la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

02

Carlisle expected, after few days, maybe a week at most. He would forget. She would slip from his mind. That wasn't the case. Every time he saw a vase of flowers, her face was in his mind. It was getting frustrating. He could never tell from a distance but it didn't stop him from guessing and then peaking to see if there was a little drawstring bag floating in the bottom. When there was, he felt a small sense of satisfaction. The worst was the flowers in his house. They could only come from one place.

It was an honest mistake. Alice wanted to stop by the local diner, looking to see if they had a particular pastry she was willing to risk the projectile vomiting for. He'd never been in before, which was his main draw— and it was good to be seen in a place where people eat from time to time. The scent overwhelmed him as soon as he was through the door, the AC unit rattling over head made it permeate the room as heavily as it did her own shop. His eyes sought her out easily. She was sitting at the bar, a note pad open in front of her with a pencil furiously skating across the page.

It wasn't lost on Carlisle how quiet the place seemed to get when he and his daughter were noticed. It made his anxiety about the situation worse. He couldn't believe this was the cafe he'd meant. There was a small cup of coffee in front of her to attest to it.

A hard swallow made Alice glance over at him at the same moment her head lifted to see why the joint had suddenly fallen almost silent. Their eyes connected first and her face broke into a grin that made that same heat spread through his chest. "Hey!" She beamed, as if the prejudice of every one else in the room was totally unbeknownst to her. "How was your birthday?"

Alice was on the ball, crossing over to the woman with a smile. "Wonderful! Thank you for the flowers! You really didn't have to do that."

Carlisle stood a little bit behind Alice, fidgeting and unable to let himself be as transfixed as he wanted to be as Alice conveyed some birthday details. "Can I get two slices of your peach cobbler, please?" Alice asked when the barkeep made their way over.

"The blueberry one is my weakness." Minnie comments at the same the girl's amber eyes totally gloss over. It lasts only a moment before Alice goes, "I totally forgot my wallet. Be right back!"

"Oh, I have-" before Carlisle can even slide his hand into his pocket, Alice is half out the door. "Or not."

She laughs a little, "How's the hospital?"

"It's fine. Understaffed." He shrugs a little, drawing out the chair next to her. He hears someone mutter something about him being a pompous dick but chooses to ignore it. "What are you working on?"

"Oh." An embarrassed chuckle slips through her lips, "I was drawing.." she slides the notebook toward him and there's an excellent capture of the diner's bar, reflections in the window perfectly captured too.

"This is incredible." Carlisle comments, "Your style is mesmerizing. Could I see any others?"

"Oh." He glances up, worried he may have over stepped to find her cheeks have turned a light pink, she lifts the mug to hide behind it as she says "you can flip through the book. Some of it is nonsense."

He takes the opportunity, carefully sliding the pages over the rings to examine each. "Is this the chief?" He realizes, seeing the next page.

"Oh, yeah. We were talking and he got pretty worked up when he realized I was drawing him." Minnie admits with a shy grin, "I couldn't resist. I think Alice is probably in there somewhere."

"You're quite the artist." Carlisle comments, noticing some weird symbols on the backs of portrait pages. Ones he recognizes but can't identify right away. The picture of Alice he finds is no exception, incredibly well done with a few choice runes on the back.

"What are these?" He asks offhandedly.

"Just scribbles. I saw them in a book." She deflects, swirling her coffee in her cup. "Do you.. have hobbies?"

Carlisle's eyes flicker up to hers and she looks away, he hears how hard her heart is pounding, "Do I have hobbies?" He asks with a light chuckle.

"I mean.. I assume you do." She leans her cheek into her palm, "I'm trying to ask what they are."

"I do a lot of reading." He admits, looking back down at her drawing to grant him some ability to think. "I love art though I can't draw. I could spend hours analyzing."

"We'll don't analyze mine, you'll start to see it's not very good." She grins as he flips another page. It seems like a doodle, a cowboy on a 25 cent horse ride at the mall. "See?" They share a laugh, the sound of hers is music to his ears but the mutter of someone behind him saying: 'you won't stand a chance against the pretty boy doctor, buddy.'

It makes him stumble over his words. He'd totally forgotten about keeping this as distant as possible. They were leaned together over her sketchbook, giggling like a couple of teenagers at some of her dumber sketches. It was like he was drunk on her scent, intoxicated and drawn in.

The reminder made him pull away slightly, becoming too aware of himself. Even still, It's another ten minutes before Alice returns but they don't notice. It's as if she's only been gone a second. The conversation comes remarkably easy, as if they'd known each other for years. The strange sense of familiarity wasn't lost on him.

Alice came back a few minutes later a bounce in her step. "It fell under the seat." She said with the pouch in hand.

"We should go." Carlisle says, though it's a fight to get the words to come out as he rises, "It was nice to see you again."

"Likewise." She gives him a smile that makes her eyes crinkle, "Don't be strangers."

They're hardly completely out of the door when Alice smacks him hard in the stomach. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Carlisle hisses, rubbing his stomach. "What did you see?"

"Not much but I think you would be.. extremely happy together." Alice comments, opening her car door. "Do you.. like her?"

"I don't know her." Carlisle says, a firm edge to his tone. "She's.. very interesting. I think.." he presses his hand against his face and Alice leans a little closer in anticipation. "I think she's my singer."

"God." Alice sits back in her seat making Carlisle quirk an eyebrow, "She just smells.. so good, I can't imagine of all people to be your singer. Does it phase you?" Carlisle presses his lips together, "Oh my god, it does?"

"Minimally." He mutters, "But more than human blood has tempted me in years. I loathe to think what would happen if she bled in front of me." He started the key in the ignition and ignored the way Alice gawked at him. "What you saw doesn't matter. We'll never be more than acquaintances, if that. The future you saw is wrong." Alice shuts her mouth and looks out the window, she could tell the conversation was over.

Edward's eyebrows furrowed when his father and sister came through the door. Carlisle kept his pleasantries brief and escaped up the stairs before Edward could pick through his mind too much. Alice's mind however, was right there.

"He's discouraged." Edward commented to her as she sunk into the couch next to him.

"He was so happy while he was talking to her and then it was like I could see the clouds roll in." Alice muttered, "What do we do?"

"Give him space. Don't push it." Edward says pointedly, "You like pushing way too much."

"But I saw, Edward. I think-" there was a slam of Carlisle's office door before she could even finish, so she decided to think the last bit at him, "I think they're soulmates."

Edward just shrugged a little, "It doesn't matter. He's not going to change his mind. "Don't push."