la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

56

The record showed that Carlisle hadn't been this depressed in a long time. Even when Esme left, it was nothing like this.

Esme leaving had been sudden, a total blindside. He'd been down, of course. It was the end to a near century long partnership but he knew it was for the best. They'd be happier apart, eventually. Carlisle was certain that at no point would he ever look back on he and Minerva's story and think of it as anything less than a tragedy. There was supposed to be more to it: A life together, cut short before it could ever begin.

The Cullen clan walked perpetually on eggshells, careful not to get on their father's nerves. There wasn't much that bothered Carlisle, really. He had his pet peeves, his distastes. They'd held a family meeting without him after he lost his temper. It wasn't like he was irrational or malicious, he didn't yell or lose control. His anger was always as righteous as the rest of him. The issue was that Carlisle, more often than not, was right and the truth was a pill none of them liked to swallow.

It wasn't long after the blowout with Minerva that he came home to find the family in a screaming match. Fingers were pointed in every direction, trying to pin the blame on one another for Carlisle's misery. The miserable man in question hadn't appreciated it.

His message had been simple. No more fighting. No more discussing Minerva. No more bullshit. Shifting the blame from one person to the next was getting them no where. The blame lay with him and him only. It was his cross to bare and no one else's, they needed to get over it and get out of his business.

The problem lie in the fact that the old vampire absolutely did not want to talk about it. On several occasions, one of the children would try to press him to no avail. Edward's nosy account would have to do. No matter how much Carlisle attempted to hush his thoughts in their company, once he was sealed in his study the volume nearly deafened the mind reader.

Even still, there wasn't a lot Edward glean from the torment. It wasn't as though Carlisle was carefully articulating it for his convenience. It was a never ending torrent, fragments of conversation and misplaced words, longing and agony, regret and remorse. It was hard to look.

All he could tell his siblings was Carlisle certainly wasn't okay and that whatever the conversation with Minerva had entailed, it didn't go well. They could have just easy have figured that out without him.

Months had passed but Carlisle's state didn't waver. He did what he had to do. Went to work, made his appearances and then came home to seal himself away in his study. It was like clockwork.

He'd thought maybe after a couple weeks, she'd call. A month passed with nothing and he grew more impatient by the day. Every time he glanced at his phone, he found himself delving back into his disappointment. The message he couldn't stop hoping for showed no sign of arriving.

Time kept passing, April turned to May and May to June but the silence persisted.

A day didn't pass that she didn't cross his mind; In fact, hardly an hour did. It was relentless. Every fond memory he had of her was underscored by her disappointment. Months ago, she had said that her life felt like purgatory, painful and constant monotony. Carlisle had understood then but he found he did better now.

Every hope he had of forgiveness was shadowed by a question he couldn't find a positive answer to: Did he deserve to be forgiven? All the pain he'd caused her, the betrayal which was so much deeper than he'd initially thought, how did that warrant him a place in her life? Did he even deserve her company, never mind the love he was so desperate for.

He made a fool out of her, made her question the very fabric of their friendship. Her voice rang in his ears whenever he thought about it, sharp and cutting straight through him. Her perception of things wasn't wrong was the issue. All she had truly wrong was mistaking his idiocy for a lack of trust. Sure, it was all out of his hands but Minerva didn't know that. Carlisle spent most of his time kicking himself.

He should have just told her. To hell with what his family decided, to hell with the Volturi's rule. There was nothing in the world he'd ever wanted more than her so why the hell had he let anything stand between them?

In retrospect it was so stupid. How had he been so okay with the arms length distance between them? It felt like a cruel joke that accepting that distance would be the reason they would be driven so far.

Sometimes, he could hear Bella talk about her through the walls. Though her voice hushed at Edward's request, Carlisle could pick Minerva's name out of the sound of a car wreck.

Sometimes, he'd catch himself muttering her name to himself. A quiet prayer, three careful syllables. His heart ached at the mere sound, the feeling of her name on his lips was all he had left now. Perhaps it was all he'd have to remember her by.

The minute he caught her name on the wind, he'd tuned in. Bella seemed worried but she couldn't explain it. She said it was business as usual but Minerva was never present. Just going through the motions with her mind somewhere else.

The concern in Bella's voice was palpable, he could practically imagine the girl wringing her fingers. Even still, Carlisle knew Minerva pretty well. A certain absentmindedness wasn't out of the ordinary but it didn't quell his worry.

Edward had minimized the problem, as he tended to do. When Bella said Minerva seemed like a different person than she had before, he'd dismissed it as the jig being up. "If the she doesn't have to preform, she's not going to." Edward had replied, "You're probably just seeing the real her."

Carlisle found that answer unsatisfying, luckily Bella did too. Minerva didn't seem to do much in the way of performance, she was unlike the Cullens in that way. There was no charade in her act, there was no underscore of theatrics. Minerva wasn't one for performance. He'd seen the way she interacted with normal people, it was done with none of the same pomp and circumstance they executed. It was genuine. Honestly, they could learn a thing or two from Minerva— Carlisle certainly had.

Overhearing Bella's concern only ignited his own. He'd been worried all along, of course. Their last meeting hadn't exactly left either of them in one piece. If he could just lay eyes on her, see her and know everything was okay. Only, that was out of the question.

Even if she would never know he had checked up on her, he couldn't risk it. He'd do as she asked, he'd stay away as long as she needed. The wonder was in the question of what if their path's crossed, coincidentally before she was ready? It wasn't like Forks was a big city. Would she talk to him? Would she pretend not to see him?

It was a question that drove him mad. Whenever he drove himself too crazy about it, he turned to Alice. Every time she assured him in a gentle voice, "The future is unchanged." It was the only time he wished he had Edward's ability. Alice never said more about the future she saw for them besides the fact that they were together and, more importantly, disgustingly happy.

All he wanted to see it for himself. The visions didn't come with a timeline. There was no telling how long it would be before that possibility came to fruition; there was no telling if it would. Somehow, they were still on that path but how long would it be before deviation occurred?

The only ounce of solace he could find in the unchanged vision was a simple answer to a question Carlisle had agonized over night after night until it hit him. It was obvious.

It ignited such hope inside him it smothered out all the gloom for the briefest time, shrouded him in a light of optimism. There was only one possible reason for a future of love and joy remain undistorted in a time of such profound desolation between them: affection hadn't died.

Somehow in her torrent of anger and sorrow, there was an unrelenting torch. Flickering as it might be, it was lit, bearing his name in the flames. A match, sending up a smoke signal that told him love wasn't lost. Even if she might be trying to blow it out herself, the flame burned for him.

Note: Neil Gaiman humbled me and so this miscommunication angst is really killing me now 😭 Also, I finished and edited this while slightly wine drunk, let's pretend typos and nonsense aren't there <3 mwah