Chapter Text
Part 1 - Carlisle
Bella’s eighteenth birthday was the first time I realized the extent of my mistake.
Over the last seventy-five years doubt had begun to creep in, and I had more than once found myself looking at members of my coven and wondering if I had made a huge judgment error in damning them all to immortal life.
The coven had started with Edward, with the calculated decision to turn him in the face of his mother’s plea to save him by whatever means possible. Edward had suffered from the transformation, and during the course of his agony I cursed myself for my decision. After that dark period, though, he recovered and he quickly became as close as family. I was so grateful to have him, and when Esme came along, the decision felt even more obvious. She always seemed grateful for our life and the family we had built. I knew, though, that the choice to turn both of them had been selfish. As much as I justified both decisions as the only option to save their lives, I couldn’t deny that I had grown so lonely after so long in isolation. I had been turned at twenty-nine, and had been alone for over two hundred years before I made the decision to save someone - and give myself companions in the process.
Rosalie’s turning had sown the first seed of doubt. She desperately missed being human, and I would never forget her expression of disgust and anger as I explained to her what she had become, what I had done. I had been trying to create a companion for Edward, but in turning Rosalie I exposed the raw wounds in both her and Edward that time could never heal. Rosalie’s grief and rage still persisted even after all these years, and Edward seemed to regard her with a kind of apathy, even disgust at times. Time had bled on, and I before too long I had turned Emmett as well at Rosalie’s request. Alice and Jasper - well at least I had not had a hand in their turning as well.
Now I stood, overlooking my shattered coven as Jasper raged against my grip. Bella had cut her hand, and in his desperation to shield her from Jasper Edward had flung her into the table. Jasper’s eyes were black with bloodlust and Emmett, who was holding Jasper’s other arm to keep him from running at Bella, looked sick with the effort to ignore the bleeding girl in front of them. Alice, Rosalie, and Esme held their arms over their pale faces, choking on the smell of blood soaking the air around them. Edward stood completely still, frozen in front of Bella, a twisted look of hunger and rage on his face.
Bella was opposite the room from me, her face mirroring the shock and horror that I felt. She looked slowly down at her arm, which had been lacerated from shoulder to elbow by a shard of glass. Her skin gaped open, and blood dripped slowly onto the white carpet.
We all were still for a moment, frozen in the horrible tableau. The spell was broken as I stepped forward.
“Emmett, Rose, get Jasper outside,” I commanded, a quiet calm in my voice that contradicted my internal shock. The scent of blood didn’t bother me after so many years caring for patients, but I was appalled by the scene and the wounds we had inflicted on Bella. What had I been thinking, to allow a human to be surrounded by vampires? It was torment, not just for my family but for Bella too.
Esme followed Rosalie and Jasper out of the room, mumbling an apology to Bella as she fled the scent of her blood. I felt numb and slow as I brushed past Edward and bent to staunch the bleeding from Bella’s arm.
Alice, looking nauseated with the effort to restrain herself, handed me a compress. Edward loomed over us, still frozen. Bella’s face had gone pale, and I caught the unmistakable scent of her sweat as my hands met her clammy arm. I knew the signs of imminent fainting, and I tilted her head up towards me.
“Bella,” I said, trying to ground her. “Do you want me to drive you to the hospital, or would you like me to take care of it here?” I knew if we took her to the hospital there would be questions, but the thought of stitching her up here on her birthday made me feel sick with shame. I wanted to give her a choice, even if it was a small one.
“Here, please,” Bella said in a quiet voice, gripping my side with her sweaty palm. Her blood dripped down my forearm from where I applied pressure, staining the sleeve of my shirt red. I nodded. I stood and stepped aside to allow Edward to scoop her up from the floor, carrying her bridal-style in his arms to my study. Edward’s face was white and stony in the effort not to inhale, and again I felt a twist of guilt as he watched the shame and anger in his expression.
Edward deposited Bella gently on the desk while Alice brought my medical kit. He hovered, trying to make sure Bella would not swoon backwards. Her color was improving, the pink flush returning to her cheeks.
“How are you doing, Bella?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, sounding steadier than before. Edward still stood over her, looking as awkward as I’d ever seen him look. “Just go, Edward,” she sighed, waving him off with her good arm.
I took out an antiseptic prep and swabbed her arm. “Edward, go find Jasper,” I said, feeling the tension in the muscle of Bella’s arm. She couldn’t relax with Edward there, and her clenched fist was making the blood ooze again. I wondered if she was always like this with Edward, tense and guilty for her own humanity. Edward paused, frowning at me, before turning away.
Bella let out a breath once he was gone, wincing again as I injected the local anesthetic. The cut was deep.
“You need stitches,” I said, turning her palm in my hand to turn the wound towards me. “Still okay for me to do it here?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking pale again for a moment at the mention of stitches. I paused until her color returned. I touched her arm with light fingertips and she didn’t wince - the anesthetic had kicked in. Alice slipped out of the room behind me.
“Well, that’s everyone. I can clear a room, at least,” she sighed.
“It’s not your fault,” I said, meaning it. “It could happen to anyone.” This seemed like a ridiculous statement as I said it. It referred to getting caught in a room full of thirsty vampires, which was hardly a common occurrence.
“Could,” she said, “But it usually just happens to me.”
Her tone was light, but I caught the note of guilt in it. I laughed lightly, trying to not to show my own churning shame. We were quiet for a moment, listening to the soft plink, plink of shards of glass in the metal basin as I tweezed them from the wound.
“How can you do this?” she asked, gesturing with her free hand to the medical supplies.
“Years and years of practice,” I said, truthfully. “I hardly notice the scent anymore.” I had smelled the blood of my patients through centuries - through the crude barber shops, field hospitals in wartime, the bedsides of the Spanish Influenza. I had smelled the sterile blood of modern operating rooms, and the burnt-hair scent of cauterized veins and arteries.
“You didn’t choose it,” she said. “It must have been hard.”
I shook my head. “Like everything else in life, I just had to decide what to do with what I was given. I knew what I wanted to be, that I wanted to help people. It brings me happiness, even if I am damned regardless.”
Bella’s injured arm was resting on my side, and I felt her hand curl into a fist at my words. I began stitching, conscious of her eyes on me as she looked up at me.
“Damned?” she asked. “Like, hell?” I raised my eyes to meet her gaze briefly, before lowering them again to my work. We were silent for a moment, my needle pulling the thread through her skin.
“Carlisle,” she said, voice steady. “You couldn’t be damned. It’s impossible.”
I paused again, concentration breaking for just a moment as I took in her words. Bella had always been kind, kind to Edward and Alice and even stubborn Rosalie. We didn’t deserve her kindness, her trust. Tonight’s events proved it.
“Thank you, Bella. You’ve always been gracious about us.” I said, tying the last stitch off and dropping the gauze into the bowl. She was quiet now. I swabbed her arm with a final swipe of antiseptic, and her arm was still at my side. No wince of pain this time. I wrapped a gauze around her arm. “All done,” I said.
She dropped her arm, the warmth of her hand leaving my side. “I’m sorry about your birthday,” I said, and my voice came out lower than I intended. Shame burned in my chest. All I could do now was stitch up the physical wound we had caused.
She nodded, sliding off the desk and to her feet. She wavered just a bit, and I hovered a hand near her shoulder as she steadied herself. Edward appeared at the door. I tried to calm my mind, to push out the guilty thoughts so he couldn’t hear them, and I turned my back to them as he helped Bella into her coat.
I realized that Bella, who usually took all fault on herself, had taken my apology without objection this time. A cold breeze blew in through the open door, and I could hear Edward and Bella’s voices getting further as they walked out to her truck.
I didn’t know what it was, but I could feel a shift. Something was changing, and I thought of the invisible thread through our lives pulled taut. Ready to snap.