Golden: 1819.

[ofthefamily]

An old face. Calmer, older, and yet all the same unchanged.

At least he's not running for his life, now. And he knows where he is.

For Carlisle Cullen, this is always a good start.

Comments

[themidnightson]

"Whenever we want, and many classes can be audited across continents and oceans now with technological advances incorporated toward the teaching systems."

Edward expression shifted toward more non-pulsed.

"Most of the year is spent in high school, though."

[ofthefamily]

"High school? Sound interesting."

Oh Carlisle. You'll learn.

[themidnightson]

There's a flash-bright first reaction, almost questioning his seriousness but it meets not a millisecond later with the fact this Carlisle doesn't have the pieces of understanding that meter up to what high school is.

Especially, what high school is for (to) Edward.

"It's the America equivalent for compulsory secondary schooling, if how and why and what they teach changes a good deal over time."

[ofthefamily]

"So you're saying it's...not interesting."

[themidnightson]

"Not to anyone who isn't in their first ten years of teaching."

It's a little more wry than serious.

[ofthefamily]

"You would like my lectures I think."

I would certainly like to have you there.

[themidnightson]

It could be debatable. Either he isn't able to stop himself when his lips curl toward the smallest of smiles or he really doesn't notice at all, with some quiet pleasedness toward the thought itself.


His words are quieter, faintly pleased (if problematic for the point), and not nearly the rebuff they could have sounded in any other tone. "You seem to be managing well enough without me."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle's expression creases in confusion.

"You are misinformed."

[themidnightson]

If the first reaction was double edges, the following one is only more so. He doesn't want to ask, for reason which are proven and founded and have nothing to do with the man sitting in front of him. Well. At least. Yet.

And conversely he does. Want to hear that he's wrong.
Regardless of just how well he might not believe it regardless.

Still ten years have passed for him and Edward wasn't there, wasn't a part of it. Wasn't born yet. Wasn't even in his past more than a handful of days. Hates that he's actually entertaining and encouraging the descent of these thoughts.




It doesn't lead to much more than his pressing faintly together.

[ofthefamily]

Here's the thing, though.

Carlisle's not all that willing to be so forthcoming about his answer. Edward's silent here, when he is usually at least willing to say something. Maybe he doesn't want to know?

[themidnightson]

Of course he does. Even when he really doesn't want to hear the things Carlisle has to say or think, based on his own opinions, he always still wants to know, to hear him.

Whether it's good for him or not.



An unnecessary huff is pushed out his nose.
As though it were simple, and he hadn't. "How so?"

[ofthefamily]

Maybe Edward forgot.

I am happy with you. So I manage.

[themidnightson]

Edward's brain stutters through a number of reactions, all of them simultaneously hitting at once.

Carlisle does not seem un-happy now. With his life. With everything. And he did smile like that the first time he spotted Edward from the door. And some part of him aches with an unfettered possessive pleasure at the idea. But if Carlisle is happier here and now, with him, than he ever is beyond the door, then is he doing him a disservice for the life he keeps having to return to. And it's seconds, only, each time.

Seconds.

And Carlisle.....manages.




This place. This strange room. Crossed between their times.
Uncertain, and rare for it. "I'm not certain what to say to that."

[ofthefamily]

Don't say anything if you do not wish to, Edward.

Every time I see you helps me. Even if it just a picture in my mind.

[themidnightson]

There are several -- several -- things he almost says.
Perhaps even that he should say. But what he does is simply this.


Edward's eyelids flicked closer to closed, amber eyes never leaving Carlisle's face, his head tilting until his temple and his ever bright hair were against the wing of his chair. "You are much too far away."

Physically. Generally. Temporally. (Honestly?)

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle stands, and how did he get here, where Edward asks for him? It's surreal.

Carlisle moves to the arm of Edward's chair expectantly. "What would you have of me?"

[themidnightson]

Edward pivoted his head, so he could still be looking at Carlisle. Never away.
His lips tugged just barely. "How complicated is it to say, everything?"

[ofthefamily]

Very.

(And is he so very blind in the future that he can no longer see such as Edward by his own side? When Carlisle lands a hand in Edward's hair, his fingers curl possessively at this rather than the movement itself.)

"Je pourrais rester ici," Carlisle offers, a mumble and a request as much as a deal to be made. "If you'd like."

[themidnightson]

His eyes close at the tension across his hair, the tone of the voice so close, and the weight of what can not be missed in Carlisle's thoughts. The multifaceted edges of it.

"Suis-je n'ai jamais trouvé, alors," is soft, the edges of his eyes tightening. "Et vous êtes abandonnés."

He promised. He promised never again. Never.

He leans into the chair wing, but not even slightly from Carlisle's touch, when his eyes open, looking at the suit near him more than the face. How much is it admit that he's gone through all these thoughts.

"Or does nothing change, because the time outside each door never moves, and then a lifetime here still takes nothing from there."

[ofthefamily]

"I do not sound like him. And you do not exist yet in my world."

You need to think about yourself here. Please.

[themidnightson]

It will never be easy. Carlisle made his life.
He made his own choices. (That promise.)

And what Carlisle, this one here, asks, now. Still the same and not yet. Maybe not ever. How does one figure out whether one is dealing with an alternate universe or potential undoing their own existence.

And that request. That request smacks of so many things.
So many things that have not happened to him.
Centuries yet found or survived through.


Edward leaned into the hand above him, trying to keep his voice toward some level of wry, "You will realize at some point I am tragically accomplished, and incompetent, at that."

It fails though, on the follow through. "Especially with you."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle bends at the knee; it brings his face closer to Edward's now, even if Carlisle's hand doesn't leave him.

"What if this is the chance? To just go? Do what you want - I want.

"I don't want it to be another ten years before I see you again."

[themidnightson]

More than anything it hurts. That same face. The exact same face. Every piece and part of it. The same voice, low in his ears, and those thoughts. That anyone could ask that of him. Ever.It tears at everything he created in his stupidity.

He knows what it did once. He'll never forget that.

"He needs me."

Even if his tone leaves the second word inflected far more heavily toward a completely different point and word. Which probably, none of his thoughts or words are helped, when he doesn't stop himself from reaching out and brushing his fingertips across Carlisle's cheek bone.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle swallows through the nodding of his head.

He gets it. He does.

Carlisle as he is can manage. Edward's Carlisle - no, the Carlisle from Edward's time - can't.

It's the only answer that makes Carlisle function with Edward's answer.

[themidnightson]

He can't succeed here. He even already knows the flavor of the pain that flashes through him, the one that isn't his. His fingers tensed, going perfectly still. Four remote dots of contact.

None of this is fair. It hasn't been since he started arriving from the 1700's. Still isn't. Not that anything has been 'fair' to Edward in over seventy years in this regard.

He can't even ask what he did to the universe at large.
That answer is beyond self evident, too.
Even if it's not the words that come.

He lets his gaze drop. "I tried to tell you. I left once."

I tried to forget you once.