"

"Rosalie, stop this." I flatly refused to hear her beat herself up. "I'm afraid you're letting yourself get carried away. I know you and Emmett had words," I continued, to take the sting off, smoothing her hair with one hand, "but you know Emmett just as well as I do. He has indubitably forgiven you by now, or if not yet, very soon. And no matter what you said, I am certain you love him and would never want to hurt him."

"I don't want to hurt him," repeated Rose, wiping her face in a hollow action. "I never want to hurt him. I just wish I hadn't--now that--we have to go and face this..."

"I know," I whispered, Esme's face appearing in my vision. "There was so much left to resolve. There were some things I may not have the chance to say to them."

"Why does it have to be like this?" Rose leaned against me, acting more like my true daughter than she ever had previously. Comfortingly, she wrapped the hand stroking her hair in one of her own, then looked up into my face, her eyes deep and bleak. "What did we do to deserve all this?"

"There's no guarantee this will end badly," I asserted. "We might be home three days from now, with everything smoothed over." But my words rang without meaning on both our ears.

Sniffling, Rose smiled half-heartedly at me. "Nice trench, by the way."

"Charles insisted on me taking it. It was his way of helping us."

"It's a nice color. Not one I would have thought of for you, but it has a good contrast to your skin."

"Thank you. I didn't really notice."

"No, I guess you wouldn't. You've been on the run." She laughed. "You probably looked like the classic vigilante, armed with shades and a long, mysterious trench coat."

"A man on a mission," I grinned back, tasting the bitterness in the phrase.

"That's what you've always been, haven't you?" murmured Rose, as she settled in for the rest of the plane ride. "It must be nice, having a purpose."