January 1921.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Carlisle and Edward are walking to the hospital. The second semester is starting for Edward and Carlisle will be in surgery most of the day. A new procedure, and challenging - Carlisle has been attempting to minimize his near-obsessive concentration on it for at least a week.

With only minimal amounts of success.

"...and with any luck, I'll be closing by four."

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[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

"Or they may figure we have both tired of them all and run off together."

Carlisle's hand tightens around Edward's wrist. Stability.

"Just stay here. For a little bit."

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward drew back, not from Carlisle's grasp so much as pulling them both backwards. He looked behind him, acutely aware of needing to see what he would have taken for granted in Carlisle's vision.

But it got them to the living room couch.

"They'll never believe you've run off on them. They know how devoted you are to the patients and the programs. Me, on the other hand," it's at least force-ably toward humor.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

"I couldn't leave now even if I wanted to," Carlisle replies, missing the point entirely. "I don't even know how I'll hunt."

[iwouldfollowyou]

He wouldn't be able to see the trees or changing landscape or anything, and the options that pop up in Edward's head are galling to put into words this early.

"We'll manage however we have to."

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Utter calm: "I wonder if this is what nightmares are like."

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward tugged Carlisle closer to him without words, though it was somehow existent already in his thoughts that he can't see so words might be even more necessary.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Carlisle is reverting to one of his oldest coping mechanisms - analysis. Focus.

"You'll have to do my investigating for me." Which aggravates Carlisle to no end. He's calmer now, in Edward's arms - and calmer means wanting to do something. "It had to have been something at the hospital somehow."

[iwouldfollowyou]

If the first impulse to flare up and pass is the one to never let Carlisle further than arms reach, the second, at a slow, steady, seductive oil fire flash bright roar is the idea of eviscerating the cause.

Something, someone, it all sounds ludicrous.

Glancing over his own memories -- his and all the ones that pressed in around during the same time, which were simultaneously his. And nothing. Nothing still.

But he says it and means anyway. "I'll look."

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

"If you don't find anything..."

[iwouldfollowyou]

The very literal distaste for the words that come next are not as evident is his tone as they are in the features against his hair. "I'll go now."

Even if he hasn't gotten to the moving part of it.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

I don't want you to, but it's necessary, Edward. I need you to help me try to solve this.

Even if all he wants is for Edward to stay.

"Will you put some music on for me?"

[iwouldfollowyou]

Half standing, and untangled, he added as it of course caught up with him, "Of course." Edward crossed the room silently, the only sounds those of the faint friction, opening and setting up.

It's not wanting to go so much as what if it gets worse while he is gone. What if away is the wrong choice, or staying is. There is no basis to chose from.

And Carlisle at such a loss, Carlisle unknowning.

It's a symphony piece, not too robust given everything.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Carlisle tries to give Edward a smile at the choice of music. It's stilted and uncomfortable, but an effort all the same.

He feels terribly...small, sitting on the couch in a room that sounds larger than it is.



"I'll...be here, I suppose."

[iwouldfollowyou]

All of the sentences that crowd his mouth seem wrong. Apology, slight, mock. They'd all fall flat. Even the failed attempt at a smirk mostly grim would be lost on that blackness.

No breath out. Only the clench of his jaw and his eyes, before, the willing himself to something sensible and promising at once, "I'll be back soon."

It's from across the room, nearing the doorway and not coming back closer, so he won't stay. He won't be close enough to hear. He turned and walked out.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Carlisle waits a good five minutes (Edward should be out of range, right?) before letting himself succumb to another moment of despair, of an eternity of black and dark.






He can't stay like this - in that moment. It won't do Edward any good and it certainly won't help Carlisle himself.

[iwouldfollowyou]

He runs. Into the wind, beyond it. There is no singular reason in the world to slow down and be seen by anyone. They are blurs on no consequence.

Edward didn't stop until he hit the road outside the hospital, appearing as a sudden random blip and ignored the one person who was convincing themselves they were seeing things from somehow missing him.

As people did not simply appear out of thin air.

He walked through the doors, without looking at the reception desk or the patience, turning down the hallways toward the observation areas.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

♫♪ la da-dum, la da da-dee dum, da dum ♫♪

[iwouldfollowyou]

People are easily ignorable, if the chatter and images are not so much. He still frowns anyway. He skirts by them, side stepping patients, wheel chairs and beds with far too much ease and grace rarely exhibited in this of all places.



The room is empty by the time he gets back to it.

He doesn't even know what he's looking for. Something, anything. Except that it all looks like it should, like most of any other of the surgery rooms, like the over half dozen being used in other rooms on their floors at this same minute.

There has to be something.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

The slosh of a bucket and he moves on to the offices now; nearly vacant and no one watching. The humming switches to being out loud.

Don't humans hum?

"♫♪ la da-dum, la da da-dee dum, da dum...♫♪"

[iwouldfollowyou]

The doors to the surgery room opens and even though he could hide he stays there. One of the other doctors who looks surprised to see him, more confused than suspicious.

It's a transparent lie to say Carlisle dropped his cuff links and Edward had promised to look when he came to get the assignments for his lass. Easy to keep on talking and slip out before the thought, why hadn't he just called, can make it to words.

To walk down a hallway, not thinking and letting all the stupid noise filter through him. All the people hurting and hopeful, dismal and dying, some of them so far from consciousness they were a dull hum.



And something, something at the edge of his thoughts, he stopped, scrunching his eyes and listened.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

It's time to find his house. They don't live in town - He would have heard by now if they did.

And he can't ask.

So...time to visit Dr. Cullen's desk.

The humans don't even notice.

[iwouldfollowyou]

At first it is nothing more than an amorphous shadow almost. A flicker at the edge of everything, like a butterfly wing again a leaf in a strong stream of everything else.




Except there isn't a reason anyone should be in Carlisle's office right now. And it floods him. The feel of fingers touching the edging of the desk. The book cases in pan. The casual flick of a pen and turn of papers.

He walked down the hallway quickly toward the office.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Someone is coming and He can't be seen. It would ruin everything.

He leaves the mop and bucket behind in the office in his departure, blending into everyone.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

And then the black got lighter and the fog lifted, color coming back last to Carlisle's vision in the living room of the house he shares with Edward.

He had to go to town - had to find him, tell him it was over -

Towards the hospital at a run: Edward! It's over!

[iwouldfollowyou]

The door to the office is open a crack, but it's empty, and the scent is anything but human. Edward is staring down both parts of the hallway, listening, for the weird edges he'd caught.

And yet nothing except a faint sound.

There's a sharp edge to his eyes, to the make of the hunt.

Until Carlisle's voice, full and brilliant with relief, thunders into his head, and the wood under his hand groans with the thread of the door caving if he doesn't let go. Which he does.
If there was a time to believe in God.

Edward closed the door to the office and made for the front doors of the hospital quickly.