Charlie
I pulled the squad car into the reserved spot in the hospital feeling like I was made of lead.
I opened the door to the squad car and Logan, a paramedic from the fire department helped the kid out. We're a small town. There is one ambulance serving this community and it was still back at the crash site.
No one wanted me there. I knew I couldn't be there so I'm a taxi and then I'm off shift. I felt so cold.
Carlisle was working the emergency department. He came out to meet me with a smile but it faded when he saw the look on my face.
"Take the kid in," I encouraged Logan with a nod. "Carlisle, we need to talk."
"I'm on duty." He protested confused.
"Do you have an office?"
He nodded and I let him lead me there.
Carlisle
Charlie looked ghost pale. I was honestly a little concerned he was going to keel over. We headed to my office. I slowly went to sit at my desk watching him. He closed the door and stood staring at the patient seats like he'd forgotten how to sit down. "Charlie sit," I prompted.
"They were supposed to have forever right?" His voice was no stronger than a whisper.
"When I've been over. I've heard, not details but puzzle pieces, clues. Nessie wouldn't grow like this forever. Charlie won't be around forever but we'll always have each other…"
"Charlie what happened?"
Jasper
We were at Mardi Gras. Emmet and Rosalie were thoroughly enjoying the naughtiness of a celebration of the exact opposite of abstinence. If Emmet told one more dirty flirty joke I swear I was going to grab Alice and drag her away, abandoning them at the parade where they could grope each other and act like any kind of proper behaviour was an injustice against love and life, without us.
Alice honestly just loved the colours and the music and the dancing. I kept draping those stupid plastic beaded necklaces on her because they were sparkly and joyful.
We were all smiles and laughter and then in a moment Alice just stopped like her legs had been cut out from under her.
She sat on the pavement with a thousand mile stare looking desolate. "There was no choice," she whispered in protest.
That was the only thing she said.
We couldn't get her to talk, to explain. Eventually I had to sweep her into my arms and carry her back to the hotel like a broken doll.
Hours later Charlie called. There'd been an accident, a car accident. Renesmee, Bella and Edward were gone. The gas tank of the one the vehicles involved ignited after impact. Forks is a small town. The other car was a farm pickup transporting fertiliser. Two families were in ashes.
Actually,... there was one survivor. A girl had been riding in the bed of the pickup with her dog. It's against the law but half the farmers I've seen around Forks occasionally have a passenger or two in the bed of the truck for a quick trip down the road. The dog is dead too. The girl was apparently scratched up head to toe from glass and flying debris and road rash or something. She had a few minor burns but seemed okay. Charlie had driven her to the hospital with one of the paramedics from the fire department. Charlie kept talking about the girl because he couldn't bear another word, another thought on the rest of it. The ambulance had stayed working on the girl's mother but Charlie was dismissive about that. Apparently no one survives with that much damage. Four other fatalities not including the dog and there would be one person to bury and one orphan.
"Charlie, isn't that five fatalities?" I remember myself asking in an empty voice. I don't know why the math of it was important to me. I think I just desperately needed to be sure I understood what he was telling me.
"Four empty caskets, plus one body, plus one child, the dog is not included," spoke Emmet robotically. His odd phrasing made me realise with a start how horrifically I was projecting. I slammed a lid on my gift with every ounce of my self control. The phone cracked slightly in my hands.
"We'll be there soon." I promised before hanging up.
After I heard what had happened I knew with sickening certainty what Alice meant when she said there was no choice. There was no one to blame. This had happened without malicious intent. It had happened without someone forgetting to take a safety precaution. It had happened without human error or vampire error. It was an unavoidable accident. When Alice crumpled into herself she'd probably lived it in threefold; last moment visions of hopeless little choices like close your eyes, flinch or tense, yank the steering wheel in any inevitable direction, stay silent or scream.
Today the tiny holes in her gift felt to her like an abyss swallowing her whole. I folded her into my arms and wrapped her, wrapped all of us, Rosalie, Emmett myself in what empty elusive comfort I could manage. It was like wisps of warmth to project, to hold on to.
Devastated vampires don't make good airline travel companions. Emmett and Rose might have run home, running has a certain feeling of release when you throw everything you are into it but Alice was still silent and almost motionless. We drove back that night.