AU: Volterra!Carlisle, post-expulsion.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle has been running for days. If he keeps it up much longer he'll end up in Portugal.

Judging by the patrons of the bar where Carlisle just entered?

He's run a lot farther than that.

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[themidnightson]

Edward is at one of the tables in the center of the bar. There are ear buds to an ipod on the table. There's a binder open in front of him and he's writing rather diligently a very long paper, in the perfect script the whole way.




He got good at multitasking a million sounds and aims decades ago.

[ofthefamily]

It's been decades since Carlisle was good at this. A patron brushes his shoulder and he pulls back instinctively, wanting to run again but he remembers this place. More than anything, and more willingly than anything else in his life right now.

Next focus: Key. Upstairs. Privacy. Figure the next step.

[themidnightson]

Edward -- still writing diligently, head shifting just barely to the tune of the music playing not on in the ear buds, but from the jukebox on the other side of the room -- said without looking over.

"First step, close the door."

[ofthefamily]

"Comè?"

Carlisle's 'What?' comes out more as indignant and harsh than questioning - a waitrat closes the door behind him instead of Carlisle worrying about it himself.

[themidnightson]

The pen stilled and Edward looked over his shoulder.

There'll be no surprise for Carlisle to find in his expression this time.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle doesn't approach Edward. Doesn't want to, at least - the quickest way to the stairs to privacy goes right by Edward's table.

He goes the long way. At a run, and disappears upstairs.

[themidnightson]

The second time in so many days.

Edward took his time. Straightened the sheet of paper. Putg away the calligraphy pen in a small leather pouch with a zipper. Closed his binder. Stacked everything neatly enough on the table. Then finally stood up and turned toward the stairs.

He doesn't need a map when he cheats by existing.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle found his way to the library again. Atlases are particularly useful - he's found a map from the early 1950s. He doesn't understand the political naming structure of most of the countries, but they're accurate as far as topography. He can pick a route.

Any route.

Not that it matters where he goes.

[themidnightson]

It casual to observers.

He walks, removing his iPod and curling the long white cord around the device before it vanishes into his pocket, as though his focus is not entirely elsewhere. Opening and closing the library doors with only a sliver of sound.

Edward leaned on the doors as though working at holding them up, without looking at all exerted. "1809." It's half a question but the rest has none in it.

[ofthefamily]

"Why do you ask me questions to which you already know the answers?"

Even if it wasn't a question. No matter. Carlisle never looks up from the map.

"I did it. I left."

[themidnightson]

Because he's not omniscient, he bites down. Because he's made enough mistakes in eight decades (with Carlisle) to air on the side of certainty over assumption. At least when he can convince himself to mind the idea. He knows how much rarer that is even so.



He can't help it. One of his cheeks raises. Freedom.

"where are you now?"

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle doesn't follow.

"I hope Milliways. Or I'm hallucinating."

[themidnightson]

There's a thin snort.



"Outside of the Front Door."

[ofthefamily]

"Spain. Malaga? I think. I should be going north but I just ran. Still running, running."

Back to the map, humming '...running, running, running...' and thinking about what he'd need to steal to gain access to a transport ship somewhere.

[themidnightson]

"When you aren't sitting still on the floor of a library at the end of time and space," Edward finished, a breath's pause between his being at the door and his being about fifteen feet behind Carlisle and his atlas.

"The whole world is open now." Again.

[ofthefamily]

"It doesn't matter where I go except away, and there's no point for me to go anywhere in particular. All I know sont les boves d'Arras and that won't work again so," Carlisle stutters a laugh because there's nothing else to say.

Why should he go anywhere?

[themidnightson]

Edward knows where he ends up. How long between, in recorded dates, pages that stay deep within his mind. Still the answer is simple.

"Anywhere." Beat. "Everywhere."

[ofthefamily]

Both fists slam to the table and "I know that!"

It echoes.

[themidnightson]

It does.

People actually notice it outside the room, and Edward's eyes are still and focus is errant for the passing of seconds until they decided it was nothing because it does not continue.

[ofthefamily]

"Forgive me if I do not have a life plan."

[themidnightson]

"You need to hear that far more than I do."

Edward ambled over toward the table, direct but slow. The frustration of his thoughts is no in an centimeter of his face or movement. He is grateful. But why here and now.

"We could start with actually getting you a current map for your time."

[ofthefamily]

"What if I want to go to..."

Carlisle stares at the date of publication next to the map legend.

"1954?"

[themidnightson]

"Then you need a time machine or someone with a door there."

Beat.

"Or to wait one hundred and forty five years."

[ofthefamily]

"Go find your map."

Carlisle is still examining the one he already has.

The events of the past week are replaying in Carlisle's head.



fools, followers of the Three without any minds of your own

[themidnightson]

It is still...distracting...in large part to have memories he's already seen, has, be suddenly layered over in the fresh, vibrant, overwhelming sensations of emotions that have not been dulled by a centuries distance.

Edward wandered down shelves rummaging for books on one tiny blue planet in the correct time line, out of endless options of both planet and dimension.