𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 | carlisle cullen (3)

(𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐭𝐰𝐨) saying goodbye

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COLORADO LOOKED AS IT ALWAYS DID, peaceful, serene, welcoming. They stood at what felt like the edge of the world, looking out into a glistening like mirror,the light of a dying sun. Heads were bowed, eyes lowered and hearts empty. It's not as though Carlisle remembered a heartbeat, not that he'd ever found himself truly missing one but in this moment he'd decided it's absence meant nothing but death. That this wasn't life, science spoke reason and reason left him with absolutely nothing at all.

They were dressed all in black, the family. Such a small group crowded around where happy memories had once been shared. Carlisle saw himself with a smile. He was in the lake with Estella, holding her to him with a certain radiance he couldn't find himself describing anymore. He was getting married, seeing her walk through the trees in a silhouette of small golden lights, a permanent essence of beauty. It never scared him, her radiance.

No one said anything at first. The memorial felt wrong, her name on a small plaque. It should be postered on every building, every billboard, every car, every news channel and more importantly every star because if no one knew her name, if no one knew the treachery that had been done to him, to her then there was no hope for justice and now as they stood under clouds collected over shared meaning, Carlisle's mind burnt with the desire for revenge.

"Would anyone like to say anything?" Edward asked as they stared at her name on the tree in front of them. It called this place hers, the lake and all its glory. Carlisle closed his eyes softly. Should they have ever left Colorado? He supposed it would've happened anywhere but here in Aspen he'd felt safer than anywhere else in the world. Their home, Estella had barely an opportunity to know their life here, to understand how perfect a lack of humanity could be. It didn't matter because it was theirs. This lake, this state and this home was where they'd forged something completely unbreakable. Carlisle wondered why he'd ever turned away from something so perfect.

"You go" Emmett nudged his brothers shoulder encouragingly.

"I—I don't know" Edward froze up immediately, looking to Bella who gave him an warm smile, her arms wrapped around her daughter, "yeah... yeah I'll go first"

Edward gave Carlisle an almost questioning look. They were doing that a lot recently, looking to him for justification of their actions as though they needed permission to simply think about her. Carlisle had always been used to being the leader, the one they looked to for reassurance but now he wished they'd pretend as though he didn't exist, as though he'd died with her, somewhere deep in the halls of Volterra. Yet he nodded at his son, jaw clenched and Edward seemed to relax as though this small movement was all he could've possibly hoped for.

"Estella" Edward looked towards the small plaque on the tree in front of him, "I... I want first to apologise, I fear that for some of the best parts of your life I was merely a hazard or... an obstacle when I should've been a better son. I regret a lot of things about that, everything really. I had my doubts and I was proven completely and utterly wrong because you were more than this family could've ever hoped for. You were exactly what we needed, the missing piece. You made everything better and that decade in Alaska, our time in Forks... they've been the best years of my life"

Edward took a slightly shaking breath as he clasped his hands together.

"I'm... I don't know what we're going to do without you, I don't know what I'm going to do without you. I wish I could've told you that you meant the world to me. I appreciated everything you did. You had every right to turn away from me after what I put you through, every right to stop calling me your son but you never did because... because you're an incredible person Este. Not just that... you're an incredible mother. What I really wish I could've told you is that you were the best mother I ever would've wished for and I want you to know that you couldn't have done any better. I love you... I always love you"