ofthefamily | A trip.

A trip.

Carlisle took the day off from the hospital; he has enough leave to take the next three weeks off if he so desired but he doesn't put in for them at the moment. Before he leaves the house to run an errand he smiles at Edward, who was gathering his books for class.

Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow.

Edward smiles back, a glimmer of a thing, before heading off for the day.

If Esme emerges from her latest project before he gets back to the house, there is a note on the kitchen table:

Esme,

Pack a change of clothing in a light bag you can carry while on a run.
I will return soon.

Carlisle

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"You are easily impressed," but Carlisle smiles down at the ground anyway, slowing eventually to a human-paced walk as they approach the boardwalk planks. The sun has just finished setting and the boardwalk is almost entirely vacant.

"Go for it."

Esme smiles at him and then heads to the water. She stops long enough to kick off her shoes and take off her socks before dipping her toes in the Atlantic Ocean.

It's an amazing sensation, to stand with the miniscule waves crashing over her toes and looking out at the vastness of the ocean beyond.

She turns her head and grins. "Come join me."

A siren song if ever Carlisle heard one he thinks, pulling off his shoes and tucking each sock into them before shoving both his and Esme's into the bag on his shoulder.

"I should have brought you here sooner," he starts. "I did promise."

"It's okay," Esme says. "We've both had a lot going on. I'm touched that you remembered my request."

"I don't actually forget things," Carlisle notes absently.

The walk itself is quiet on Carlisle's side. He eventually takes Esme's bag from her, carrying both so that she can walk along the beach unimpeded. He just...watches Esme, waves of hair crashing on her shoulders as she walks.

"I'm glad you are happy."

"How could I not be?" Esme asks, reaching for his hand as they walk.

"May I ask why, though? Indulge me."

The hand is pulled up to Carlisle's mouth for a kiss across her knuckles.

Esme rolls her eyes, but elects to indulge him all the same.

"Because I've loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you and now I get to spend eternity with you."

"That simple?"

Carlisle's voice drops. His expression is still bemused, happy, but his focus is elsewhere as they walk.

"No rhyme and reason to it? You love me...just because?"

"We've been over this, Carlisle," Esme says, her mouth shaping a small frown. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

He stops walking, still smiling and trying his best to not let on his thoughts.

"Just...go over it again. Once."

One final time.

Esme stops walking and turns to face him.

"You were the first person I ever met who gave me hope that my life could be more than my parents wanted it to be," she says. "And you gave me a second change at life when I was feeling hopeless."

Carlisle smiles then, a tiny thing and still distracted. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it again.

"I think we'll be moving soon. Philadelphia. Not far."

He looks like he is second-guessing something when he draws his eyebrows together.

"Okay," Esme says, confused by his expression. "Is there anything I need to know or do before we move?"

"I love you."

It's blurted out uncomfortably no matter how truthful it is. Why didn't you practice anything? You had six hours of running!

"You make me feel human again." Trying to turn this into some kind of joke, "As odd as that sounds. Like any other man walking down the street with his life ahead of him, instead of the same day again and again."

His thoughts go to Edward briefly. Carlisle would never not love Edward; a companion until they both turn to dust. Esme is --

Carlisle brings himself back to focus, shaking his thoughts away out of his mind. "Do you remember what we spoke of, once? About shifting?"

-- Esme is different in and of herself. Carlisle's own private, bright ocean.

Esme thinks for a moment, her eyebrows knitting together, and then nods.

"Yes, you said that vampires lives don't change much, but maybe once every few hundred years, they shift," she says, recalling the circumstances that led to that conversation with a tiny smile.

Carlisle inhales, stepping into Esme's space and dropping their bags into the sand. His arms fit smoothly around Esme's shoulders and he exhales a question whispered into her hair.

"Will you marry me?"

Despite her heightened vampire senses, Esme isn't quite sure she heard Carlisle correctly.

She pulls back enough to meet his eyes, looking for some clue that she's not imagining this.

Not what he was hoping for.

"...Esme?"

Somehow she manages to form words.

"I... yes, Carlisle, of course I will... I just... "

... can't believe you actually asked.

Any other time, Carlisle would have asked what the end of the statement would have been.

She said yes, though.

"Good," and Carlisle thinks to inhale again, "That means I can give you something." He bends at one knee to dig through his bag, eventually pulling out a ring that had been carried from Pittsburgh.

"May I?"

Esme nods, words catching in her throat as she holds out her left hand.

The emotional impact of this whole outing is finally catching up to her and she is touched beyond measure by Carlisle's obvious planning.

Carlisle grins as he stands.

"Now you really will be Mrs. Cullen."

"Oh, Carlisle," she manages, wrapping her arms tightly around him.

"You do realize," he admits quietly, still holding Esme to him, "there was a thought in my mind that you would say no.

"I haven't been nervous like that since the sixteen-hundreds."

His confession makes Esme laugh. "You really thought I might say no? Really?"

"I am not so completely pompous as to assume outright someone else's thoughts," Carlisle tries for prim. It falls to smug rather quickly.

"Esme Anne Cullen. Does that work for you?"

Even as he repeats it for Esme's approval, it is circling in Carlisle's head when he picks up their bags again.

"It sounds perfect," Esme says, grinning broadly.

She watches him pick up the bags. "Why did I need to bring a change of clothes?"

Not that Carlisle ever looks shifty or anything.

But.

"I didn't know what a six hour run would do for needing to get cleaned up later. I also didn't know if you would want to head back home to see Edward or if you would like to stay here for the night."

Esme's grin turns into a smirk.

"Spending the night around people who don't have enhanced senses and telepathy might be nice tonight."

Because you can bet that Esme would like to celebrate.

You don't have to read minds to sense that.

Carlisle kisses her then, mumbling around their mouths: "I may have a reservation already."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Esme asks.

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