January 2004

Carlisle had been waddling through grief for months, even hallucinating. Lizzie spoke to him, through the haze of grief. He was thankful for her lingering presence. Seeing her again, ghostly, like a whisp, was soothing. Her ghost was vibrant – all luscious copper hair, gorgeous. Telling him to get up in the morning. Telling him to check on Edward. Telling him it was fine to laugh.

Carlisle knew he was traumatized, and deeply so. Every time he closed his eyes, Elizabeth's corpse flashed in his mind. The bruising on her face had rendered it unrecognizable. Had Elizabeth lived, her jaw would have been reconstructed with wire. Had she lived, the brain injury would have been too extensive. Had Elizabeth lived, she would have lost half her left leg. Carlisle was suffering through two forms of torture: one was the complete inability to sleep, and the other was that sleep came with nightmares.

Carlisle would have loved her anyway. Carlisle would have fought for her to have a life.

But there had been no life left to rescue.

Nothing tortured him more than the idea of their boy suffering – and Edward had witnessed his mother's death. The way her left body scratched against the pavement, the way she lost consciousness, the way her soul left her body. Before pulling the plug, Carlisle had known for three or four days that Elizabeth had gone. The medical field could propell the basic functions of the body: keep the heart pumping, hydrate its thirsty cells, ventilate the lungs, and oxygenate the blood. That was altogether quite different from keeping a person alive.

The neurologist had confirmed there was no brain function left – that the injury to her neck had been severe enough to be deadly.

Carlisle had effectively died with her, the day they pulled the plug, tethered to earth by their boy.

The logistical transition was complete. Carlisle had moved to Washington, too haunted to stay in Chicago. The site of the accident had long been restored: there was no sign of it outwardly. But the site of the accident stood a couple of blocks from their house, at a crucial intersection that Carlisle could not realistically avoid on his morning commute.

More to the point, Edward was slipping away in very real ways. Carlisle had been shocked out of his fog of grief by heart-in-throat panic. Edward had been disappearing at night, running around the streets of the Loop, haunted. Not by his mother's ghost, like Carlisle, but by his mother's death.

Carlisle had fled Chicago. Not a soul knew that Elizabeth's ghost would gently advise him. My sister can take care of him. My sister loves him. Carlisle rationalized it, telling himself it was his subconscious. His way of rationalizing and justifying his choices. Further away from his mother, further away from Chicago, where someone would be there to catch Edward if Carlisle faltered.

To Seattle.

Senator Masen had followed suit, acquiring a Georgian mansion in Seattle, in between Broadmoor and Madison Park. Though he was a man of remarkably few words when it came to his feelings, Masen had made it plain he wanted to be close to his remaining family – to Esme, to Esme's girl, to his surviving grandson. Carlisle had found a job as an attendant oncologist at the University of Washington, which amounted to a demotion – longer hours, less complex cases, less seniority. Edward had become a High School student at the same school as Esme's girl, and Esme was doing a remarkable job of marshaling the family through the motions.

Every quality that had irked Elizabeth had made Esme a good maternal figure, a good matriarch. Esme was so committed to life's social niceties that she had forced a birthday party for Carlisle down his throat. Esme was painfully obtuse to Carlisle's grief or doggedly determined to sidestep it.

Carlisle was grateful: Edward needed Esme's stability and Seattle, they had a semblance of a life, one that Carlisle had been too heartbroken to rebuild in the debris left in Chicago.

Carlisle watched his son from across Esme's living room, a familiar weight settling in his chest. These gatherings were always difficult now, filled with constant reminders of Elizabeth's absence. But today, something was different. Edward's usual bristling anger seemed tempered; his sharp edges softened as he sat beside Isabella.

The living room was filled with the forced cheer of a family trying too hard. Esme had outdone herself as usual, every detail picture-perfect from the carefully arranged flower centerpieces to the precise fold of the linen napkins. She flitted between her small family with practiced grace, but Carlisle could see the strain around her eyes, the way she deliberately avoided lingering too long beside Charlie Swan.

"That marriage was always a shit show," Elizabeth would grumble petulantly, tongue-in-cheek, cursing only next to her husband.

Edward Senior held court in an armchair, pontificating about the state of politics while Charlie Swan shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. The tension between father and son-in-law was palpable, thick enough to cut with the silver cake knife waiting on the sideboard.

"The Senate in 1982. It was an entirely different beast than what you see now," his father-in-law growled, his voice tinged with both nostalgia and disdain. "Back then, we didn't waste our time with this reality TV nonsense. No grandstanding for cameras, no 24-hour-news cycle to poison every debate. It was men—real men—sitting down in a room and hashing out policy. We fought, sure. But we got things done."

Elizabeth would fight a giggle or a retort when her father started into a diatribe. It had become a bad habit of Carlisle's that he could barely keep a straight face, imagining Elizabeth's covert smiles.

Charlie Swan, desperate as ever to earn approval, cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. "It took great men to do get things done. Can't have all been smooth sailin'. I remember the early 80s weren't exactly stable."

Edward's eyes flicked toward Charlie, his lip curling slightly. "It was a difficult time. But it wasn't chaos, either. Take the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of '82. Reagan's economy was teetering on the edge. We needed to close the deficit, and we did it. Democrats screamed murder over spending cuts; Republicans cried over tax increases. But Bob Dole and Howard Baker pulled it together. And me, of course."

Edward Senior leaned back, his chair creaking. "Compromise. A word this generation wouldn't recognize if it hit them in the face."

It was the younger Edward who kept drawing Carlisle's attention. His teenage son, who had been burning with rage for months, untampered by time, was... gentle. There was no other word for it. He sat beside Isabella. When she laughed at something he whispered, Edward's smile transformed his entire face. It made Carlisle's breath catch.

The dining room lights caught the ribbon in Isabella's dark hair - another of Esme's perfect touches. Edward was watching her, with a softness in his expression that made him look achingly young.

The kids slid away from Edward Senior's gruff pontificating about the Middle East – and to anybody who had been watching, it was clear they had planned their escape jointly. Edward slipped away first with a nod to his grandfather, and he couldn't stop smiling at his co-conspirator – believing he was shrewd.

Edward Senior's eyes trailed fondly after the younger Edward – but he fell back into stride quickly. "We dealt with the problems in front of us. The long game wasn't our concern. If we'd tried to play Nostradamus, the entire system would've ground to a halt. That's the problem today. Too many people trying to anticipate the fallout, no one willing to make the damn decision."

Isabella followed suit quietly, like a mouse after few minutes. "And the press?" Charlie asked, his tone betraying his discomfort with the tension in the room. "How did you keep them off your back?"

Carlisle mumbled a polite excuse me, and trailed after Isabella. His father-in-law and his brother-in-law nodded. "The press! They were no angels, but at least they were professionals. You gave them a story, and they told it. They didn't waste time chasing salacious nonsense or creating scandals out of thin air. Oh, they could hound you, don't get me wrong. But they knew their place. Nowadays, every kid with a – there's a word for this, what was it? Those things on the internet. Every kid thinks they're Woodward and Bernstein."

Carlisle stood on the threshold.

The younger Edward slumped in one of the den's armchairs, his long legs sprawled out in front of him. The soft wheelchair wheels made him look up. Isabella appeared in the doorway, carefully maneuvering through the narrow space.

"Found you," she said, a hint of triumph in her voice. "Your grandfather is telling everyone about the time he single-handedly prevented a government shutdown in 1982."

"Christ," Edward muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Again?"

"He's using very big words," Isabella continued solemnly. "I don't think your dad has blinked in ten minutes."

That startled a laugh out of Edward, and it made Carlisle smile. "Fuck, I can picture it exactly. Does he have that constipated look on his face?"

"I wouldn't call it constipated," Isabella said. "But yeah, his left eye started twitching." Isabella's impression of Carlisle's pained expression was so spot-on that Edward found himself actually grinning. "I think he's mentally reciting drug interactions to stay conscious."

"Propranolol, metoprolol, atenolol," Edward intoned in a perfect imitation of his father's lecture voice. Carlisle's smile widened – he did recite that when he was trying to stay awake. Isabella giggled, the sound bright in the quiet room.

"Hydrochlorothiazide," she added, stumbling slightly over the syllables.

"How the fuck do you even know that one?"

"I read," she deadpanned, but her eyes were sparkling playfully. "Also, your Dad gave me a book to keep me entertained the other day at a doctor's appointment. It was really funny. Did you know there's a condition called 'Hot Dog Fingers'?"

Edward stared at her for a beat before bursting into genuine laughter. "You're making that up."

"I am not!" Isabella protested, wheeling closer. "It's a real thing. Dactylitis - swelling of the fingers that makes them look like little sausages."

"Hot Dog Fingers," Edward repeated, still chuckling. "Yeah, right, Bee."

"I also learned about geographic tongue," she continued earnestly. "And something called Alien Hand Syndrome where one hand acts on its own like it's possessed-"

Edward managed between laughs. "You make me feel like I'm twelve."

Isabella's whole face lit up at having made him laugh. She reached over to poke his arm. "Better than sitting here brooding like Rochester in his tower."

"Rochester?"

"Seriously, Edward, read your English assignments," she scolded him, but there was no bite in his voice. "It's a Jane Eyre reference."

"Shit, yeah, that paperback's somewhere in the back of my car. Who the fuck is Rochester? I remind you of Rochester?"

"Maybe." She tilted her head. "Though you're probably more of a Heathcliff."

"You're such a nerd," he said, but there was unmistakable affection in his voice. Through the open door, they could hear Edward Senior's voice rising in pitch as he reached the climax of his story. Isabella raised her eyebrows at Edward meaningfully.

For the first nearly a year, Carlisle felt something like hope unfurling in his chest. Elizabeth would have seen it immediately - this unexpected grace in their angry, hurting son. The way Isabella drew out his gentleness without even trying. Maybe some wounds could heal after all, Carlisle thought. Edward's wounds, and that was all that mattered. Not completely - never completely - but enough to let in light again. Enough to let love grow in the broken places.

Carlisle hadn't meant to linger in the kitchen doorway but couldn't help it. He'd come to refill his coffee - his standard defense against his father-in-law's political diatribes - but stopped short at the scene before him.

Edward and Isabella sat at the kitchen island, a half-eaten chocolate cake between them. Afternoon light slanted through the windows, catching the ribbon in Isabella's hair. They were sharing a single fork, Edward deliberately taking enormous bites that made Isabella giggle.

"You're going to choke," she warned, trying to sound stern.

"Worth it," Edward mumbled around a mouthful of cake. "Besides, what kind of doctor would I be if I couldn't perform the Heimlich on myself?"

"A dead one," Isabella snorted dryly, and it made Edward grin, carefree and beautiful. Then, more thoughtfully: "Can you actually do the Heimlich on yourself?"

"Against a chair, yeah." Edward demonstrated the motion, making Isabella snort with laughter. Carlisle watched his son's face transform with a grin - not the sardonic smirk he'd adopted lately, but something genuine and unguarded.

Isabella reached for the fork, but her hand trembled - one of her bad days, Carlisle noted clinically. Without missing a beat, Edward caught her hand in his. The movement was so natural, so unselfconscious, that Carlisle's breath caught.

Edward turned her hand palm-up in his, studying it in the gray sunlight as if it were something precious. His thumb traced the lines on her palm, and Isabella's fingers curled reflexively around his. When her hand trembled again, Edward simply steadied it, continuing his gentle exploration of her knuckles, her fingertips.

"Your hands are tiny," Edward said softly, pressing his palm against hers to compare the size difference. "Like a doll's."

"They're average," Isabella protested. "Yours are just giant mutant hands."

But she didn't pull away. If anything, she seemed to relax into his touch, the tremors easing as Edward absentmindedly played with her fingers. The tenderness of the gesture made Carlisle's chest ache. He hadn't seen his son this gentle with anything since Elizabeth died.

"What happened here?" Edward asked, running his finger over a small scar on her thumb.

"Paper cut."

"That's why I don't read our English assignments," Edward smirked, arching a cocky eyebrow.

"And why you're probably failing English," Bella said teasingly.

"I'm acing English," Edward's voice was teasing as he interlaced their fingers.

Edward laughed, the sound rich and unrestrained. He was still holding her hand, their fingers intertwined on the marble countertop. Neither seemed aware of the intimacy of the gesture, but Carlisle saw it - saw the way Edward's thumb kept brushing over Isabella's knuckles, the way she leaned slightly toward him as if drawn by gravity.

The sound of Edward Senior's voice grew louder in the hallway. Edward's shoulders tensed, but he didn't let go of Isabella's hand. If anything, his grip tightened slightly, as if drawing strength from the connection.

Carlisle retreated silently, leaving his coffee cup forgotten on the counter. Let them have this moment, he thought. Let them have their chocolate cake and gentle teasing and intertwined fingers in the afternoon sun. God knew they both deserved it.

The stale scent of cigarette smoke clung to Edward's jacket when he walked through the front door. Carlisle's jaw clenched - he'd found a crumpled pack of Marlboros in the pocket of Edward's jeans just yesterday. The ensuing argument had ended with Edward slamming his bedroom door hard enough to rattle the windows.

Now his son stood in the foyer, nose and cheeks reddened from the cold, that defiant set to his jaw that made him look so much like Carlisle's father it was almost eerie. Before Carlisle could say anything, he heard the distinctive sound of Isabella's wheelchair coming down the hall.

The transformation in Edward was immediate and startling. His shoulders relaxed, the defensive anger melting from his expression as Isabella appeared. She was bundled in one of those ridiculous sweaters Esme kept buying her, her cheeks flushed from the house's warmth.

"You're late," she accused, but there was no heat in it.

"Traffic was shit." Edward moved toward her automatically, like a compass finding north. "And it's starting to snow."

Isabella's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Don't even think about it, Bee." Edward's voice was gentle but firm. "It's fucking freezing out there."

"Language," Carlisle said sharply from his position by the study door. Edward's head snapped up, that familiar tension returning to his frame. But before he could snap back, Isabella reached for his hand.

"Help me with this math problem?" she asked, effectively diffusing the brewing confrontation. "I've been staring at it for an hour and my brain is turning to mush."

Edward's attention shifted back to her immediately. "Pre-calc?"

"Mmhmm. It's the most awful thing in the world."

"Drama queen," Edward said fondly. He was still holding her hand, Carlisle noticed. Then, in a gesture so natural it clearly wasn't the first time, Edward bent and pressed a kiss to Isabella's forehead. It was achingly tender - the same way Elizabeth used to kiss Edward's forehead when he was small and fevered.

"Come on," she said softly. "I really think I'm getting natural logarithms wrong."

Edward followed her wheelchair down the hall toward the library, their voices fading into quiet conversation. The scent of cigarettes lingered in the air, infuriating Carlisle. The idea of his boy purposefully inhaling toxins made him furious. His son was smoking, staying out late, getting into fights at school. Just yesterday, the headmaster had called about Edward punching someone in the face. But he was also capable of this - this extraordinary gentleness with Isabella that reminded Carlisle so painfully of who Edward used to be.

The sound of laughter drifted from the library - Isabella's bright giggle and Edward's deeper chuckle. Carlisle should go in there, should confront Edward about the cigarettes, about his grades, about all of it. Instead, he turned and walked back to his study. Let them have their mathematics and Shakespeare. Let Edward have this one space where he didn't have to be angry.

The snow fell harder outside, blanketing the world in silence.

September 2004

Carlisle's relief went to war with a growing sense of worry by the time Isabella was fifteen.

They were supposedly studying in the sunroom, textbooks spread across the coffee table between them. Isabella sat on the window seat, her braces discarded beside her wheelchair, while Edward sprawled on the floor amid a scatter of notebooks. Late autumn sun streamed through the windows, catching the dust motes dancing in the air.

"Your nose scrunches when you concentrate," Edward observed suddenly, looking up from his chemistry homework. "Right here." He reached up to touch the bridge of her nose with his index finger.

Isabella's lovely face froze, and she looked at him as if in a trance – hyper-aware of his every movement. "Does not," she managed, growing pink under his touch.

"Does too." His finger traced down to the tip of her nose, impossibly gentle. "Like a rabbit."

"I am not a rabbit," she protested breathily. Edward was looking at her with that intense focus he sometimes got, like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

"No," he agreed softly. "You're not." His thumb brushed her cheekbone, following the curve of it with careful precision. The touch was feather-light, almost reverent.

Edward had been touching her face more lately - little gestures that seemed unconscious on his part. A finger under her chin when he wanted her attention. The pad of his thumb smoothing the furrow between her brows when she was frustrated with homework.

"You have freckles here," he murmured, his fingertips ghosting across her face. "Tiny ones. I never noticed before."

Isabella's eyes fluttered closed. When she opened her eyes again, he was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read.

"Edward," she started, not sure what she was going to say.

He drew his hand back slowly, letting his fingers trail down her cheek one last time. Something shifted in his eyes - a flash of realization, maybe, or confusion. The moment stretched between them, fragile as spun glass.

Too soon, too young, too volatile. Anxiously, plastering a clinical smile on his face, Carlisle stepped inside the sunroom. "Esme sent me," he half-lied. "Lunch is almost ready."

The spell broke.

"Oh," Edward said, clearing his throat. "Thanks, Dad."

"We should finish this chapter," Edward said, turning back to his textbook. But his voice was rougher than usual, and his fingers drummed an agitated pattern against his knee.

Isabella picked up her book with trembling hands. Edward's pencil scratched against paper, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. Isabella stared unseeing at her book, hyperaware of every breath, every small movement he made. Outside, leaves skittered across the lawn, red and gold in the autumn light.

Carlisle and Lizzie had initially dreamed of a girl – and had gone far in fostering a four-year-old girl named Gemma. Gemma's mother had been struggling with crack addiction since the age of fourteen. There had been no father. Elizabeth had been besotted when Gemma was three – but the mother had steadily recovered. Elizabeth had kept an eye on Gemma for decades, and Gemma had wept at Elizabeth's funeral.

When a girl finally came into Elizabeth's life more permanently, less painfully, it was through Esme. Lizzie had been horrified by how Isabella Swan had been forcefully extricated from her mother and into the Masen family. So though Lizzie was completely besotted with her little niece, they saw each other infrequently.

Elizabeth was gone, and Isabella had finally become the daughter Carlisle had never had. Carlisle felt guilty, sometimes – at how much he loved her, and how much she loved him back. At how starved she seemed sometimes, for a listening adult. Carlisle was in no position to judge anyone's parenting – not when Edward was slipping through his fingers. Not when he relied on a sixteen-year-old girl to temper his son's storms.

When a sixteen-year-old girl had done for Edward what nobody else had.

Esme kept a parlor piano, clinging to outdated social convention – much in the way in which she had kept exquisite porcelain dish sets. The Fazioli baby grand at Carlisle's sat untouched, even by Edward. Carlisle hadn't been able to leave it behind with everything else. The instrument needed heating and maintenance. Elizabeth had cared for it the way people cared for cars: indeed, it had cost as much as a car. Carlisle, who had been mediocre at music, never touched it. Edward sometimes at the bench, fingers hovering over the keys without pressing them.

Until –

Isabella watched him from her wheelchair, the late afternoon light casting long shadows across the floor between them.

"Play something," she said softly, not wanting to break the room's hushed atmosphere.

Edward's shoulders tensed. "I don't play anymore."

"Liar." The word was gentle, teasing. "I heard you last week. Chopin."

He turned to look at her, surprise flickering across his features. "You know Chopin?"

"I know you," she replied simply. A faint blush colored her cheeks at the admission, but she held his gaze. "You said, and I quote, that if it makes you want to curl up into a ball and cry, it's a Chopin Nocturne."

Something shifted in Edward's expression, and despite the sadness in his eyes, he smiled. Without looking away from her, he placed his hands on the keys and began to play. Not Chopin this time - something brighter, faster, sweeter.

From the shadows, Carlisle felt his eyes burn and his cheeks grow wet.

Isabella wheeled closer, until she was beside the bench. Edward's hands moved across the keys with fluid grace, though she could see the tension in his jaw, the slight tremor in his shoulders.

"What is this?" she asked gently.

Edward's fingers faltered for a moment. "It was the last thing she taught me to play," he said roughly. "Italian Polka. Rachmaninoff."

"Russians, huh?"

"My Mom had a thing for Russians and Poles," Edward said, rolling his eyes. "It was her dorky joke with my father."

Then, softer: "How do you always know?"

"Know what?"

"What I need. When to push. When to..." He trailed off, his hands stilling on the keys.

Isabella reached out hesitantly, letting her fingers rest on his wrist. "Because you do the same for me."

Then, without missing a beat, playfully challenging: "Is this the only one you know from memory?"

Edward turned his hand over, catching her fingers with his. The piano notes hung in the air between them, fading slowly into silence. His thumb traced circles on her trembling palm. "Of course not," he scoffed, sounding almost offended. "I know other shit from memory."

"Play something for me," she half-challenged, half-encouraged. "Anything."

"Bella," he started, then stopped. From the shadows, Carlisle could see him struggling with words, something unusual for Edward who always seemed to know exactly what to say, especially when he was cutting.

"I know," she whispered.

Edward nodded, but made no move to let go of her hand. For a moment longer they sat there, connected by their intertwined fingers. Carlisle slipped away, feeling like he was intruding into something unbearably intimate, while Edward began to play the Turkish March.

Carlisle never consciously meant to hover in the doorway, but always did. But the scene before him made him pause, one hand pressed against the doorframe.

A summer storm raged outside, rattling the windows with each gust. Isabella sat in the window seat of the Swan's den, wrapped in one of the cashmere throws Esme insisted on. Edward lay on his back on the cushions beside her, his head resting against her leg as she read aloud from a battered copy of Moby Dick. Edward had complained about being assigned "a brick" for summer reading, but Isabella had completely lit up.

"Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild-looking sky. On such a day—very much such a sweetness as this—I struck my first whaling voyage; and here now, on such a day, I harpoon my last! … Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! For forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep."

Isabella read softly, her voice taking on a gruffy accent that had Edward smiling.

Edward's eyes were closed, but Carlisle could tell he was listening intently. One of his hands had found its way to Isabella's ankle, his thumb stroking absent patterns there while she read. The gesture was startlingly intimate - protective and possessive all at once.

Lightning flashed outside, followed almost immediately by thunder that shook the house. Isabella jumped, her book slipping from trembling fingers. Before it could fall, Edward caught it, his movements liquid-quick. In the same motion, he sat up and shifted closer to her.

"It's just thunder, Bee," Edward murmured sweetly, without the slightest mockery, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. His touch lingered on her cheek, tender in a way that made Carlisle's chest tighten with something between worry and recognition. "Just thunder, sweetheart."

"I know that," Isabella said, trying to sound indignant, but her voice shook slightly. Another crack of thunder made her flinch.

Edward's response was to wrap an arm around her shoulders, drawing her against his side. "Want me to read for a while?"

Isabella nodded, pressing closer to him as the storm raged outside. Edward opened the book to where they'd left off.

"Christ," he grumbled. "I don't know how you read this shit so beautifully. This is hard shit."

Snorting, Isabella smiled against his shoulder, and he kissed her hair absent-mindedly.

"Aye and yes, Starbuck," Edward grumbled, at first self-consciously. "Out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without—oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!"

"You're supposed to enunciate. With feeling. Look at the exclamation mark at the end," she said teasingly, burrowing closer. "Weariness! Heaviness! Solitary command!"

"Christ, Bella," Edward grumbled. But he indulged her, pinkening. He always indulged her. "Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep."

Carlisle watched as Isabella's tension slowly eased, her head coming to rest on Edward's chest. His beloved girl's face held an expression of such naked adoration that it made his heart hurt. Edward's voice grew softer as he continued reciting, his fingers combing gently through Isabella's hair.

They were so young, Carlisle thought. Too young, for the weight of the feelings could see growing between them. Too young for the way Edward looked at Isabella when he thought no one was watching, or the way Isabella's whole being seemed to orient toward him like a flower turning to the sun.

Too young for the consequences of a relationship that intensely intimate.

Carlisle wasn't worried about the cerebral palsy, per se – though he knew a long line of idiots would be, including his son at times.

Genuinely, he thought Isabella was wonderful. All on her own, and wonderful for his son.

Carlisle was worried about the fragility of their feelings, especially because Isabella and Edward had become grafted onto each other for survival.

Despite their ages, they were both the loneliest people Carlisle knew – besides himself, and he was an old widower.

Isabella had been lonely, because many teenagers were cruel and vapid. Edward was never alone. Edward was at the center of a group of teenagers that Carlisle inherently mistrusted, so different from the set of kids Edward had been friends with in Chicago. Until Isabella - without Isabella – Edward was excruciatingly lonely.

Carlisle couldn't bear to think about the implications of their friendship becoming more. At first, he had been anxious about the possibility of one-sided, unrequited love. Now, Carlisle did not doubt that, sooner or later, they would fall in love. It seemed not only possible, but predictable with almost scientific certainty.

No, Carlisle thought as he slipped back into his bedroom. The problem was not falling in love. The problem was staying in love.

Carlisle worried that only came with maturity his son didn't yet have.