𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 | carlisle cullen (3)

(𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲-𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞) forever and always

✧✧✧

ESTE WASN'T SURE WHAT SHE HAD EXPECTED when she stepped foot into her old home. It felt old, that was the thing because it had been such a long time since she'd seen it. Through her eyes she saw heart wrenching goodbyes and letters in the drawer of her beside table. She saw loss because she'd been aware when hugging her kids goodbye that it was the last time she'd ever get to see them. Of course she'd been wrong, but at the time, the day she'd slipped away had been an ending and now her eyes were plastered with beginnings.

Carlisle was just behind her, hand on her back as though worried she'd fall. Of course she'd been unsteady, two paces away from breaking down. Despite her careless attitude, it hurt. She saw dark walls and her own ending. Caius had messed with her mind right before what she figured would be the end. She'd seen her family die and for a moment she'd believed it real. She didn't know how to say this, talk about it or overcome it in the rapidly growing oceans of her mind.

"Welcome home" Carlisle murmured in her ear.

The flights had been torment, one after the other and airports all had the same sense of waiting. What she was waiting for she didn't know, not until she walked through her front door. She wanted a bath, she wanted some blood and she wanted to lie still for a very long time, preferably with Carlisle beside her.

They'd left dwindling chaos in Volterra and although Este didn't know it at the time, everything was going to work out perfectly fine. For a while there'd be a sense of stillness in the city and the general country of Italy. The Volturi would never be as powerful and things would be as they should be, countries managing their own burdens and issues rather than being swallowed by greater power. Jane and Alec would be found too devoted to the ideals of the Volturi and given choice they'd choose the wrong option. But Felix would move to America, he'd later fall in love with Killian. Dimitri would be allowed to go where he pleased, never found for too long. As for Heidi, she'd become the new leader of the growing organisation, the one who helped Estella bring them all down. So although it would be a long and tiresome process, at the end of the day everything would end up being perfect.

"Is my bedroom still smashed up?" Este asked lazily.

"Emmett fixed it" Carlisle kissed the side of her head, "what do you want to do first? You must be hungry...your eyes are so dark"

"Yeah... god yeah I am" Este sighed, running her hands through her hair. She still looked a bit of a mess, wearing the silken green dress that she'd torn at her knees so it didn't drag on the floor and the teal sweater she'd pretty much refused to take off. People in the airports had given her strange glances. Her hands were strangely ashen from stroking stone, her hair all over the place. There hadn't been time for anything except the desire to find home again.

"I need a bath" Este walked into the house, looking around and tasting bitter memories she couldn't wait to rewrite.

There was time passed while she mulled in warm waters and tried to remember parts of herself that the Volturi took away from her. Truthfully Este didn't know when she'd feel free of them. Even though they dwindled in smoke coils and heavy flames she could feel them like an iron fist, like screaming in her mind. It was hard to believe they were relinquished like water from her hands. It was hard to believe she would never be bothered by them again,

The Volturi had been a constant presence in her life for years, they'd brought her back to Carlisle but at a cost she'd never found beauty in. Since then she'd thought of them in her darkest thoughts and largest anxieties. They were gone, she'd seen them burn but at the same time she feared them like prickles on her skin and blood in her heart. She thought of them, she relished in their defeat and felt sorrowful by their tarnished ability to make her feel so vulnerable.