A/N: Merry Holidays everyone! Let's get this done.

The sun had long set before someone came to find him. Alistair. His friend and manager knocked on his door, but Carlisle didn't answer. He shouldn't have been surprised when the man retrieved a key and let himself into the hotel room.

Carlisle didn't acknowledge his friend. He kept on at what he'd been doing for hours now - sitting in his comfortable suite, staring out the window as day turned to night across the Portland skyline.

"Are you drunk, Carlisle?" Alistair asked, and Carlisle wasn't so far gone he couldn't hear the incredulity in the other man's voice. It had been a long time since he'd had more than a casual beer. A very long time.

"I didn't want to think for a while," he finally explained himself. What he really meant was he didn't want to feel. Just for a few hours, he wanted to turn everything off.

Alistair sighed and stooped. He gripped Carlisle under his arms, hauling him up. "Get in the shower. Don't make me strip you. You won't like it; I'll make sure of that."

Absolutely believing he would do it, Carlisle stumbled into the shower. He stood under the water, not washing but letting the warmth slide over him. He rested his head against the cool tile and stood there until the water ran cold.

When he got out of the shower and dressed, he left the bathroom to find Alistair had ordered room service and lots of it. "Didn't know what you'd want tonight," he said, his tone characteristically cheeky. When Carlisle didn't crack a smile, he shook his head. "Christ. Sit. Talk."

When Carlisle sat mechanically, he pushed coffee at him and laughed, shaking his head. "I know that look. You're about to spout some poetic nonsense at me." He was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. "I'm a straight forward kind of man. Numbers. Logic. This is what makes sense to me. I could never see the world like you do." His grin was lascivious. "But I never needed to - not following you like I do. Being close to you was always enough to get me laid, and that's enough for me."

This finally got a reaction out of Carlisle. The corner of his mouth lifted. "I sent her home to her father," he said flatly.

"Your pretty Bella?"

Carlisle nodded slowly and closed his eyes.

~0~

Her phone had been going off since about six in the morning. It was on silent, but when it lit up, it displayed a man around his age with Bella's brown hair and eyes.

Dad, it said.

Carlisle turned the phone over.

At eight, he squeezed his eyes closed, his will wavering.

Somehow, this girl, this woman, had changed his existence. He wanted, how desperately he wanted the future that had spun before his eyes last night - a future he'd thought he'd put away long ago.

He shook his head hard, remembering his resolve and why it had to be that way.

Lowering himself back down on the bed, he wrapped an arm around her, splaying his hand wide across her stomach as his lips tilted her chin up. He sucked lightly, drinking in her little moans as she came awake.

She blinked awake, her eyes focusing slowly. The confusion in her expression changed slowly to shy adoration as he stroked the pads of his fingers down her cheek. "Hey," she whispered. The scratchy quality of her voice was better than music to his ears.

"Hi," he whispered back. Slowly, he kissed her chin, each of her cheeks, the tip of her nose, before he lingered at her temple.

Her breath caught, and she pulled away slightly, her eyes searching his. Her fingertips played along his stubble-covered chin. "It's over, isn't it?"

He didn't answer - couldn't. His heart was pounding too fast, twisting with the ache of loss. His throat was too tight. He had no idea how she'd known, but he wasn't surprised. She was perceptive, and even in the little time he'd known her, it was obvious she saw too much of him.

"Is it because of last night?" There was that same scratchy tone he'd already fallen in love with, but the pitch was lower, sadder somehow - like a bluesy ballad. She pulled her knees up close to her chest as she sat up, and he hated that he'd made her retreat like that.

"No, Bella. Of course not." He was still whispering. He sat up too, his back against the headboard, and put his arm over her shoulder. When she leaned into him, he put his hand beneath her chin, tilting her face up, and kissed her. It was a serious kind of kiss, slow and soft. Before he could make himself pull away, the kiss built - a flame sucking up what little oxygen was left, trying not to go out.

The way they kissed then had the taint of desperation. Her arms wound around him, her fingers tangling in his hair, tugging to the point of pain, but he didn't care. He only held her tighter, kissed her deeper.

"There's a way. We'd figure it out," Bella said breathlessly when they parted.

He took her face between his hands, slowly shaking his head. She nodded, knowing he was right, and tilted her head up to catch his kiss again. They shifted. Rolled, and she was beneath him on the bed, her body pressing up against his even as his weight pinned her down.

He needed to feel her against him like this once. Just once. Like he could absorb her into himself and keep her there, safe under his skin.

Neither of them were trying to arouse as their bodies moved together; this wasn't about that. They were feeling, memorizing, expressing all the things they would never have the time to say to each other.

Eventually, their fervent kisses slowed, became something more achingly tender. They'd rolled again, and he held her cradled against his side now, her leg hitched up over his, their arms wrapped around each other. He hugged her to him tightly, pulling back to look at her, his thumbs stroking away the tears that had gathered beneath her eyes. He kissed her one last time - chaste, sweet.

And then he let her go.

~0~

"You didn't want to do it." It was not a question.

Carlisle didn't lift his head but took another long pull of coffee. "It was the last thing I wanted to do."

Alistair hummed noncommittally. "That doesn't track, Carlisle. She is an adult, and you're a freethinker. You've always believed in following your heart. You would have pushed over anyone who told you they knew what was better for you when you were eighteen. Hell, that iswhat you did when you were eighteen, and you've built a whole philosophy out of not regretting diving into life head first without looking. If it was what you wanted and what she wanted, why didn't you let it happen?

"Yes, I knew what I wanted." Carlisle turned the coffee cup between restless hands. "If I had... gone further down that road with her, I would never have been able to stop."

His friend gave an incredulous chuff. "What? A girl you don't know?"

At that, Carlisle had to smile. "Twenty-two years of following me around the world... you should know the answer to that question. Some things you just know."

It made Carlisle's head spin to think about the life he'd held in his hand for scant minutes. He shook his head. "Bella just isn't the kind of girl you take to your bed once. She isn't that kind of story." In all his years, Carlisle had never regretted the people he'd shared intimate moments with. They were all special in some way, stories he collected and held dear to his heart. "I would have wanted her forever." His heart ached at the prospect, wanting. "And she would have stayed."

"And what good could come of that?" Alistair finished for him.

Carlisle's throat was tight, but he nodded. He'd spun out so many scenarios - none of them turned out well. At least, none of them turned out good enough for her. "You're right. She's eighteen. She has to make her own choices, and she will make mistakes." His shoulders slumped. "I couldn't be one of them. I just couldn't let that happen."

"And she understood?"

Carlisle's smile was private then as he remembered. It hurt, yes, but it had only reinforced the perfect image he would carry with him the rest of his life.

The way her body had felt as he hugged her one last time, standing by her ancient, dilapidated truck, her head resting against his shoulder, and her breath soft and warm against his neck.

In a lot of ways, he'd reflected, it might have been easier if she pitched a fit, acted her age, proved to him that she was the immature child she, in all fairness, should have been at that point.

But she didn't argue, didn't really fuss. Like him, she understood that the ending to the story they were writing was sweet and beautiful just like this. TIme would only have tainted what they'd found in two amazing nights both of them would treasure forever.

She'd never been meant for him - not then - and they both knew it.

Maybe she would become a doctor or a scientist like she dreamed about, maybe her life would pull her down another, unexpected path. That was the way it was supposed to be, the natural order of things.

Alistair put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "You did the right thing," he assured for what it was worth.

Carlisle sat back on the sofa, trying to ignore the knife twisting away at the very center of his heart. "Do you think I'd make a good father?" he asked as a distraction - just one of the millions of questions flying around his skull, none of them settling for very long.

"What?!" His friend choked on his words, looking stunned. When Carlisle only looked steadily back at him, he gave a disconcerted sounding laugh before he finally answered. "You know you'd make a good father. Your sister always tells you so. Heaven knows you've been a better fatherly influence on her boys than their biological waste of skin."

When he was twenty-three and falling in love with Esme, he'd briefly dreamed of the future he might have with her. He'd seen himself as a father. He'd wanted that badly.

She'd died, taking that dream with her, burying it, or so Carlisle had thought. But his brief time with Bella had reawakened thoughts of a permanent home, of the possibility of a family. He was still a young man, after all. He could have those things. Maybe not with Bella, but maybe...

"I don't know what happens next," he admitted, covering his face with his hands. His world felt upside down and unrecognizable.

"I know what you need, you crazy bastard," Alistair muttered, getting to his feet.

Carlisle watched as he searched the room. He retrieved Carlisle's guitar and the notebook of liner notes he always kept close by and shoved them at him. "Here. Focus. Channel. You always make more sense when you speak this language."

Carlisle's lips twisted as he ran his hands down the blank liner notes, remembering how he'd been the equivalent of musically tonguetied all week trying to figure out what he wanted to say about Bella. Just remembering that frustration had him feeling anxious.

"Just try," Alistair prompted.

Grumbling, Carlisle put his hands to his guitar, tuning experimentally, testing the waters. If his fingers had a song for him, they would play.

To his surprise, his fingers began moving, strumming.

Writing the story of the love he'd found, tasted, and let slip through his fingers.

~0~

Frustrated, Bella pushed the stack of college applications away. Her eyes were stinging. Again.

This was just stupid. She had spent less than twenty-four cumulative hours with this man; it was silly that she felt like she was getting over a breakup.

It had been nothing... shared kisses and touches with a man a little older than her father. Carlisle had kissed a lot of other people.

Holy God, he was good at kissing.

But it shouldn't have felt like her heart was breaking.

That night, there had been such an energy between them, a magnetism she couldn't deny no matter how much she told herself she was just being a silly fangirl - no better than a stupid groupie who thought they had something special just because a rockstar pressed them up against the dressing room door.

Still, the way he'd looked at her... the way he'd kissed her the next morning, looking like it would kill him to let her go... she couldn't help but think they were on the same page, that he felt the same way she did.

They had something that could have been beautiful.

It was a romantic idea, but at the end of the day, Bella was a practical person. She still had most of a year of high school left. He was still a rockstar who traveled around the country - around the world - eight months out of the year.

The instant he kissed her that first night in his hotel room, fantasies of following him began to replace her daydreams of colleges in sunny locales. That was a scary thought.

Her mother would have gone. In a heartbeat, she would have given up everything else for the adventure. But then again, even Renee, after having a baby at eighteen, had buckled down, earned her degree, and taught kindergarten to support Bella. Only when Bella was seventeen and had decided on her own to live with Charlie in Forks did Renee strike out on the road with her man.

It had its charm, but Bella had never understood the appeal until very recently.

Bella shook that thought away, digging her fists into her eyes. Breathing out a long, slow breath, she pulled the stack of applications toward her again. College would be its own adventure, she knew.

Listlessly, trying not to remember the adrenaline of being just off the side of the stage watching him, Bella shifted through the paperwork.

She stopped when she came across one from the University of Chicago.

When they were playing twenty questions and she asked where he actually lived, Carlisle had mused that Chicago was as much his home as anywhere else. It was where he spent the biggest chunk of time. He had a home there. His sister and his nephews were there.

Really, she didn't care where she went for her bachelor's degree. Whether she ended up a scientist, a doctor, or something else entirely, she didn't have her heart set on one specific school.

Ignoring the voice in her head that told her she was fooling no one, Bella began to fill out the application.

~Two Years Later~

"Hey, Alice! I, - Oh! Jeez." Bella threw her hands up over her eyes, ducking into the little kitchenette of the dorm she shared with her roommate, Alice Brandon.

Despite the fact their Sophomore year had provided them with a more spacious dorm - one where the living room and the bedroom they shared was separate - this was now the second time Bella had come in to the sight of Alice's boyfriend's lily white ass as he fucked her on the couch.

"Sorry, Bella," Jasper called. "All clear."

Alice was utterly unapologetic. "It's your own fault. I was just exposing Jasper to that guy you got me into. That Cullen guy."

"Carlisle Cullen," Bella filled in, her lips quirking upward automatically.

"You know that song off the new album... It's impossible not to get all hot and bothered."

Bella had to turn away to cover her blush. She knew the song.

It was about her, them.

Actually, that whole album was about her, about the two nights the spent together.

At first, when the album came out about three months before, she'd thought she had to be imagining things. It had to be coincidence - the way he sang about a girl who set his whole world spinning.

And yes, there was one song... The lyrics were incendiary, the strum of his guitar quick, carrying the same fire. It took her right back to that night when his hands were on her bare skin, his kisses full of intent. Even remembering the song, without having to hear it, Bella rubbed the back of her neck. Every cell in her body, every inch of her skin, was aware, switched on.

She swallowed hard.

As she sat down with her friends, her mind wandered.

She didn't regret driving away from Carlisle Cullen that day. He was right to let her go. She certainly didn't regret the experiences she had just in her first year at the University of Chicago.

And his life had changed too. How strange it was that she could watch his life from afar. The trials and pitfalls of celebrity...

She tried not to dwell on how it could have been her burden too.

He'd adopted a little boy on his own in the last year. Even though she hated paparazzi pictures - they were so intrusive - she had to admit when she glimpsed them on magazines as she passed by, it had made her feel warm inside to see him with his son. It was undeniably sexy: this rockstar with his sunglasses, his secret smile, his perfectly mussed hair and a toddler boy in his arms.

"Well, hey. This Carlisle Cullen guy has a show coming up here in Chicago." Jasper's voice and Carlisle's name brought Bella out of her reverie. He had his phone in his hand and put his arm over Alice's shoulders. "We should go."

"Oh, yeah! I like everything you've played for me, Bella. It'd be great to see him live." She turned to Jasper. "Bella said she saw him a couple of times when she was in high school."

"He was great," Bella murmured, a little dizzy as she remembered exactly how great.

"We can get a whole group together." Alice's smile was coy as she tapped on Bella's knee. "That guy? The one I keep trying to introduce you to? He loves music. We should invite him too."

Bella pursed her lips, rolling her eyes at her friend and roommate's persistence, and shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure. Invite him." Again she was distracted, remembering Alistair coming to get her, to bring her backstage.

She'd purposefully avoided his concerts these last two years, but now...

"You never know what will be the beginning of something amazing," she murmured out loud.

A/N: I'd like to take this time to remind you... this fic was dictated by jessypt, so if you have complaints... you blame her!

Thanks for reading. I actually really enjoyed writing this little fic, even though writing Carlisle as a sexual being is... just... wrong. Heh.

OH! Tkegl made me a GORGEOUS banner. Check it out. Link to all my banners is in my profile.

I hope you all had a good Christmas.