Chapter Text
Forks was quiet, as always. The rain whispered against the hospital windows, soft and constant, like a lullaby meant only for this town. Dr. Carlisle Cullen moved with practiced grace through the corridors of Forks Community Hospital, his presence as calm and reassuring as ever.
It was nearing the end of his shift when the ER doors opened to admit a young woman with dirt-smudged hands and a crimson gash trailing from her palm to her wrist. The triage nurse, Janet, looked a bit flustered—more so than usual. Carlisle was already striding over when he heard Janet mutter under her breath, “All over the place, that one.”
Carlisle didn’t usually pay attention to such things. But the moment he stepped into the curtained-off bay and drew back the fabric, everything changed.
The woman sitting on the exam table was tugging off her gloves with her uninjured hand. Her fingers were nicked with old calluses, nails short and earthy. She had long, rain-dampened hair the colour of burnt toffee and eyes the colour of stormwater glass. British, he guessed from the soft, apologetic way she said, “Sorry to be a bother.”
But it wasn’t her voice, or even her presence, that froze him in place.
It was her scent.
Carlisle had lived through centuries of self-control. He had built a fortress around his instincts, ironclad and precise. But the aroma that emanated from her blood was unlike anything he had ever known. It struck him with an almost physical force—earthy, sweet, and laced with something sharp and elusive. Not just alluring, but intoxicating.
She noticed his momentary pause. “I, um—tripped over a hedge trimmer,” she said, a sheepish smile tugging at her mouth. “Well, the cord of one. Stupid, really.”
“Not stupid,” Carlisle said, recovering quickly. He reached for gloves, grateful for the barrier between his hands and her skin. “May I?” he gestured toward her arm.
“Be my guest, Doctor…?”
“Cullen. Carlisle Cullen.”
She tilted her head, intrigued. “Carlisle. Like the city? I’ve been there, it’s got a lovely castle.”
He smiled faintly as he examined the wound. Deep, but not dangerous. Still, the scent of her blood sent a jolt through him like lightning down a spine. It took everything in him not to inhale deeply. Control. You are in Control.
“I’m afraid I’ll need to stitch this,” he said, voice calm. “You’ll feel a pinch.”
“I’ve been scratched by rose thorns sharper than a needle,” she said, wincing nonetheless.
“Are you a gardener?”
“Landscape gardener,” she corrected gently. “Just moved here from Hertfordshire. Still learning how not to drown in all this rain.” She smiled again, and this time it reached her eyes. “I love it though. It’s wild here. Untamed.”
He nodded, too focused on the line of red beading down her wrist. The scent was impossible. Not just appealing—it was beautiful. Complex, like aged wine. Dangerous.
“Any family here?” he asked, partly to distract her, partly to learn.
“None. Just me. Thought a fresh start was overdue.”
He finished the last stitch and looked up, meeting her gaze. Her eyes were steady. Grounded. The opposite of his own turmoil.
“You’ll want to keep it clean and dry for a few days,” he said, stepping back, peeling off the gloves as though they’d caught fire.
She slid off the table and reached for her coat. “Thanks, Dr. Cullen. I’m… glad it was you who saw to me.”
He nodded, words caught in his throat. Her scent still clung to the air.
As she walked out, he realized he didn’t know her name.
He watched her go, the steady beat of her heart echoing in his heightened awareness long after she’d stepped into the rain.
That night, Carlisle didn’t return home immediately. Instead, he sat in his office, the lights dimmed, eyes fixed on the rain-slicked window. He had treated countless patients. He had faced agony, blood, temptation. But never like this.
He hadn’t felt this kind of pull since he chose this life.
A patient. A stranger. A woman with eyes like water and blood that called to him like a siren song.
Something had changed.
And he knew—this was not the last time he would see her.
The next day began like any other in Forks: muted gray skies, a light drizzle, the scent of pine and damp earth heavy in the air. Carlisle arrived at the hospital before dawn, as he always did, immaculate in his white coat, the image of calm authority. But underneath the composed exterior, something unsettled stirred within him.
He told himself it was nothing.
Just a patient. Just a scent.
But as soon as he walked past the reception desk and caught the faint trace of it—her—he knew it wasn’t.
“She’s back,” Janet the nurse said, handing him a clipboard without looking up. “The British woman. Heather something. Follow-up and a tetanus booster.”
Carlisle felt the edges of his control tighten, not with panic, but anticipation. Heather. Her name fit her—a soft, earthy sound, delicate but grounded.
“She’s in Exam Room Three,” Janet added. “I was just about to—”
“I’ll take it.” He said it too quickly.
Janet raised an eyebrow. “You sure? I mean, it’s just a shot and a bandage check—”
“I’m sure.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He moved down the hallway, composed but swift, the way a man might walk into a room knowing he was about to do something he probably shouldn’t—but couldn’t stop himself.
When he opened the door, she was perched on the edge of the exam table, legs crossed at the ankles, flipping through a gardening magazine she must’ve brought from home. Her head lifted when he entered, and those eyes—so vividly blue, like the sky that Forks rarely showed—met his.
“Dr. Cullen,” she said with a small, surprised smile. “I thought I was seeing the nurse. I’m flattered, must be my special day.”
Carlisle returned her smile, though his felt more weighted. “She had to take care of something, I’m afraid, you’ve got the second-best option,” he said smoothly, stepping inside and gently closing the door behind him. “Heather, is it?”
She nodded. “Heather Bishop. I'm from Hertfordshire, if the accent hadn’t already given me away.”
“Hertfordshire.” The word curled on his tongue like something nostalgic. “Beautiful county.”
“You’ve been?”
“A long time ago,” he said quietly. “I remember it was green. Rolling fields. Like here, but with gentler rain.”
She chuckled. “You do sound like someone who sees rain as a connoisseur would.”
Carlisle took a breath—not that he needed it, but he had to steady the rush of her presence. Her scent was less overwhelming than yesterday, but it still lingered in the air like a whisper he couldn’t unhear. He noticed more about her this time: how short she was, barely past his chest in height, though she carried herself like someone rooted in the earth. There was strength in her frame—solid arms, calloused palms, the build of a woman used to working hard under sun and sky. Curves that spoke of vitality, warmth. A human woman, entirely ordinary—except she wasn’t. Not to him.
He motioned for her to extend her arm. “Let’s take a look.”
She held it out willingly. The stitches were healing perfectly—no signs of redness or swelling. He praised her care, noting how gentle she’d been with herself, though he could tell she was someone more used to tending others—plants, gardens—than being tended to.
He prepared the tetanus injection with practiced ease, but his hands were slower than usual. Deliberate. A part of him knew this was dangerous: being close to her again, choosing to be. But another part—the part that had felt cold and untouched for decades—welcomed it.
She winced slightly as the needle went in. “God, that stings more than I remember.”
“Temporary,” he said softly, voice lower than intended. “Like most pain.”
Their eyes met again. For a moment, the air between them thickened. Not with awkwardness, but something heavier. Unspoken.
Heather pulled her sleeve down. “So,” she said, hopping lightly off the table, “how much do I owe for the premium treatment, then? Two appointments from the town’s most sought-after doctor?”
He smiled, unable to help himself. “No charge for charm. But I may need to see you again. Just to ensure the wound continues to heal and the stitches dissolve properly.”
She tilted her head. “That sounds suspiciously like a reason to schedule another visit.”
“Would that be so terrible?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she slung her coat over one arm and stepped toward the door, pausing just before she left.
“You’re not like most people here,” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder. “There’s something… different. Can’t quite put my finger on it.”
Carlisle’s smile was faint. Sad, even. “You’re not the first to say that.”
Heather studied him a moment longer, then gave a small nod, a promise of curiosity rather than fear. “See you soon, Dr. Cullen.”
She was gone before he could answer.
And for the first time in decades, Carlisle felt something like anticipation. He was too old for foolishness. Too experienced for whimsy. But something about Heather Bishop made the centuries seem… lighter.
Carlisle told himself it was a coincidence.
The first time he saw her again outside the hospital, she was crouched beside a flowerbed in front of the Forks Public Library, sleeves rolled up, curls tied in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her hands were deep in the soil, planting bluebells and ferns with a reverence usually reserved for sacred things. It was early morning, the street still quiet, and he’d been driving by on his way to the hospital.
He didn’t stop. He only slowed.
The second time, it was at the hardware store—rain streaking the windows as she loaded bags of mulch into the back of a rusted green pickup. This time, he did stop. Not consciously. He simply found himself parking a few spaces down and watching her lift each heavy sack with an ease that belied her small frame. She laughed when the wind caught a tarp and whipped it against her, and something about the sound lingered long after she drove away.
The third time, he crossed a line.
Heather was kneeling beside the planter boxes outside Evelyn’s Café & Bookshop, a quaint little corner spot with ivy trailing down its walls. She was pruning rosemary and thyme, hands gloved, dirt smeared on one cheek. The sign in the window said New! Lavender Lemon Bread & Vanilla Chai.
Carlisle hesitated.
Then he stepped inside.
The bell above the door chimed softly as he entered. Warm air greeted him, filled with the scent of cinnamon and sugar and something sharp—her. She was only ten feet away, just outside the window, her outline blurred by glass and raindrops. Her scent was fainter here, buffered by wood and coffee beans—but still unmistakable.
He stood at the counter, uncertain.
“Can I help you?” asked the barista, a girl barely out of high school.
Carlisle glanced at the chalkboard menu, the words meaningless. He hadn’t eaten human food in centuries. Still—
“I’ll have a…” he paused, scanning for the least offensive option, “a black coffee. Small.”
He paid in cash and took the drink—warm, bitter-smelling, already turning cold in his hands—and sat by the window, pretending to sip while watching Heather finish her work.
He watched the way she ran her fingers along the edge of the planter, brushing soil from the lip like it was something worth tending. The way she adjusted a slightly crooked rosemary stalk as if the entire balance of the arrangement depended on that one green sprig.
She looked up suddenly.
Their eyes met—through glass and distance—and she smiled.
Carlisle returned it, more gently, and tipped his head in silent greeting. She lifted her gloved hand in a half-wave, then bent back to her work.
That night, he returned home to a kitchen full of silence.
Edward was the first to speak. “You bought coffee,” He said, as if accusing him of murder.
“I didn’t drink it.”
“That’s not the point,” Edward muttered, arms crossed. He was seated on the counter, watching Carlisle with furrowed brows. “You sat in a public café. In Forks. At lunchtime. You never do that.”
Emmett was grinning. “Maybe Dad’s got a thing for someone. Are we gonna get a Mom finally?”
Rosalie, however, was not smiling. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s the gardener we’ve all seen around town, isn’t it? Heather.”
Carlisle didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
Emmett leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking ominously. “Guess we’ll have to check her out the old-fashioned way.”
Carlisle looked up sharply. “No.”
But it was too late.
Rosalie was already reaching for her keys. “We won’t touch her. We’ll just look. Something about her is off, Carlisle. You feel it. I know you do.”
Emmett shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do. Forks is still Forks.”
“I said no,” Carlisle repeated, more firmly.
Edward met his gaze. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I am,” Carlisle snapped, and the room went very still.
He rarely raised his voice. Even after centuries, his composure remained almost divine. The silence that followed his outburst was heavy.
Then, softly: “Please,” he added. “Let her be.”
Rosalie’s voice was ice. “You never act like this.”
He didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because they were right.
He had never acted like this. This quiet ache when he was alone. This need to just be near someone, even if it meant pretending to drink bitter coffee or standing in the rain outside a bookshop.
Something about Heather Bishop unmoored him.
And he didn’t know whether it was a warning… or a gift.
Notes:
Its been so long since I've used AO3, so sorry if I'm a bit rusty! Please enjoy :)
Chapter Text
Forks was a town of secrets.
Rosalie had always sensed it beneath the moss-covered rooftops and whispering trees. Maybe that’s why Carlisle liked it. It was a town where people asked few questions. But now something—or someone—had changed the rhythm.
Rosalie Hale didn’t like disruption. Especially not when it had Carlisle acting like a maiden in a Jane Austen novel.
“She’s not just a gardener,” she said as she zipped up her rain jacket.
Emmett swung the keys to his Jeep around his finger. “You think she’s a spy or something? Like MI6 in pink gardening gloves?”
Rosalie rolled her eyes but cracked a smile. “No. But you felt the shift in Carlisle, too. It’s like… he’s drawn to her. I know she’s his singer and he can’t help it. Like Bella is to Edward. But… It’s deeper. We need to know why.”
They drove through the misty backroads toward the Bishop woman’s rented property just outside town. She was staying on the edge of the forest, in an old cottage that once belonged to a hardware store owner. Emmett had asked around quietly—Heather Bishop had arrived three weeks ago. No family. No contacts. Just… showed up with a truck and a trailer full of plants.
“She’s been hired by, like, half the town already,” Emmett said, scanning the quiet road. “Dug new beds for the school, cleaned up that overgrown mess behind Newton’s Sporting Goods. Evelyn from the bookshop says she talks to her plants.”
“She what?”
“Yeah. Evelyn said she saw Heather whispering to a rosemary bush. Called her a ‘little green darling’ or something.”
Rosalie snorted. “Okay, maybe she is just British.”
They parked a short distance from the cottage, hidden behind the treeline. It was nearly dusk. The lights were on inside—soft yellow spilling through windows framed with ivy. A wood fire crackled in the hearth. The scent of damp herbs and wood smoke clung to the air.
“She’s home,” Emmett said. “So, what’s the plan? We knock? Or—”
“We watch,” Rosalie said. “Quietly.”
Heather appeared a moment later. She stepped out onto the porch in a thick knit sweater, her curls piled messily on top of her head. A pair of pruning shears dangled from her fingers as she checked on the potted lavender by the steps. She didn’t glance around. Didn’t seem spooked. Just… content.
Emmett tilted his head. “She seems normal.”
“No one’s normal in Forks,” Rosalie muttered.
They watched for twenty minutes. Heather moved inside. Cooked something. Tea, by the smell of it. She paced while reading a paperback from the library. Once, she paused at the window, as though sensing something.
But she didn’t look directly at them.
“Let’s go,” Rosalie finally whispered. “I want to see the garden.”
Emmett followed her around the back, feet silent even on wet leaves. The rear of the property opened into a clearing of herbs, climbing vines, and neatly structured beds. But what stopped Rosalie was the stone circle.
It sat at the edge of the garden—five smooth river stones forming a rough perimeter. Inside was a mix of wildflowers and something she didn’t recognize: thick, silvery-green leaves veined with blue, pulsing faintly in the dark.
“What is that?” Emmett asked, crouching beside it.
Rosalie frowned. “Not local. Not from anywhere I’ve seen.”
He sniffed. “Smells… weird. Not like a normal plant. Kind of metallic.”
“Look at the soil,” she murmured. “It’s—” She crouched beside him. The ground wasn’t just damp—it was unnaturally rich, almost black, and warm to the touch despite the chill.
Rosalie reached out. The moment her fingers grazed the edge of one of the leaves, a jolt pulsed through her hand—brief but sharp. Like static. She jerked back.
“Whoa.” Emmett’s eyes widened. “You felt that?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was suddenly tight. “I don’t like this.”
Their enhanced hearing heard the unmistakable sound of a twig snapping beneath feet.
Both froze.
They turned just in time to see Heather Bishop standing a few yards away, still in her sweater, a basket tucked in the crook of her arm, as if she'd just come to gather herbs.
“I thought I heard someone back here,” she said calmly. No fear. No anger. Just curious. “Did Evelyn send you? She mentioned wanting lemon balm for tea—though sneaking through my fence is a bold approach.”
Rosalie blinked. She’d been caught off guard before—but rarely like this.
Heather stepped forward, gaze sharp despite her smile. Her blue eyes glinted in the moonlight—piercing, perceptive.
“Are you related to Doctor Cullen? You look very similar?”
Rosalie straightened. “We are.”
Heather nodded as though she’d expected that. “Tell him next time he wants to know something about me… he can just ask.”
And with that, she turned and walked back toward the cottage, basket swinging lightly at her side.
Emmett let out a low whistle. “She’s good.”
Rosalie stared at the shimmering plant, still tingling where it had touched her skin. “She’s something,” she whispered.
They didn’t speak again until they were back in the Jeep, the forest behind them.
And neither of them noticed the small flower blooming behind them—one that hadn’t existed there before.
Heather Bishop didn’t think much of the two people who’d crept into her backyard that night.
She figured they were relations of Dr. Cullen—curious ones. After all, it wasn’t every day the town doctor went all soft-eyed over a woman who spent her mornings talking to rosemary and lavender. Still, she hadn’t been afraid when she’d caught them. If anything, she’d felt oddly calm.
Like they were… familiar.
The next time she saw Rosalie was in town, three days later. It was raining, obviously. Heather was crouched outside the antique shop, wrestling with a stubborn patch of ornamental grass that had gone wild over the sidewalk. Her curls were pinned up again, but unruly strands stuck to her damp cheeks. She was humming.
“I wouldn’t pull that,” came a voice from behind her. “It’s ornamental fescue—it roots deep. You’ll hurt your back.”
Heather looked up.
Rosalie Hale was standing over her in black jeans and a high-collared coat, her blond hair gleaming even under grey skies. She looked like she’d walked out of a fashion magazine and accidentally landed in soggy little Forks.
Heather blinked. Then smiled. “You again.”
Rosalie quirked a brow. “You sound more amused than annoyed.”
“Well, you didn’t torch my garden or run off with my lemon balm, so I figure I can forgive a little curiosity.”
There was a pause. Then Rosalie laughed—a short, surprised thing.
Heather stood, wiping her hands on her pants. “You want to help or just supervise?”
“I don’t really do dirt. Working on cars is more my thing.”
“You look like you don’t do dirt. But I’m surprised about the oil,” Heather said, chuckling. “Come on, then. You can hold the umbrella and pretend to be useful.”
Rosalie didn’t know why she stayed. She didn’t usually like humans. But Heather had a gentleness that drew people in—not in a seductive or artificial way, but in the way of someone who made others feel like they mattered. Like they were seen.
“I’ve got tea in the truck,” Heather said at one point, brushing rain from her forehead. “Chamomile and orange blossom. Want some?”
“No, thanks.”
“Too strong?”
“Too…” Rosalie hesitated. “I’m just not a tea person.”
Heather seemed unbothered. “I’ve got oat bars too. Made them myself. Coconut and ginger.”
Rosalie blinked. “You carry snacks with you?”
Heather grinned. “Always. Hungry people are miserable people.”
She offered Rosalie one with such innocent sincerity that for a second, Rosalie forgot what she was.
She took it.
She didn’t eat it, of course—but she held it anyway.
And for reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt warmer.
.
Later that week, Heather had another check-up at Forks General. Nothing serious—just a follow-up on her stitches.
She was waiting in the usual little exam room, flipping through a dog-eared copy of Gardeners World, when she heard a knock.
To her surprise, it was Dr. Cullen again.
He stepped inside, immaculate as always. Heather smiled. “Dr. Cullen. Are you following me around town or is Forks just really this small?”
Carlisle smiled back, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Both, I suppose.”
Heather studied him. There was always something just… strange about him. Not bad—just off. His stillness, maybe. His quietness. His old-fashioned way of speaking, like someone who had never quite left the last century.
Still, she liked him.
And if she was being honest with herself, she liked liked him.
He gently unwrapped her bindings and examined her arm. “Healing very well. No signs of infection. Excellent care.”
Heather looked pleased. “I’m a good patient. And I’m fond of all my limbs.”
Carlisle hesitated.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, he said, “Miss Bishop… I have a favour to ask.”
She blinked. “Of course. What is it?”
“I—” He paused. “I was wondering if you might consider doing some gardening work. For me. At my home.”
Heather tilted her head. “Your garden in need of rescuing, Dr. Cullen?”
“It’s… underutilized,” he said carefully. “And I’d like to see what you might do with it.”
She hesitated. “Well, I’d be honoured, truly. I don’t charge very much, and if it’s a long drive—”
“I’ll pay you whatever rate you charge,” he said quickly. “And it’s not far.”
Heather smiled again, ducking her head in that modest way she always did when complimented. “Alright then. You’ve got yourself a gardener.”
Something flickered in Carlisle’s expression—relief, maybe, or guilt. But it was gone before she could place it.
As she left the room, she turned back. “You know,” she said lightly, “I’m not used to people wanting me around this much. It’s nice. Just… surprising.”
Carlisle didn’t answer.
He only watched her go.
And once she was gone, he stood alone in the empty room, her scent still hanging in the air—sweet and strange and threaded with something ancient he couldn’t name.
.
Heather parked her truck at the end of a long, winding drive that led deep into the forest, where moss-covered trees loomed like ancient sentinels. The rain had just stopped, and mist clung to the roots and low ferns, giving everything a dreamy, silver haze. She glanced through the windshield, eyebrows lifting as the Cullen house came into view.
It was… striking.
All glass and straight lines, metal and cedar, a place designed with perfect symmetry. It looked like something out of an architectural magazine, perched improbably in the middle of the wilderness. Beautiful. Cold.
Not a single flowerbed in sight.
“Underutilized,” she murmured, remembering Carlisle’s words with a wry smile.
She stepped out, boots crunching softly on gravel, and opened the bed of her truck. She had brought only a few things for now—cuttings, samples, and a sketchpad full of designs. She was bending to gather them when she heard someone approach.
She straightened—and nearly dropped the sketchpad.
The young man standing in the open doorway was startlingly beautiful, with sharp cheekbones, bronze hair, and a gaze far older than his apparent years. He said nothing. Just looked at her with open curiosity. And something else—caution?
“Hello,” she offered, clearing her throat. “I’m Heather Bishop. I think your… father—Dr. Cullen—hired me?”
Edward didn’t respond immediately.
Because he was listening.
Inside her mind was a strange quiet. Not the kind he encountered with wolves or shielded minds. Her thoughts were there—vivid and flowing—but… soft, as if filtered through layers of organza.
What a strange boy. Beautiful, yes, but so pale. And those eyes… golden? I hope he’s not ill. Maybe it runs in the family. But polite enough. Shy, maybe. Reminds me of the boys from home who never learned to talk to women. Poor thing.
He almost laughed aloud.
“I’m Edward,” he said finally, stepping forward. “Carlisle told us you’d be coming today.”
She gave him a warm smile and extended a hand. He took it, carefully.
“Oh, you're freezing, love,” she said with a frown. “Don’t you lot believe in coats?”
Edward blinked. “It doesn’t really bother me.”
Heather tilted her head, watching him a moment longer, then looked past him into the house.
It was pristine inside. Not a speck of dust. Not a throw pillow out of place. Gleaming surfaces, silent halls. But… no photographs. No clutter. No marks of real life.
She stepped into the main room, then turned slowly in a circle. “Well,” she said gently, “it’s elegant, I’ll give you that.”
“You don’t like it.”
She smiled, trying not to be unpolite. “It doesn’t feel like a home.”
Edward hesitated. “It’s... complicated.”
She wandered a little further inside, taking it all in. “Dr. Cullen lives here with you?”
“Yes. And with Rosalie and Emmett. Alice and Jasper. Jasper is Rosalie’s twin. They’re… family.”
Heather turned, eyebrows raised. “They’re also his… children?”
Edward nodded, lips twitching. “In a sense.”
“Well, then.” She looked around again. “I must say, this house looks like… well… No biscuits in the tin, if you know what I mean.”
“We don’t really keep biscuits.”
Heather looks at his wiry frame, “I can tell.”
She moved to the large glass wall that overlooked the backyard—more forest, a wild slope of moss and ferns. She stood quietly for a moment, sketchpad still in her hands.
Edward tilted his head, listening again.
Poor boys. Dr. Cullen, too. They all need someone to fuss over them. No wonder they act so serious. Living like ornaments in a model home. It’s beautiful, but it’s hollow.
Then she turned, met his gaze again, and something changed.
She smiled, soft. “You know, you’ve got his eyes. That steady kindness.”
Edward looked briefly startled. No one had ever told him that before.
Then: And yet… there’s something terribly sad about him. Like he’s been lonely a very, very long time.
Before he could reply, the front door opened again.
Carlisle entered, briefcase in one hand, coat perfectly dry despite the rain. When he saw her standing in the middle of the room, mist still clinging to her hair, holding a pad of paper and looking entirely at home in a place that had never belonged to anyone—he stopped.
And he watched her, quietly.
Heather turned at the sound of the door and smiled as if the sight of him brought her genuine relief.
“There you are,” she said warmly. “I was about to start rehoming all your furniture.”
Carlisle let out a breath that might have been a laugh. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
Heather took a few steps toward him, glancing back over her shoulder at the window. “You’ve got the bones of something beautiful out there. All that green just waiting to be coaxed into bloom.”
Carlisle smiled, the expression small but real. “I look forward to seeing what you do.”
“I hope you like herbs,” she said, almost teasing. “I tend to plant things that do things. Feed, soothe, attract bees. I don’t like beauty that doesn’t serve a purpose.”
Carlisle met her eyes and, without intending to, said quietly, “Neither do I.”
From the corner, Edward was silent.
And thinking.
Because this woman—this cheerful, muddy, modest gardener—was different. Not supernatural. Not dangerous. And yet… there was something about her that pulled at all of them. Even Rosalie had softened. And now, standing here in their house like she belonged…
She made the cold place feel just a little warmer.
Just a little more alive.
.
The next morning, Heather arrived just after sunrise, truck loaded with tools, seeds, cuttings, and compost. The Cullen property was shrouded in mist again, the trees breathing out slow curls of fog like ghosts. The air smelled of moss and pine needles, damp earth and something older—like the forest was remembering itself.
She parked beneath a towering cedar, tied her curls up with a ribbon, and got to work.
Heather didn’t garden like it was a task.
She moved with the reverence of a painter, the intuition of a musician. She knelt, gloveless, hands deep in soil, whispering softly to roots as she divided them, murmuring old names of plants and the uses passed down from her grandmother. She didn’t seem to notice how silent the house behind her was. Or how many eyes were watching.
Carlisle stood by the large glass wall, arms loosely folded, unmoving.
He should’ve been reading his medical journals. Or visiting the hospital. But instead, he watched her.
She wore a worn jumper, fraying at the sleeves, and dark trousers dusted with earth. When the sun broke through briefly, it caught in her hair like it was trying to gild her. She hummed as she worked—melodies he didn’t recognize. Soft. Rooted in someplace far older than Forks.
She planted in circles, not rows. And never with anything ornamental.
He noticed lavender, mint, and lemon balm. St. John's wort. Something blue and bitter-smelling he couldn’t place.
Carlisle tilted his head.
Who are you, Heather Bishop? he wondered. Why does your presence make this place feel less... lonely?
“Staring at her isn’t exactly subtle, you know.”
Carlisle turned. Rosalie stood behind him, arms crossed, but her tone was teasing—rare for her.
“She’s planting flowers,” he said, unnecessarily.
“She’s planting purpose,” Rosalie corrected. “That woman doesn’t do anything halfway.”
Carlisle’s gaze softened. “Have you spent more time with her?”
“I saw her yesterday,” Rosalie said. “We ended up talking about cuttings versus seed starts for half an hour. I didn’t even pretend to hate it.”
She hesitated, then added, “She offered me lemon cake. Told me I was too thin and looked like I needed feeding up. It wasn’t awful.”
Carlisle laughed, surprised.
Rosalie tilted her head, studying him. “You like her.”
His smile faded slightly. “She’s... unusual.”
“She thinks we’re the unusual ones.”
A silence passed between them before Rosalie said more softly, “She doesn’t know, Carlisle. And she doesn’t feel it. There’s nothing dark in her. Edward said her mind is calm—like a meadow. Nothing hidden. You shouldn’t get close to her.”
Carlisle’s eyes dropped to the window again. Heather had paused in her digging and was pulling something from her truck—a bundle of twine, a mason jar full of some pale green tonic, and a tin of biscuits.
For them. Even if they couldn’t eat them.
Just the thought had made her pack a snack.
Inside the house, Edward sat at the piano, not playing. Just listening.
Heather’s thoughts floated gently into his mind like dandelion seeds on the breeze.
So peaceful here. So many trees. These Cullens need green things around them. This house is too quiet. Do they even laugh in here?
From across the room, Alice appeared. “You’re listening again.”
Edward nodded slightly.
“She thinks in colour,” he murmured.
“She smells like thyme and tea,” Alice replied, a soft wrinkle in her brow. “But her future is… blurry.”
Edward looked at her sharply. “Blurry how?”
“Like I can’t hold it still,” Alice said, uneasy now. “She keeps slipping. I try to follow what happens next and it’s like… watching a reflection on water. You can see it—but then it ripples.”
Jasper had entered quietly behind them, his eyes distant.
Alice turned to him. “What do you feel from her?”
Jasper’s expression was unreadable. “Gentleness. Curiosity. And something else I can’t name. Not anger. Not darkness. But... depth. I’m not sure.”
Edward’s fingers touched the piano keys.
“You don’t think she’s dangerous?” he said softly.
“No,” Jasper said. “But I think she should be careful.”
Outside, Heather stood and wiped her brow with the sleeve of her jumper, unaware of the growing tangle she’d stepped into.
She walked toward the house, a small container in her hands. She knocked politely, then opened the glass door when no one answered.
Carlisle turned from the kitchen.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she said. “Brought you something. It’s just rosemary cordial—it’s to help with sleep. Tastes like the garden. You probably don’t need it, but… it felt wrong not to offer.”
Carlisle took the jar carefully, as if it were fragile. “Thank you.”
She looked around again, head tilted. “Still so tidy in here. Not a muddy footprint in sight. I’m going to have to track some in on purpose.”
Then, quieter, “It doesn’t feel quite right. Not yet. But we’ll get there.”
Carlisle froze.
Not you’ll. We’ll.
Heather smiled—completely unaware of the shift her words had caused.
She turned toward the back door again, giving him a wave. “I’ll be out with the bees if you need me.”
And with that, she was gone again—like sunlight through leaves. Quiet, fleeting.
Carlisle stood still for a long time, holding the jar in his hand.
The warmth of her lingered.
Heather had just finished planting the rosemary bush and bee balm along the south side of the Cullen house when she heard the crunch of tires on the gravel drive. She straightened, brushing soil from her hands, and turned to see a beat-up red truck pull into the clearing.
A young woman climbed out, petite and pale, with a kind of quiet shyness in the way she moved—like she wasn’t used to being looked at. Her brown hair was pulled into a simple ponytail, and her jacket was a little too big, sleeves nearly swallowing her hands.
Heather smiled instinctively.
The girl blinked in surprise. “Oh—hi. Sorry, am I… interrupting something?”
“Not at all,” Heather said, wiping her hands on a towel from her pocket. “You’re not another Cullen, are you? I feel like they’re in the walls, there’s so many.”
The girl smiled—a real one, shy but bright. “No, I’m Bella. Bella Swan. I’m visiting.”
Heather stepped forward and offered a hand. “Heather Bishop. I garden.”
They shook hands. Bella’s grip was soft but steady.
“Carlisle mentioned you,” Bella said, glancing toward the house. “He said you’ve been… transforming the place.”
“Well, that might be generous,” Heather chuckled. “But I’ve certainly stirred the dirt a bit. Come, I’ve got tea on the bench—do you drink tea?”
“Yeah,” Bella said, surprised. “Actually. I do.”
Heather led her to a makeshift little break area she’d set up beneath the eaves—a folding chair, a blanket, and a thermos that smelled faintly of lemon and honey. There was also, as usual, a tin of freshly baked oat biscuits wrapped in parchment.
Bella sat cautiously, as if inexperienced with kindness. But Heather simply poured two cups and handed one over.
Bella took a sip.
Her eyes widened. “This is… really good.”
Heather looked pleased. “Old family recipe. The flowers are from that patch over there—I grow most of what I use.”
“That’s kind of amazing,” Bella said, surprising herself.
Heather laughed, cheeks warming. “You’re the first one who’s actually tasted anything I’ve brought, you know. The others are all very kind about it, but I suspect they’re living on air and mystery.”
Bella snorted. “That’s not far off.”
They sat for a moment, sipping tea in the soft morning quiet. The birds had returned to the trees. Bees danced lazily around the lemon balm.
“So, how do you know the Cullens?” Heather asked gently.
Bella hesitated for half a beat. “I… I’m with Edward.”
Heather blinked. “With him? With him?”
Bella smiled. “Yeah. I know, it’s strange.”
Heather tilted her head, studying her. “Strange, maybe. But you seem... at peace. He must be quite taken with you.”
Bella’s cheeks flushed, and Heather immediately softened. “Oh, don’t blush, love. It’s a rare thing, a boy like that with stars in his eyes. I’m glad for you.”
Bella relaxed. No judgment. No probing questions. Just warm acceptance, like sunlight through branches.
“You seem close to them,” Bella said, sipping again. “Like they let you in.”
Heather shrugged. “I think I’m a bit like a stubborn weed—if you ignore me, I just grow more determined to stay. But I like them. All of them. There’s sadness in this house, but also a lot of quiet love. They just don’t know what to do with it.”
Bella nodded slowly. “That’s… exactly it.”
Just then, the glass door opened behind them.
Carlisle stepped out, dressed down for once in a pale shirt and trousers. His eyes flicked from Bella to Heather and back, noting the tin, the thermos, the way Bella looked more at ease than he’d seen in weeks.
“I see you’ve made a new friend,” he said gently.
Bella grinned. “She brought me tea that doesn’t taste like dirt. So yes, she’s my favourite now.”
Heather laughed brightly.
Carlisle watched her, silently.
The ease she brought. The life. The way even Bella seemed to draw strength from her simple presence.
She doesn’t know, he thought again. But somehow, she belongs here more than any of us.
Heather turned to him with her usual warmth. “Don’t look so startled, Dr. Cullen. I’m very charming. It’s the biscuits, really.”
Carlisle smiled faintly. “Very charming indeed.”
As he stepped down the stairs toward them, Heather poured another cup. She offered it, knowing he wouldn’t drink it, but offering anyway. The gesture wasn’t symbolic or performative. It was simply… her.
Carlisle took the cup.
And held it. Warmth in his hands.
Beside him, Bella smiled softly.
And in that moment, for the first time in years, the Cullen house felt like it had guests. Like it had a purpose. Like it was a home.
Notes:
I really love Rosalie, her character has so much potential, I wish it was utilised more. Anyway, hope you enjoyed that one!
Chapter Text
Forks was dipped in gold.
The last light of the sun washed over the sleepy town, painting the damp sidewalks and sleepy storefronts in hues of amber and rose. Most shops had closed. The diners were humming low with conversation. Streetlights flickered on, one by one, casting long shadows between the buildings.
Heather was finishing up outside the bakery, where she’d replanted the crumbling window boxes. Her hands were dirty, her sweater flecked with soil, and her curls pulled back in a loose knot. She stretched her back with a soft groan and brushed the soil from her hands just as a familiar voice called out behind her.
“You really can’t help yourself, can you?”
Heather turned, smiling. “Rosalie. Come to scold me for working past dusk?”
Rosalie leaned against a lamppost, arms crossed. Her usual cool expression was softened just slightly. “I came to walk you home.”
Heather blinked. “Walk me—oh, that’s very kind of you. But I’m perfectly capable—”
“I know,” Rosalie said, eyes flicking over her. “But I wanted to.”
Heather looked at her, really looked, and saw something rare—vulnerability, tucked just beneath the surface. She nodded. “Alright, then.”
They walked through the quiet town, the air crisp with the coming night. Heather chatted easily, asking about the Cullens’ schooling, about Forks, about how Rosalie had gotten into cars. Rosalie, to her own surprise, answered every question.
Heather didn’t prod. Didn’t push. She just… listened.
“I never had siblings,” Heather said as they turned down a wooded path toward her cottage. “But if I had, I think I’d have wanted one like you. Fierce. Proud. Loyal.”
Rosalie looked away sharply, the compliment hitting deeper than expected. She was quiet for a long moment.
Then—voices.
Male. Loud. Slurring.
A group of young men stood ahead, near the edge of the road, smoking and drinking from cans. They noticed the women immediately. The leering started before they were even close.
“Hey sweetheart, need some company?”
“Where you going, baby? Need a ride?”
One of them threw his can aside and started toward them, swaggering.
Heather felt Rosalie go rigid beside her. Her breath hitched—very subtly. But Heather saw it. Felt it.
And something in her turned cold.
She stopped walking.
“Keep going,” Rosalie murmured, eyes fixed ahead. Her voice trembled—Rosalie trembling, that was new.
Heather didn’t move.
Another catcall. A mocking whistle. Closer.
Then—
“Back off,” Heather said quietly.
The man kept approaching.
“What’s that, little miss? You going somewhere?”
Rosalie flinched again. Her hands were clenched at her sides, but something had changed. There was an air of danger around her. Crackling with static, predatory, bloodthirsty. She was bristling with rage, but she was also terrified.
Heather stepped in front of her before Rosalie did something she’d regret.
And something ancient stirred.
The air seemed to tighten, like the air itself was holding its breath.
Heather’s voice was calm, but it echoed in a way that didn’t belong to any one person. “I said: back. off.”
The man froze mid-step.
His expression changed—slowly, then rapidly. Their eyes flicked between the two women. From arrogance to discomfort. Then to confusion. And finally, fear.
The others behind him stopped jeering. Something was wrong.
It was her eyes. Her presence.
She wasn’t threatening. She wasn’t loud.
But suddenly she seemed larger, more real than anything else around them. Like the bones of the world recognized her. Like the trees bowed toward her. Like the ground itself whispered, do not touch this one.
The drunk man backed away. Stumbled. Then turned and muttered something crude, but it came out shaky.
The others followed him.
And then they were gone.
Just the wind remained.
Heather didn’t turn for a moment. The stillness around her lingered like the scent of fire after lightning. Then she turned back to Rosalie—who was staring at her.
Heather looked shaken now, the calm fading. “Are you alright, love?”
Rosalie nodded, slowly. “You… stood in front of me.”
“Of course I did. You were frightened.”
Rosalie’s voice cracked. “No one stands in front of me. Not since…”
Heather gently touched her arm. “They were just men. Angry and ugly, but small.”
Rosalie looked down at Heather’s hand. “But you... weren’t.”
They stood in silence for a beat. Rosalie’s golden eyes shimmered slightly, but she blinked it away.
Heather exhaled shakily and tried to brush the moment off. “Well. That was dramatic. Maybe I should carry lavender and mace.”
Rosalie gave a short, astonished laugh.
“I’ll walk you the rest of the way,” Heather said gently, taking Rosalie’s hand without asking, slipping into the crook of her elbow.
And Rosalie, for the first time in a long time, let her.
.
The evening settled thick over Forks, but inside Heather’s small cottage, a quiet light flickered from a worn brass lamp. She had long since said her goodbyes to Rosalie.
Heather sat at the table, fingers hesitating as she opened a weathered book—the only book she’d brought all the way from Hertfordshire. It was leather-bound, edges frayed and softened by years of handling. The pages were filled with faded ink handwriting: a collection of old folktales, remedies, and cryptic notes in her grandmother’s looping script.
Her Nan’s book.
The last gift before dementia clouded her mind and dimmed the old woman’s sharp eyes.
Beside the book lay two daggers. Bone-white, their handles plain but smooth in Heather’s hands. She’d carried them folded carefully inside her suitcase, nestled beneath clothes, ever since she left England.
When she was a child, her grandmother had made her practice throwing those daggers at targets in the garden, her voice steady and low as she guided Heather’s aim. At first, it was a game—fun and satisfying. The thunk of the blades embedding in the wooden boards like tiny promises.
But as Heather grew older, the fun faded and unease grew.
Her Nan had been... different.
An odd woman in a small village, whispered about behind curtains and at church. “Batty old witch,” the neighbours called her. Tales of vampires and werewolves clung to her name like shadows. Heather remembered the knowing glances, the quick looks away.
When Nan’s dementia came, Heather had blamed all her eccentricities on the illness—early onset, cruel and unfair. But sometimes, deep in the quiet of night, doubts crept in like frost.
One memory was sharper than the rest.
A summer afternoon years ago. Nan had taken her to the field behind the barn, where a bale of hay was placed on the ground. It stood alone. Heather was eleven.
“Stand there,” her Nan had said, voice steady despite the heat. “Look at the bale. Say the words I taught you. Over and over. It must work.”
Heather had repeated the strange syllables, words that felt both alien and familiar on her tongue. She’d grown bored after a few minutes, tugging at Nan’s hand, pleading to go inside for dinner.
They gave up then, laughing weakly at the heat. They went inside for a cool glass of water and her Nan set about making beef stew.
A week later, she learnt that the barn had burned to ashes. The trees around it, blackened and broken, had been reduced to twisted skeletons of wood.
The village blamed the summer heat, a careless ember. Kids messing around. Arson. Who knows. Heather didn’t visit Nan often after that.
But she kept the daggers.
Kept the book.
Kept the uneasy feeling that somewhere beneath the mundane, something true and old still pulsed.
Now, after tonight’s strange encounter in Forks, the feeling was stronger.
Heather flipped the pages, fingers tracing the faded script. Her eyes caught a passage she hadn’t noticed before — a rhyme about protection and shadow, a warning written in a code only half-understood:
"When darkness prowls with leering eyes,
Stand firm beneath ancestral skies.
Throw sharp your will, your heart your guide,
Old roots run deep where soulless hide."
Her breath caught.
Old roots.
Souls.
Was it just a story? Or was it a warning?
Heather reached for the daggers. She walked outside.
The cool bone felt familiar, steadying.
She closed her eyes and raised her arm, as if the target were still there.
Threw.
The blade spun through the air, piercing the nearest tree in her garden.
Thud.
A pulse echoed in the silence.
Heather opened her eyes.
She wasn’t sure what she was protecting herself from.
But she knew the fight wasn’t over.
Notes:
Bit of a short one, sorry! Hopefully gives you a bit more backstory and context. I feel like Rosalie would have a bit of PTSD surrounding the way she died, as one would expect! I feel like she would be very brave if she encountered a situation similar, angry but underneath it all I think she would be terrified. Let me know what you think :) Love, Crab
Chapter Text
Carlisle Cullen observed Heather Bishop with a quiet fascination. There was a simplicity about her, a gentle steadiness in the way she moved and spoke, but beneath that calm exterior, something quietly compelling tugged at him. Heather believed herself to be perfectly ordinary—a landscaper from Hertfordshire trying to find her place in Forks—but Carlisle sensed there was more.
Since hiring her to tend the garden at his home, Heather had become a subtle but important presence in the lives of the Cullens. She brought with her a warmth and kindness that softened even Rosalie’s usually guarded demeanour. Carlisle noticed the rare moments when Rosalie’s lips curved in genuine amusement, especially during the evenings they spent together. The memory of Heather standing up to those drunken men seemed to have unlocked something protective in Rosalie’s heart.
Emmett, ever the boisterous one, had found in Heather a worthy opponent in playful gardening contests, which he inevitably lost. She treated him to an impromptu and out-of-season easter egg hunt after he said he hadn’t done one before. His laughter filled the house more often now. Even Edward, typically reserved, watched Heather with quiet curiosity and something approaching admiration. Bella visited often, and would always spare a moment to say hello.
One afternoon, Carlisle invited Heather inside after work. He had been experimenting with some new recipes and was eager for her opinion. She accepted with modest gratitude, and the two of them moved about the kitchen with easy companionship. Carlisle admired the natural grace in Heather’s movements and the sincere interest she took in the food he prepared. All of the kitchen utensils, pots and pans looked sparkling and new, but, hey, that must be how the affluent lived. The food was delicious, though she noticed Dr. Cullen didn’t taste any.
As the sun began to set, they settled on the porch, the quiet of the forest enveloping them. Heather spoke softly about feeling out of place, about the uncertainty of being new in a town like Forks.
Carlisle listened, and then told her something he felt deeply—that belonging was not about being the same, but about finding where one’s heart felt welcome.
Rosalie soon joined them, leaning against the back of Heather chair and teasing her gently about the endless snacks she always brought. Heather’s laughter rang clear and warm, a sound that seemed to fill the house with life.
Carlisle watched the scene unfold with a swelling certainty. Heather belonged here. Not because she was anything less than ordinary, but because she carried a light and kindness that his family desperately needed.
And Carlisle knew, quietly but resolutely, that he would do everything to protect that light.
.
It was a few weeks later when the sun hung low over the trees, casting long golden streaks across the Cullen estate. In the back garden, Heather knelt among a patch of dahlias, coaxing their stems upright using stakes with practiced ease. Dirt smudged the knees of her jeans and dusted her fingertips. She was humming — softly, off-key — as she reached for her secateurs to trim a broken bloom.
A slip. A sudden sting. Heather gasped and drew her hand back. A bright bead of blood blossomed on the tip of her finger, sharp and red against her pale skin.
“Ah, clumsy,” she muttered to herself, amused more than anything. It was nothing. Just a tiny cut. She sucked in a breath and dabbed at it with the hem of her shirt, already getting ready to return to work.
But inside the house, the world cracked open.
Jasper, seated near the living room window with a book in hand, went rigid.
Edward’s head snapped toward him before the iron-sweet scent even fully reached his own senses. “Jasper,” he warned, already moving.
The scent of fresh human blood — close, real, potent — hit Jasper like a train. His throat burned. His vision sharpened. The book fell from his hands.
“I didn’t know she— I didn’t—” Jasper choked, trembling, but his feet shifted toward the door.
Emmett was on him instantly, pinning him back. “Whoa, man. No.”
“She’s bleeding,” Jasper hissed. “Just a little— I can handle—”
“No, you can’t,” Edward said tightly, grabbing his other arm. “We’re not risking it.”
“Jaz, calm down, hold your breath.” Alice coaxed sweetly. Jasper was thrashing, almost escaping the tight grip they had on him.
A flash of white passed them — Carlisle.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t hesitate. His eyes, golden and hard, fixed on Jasper like a threat. For the first time in over a century, Carlisle snarled.
It wasn’t loud, but it was chilling. It froze everyone in the room. He grabbed Jasper by the back of the neck, grounding him.
“Do not go near her,” he said. Not gentle. Not reasoning. Commanding. Possessive.
Edward stared at him. Rosalie stepped forward, stunned.
Carlisle’s other fist was clenched at his sides. His jaw was tight. There was no trace of the calm, mild-mannered doctor. In his place was something old, something primal.
He glanced to Heather outside the window and then back to Jasper. “Mine.” The words were a whisper. But they carried more weight than anything he’d said in a hundred years.
Jasper wilted, eyes averted, sagging in the strong hold of the others. Subdued in the presence of the Cullen patriarch.
Edward's mind reeled, but there was no time. Emmett and Edward exchanged a nod and swiftly escorted Jasper out the back, into the trees, moving fast. A hunt. A distraction. Jasper needed to clear the fire from his throat, and there was no room for delay.
Carlisle exhaled, smoothing his face back into calmness like a man adjusting a mask.
Then he went to her.
.
Heather was still crouched in the garden, now sitting on her heels, examining the finger she'd managed to bandage with a tissue and a hair tie.
“Hello again,” came Carlisle’s voice, soft and composed.
She looked up and smiled. “I’m really on a roll with minor injuries lately, aren’t I?”
Carlisle crouched beside her. He was careful, but she noticed something oddly intense behind his usually gentle eyes.
“Let me see it.”
She held her hand out willingly. The blood had already clotted, the wound barely more than a nick, but Carlisle treated it as though it were something far worse. He removed the makeshift bandage, examined it thoroughly, and produced a small antiseptic wipe from his coat pocket.
Heather blinked. “You carry medical supplies in your jacket?”
He didn’t answer at first, simply cleaned the wound with a focused tenderness. “You’re often out here. I like to be prepared,” he said, voice low.
Heather laughed softly. “You’re treating this like it’s a stab wound. It’s just a little cut.”
Carlisle looked up at her, something unreadable in his expression.
“It matters,” he said simply. “Even little cuts matter.”
The moment lingered. She tilted her head, cheeks colouring faintly.
He finished wrapping her finger, far more neatly than she ever could have. “There,” he murmured, standing. “Good as new.”
“Thank you. Really. You’re very... thorough,” Heather said, amused and touched by his attentiveness.
Inside, the house had gone still. Jasper was gone. The tension had drained like storm clouds blown past — but not forgotten.
Heather remained unaware of how close she had come to danger. Unaware of the fire she unknowingly sparked. Unaware that Carlisle Cullen — steadfast, composed, ancient — had just crossed an invisible line.
And there was no going back.
.
Inside the Cullen house, the silence was suffocating after Jasper had been escorted deep into the forest. The tension still hung in the air like an echo.
Rosalie stood by the window, watching Carlisle in the garden. Her golden eyes narrowed slightly, calculating, protective. He was tending to Heather with a softness Rosalie had never seen him use — not outside of the hospital.
Edward leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes distant. He wasn’t even bothering to hide how hard he was listening — not to voices in the room, but to the thoughts that had lingered behind Carlisle’s eyes.
“He thought she was his mate,” Edward said quietly, more to himself than anyone else.
Alice blinked. “Carlisle?” Her voice was tinged with disbelief. “He’s never done anything like that before. Ever.”
Emmett returned through the back entrance, having run only halfway before Jasper had insisted he could handle the rest alone. He looked between them, breathless despite not needing to breathe. “Did he actually snarl? I thought I imagined that.”
“Nope,” Edward said flatly. “That was very real.”
“He’s protective,” Rosalie said finally, stepping back from the window. “Too protective. That wasn’t Carlisle. That was instinct. That was... ownership.”
Edward didn’t speak. His jaw was tight.
Rosalie crossed her arms. “She’s sweet. Kind. But human. Ordinary.”
“She has no idea,” Rosalie said softly. “Not about what we are. Not about him. He needs to keep his distance. It puts us in danger.”
“She stood in front of you,” Edward said, glancing toward her. “When those men came. That wasn’t just bravery. There was something else. Something... other.”
Rosalie’s jaw clenched.
They all turned as Carlisle walked back in from the garden.
His face was serene again, composed, the doctor returned. But his eyes scanned the room warily, as though waiting for judgment.
Rosalie stepped forward.
“What the hell was that, Carlisle?” Her voice wasn’t angry — but it was sharp.
He looked at her. And in a rare break of his usual restraint, Carlisle didn’t deny anything.
“She’s my singer. A perfect mate,” he said again. “I didn’t know it would affect me like this. When she was in danger.”
Edward closed his eyes as if bracing against something too big to contain.
“And what are you going to do?” Rosalie asked. “Tell her? Pull her into our world? Hope she doesn’t run screaming when she finds out?”
“I’m going to protect her,” Carlisle said quietly. “For as long as she’ll let me. And if she wants nothing to do with me, then I’ll let her go.”
.
Later that evening, Heather sat on the back steps of the Cullen house, her hand bandaged and resting on her lap. The garden, once again peaceful, smelled of damp earth and lavender.
Alice, strangely enough, joined her without saying a word at first, simply sitting beside her and stretching her legs out across the stone path.
Heather smiled warmly. “You Cullens aren’t avoiding me, are you? I didn’t mean to cause such a fuss.”
Rosalie glanced sideways at her. “You didn’t. But I think you may have rattled Carlisle.”
Heather laughed. “Carlisle? He was acting like I’d nearly lost a finger.”
Alice tilted her head, golden eyes catching the light. “He’s... not used to caring about people outside the family. Not like this.”
Heather looked at her curiously. “That sounds lonely.”
“It has been,” Alice said. Then, after a pause: “Until you.”
Heather blinked. “Me?”
“You have a way of making yourself at home in people’s lives. Quietly. Like roots under the soil. You don’t force anything, but things grow around you.”
Heather flushed, touched and unsure how to respond.
“I hope you’re not planning on leaving anytime soon,” Alice added, her voice quieter now. “I think you’re good for all of us. And especially for Carlisle.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Heather said honestly. “Though sometimes... I feel like there’s a piece of me I’m missing here. Like I’ve walked into the middle of a story I was supposed to have already read.”
Alice turned her gaze toward the horizon, thoughtful. “Maybe you have. Maybe you just forgot.”
Heather leaned her chin gently on her cupped hands, elbows propped against her knees. “That sounds a bit poetic for someone so young.”
Rosalie smiled faintly. “Don’t tell Jasper.”
The two of them sat in silence, the first stars appearing overhead.
Unseen by either, Carlisle watched from the window, a flicker of something reverent passing through his expression.
Heather belonged here, he was certain of that. He said he would let her go, but that started to feel like a lie against his lips.
.
The Cullen house had gone still.
Night had fully settled over Forks, casting silver moonlight through the tall glass walls and across the polished wood floors. Most of the family had scattered to give Carlisle space — or perhaps to give themselves space to process the shift they’d all felt take place that afternoon.
Heather hadn’t left yet.
She moved quietly through the kitchen, rinsing the last of the garden dirt from her hands, the white bandage on her finger bright against her skin. She hadn’t asked for anyone to stay with her, but she wasn’t surprised when she felt his presence behind her — quiet and watchful, like the shadow.
“Carlisle- Dr. Cullen-,” she said gently, turning.
He stepped into the doorway, more casual now than she was used to seeing him — his sleeves rolled to the elbows, no lab coat, no air of clinical detachment. Just a man, thoughtful and strangely still.
“You didn’t have to stay,” she said, drying her hands on a tea towel. “I would’ve locked up when I finished.”
“I know,” he replied. “I just... wanted to see how your hand was doing.”
She held it out with a small smile. “No signs of gangrene. I think I’ll make it through the night.”
His smile was faint, but his eyes — those impossibly old, warm eyes — held her gaze too long for comfort. Or maybe for comfort’s opposite.
Heather’s expression softened. “Are you all right?”
That gave him pause.
“I should be asking you that,” he said, and stepped closer. “You’ve had a long day. And yet... you’re still smiling.”
She shrugged, self-conscious. “I like it here. Even with the odd quiet moments. It’s peaceful.”
“You don’t find it... cold?” he asked. “The house, I mean.”
Heather glanced around at the modern minimalism — the glass, the stone, the elegance. She turned back to him and gave a small, almost sad smile.
“A little. It’s beautiful, but... it doesn’t feel lived in. Not really. Like a place where no one expects to stay for very long.”
Carlisle looked away, jaw flexing slightly. Her words landed harder than she could know.
“There’s little softness here,” she added, gentler now. “No mess. No warmth on the walls. No signs of... a mother’s touch.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. “There hasn’t been.”
Something flickered between them — the quiet kind of grief that didn’t need details to be understood.
Heather took a tentative step closer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say something painful.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “You said something true.”
He met her gaze again, and this time, something deep and unguarded passed between them. A quiet trembling at the edges of things. A thread pulled tight.
Heather’s voice, when she spoke again, was low. “You look after everyone. All the time. But who looks after you, Carlisle?”
He blinked, just once, as though the question had shaken something loose in him.
“No one,” he admitted. “Not for a very long time.”
Heather reached up, on instinct, cupped his shoulder — her fingers lingering there just a moment longer than necessary.
“Well,” she said softly, “that’s not fair.”
He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just watched her — as if memorizing her.
“I should head home,” Heather murmured, dropping her hand. “Early morning tomorrow. The Wilkinsons want their front beds mulched, and they’re very opinionated about their hydrangeas.”
Carlisle smiled faintly, his voice quiet. “Let me walk you out.”
They moved together toward the door, silence hanging like velvet between them. Not heavy. Not uncomfortable. Just... full.
At the threshold, she turned to him, one hand on the knob. “Thank you. For everything today. I know I’m just the help, but—”
“You’re not just anything,” he interrupted gently, but firmly.
Her breath caught at the certainty in his voice. There was something in the way he looked at her — like she was the sun after centuries of shadow. It frightened her a little, but it didn’t feel unsafe.
Just important.
“Goodnight, Carlisle,” she whispered.
He hesitated. Then, in an uncharacteristic gesture, reached out and brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. His fingers were cool — startling — but the way he touched her was reverent.
“Goodnight, Heather.”
She left, heart skipping, unaware that inside his chest, Carlisle’s long-dead one ached to echo the same rhythm.
.
The house was dark. Silent.
Carlisle stood alone in the study, untouched by the passage of time, as the clock ticked on the wall only for show. The others had dispersed — Jasper gone to wrestle with shame in solitude, Edward quiet but alert in a distant room, Rosalie and Emmett out walking the edges of the forest.
And Heather, safely home. Warm and whole and human.
He closed his eyes.
Her scent still lingered faintly in the air — not strong, just enough to remind him of the way the garden had come alive under her hands. The iron thread of her blood, though nearly faded now, still flared behind his senses like the trailing edge of a lightning strike.
Carlisle pressed his fingers to his temple.
He had never lost control. Not once in three centuries. Not even when he was newly born, alone in filth and shadows under London’s plague-ridden streets. He had endured hunger and madness and solitude for decades before tasting even a whisper of blood. And only then to give Edward the gift of immortality. His existence had been an exercise in restraint — in faith, in penance, in purpose.
But today… today, he had snarled. Acted baser, inhuman. An animal.
He had said mine.
He sank slowly into the chair by the desk, the leather groaning beneath his weight. The night sky outside the window was grave, cloudy and dark. But he could see it all as if it was in full sunlight. It never needed to be bright for his enhanced vision to see. Still, he stared into the cold sky as if his vision might blur on memory alone.
He clasped his hands together.
God, what have I done?
It was not the first time he’d asked the question. But it was the first time in many years that he felt no answer.
He still believed. Or… he tried to. But belief had long been a flickering candle in a storm — sputtering, grasping for air. He had built a life on principles of compassion, mercy, control. He’d healed thousands. Brought comfort to the dying. Sought absolution through service.
But underneath all of it, loneliness had been his oldest companion.
He thought he could survive it. He had accepted it, once. That this was the price of a clean conscience. No companionship. No touch. No love. No temptations that would tether him to this world more tightly than his oath already did.
But then came Heather.
Heather, who smelled like summer fields and sweet herbs. Who looked at his family with softness, and filled the cold hallways with laughter. Who saw the polished sterility of their home and offered to bring it life — not with money or extravagance, but with tenderness.
And worst of all — she didn’t know. She had no idea what he was.
Carlisle leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
How could he tell her? How could he look her in the eyes — those clear blue eyes, so earnest and bright — and tell her he was a vampire? That he lived off animal blood, that he had stolen the choice of death from Edward, Rosalie and Emmett, that he walked the world forever frozen in a lie of humanity?
That he was damned.
His vow had always been firm: life is sacred, and this life — this cursed immortality — was not salvation. It was a damnation.
He couldn’t take Heather’s humanity from her.
But… he also couldn’t lose her.
The very thought of her absence clawed at his chest. He imagined her returning to England, to a world he could not touch. Aging. Changing. One day dying. All while he remained here, fixed and unyielding, forced to watch time take her.
What would be left of him, after that?
A quiet sound broke the silence — a clock chiming once. Midnight. Sometimes he wished he could just sleep.
He looked up, eyes catching his reflection in the glass. Pale, flawless, ageless. A mockery of the man he had once been. Of the priest’s son, the philosopher, the hopeful.
A single thought echoed within him:
I cannot do this.
He could not love and lose. Not now. Not her.
But to love her meant choices he had sworn never to make. To love her meant risking everything — his ethics, his control, her life.
The ache inside him pressed like iron against the hollow space in his chest.
So he sat. Motionless. The night stretching long around him. The weight of his years heavy on his shoulders.
Waiting.
For clarity.
For courage.
For forgiveness.
For her.
Notes:
I sort of imagined Carlisle shaking Jasper like a feral cat, grabbing him by the scruff. Made me chuckle. Sorry if this is a bit out of character for Carlisle, but I think with anyone there are limits to kindness and civility. I feel like Carlisle's gift is truly restraint, like it is an actual gift. And when that restraint goes out the window, he is a very powerful and frightening thing. Lemme know what you think <3
Chapter Text
The sky was bright in a muted, Forks sort of way—high cloud cover like pulled wool, diffusing the afternoon sun into a gentle grey light. A rare dry spell meant Heather could finally get back into the raised beds without sinking ankle-deep in mud. She knelt at the edge of one, pushing her gloved hands into the soil and breaking up the clumps with practiced care.
Potatoes first, then the onions. Carrots would go last—they liked to be sown close together, and she wanted to get the spacing just right. A soft breeze lifted the fine hair at her temples, and she pushed it back absently, smearing a bit of soil on her cheek without noticing.
The school bell rang in the distance. A wave of adolescent voices and hurried footsteps soon followed.
Heather straightened her back, wiping her hands on the front of her old trousers as students filed past the gardening plot near the back of the school. Some gave her polite nods—others were too preoccupied with gossip and after-school plans to notice her at all.
And then she spotted them.
Edward and Bella, walking together at a slower pace than the rest. His hand grazed the small of her back in a way that seemed unconscious, protective. They were speaking low and close, heads tilted in like secret-keepers. Heather gave them a small wave.
Bella smiled first. “Hey, Heather.”
“Hi, you two.” Heather brushed her palms together. “You’re just in time to admire some expert carrot spacing. I know it’s thrilling stuff.”
Edward gave one of his soft, unreadable smiles. “I’ve no doubt they’re perfectly placed.”
Heather smirked. “Flattery gets you a bag of onions, Mr. Cullen.”
Bella gave a quiet laugh, elbowing Edward gently. Then she looked back at Heather. “Are you working on the schools food bank project?”
“Yep.” Heather gestured to the raised beds. “Vegetables from the school, straight to local families who need them. It’s nice to do something that grows into something else, you know?”
Bella nodded, and something in her expression warmed—Heather noticed how her whole face softened when she agreed with something.
“Listen,” Heather said after a beat, “I’ve made too much risotto for one person again, a hazard when you live alone, and I happen to know it tastes much better when someone’s around to judge it. Want to come over for dinner?”
Bella blinked, pleasantly surprised. “I’d love to.”
Edward looked at Bella, something flickering in his gaze. A hesitation. Heather didn’t miss it.
“You’re welcome too, Edward,” she offered, gently. “But no pressure.”
He smiled again—tight-lipped, apologetic. “Thank you, but I have a prior engagement.”
Bella leaned up and gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll call you later.”
With a murmured goodbye, Edward disappeared into the waiting car. Bella turned back to Heather, hugging her coat tighter.
“I just need to grab my bag.”
“Go on. I’ll rinse the mud off and try not to serve you soil soup.”
.
Heather’s cottage was glowing warm by the time Bella stepped inside. The smell of garlic, butter, bacon and mushrooms greeted her like a hug. Heather moved easily around her kitchen, soft slippers on her feet, her hair up in a loose twist held together with a pencil. Two glasses of lemonade sat on the counter, catching the last blush of evening light.
They settled into mismatched chairs at the table. Bella took a bite of the risotto and sighed. “Okay, this is unfair. You said dinner, not magic.”
Heather grinned. “It’s the parmesan. Always add more than you think.”
They ate slowly, chatting about nothing and everything. Heather learned Bella missed Arizona’s heat, but not its people. Bella asked about the cottage and the garden, listened intently as Heather talked about teaching the younger kids how to prune tomatoes.
Eventually, the conversation found a quieter rhythm. A pause filled the room, comfortable.
“You like them, don’t you?” Bella asked softly.
Heather blinked. “The Cullens?”
Bella nodded.
Heather looked down at her glass, watching the light scatter through the lemonade. “I do. I mean, it’s hard not to. They’re kind to me. Dr. Cullen- Carlisle is…” She trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence truthfully without saying too much.
Bella didn’t press. But her eyes held something knowing. Understanding, maybe. Something more.
Heather changed the subject gently. “I heard you’re all going to a baseball game?”
Bella smiled at that. “Yeah. Apparently it’s a thing they do during thunderstorms.”
Heather laughed. “Of course it is. Dramatic weather suits them.”
“You should come,” Bella said impulsively, then paused. “Or maybe not—it might be a bit-uh- might not be the best… Sorry I shouldn’t have said anything…”
“No, it’s okay.” Heather reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. “You should go. Sounds like it’ll be fun. Just bring a coat. Forks knows how to turn a storm into a symphony.”
.
Later, after Bella had gone, and the dishes were drying in the rack, Heather sat quietly by the window, her tea cooling beside her. She looked out at the fading light, the distant hush of the trees. She wondered what kind of baseball needed thunder. And why the Cullens always seemed to be dancing with storms.
.
The clearing was alive with movement and thunder.
Forks’ skies were in rare form — dark, churning clouds lit by flashes of lightning, thunder shaking the trees. The perfect cover for the Cullens’ favourite family tradition.
Baseball.
The crack of Emmett’s bat against a high-pitched ball shattered the momentary silence. Rosalie chased it down with a flicker of speed that would have been impossible to explain to any human observer. Alice grinned at Jasper from across the diamond. Edward stood still, his eyes half-focused — listening, as always, for more than what was being said.
Carlisle stood on the mound, smiling faintly. His family needed this — something to ground them. Lately, emotions in the house had run high. Jasper’s hunger. Edward’s constant internal noise. Rosalie’s ever-growing curiosity about Heather. Carlisle’s own... conflict.
He hadn’t spoken of her much. He didn’t need to. They all felt it.
Another strike. A second loud crack. Bella laughed.
Then everything changed.
Edward stiffened first, golden eyes snapping toward the trees. He turned toward Carlisle in an instant.
“We’re not alone.”
The ball dropped to the dirt. Everyone went still.
From the edge of the field, three figures emerged — graceful, otherworldly. Barefoot on moss, lightning behind them.
They introduced themselves as James. Victoria. Laurent.
Edward’s expression turned to stone. They hid Bella as well as they could.
Jasper’s posture dropped into something predatory in front of Alice.
Rosalie shifted protectively toward Emmett.
Carlisle stepped forward, calm but resolute. “Good evening.”
Laurent raised a hand in peace. “We were passing through. Heard... a game. May we join?”
James’ eyes swept the field, calculating, curious. But something about him was coiled, almost vibrating with a hunter’s energy. Victoria didn’t speak. Her crimson eyes flicked around, assessing, always scanning for a threat — or a weakness.
Carlisle kept his voice steady. “Sorry, we were just finishing up.”
Laurent nodded, surprisingly gracious. “Perhaps another time.”
Carlisle took a measured step forward. “I’m afraid your hunting activities have caused something of a mess for us. We maintain a permanent residence nearby.”
Laurent gave a half-apologetic nod. “I do apologise. We weren’t aware.”
Carlisle smiled, but it was empty. “I’m making you aware,” Carlisle said.
Jasper took a slow step back, tense.
Edward, still, unreadable, heard the whisperings of Carlisle’s mind, James is already curious. He smelled Bella.
As if summoned, James turned his gaze toward Bella, who stood beside Edward on the sidelines, caught in place like prey cornered too suddenly.
The wind shifted.
James’ nostrils flared.
Edward saw it in James’ mind — the instant interest. The flash in his eyes. Hunger. Challenge. Sport.
Edward moved in front of Bella with terrifying speed. The message was clear. Mine.
Carlisle stepped forward. “She’s with us. I think it’s best if you leave.”
James only smiled, not deterred.
Victoria let out a low growl.
It was then — only then — that James broke eye contact with Bella. A little smirk playing on his lips.
“Of course,” he murmured. “No offense meant.”
The trio turned, vanishing into the trees.
They were gone in a breath.
But the threat lingered.
Bella stood, pale, clutching Edward’s hand.
The family gathered quickly, silently.
Edward’s voice was low, furious. “He’s going to try to hunt her. It’s a game now.”
“He’s dangerous,” Rosalie snapped. “He won’t stop until he gets what he wants.”
Carlisle stared out into the forest.
His mind wasn’t on Bella.
It was on Heather.
If James caught her scent — felt even a flicker of what Carlisle did when she entered a room — it wouldn’t matter that she had nothing to do with this. He would fixate.
She was unguarded. She was human. And she didn’t know what they were.
The vampires weren’t the only problem.
A breach like this could provoke the Quileute wolves. The treaty was fragile enough.
He closed his eyes briefly, trying to think clearly.
“She’s not safe anymore,” he said aloud.
“Bella?” Emmett asked.
Carlisle shook his head once. “Bella. Heather. Both”
A long silence followed.
And suddenly, everyone understood just how deeply Carlisle Cullen had fallen.
.
The rain had started again, tapping gently against the windows of Heather’s cottage like it meant to lull her. But the mist rolling in off the trees brought a deeper kind of quiet — one that made her pause in the middle of brushing out her tangled hair by the fire.
A knock sounded at the door.
Soft. Polite. Familiar.
Heather opened it to find Carlisle standing on her porch, umbrella in hand, the storm haloing his golden hair in silver light. His expression was composed — as it always was — but his eyes looked far too serious for a house call.
“Dr. Cullen,” she said, surprised but not unwelcome. “Are you… alright?”
He hesitated, then smiled — a gentle thing, touched by shadows. “Forgive the intrusion. I was just finishing at the hospital when I realized I hadn’t checked on your hand. Thought I might… come by. Just in case.”
Heather blinked. “You’re worried about a scratch?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “Perhaps irrationally so.”
“Well, I did redress it, but you’re welcome to take a look. Though I’d say you’re in more at risk of infection than I am, if you stand out in the rain much longer.” She stepped aside to let him in, brushing her hair out of her eyes. She sat back down in her previous spot by the fire.
Carlisle crouched beside her by the hearth as she offered him her hand. He examined it gently, the tips of his fingers cool, his touch reverent. He said nothing for a moment. Just held her hand a little longer than necessary.
Heather looked at him, brow furrowed. “Dr. Cullen?”
His eyes met hers, quiet lightning inside them. “Please… if you notice anything unusual. Anyone… unfamiliar lingering around town. Strangers. Would you let me know?”
She stilled. “You’re scaring me.”
“I don’t mean to,” he said quickly, his voice velvet-soft. “It’s just… precaution. I have a bad feeling about something. Nothing specific. Only—” He cut himself off, jaw tight.
Heather searched his face. “You came all this way… in the rain… to say that?”
He nodded once. “I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
Her heart beat faster — not in fear, but in that strange, tremulous way it always did near him. “Carlisle… is something going on?”
He looked at her then like he might say everything. Like he might confess what he was. But instead, he only said, “Just be careful. For me.”
Heather, unsettled but touched, nodded. “Okay. I will.”
They sat a while longer, the fire crackling low. Neither willing to move first. And when Carlisle left, he stood for a moment beneath the porch light, watching the dark tree line like it might bite.
.
Back at the Cullen house, the mood was frayed and tense.
“She doesn’t know, Carlisle,” Edward said, arms folded tightly, voice low. “And now James is in Forks. If he catches even a hint of her scent—”
“She has no protection,” Jasper added quietly. “No awareness of the danger.”
“She’s not just a random acquaintance,” Rosalie said sharply. “James will sense it. There’s something strange about her. Even I can feel it.”
“She isn’t strange,” Carlisle snapped — far more harshly than intended.
Everyone went still.
Then softer, he added, “She’s good. And kind. And completely unprepared for this.”
“So what do we do?” Alice asked, perched on the arm of the couch. “We can’t just tell her what we are. That goes against the treaty.”
Edward’s jaw clenched. “And if the wolves find out we’re protecting a human who doesn’t know, they’ll assume the worst. Assume we’re grooming her to be bit.”
“We’re already in murky waters,” Rosalie said. “Bella’s still a problem for them.”
Carlisle’s hands were clasped in front of him, unmoving. “Then we protect Heather without telling her. Quietly. As much as we can.”
“I can try to check on her through visions,” Alice offered. “Both her and Bella.”
“Jasper and I can patrol,” Emmett said, rising. “Stick to the outskirts of her place. Run interference.”
“And if he does go after her?” Edward asked, voice dangerously calm.
Carlisle met his eyes. “Then I’ll deal with him.”
It was the first time the family had heard such a sentence from Carlisle in their lives.
And no one questioned it.
.
The kettle had just begun to whistle when the knock came.
Heather wiped her hands on her jeans and opened the door to find Bella standing there in the drizzle — pale, hunched in her jacket, her eyes rimmed with red, and her lips trembling slightly.
“Bella,” Heather said softly, surprised. “Come in, love. You look chilled through.”
Bella stepped inside without a word, water dripping from the hem of her sleeves, and Heather gently closed the door behind her. The quiet of the cottage wrapped around them like a blanket. Bella didn’t move toward the fire or a chair — she just stood, looking like she might shatter from the wrong kind of silence.
Heather moved to her side, instinct taking over. “Sit down. I’ll make you some tea.”
She led her to the worn, comfortable couch and wrapped a soft quilt around her shoulders, already warm from its place near the hearth. The quiet clink of china and the steady sound of water pouring filled the stillness as Heather brought over a steaming mug of chamomile.
Bella took it with shaking fingers.
For a while, she said nothing.
Then, softly: “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Heather sat beside her, close but not pressing. “You’re always welcome here.”
Bella swallowed hard. “I feel like I can’t breathe anymore. Edward… he’s trying to protect me. I know that. But he’s always watching. Always listening. He never leaves me alone.”
Heather’s brow furrowed. “That sounds worrisome, love.”
Bella nodded, eyes shining. “He’s terrified. He just won’t admit it. And I’m scared too — but for different reasons. Something’s coming. I can feel it. Like a storm that hasn’t quite broken yet.”
Heather didn’t reply at first. Confusion etching her features. She reached over and rubbed slow, calming circles across Bella’s back.
She had felt something, too.
There were movements at the edge of her vision lately. Shadows in the trees. A glimpse of Emmett’s car, inexplicably close to her work site. Rosalie “bumping into her” while she worked down in town. And Carlisle—Carlisle had visited her three times in the past week under the pretence of checking her healing hand, though it had been perfectly fine after the first.
And always, in the background, the feeling that she was being watched. Guarded. Circled.
None of it made sense.
Bella’s voice broke the quiet again. “I know he loves me. But sometimes I wonder if he sees me as… fragile. Breakable.”
Heather smiled gently, brushing a lock of hair from Bella’s face. “There’s strength in gentleness, Bella. Anyone who doesn’t see that might not truly understand you. Or themselves.”
Bella’s eyes filled with tears. “You remind me of my mom. Sort off… Not really – Maybe the kind of mom I think I always wanted.”
Heather’s heart squeezed.
“Well,” she whispered, “then we’ll make tea and talk and get through the evening like women have done for centuries — with softness, stubbornness and plenty of biscuits.”
.
Edward crouched in the upper branches of a spruce across from the cottage. Rain streaked down the back of his collar, but he didn’t move. His eyes were locked on the warm light glowing in Heather’s windows.
Inside, Bella was finally sleeping. Heather had that effect — a balm to wounds most couldn’t see.
Behind Edward, Jasper landed silently beside the tree trunk, his boots barely making a sound on wet moss.
“We’ve cleared the southern perimeter,” Jasper murmured. “Emmett and Rosalie are covering after midnight.”
Edward didn’t look away. “James is getting closer. I can feel it.”
Jasper’s face was tight. “And Heather?”
Edward hesitated. “She’s not safe either. But she doesn’t know that.”
Jasper looked toward the cottage. “And Carlisle?”
Edward’s voice dropped, a raw edge to it. “He’s not thinking clearly. He’s afraid of losing her — even if he never had her to begin with.”
.
Heather sat alone by the window, watching the trees.
Bella had fallen asleep under the quilt, the half-empty mug still on the coffee table. The cottage was quiet now — peaceful in a way that made the hairs rise on her arms.
She stared out at the tree line. Something was there. Something was always there lately, even if she couldn’t see it.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about Carlisle.
There was something in the way he looked at her — something reverent and quietly desperate. Like he’d known her before they met. Like losing her would destroy him.
He never said too much.
But he didn’t need to.
Heather touched the windowpane with her fingertips and whispered to herself, “What are you not telling me?”
No answer came.
But in the trees beyond, someone was listening.
Notes:
I hope this one didn't flick too much back and forth. I'm also trying to use the American terms (mom, not mum) when speaking through the American characters, and then blending in the english ones when using Heather or Carlisle's perspective (trousers, garden not yard etc). Hope this doesn't look too dodgy! Any reviews will be much appreciated! Love, Crab
Chapter Text
Heather didn’t mind working with her hands. She liked the tug of earth beneath her nails, the heavy hum of the mower under her grip, the scent of grass thick and sweet as honey in the air. But today — the third time she had raked the leaves from the same section of lawn — even she could admit there was nothing left to do.
The Cullen gardens were immaculate. Too immaculate, really. The kind of perfection that didn’t feel lived in. Like a photograph, staged. Shed pulled all the weeds, swept up all the fallen petals, tamed the unruly hedges and watered every flowerbed and planter. She was starting to run out of tasks.
When Carlisle had asked her — kindly, gently — to increase her work here from once a week to three days, she’d felt flattered. Needed. Maybe even... important to him. But now, with the mower switched off and silence blooming in the still afternoon air, it all felt a bit off.
She’d compromised. Two days a week, not three. She said she had other commitments — which was only half a lie. She did really need the money. And the Cullens did have plenty of it to spare.
But now, pushing a barrow full of needless lawn clippings, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy.
The place was too perfect.
The work was too light.
And yet, here she was. Again.
She glanced at the house. Large and glassy-eyed, it sat quietly among the trees. The Cullen house never felt empty, even when no one was home. It watched. Sometimes she thought she saw movement behind the tall windows — a flicker of light, a suggestion of a shadow. But when she looked directly, nothing.
Today, though, someone was home.
The crunch of tyres on the gravel drew her attention. A sleek black Volvo rolled up the driveway, its headlights cutting through the mist.
Carlisle stepped out.
He looked different.
Not his usual put-together, statuesque self. His coat was wrinkled, his shirt slightly askew, the top button undone. His hair — usually so precisely swept back — was mussed, like he’d run his fingers through it again and again in frustration. His eyes, those golden depths, were sunken in shadow. Exhaustion painted him in delicate strokes.
Heather felt a pang of guilt for even thinking anything suspicious earlier.
God, he looked tired.
He gave her a faint smile, the corners of his mouth tugging upward like they didn’t quite have the energy to hold a full one. For once, he carried on past her, keys jingling in his grip.
“Long night shift?” she asked softly.
He paused at the foot of the steps and nodded, running a hand through his hair. “One of the worst.”
Something in his voice made her stop pushing the barrow.
She reached into her satchel and pulled out a thermos, unscrewing the top and pouring its contents into a spare travel mug. The caramel-sweet scent of coffee filled the damp air.
She held it out to him.
“Here.”
He blinked at the mug. Then at her.
“I know you probably don’t—” she started.
But he took it.
Held it carefully between both hands, as if it were fragile. Or sacred.
The steam fogged up the cool air around them.
“It’s sweet,” she said apologetically. “Too sweet, probably.”
Carlisle wrapped his hands tighter round the mug. “It’s Perfect.”
They sat together on the stone steps that led to the side garden. The sky was low and grey, the kind that made the evergreens look black against the light. It was quiet — no birds, no wind, just the rhythmic sip of coffee and the sound of their breathing.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked eventually.
He didn’t answer right away. His thumb traced the edge of the mug.
“She was nine,” he said at last. “Her name was Sophie. She had a toy turtle named Mr. Green. Clutched him to her chest even when she slipped away.”
Heather’s throat tightened. She didn’t interrupt.
“Sepsis. Too late. Her parents thought it was just a flu. They kept her home, gave her warm baths, ginger tea. Tried everything before bringing her in. But by then…”
He stopped.
Heather looked down at her hands, suddenly unsure what to do with them.
“I did everything I could. Every protocol. Every textbook treatment. And I knew — I knew — it wouldn’t be enough. Her organs were already shutting down.”
He swallowed. “I held her hand. Told her she was brave.”
A silence.
“Her mother kept asking if it was her fault. If she should have known. She asked me to tell her it wasn’t.”
Heather looked at him.
Carlisle wasn’t crying. Couldn’t.
The grief sat heavy behind his eyes, a familiar pressure that never tipped over. The sensation of sorrow, sharp and cavernous, was there — but the tears never came. They never could. Not in this body. Not anymore.
There were times, like now, when he felt he might break open from the inside, when the ache of helplessness and guilt cracked through his ribs like ice — but there was no release. No tears. No shaking. Just the unyielding stillness of his form, marbled and cold.
It was a cruelty he had long grown used to: that this existence, this state of borrowed immortality, had stolen even his ability to mourn.
Over three centuries of loss, of bedside goodbyes, of hands going slack in his — and not once had he wept.
He had wanted to, God knew. That little girl with the toy turtle — Sophie — had looked up at him like he could fix it all. She had believed him when he told her all would be well. And he had lied. Not out of malice, but out of hope. Desperate, quiet hope.
It hadn’t mattered.
She died anyway.
And still, he sat there like a statue. Eyes dry. Face unreadable. A physician. A vampire. A man out of time. A man who once prayed to be forgiven for what he was, and who now longed only to feel the grief that churned inside him.
Heather wouldn’t understand. Couldn’t. But she was still beside him. Still solid. Still warm. Her arm gently resting against his.
She didn’t speak, and he was grateful for it.
Words would have only fractured the silence. And silence was the closest thing to mourning he had left.
Her body moved before her brain could recognise the action.
She placed the thermos down and reached for him.
Her arms circled around his shoulders, tentative at first, then tighter as he didn’t pull away. She held him — all lean muscle and silent grief — and let her cheek rest against the top of his head.
He didn’t shake.
Didn’t sob.
But she felt the tension unravel, slowly. Like a watch winding down. Like a man letting go, just for a moment, of a centuries-old burden.
“You’re not alone,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
But his arms came around her waist, and he pressed his forehead to her shoulder like it was the only solid thing in the world.
And for a long time, they just stayed like that. Two figures on a stone step, in the quiet garden of a house full of secrets.
Heather didn’t have the words. But sometimes, presence was enough.
And for Carlisle — who had held death in his hands more times than he could count — this small moment of shared silence felt like a kind of absolution.
“Come on, you’re absolutely frozen.” Heather spoke gently, “let’s get you out of this cold.”
.
Days later, Heather found herself brushing raindrops off the brim of her wool hat, her boots crunching softly on gravel as she made her way up the winding path to the Cullen house.
She had no reason to be there, not really. Bella had mentioned something vague about “checking in” and “Carlisle wanting to return a book,” but Heather suspected it was more an invitation than a necessity. And she had accepted it—an odd thing to do, considering how strange everything around the Cullens was. And yet…
Carlisle met her at the door before she knocked. Walking round the side of the house. As always, he was absurdly well-put-together, in a soft grey jumper and a collared shirt, sleeves pushed up neatly to the elbows. His hair, almost too perfect, curled slightly from the damp.
“You didn’t have to come out in this,” he said, as if he wasn’t the one standing outside with her in it.
Heather tilted her head. “And yet here you are, too.”
A brief, crooked smile touched his mouth. “Touché.”
They ended up in the garage — which was, unsurprisingly, cleaner than her kitchen and smelled faintly of motor oil and old cedar. Carlisle was organizing a cabinet of first aid supplies that clearly didn’t get much use in a house full of vampires. Heather perched herself on a workbench, legs swinging like a schoolgirl’s, while he busied himself with arranging gauze pads by size and expiration date.
“Is this really what you do for fun?” she teased.
Carlisle paused, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Well, I suppose it depends on your definition of fun.”
Heather glanced around. “Not even a stereo in here. Where’s the rebellion? Where’s the motorbike you’re secretly fixing up to get away from it all? To be fair, that sounds more like Rosalie than you.”
His expression flickered with something—amusement? Surprise? He leaned back against the counter with exaggerated exasperation. “You’ve found me out. I’m dreadfully dull.”
She snorted, tossing a bolt at him, which he caught mid-air with frightening precision. “Not dull,” she said, eyes narrowing playfully. “Just… curiously well-behaved.”
Carlisle turned the bolt over in his fingers, thoughtful. “You’d be surprised. I wasn’t always the model of composure.”
“Oh?” Heather raised an eyebrow. “What were you like at twenty-three?”
He laughed then — and it startled her, bright and real and young, like something unguarded had slipped through the cracks. “Impatient. Idealistic. Ridiculously serious. Always trying to prove myself.”
Heather hopped off the bench, brushing her palms. “So… the same, but more annoying?”
That earned her a proper laugh, warm and boyish, the sound echoing lightly against the garage walls. “Exactly. Except with worse hair.”
She looked at him — really looked — and for a brief moment she could see the man he might have been then: less restrained, more curious, with that same tilt to his brow when something puzzled him. He had a strange kind of youth about him that surfaced in moments like this, like the years hadn’t completely carved away his edges.
He noticed her watching and something in him stilled. He straightened up, serious again, but not cold. Just quieter.
“You’ve been very kind to Bella,” he said softly. “And to me. Even though I know we… confuse you.”
Heather shrugged, her voice light even as her heart tugged strangely. “Everyone’s confusing. You’re just the only one that wears a lab coat.”
His smile faded into something gentler, eyes steady. “You don’t have to trust us. But I’m grateful that you try.”
That should have felt odd. It should have set off alarm bells. But instead, it made her stomach twist in that awful, hopeful way. She didn’t know what it meant yet. She didn’t want to.
He was still watching her. “Would you like to help me reorganize the trauma kits?”
“God no,” she said, grabbing her coat. “But I’ll make you tea, and you can tell me what’s so fascinating about gauze.”
“Deal,” he said, and followed her out into the rain.
She didn’t see the look he gave her as she walked ahead—soft, unresolved, a little lost.
She didn’t know yet that she was becoming a kind of balm for a man who had spent centuries learning how not to feel.
And he didn’t know what it would cost him to keep feeling.
.
Later that evening, Heather sat at the kitchen table in her modest rented cottage, the soft glow of a lamp casting gentle shadows around her.
The book her grandmother had given her lay open on her lap—the worn pages filled with strange symbols and archaic words. The memory of her Nan’s stories—of the supernatural, vampires, and werewolves—felt less like childhood fantasy now and more like warning.
Her fingers brushed the two bone-white daggers resting beside the book. She recalled the afternoons throwing them in the fields, the barn fire. She had always dismissed those events as the quirks of an eccentric old woman, her fading mind weaving tales.
But now, the strange pull in her veins, the way Carlisle looked at her—maybe there was something more beneath those stories.
Her thoughts churned, unease settling deep in her bones. She didn’t understand what was happening.
Yet the nagging feeling persisted: there was something she was meant to remember. Something important.
And whatever it was, it was coming.
She trailed outside, standing barefoot in the cool grass of her garden, the late evening light casting long shadows over the damp moss and rich, rain-fed earth. The air was quiet except for the occasional rustle of a breeze through the tall evergreens surrounding her rented home.
In her hand, she held one of the two bone-white daggers her grandmother had given her.
The hilt sat snugly against her palm—too snug. It was like the weapon belonged there, like it remembered her better than she remembered it.
She narrowed her eyes, locking onto a tree at the far end of the garden. The bark was already scarred with pockmarks and slashes from her nightly practices. Her muscles flexed beneath the sleeves of her hoodie, built from years of hauling stone, turning soil, and planting trees for her landscaping work.
Heather inhaled through her nose and exhaled slow and steady.
Then she threw.
The dagger spun with practiced precision and sank into the trunk with a satisfying, solid thunk. Dead centre. Again.
She stared at it for a moment—how the blade shimmered faintly, catching even the dying light. There was something off about the weapons. They never chipped. Never dulled. She’d never had to sharpen them once. And the texture of the bone—because it was bone—felt too smooth, too strong to be natural. Like ivory that refused to age.
She wiped her hands on her trousers, her pulse unusually fast. The nagging feeling she’d had all day pressed in again: that she was being watched.
.
Forks General was quieter than usual, the steady patter of rain against the windows muffling the usual bustle. The sterile scent of disinfectant hung in the air, mixing oddly with the faint, lingering scent of freshly brewed coffee at the nurse’s station.
Carlisle stood in his office at Forks General Hospital, the white noise of fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, though he barely registered the sound. His hands were motionless over a file he hadn’t turned the page on in five minutes. His golden eyes were distant, focused inward, on something—or someone—he could not seem to put from his mind.
Heather.
It was becoming impossible to ignore the weight of it. The pull. The sense of her like a thread wound tightly through his every thought. She haunted his hours like a melody that wouldn't resolve, beautiful and half-wrong in the way that anything forbidden always was.
And yet... something was off.
He’d noticed it first in her eyes—a quiet sharpness, more guarded than usual. Heather had always carried herself with grace and grit, grounded in the simple truths of working with her hands and the seasons. But now, something in her posture had changed. More alert. Wary.
She was catching on.
Or worse, she was afraid and didn’t even know what of.
Carlisle turned toward the window and stared out at the grey sky. The red-haired woman from the baseball game—Victoria—lingered in his thoughts with a poisonous weight. Her kind was unpredictable, territorial, and vicious. And with James fixated on Bella, it was only a matter of time before Victoria redirected her thirst.
He clenched his fists at the thought of Heather caught in that crossfire.
No. He would not allow it.
A knock at his door pulled him from his reverie. A nurse entered, her smile professional but laced with an infatuation that was becoming harder for her to hide. “Labs just came back on the Henderson case - Just thought you might want to know.”
He nodded, offering a kind smile. “Thank you, Rebecca.”
But his chest had already tightened. He needed to see Heather—but every meeting risked pushing her closer to the truth, and worse… putting her in greater danger.
He closed the file and exhaled a breath he didn’t need.
If only he could choose a lesser kind of love.
Notes:
Oddly enough, this one was quite difficult to write. I really wanted to focus more on character building than continuing with the plot, so I hope it doesn't seem too stilted or boring. I wanted to show the Cullens trying to keep an eye on her without appearing too overbearing or weird, so hopefully that came across ok! I feel like Carlisle is an absolute mother hen, who prepares for the worse, hence the trauma kits in the garage <3
Chapter Text
The air in Forks had changed.
Heather couldn’t say exactly when it started, but lately the stillness felt different—more like the held breath before a storm than the quiet peace of the forests she used to love. It clung to her skin. Every creaking branch, every flutter of movement at the edge of her vision made her pulse tick just a little faster.
She tried to brush it off. Maybe she was just tired.
But then there were the glances.
People looking at her a moment too long. The way Bella seemed pale and distracted whenever they spoke. The way Edward hovered like a shadow, like he was waiting for something awful to strike. And most of all—the Cullens. Cold, impossibly perfect, and utterly unreadable.
Except Carlisle.
He looked at her like she mattered.
And that… was terrifying in a completely different way.
She stood in her small kitchen, cleaning the bone-white daggers by habit more than necessity. They never dulled. Never stained. They felt cold even in her warm fingers, the texture of them both smooth and slightly porous, like they weren’t meant to belong in this century. Like they were specifically built for purpose; not tools for skinning animals or cutting soft flesh, but for protection, desperation, a last resort.
She glanced out the window. The branches of tree she practiced with swayed in the wind.
Something about this town was wrong. But every time she came close to naming it, the thought skittered away like a shadow underfoot. Her instincts whispered that there was more than just old family secrets and tragic stories here.
She was being watched. Protected.
But also, perhaps... hunted.
She tightened her grip on the dagger and set it down carefully. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was smart to keep practicing.
Because whatever was coming—whatever Carlisle wasn’t telling her—was getting closer.
And she could feel the burn of it, just under her skin.
.
The hanging baskets swayed gently in the late morning breeze, each one brimming with fresh blooms—violets, marigolds, and sweet alyssum. Heather stood on the stone step of Forks Coffee & Bake, her sleeves rolled up and fingers speckled with soil. She was humming faintly as she adjusted one of the planters near the entrance, pleased with the work.
The sound of the café door jingling open caught her attention, and she glanced up, brushing her hands on her jeans. Two men stepped out, both middle-aged, both familiar in a vague, local way. One wore a khaki police uniform, his holstered belt weighing his step with easy authority. The other was seated in a wheelchair, a black Stetson rested on his head, his long dark hair tied back, dark eyes sharp under furrowed brows.
“Morning,” she called out, giving them both a friendly nod.
The officer looked surprised for a beat, then offered a warm, almost friendly smile. “Good Morning. That’s some good-looking flower work you’ve got going here.”
“Thank you,” Heather replied, standing straighter and wiping a smudge of dirt from her cheek. “Just trying to make the place a little more cheerful. It’s been a long, grey week.”
“It always is around here,” the man in uniform said. “I’m Charlie Swan. Chief of Police.”
“Oh!” Heather extended her hand, brushing off her fingers first. “Nice to meet you. You’re Bella’s dad, aren’t you? She talks about you.”
Charlie shook her hand. “Yeah, she’s mentioned you too. Heather, right? The gardener?”
“That’s me. Pleasure.” She smiled, before glancing to the man beside him. His gaze was fixed on her in a way that made her skin tingle—not unkind, exactly, but searching. Watching.
“I’m Billy Black,” he said, voice lower, firmer. “Charlie’s oldest and most patient friend.”
Charlie huffed a chuckle, but Billy didn’t crack a smile.
“Well,” Heather said, trying to stay light, “It’s good to finally meet some of the local legends.”
Charlie’s smile faded slightly, replaced by a mild seriousness. “You should know, there’s been some… incidents lately. People think it’s animal attacks. Fatal ones. Around the outskirts.”
Heather blinked. “Oh. I hadn’t heard.”
“We’re keeping it quiet while we investigate,” he added, his voice a little more hushed. “But I’d feel better if you weren’t out by yourself after dark. Just in case.”
Heather nodded slowly. “Of course. Thanks for the warning.”
Billy was still staring.
“You spend a lot of time around the Cullens, don’t you?” he said suddenly.
She looked between them, caught slightly off-guard. “Well, a bit. I’ve been doing some garden work for them lately. They’re... odd, but nice.”
Billy’s lips thinned into something like disapproval. “You should stay away from them.”
Heather gave a light, confused laugh. “Sorry?”
“They’re not what they seem,” he said flatly. “And they’re no friends of mine.”
Charlie made a sound under his breath, nudging Billy’s shoulder with exasperation. “Billy...”
“I’m serious,” Billy went on, eyes never leaving Heather’s. “People around here forget. Time dulls fear. But I remember what they are. My people remember. And I know danger when I see it.”
Heather shifted her stance, uncomfortable now, her voice uncertain. “That’s… a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
Billy didn’t answer right away. His gaze dropped—just briefly—to the soil on her fingers, the dagger-shaped nail trowel tucked into her tool belt, the faint white scar on her wrist. Then he looked up again, his expression unreadable.
“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said softly.
Charlie exhaled and gave Heather an apologetic glance. “Billy’s protective. Old family history with the Cullens. Probably nothing to worry about, but... just be careful.”
Heather nodded, unsure what to say. “I will.”
As they rolled off down the sidewalk, her smile faded. She stood in the sunlight, surrounded by colour and flowers and the sound of bees feasting on blooms.
But everything suddenly felt colder.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about Billy Black’s eyes—like he’d looked straight through her and found something she didn’t even know was there.
Heather stared at the message thread on her phone for far too long. The blinking cursor waited patiently beneath her last words:
Hi, I won’t be in today. Not feeling great. Think I’ve caught a cold. Don’t want to risk passing it on.
The reply had come quickly—polite, understanding, warm.
Carlisle:
Of course. Rest and take care of yourself. Let me know if there’s anything you need.
Simple. Kind. Yet something in it twisted in her gut.
She locked her phone and placed it face-down on the kitchen table.
Lying didn’t sit well with her. She wasn’t ill—not physically. But something inside her felt frayed and uncertain. And whatever was gnawing at her instincts had only gotten worse since that strange encounter with Billy Black and Charlie Swan outside the café.
“They’re not what they seem.”
She’d replayed those words too many times. The tone of them. The weight. The way Billy had looked at her—not cruelly, but with the kind of wariness you give something dangerous.
Something you recognize.
The Cullens had never been anything but kind. Yet kindness alone couldn’t explain the way they moved, or how cold their skin felt in brief, accidental brushes. It couldn’t explain the cryptic warnings, or Carlisle’s haunted, unreadable eyes when she asked too many questions.
And it definitely couldn’t explain how the air around their house felt too still, too polished—like a staged set.
She needed space.
She told herself it was just for a few days, to breathe, to think clearly. But it had already been a week since she’d last driven up to the Cullen property. Her tools sat in the back of her shed, untouched. Every time she thought about picking them up and returning, a cold sweat prickled under her collar.
Bella still visited, though. That surprised her.
Heather liked the girl—always had. But even Bella seemed different now. Nervous, jittery. She laughed when she didn’t mean to. Flinched at knocks on the door. Edward’s name was always just under the surface, unspoken but ever-present, like she was worried he was always listening.
They sat in Heather’s small lounge that afternoon, tea steaming between them. Bella hadn’t touched hers.
“You’ve been quiet,” Bella said softly.
“So have you,” Heather replied.
A small smile flickered across Bella’s lips. “Fair.”
They sat in silence again.
Heather looked down at the mug in her hands. “I just needed some time, is all.”
Bella nodded slowly, but she didn’t meet Heather’s eyes. “I get that.”
It wasn’t the warm, easy companionship they used to share. It wasn’t antagonistic either—but something fragile had frayed between them. Trust, maybe. Or certainty. Maybe both.
Eventually, Bella stood. “I should go.”
Heather walked her to the door. The hug they shared was brief and awkward, a formality rather than a comfort.
After Bella left, Heather stayed in the doorway for a long moment, looking out at the trees swaying gently under the low Forks sky.
Something had shifted.
She wasn’t sure if it was them, or her.
.
The hospital was quiet—too quiet for a Friday evening. Carlisle stood in his office, absently staring at the same chart he’d read three times already. The numbers blurred. His thoughts weren’t on patients tonight. They were on her.
Heather.
He hadn’t seen her in ten days. Ten days without the sound of her soft laugh echoing in the garden, without the scent of soil and roses clinging to her skin, without her curiosity bubbling into questions he longed and feared to answer.
And now, she was slipping away.
He reached for his phone, opened her last message. Re-read it.
Not feeling great. Think I’ve caught a cold. Don’t want to risk passing it on.
The lie was kind. It was distance wrapped in courtesy. It hurt more than if she’d said she was frightened outright.
He closed his eyes. For a man who had lived over three centuries, Carlisle had always believed he understood patience, but this — this waiting — was something crueler. Something personal.
If he reached out now, she might retreat further. If he stayed silent, she might disappear altogether.
He’d faced monsters. Wars. Fire and fangs. But the idea of losing her to fear—to himself—was the first thing in centuries that truly made his soul tremble.
So, he did what he rarely did: he allowed a moment of selfishness.
He texted her.
I hope you’re feeling better. I miss seeing you in the garden. Just wanted you to know.
He didn’t expect an answer. But he needed her to feel it. To know that someone noticed her absence, not out of politeness—but care. Deep, desperate, honest care.
The wind carried a faint chill as Heather sat on her back porch, knees pulled up beneath her oversized cardigan, an untouched cup of chamomile cooling beside her. Her phone buzzed on the wooden table. A message. She didn’t need to look to know who it was from.
Carlisle.
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then, slowly, she picked it up and read the words.
I hope you’re feeling better. I miss seeing you in the garden. Just wanted you to know.
She stared at the message, something tightening behind her ribs. It would be so easy to pretend nothing had changed. To send a cheerful reply. To go back. To let herself sink into the warmth of him, the pull.
But that was the danger, wasn’t it?
Ever since that strange conversation with Billy Black—and the way the Cullens sometimes felt more like porcelain statues than people—Heather had been second-guessing everything. Her instincts, her memories, even her own fears.
Still... the message was simple. No pressure. Just honesty.
She sighed and slipped off the porch step, barefoot on damp grass. She walked toward the tree in the middle of her yard—the one she practiced throwing her grandmother’s daggers at. Something about that tree always steadied her.
She pulled one of the bone-white daggers from its leather sheath, let it rest in her hand.
The weapon felt like it belonged there. As if she’d always known it.
She threw. It sank deep into the bark with a solid thud.
Whatever storm was coming, she’d be ready.
And still, her fingers hovered over her phone. A reply typed, deleted. Typed again.
I’m… better. Thanks for checking in. Just needed some time to clear my head. Hope the garden’s not too wild without me.
She hovered over the send button.
Then pressed it.
Maybe she wasn’t ready to return fully. But maybe she wasn’t ready to lose him either.
Notes:
Bit of a shorter one but I hope you liked it. Next chapter is when the plot fun begins! Let me know what you think. Love, Crab
Chapter Text
Alice gasped—sharply, suddenly.
She staggered where she stood, one hand flying to her temple as if to hold her mind in place. Her breath caught—sharp, ragged. Her golden eyes widened, pupils blown with sudden terror. Eyes glazed, frozen wide in horror as a cascade of images tumbled through her mind: the darkness of a warehouse, concrete walls soaked in shadows, the rustle of rope, and—
“Bella,” she whispered. “No.”
The vision sharpened. Bella screaming. James. Feral. Focused. The glint of his teeth as he approached. Pain. Blood. Fear. The smell of it sharp and wrong. The echo of a name shouted into a void that wouldn’t answer.
Bella was going to die.
“Alice?” Edward’s voice snapped her back.
She turned to him. “He’s got her. James—he took her. She’s at some kind of abandoned building. He’s hurting her. Soon.”
The room exploded into movement.
“We have to move—now!” Edward barked.
No one questioned him.
.
The Swan house was too quiet.
The front door hung slightly ajar, one hinge splintered at the frame. The lights were off, but the television flickered inside. There was an overturned glass on the kitchen counter, shattered pieces twinkling beneath a streak of water—no, blood. Not much. But enough.
“Charlie’s cruiser is gone,” Emmett said. “Must be on shift.”
“She’s not here,” Edward muttered, pacing fast, nearly vibrating with fury. “She’s not—” His voice broke. “James took her.”
“Tracks go out the back,” Jasper murmured, crouched low to the ground, eyes tight with restraint. “Human footprints. Drag marks.”
“Split up?” Rosalie asked. “Or—?”
“No. We go together. Alice, where was she in the vision?”
“Somewhere industrial. Derelict. Steel beams. I’ll know it when I see it.”
Carlisle’s heart felt like it had stopped—figuratively. Fear was an old companion, but rarely for his own safety. Now it scraped claws through his ribs. Not only for Bella—but for the consequence. The treaty. Heather.
“Wait—what if Bella went to Heathers?” Emmett said suddenly. “She might’ve gone to talk—”
That was all it took.
They raced for the cars.
Heather wasn’t expecting visitors. Especially not at night.
She heard it before she saw them—the low growl of expensive engines outside. Then rapid, purposeful footsteps pounding up the steps.
A knock. No—banging.
She opened the door mid-knock and gasped.
Carlisle stood in the centre, rain clinging to his golden hair. Behind him, the others hovered like statues carved from urgency.
“Heather.” His voice cracked.
She blinked at the sight of him. It had been nearly three weeks. He looked thinner somehow. Tired. Haunted. But still heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Carlisle? What’s—”
“Bella’s missing.”
The words hit like a stone to the chest.
Heather stepped back, her eyes darting from face to face. Alice was pale and focused. Rosalie’s arms were crossed tightly. Emmett’s fists clenched. Edward looked like a man on the brink of unravelling.
Heather’s heart thudded. “What happened?”
“There’s no time,” Carlisle said, voice strained. “Stay inside. Lock the doors.”
He turned to leave, but Heather reached for his sleeve. Their eyes met.
“I haven’t seen you in weeks,” she said, voice trembling. “And now you show up like this, and you expect me not to care?”
Carlisle’s face softened, eyes dark with grief and something deeper. “I’m sorry. I just—”
Rosalie pulled at his arm. “We have to go.”
Heather stared after them as they turned. She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed her keys.
Her truck rumbled to life with its usual cough, but it roared with purpose now. She tailed the Cullen’s black cars out of her neighbourhood, but something tugged at her—deep in her chest. A directionless urgency. Like a string inside her being pulled taut.
She didn’t know why she turned off early. She didn’t know why she ignored the Cullens’ path and veered left, toward the edge of town. Toward the old industrial site, long abandoned, rusted fences and half-finished buildings littered like broken bones.
She shouldn’t have known.
But she did.
Her hands tightened on the wheel.
Whatever was happening—whatever truth they were still hiding from her—Bella was in danger.
And Heather wasn’t going to let her face it alone.
.
Everything was dim and damp-smelling.
Bella stirred against cold concrete; her cheek pressed to the dust-coated floor. Pain bloomed through her wrist and shoulder where she’d hit something hard. Her breath came fast—too fast—fluttering like a trapped bird in her throat.
The world around her echoed. Hollow. Industrial. A skeletal husk of a building long abandoned. Steel beams loomed above like the ribs of a dead beast.
She tried to move and flinched—her ankle screamed in protest. Something sharp had sliced her knee; her jeans were torn and soaked.
Then came the voice.
Low. Silken. Deceptively warm.
“I was hoping you'd put up more of a fight,” James said.
Bella jerked toward the sound, blinking through the haze. He stood in the shadows, relaxed, leaning against a rusted beam like this was all a game.
“I didn’t scream when you took me,” she said, voice raw.
He chuckled. “No, you didn’t. Brave little girl. But I saw the fear in your eyes. That was almost better.”
Her pulse thundered.
“You’re not going to get away with this.”
“Mm. That’s where you’re wrong. You see, your scent—it’s exquisite. Not just blood. Fear. It’s the rarest spice.” He stepped closer, slow and theatrical. “And your precious Cullens... they’ll come. Of course. But not in time.”
Bella shifted back, palms scraping across the floor. Her heart was a hammer in her ribs. Her thoughts reached, blindly, for Edward. For Charlie. For anyone.
She thought of Heather, too—warm, steady Heather. She didn’t know why, but it helped to imagine her voice. Kind and grounding. Human.
“Don’t you want to run?” James asked, tilting his head. “I like the chase.”
“I’m not giving you anything you want,” Bella hissed.
James crouched low in front of her now, eyes gleaming with hunger. “No... I suppose not. You’re trying to be brave. Just like the others.”
He sniffed the air. “But the truth is... you’re breakable.”
Bella’s body trembled, but her stare didn’t waver.
And then—something changed. James stiffened. His head snapped toward the north, nostrils flaring.
“They’re getting closer, but they won’t get to you in time. I promise you that.” He growled low in his throat. Shoved a bit of rag down her throat and tied it behind her head before she could blink.
Bella closed her eyes, clutching a shard of broken wood beside her. It wouldn’t stop him, but it gave her something. A weapon. A chance. A hope.
She didn’t know what was about to happen.
But she was still alive.
And that would have to be enough—for now.
.
Heather’s breath was ragged, but she barely noticed the pounding of her heart, the cold air slicing at her skin. Her hands gripped the daggers tightly—she didn’t remember pulling them from the drawer at home or fastening them to her belt. The world had narrowed to a single thread of purpose: find Bella.
The moonlight spilled through the broken windows and skeletal beams, casting eerie, wavering shadows on the cracked concrete floor. Somewhere in the distance, a low howl echoed, but Heather wasn’t sure if it was real or her mind playing tricks.
Then she saw her.
Bella.
Tied and trembling on the floor, eyes wide and terrified, a gag muffling her cries. Heather dropped the daggers without thought, rushing forward, cupping Bella’s face gently.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Heather whispered, voice soft but steady. “I’m here.”
Bella’s eyes flickered with a desperate hope as Heather inspected her wrists, quickly retrieving the daggers and slicing through the bindings with practiced ease.
The moment Bella’s hands were free, a dark chuckle slithered through the shadows.
Heather spun, daggers raised instinctively. Crouched and wary.
There, stepping into the moonlight, stood a man unlike any she’d ever seen. His eyes burned a deep, unnatural red. His smile was cruel and patient, like a predator amused by a trapped animal struggling to flee.
“I’m James,” he said smoothly. “And you must be Heather.”
Heather’s breath hitched. “How do you know my name?”
James’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Oh, I know a lot about you. Your blood… it’s like a siren’s song.”
Heather’s fingers tightened around the daggers. “Why did you do this?”
James laughed—a sound low and cruel. “You think you can protect her? With your pen knife?”
Heather stepped closer, unwavering. “I’m not afraid of you- What do you want?”
His smile faded, replaced by something colder. “You should be. Because I’m not like you. I’m not human.”
Heather’s heart hammered wildly as the truth crashed down. This was no ordinary man, the blood red eyes said as much. There were things in this world—monsters hiding in plain sight—and now she was face-to-face with one.
“I don’t care what you are,” Heather said fiercely. “If you hurt her, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
James tilted his head, eyes burning like embers. “Such fire. It’s almost… charming.”
He took a step forward, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “But be warned, girl—the game has only just begun.”
Heather raised her daggers again, muscles coiled and ready.
“I’m not afraid.”
But she lied, unconvincingly, if she’s honest. she’s not afraid, she’s terrified.
Heather’s hands trembled violently, the weight of the moment pressing down on her chest like a suffocating cloak. Fear flickered in her eyes—raw and undeniable—but beneath it all burned a fierce, unyielding maternal instinct. She wouldn’t let this monster hurt Bella. Not while she was standing.
“Stay back,” Heather’s voice wavered, the edges brittle but resolute. Her arms shook as she raised the daggers, feeling absurd—small, fragile weapons against a creature whose skin looked like polished marble, unyielding and cold.
James’s red eyes glittered with cruel amusement. “Is that all? Tiny knives and trembling hands? You’re a brave little thing, aren’t you?” His smile was slow and merciless. “But I’m not scared of you.”
Heather’s breath hitched as she took a trembling step forward, muscles tight like a spring ready to snap. She knew deep down the truth no fairy tale had prepared her for—this man wasn’t human, not like her or Bella. The knives wouldn’t cut deep. They might as well be sticks.
But still, she stood firm, willing herself to be stronger than her fear.
At her feet, Bella’s trembling hands gripped Heather’s ankles, a lifeline in the swirling darkness. Bella’s wide, terrified eyes darted toward the shadows, silently pleading for Edward—her protector—but he wasn’t there yet.
Heather swallowed hard, glancing down at Bella, then back up at James. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered, voice cracking with disbelief and desperation. “Is this some kind of game to you?”
James chuckled, a low, menacing sound. “Everything’s a game. And you—” He nodded toward the two of them. “—are my prizes tonight.”
Heather’s fingers tightened on the daggers, knuckles white. She swallowed her terror and lifted her chin.
Heather’s voice trembled as she forced the question past her fear. “What are you?”
James’s eyes gleamed with a cruel satisfaction. “I’m a vampire, honey. One of the real kinds.”
The word struck Heather like a thunderclap. Her mind reeled, the pieces falling into place all at once — the stories her Nan had whispered, the warnings dismissed as fairy tales, the old oddities that had always seemed a little too strange. Her grandmother’s eccentric tales of darkness and danger weren’t madness—they were warnings.
She swallowed hard, panic blooming in her chest. I’ve been so naive. So stupid. So oblivious.
This wasn’t just some nightmare. This was real. And she was standing in the middle of it.
I’m going to die, Heather thought, the truth crashing over her like icy water.
James smiled, sharp fangs glinting, prowling forward.
Heather’s grip on her daggers faltered. Her breath caught. The weight of the moment pressed down with unbearable finality.
And yet… she refused to give up.
Before Heather could react, James moves with terrifying speed. His hand shoots out, catching her off guard, and he flings her aside like a sack of potatoes. She crashes against the cold concrete, a sharp pain exploding in her head as she hits hard. Dizziness floods her vision, but she fights to stay conscious.
Across the room, Bella’s muffled scream pierces the heavy air, muffled only by the gag that silences her cries. James is already upon her, his claw-like nails tearing through the fabric of her clothes with savage glee. His black, black eyes glitter with dark delight as he revels in the power he holds.
Heather’s head pounds fiercely as she struggles to push herself up, helpless and frantic. The sickening sound of tearing fabric echoes in the night, fuelling a desperate surge of rage and fear deep inside her.
Bella’s heart hammered so loud she was sure it echoed through the empty, crumbling building. Her eyes darted wildly, panic rising like a tidal wave inside her chest. The gag muffled her screams, turning terror into silent, desperate whimpers. Her feet twisted uselessly at the ropes binding her ankles, but no matter how hard she pulled, the knots held fast. She couldn’t even bring her hands up to push him, they were pinned at her sides. She was helpless.
She could feel him—James—looming over her, the cold weight of his presence suffocating. His dark eyes gleamed with cruel hunger, and every instinct screamed at her to run, to fight, to somehow escape. But how? She was tied, and utterly defenceless.
A sickening part of her began to accept the inevitable. This is it, she thought, the crushing truth sinking deep. This is how it ends.
Her breath hitched as a wave of despair washed over her. Just us, she thought bitterly, against a creature like this? Heather was brave, but how could she possibly stand against something so powerful, so ancient?
Hope felt like a fragile thread slipping through her fingers, vanishing into the darkness around them. She closed her eyes briefly, imagining Edward’s face, wishing he were here. But he wasn’t. And right now, she was utterly alone.
A punched-out breath made her eyelashes flutter. Her eyes sprang open, staring into equally as staggered red ones.
The silence was deafening.
The dagger slid into James’ neck like butter—with ease, impossibly. As if his marble-like flesh were no more resistant than wet paper. His red eyes went wide, the smug satisfaction wiped clean from his face. He stilled, a single hand twitching mid-reach, fingers curled like claws frozen in time.
He didn’t move. Didn’t twitch.
He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
It wasn’t supposed to be possible.
There was a beat.
Then another.
Two heartbeats echoed in the ruinous hush—one behind him, breath tight with fear and fury, the other beneath him, still and trembling.
And then the second dagger came, its twin, just as precise, just as impossible—driving into the other side of his neck.
Heather’s grip didn’t falter. Her hands were steady, soaked in sweat and shaking from somewhere far beneath the surface, but unrelenting. She twisted both blades in a brutal motion, gritting her teeth, pulling hard.
There was a startling sound, a crack, a moment suspended in unnatural quiet—then James’ head rolled clean from his shoulders.
The body, robbed of its animating hunger, sagged.
Heather didn’t hesitate.
With a grunt, she kicked James’ lifeless body off Bella, the heavy corpse thudding to the floor with finality.
It was over.
Heather dropped to her knees, gasping for air, sweat and grime on her hands, the daggers falling beside her with a soft clink. She looked at Bella, whose wide, terrified eyes blinked up at her in disbelief.
They were alive.
Somehow… they were alive.
Heather stared at the body—what was left of it—as if it might move again. There was no blood. No gruesome mess like she might have expected. Just the pale, marble-like head lying several feet away from the crumpled torso, the two no longer belonging to anything that could be called alive.
Her chest rose and fell in quick, uneven breaths. Her hands trembled, but they weren’t stained with anything but dirt and the faint shimmer of whatever strange dust clung to the ancient, dry skin of the creature she'd destroyed.
She’d killed something.
Someone.
Even if it was a monster.
Her strength gave out. She sank slowly to the space beside Bella, unseeing, unhearing. The bone-white daggers clattered to the concrete with a clean tinkering sound. Detached. Distant. Her mind spun, unable to catch on any one thought long enough to make sense of it.
Bella made a sound, barely more than a breath. A plea. Heather turned numbly and reached for her, shaking fingers fumbling with the gag.
“It’s okay,” Heather whispered, her voice too thin to be convincing. “It’s over.”
But inside, it didn’t feel over.
Her stomach twisted. Her vision wavered. She’d never hurt anyone in her life—and now she’d ended one. She didn’t know how she’d done it. She didn’t know what she was anymore. Her hands gripped Bella’s shoulders instinctively, comfortingly, but her eyes were lost.
The thunder of feet pounded through the skeletal building.
The door flew off its hinges.
Edward burst in first, all but falling to his knees beside Bella. “Bella!” His voice cracked with pure anguish. “I’m here—are you hurt? Bella, look at me!” Edward was there in an instant, crouched beside Bella, checking her with shaking hands, whispering her name like a broken prayer.
Behind him came Emmett, Alice, Rosalie—and then Carlisle. Their golden eyes scanned the carnage.
He stopped dead at the sight.
James’s head. His body. The scent of his kind, now lifeless. And Heather—kneeling, hands empty, shaking with something far deeper than fear.
James’s body. The daggers. Heather.
Edward’s voice broke the hush behind him, instinctively using his gift. “She did it,” she said, almost reverently. “She killed him.”
Heather’s pulse thundered in her ears.
She wasn’t shaking anymore. She was burning.
Her eyes snapped to Edward, hovering over Bella like a phantom, like something out of a nightmare. Like James.
“Get away from her!” Heather shouted, voice raw and cracked.
Edward looked up, startled. “Heather, she’s hurt—”
“I SAID GET AWAY FROM HER!” she screamed, lunging forward.
She shoved him with every ounce of her strength. He didn’t budge far, but he moved, surprised enough that she managed to wedge herself between him and Bella. Her arms wrapped tightly around Bella’s shoulders, holding her like a shield, a lifeline. Hauling her up into her arms, back to her feet. She let go.
Her daggers—those strange, ancient things—were back in her hands before she even realized she’d grabbed them. She held them out, pointed at all of them.
“Don’t you dare come closer,” she spat. “I don’t know what the hell you are, but stay the fuck away from me.”
The Cullens stopped mid-step. Edward stared, eyes wide. Rosalie stiffened. Emmett took a slow step back. Alice tilted her head with quiet sadness. But it was Carlisle’s face that struck Heather the hardest—his calm, always-golden expression fractured into something wounded.
“Heather—please,” he said gently.
“Don’t.” Her hands trembled now, not from fear, but adrenaline. “Don’t Heather me. You knew. All of you knew. What the fuck was that thing?” She gestured toward James’s severed head. “Why did I have to be the one to kill it? Where the hell were you?!”
Carlisle took a cautious step forward, hands raised. “We didn’t know. We were—”
“Not fast enough,” she hissed. “She could’ve died. I could’ve—”
Her voice caught. She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Still holding the knives, Heather began steering Bella protectively toward the exit. Bella leaned against her weakly, still stunned and trembling, but alive. Heather wasn’t letting go. Not here. Not now. Not around them.
“Don’t follow us,” Heather said in a voice like broken glass. “I swear to God—don’t.”
She dragged Bella outside into the dark night. The air was cold, sharp, real.
Heather’s old truck sat crookedly in the dirt, the same way she’d left it. She helped Bella into the passenger seat, then ran around to the driver’s side, climbing in with hands still shaking.
The key turned.
Nothing.
She cursed, turned it again. The engine sputtered.
Nothing.
“No no no—come on, come on—” Her voice broke into a sob as she slammed her hand against the wheel. In the mirror, she saw movement.
The Cullens were slowly emerging from the building. Cautious. Watching.
Carlisle took a step forward.
“No,” she whispered.
The engine coughed, then roared to life.
She threw it into reverse, slammed her foot on the gas, and peeled away from the site, kicking up gravel and dust and rage.
She didn’t speak for the entire drive. Neither did Bella.
When they got to Heather’s cottage, she hauled the girl inside, locked the doors, bolted the windows, and sat on the floor with her back against the door, panting, pale, and hollow.
The daggers rested beside her.
Still clean. Bloodless.
.
The silence in the cottage was the kind that rang — high and sharp in the ears, pressing behind the eyes. Heather locked the front door, then the back, checked both twice. The fire in the hearth was stone cold.
She moved like a ghost, numb and mechanical. Her hands were streaked with dirt and dried something she didn’t want to think about. Her knees buckled for a second as she crouched in front of the fireplace, shoving logs into place. Her fingers trembled lighting the match.
When the fire caught, it flared bright — gold and orange, so human and alive it made her chest ache.
“Bella,” she said softly, voice cracking.
The girl was still standing where Heather had left her, just inside the front door, arms wrapped tight around herself. Her shirt was torn, smudged with soot and dust. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. She hadn’t made a sound.
“Sweetheart,” Heather said again, moving toward her slowly, gently. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Bella blinked and nodded, mute. Heather took her hand — clammy, cold — and led her into the bathroom. She found a clean towel, soft pyjamas — hers, old flannel, probably too big for Bella’s frame but too short on the legs — and left them on the counter.
“Take your time. Hot as you can stand,” she murmured. “I’ll be right here.”
The door closed with a quiet click.
Heather stood on the other side, hand still on the knob. She could hear the water start. It was like a release — the sound of it thundering against porcelain. Bella was alive. She was here.
Heather didn’t move until the water stopped.
By the time Bella came out — damp-haired, small in the oversized plaid shirt and cotton bottoms — the fire had warmed the front room. Heather had pulled the old blanket from the back of the sofa, fluffed a pillow, and left a mug of hot chocolate steaming on the coffee table.
Bella didn’t speak. She just looked at her, eyes too old now for her young face, and sat curled on the sofa like she could fold herself out of existence.
She fell asleep sitting up, her head eventually tipping onto the pillow, arms around her own waist.
Heather sat in the old rocking chair beside the hearth. The daggers were on the floor by her feet, their handles clean, bone-white, gleaming in the firelight.
She didn't sleep.
She couldn’t.
She watched the flames crackle. Watched the shadows shift. Watched the girl on her sofa breathe, slow and even. Safe.
And she guarded her.
Because no one else had.
Because if they came again, she’d be ready.
Because something inside her was different now.
Something had cracked wide open — and the firelight flickered in her eyes, catching on edges of something old.
Something watching.
Something waiting.
.
The sharp electronic trill of her phone sliced through the stillness like a scalpel. Heather flinched, a delayed blink breaking the glassy fog that had descended over her mind.
She glanced down.
Blood was trailing down her forearm — steady, rhythmic, lazy — a dark ribbon that wound down to her fingertips and dripped with soft, wet plips onto the hardwood. She hadn't even noticed. She still couldn’t feel it.
Her head turned slowly, eyes narrowing at the gash just below her elbow. It was deep. Probably the rebar — jagged, rust-stained — from the skeleton of that building. It should hurt. It didn’t.
She looked at the blood and thought, vaguely: I need a doctor.
And then almost laughed, bitter and raw.
A doctor. Right.
Her phone buzzed again on the coffee table. The screen lit up: Carlisle Cullen.
Heather didn’t move. The soft blue glow pulsed across the room like a heartbeat.
The daggers were on the floor by the fireplace. Still. Silent. Shining.
The phone stopped. Then started again.
Carlisle Cullen.
She picked it up this time, stared at his name.
And answered.
But said nothing.
His voice came through — soft, low, tense. Like he was speaking through clenched teeth.
“Heather. Please. We’re outside.”
She looked toward the window, blinds drawn. The fire popped behind her.
“We mean no harm. I swear to you,” Carlisle continued. “I know you’re hurt. Let me… just check it. That’s all.”
Heather didn’t answer.
Her eyes drifted to Bella on the sofa — fast asleep still, somehow — curled tight, her lips parted, a faint crease between her brows. Her chest rose and fell.
Heather raised the phone slowly back to her ear.
“I think,” she said, voice hoarse and dry, “that I don’t know what to think.”
Carlisle was silent a moment. She could feel the weight of his restraint through the line.
“I know. You have every reason not to trust me. But I promise you — you are safe. With me.”
The cut on her arm pulsed, the blood dripping more sluggishly now. She swayed a little.
Heather closed her eyes.
“What about her?” she whispered, glancing at Bella.
“She’s safe now. Because of you.”
Heather’s jaw clenched. That wasn’t an answer. Not really.
“Don’t come in,” she said finally. “I’ll… I’ll open the door.”
She hung up.
Then, dragging her limbs like they were made of stone, she walked to the front door of the cottage. She paused, her hand hovering above the knob. Her other arm was sticky with blood. She could feel it now — faintly, like her body was remembering to care.
With a breath that trembled as she let it out, she unlocked the door and opened it.
There stood Carlisle.
Still. Straight. Golden eyes dark with something that wasn’t hunger this time, but something worse. Deeper. Regret. Fear. Longing.
Behind him, Edward paced.
Carlisle’s gaze fell instantly to her arm, and his throat worked like he had to force his instincts down.
“Let me help you,” he said quietly.
Heather stared at him. And then, after a long moment, stepped aside.
But only just.
“Don’t wake her,” she whispered.
The fire crackled in the hearth, casting warm flickers of gold and orange across the little cottage’s walls. The air was thick — not just with the scent of smoke and blood, but tension. Barely restrained, quiet, aching tension.
Edward knelt beside the sofa, his face pale, drawn. His hand hovered an inch above Bella’s sleeping form, his fingertips ghosting over her dark hair like he was afraid to touch her, afraid he might break her. Or melt. Or vanish.
Heather stood in the hallway, watching him through the narrow gap in the doorframe. Bella, even in sleep, reached for him — her fingers curling into the fabric of his sleeve as though she could sense him, needed him. He didn’t flinch at her warmth, her closeness. His lips pressed together, jaw tight, guilt etched deep into his features.
Heather hated how much she wanted to believe in him. Hated how soft Bella looked in his arms.
She knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
But knowing and trusting were different things now.
She turned sharply, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor, and walked into the bedroom. “Carlisle,” she said, voice low, strained.
He followed at once.
The door closed behind them with a soft click.
Heather didn’t speak, didn’t look at him. She sat on the edge of the bed, the daggers — still faintly glowing with something unnameable — on the nightstand. Her arm rested in her lap, blood now sluggish and tacky. The adrenaline was wearing off. Her body was beginning to remember that it was flesh.
Carlisle crouched before her, his hands already pulling open his black doctor’s bag. Silent. Calm. Meticulous.
Heather watched him. His face was carved in marble. So beautiful. So inhuman.
He cleaned the wound gently, efficiently. His fingers didn’t tremble, but his jaw was set tight. His golden eyes had darkened to the edge of black.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked finally, her voice like paper, dry and ready to tear. “You had so many chances.”
He didn’t look up. “Because I was afraid,” he said softly.
“Of me?”
“No.” He shook his head once. “Of what you’d see when you knew. Of what you’d lose.”
“I lost something anyway,” she whispered. “You all lied to me.”
Carlisle finally looked up at her. And there it was. The centuries. The guilt. The loneliness. And something else. Something that had always been for her — even before she knew it.
“I wanted…” he began, faltering. “I wanted to have just a little longer. To pretend I was only a man.”
She stared at him.
“You look like a man,” she said. “You feel like… something else.”
He nodded.
Heather's gaze flicked to the daggers beside her. “You’re not the only thing that doesn’t make sense.”
Carlisle finished wrapping her arm in clean white gauze. His hand lingered, cool against her skin.
She swallowed, heart pounding now for reasons beyond fear.
Carlisle’s hands were deft, clinical —practiced. Heather couldn’t bring herself to look away from them as he wrapped fresh gauze around her forearm. The antiseptic stung, but she said nothing. The silence between them hung heavy, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire from the other room and the distant, unconscious stirrings of Bella.
Heather’s voice, when it came, was quiet. But steady. She had to know, presumptions weren’t enough.
“Are you a vampire too?”
Carlisle froze.
For the first time since she’d known him, she saw him hesitate. Not with practiced charm or polished restraint — but real, bone-deep hesitation. He set the gauze roll aside with careful precision and sat back on his heels, not meeting her eyes immediately.
“Yes,” he said finally, the word almost inaudible. “I am.”
Heather stared at him. There was no dramatic reaction, no gasp — just an aching, stretching silence. She’d suspected. Of course she had. There were too many questions and too few answers. But hearing it aloud, hearing him say it — it landed with a weight she hadn’t expected.
“I was turned centuries ago,” he continued, voice low and even. “In London. My father… was a pastor. A man of the church. He believed in hunting the unnatural — witches, demons, and what he believed were vampires. Most of what he found were innocent people. I tried to carry on his work. I thought I was righteous.”
He finally looked up, and Heather saw the shame in his eyes. Not just guilt. History. Regret.
“I was attacked in the process. I turned.” He swallowed. “And I… hated myself for it. I hated what I’d become.”
Heather’s breath caught. He didn’t speak like a monster. He spoke like a man unravelling.
“But I refused to become what I feared,” he said. “I found a different way. I feed only on animals. So do my family. It isn’t perfect, but it’s… what we can live with. Even if I am damned regardless”
Heather shook her head slightly. “So, you became a doctor? To try and make amends for what you are? To save people?”
Carlisle gave a wry, bitter smile. “I hoped – maybe foolishly- that I may get some measure of credit for trying.”
She looked down at the bandage. “That’s why you were always so careful. With me. Surely, you knew that I’d figure it out eventually?”
“I hoped,” he admitted, “that maybe you wouldn’t.”
Heather stood slowly, brushing her fingertips over the table where her daggers lay. Still couldn’t explain how they'd done what they did.
“I don’t how it happened,” she said, half to herself. “But these? They’ve always been odd. My Nan said they were old. That they were meant to protect. I just… never thought I’d need to believe her.”
Carlisle stood at the edge of her bed, picking up and holding one of the bone-white daggers delicately between his fingers. The edge gleamed — not with steel, but with something far older. He turned it in the lamplight, watching how the pale material refracted light.
His jaw tensed.
He had seen craftsmanship from a different ages. Roman blades. Victorian scalpels. Fencing swords. He’d seen weapons meant to kill his kind — crude, jagged, desperate. This, though… this was elegant. Precise. Intentional.
Vampire bone.
He could smell the old scent in it — faint but unmistakable. Once part of a body like his own, forged into something that could kill without hesitation. And the other — he touched it, brought it briefly to his lips. Wolf.
A werewolf’s tooth, sharpened into a dagger’s edge.
He told Heather as such.
Carlisle frowned, deeply, for the first time in days. Why both? Why would someone carry twin blades forged from two opposing worlds?
Behind him, Heather sat quietly at the foot of her bed. Her shoulders were hunched, her hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She didn’t ask what he saw in the daggers, didn’t push. She just watched, trying to make sense of the impossible. Vampire and Werewolf?
When he turned back to her, the confusion in her eyes hit him like a tide. But worse than that — the gash at her brow, the bruising on her temple, the dried smear of blood at her cracked lip. Her cheekbone, faintly purple. Her body, raw with hurt and pain.
His dead heart clenched.
“May I?” he asked gently, gesturing to her face.
Heather blinked, clearly surprised, but gave the smallest of nods.
He crouched before her slowly where she sat on the bed, as if approaching a wounded animal. He didn’t want to appear the predator. His fingers, cool and impossibly gentle, reached out and cradled her jaw. She flinched — not in fear, but out of shock at the cold. His thumb smoothed a trace of dried blood from her skin. She held perfectly still.
The closeness between them was quiet. Heavy. She could see him clearly now — the unusual gold of his eyes like sunlight through amber, flickering in the firelight. No human had eyes like that. But they weren’t monstrous. Just sad. Tired. The pain he carried seemed endless.
Heather didn’t understand it, not fully. But she felt it.
His skin was smooth, like polished stone, cool like a spring wind. She’d never been this close to him before — not like this. Up close, he looked so young. Not boyish, but far younger than the centuries he had endured. And she thought, God, what was stolen from you? What life could you have had if not this?
His thumb brushed her cheek, soft as breath.
“Heather, I…” he began.
But the moment shattered like glass.
A panicked voice from the next room: “Heather? Heather?!”
Bella.
Heather pulled away, blinking as if the closeness had lulled her into a daze. She stood abruptly, moving past him, and the coolness left her skin like breath evaporating. She didn’t say anything — didn’t need to. Carlisle watched her walk out of the bedroom and disappear into the hallway.
He was left alone in the room.
The daggers lay on the bedside table, still gleaming in the firelight.
And behind his ribs, something ancient and aching stirred.
Heather stepped softly into the living room, where Bella stood by the fireplace, one hand gripping the collar of the borrowed pyjama top, the other trembling at her side. The dancing firelight caught the bruises forming at her wrists, the tear-tracks on her cheeks.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Heather said gently, her voice low and even.
Bella turned, eyes wide, as though she expected someone else. Her lip quivered before she spoke. “I—I woke up and you weren’t there.”
Heather crossed the room in three strides and pulled her into a hug. Bella stiffened for a second, then clung to her like a drowning girl grabbing driftwood.
“I’m here,” Heather murmured into her hair. “You’re safe now.”
Bella’s shoulders trembled as she fought not to cry again, but Heather felt the wetness spreading at her collar. She didn’t let go. She just held her, swaying gently as if she could rock away the fear. She heard the gentle open and close of her front door. Carlisle had left.
Minutes passed, the fire crackled on, and eventually, Bella sagged a little in her arms — exhausted beyond words. Heather helped her sit on the couch, pulled the quilt over her shoulders.
“You should sleep,” she whispered.
Bella looked up at her. “You’re staying close?”
Heather nodded. “Right here.”
Bella nodded back, eyes already heavy. Her fingers tangled loosely in Heather’s sleeve like a child’s. She fell asleep leaning into her side.
Heather didn’t move.
She just watched the fire.
She gently stood up, careful not to jostle Bella. She picked the daggers up from her bedside table, wandering back to the living room to continue her vigil.
Back outside, behind the cottage, the forest loomed in wet silence. Carlisle stood under the eaves, the damp earth soaking into the cuffs of his trousers. His hands were shaking — not from cold, not from fear. From everything.
Edward approached without a sound.
“I didn’t mean to listen,” Edward said quietly. “But I heard it in your head anyway.”
Carlisle didn’t answer.
Edward leaned against a nearby post, arms crossed, eyes shadowed.
“She’s afraid of us,” he said after a moment.
“She has every right to be,” Carlisle murmured, almost to himself.
Edward glanced sideways at him. “You care for her.”
“I do… very much so,” Carlisle said, and it came out quiet, without grandeur, but certain.
Edward didn’t flinch. He only sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“She’s human,” he said.
“I know.”
“She doesn’t trust you anymore.”
Carlisle nodded. “I know.”
“And yet, here you are.”
Carlisle gave the smallest of smiles, one heavy with sorrow. “I’ve stood by a great many things in my life. I’ve held to conviction and restraint. I’ve done the right thing more times than I’ve wanted to. But Edward…” He looked at his son now. “If she were to ask me to leave, I would. But if she were to need me again… nothing would keep me away.”
Edward was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Well this is a mess, isn’t it?”
Carlisle’s eyes returned to the glowing window where Heather sat silhouetted beside Bella’s sleeping form. “Yes.”
Notes:
Well that was an absurdly long chapter but I hope you liked it :) Bit of a pivitol moment to the plot, but there's lots more to come! I feel like the normal reaction to almost getting killed would a lot different from the Bella reaction we've seen in the films, hence why it was slightly changed! This story won't stick to any strict plot points in the films, hence why we had the James attack so early on, and I also didn't want Bella to get bitten. Hope the AU pleases you guys <3
Chapter Text
The fire had burned low, casting only faint orange hues across the dark cottage. Outside, the woods held their breath. Inside, time slowed. Heather barely slept. She’d sat like a sentinel most of the night, listening to Bella’s shallow breathing, making sure it stayed steady. Alive.
Now, with the first grey stretch of dawn creeping over the pines, Heather finally peeled herself away. Her muscles ached, caked with dried blood and dust, her shirt torn at the sleeve where the rebar had caught her. Her hands, still trembling, were streaked with soot and something else. She didn’t want to look too closely.
She found clean clothes in the back of the wardrobe, then stepped into the small bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. The steam wrapped around her like a blanket. She stood under the spray until her legs nearly gave out.
The water ran pink at her feet.
It scalded as it hit her shoulders, pounding against the tight knots in her muscles, tracing the shape of her spine. Heather tilted her head forward, letting the stream run down her back, over her arms, her legs, her wounds. The tiny bathroom steamed up fast — the mirror already fogged, the air thick and wet like breath caught in a throat.
She stood motionless beneath the water, arms slack at her sides, the tiles beneath her feet slick with suds and streaked with diluted blood. Some of it was hers. Some of it was Bella’s. It didn’t matter. The water carried it away in rivulets, and still, it wasn’t enough.
The tile was old — white once, now veined with soft cracks and greyed at the edges. She hadn’t noticed that before. Hadn’t seen how the grout had grown dark from age, how the tap sputtered before it fully caught, how the little shelf in the corner held only a single bar of soap and half-empty shampoo. A borrowed space. A place between places.
Her whole body ached, not from the fight, not entirely — but from holding herself together.
Heather leaned her forehead against the cool tile, closing her eyes. The warmth of the water no longer comforted; it stung, it peeled back the layers she had so carefully preserved.
Carlisle is a vampire.
The thought came again, uninvited, unwelcome. Not as a shock anymore — she’d moved beyond that. It came like a dull bell struck far in the distance, reverberating in the hollow of her chest.
Carlisle, the gentle man in the pressed white shirts with the sleeves rolled up, with the quiet laugh. Carlisle, with his delicate, precise hands, steady even when hers were shaking. The one who’d stood beside her in greenhouses, who’d brought her tea just the way she liked it. The one who watched her like she was something rare — something worth staying for.
He wasn’t real.
Or was he?
That’s what terrified her most — not the fangs or the cold skin or the ancient past — but the possibility that everything she'd felt between them was built on a lie. That she’d spent these last weeks growing close to a man wearing a mask. That all of it — the small smiles, the shared glances, the warmth — was just another thread in the web of illusion he spun to keep her close. Amusement. Distraction. Was she a pet project?
Had she ever really known him at all?
Or worse — had he known her?
She wanted to scream. Instead, she pressed her palms flat against the tile, grounding herself in the grit, the mildew, the hot sting of the spray still beating at her neck.
It wasn’t fair.
Because if it was real — if that man was real — then it meant she was falling for a lie made of blood and bone and shadows.
And if it wasn’t… then it meant she’d never meant anything to him.
And yet — she remembered his face. Not just the statuesque beauty of it, not the golden veneer he wore for the world — but the moments in between. When he thought she wasn’t looking. That flicker of weariness behind his eyes. The crack in his voice when he spoke of loss. His hands wrapped around a coffee cup just to feel its warmth. The way he’d looked at her — like she was something real in a world that no longer made sense to him.
She wanted to believe that was real.
God help her, she wanted to believe all of it.
But she needed answers. And not in half-truths or soft-spoken evasions. She needed his truths, sharp and unvarnished. She needed his history, his monstrosity, his shame. She needed his regrets and his rage and his faith and all the awful, beautiful things he kept caged beneath that elegant exterior.
If she was going to lose her footing, let it be by choice.
This was her life.
She wasn’t going to be tugged along by some ancient current. Not anymore. No magic, no monster, no man — not even him — would write her story for her.
She would look at all of it — the ruin, the wonder, the blood — and decide for herself whether he was worth the fall.
She turned the tap off slowly. The sudden silence roared louder than the water had. Her breath steamed in the air. The room was a womb of heat and fog, and she stood in the centre, dripping.
Heather pressed her hand to the fogged glass of the mirror. A single clear palm print melted through the mist.
She stepped into the hallway, wrapped in a towel, hair damp against her neck, skin still tingling from the heat of the shower. The boards were cool beneath her feet.
As she passed, a flicker of movement caught her eye. She turned, startled, and caught her reflection in the old mirror on the wall—something she usually paid no attention to.
She stopped.
Her eyes were hollow. The skin around her gash, tender and red. But it wasn’t the wound that had changed her. Something in her had shifted.
She didn’t know what it meant. Only that she wasn’t the same.
As she opened the door to her bedroom, the hallway was flooded with the pale blush of morning light. And Carlisle stood there.
She stopped abruptly, breath catching.
He turned — and whatever thought had brought him to there vanished the moment he saw her. His gaze flicked up and down before he snapped it back to her eyes, gentlemanly and guilty and struck still all at once.
Heather tightened the towel around herself.
“I didn’t know you were in here—” she began.
“I’m sorry,” Carlisle said quickly, hands up, taking a step back. But he didn’t look away. He couldn’t.
Her hair clung to her collarbones, still dripping. Her skin was flushed from the heat, and her eyes — vulnerable, wounded, defensive — burned with something else too. Power. Fear. Fire.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” she said, but her voice cracked on the last word. It didn’t sound like anger. It sounded tired. It sounded unsure.
“I know,” he said softly.
A beat passed. Then another.
She took a breath and shifted past him toward her room. The towel slipped slightly from her shoulder, revealing the edge of the bruising beneath. He saw. And his jaw clenched.
“May I help?” he asked gently, motioning to the now freshly washed gash on her arm.
She turned halfway to him, unsure. Then, slowly, she nodded.
Inside her bedroom, she sat down stiffly on the edge of the bed while Carlisle retrieved the small first aid kit. He moved with reverent care, kneeling in front of her. She let him unwrap the bandage. Her skin pulsed under his cool fingers.
He didn’t speak. Neither did she.
He cleaned the wound with a deft touch. And when he was done, he didn’t move away immediately. His eyes lifted to her face — just inches from his — and what he saw there stole the air from his lungs.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, voice soft, cracking.
“I was afraid,” he replied, just above a whisper.
Her lip trembled, but she met his gaze.
“Of what?”
“That you’d look at me the way you are now,” he said. “Like I’m something to run from.”
Her breath hitched. She didn’t deny it.
“I don’t know what to think,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“I really don’t know what to think,” she added.
Carlisle shook his head .” A pause. “You’ve been incredibly brave.”
She stared at him, and something heavy passed between them — something sharp, electric, impossibly fragile. The silence pressed in again.
Then, against all logic, her hand rose. She brushed a wet lock of hair away from her face and reached forward to his chest. She pressed her fingers lightly to his collarbone — to the steady stillness beneath it.
“No heartbeat,” she said, her voice flat but not cruel.
“No,” he murmured.
Heather’s eyes searched his.
“You’ve got that look again,” she said, not unkindly. “Like you’re trying not to breathe.”
“We don’t need to,” he said at last, voice low and deliberate. “It’s easier to concentrate around you if I don’t.”
His eyes lingered on hers, aching with something unspoken, barely contained. Carlisle lifted a hand to her face again, slowly this time, as if she might bolt. His fingers skimmed her cheek.
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” she said finally, barely audible. “But you’re not human, either. Not anymore. And that’s terrifying.”
He nodded. Her eyes shimmered — but she didn’t look away.
The air was heavy with silence.
Carlisle’s fingers were still warm from her skin, still carrying the texture of her wound — the softness of her cheek, the trembling in her jaw. He remained knelt before her, as if in prayer.
Heather stood and stepped back slowly, arms folded around herself, towel still clutched tightly. She kept her eyes on him like he was a question she hadn’t decided how to answer yet. There was something unravelling in her — in both of them.
“You should go,” she whispered.
Carlisle rose to his feet, his every movement controlled, elegant, tense. “If that’s what you want.”
Heather’s mouth opened like she meant to say yes.
But the word didn’t come.
Instead, she took another step back, creating distance. Her wet hair clung to her collarbones, her pulse visible in her throat, still racing. And Carlisle didn’t move — he simply watched her with that same gaze, one made of centuries and sorrow, and something deeper now.
Something wanting.
She frowned, “You look at me like I’m one step from falling down,” she said, voice hoarse.
Carlisle blinked. “You just survived something that should have killed you. Forgive me if I want to handle you gently.”
Heather swallowed. The word survived lingered in her ears like a haunting echo. She wanted to scream. She wanted to feel. She wanted something to matter right now other than the numbness in her bones.
“You don’t have to handle me at all,” she said tightly, emotion catching in her throat.
She turned to walk past him, toward the door — but he reached out, just barely, and his fingers caught the edge of the towel at her elbow. Not pulling, just touching. Seeking.
“Heather—”
She stopped.
Her head tilted toward him. Her eyes fluttered shut. Her breath was uneven.
Carlisle exhaled slowly, as if the air had been trapped in his lungs for years.
“I don't know what this is anymore,” he whispered, “what we are. But I know I would tear down every rule I’ve ever held sacred just to keep you safe. And I don’t—” his voice caught “—I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
Heather turned fully, her towel slipping a little lower down her neck, revealing her collarbone.
Her face was unreadable.
And then — she crossed the distance in two steps, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and kissed him.
It wasn’t gentle.
It was desperate, raw, full of bruised breath and questions. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she pulled him down to her mouth, lips crashing into his like she needed it more than air. He made a soft, reverent sound against her, like he’d been waiting a century for that kiss — and then his arms were around her, strong and cold and grounding.
His mouth moved over hers like worship, hands splaying over her back, careful not to tug the towel away even though her body was pressed against his. She kissed him harder, tilting her face to deepen it, tasting grief and hunger and fear and him.
He pulled back just barely, lips ghosting hers. His golden eyes were dark with want.
“We shouldn’t do this right now,” he whispered, breath trembling.
“I don’t care,” she said, kissing him again.
One hand braced against his chest, feeling the silent stillness where a heartbeat should be. The other tangled in the soft strands of his golden hair, tugging him back to her when he tried to be good, tried to hold back.
He broke. Like a dam too long defying the flood.
Carlisle pushed her gently toward the wall, lips devouring her again, but always gentle — always reverent, like he thought she might shatter. And still, her hands never stopped moving, mapping the cool stretch of his neck, the shape of his jaw, her breath hitching when his teeth caught on her ear.
But the ache was too real, the wound still open.
After long, breathless moments, Heather stilled, her forehead pressing to his. Their lips parted, their breaths mingling in the space between. Hers needed, his not.
Their hands lingered on each other for a moment more — but then she gently slipped out of his hold, pulling her towel tighter. The space between them cooled instantly.
She looked at him, not coldly — but with a kind of sadness. Of longing.
“I need to check on Bella,” she said quietly.
And then she left him standing there, alone in her bedroom. Her warmth already fading from his hands.
Notes:
Well there you have it :) let me know what you think <3
Chapter 10: Let Me Pretend, If Just For A Moment
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The fire had died to embers. Shadows danced softly on the wooden beams above the cottage living room, and the scent of pine smoke lingered in the still air.
Bella stirred.
Her eyes blinked open slowly, lashes damp from dreams she didn’t remember. A low ache throbbed somewhere deep in her ribs, but the worst of the fear was gone, like a scream left in another room. She felt warm. Dry. Safe. Her hair was damp against the borrowed pillow, and her limbs felt heavy from exhaustion.
Then her eyes landed on Heather.
She was sitting in the old rocking chair by the hearth, her posture stiff, her body silhouetted against the orange glow. A blanket was draped over her lap, but she wasn’t resting — she was watching. Guarding.
Bella didn’t say anything at first. Just observed.
There was something different about Heather. Something unreadable in the set of her jaw and the way she held herself. Not just the bruises, or the blood-stained bandage on her arm. Something inside her had cracked — but she hadn’t fallen apart. Not like Bella had.
Heather noticed her gaze, glanced over.
“You're awake,” she said softly.
Bella nodded. “You stayed.”
Heather looked away, mouth tightening. “I wasn’t going to leave you with them.”
Them. The word wasn’t spoken with warmth. In fact, it sounded almost like a warning.
Bella sat up slowly. “You don’t… trust them anymore.”
Heather didn't answer immediately. She stood up, poked the embers with the iron poker, embers flaring briefly.
“They kept things from me. About what you were going through. About what they are.”
Bella’s lips parted. “They were trying to protect you.”
“I didn’t ask for protection,” Heather snapped, a rare edge to her voice. She sighed immediately after, softening. “Sorry. I just… I need time.”
Bella watched her closely. There was a tension in her body that hadn’t been there before. Her hands trembled just slightly as she fed another log into the fire.
And behind it all, Bella could feel something else radiating from her. Not fear. Not even just anger.
Something tangled. Something emotional.
“Did something happen?” Bella asked gently.
Heather didn’t look at her.
Instead, she turned to the window — her arms crossing tightly over her chest.
The silence stretched.
And Bella knew that whatever had passed between Heather and the Cullens… especially between Heather and Carlisle… it had changed everything.
.
The cottage was cloaked in silence.
Carlisle stepped out into the dim morning air, closing the wooden door behind him gently. The cold helped clear his thoughts — at least, until the blur of a shape descended from the treeline.
“Edward,” he said calmly, even though he already knew the rage burning in his son’s expression.
“You kissed her.”
Carlisle’s golden eyes closed briefly. “You were listening.”
Edward’s jaw tightened, but his voice was lower than before — not quite furious, but strained. “I couldn’t not listen. I hear everything in that head of yours.”
He shook his head, a flicker of disbelief passing over his face. “After everything you’ve told me about restraint — about control. You warned me to be careful with Bella, to take things slowly, not to let emotion cloud judgment. And now you…”
“I have been careful,” Carlisle said, his voice sharper than he meant.
Edward faltered, startled by the rare show of emotion. Carlisle almost never raised his voice.
Carlisle looked away, jaw set, hands clenched tightly at his sides. “You think I don’t know what I’ve done? That I haven’t agonized over it since the moment it happened?”
“She’s human,” Edward said quietly, but the words were weighted with anger. ““She’s been hurt enough already. You were supposed to protect that… not add to the weight she’s carrying.”
Carlisle turned back to him, guilt written across every line of his face. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t seek it out. But it did happen. And yes… part of me wanted it to.”
Edward let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “So when it’s me, it’s all caution and consequences. But when it’s you…”
The silence that followed was taut, brimming with the things neither of them had the nerve to say.
The wind stirred the trees overhead. Carlisle’s shoulders dropped slightly, the weight of everything settling over him again.
The wind rustled the leaves above, whispering through the dark trees. Carlisle’s shoulders slumped.
“I’ve lived alone for a long time, son.” he said quietly. “Centuries without a mate, without that kind of bond. And I’ve found purpose — in medicine, in this family. I love all of you more than I can ever say.”
He paused, his eyes distant. “But Heather…” His voice cracked. “She makes me feel like I’m still alive. she reminds me that there’s still light in this life. That I’m not just existing in the shadow of what I was.”
Edward stared at him, jaw rigid.
“She is not your salvation,” he said, quieter now. “You taught me that we can’t use others to save us. You told me—”
Carlisle nodded. “I know.”
“Then what happens now?”
Carlisle exhaled slowly. “I’ll stay away. I’ll do what’s right.”
“But you don’t want to,” Edward said sharply. “I can hear it in every thought you’re trying not to think.”
Carlisle’s face twisted, as if the weight of guilt was a physical thing on his spine. “I want her to be safe. That’s all.”
Edward studied him.
And for the first time in his long life, he saw his father not as the unshakeable centre of their family — but as a man. Flawed. Vulnerable. Lonely. Young.
And perhaps, in a way, just as scared as him.
Edward stood by the outside of the window, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the dark treeline. His jaw was rigid, every muscle tense.
Carlisle was seated on the front steps to the cottage, fingers laced together in thought.
“She’s going to come for her,” Edward said at last.
Carlisle didn’t ask who she was. He didn’t need to.
“Victoria,” he confirmed softly. “It’s what I would do if I were her. The death of ones Mate… it’s not something you recover from. Not in our kind. Not ever.”
Edward turned sharply. “Heather doesn’t even know what she’s ignited. She thinks it’s over.”
Carlisle’s face tensed with guilt. “It should have been.”
There was silence, then Edward stepped closer.
“She killed James, Carlisle. With those daggers. She’s not trained. She’s not like us. She got lucky.”
“No,” Carlisle said, voice firm. “She was brave.”
Edward stared at him.
“She stood between Bella and death,” Carlisle continued, rising from his seat. “Without hesitation. Without knowledge of what he even was. And she killed him. Not for vengeance. For protection.”
Edward’s voice was low and sharp. “That won’t save her when Victoria comes.”
“I know.”
There was a beat of silence, heavy with shared fear.
Edward paced now, one hand raking through his hair. “We’re already stretched. We can’t protect both Bella and Heather around the clock—Victoria won’t go for the obvious first. She’ll wait. Stalk. She’s clever, erratic. She’ll want it to hurt.”
Carlisle moved closer, his expression darkening in a way that made Edward falter.
“Then we don’t wait,” he said. “We prepare.”
Edward narrowed his eyes. “You’re talking about fighting her.”
“If it comes to that.”
“She’s not alone,” Edward added. “We don’t know how many she’ll bring. And we still haven’t figured out how Heather killed James. You saw it — the daggers. I’ve never seen anything pierce vampire flesh like that.”
Carlisle exhaled slowly. “I’ve examined them. One is vampire bone… very old. Sharpened precisely. The other, I believe, is werewolf tooth. I’ve never seen anything like them. Together… they’re lethal.”
“Do you think she knew what they were?” Edward asked.
“No,” Carlisle said. “She had no idea. But whatever their origin… Victoria won’t care. All she’ll see is the woman who took her mate’s head from his shoulders.”
Edward went still, his voice cold. “Then we don’t leave her unguarded.”
Carlisle’s golden eyes were grave.
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” he said.
There was a beat of silence. Then Edward added, almost bitterly, “You care for her more than I thought possible.”
Carlisle’s expression softened, but didn’t falter.
“I’ve cared for her longer than I realised,” he said simply. “And now, she’s in our world. Whether she wants to be or not.”
Edward nodded once. Then quietly: “I’ll tell the others. We set shifts.”
As Edward stepped toward the door, Carlisle called gently after him.
“Thank you, son.”
Edward paused, hand on the knob. “Don’t thank me yet. We’re at war, Carlisle. One redhead away from hell.”
And with that, he left the room, the door clicking softly shut behind him.
Carlisle remained still, eyes flicking toward the front door of the little cottage.
Victoria was coming.
And this time, they might not walk away untouched.
.
The morning broke grey and cold, clouds dragging their heavy bellies across the Forks sky.
Heather stood at her kitchen counter, waiting for the kettle to boil. The sharp, clean scent of English breakfast tea filled the small space. Her hands curled around the chipped ceramic mug, her thumb absently tracing the rim.
She was sore — more than sore, if she were being honest. Her shoulder ached from the force with which James had thrown her. There was a bandage wrapped snugly around her arm where the rebar had torn her open. The wound had throbbed all night, but she’d stayed on the sofa beside Bella, watching the fire burn down to embers. Guarding her.
Just in case.
She glanced over. Bella was still curled up under the knitted blanket, chest rising and falling evenly. The cuts on her lips from the gag had already begun to heal. The bruises around her wrists were not so forgiving.
Heather bit her lip, teeth sinking into the already split skin. The sting grounded her.
She still hadn’t processed it. Not fully.
The daggers sat on the table. Cleaned. Polished. Resting like they belonged there. Innocuous. Almost beautiful.
She stared at them too long, too hard.
There were gaps in her memory. Fractures. She remembered James’s eyes, the way his smile had sliced her open with more precision than claws. She remembered Bella’s scream through the gag. The weight of the dagger in her hand. The wrongness of it — and then the rightness when the blade slid into something it never should have pierced.
The head rolling.
The silence.
Heather blinked hard.
What the hell had she done?
No one had said it out loud, not really. But Carlisle… the look in his eyes last night, when he’d tended to her wounds, when he’d examined the daggers like ancient relics—he knew something. Everything. She hadn’t asked again. Couldn’t.
Not yet.
The kettle clicked off. The shrill whistle had Bella stirring, her brow pinched even in sleep.
Heather poured the tea slowly. The steam rose and blurred her reflection in the window.
Something tugged at her gut — a nervous tension that hadn’t left her since the night before. She couldn’t explain it, but it sat just beneath her skin like static. Like she was waiting. Listening.
She turned her head toward the woods beyond the back garden.
She rubbed her arm, fingers brushing over the clean bandage. Her body ached from more than the fight — it ached with confusion, with disbelief. She wanted to be angry, but she was mostly tired.
Tired of not knowing why this had happened. Why her Nan had daggers made of monsters' bones. Why she couldn’t go back to pretending this world was just moss and flowers and kind-eyed doctors.
She wasn’t ready to admit that everything had changed.
But she knew it had.
Bella stirred again, murmuring her name.
Heather crossed the room quietly, kneeling beside the sofa. She brushed the hair back from Bella’s face with a soft hand.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered.
But she wasn’t sure who had her.
Not anymore.
.
Carlisle finished his examination of Bella with careful hands, noting the small cuts and bruises on her skin, the signs of strain in her posture. He nodded, reassured that there was nothing serious.
Bella’s bruises had finally begun to fade into a promise of recovery—nothing permanent, nothing to worry Charlie about. Carlisle gently squeezed her hand, his voice low and comforting. “Bella, you’re fine. Just a few scratches. You’re cleared to go home,” he assured her, forcing a smile that struggled to mask his own worries.
Bella’s eyes flickered with mixed emotions, but she nodded, clearly relieved. Still, there was an underlying sadness to the way she looked at him, a quiet tension that spoke more than the words she left unspoken.
“We can’t keep making excuses to Charlie,” he added, his voice more matter-of-fact. “You’ve been gone long enough.”
Yet, even as Bella’s relief filled the small room, Heather’s eyes shadowed with unease. Heather, who had been sitting off to the side, bit her lip, her hands clenched in her lap. The idea of Bella leaving seemed to hit her harder than anyone might have expected. Her gaze flicked to the floor, then back to the window, and Carlisle caught the strain on her face.
The thought of Bella leaving meant more than just an end to a fleeting crisis—it meant facing the loneliness Heather so desperately fought to deny. Without saying a word, Heather stood abruptly, making a quiet excuse. “I just… I need a minute.” Her voice wavered, but she swallowed it down, turning quickly to head toward the bathroom.
Carlisle nodded in understanding, his own thoughts drifting as he watched her leave.
He turned back to Bella, squeezing her hand with a gentle, reassuring touch. “I’ll check on her,” he said softly. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Bella nodded, her eyes lingering on him as he walked toward the bathroom. He couldn’t help the pull of concern for Heather, the urgency in her departure. But he also knew he couldn’t stay away. Not with her looking like she was about to crumble.
As he reached the bathroom door, Carlisle took a breath, his mind racing with thoughts he hadn’t quite managed to process. He pushed the door open slowly, stepping into the dimly lit room. He saw her first in the mirror — Heather standing by the sink, her back to him, hands pressed against the porcelain.
She caught sight of his reflection, her shoulders stiffening. There was a moment of stillness, a charged pause that seemed to hang in the air between them, thick and tangible.
Carlisle froze, unsure of how to proceed. He knew, on some level, that he shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t his place. He wasn’t supposed to be the one to comfort her, to reach out to her like this. But there was something—something—that made him take another step into the room.
He cleared his throat quietly, the sound of it echoing too loudly in the silence. “I… I don’t mean to intrude.”
Heather’s eyes met his in the mirror, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Her face was pale, the tension in her posture obvious. She was trying so hard to keep it together, but he could see the cracks beneath the surface — the anxiety, the hurt, the sense of isolation. It was too much.
Carlisle could feel the weight of the silence pressing in on them. He wasn’t sure what to say, didn’t want to insult her by asking how she was — because it was clear to him that she wasn’t well, that she was spiralling beneath the surface. So instead, he kept his voice soft, almost hesitant. “Is there anything… anything I can do to help?”
Heather didn’t immediately answer, her fingers curling into the edge of the sink. Her gaze dropped, her shoulders trembling ever so slightly. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words seemed stuck, trapped in the space between them.
The air between them was taut with tension, and Carlisle didn’t know how to cut through it. He didn’t know how to help. How could he? This wasn’t something a doctor could fix with a simple prescription or a soothing word. This was something else entirely, something raw and vulnerable, and far beyond his ability to control.
His hand twitched at his side, his fingers wanting to reach for her but unsure, afraid of crossing a line. He stepped forward, just slightly.
Before he could second-guess himself further, a desperate need to comfort overwhelmed the careful barriers he had built. In a movement driven by both care and regret, he leaned in and pressed a tender, halting kiss to her cheek. In that brief, charged instant, his inner turmoil was laid bare. Pulling away almost immediately, his expression crumpled with sorrow and conflict.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, voice trembling. "I shouldn’t— I shouldn’t have done that. I should leave you alone." His admission trailed off as he searched her eyes for any sign of understanding or forgiveness, the silence between them echoing louder than any words could.
He wanted to say more, to apologize again, to explain, but the words didn’t come. Instead, he just stood there, watching her, feeling the sharp, uncomfortable silence between them.
His voice was a whisper as he reached out, not sure if he was doing it for her or for himself. His hand gently brushed her arm, lingering for a moment longer than necessary, before he closed the distance between them. Before either of them could stop it, he leaned in, pressing his lips softly to hers — a quiet, hesitant kiss that was full of everything they both couldn’t say.
He pulled away gently. Carlisle could see the way her fingers tightened around the edge of the sink again, the way she was trying so hard not to break. He knew he should leave, that he needed to. But he couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t seem to walk away from the quiet devastation in her eyes.
Carlisle lingered in the silence, trying to gather himself—trying to remember every line he shouldn’t cross.
But then he kissed her again.
He didn’t mean to. Not really. It was as if his body moved before his mind could stop it, drawn in by the way she looked at him: raw and trembling, holding herself together by the thinnest thread.
This time, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t hesitant.
Heather responded with a force that startled him. Her hands flew up, threading into his hair, gripping his face between her palms like he was something vital. Her mouth met his, urgent, searching, desperate—not for him, maybe, but for escape. For quiet. For something that made sense, even if only for a moment.
He tasted her—sweat on her lips, salt from tears she hadn’t allowed to fall. He tasted her pulse, fast and warm beneath her skin. The blood beneath it sang to him, impossibly sweet.
He tore his mouth from hers, breathing hard, forehead pressed to hers, his voice hoarse. “Let me have this,” he whispered. “Please. I need it. Even if you don’t feel the same… let me pretend. Just for now. Just for a little while.”
She didn’t speak. Didn’t promise him anything. But she kissed him again, deeper this time. Not gentler—never gentler—but open, hungry, like she needed him just as badly and didn’t know why.
Carlisle gripped her waist, holding her like she might disappear if he let go. He had tasted something now, and it burned through him—an ache in his chest, a want he hadn’t felt in centuries. He was a man dying of thirst in the desert, offered a single sip. And now, how was he supposed to survive with just that?
Her breath trembled against his lips. “I don’t know how I feel,” she whispered, eyes wide, pupils blown. “I can’t— I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face. “Just… don’t take this away from me yet.”
But even as he kissed her again, slower this time—savouring, memorizing—reality began to seep back in like light through a crack in the wall.
Bella was still in the lounge. Still waiting.
Heather’s hands slipped from his face, and Carlisle stepped back, heart racing like he was something newly alive. They stared at each other, breathless, untethered.
“I should go,” he said, though every cell in his body rebelled against it. “Bella will be wondering.”
Heather nodded, jaw tight, eyes glassy. “Okay.”
He lingered one heartbeat longer. Then turned, walked to the door, and left.
And the bathroom filled with the echo of everything neither of them could say.
.
The days since Bella returned home had crawled like weeks. Heather sat by her cottage window, staring out at the ever-dripping forest, fists clenched in her lap.
Alone.
Not in a poetic, peaceful sense. No — this was the suffocating kind.
The house was dark. Not in the way the night makes everything unseen, but in that hollow way—where a silence soaks into the walls and settles into the floorboards. It was the kind of quiet that reminded her that no one was waiting, no one would ask how her day had been, or why her shoulders slumped more than usual.
She left the lights off. The dusk outside was long gone, but she welcomed the dimness indoors, as if the shadows might be softer than the truths now curling around her like smoke.
She stood, stretching her weary muscles and made her way to the small alcove in the kitchen, Heather sat down slowly, the chair sighing under her weight. Her hands moved without thinking, fingers lifting her phone, pressing the familiar buttons. She already knew the number. Hadn’t needed to think about it for years, but it lived in her fingertips like a prayer, had been ingrained in her head since she was a little girl. Make sure to call this number if you ever get lost. Make sure to recite your name and address if you ever get lost. Her thumb hovered over the call button.
Her mother’s old landline.
The house it belonged to had been sold two years ago, stripped bare and repainted by strangers who didn’t know about the loose kitchen drawer or the squeaky stair. The phone line itself hadn’t worked in over a year.
But she called anyway.
It rang. Once. Twice. A third time.
She knew it wouldn’t connect. The line was dead. There was no voicemail, no message, no voice preserved in some digital purgatory. Just emptiness.
Still, she held the phone to her ear.
Then the beep, a droning tone of disconnection.
She swallowed. Then spoke.
"Hey Mum," she said softly. "It’s me again."
Her voice cracked a little on the second word, but she pressed forward, like stepping onto thin ice she’d always known would break.
"I miss you."
She waited. Silly, of course. But the waiting had always been part of the ritual.
"You know how, back in school, you used to worry I’d fall in with the wrong crowd? Worried about drugs or drink or something else as silly—as if I wasn’t a complete bookworm… You’d tell me all the time, like I was one bad influence away from spiralling into something awful. Even though all I ever did was hang around in the Miss George’s art classroom at lunch—sketching landscapes and finishing my homework early so you'd stop fussing." A small, sad smile lifted the corner of her mouth. "Well, turns out… you might’ve been a little right, after all."
Her throat tightened.
"I’ve stumbled into something, Mum. Something strange. Dangerous, maybe. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know how to explain it, not really. I just… I feel like I’m standing on the edge of something enormous. And I can't tell what’s real anymore, or what’s right."
There was only the soft, metallic hum of the line now. No voice. No warmth. Just the sound of distance.
"I could really use your advice. Or one of your long sighs where you tell me I’m overthinking everything. That would be good, too." Her voice had gone smaller. “I know I’m talking to nothing. But it helps.”
She lingered. The silence pressed gently against her cheek, like a hand that would never touch her again.
She closed her eyes. She could see her mother in her mind’s eye, standing by the stove, wiping her hands on a tea towel, eyebrows raised the way they always did when Heather got dramatic. She ached for that expression. For a presence that could anchor her.
“I feel like I’m unravelling. I’ve killed someone, Mum.” The words stuck. She hadn’t said them out loud until now.
"I’ll call you soon," she said finally, out of habit. "I love you."
She lowered the phone slowly, reverently, like setting down something sacred. Her fingers stayed wrapped around it a moment longer, reluctant to let go.
Then, the phone slipped from her hands. It clattered onto the floor. Her arm fell into her lap, limp and heavy.
Only the blue glow of the phone screen lit the kitchen now. It cast her features in soft, cold light—hollow cheeks, tired eyes, the curve of her mouth holding back the tide. Her shadow stretched behind her across the tiled floor, long and blurred, like a version of herself she no longer recognised.
And somewhere far away—too far to reach—the echo of a voice she would never hear again lingered in the bones of a house that was no longer hers.
Notes:
Oh its so sad, but I enjoy writing those scenes so so much. Honestly, tragic scenes come so much easier! What does that say about me :0 Be prepared for things to start heating up... Also I love how Carlisle said he would stay away and then immediately didn't, what a numpty. Love, Crab <3
Chapter 11: Rain Like a Reckoning
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Her phone buzzed occasionally, mostly from Alice, sometimes Emmett. Stay inside. Don’t go anywhere alone. It’s not safe.
They explained that Victoria was James’ mate and might be after her for revenge. Just great.
Heather stopped answering. What was the point? They weren’t really checking in. They were managing her. Monitoring.
Carlisle hadn’t reached out at all.
Not a call. Not a text. Not even a shadow through her window like last time.
The memory of that night in her bedroom clung to her skin like the after smoke of a fire that never quite went out. She didn’t know what they were now — if they were anything. But she knew one thing clearly:
The Cullens were watching her cage.
Oops. Cottage.
And Bella — poor, brave, sweet Bella — had retreated to her father’s house. Wrapped in Edward’s constant orbit. Safe, if stifled. Sometimes at the Cullens'. Sometimes with Charlie. But never, ever alone.
Unlike Heather.
She was the one left behind. Locked in silence, surrounded by firelight, tepid tea, and the gnawing sound of her own thoughts eating themselves alive.
Enough.
The chair scraped back as she stood. Too sudden. Too loud. She didn’t care.
She yanked on her coat. Her boots hit the floor with finality. No weapons this time. Let them see — she wasn’t hiding, and she wasn’t breaking quietly either.
Let them deal with the storm they’d left her to drown in.
.
The rain was torrential by the time she reached the Cullen house. Her curls were soaked, heavy ropes clinging to her neck and cheeks. Her coat was drenched. Her hands shook, but not from cold.
From rage.
The house loomed, elegant and glowing like something from another world.
Good.
Let them feel her fury.
Heather slammed her fist against the front door.
No answer.
Heather stepped back, chest heaving, the cold finally starting to find the places her anger didn’t reach. She scanned the windows. No movement. No shifting light. No silhouettes.
Her boots splashed through shallow puddles as she moved to the side of the house, rounding the edge like a predator denied. Her fingers clenched and unclenched at her sides.
A sleek wall of glass. Nothing inside but polished floors and curated stillness.
“Of course,” she muttered bitterly.
She moved further around, ducking under the eaves, half-sheltered from the storm but fully exposed to everything inside her. Her reflection caught in one of the long glass panes — pale and soaked and furious — and she didn’t recognize it. Not really.
Heather pounded on the glass with the flat of her palm, once, then again.
Silence.
She let out a choked laugh. “Right. Just pretend I’m not here. Screaming in your driveway.”
Her voice felt too big in the quiet. Too raw. She hated how small it made her feel.
She turned from the window, boots sliding slightly in the wet grass as she moved back toward the porch. A watering can sat tucked beside the steps, pristine and useless. She kicked it — hard — sent it clattering down the path with a metallic clang that echoed into the trees.
No one came. No one saw.
She let out a sound — low, frustrated, strangled, almost feral — and stalked past the porch, eyes stinging with more than rain. A clay plant pot sat near the steps, full of something must’ve planted but couldn’t remember when. She kicked that too. It cracked with a satisfying snap, and soil spilled out across the stones like it was bleeding.
Heather didn’t stop to look at the mess.
She couldn’t.
She crossed her arms tight over her chest, jaw clenched so hard it ached. Her breath came in fast, uneven bursts. Her whole body was shaking now — with fury, with grief, with the sheer weight of being ignored one too many times.
The Cullens had taken her in. Protected her, maybe.
And now?
Now they didn’t even bother to open the damn door.
She swallowed hard, trying to press it all down — the noise inside her head, the ache in her chest, the betrayal curdling somewhere deep in her gut. But it wouldn’t stay down.
Not anymore.
She stepped back up to the porch, rainwater dripping from her sleeves, her hair plastered to her scalp. The house was still there. Still silent.
Still pretending she didn’t exist.
Fine.
Silence followed her thoughts.
Then: a soft footfall from side of the house. Carlisle.
His expression was unreadable as he closed the distance, golden eyes trained on her. His white shirt was rumpled, sleeves rolled up, like he'd been pacing. Like he'd heard everything.
Heather looked at him.
He said nothing.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she muttered. “if you’re not willing to include me, then I’ll leave you all to it.”
Rain soaked Heather’s coat, flattening her hair to her skull as she stood on the Cullen front steps, fists clenched and eyes defiant. The clouds above bled grey, thunder rumbling like a slow warning, but she didn’t flinch.
“Heather…”
Heather looked at Carlisle, jaw tight, arms folded across her chest like armour.
“I’m not hiding,” she said, voice low and flint-sharp. “So don’t keep me in the dark. I’m done.”
Carlisle stood across from her, perfectly still, his expression unreadable. “It’s not hiding,” he said. “It’s strategy. It’s survival.”
Heather laughed, bitter and brief. “You think I don’t know the odds? That I don’t see what I’m up against? I’m not stupid, Carlisle. I know I’m outmatched. I know what she is. I saw what one of you can do.”
His face flickered—pain, guilt, something deeper. But she didn’t stop.
“You keep treating me like a risk you’re trying to contain. Like locking me up will make the problem go away.” She stepped toward him, fists clenched. “But here’s the thing—I’m already in this. James made sure of that. And Victoria?” Her eyes burned. “She won’t stop. I’d rather be ready than a prisoner in my own home.”
“Heather—”
“No,” she cut in, voice sharp. “I’m not asking for permission. I don’t want your approval. I just want the truth. Stop looking at me like I’m already halfway buried.”
Carlisle's shoulders stiffened. “That’s not what I see when I look at you. Please. That’s not what this is.”
“I keep on crossing a line. I’m trying to protect you, Heather.”
The words stopped her. Just for a moment.
Then she turned away, toward her seafoam washed truck.
His hand caught her wrist—not harsh, but solid. Unshakable.
“Please stop,” he said again, more softly this time. “Please.”
She twisted in place, frustration sparking in her chest like lightning. She shoved at his chest with both hands. “You don’t get to control me,” she snapped. “You don’t get to make decisions for me because you’re scared!”
He didn’t move. Like marble. Like silence carved into flesh.
Her hands balled into fists before she even realized it. With a sharp jerk, she tore her wrist from his grasp — snatched it back like the touch burned, like it stole something from her just to be held that gently. Her breath hitched, fury and something far more fragile flaring in her chest.
Then she struck him — not with force, not with precision, but with the clumsy, desperate rhythm of someone who needed to hurt something, and knew it wouldn’t work. Her fists hit his chest, the backs of them closed tight, over and over. It was like slamming against stone. Unyielding. Cold. It only made her angrier.
“You don’t get to do this!” she cried, the words breaking open somewhere in her throat. “You don’t get to bring me into your life and then shut me out!”
Still, he didn’t flinch. Her fists thudded uselessly against him, each impact more hopeless than the last. It was like hitting a wall that wouldn't crack—like screaming into the ocean. He stood there, unmoving, enduring, his expression tightening only with sorrow.
“Say something!” she shouted, voice rough now. “For Fucks sake, Carlisle. I’m so—so fucking tired of being left out, I don’t know what to do anymore! I’m not—” Her breath hitched. “I’m not… I can’t keep doing this alone.”
Her fists faltered, then went still, fingers curling into the damp fabric of his shirt. She could feel no heartbeat, only stillness. It infuriated her. It scared her.
And still, he didn’t move.
But his hand lifted—tentative, reverent—and settled over hers where they clutched his shirt. His fingers curled gently around her knuckles, careful, like she was something fragile and holy all at once. His thumbs brushed across the backs of her hands, slow and steady, grounding her in his stillness.
“You’re not alone,” Carlisle said, quiet and steady. “Even when it feels like it. I’m here, dear heart, I’m here.”
Heather’s voice cracked. “You don’t get to leave me in the dark.”
Her fists stilled, trembling against his chest. Her head bowed, and the tide rushed within her.
Carlisle held her hands between both of his now, not trapping—just cradling, his touch a shelter. He didn’t speak. Didn’t trust his voice to carry the weight of what he was feeling. Because even beneath the grief in her voice, the anger still clinging to her shoulders, it was him she’d come to. Him she leaned into. That truth glowed quietly inside him like a secret flame, both solemn and fiercely glad. A part of him ached with restraint; another bloomed with impossible hope.
Her fists loosened, fingers unfurling. Her arms dropped, heavy at her sides. The fight drained from her as swiftly as it had surged—burned out, not from resolution, but from sheer exhaustion. Her head bowed, and without meaning to, she let her forehead tip forward—leaning into him. Just enough for her temple to rest against his chest. Like the weight of her own thoughts had become too much to hold up.
She blinked hard, jaw tightening like she could still hold herself together through force of will alone. But it was slipping. The fury had been armour—loud, bright, and easier to carry. Now it was crumbling, leaving her skin thin and her chest hollow.
Her mouth trembled. One breath, then another, then a shudder through her shoulders she couldn’t hide.
“I’m so scared,” she whispered.
The words fell like a confession. Not loud. Not defiant. Just true.
Her voice cracked again, barely above the hush of the wind through the trees. “I’m so scared, Carlisle. I can’t stop seeing him. I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes—”
She broke off, breath catching. Hands drawing up to press against her eyes. Harsh. Painful.
The words spilled out of her over and over again as her strength gave way and she sank forward into him, letting the tension fall away. Her hands flattened against his soaked shirt, and he folded his arms around her like a shield against the storm.
“I’m so scared,” she whispered again.
“I know,” he murmured. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
And above them, the storm raged on.
.
Heather slipped through the Cullen front door, rainwater dripping from her hair and coat, leaving dark trails across the polished wood floor. Behind her, Carlisle followed in silence, one hand resting gently at the small of her back as he closed the door against the storm. The house was still — too still. The others were gone, out tracking Victoria through the forest.
It was just the two of them now.
Carlisle moved to the hearth and struck a match. The flame flared, then caught, casting a warm glow that danced across the room. Heather sank into the worn leather sofa, rubbing her arms as if she could chase the chill from her skin — but the cold felt deeper than weather. It had settled somewhere inside her.
Carlisle joined her a moment later, careful to keep a respectful space between them. The air felt heavy — not just from the fire’s heat, but from something quieter, closer. A current of tension neither of them dared name.
“You’re soaked through,” he murmured, gaze fixed on the flames. “You shouldn’t have been out in that.”
Heather looked over at him, eyes shadowed but steady. “I had to clear my head.”
He nodded slowly, understanding more than she said. “The others are hunting. They're close to finding her.”
A shiver ran through her — not from cold this time, but from the weight of it all. Fear. Helplessness. Rage she hadn’t finished burning off. She glanced down at her hands, knuckles still raw, a faint map of bruises barely visible in the firelight.
Carlisle reached out, brushing a damp curl from her cheek. His touch was light — reverent, almost uncertain — as if he wasn’t sure he had the right. Heather didn’t pull away. She was too tired. And maybe a little grateful.
His fingers lingered for a beat too long before falling away. When he spoke, his voice was softer than before, almost tender.
“You’re freezing.”
He looked toward the hallway, then back to her. “Go upstairs. Take a hot shower. I’ll bring you something dry.”
Heather opened her mouth — maybe to argue, maybe to insist she was fine — but he shook his head gently before she could speak.
“Please,” he said. “Just let me take care of you. For a little while.”
The words landed deeper than they should have. She hesitated, torn between resistance and the quiet comfort of being looked after. But something in his expression — the quiet insistence, the trace of something close to guilt in his eyes — made her nod.
Notes:
Hey guys! Sorry not a huge amount happened in this one, felt like a slower-paced chapter was needed. Felt like it was cathartic, something Heather needs to be able to move on. Let me know your thoughts :)
Chapter 12: Dear Heart
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
By the time Heather returned downstairs, the fire had burned brighter, casting long shadows across the living room. The storm still whispered against the windows, but its edge had softened — like it, too, was spent.
She padded into the room quietly, her bare feet silent on the polished floor. Carlisle’s clothes hung off her in soft folds: a heather-grey shirt, worn thin with age, and a pair of drawstring joggers so long she’d had to roll the cuffs twice just to keep from tripping over them. They smelled like him — cedar, clean linen, something faintly like old parchment and something clean and quiet that could only be Carlisle. It was strange how comforting it was.
The fabric was soft against her skin, still warm from the shower upstairs — the one tucked inside the en-suite of Carlisle’s bedroom.
That part had surprised her.
She’d never been in his personal space before. Not really. Not like that.
It had been... precise. Pale grey walls. Minimal furniture. Bare surfaces. No photographs. No clutter. If it weren’t for the books stacked neatly on the bedside table and the crisp scent of cologne that still clung faintly to the air, she might’ve thought it empty.
When he’d opened his wardrobe, she'd caught a glimpse of his neatly arranged shirts — pale blues, stark whites, charcoal greys. All buttoned, all pressed, all colourless.
Heather had tried not to stare, but some part of her had smiled at the idea. He needed colour in his life. Something reckless. Something real.
A bizarre thought struck her, what if his pants or socks are colourful? She had to stop herself from raiding his drawers and finding out.
She’d also had the passing thought of just climbing into his bed and sleeping for the next century. But even for her, that felt a step too brazen
And now, here she was — wrapped in that quiet, carefully curated world. Sitting on his sofa, drowning in his clothes, skin still warm from his shower.
She tucked her legs beneath her, tugging the oversized shirt down, and watched the fire crackle and shift. The fabric pooled around her like borrowed comfort.
Now, in his clothes, in his space, she felt strange — disarmed. Like wearing the idea of him, not just his shirt.
The door creaked softly behind her.
Carlisle entered, slower now, like he wasn’t sure if she needed more space or less. His eyes flicked over her briefly — a subtle sweep that took in the too-long sleeves, the cinched waistband, the damp waves of her freshly washed hair. If he noticed how she’d rolled up the cuffs on the joggers, he didn’t say.
But something in his expression eased. Just slightly.
Like the quiet had settled inside him, too.
She could feel it. The charge in the air. The way he hadn’t sat down, hadn’t spoken. He was a statue trying not to crack.
Heather shifted slightly. The ache in her shoulder reminded her of the rebar scrape — still bandaged. His hands had tended to it with meticulous gentleness, earlier, but there had been a hesitance in his touch. Reverence, almost. Like she might burn him.
She glanced at him again. Still unmoving. Still silent.
She thought about the way he looked at her just moments ago — when his fingers brushed her skin, when his eyes flickered with something she couldn’t name but felt all the way down to her bones.
He’s scared, she realized. Not of her. Of something else. Something deeper, older, clawing at the inside of his mind.
And of himself.
Carlisle exhaled softly, almost inaudible. His gaze was far away, somewhere unreachable. Like he was trying to solve a problem that didn’t have an answer.
His jaw tensed slightly. She noticed the way his hands flexed behind his back — like they wanted to move but were held in place.
A tremor of frustration twisted in her chest. He was right there — and still a thousand miles away.
Heather rose to her feet, slow and deliberate. Crossed the space between them. She stopped a breath from his side, facing him. The firelight reflected in his gold eyes.
She waited. No words. Just the space between them stretching taut and breathless.
Carlisle finally turned his head to look at her — slowly, as if it pained him. And when his gaze locked with hers, the ache behind it nearly brought tears to her eyes.
He looked like a man starved for something he’d forbidden himself.
“You’re warmer now, I hope?”
Heather nodded. “Your joggers are a menace. I had to roll them so many times I look like a Victorian chimney sweep.”
That earned a faint smile. She saw it tug at the corner of his mouth and stay. But the moment held more than humour. The air between them was heavier now. Unspoken things finally ready to be named.
In her seat she shifted. He did too.
With a slow grace, he moved to sit beside her. Back straight like it held a rod through it.
For a moment, all she could hear was the quiet crackle of fire and the rain beyond the windows.
Then, gently:
“You wanted honesty,” Carlisle said. “So let’s start there.”
Heather met his gaze.
“I don’t know what you see when you look at me. But I know what I saw the moment I looked at you.”
His voice was steady, but there was something caught underneath it. Something soft and almost reverent.
“For us — my kind — it’s a… visceral recognition. A bonding. When it happens, it’s unmistakable. And it’s rare.”
He hesitated. Swallowed.
“You, Heather… I knew. I knew you were mine. My mate.”
The words weren’t possessive. They were devotional. Quiet as prayer.
Heather blinked. “And you didn’t say anything?”
A faint, rueful smile. “Would you have believed me?”
Fair point. She more than likely would've run for the hills.
He went on.
“I’ve spent centuries trying to live in peace. To do no harm. But that night in your room… when I saw you afraid, when I realised how close I’d come to losing you… I felt something break loose in me. I would have torn down mountains to get to you. And that terrified me.”
He looked down at his hands, flexing them slowly. “Because it felt human,” he said. “Which I haven’t in a very long time.”
Heather was silent. The fire cracked again, as if it, too, was listening.
“One of my deepest regrets,” Carlisle said quietly, “is that I’ll never have children of my own. It was something I wanted… before. A family. A life filled with warmth and noise and meaning. I thought it was all taken from me when I was changed.”
His voice gentled further.
“But I have a family now. The ones I made — not by blood, but by choice. And I love them as fiercely as I imagine any father could.”
She saw the way his shoulders softened as he said it. How much it meant.
“When I was first turned,” he went on, “I starved myself. Days passed. I refused to feed. Not out of strength, but shame. I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting someone. I threw myself from a cliff in despair.”
Heather’s eyes widened.
“Did it work?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Carlisle gave a small, humourless smile. “Hardly. My body shattered the stone. I left a gash in the cliffside — not a scratch on me. I sank like a stone in the water. No breath. No heartbeat. Just silence.”
He paused. “I thought I’d die. But we don’t die easily.”
She watched him closely.
“When I finally fed, it was from a herd of deer. I discovered… I could survive this way. Without taking human life.”
He looked up at her. “It saved me. Gave me purpose.”
Heather let it sink in. This man — impossibly old, impossibly kind — had clawed his way back from despair. And now he was here. Sitting beside her. Telling her everything.
She asked, “How old are you?”
Carlisle glanced at the firelight like it might help him count. “I was born in 1640. Turned in 1663. I’ve… seen a great deal.”
Heather’s brow furrowed. “And yet, here you are. Letting some stubborn, angry woman yell at you in the rain.”
He smiled again. “Somehow, it seemed important.”
A silence stretched between them. Not cold now — just full.
Finally, he shifted forward, hands clasped together, voice a little stilted, like the words cost him to say properly.
“Heather…” He cleared his throat. “I know I may not speak in the ways you’re used to, but — I would like… to court you. That is, to pursue something genuine. Real. Between us.”
She blinked. “You want to court me?”
He nodded, expression serious.
“I don’t know where the future will take us. I’ve learned not to assume much. But I know I want to be beside you. I want to protect you, yes — but more than that. I want to know you. Share my life with you. If you’ll let me.”
He paused. “I don’t want to lose you, dear heart. Not now. Not when I’ve just begun to find you.”
Heather’s throat was tight. Her heart ached in the best and worst ways.
“Carlisle...,” she whispered. “Yes, I… I would like that.”
He looked up, startled.
“I mean it,” she said. “I don’t know what this is, either. But I’m here. And I’m tired of being afraid of it.”
His hand found hers again, slow and careful.
And this time, she laced her fingers with his.
Notes:
Ooooh and then they were dating
Chapter 13: The Weight of Wanting
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The house felt too quiet without her.
Carlisle stood in the doorway of his study, rain dripping faintly down the windows, as if the world itself were reluctant to let go of her warmth. Heather had left only minutes ago, hair still damp from the shower, drowning in clothes far too large — his clothes. The image of her standing in his hallway lingered like the scent of her skin in the cotton: soft, familiar, impossibly human.
They hadn’t spoken much after their conversation by the fire. There hadn’t been a need. Words had already done their work. He had walked her to door, her shoulder brushing his arm the entire way — small, steady contact that spoke of new trust.
And then, at the threshold, she had kissed him.
It hadn’t been urgent. It hadn’t needed to be. It was something quieter — a promise pressed to his mouth, her hand light at his jaw, grounding him in the moment. And for the first time in centuries, he had felt it: that aching, impossible thing he had thought lost to myth.
Hope.
She had pulled back with a smile, eyes uncertain but no longer afraid. "Tomorrow?" she had asked.
And he had nodded, dazed by the weight of something he’d spent a lifetime resisting. “Tomorrow, dear heart.”
His eyes followed her as she walked to her truck.
Now the door had closed behind her, and he was alone again — as he always was. As he was meant to be.
Carlisle turned from the study, the air in the room cooling as the fire dwindled. His hands hung at his sides, motionless. Useless.
He should have felt peace.
Instead, he felt it blooming in his chest — slow, inevitable, and dangerous.
Doubt.
Carlisle closed his eyes, forcing his hands to still at his sides. His breathing, a practiced illusion, remained even. But beneath the calm, something ancient writhed. A hollowness. A longing.
Heather. Fragile, bright, human. Her soul still whole. Her future still her own. And here he stood, deathless and damned, daring to want something he had no right to touch. To love. But he couldn’t help it, and now she had agreed to his courting. Part of him was overjoyed and the other was wary.
He thought of Aro.
The memory curdled in his gut like rot.
The marble halls of Volterra, the way Aro’s red eyes glittered with an insatiable hunger — not for blood, but for power, for knowledge, for weakness. He’d touched Carlisle’s hand, centuries ago, and smiled in that way he always did — like he already knew the end of every story.
“So restrained, my friend,” Aro had whispered. “So very noble. It will break you, in the end.”
Carlisle had left Volterra with a soul that felt thinner than parchment. The Volturi had answers, yes — but none that he could stomach. Their world was one of endless indulgence, of elegant, blood-soaked cruelty. It repelled him. He had turned away and never returned.
But he knew they still watched. Especially Aro.
If the Volturi discovered that he had a mate — and worse, a human mate — they would come. Aro would come. Curiosity and malice dressed in civility. They would see Heather not as a person, not as a soul worth preserving, but as a pawn. A pressure point. A wound. A woman with blades made of death. If word of that ever reached the Volturi—
Carlisle exhaled, and it caught in his throat despite the fact that he didn’t need breath.
And Victoria…
He opened his eyes. The rain had begun again, streaking the glass like veins of silver.
Heather had killed James. With hands that shook and bled. Warm hands, kind hands.
He thought of Edward, how he’d begged the boy’s forgiveness every year since the moment he turned him. The child had been dying — all alone after his parents death, burning up from the inside — and Carlisle had made the choice. He had pulled him from the brink. But was it mercy? Or was it selfishness? Loneliness? A desire to not face eternity alone?
He had asked himself that question for a century and never dared answer.
Rosalie, Emmett… none of them had come to this life by gentle means. Their stories were full of grief and pain. Every one of them bore a scar of Carlisle’s choosing. Even Alice and Jasper, who found their family through time and fate, lived within the structure he had built. And yet, every day he bore the guilt of having allowed this life to continue — for giving them eternity without asking what it would cost.
Heather.
He closed his eyes.
He couldn’t do it to her. Couldn’t.
To take her warmth, her humanity — her spirit — and bind it to this bloodless eternity? It would be violence. It would be unforgivable.
In time, she would know him like no one else had, she would truly learn who he was.
And maybe… she would hate him for it.
He could endure that. He would endure it, if it meant she was safe.
But Victoria — and worse still, Aro — were no longer distant shadows. They were circling. Hunting. Heather’s face was already in the crosshairs of vengeance and obsession.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands.
Hands that had once carried a crucifix. Hands that had held his father’s book of scripture. Hands that had pulled the dying from the edge — and handed them a different kind of death.
The fire popped softly behind him.
Carlisle stood, statue-still, in the centre of the warmth he could not feel.
.
The tires of Heather’s old truck crunched over the gravel as it pulled into the overgrown drive. The headlights cast long shadows across the garden, which, once lush and blooming under her care, now looked like a forgotten painting left out in the rain.
She sat behind the wheel for a long time, engine idling, fiddling with the keys between her fingers. The hum of the motor filled the space between her ears, dulling the quiet that waited outside. Eventually, she turned the key, and the engine gave one last growl before falling silent. The stillness that followed was almost too much.
Heather’s boots scuffed again the small stone path as she returned to her cottage for the first time in what felt like years, though only days had passed. The sky above Forks was its usual shade of grey, but now it felt different — less like a ceiling and more like a shroud. A quiet heaviness settled around her as she approached the low, ivy-draped roofline of her home.
She hesitated with the key in the door, palm resting against the wood, feeling its familiar texture — a little weather-worn, sun-bleached in places. She used to love that about it. That lived-in, handmade feel. Her fingers shook as she turned the lock. The door creaked open, and stale air greeted her.
It left a bad taste in her mouth. She opened a window, and the wind rushed in too quickly, too harsh — like the house was gasping for breath after being shut in too long. Dust motes danced in the invading grey light.
The warmth was gone.
Inside, the air was cooler than it should’ve been, heavy with the smell of earth and dried leaves. The hearth was empty, the curtains half-drawn. Her boots echoed too loud on the hardwood floor. The cottage wasn’t large, but it had always felt spacious in a comforting way — like breathing room. Now it felt cavernous, empty.
The once thriving plants on her windowsills — rosemary, creeping thyme, fernleaf lavender — drooped in their pots. The soil was dry, cracked in places, the rich scent of greenery faded to something flat. One trailing pothos had yellowed at the edges, its vine curled in on itself like it was recoiling. The herbs hanging above her kitchen window had browned, the dried lavender crushed to dust beneath her fingers.
Heather stood in the centre of the living room, just staring. Her hand drifted to the small table where she once kept her Nan’s teacup, the old ceramic now chipped. She had forgotten to move it before she left. A fine layer of dust had settled over everything. Nothing had changed — and yet everything had.
Her mouth twitched as she bit the inside of her lip.
The kettle on the stove, the mismatched mugs, the old woollen blanket draped over the worn armchair — they were all as she left them, but the feeling of safety was gone.
She walked into the small bedroom, dragging her hand across the edge of the bedframe, feeling the divots in the wood. She sat heavily on the edge of the mattress. It creaked beneath her weight, as if unused to it now.
The daggers sat on the nightstand where she’d placed them hours before. Cold. Silent. Out of place in a room that had once been about growing things, nurturing things.
Now they seemed to fit in quite perfectly.
The plants would need tending. The cups and dishes needed washing. The clothes on the floor needed hanging. The garden would need reviving.
She decided to do none of those things.
Heather sat curled beneath her woollen blanket, knees hugged tightly to her chest, fingers buried deep in the folds of the fabric like she could anchor herself there, like she wouldn’t float away if she just held on tight enough.
Her skin was goose-pimpled with cold and exhaustion, but she didn’t move. The air in the cottage still smelled like emptiness. No rosemary oil, no earthy warmth of herbs drying on their string, no steam curling from a kettle left too long on the stove.
It doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
She didn’t know when the shift had happened. Maybe the moment she saw Bella tied up on the floor. Maybe the moment a man with blood-red eyes smiled like he already owned her death. Maybe the moment she stood over his crumpled body, the bone daggers sweat slick in her shaking hands. She didn’t want to think about that moment too much. It didn’t feel real — and yet it pressed against her skin like a brand. Like it would never stop burning.
God. What if I’d been just a second slower? What if the daggers didn’t work? What if…
She buried her face in her knees for a moment and breathed out slowly. Her body was stiff and aching. She could still feel the bruises across her body from where she hit the concrete. Her arm was no longer bandaged but the scab was itchy on her flesh. There was a tightness in her chest that wouldn’t go away.
This isn’t my life. I don’t kill monsters.
But she had.
And the worst part was — she’d do it again. Without hesitation. For Bella, for anyone she loved, she’d hold a knife with bloodless knuckles. She’d stand between them and something ancient and awful.
Even if she was terrified.
She stared into the pictures on the walls but saw nothing of them.
What she saw was Herefordshire — not the memory, but the ache of it. The long stretch of the village green in early summer, where bunting flapped in the wind and the scent of jam tarts and cut grass lingered in the air. Her Nan’s cottage with its sloping roof and ivy-covered stone, the faded paint on the windowsill. The sun-warmed stones beneath her bare feet.
Back to Herefordshire. Back to the mossy brick walls and the hedgerows thick with blackberries. Back to where summer days stretched long and sleepy, where the air smelled of hay and rain and bonfires.
She could see it in her mind’s eye: the village green, the way the bunting fluttered in the wind during the summer fête. Her mum, standing with arms folded, judging jam tarts and different types of cheese like her opinion was divine scripture. The laughter, the dogs chasing each other under picnic tables, the breeze tugging at her hair as she leaned on a fence post and watched children throw beanbags at tin cans.
That had felt safe.
I want that again. I want to wake up and not be scared of shadows. I want my hands to smell like lavender and soil, not blood and sweat. I want to look at someone I care about and not wonder what else they’re hiding.
She picked at a thread in the blanket, pulling it loose with restless fingers. A small hole opened up in the weave.
Is that what this is now? Just gaps in things I thought were whole?
Heather rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, feeling a sting of exhaustion settle behind her eyelids. She wanted to cry, but the tears were stuck somewhere in her chest, stubborn and heavy. Her thoughts felt like smoke — curling, choking, impossible to hold.
Out the window, the trees swayed gently in the wind, dark silhouettes against the dimming sky. The moon was rising.
She sighed, long and low, and leaned her head against the cushion behind her. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. Victoria was still out there, like a ghost with red hair.
All she knew was that for now, she was still alive.
And she had to keep going.
Even if it was just one breath at a time.
She missed the sound of her Nan’s voice. The certainty in it, even when she was telling the most impossible stories. Vampires. Wolves. Old things with ancient eyes. Heather had laughed at those tales. They were charming, in the way ghosts were — just far enough removed to be thrilling. But her Nan had never laughed. “You’ll feel it, when they come. A shift in the air. A stillness in the trees.”
Heather had thought she understood what fear was. But this — this sick, hollow churn in her chest — this was something new. Something she hadn’t been prepared for.
She looked around her empty house — all muted tones and quiet familiarity — and felt like a trespasser.
And Carlisle…
She’d let herself fall into him. In the gentle smile. The quiet steadiness. The hands that had tended to her cuts with such care. She’d fallen and couldn’t remember when it had started. When her precious balance had tipped her over the edge and now she was stuck in the middle of it. Free-falling without a parachute.
Things had gone from complicated to complicated with mutual feelings.
And then he’d asked to court her. The word had caught her breath — so sweet, so deliberate. Old-fashioned in the way that felt like promise, not performance. Like he didn’t just want her now, but wanted to earn the right to stand beside her. To know her. To love her without rushing it.
That terrified her almost more than the kiss they’d shared. Because it felt real. Unshakably, terrifyingly real.
This wasn’t a passing crush or a moment born from adrenaline and near-death. It was rooted now. Settled in the corners of her thoughts. Warming the space behind her ribs.
And worst of all — or maybe best — she wanted it. Wanted him.
Not the myth of him, not the immortal calm or perfect hands. But the man beneath all of that. The one who had starved himself out of guilt. Who spoke in reverent tones and carried centuries of regret like a second skin.
She wanted all of him.
Heather pressed her palm to her forehead. There was a thin scab along her brow from the night everything shattered — a line of pain she hadn’t felt until she was alone. Her body bore the bruises and cuts of it.
She missed the simplicity of her old life — the one before Bella, before the garden at the Cullens, before the scent of ash and bloodless death hung in her memory.
She looked down at her hands, still scabbed from clutching the bone daggers, still trembling if she held them too long. They’d saved her life. Saved Bella’s.
But now they just looked alien. Too still. As if they didn’t belong to the girl she’d been before.
She blew out a slow breath, trying to force the rising weight in her chest back down. It didn’t work. The silence in the room was loud — the kind that settled between the ribs and made every breath feel like a question. She didn’t want to sit with it any longer.
She needed someone who could understand.
Heather grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter and hesitated only a moment before tapping out the message:
You free? I could use company. Not really feeling the whole ‘being alone with my thoughts’ thing.
She hovered over the send button, thumb twitching, then added:
Also, you might be the only person who understands how bonkers this all feels.
Send.
The reply came barely a minute later.
Bella: I’m on my way. Will bring tea. Or chocolate. Or both.
Heather smiled faintly despite herself.
Of all the people she could talk to about this — Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, Jasper, even Edward — it was Bella who felt closest to the chaos. Bella, who had fallen headfirst into the same storm. Who had kissed the immortal and lived with the consequences.
She didn’t need perfect advice or logical reassurance. She just needed someone who wouldn’t flinch when she said, “I think I’m in love with a vampire.” Someone who wouldn’t tell her to run.
Heather moved to the living room, tugged a blanket off the back of the couch, and wrapped it around herself like armour. The borrowed clothes still smelled faintly of Carlisle — and somehow, that helped.
As the rain deepened outside, she lit a candle and waited, heart a little steadier now. Because she wouldn’t have to weather this part alone.
.
The knock came just as the rain picked up, soft and steady against the windows. Heather pulled the door open, one hand still clutching the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she said, a tired smile tugging at her lips.
Bella stepped inside, damp from the rain but smiling all the same. She shrugged off her jacket, water dripping from the hem, and held up a paper bag.
“Chocolate and tea,” she said. “As requested.”
“You’re a goddess,” Heather murmured, stepping aside to let her in fully.
They settled into the living room, the candle flickering gently on the coffee table between them. Heather passed Bella a mug, curled back into the armchair, and tried to find the right place to begin.
It was Bella who spoke first, her voice quieter than usual. “So… you and Carlisle?”
Heather looked down into her tea, steam curling toward her face. “Yeah,” she said softly. “He asked to court me.”
Bella blinked. “He what?”
“I know. It sounds like something out of pride and prejudice. But… it felt honest. Real.” She met Bella’s gaze. “It wasn’t just words. It was him.”
Bella nodded slowly, her expression unreadable for a moment. Then she said, “I want that. With Edward.”
Heather’s breath caught. “Bella…”
“I’ve already told him. I want to be changed.”
There it was. The thing Heather had feared would come. The thing that made her stomach twist.
She sat up a little straighter. “Bella, you’re eighteen.”
Bella rolled her eyes. “So?”
“So… that’s young.” Heather’s voice stayed gentle, but firm. “Too young to make an irreversible decision like this.”
Bella frowned. “You don’t understand—”
“No, I do,” Heather interrupted. “I really do. I understand what it’s like to love someone who feels larger than life. Who makes you feel like everything else fades into the background. But Bella… being in love doesn’t mean you stop growing. It doesn’t mean you stop needing time.”
Bella folded her arms. “If I wait, I’ll get older. And he won’t. People will notice. It’ll get weird. What then?”
“You deal with it,” Heather said. “You find a way that doesn’t involve trading your entire life for someone else’s.” She paused, choosing her words. “If I had made the decisions I wanted at eighteen, Bella… I would’ve been married to a guy with a Vespa and a tattoo of his ex-girlfriend on his neck. And I’d probably be living in a shared flat over a kebab shop.”
That earned a reluctant laugh.
Heather leaned forward, voice softer now. “Your brain is still developing. You’re still becoming. And this — this — isn’t like getting a bad tattoo. This is forever. No do-overs. No mornings waking up and deciding you want something different.”
Bella looked at her, quiet. Her eyes shimmered with something that wasn’t quite tears. “You sound like my mom.”
“Good,” Heather said gently. “Because I think you need someone who’s not trying to protect your feelings — just trying to protect you.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Bella said, with the ghost of a smile, “This coming from the woman wearing her centuries-old vampire boyfriend’s sweatpants.”
Heather smirked. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Bella gave a low chuckle, curling up further on the couch, fingers tightening around her mug.
Heather watched her, heart aching just a little. “Just… give yourself time, okay? You don’t need to rush into anything. Not with Edward. Especially not with Edward.”
Bella narrowed her eyes playfully. “Was that a sex talk?”
“It was a please-don’t-let-immortality-cloud-your-judgment talk.”
“You’re such a hypocrite.”
Heather smiled. “The best kind.”
They both laughed then, the room warm again, the tension softened by friendship. And for the first time in a while, Heather felt like maybe — just maybe — she could be the kind of influence Bella needed. Not perfect. Not infallible. But present. Steady.
Someone who would fight for the girl still growing inside her. Even when Bella didn’t know how.
Notes:
Seriously, I am very glad my mum stopped me doing certain things at 18. yeesh. England during summertime is honestly so beautiful, its such a shame its only like that for such a short period of time.
Chapter 14: Beneath the Burning Fir
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The forest had never been so quiet.
Edward stood beneath the skeletal remains of a fir tree scorched by lightning some years ago, the bark brittle and black beneath his pale fingers. He wasn’t breathing. Not that he needed to — but because in the absence of thought, he hunted sound.
Still nothing.
No sign of her.
He opened his eyes slowly. Jasper stood a few yards off, perched like a statue in the crook of a bent pine, scanning the treeline with his sharpened senses. Emmett had gone south, hoping to pick up some trace of scent or sign. Alice had turned in a slow circle miles back, trying and failing to see anything in her visions — every path leading to nothing.
Victoria was gone.
Not dead. Not surrendered. Gone.
It had been o week since the incident at the construction site — since James had met his end by the impossible hands of a terrified human girl wielding daggers carved from supernatural bone. Since Bella had nearly died, and Heather’s carefully-built life had been shattered. The aftermath had been a hurricane of silence and tension, and none of them — not even Carlisle — had expected what came next: nothing.
No attacks. No movement.
No Victoria.
The Cullens searched. Edward ranged as far as Oregon, as far as northern California, trying to pick up a thought — any thought. He had once found her before she could move a finger. Now her mind was closed to him. Gone beyond the veil of his talent, as though she no longer was.
It wasn’t possible. She was somewhere. And she was hunting.
He could feel it.
Back at the house, the mood had shifted into something taut and grave. The living room was hushed, the usual flippant remarks from Emmett and teasing from Alice absent. Rosalie had been increasingly sharp — not out of disinterest, but fear. Victoria was a rogue mate. And mated vampires were never rational. They were patient, yes. But they were cruel.
“She’s waiting,” Rosalie had muttered one night, arms crossed over her chest. “Waiting for the right moment. When Heather’s alone. When she least expects it.”
“And what if she’s already gone?” Emmett had said. “What if she ran off somewhere to lick her wounds?”
“Victoria doesn’t run,” Alice said quietly from where she sat on the staircase. “She waits. I keep trying to see something — anything — and it’s just… blank. It’s like she’s under water.”
That, more than anything, chilled Edward. Alice’s gift was already delicate around Bella, unpredictable at best. But Victoria? Victoria had vanished off the grid of time itself.
Carlisle hadn’t spoken during the argument. He’d stood behind the sofa, his hands pressed tightly together, brow deeply furrowed. Only when everyone else had left the room did Edward hear his father’s thoughts: fractured and uneasy.
"If she comes back… if she finds Heather… I can’t…"
Edward hadn’t pried. He didn’t need to. Carlisle’s feelings were a storm barely held in check — a lifetime of restraint battered by the presence of something he could no longer deny. He had seen the way he looked at Heather, the way his hands trembled when tending to her wounds, the desperation behind his eyes when she refused their help.
Heather had become more than a gardener with quiet strength and strange weapons. She was a vulnerability Carlisle couldn’t hide — not from Edward, not from himself.
And that terrified him.
Edward paced back outside. He glanced at Jasper, who had just dropped silently to the forest floor.
“Nothing,” Jasper muttered. “It’s like she was never here. No scent trail. No broken branches. No recent kill. You’d think she was never here to begin with.”
Edward didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.
Together they made their way back to the edge of the forest. The night was thick, the sky overcast, moonlight buried in the clouds. The Cullen house stood in the distance — a warm beacon of light against the trees — but there was no comfort in its glow. Only more questions.
A day later as they re-entered the house, Alice looked up from the dining table, eyes wide and watchful. Jasper shook his head once. Still nothing.
“She’s must still be here,” Rosalie said again, pacing now.
Carlisle came down from his study at the sound of the front door closing. His eyes moved across them all — first to Edward, then Alice, then the rest.
Still nothing.
“She’s gone,” he said softly, finally giving voice to the thought none of them wanted to say aloud.
It fell like stone between them.
Edward pressed his fingertips to his forehead. Rubbing a headache that could never form.
“Who’s protecting Heather?” Carlisle asked.
“Emmett and Jasper have been rotating with Rosalie,” Alice answered.
Carlisle nodded.
“Let me search further” Edward said. “Let me try.”
“No,” Carlisle replied immediately.
“She’s part of this. She saved Bella’s life.” Edward reasoned.
“That’s exactly why she’s in danger.” Carlisle’s voice was strained. “the longer she’s exposed, the more likely Victoria is to act. And… the more likely someone else will notice her.”
They all knew what he meant. The Volturi.
Edward grimaced, reading Carlisle’s mind as he thought of Aro. The quiet tension between the two. The way Aro had always had a fascination with those who dared carve their own path. The way he would love to hear about a mortal woman who killed one of their own with daggers made of vampire bone and werewolf fang.
Edward’s throat tightened.
“We’re running out of time,” he said. “If she’s not here, she’s planning. And if she’s planning, she’ll come back with more than grief. She’ll come for blood.”
Carlisle closed his eyes.
And still, no answer came.
There was no scent, no scream, no distant howl to give them direction. Only the silence.
.
The morning had been unusually still in Volterra.
Clouds sagged low in the sky, heavy with the promise of rain that never quite came. The wind wound its way through the narrow stone alleys like a whisper, tugging gently at awnings and skirts, rattling a café sign with a soft, uneven rhythm.
Chiara wiped her hands on the back of her apron and stepped out of the café’s front archway, tray in hand. The usual hum of tourists filled the piazza, though quieter now that the season was winding down. Americans snapping photos of the clocktower. A British couple arguing over a guidebook. A priest with his collar undone, smoking near the fountain.
It was an ordinary day. Slow. Predictable. The way she liked it.
She shifted the tray on her hip, coffee cups rattling gently. Her eyes lifted, drifting lazily across the square as she took a step forward—
—and then froze.
A woman.
At first Chiara thought perhaps she was imagining it. Like catching a face in a painting that doesn’t belong. This woman did not look real.
She walked slowly, deliberately, a figure carved in motion. Her red hair — red — not auburn or ginger, but the exact shade of autumn leaves falling in fire — fell in sleek waves down her back, catching the overcast light like silk. Her skin was luminous, pale in a way that made her seem dusted with powdered marble, almost luminous beneath the greying sky. Her lips were parted slightly, her expression unreadable, her eyes a brilliant russet, focused ahead.
Chiara felt the breath catch in her throat.
She barely noticed her wrist tilting, coffee trembling dangerously in the cup. She righted the tray just in time — heart stuttering — eyes still fixed on the woman gliding through the edge of the crowd, untouched by the bustle, unbothered by the wind.
There was something about her. Something wrong. But not in the way that frightened.
In the way that lured.
Chiara took a single step forward, almost without realizing, as though compelled to follow, to call out—*Wait…*
But the woman was already past her. Her feet made no sound on the stone. Her coat — black, thin, antique in cut — swirled slightly behind her as she turned down a narrow alley at the far side of the piazza. An alley few tourists ever wandered.
Chiara blinked.
Her eyes shifted upward. The alley led toward the Palazzo dei Priori, the ancient heart of Volterra. More than a medieval seat of governance — it was old. Older. A place thick with legend. There were whispers, always, about what lay beneath. About shadows that lived longer than men should.
Chiara swallowed hard.
The woman with the red hair was heading toward the building. Toward the iron-gated doors sealed in shadow.
She shivered.
A man nearby asked for sugar. She startled, blinking hard, the tray wobbling again in her grip.
“Mi scusi,” she muttered, turning back toward the café with the unsettling sensation that something had passed very close to her — something dangerous and terrible and divine — and that she had brushed the hem of it without knowing.
Far behind her, the gates of the old stone building creaked once.
Then closed.
Notes:
Short one, but I can absolutely assure you the next chapter is worth it, baby. A little glimpse into something other than Forks! What is Victoria up to omg! Also I would like to add, Alice's line of "Its like she's under water." was actually true, Victoria was underwater crossing the sea to get to Italy, dun dun dun.
Chapter 15: Morning Came Not With a Shiver
Notes:
Little warning here for you all, there are scenes of an intimate nature coming up, so if that isn't your thing, please do skip this one. Thank you.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Morning came not with a shiver, but with a golden hush. The sun, so often a stranger to Forks, arrived like an honoured guest—pouring through the lace curtains of Heather’s cottage with reverence, as if even the heavens had resolved to let her rest a little more gently today.
Bella had left late the night before, declining Heather’s offer to stay on the sofa with a tired but grateful smile. Their goodbye had been quiet, warm — a hug at the door, shared understanding lingering between them like smoke.
She stirred slowly beneath the linen sheets, half expecting the gloom to greet her as it always had. But instead, her eyelids fluttered open to pale sunlight stretched across the wooden floorboards in long ribbons of warmth. The walls, dulled by the long grey weeks, now glowed softly. Dust motes danced like pollen on the air.
It was beautiful.
She lay still for a moment, listening to the hush of the trees outside and the faint call of birdsong, crisp and clear through the open window. The weight in her chest—the heaviness that had clung to her like wet wool—felt lighter, not gone, but gentled.
She rose from her prone position, body stiff, feet pressing into the cool grain of the floor. The air smelled like earth and sun-warmed leaves, and as she padded into the kitchen barefoot, the silence felt less hollow than it had the night before. The kettle rattled faintly as it heated on the stove, and she moved with slow, deliberate motions—wiping down the counters, folding yesterday’s dishtowel with care.
It was strange how the most ordinary acts could feel like prayer.
Heather stepped outside with her tea, into the pale brilliance of morning. Her garden, though weary and bruised, had not given up entirely. Some of the leaves were bowed with neglect, the herbs curled in on themselves, and the lavender had browned at the tips—but there was still green, still a quiet persistence in the soil. She knelt in the damp grass and cupped a marigold in her palm.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm here now."
There was no answer, of course—just the rustle of wind in the trees and the warmth of the sun on her face. But it felt right to say it anyway.
She spent the morning tending gently to the damage: snipping dead leaves with care, loosening the soil around thirsty roots, whispering apologies to her plants. Her fingertips were soon stained with earth, her nails rimmed in brown—but for the first time in what felt like weeks, her breath came easy.
It was almost noon before she sat again—this time on the back step, a trowel still in hand, her cup long cold beside her. The sunlight filtered through her hair, warming her scalp and shoulders, and she closed her eyes for a long moment, letting the silence fill her.
The world felt quieter in the sun. Less like something holding its breath.
Her mind, though still tender, found no new horrors waiting behind her eyelids. No red-eyed monsters. No firelight on marble skin. No echoing silence in the aftermath of violence.
Just sunlight. And birdsong. And the slow return of something like hope.
The road ahead was uncertain—still thick with shadow, with questions unanswered, and dangers unnamed—but for today, for this one rare day, the light had found her.
And that was enough.
Heather heard the car before she saw it—quiet, sleek, and precise, like everything about him. It didn’t rumble or roar up the gravel drive like her old truck did. No, this sound was more like a breath gliding through air.
She stood just past the garden gate, her hands still streaked faintly with soil, when he stepped out of the driver’s side.
The sun chose that exact moment to break free from the cloud cover overhead. Its light spilled in golden waves across the cottage lawn, and suddenly, there he was—fully illuminated.
Carlisle Cullen.
She had seen him many times before—countless times, even—but never like this. Never unshaded. Never bared to the light.
The sun chose that exact moment to break free... and suddenly, there he was—fully illuminated.
His skin caught the sun and fractured it into a thousand fragments of refracted light. His face shimmered faintly, like he was dusted in fine diamond powder, not enough to blind, but enough to draw the breath from her lungs. It was not garish or unnatural—it was otherworldly. Not of this place, not of this earth. Beautiful in the kind of way that made your chest ache a little.
Heather’s fingers tightened around the edge of the gate, steadying herself.
His jaw was square and defined, the lines of his face cut with the sort of impossible symmetry that belonged more to statues than to men. A cleft sat faintly at the centre of his chin, subtle but perfect. His cheekbones were high, aristocratic. His skin was impossibly smooth, pale like porcelain but without flaw, and his lips—normally set in a calm, professional line—looked softer in the light. Kind, almost mournful.
His hair was the colour of spun gold darkened by amber: a warm, sophisticated blond that had been styled with intention, though it tousled just slightly in the breeze. Not stiff or sharp, but gently sweeping back from his forehead, almost like an afterthought—effortless, timeless.
He wore a light, charcoal-grey coat over a crisp white shirt—collar open, sleeves pushed back at the forearms. The fabric hugged his frame in clean, modern lines, tailored to perfection. His trousers were a deep navy, his shoes black leather. Simple. Refined.
He was—undeniably—one of the most handsome men Heather had ever seen in her life.
But there was something deeper than his appearance that struck her now. In this rare sunlight, free from shadows and fear, she could see it clearly: the stillness in his expression. The composure that went beyond calmness—something ancient, something held back. Something carved into his bones like history.
He wasn’t smiling. But he wasn’t frowning either.
He was watching her. Carefully. As though unsure if he had the right to cross the threshold.
And for a moment, just a moment, Heather forgot every nightmare she had lived through in the past few weeks. Every shadow. Every whispered name. Every crimson eye in the dark.
She saw only the man standing before her in sunlight.
For a breathless second, Heather said nothing.
She just stood, sun-warmed and windblown, in the space between her battered garden and the man who looked like he had stepped from the pages of some Victorian novel—too refined for this muddy little world, too still.
It was disarming, how quiet everything had become. As though the garden itself was holding its breath. The birdsong had stopped. Even the breeze had softened, brushing only the edge of her sleeve.
She’d spent weeks trying to bury the ache of uncertainty, stuffing it down with blankets and firelight and hands in the dirt. But standing here now, with him gleaming like a fallen star on her cottage path, it all rushed back up.
She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.
Because then he said her name.
"Heather," he said gently, and her heart lurched.
There was something in the way he spoke it—a subtle curve at the edge of the syllables. A faint but unmistakable lilt. Like the way someone long-exiled might pronounce a word in their native tongue by accident. Like an old melody breaking through static.
Carlisle Cullen had always sounded calm, controlled—his voice in Forks had the polished cadence of a well-educated American doctor: soft, articulate, perfectly measured. But now… now it was different.
There was something distinctly English in the way her name passed over his tongue, despite the decades of practiced suppression. That lingering trace of old London, softened over centuries but never quite lost. A slight, almost imperceptible rise at the end, like a question wrapped in reverence. The ‘th’ sounded sharper, more defined — as though he couldn’t quite let go of the way it had once been taught to him.
It reminded her of how he sounded in the hospital that first time—when she was still just the girl with dirt under her nails and a cut on her hand. How his voice had struck her as peculiar then, oddly placed for the region. Now she realised what she had heard wasn’t just formality. It was heritage. Something ancient, something aching with restraint.
She exhaled shakily, not realising she’d been holding her breath.
There were words clawing up her throat—a greeting, a smile, easy words and company—but none of them came out.
He took a single step closer, alert.
Heather’s fingers, still curled over the garden gate, twitched.
And it hit her again—how absurd all of this was. The soft petals of deadheaded pansies at her feet. The ghost of her Nan’s voice in the soil. And now this—this impossible man, gilded in sunlight, saying her name like it meant something ancient and sacred.
She opened the gate.
And let him in.
The door shut behind them with a soft click that echoed too loudly in the silence. Neither spoke.
Heather stood just inside the threshold, her back to the wood, the faint creak of the hinges still trembling in her ears. Carlisle remained only a few steps away, the sunlight now falling across the wooden floorboards in slender ribbons, catching the golden flecks in his hair, his eyes. He didn’t glow like a fantasy. He shimmered like something trapped between worlds—too alive to be dead, too still to be human.
Heather’s pulse thundered in her ears, so loud she was sure he could hear it. She could feel the distance between them, every inch of it, humming with tension. It was maddening. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. The silence stretched, suspended like a thread about to snap.
He took one breath. She took another.
His eyes flickered to her mouth.
Snap.
Her hands shot forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt. She yanked him down with something between desperation and fury, and their mouths met hard. There was nothing sweet about it. No caution, no pause. Just heat and hunger and the collision of two people who had been holding themselves back for too long.
Carlisle’s hands flew to her waist, grounding her—but it wasn’t enough. Not after everything. Not after weeks of tension, longing, fear. Heather pressed herself up against him, anchoring herself to his impossible frame, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck. She moaned softly into his mouth, startled by how cold he was, and yet how that chill only ignited something more inside her.
It was like kissing marble lit from within. He tasted like something ancient, something forbidden. His restraint was gone. Shattered.
She felt the moment he gave in.
He turned them, swift but careful, and pressed her back against the door. One hand came up to cradle the back of her head, protective even now. His mouth devoured hers with such reverence, it almost undid her.
Her legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, climbing him like ivy up a statue. Carlisle caught her effortlessly, one arm slipping beneath her thighs, the other braced behind her back. Her hips met his in a sudden rush of heat and cold—startling, electric.
Her back pressed against the door again, hard. The wood groaned. She barely noticed. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her mouth opening under his. The way he held her—close, locked in, as if she were weightless—made her feel both fragile and indestructible.
His hand slid down her thigh, gripping just above the back of her knee to hold her there, steady against him. Her body arched instinctively, seeking more, and he groaned into her mouth.
She gasped as his cold tongue slid against hers—startling, electric.
And then they just stayed there, locked together, in the golden silence of the morning.
The room pulsed with sunlight, soft and warm, the only thing warm between them. Everything else was friction and cold skin and held breath.
And still, not a word had been spoken.
Their mouths met with a hunger he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in his entire life. It was rough. Breathless. Unrelenting. She tasted like warmth, like life, and it undid him.
He held her as if she weighed nothing, his hand splaying across the back of her thigh, pressing her closer—hips aligned, breath tangled.
The cold of him startled her at first—but only for a moment. She welcomed it, arms tightening around his shoulders, hands threading into his hair.
He groaned softly—a sound ripped from somewhere deep, buried and forgotten. His self-control strained with every passing second.
You cannot, his mind protested, you swore you would not... His father's sermons echoed in the back of his mind, words about purity, restraint, the eternal damnation of the body and blood. His vows of chastity. His centuries of discipline. It was all cracking like thin ice beneath the weight of her.
As he shifted, moving closer to her, the motion pulled his shirt further open. A fine glint of gold slipped free from beneath the collar.
A small cross.
It slipped from beneath his shirt—half-unbuttoned, nearly torn now—and swung forward like a pendulum, catching the light.
But then she whispered—hoarse, trembling, desperate:
"I need you."
Something shattered.
His mouth never left hers as her hands slid to the collar of his shirt. With a violent tug, the remaining buttons popped—scattering like glass across the hardwood floor. He gasped against her lips as her palms found his chest—marble-firm, cold, but somehow still his. Still real.
And her touch... Her touch.
He kissed her harder, deeper, his hands running along her spine, gripping her hips. Taking handfuls of soft, warm skin. He was losing himself—finally, beautifully, terrifyingly.
But even in the chaos, some fractured piece of him whispered.
You’ll stain her soul. She’s grace incarnate, and you—corruption in the shape of a man.
Still, he couldn’t stop.
Not now.
Carlisle pressed her back more firmly against the door, the full length of his body moulded to hers now, all unyielding marble and cold tension. Heather felt the weight of him—not crushing, never—but present, undeniable. There was no distance left. Her thighs tightened around his hips, breath stuttering as his mouth moved from hers to her jaw, then down the delicate line of her throat. She could feel the tremble in his restraint.
His lips were reverent, but his hands betrayed him—no longer gentle, no longer the careful doctor. They roamed with purpose. Fingers memorised the slope of her waist, the curve of her spine, the trembling need in her hips. She gasped as he bit softly at the hollow of her neck, not hard enough to mark, but enough to draw a whimper from her. Such restraint, even now.
Heather’s hands pushed the ruined fabric of his shirt from his shoulders, and it fell, forgotten, onto the floor. Her palms mapped the ridges of his chest, the hollow where his heart should beat but didn’t. And yet—he felt alive. He felt like the storm she'd spent weeks sensing on the horizon, and now it was finally here, crashing into her.
Carlisle’s mind was a warzone. Logic clawed at the edges, tried to surface. You could kill her. You shouldn’t. She’s human. She’s mortal. She’s not yours. Not yet. But something darker surged up to meet it—an ancient craving not just for her touch, but her soul, her everything. You’re damned anyway. He needed her in ways he didn’t have language for.
His lips returned to hers, searing cold and dizzying. She was warm, flushed, and pliant in his arms. Every movement from her undid him further. Her hips rolled against his, drawing a guttural noise from somewhere deep in his chest. He hadn’t made a sound like that in since he was first turned. Primal, raw, vampire. It didn’t even sound like him.
She reached down between them, fumbling at her clothes—desperate, breathless. He caught her hands. Not roughly, not to stop her—but to pause. For a flicker of a moment, their eyes met. Her pupils were blown wide, lips parted, hair mussed from his hands, from their kissing, from the sheer force of what they’d become.
He looked at her like a drowning man looks at the surface of the water.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, voice a rasp of ache and reverence. The words were more breath than sound.
Heather gave him her answer not in words, but in action—leaning up, lips brushing his.
“Say it,” he rasped, needing her to tether him to her choice.
She murmured again, low and hoarse, “I need you.”
And he broke. Again.
Clothes were shed in hurried motions. Her skin against his made him dizzy with sensation—hot and soft, in contrast to his cold, perfect stillness. The chill of him made her gasp, but it wasn't unpleasant. It was sharp, electrifying. Like plunging into a river on a hot summer’s day.
His mouth never left hers for long. His hands were everywhere—her hips, her waist, her thighs—grasping as though afraid she'd vanish beneath him.
And when they finally came together, it was all-consuming.
Heather cried out softly, her head falling back against the door. He caught it again, always cradling her with that underlying thread of care—still a doctor, still Carlisle, even here, even now. Even as he thrust into her with a need he had buried for hundreds of years.
She felt him tremble. Him. The ancient, composed, restrained man of knowledge and quiet smiles—trembled for her. Every slow grind of his hips, every stolen kiss, every moan against her throat, was a surrender. She had fistfuls of his hair in her hand as he looked upon her reverently, in prayer, in salvation. Mouth open, browns furrowed, eyes black with hunger and restraint.
And in that moment, she understood something he would never say aloud:
This wasn’t just want. It wasn’t even just need.
It was devotion. Worship. The collapse of centuries of silence.
It was the sound of someone remembering what it meant to feel.
Carlisle moved with a control that bordered on agony.
Every instinct, every primal urge within him screamed to take, to bury himself in her warmth and never come up for air. Her scent filled his every breath—human, sweet, uniquely hers. The blood that coursed just beneath the surface of her skin called to him louder than it ever had with any other mortal. It pulsed like a second heartbeat beneath his own dead chest.
And still—he held back.
His movements were careful, trembling on the edge of feral. He thrust slowly, precisely, guiding her body to accommodate his with reverence, listening for the catch in her breath, the sound of pain. There was none—only gasps and moans and soft, urgent whimpers that made his restraint falter. But never fail.
She clung to him, fingers buried in his hair, the back of his neck, her legs wrapped around his hips, guiding him deeper. Carlisle groaned lowly, pressing his forehead to hers, his eyes clenched shut. Every muscle in his body was taut, every tendon straining as though he were holding up a world that might crumble if he let go.
Heather whispered something—he didn’t catch it. He only felt the words against his lips, the shape of them. She kissed him again, desperate and open and trusting.
The sheer faith she placed in him nearly undid him.
A particularly deep thrust had her cry out, fingernails digging into the ridges of his shoulders.
And then—
Crack.
The door behind her splintered beneath the force of his hand.
The sound snapped through the air like a whip. A jagged crack sliced through the panel just beside her head.
Carlisle stilled instantly, horror in his eyes.
But Heather didn’t flinch. Her hand cupped his cheek, pulling him back to her, breathless but steady.
“It’s just a door,” she whispered, voice sure.
His eyes searched hers—pleading, guilt-ridden, torn. How could she still want him, knowing what he was?
But she moved her hips against his, and he groaned again, the sound ripped from his throat. He buried his face in her neck, nuzzling the space just beneath her jaw, the most vulnerable place on her body, where her pulse raced wild and free. He could end it all here—if he lost control. If he gave in.
But he wouldn’t.
He couldn’t.
So instead, he rocked into her again, gently now, drawing every sound from her with his mouth on her collarbone and his hand cradling the back of her thigh. He kissed her jaw, her temple, her shoulder, almost like he was apologizing with each press of his lips.
Heather arched against him, whispering his name. The way it sounded on her tongue nearly brought him to his knees.
He moved them carefully away from the ruined door, carrying her as though she weighed nothing, guiding her onto the soft rug near the fireplace. There, he lay her down gently, never leaving her body, never letting her go.
His eyes drank her in—flushed skin, swollen lips, hair like a halo spread across the floor.
He felt like a man unravelled. His golden hair tousled, shirt long gone, he had only his socks on. He was breathing even though he didn’t need to. He was shaking.
And yet, still, he moved with precision. With care. As though every moment might be their last, and he didn’t want to miss a single flicker of her expression, or the tremble in her sighs.
They found rhythm again, slower now, deeper. Heather moaned into his mouth, hands in his hair, her entire being wrapped around him.
"That's it," she whispered, voice hushed and steady, anchoring him. Her hands cupped his face, guiding him. "Just like that."
He exhaled raggedly, his forehead tipping to hers, eyes closing in quiet relief. She could feel the tension in his jaw, in his shoulders—restraint threaded through every inch of him.
Heather kissed him then, softly, slowly. Along the line of his jaw, across the curve of his cheekbone, down to the corner of his mouth. Kisses like small prayers. Like she was blessing each part of him.
"Just like that," she murmured again, lips brushing his. Reassurance. Permission.
Carlisle’s breath hitched, and something in him eased.
When her body finally tensed, breath hitching, back arched—Carlisle nearly fell apart. Her release was soft, broken by little gasps against his lips. Her eyes rolled. He followed moments later, pulling out, venom coating her belly and thighs, letting out a sound he didn’t know he could make—raw, hoarse, full of something deeper than need. Something like grief—and hope. The kind of sound only made by a man who’d forgotten how to feel, and now felt everything at once.
He collapsed above her, careful not to crush her, supporting his weight on trembling arms. He’d never felt anything like this before. She held him, fingers trailing lightly along his spine.
Neither of them spoke.
There were no words big enough for what had just passed between them.
Carlisle’s forehead pressed to hers. His eyes fluttered closed.
He didn’t deserve this.
And he knew the world would come for them.
But for this one moment, she was his. And he was utterly, irreversibly hers.
.
The fire crackled low, its amber light flickering across the rug where they lay tangled together, bare skin bathed in warmth and shadow. The rest of the house slept behind walls and doors, but here, in this quiet pocket of flame and breath, time felt suspended.
Her breath came soft and steady now, feathering like a lullaby.
Heather lay curled against his chest, her breath soft against his collarbone, her body tucked into the curve of his own. Carlisle held her as though she were something fragile and irreplaceable—his hand resting lightly at her back, the other tracing idle circles against her spine. He hadn’t moved in what felt like hours.
He watched her as though she might disappear—like morning light through stained glass.
Her hair—warm chestnut and wild from his touch—spread across his chest like spilled silk. He traced the gentle slope of her hip with his eyes, the way her waist narrowed, the rise of her thigh. She was all warm skin and soft breath, the weight of her against him stirring something ancient in his chest—something possessive, protective, deeply male. He wanted to bury himself in her warmth again, to mark every inch of her with his mouth and hands, to offer her worship in the only language his body remembered when thought fell away.
She was drifting.
He felt it in the way her muscles loosened, in the slackening of her jaw, in the subtle weight of sleep beginning to pull her under. The firelight made her skin glow, soft and pale and dusted with the faintest rose where his hands had been.
She looked like something from a Botticelli canvas— A study in light and stillness. curved and luminous. As if beauty had been distilled into its purest form and laid here beside him, utterly unguarded.
He turned slightly, just enough to reach the throw from the couch behind them. With one arm still cradling her, he tugged it over her hips, tucking the wool gently around her. It was pulled halfway up Heather’s bare back, but one shoulder remained uncovered, kissed gold by the light.
She made a small sound in her sleep and pressed closer to him. He stilled.
He could feel each breath she took, the brush of her thigh over his, the whisper of her eyelashes where they touched his chest. He could see them all—each individual lash—delicate and fanned across her cheek like the fringe of a holy relic.
And she had let him touch her.
She had let him love her.
The ache in his chest was almost holy.
But even as he watched her—his gaze reverent, his fingers idle and aching with the memory of her—there was a shadow of doubt coiling quietly within him. A whisper of scripture, of discipline.
He had never meant to cross this threshold. Not before vows. Not before the promise.
What sacred space could hold a love like this—furious in its tenderness, aching in its restraint?
He closed his eyes for a moment. The guilt brushed him like a winter breeze, cold at the edges, lingering along the collar of his conscience. But it did not consume him.
Because if she asked for his heart now—if she turned in this quiet dark and whispered for it—he would reach into his chest without hesitation, pull it from beneath his ribs, and offer it to her on a velvet cushion, still and unbeating.
She stirred slightly, brow softening, and he reached to brush a loose curl from her temple, fingertips barely grazing her skin.
“My dear heart,” he whispered into the space between them. “My darling.”
She didn’t wake. But her breath deepened, and her hand moved beneath the blanket, sliding instinctively over his ribs. And he held her closer, anchoring her against the weight of the world.
And so he stayed.
Watching. Waiting.
Worshipping.
And if she woke now and looked at him with those eyes—if she whispered that she wanted his soul, or his last name, or the heart long stilled in his chest—he would give it. Without hesitation. He would place it in her hands, still and silent and utterly hers.
Notes:
Can you guys let me know if the dear heart thing is cringy or not, its the only term of endearment from the 1600's that I liked. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed that steamy chapter <3 As always, reviews are much loved, so please do leave as many as your heart desires.
Chapter 16: Of Flesh and Faith
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sunlight streamed into the Cullen living room, dancing across the polished hardwood floors. Jasper and Emmett had commandeered a board game laid out on the coffee table—dice scattered, strategy maps unfolded—as they playfully bickered, each trying to outwit the other. Edward sat at the grand piano in the corner, slender fingers gliding over ivory keys, coaxing a gentle, melancholy melody through the quiet house. Alice reclined on the sofa arm, a fashion magazine in her hands, one brow arched as she followed Rosalie’s amused commentary on the boys’ squabble:
“They really are insufferable,” Rosalie teased, leaning back with a small smirk. “Honestly, you’d think they were children.”
The afternoon felt perfect. Ordinary. Safe.
And then the car slid into the drive.
Carlisle had stepped out of the drivers seat. The sunlight caught his hair, reddening the golden strands. His expression was taut—eyes scanning the house, taking stock—not with the practiced serenity he always wore, but with something knotted beneath it.
Edward paused mid-note. It wasn’t surprise that stopped him—it was the sudden, brutal clarity that came with Carlisle’s thoughts flaring open like a floodgate.
Jasper halted mid-reach for the dice. Emmett straightened, curious. Alice set down her magazine with calm interest. All eyes were on Edward.
There was heat. Firelight. Flesh against flesh. The sound of a wooden door splintering. The moan—raw, guttural—ripped free from him, tearing through centuries of restraint. His hand tangled in her hair.
Her perfume—earth, lavender, salt, sweat—filled his senses, and his body had surrendered.
He pressed her into the door until the frame cracked.
He tasted her on his lips, fervour, alive, and he collapsed with her on the floor, every taboo shattered.
Every moment replayed in Edward’s mind, with stark, unbearable detail. He staggered back, breath catching, a feeling of immense nausea overtaking him, despite his inability to be sick.
Jasper and Emmett stilled. Alice lowered her magazine. Rosalie’s smile slewed into something colder.
A soft click as Carlisle closed the door behind him drew Edward out of his reverie—and it was worse than Edward had feared. The trace of human still clung to Carlisle’s scent, the ghost of lust heavy in the air.
Everything in Edward recoiled. He tried to steady himself, but laughter burst out—sharp, hollow, manic.
“You—you’re—” words tangled in his throat.
The others paused, glancing between Edward and Carlisle with concern. Their unity faltered.
Edward felt his own eyes blur. “How…?” he nearly screamed. “You slept with her?”
He stepped forward, furious in every movement. Jasper and Emmett braced, ready to intervene, but Edward brushed past them.
He shoved Carlisle hard in the chest, throat tightening, his own voice rising, incredulous as he spat the words: “After all the shit you tell me to do and then you go and fuck her.”
It rattled through the room. Carlisle, taken off balance, caught himself on the sofa arm. His expression shifted—hogtied between hurt and apology.
Edward laughed again—more fractured this time, harsher. “I can’t believe it.”
He lurched forward as though to strike. The only thing standing between Edward’s fist and impact was the part of him that still couldn’t bear to hurt his father.
Carlisle’s voice pleaded: “Edward, son—”
Edward’s roar cut him off. “Don’t call me that!”
He ran for the door. Cold linoleum passed under his feet. A look back at Carlisle, fractured and shattered, flickered in his mind—eyes still gold, golden hair tousled. And then he burst into the heavy hush of the trees, disappearing into the forest.
A heavy silence settled over the Cullen living room as Edward slammed the door behind him. The normal family scene—Jasper frozen mid-move, Emmett standing ready, Alice motionless with concern, Rosalie’s steady gaze—cracked wide open.
No one moved. No one spoke. The board game lay abandoned; the afternoon sunshine no longer felt warm.
Carlisle stood alone, heart motionless in his chest, staring at the exit where Edward had vanished. His reflection in the glass seemed too human, too vulnerable.
Jasper exhaled deeply and moved first, closing the front door with careful quiet. Emmett followed, alert and protective, glancing at Carlisle with worry. Alice rose gracefully and stepped to his side, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. Rosalie remained by the couch, one hand pressed into the leather, as though bracing the entire house against lurching tide of emotion.
No one knew what to say. What to do.
The remainder of the afternoon stretched on in stifling stillness—empty as a tomb.
The silence crackled like a static charge in the room, not one of them daring to speak first. Carlisle stood very still, his jaw taut, hands at his sides. He looked like a man at the altar of judgment, and in a way, he was.
It was Alice who finally broke the silence, her voice feather-light, but steady. “What happened?”
Carlisle didn’t answer at first. His golden eyes were fixed on the door, on the absence left in Edward’s wake. Only the faintest furrow in his brow gave away that he was not a statute.
Emmett shifted beside the couch, trying to make sense of what had just exploded in their living room. “Did Edward just lose it over something you did?”
“Carlisle?” Jasper asked, more gently, though tension lingered under his words. His fingers twitched at his side, sensing the storm in his adoptive father’s emotions—grief, shame, restraint, and a powerful, aching conflict Jasper could barely name.
Carlisle slowly turned to face them.
“I…” His voice faltered—rare for him, and all the more unsettling because of it. “There are things… I didn’t intend to happen. And things Edward was never meant to know. Not like that.”
Rosalie’s eyes narrowed. “And Heather is involved?”
Emmett’s head snapped toward her. “What do you mean?”
“She’s the only one he’s been near besides us.” Rosalie folded her arms, spine rigid. “And Edward said—he said something—”
“You don’t have to tell us everything,” Jasper interrupted, sensing Carlisle’s discomfort. “But we deserve to know what set him off.”
Carlisle exhaled sharply and sat down, something he almost never did when the others were around. His posture sagged slightly under the weight of the truth. His hands trembled, faintly.
“I made a choice. A human choice,” he said, voice quieter now. “And Edward… he believes I’ve betrayed everything I taught him to believe in.”
“A human choice?” Emmett echoed, brow furrowed. “You mean—like, romantic?”
Alice’s eyes widened. Rosalie’s jaw clenched.
Carlisle said nothing. But his silence was confirmation enough.
“Oh,” Alice breathed. “Oh. You and Heather?”
Carlisle looked away, the lines in his face drawn with exhaustion. “It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t deliberate. But I… I care for her.”
“You care,” Rosalie repeated coldly. “And now Edward thinks you’re a hypocrite. You, the one who told him to wait. To believe in restraint.”
“I didn’t—” Carlisle’s voice cracked. He paused, then tried again. “It wasn’t a simple choice. I’ve been wrestling with this for a long time. I’ve fought this… longer than you know.”
Jasper had closed his eyes, absorbing the guilt pouring off Carlisle like steam. “You’re terrified.”
“Of what I’ve done. Of what I could lose. Of what this could cost her,” Carlisle said, almost whispering.
“Does she know?” Alice asked, her voice uncertain now. “About the Volturi?”
“No,” he said, his gaze sinking to the floor. “And she mustn’t. Not yet.”
Emmett ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “So Edward saw all that. The whole damn thing, probably in full HD. That’s brutal.”
Carlisle nodded, voice low. “Every moment. From the second I turned into the drive.”
Emmett let out a low whistle, then muttered, “Man. That’s rough.”
Alice moved toward the window, arms crossed tightly. “He won’t go far. He’s angry, but not reckless. He just needs space.”
Rosalie made no effort to soften her voice. “You didn’t just take a risk with her, Carlisle. You took one with all of us. If the Volturi find out—if they even suspect—this doesn’t end with heartbreak. It ends with ash.”
Rosalie’s voice broke slightly—not from emotion, but fury straining beneath composure.
“You had no right to gamble with all of us. Not for her.” She paused, then added more quietly, but with deep bitterness. “You’re supposed to be better than the rest of us. That was the whole damn point.”
He didn’t respond. He simply stared out the window.
Jasper looked toward the trees beyond the glass, where Edward had vanished. “What do we do now?”
Carlisle closed his eyes. “We wait. And we pray that it doesn’t destroy what little peace we have left.”
.
Carlisle retreated to his study.
He didn’t walk with haste, nor with shame. But every footfall across the wooden floors seemed to ring louder in his ears than it should. The solitude of the room wrapped around him like a shroud—bookshelves lined in perfect order, the fireplace dormant, his desk untouched since that morning’s quiet reading.
He closed the door gently. Then locked it.
The click of the lock sounded final.
This room, this space, was the one corner of the world he still claimed as wholly his own. Not as patriarch, not as physician, not as peacekeeper or leader—but simply as the man he had once been, and the one he still tried to understand.
He had been twenty-three when he was turned, barely a man in the eyes of the world at the time. That boy had walked cloaked in borrowed rags through alleys reeking of plague and death, his father’s cross clutched in trembling fingers, his eyes always skyward. Always searching for grace. For purpose.
Now he sat at his desk, the same cross still around his neck—hidden beneath tailored layers of modern dress shirts and waistcoats. Gold, dulled slightly with age. He never let it show. Not anymore.
He didn’t deserve it.
Carlisle reached for the thick leather-bound notebook resting near the lamp, opened to a blank page. Its spine creaked in quiet protest. The ink pot beside him gleamed in the dim light. He dipped the old pen—handcrafted, a gift from another century—into the ink, and began to write.
His script was elegant, shaped from years of diligent practice. Old-fashioned in form, yet unwavering in steadiness.
The sin is not in love, surely not in tenderness.
But what of the desire that moves beyond that?
What of the want that consumes reason, that overcomes devotion to sanctity?
My hands have healed, my oath has remained intact. But in one reckless hour, I acted with abandon. No scripture, no prayer, no creed had the strength to hold me back.
She said ‘I need you’—and I broke. Not violently. Not cruelly. But completely.
He paused. Fingers curled tightly around the pen. His jaw clenched as he lowered his head.
It was not just lust. That would be easier to dismiss. He had spent centuries resisting the animal within—holding back the red hunger, the temptation, the violence. But this was something else. This was yearning, connection, aching need to be seen not as a father or leader, but as a man.
He should not have allowed himself to feel this. To want her. To touch her.
And yet—beneath all the remorse, all the trembling guilt—he felt something worse.
Pride.
A flicker of awe. At her bravery. At his own recklessness. At the forbidden way she whispered his name like a prayer she knew wouldn’t be answered.
He dipped his pen again, ink darker now, his lines more forceful.
I do not know what I am anymore. Not god’s creature. Not man. Not monster. Something in between.
When I held her… I remembered what it meant to feel warmth without fear. Desire without shame. I remembered the boy I was before the turning. And for a moment, I didn’t feel centuries old. I felt young. Foolish. Human.
And Lord help me— Lord forgive me.
I liked it.
He sat back, the pen falling from his fingers, clattering against the glass of the ink bottle. His head bowed, golden hair brushing his forehead, loose at the edges from tension.
He wanted to weep, but he had not cried in over three hundred years. The tears never came anymore.
He reached instinctively for the cross beneath his shirt, pressing it against his lips. Cool metal. No divine warmth. No answer.
Just silence. Just breath that didn’t need to be taken. Just the ache of knowing he had allowed himself—just for a moment—to live.
And that moment had changed everything.
The pen came to rest beside the ink pot, a small smudge of dark ink still drying on the final word.
Carlisle sat still, hand poised above the page as though he might continue. But there were no more confessions left to spill. No scripture that could untangle the storm in his soul. Only truth. Only choice.
He exhaled—unnecessary, reflexive. A breath centuries old. And when he placed the pen down, it was with finality.
Enough.
No more hiding behind duty. No more pretending his restraint was solely piety, when much of it had been fear—fear of failing again, of losing control, of bringing ruin to those he loved. Of becoming what his father had warned him against.
But Heather… Heather had not unravelled him. She had simply seen him. And in her gaze, something ancient had stirred. A soul long dormant, long buried beneath centuries of composure.
If this was the only life he would ever know beside her—then he would live it.
Not as the infallible patriarch, not as the composed physician. But as a man who had found something precious in a world that had taken much from him. A heart worth holding. A woman worth kneeling for.
Even if it meant watching her age.
Even if one day he would bury her old and failing bones beneath the roots of a weeping tree, and be left to remember her laugh echoing through the empty halls of his mind.
If that was the cost—then so be it.
He closed the notebook, the weight of it familiar in his hands. The leather cover worn at the edges, soft beneath his fingertips. Then he rose from his chair, straightening with a quiet strength born not from immortality—but from clarity.
No Volturi would take her. No ancient laws written in blood and smoke would threaten what was his. Not even Aro, with his silver tongue and soulless stare. If Aro dared reach for Heather, he would find Carlisle Cullen standing in his path—not as a diplomat, not as a brother of the old court—but as a shield sharpened by love.
And Victoria… Carlisle’s eyes darkened as they turned toward the window. She was a creature of vengeance, of silence and shadow. But if she came for Heather, she would learn the hard way that beneath all this restraint was a protector with centuries of resolve and nothing left to lose.
Carlisle reached for the gold cross around his neck, tugged it free from beneath his collar. It gleamed faintly in the firelight.
He pressed it to his lips one last time.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the silence. A prayer of gratitude. A promise.
Then he tucked the cross away again—this time not out of shame, but because the world had no need to see it. God had given him this gift. A soul stitched into skin and bone, delicate and fierce.
And he would guard her. Love her. Walk beside her until her very last breath.
He opened the study door and stepped back into the house—not the same man who had entered.
.
The Cullen house stood in silence, its windows glowing faintly.
Upstairs, Edward sat alone in his room. No music played. No books lay open. Just stillness.
His hands were clenched into fists, jaw tight. He’d been quiet for hours now, barely moving. Trying, and failing, to keep his mind his own.
It had started as a hum—barely audible. A flicker. A feeling.
Then Carlisle’s thoughts had burst through, unguarded, like a dream too loud to contain.
He didn’t want to invade. But he hadn’t looked away either.
And what he saw...
Heathers breathless laughter. Her hands in Carlisle’s hair. His voice murmuring against her skin.
The intimacy was sacred.
And it wasn’t his.
Edward stood, the chair scraping the floor behind him. He crossed the room in three strides and pressed his palms against the windowpane, breath he didn’t need fogging the glass. His reflection stared back: wild-eyed, sharp-edged, betrayed.
Carlisle stood before Edward’s door, the hallway cloaked in a hush so complete it bordered on reverent. The wood beneath his knuckles felt cool, almost reluctant, as if the house itself understood the fracture hanging in the air.
He knocked.
A pause. Then—
“It’s open,” Edward said, his voice low and strained.
Carlisle stepped inside. The room was dim. No lights, no music—just a thin strip of sunlight through the window, and Edward’s silhouette by the glass like a statue caught mid-thought.
Carlisle didn’t speak right away. He crossed the threshold as though entering a cathedral, his hands loosely clasped in front of him.
“I thought I might find you awake,” he said gently.
Edward didn’t turn. “I haven’t slept in over a century. You knew I’d be awake.”
Carlisle offered a faint smile. “That’s true.”
Silence fell again, taut as wire.
Edward’s voice came next, rough around the edges. “You didn’t have to come.”
“I did,” Carlisle said softly. “Because silence between us isn’t something I’m willing to live with.”
Finally, Edward turned. His eyes were tired, haunted by a hurt that had more to do with love than logic. “You didn’t even think to ask how I’d feel.”
“No,” Carlisle admitted, the weight of that truth settling into his chest. “I didn’t. And I should have. I thought I was being careful. I thought I was protecting you. But I see now that I was wrong.”
Edward looked at him, brows knit.
“I never intended to take anything from you, Edward.” Carlisle said. “Least of all your trust.”
A flicker of something passed through Edward’s expression—anger still, but muddled now with sorrow. “But you love her.”
Carlisle’s breath caught. Not because the question startled him, but because the answer was so terribly simple.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Edward turned away again, his hand against the glass. “Then what will we all become now?”
Carlisle took a step closer. “We become what we’ve always been. A family. If you’ll let us be.”
The wind stirred the trees beyond the window. Time passed between heartbeats neither of them had.
“You should have told me,” Edward whispered.
“I know.” Carlisle’s voice cracked around the edges. “If I could go back and do that differently, I would. But I can only walk forward. With honesty. If you’ll allow it.”
For a long moment, Edward said nothing.
Then, in a voice far softer than before, he said, “I’m not angry that you love her. I think… I’m just not sure how this is going to end.”
Edward finally looked at him, and the tightness in his jaw began to ease.
“I don’t forgive you,” he said, not unkindly.
Carlisle nodded. “I didn’t come to ask for that. Only to tell you that I’ll never stop trying to deserve it.”
Edward didn’t speak again. But when Carlisle left, leaving the door ajar, he didn’t rush to his feet to close the gap.
Notes:
I hope you enjoyed this one, surprisingly was the most difficult to write. <3 Love, Crab
Chapter 17: Where Allies Gather
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Carlisle had received the letter just days after sending his own—fine, flowing script on thick paper, sealed in a manner that felt like something out of another century. It had been Eleazar who replied, his words carefully chosen but heavy with old wisdom and older caution.
Come to us. Bring your coven—and the humans. We would speak face to face. There is more at play than you yet understand.
And so, they came.
Heather barely had time to process it all. One moment she was brushing soil from her coat, still shaken from everything that had happened—Bella, James, the looming threat of Victoria. The next, she was stepping onto a small charter plane at an unfamiliar airstrip, flying north beside Bella while the vampires took to the forest. They said it would be quicker for them that way—and somehow, she believed it.
Carlisle had told her the Denalis were old friends. Allies. That Eleazar, once part of the Volturi, might hold some perspective they desperately needed. But he’d also warned her: They are different from us in ways you might feel.
She sat beside Bella the whole way. They didn’t speak much, but she felt the comfort of the nearness like a buffer against the surreal reality unfolding around her.
The hum of the small charter plane was steady, almost hypnotic, broken only by the occasional crackle of the pilot’s voice over the headset. Through the narrow window, the landscape shifted from evergreen forests to snow-dusted ridgelines, the clouds parting just enough to reveal vast, untamed wilderness below. Heather pressed her forehead to the cold glass at one point, watching as the world shrank and grew distant beneath them—quiet rivers snaking like silver threads, mountaintops lost in mist. Time moved strangely up there, neither fast nor slow, just suspended.
The Denali territory was breath-taking: white-streaked forests rising up to snow-clad peaks, rivers frozen in silent motion, and a house—no, a manor—tucked like a secret into a bend of pines, all sweeping glass and cedar. It looked grown rather than built, like it had simply emerged from the earth for them and them alone.
They were already waiting when the Cullens arrived.
The Denali coven stood at the base of the long stone steps like ghosts carved from moonlight. Taller, leaner, and somehow even more ethereal than the Cullens, they radiated a kind of ancient stillness that made Heather feel like she was walking into a cathedral.
The snow had hushed everything. As the Cullen party stepped out of the rented sleek black vehicles, their footsteps made only the softest compressions in the deep Alaskan drifts, boots whispering against crystalline powder. The air was biting, thin and crisp, laced with pine and ice.
Carlisle stepped ahead of the group, his long coat dusted with snowflakes that refused to melt. Eleazar met him with a faint smile carved deep with familiarity. His dark eyes gleamed beneath a furrowed brow, but there was warmth in his stance, arms already open.
“Carlisle,” he said simply, like a benediction.
Eleazar was the first to move, descending the final step to greet Carlisle with a firm clasp of arms rather than a handshake. No words at first—just a moment of stillness between them. Old friends reunited under heavy circumstances.
“You came,” Eleazar said, his voice soft, his accent faint but still present.
“You asked,” Carlisle replied, his tone even. “We need counsel. And time is against us.”
When they parted, Carmen swept forward, her elegance effortless, like wind over glass. She cupped Carlisle’s face between her hands briefly, then leaned in to kiss both cheeks—an old-world gesture, warm despite her marble chill.
Behind Eleazar stood Tanya, regal and radiant with a kind of cold beauty that made it hard to look at her for long. Kate, sharp-eyed and watching everything with that predatory alertness Heather had come to associate with vampires. Irina—cooler, more distant than the rest, with pale eyes that held a flicker of sorrow beneath their calm. She was the kind of beautiful that felt brittle, like something once soft that had frozen over. And to his side remained Carmen, whose warmth was immediate, like firelight in a frozen room.
It was Carmen who broke from the pair and approached Heather first.
“And this,” Carmen said, her voice melodic with delight, eyes shifting beyond Carlisle’s shoulder, “must be the Heather we have heard so much about.”
Carlisle turned instantly, pride sparking in his golden gaze. He reached back, found Heather’s hand without looking, and gently drew her forward beside him. “It is. I’ve told you... nearly everything,” he said with a soft smile, laced with something protective and unguarded. He looked almost boyish with it, and it stirred something in Heather’s chest.
She felt the eyes of the coven on her as she stepped forward, trying not to shrink beneath the weight of centuries of expectation. “It’s lovely to meet you both,” she said carefully, her voice steady despite the nerves fluttering in her chest.
Eleazar offered a cool, formal hand, but his brows remained subtly knit, as if his gift—his ability to sense talents—was quietly probing at her soul. Heather fought the urge to squirm. “You are most welcome here.”
Carmen, however, was all warmth. She took Heather’s offered hand, then shook it off with a gentle scoff. “None of that,” she said, gathering her into a soft, lingering embrace. “I have heard so much about you, I feel like we are already old friends. I insist you let me give you a tour—before the others steal you away.”
Heather blinked, momentarily speechless, caught between surprise and gratitude. “I’d like that,” she managed.
Behind them, the rest of the Cullens were greeted with swift, familiar affection by the three blondes—Tanya, Kate, and Irina—who descended the steps like winter royalty. Tanya, elegant and resplendent, offered a breezy kiss to Carlisle’s cheek and a glance at Heather that toed the line between polite and assessing.
When her gaze found Edward—who stood slightly apart with Bella’s hand in his—Tanya’s smile tightened. Her stare dropped to the linked hands with a thinly veiled bitterness. Bella returned the look with a half-smile, unbothered, and leaned a little closer into Edward’s side.
Meanwhile, Carmen was already tugging Heather gently by the crook of her elbow, ushering her up the steps and into the house proper. “Come,” she said, “before they start talking politics. I want to show you everything.”
The interior of the Denali home was like stepping into a different world.
Everything gleamed with a quiet, icy beauty. The main hall opened into a grand room bathed in diffuse winter light that streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows. Thick beams of pale pine arched high overhead, like the ribs of some ancient creature. A massive stone hearth, its fire dancing low and steady, cast warm shadows across plush armchairs and snow-dusted rugs. Books lined dark shelves that climbed two stories high, and delicate sculptures—some bone, some carved from glacial stone—perched on mantels and window ledges like spirits at rest.
They moved inside together, the Cullens fanning out slightly across the main room—a cavernous space lined with books, glowing amber lights, and towering windows that framed the Alaskan wilderness in perfect stillness.
Edward kept close to Bella. Alice flitted about, her curiosity buzzing like static. Jasper kept to the edge of the room, alert. Emmett and Rosalie were uncharacteristically quiet.
“We don’t host often,” Carmen said lightly as they passed a wall of artwork—most of it abstract, but several pieces that caught Heather’s eye were eerily precise portraits. “But when we do, we try to make it feel like a sanctuary. We live surrounded by wilderness. We must be our own civilisation.”
Heather let her fingertips brush the edge of a side table carved with scenes from some ancient myth. “It’s stunning,” she said, meaning it.
Carmen looked at her then, head tilted, her expression soft. “Carlisle didn’t just speak of you,” she said. “He wrote about you—carefully, reverently. I must admit, I have never quite seen my friend write like that before. We have all been very curious to meet you.”
Heat rose to Heather’s cheeks. “I know he can be quite the poet,” she admitted. “I hope I don’t disappoint.”
Carmen’s smile widened, just a little. “Nonsense. I am greatly looking forward to getting to know you, and, I admit, getting to see this different side of Carlisle’s.”
With that, she extended a hand in gentle invitation—not to take, but to follow—and turned toward the back doors with a swish of her coat. Heather stepped after her instinctively, the quiet hush of the house giving way to the crisp bite of outside air as Carmen led her through the rear entrance. They had already toured the inside—light-filled rooms, polished wood, glass walls that framed the snowy wilderness like moving paintings—and now Carmen was guiding her beyond them, into the world the house seemed to grow out of. “It’s not far,” she said lightly as they stepped onto the snow-dusted path. “Tanya insists the walk helps guests adjust to the quiet.”
Carmen’s voice floated like birdsong as she led Heather through the gently sloping grounds of the Denali estate. The snow here was deeper than in Forks, untouched, glittering like ground glass beneath the slate-blue sky. Evergreens rose in solemn rows, tall and stately, their dark branches heavy with snow. Beneath their feet, the earth crunched faintly with each step.
“In summer, this path explodes with wildflowers,” Carmen was saying, gesturing with one pale hand. “Foxglove, forget-me-nots, even wild iris. Eleazar planted most of it himself. He pretends he’s not sentimental about such things, but I know better.”
Heather smiled, casting a glance at the horizon, where the light softened to amber. “I can’t picture this place without snow.”
“Then perhaps you understand better than most,” Carmen said with a knowing smile. “There is a purity in the cold. In the silence. All that white—it’s not emptiness. It refracts. Multiplies the light. Some people see only blankness. I see colour.”
Heather nodded, quieted by the weight of those words. She liked Carmen—her gentleness, her artful way of seeing the world. A rare quality, even among immortals.
Behind them, the rest of the coven had begun to spill across the field, deep in conversation. Tanya laughed lightly at something Edward had said. Irina and Kate walked shoulder to shoulder, catching up with Rosalie-absent Cullen news. Even Emmett was animatedly chatting with the others, tossing small puffs of snow with childlike idleness.
It felt, Heather thought, like a family reunion. Not stiff, nor forced. Just long overdue.
And then something cold and solid struck the back of her head with a quiet thunk.
She yelped—just a little—and spun around, brushing shards of crushed snow from the nape of her neck, blinking in surprise. Behind her, standing a few paces back with the most innocent expression a vampire had ever tried to wear, was Emmett Cullen. One large hand still held a suspiciously compact snowball, the other half-raised like he’d just surrendered to the police.
“I can’t believe you just threw that, Rosalie,” he called loudly, grinning like a cat with cream.
Rosalie, who had been deep in conversation with Irina, turned slowly, murder in her eyes.
“Oh it is so on right now,” she growled, crouching in the snow with predatory grace and scooping up a double handful. Emmett’s eyes went wide—dramatically, exaggeratedly—and then he bolted with a yelp as she flung the first strike at his back.
The second it hit, chaos bloomed.
Suddenly, snowballs were flying like artillery fire. Kate leapt onto a low branch for a better angle and pelted Edward. Tanya declared herself Switzerland and proceeded to hit everyone. Bella ducked behind a half-buried log, shrieking with laughter, while Emmett used a tree as cover, barking war cries. Jasper had his strategy refined, getting hits with every throw, Alice however was his match with her grace and accuracy, giving him a run for his money. Even Eleazar dodged a volley with unexpected grace, chuckling under his breath.
Carlisle, meanwhile, had materialised behind Heather.
“You’re taking cover poorly,” he said, crouching beside her and expertly forming a snowball with impossibly elegant fingers.
She smirked. “You’re a doctor. Aren’t you supposed to be against violence?”
“In moderation,” he murmured—and lobbed a snowball with perfect aim at Kate’s head.
Heather cackled with laughter and joined in—sort of. It was hard to keep up. The vampires moved like starlight: too fast, too fluid, impossible to track. She managed to hit Edward once (by accident) and get tackled by Bella (deliberately). Then she felt a cold splatter against her shoulder—again—and whirled to find Carlisle grinning at her like an absolute menace.
“You cheated!” she accused, snow clinging to her coat and caught in her hair.
“I didn’t cheat,” he replied, tone maddeningly serene. “You just can’t handle that you lost.”
“I wouldn’t have lost if you hadn’t cheated!” she shouted back, scooping up a lopsided snowball and hurling it at his face.
It hit with a satisfying splap.
For a moment, Carlisle blinked through the snow stuck to his cheek. Then, with no warning, he lunged forward, wrapped his arms around her waist, and lifted her off her feet. She shrieked and kicked in protest, laughing too hard to be truly angry. He spun her around once, twice, until the world was nothing but dizzying whiteness and breathless joy.
Then he tackled her gently into a snowbank, landing just beside her with that unshakeable grace of his, hand still curved protectively around her waist. Their laughter faded into the soft hush of the field.
Their eyes met—his amber and kind, hers bright and crinkled in the corners from laughter. She could feel the cool of his hand through her jacket, the steadiness of his presence, and something deep inside her tightened. There was affection there. Reverence. And something else—something unruly and boyish that hadn’t belonged to Carlisle in years, but bloomed now like frost-flowers under sunlight.
From the treeline, Carmen watched them quietly, a soft smile touching her lips. She stood beside Eleazar, who was watching too, his arms folded.
“He’s never looked younger,” Carmen murmured.
Eleazar said nothing at first. His eyes flicked to Heather, then back to Carlisle.
“Do you think he’s in danger? I know you saw something, my love.” she asked gently.
“No, mi amor,” he said, after a long pause. “I think... he’s finally living.”
Carmen’s smile widened. “Then let him.”
The snow fell gently around them, and in that rare hour, the immortal world felt fleetingly human.
The group filed back into the Denali home with lingering laughter clinging to their shoulders like the snow still melting in their hair. Jasper was declared the clear victor, mostly because no one could quite figure out how he'd hit everyone without once being hit himself. Even he offered a small, modest shrug—more amused than smug—though Emmett loudly demanded a rematch and Rosalie muttered something about unfair advantages.
What a way to break the ice.
Tanya flitted between rooms lighting fires with dry pine logs, smoke curling into the chimneys with fragrant crackles. Kate brought out thick wool blankets, tossing one toward Bella with a wink. “You’re human, remember?” she teased, and Bella rolled her eyes, laughing.
“Come on,” Heather said to her with a grin, tugging gently at Bella’s wrist. “Before we freeze solid.”
They disappeared up the stairs, wet clothes leaving damp prints on the wooden treads behind them, the sound of their footfalls softened by thick carpets and the hum of warmth returning to the home.
Downstairs, quieter footsteps made their way deeper into the house—into a more private wing, away from the lively warmth of the hearth and the cheerful noise of reunion.
Carlisle followed Eleazar into his study.
It was a space carved from quiet intellect: dark wood panelling lined the walls, shelves of ancient books worn soft at the edges. A large window looked out toward the distant range of snow-covered peaks. The desk was an elegant thing, claw-footed and polished to a deep gleam, the kind of furniture that was less for show and more the seat of thought and burden. A globe sat in one corner, yellowed maps sprawling across seas long redrawn.
As they entered, the door clicked shut with a soft finality, and the hum of distant conversation muffled behind it.
Carlisle stood by the window, looking out, while Eleazar settled into the high-backed chair by the hearth, legs crossed in thought.
Eleazar exhaled slowly, steepling his fingers. “You asked for my advice, my friend. Then let me say this: disclose it before they find out for themselves. The Volturi are not kind to ambiguity. Nor to secrets kept from them.”
Carlisle said nothing for a moment. Then, with a furrow in his brow, he moved toward the hearth and perched lightly on the edge of the opposite chair. “You think I should lie?”
“I think,” Eleazar replied, “you should tell them you have intent to turn her. Even… if perhaps that is not the case currently. Say it is your plan. Soften the sting. Decrease the threat.”
Carlisle’s expression darkened—not with anger, but with discomfort. “But I don’t intend to turn her. Not unless it is her choice. I will not rob her of that.”
Eleazar nodded slowly, his gaze briefly flicking toward the dancing firelight. “I expected as much. But they will not care about her will, Carlisle. Only your responsibility in the matter. Your attachment makes them vulnerable. That is what they will weigh.”
Carlisle didn’t respond immediately. The fire popped softly. Then, from the inner pocket of his coat, he drew two objects carefully wrapped in cloth and offered them to Eleazar. “What do you make of these?”
Unfolding the fabric, Eleazar leaned forward, letting the firelight catch on the glinting bone and dark metal. His eyes narrowed in focus. “The weapons… hers?”
Carlisle nodded. “Inherited. Used recently against James.”
Eleazar turned the blades in his hands with surprising delicacy, the light reflecting in sharp, oil-slick curves. “I admit, I have never seen such craftmanship. They are not of any Volturi design. Nor Quileute forging, nor anything I have seen in my centuries.”
He tilted one, inspecting its core.
“It's a curious mix of human ingenuity and something... older. There’s purpose in the shape. A knowing in the metal. She is fortunate she took this vampire by surprise. A second time, she may not be so lucky.”
Carlisle’s lips tightened slightly. “I was hoping you could help us understand their origin.”
“I wish I could.” Eleazar placed the weapons gently back on the cloth and rewrapped them. “I’ve seen relics. Sacred objects. But never something like these. They are dangerous. And very old. That’s all I can offer.”
Carlisle accepted the bundle back, disappointment barely flickering across his features. He wasn’t surprised, only saddened by the lack of clarity. The mysteries only seemed to deepen.
Eleazar watched him a moment longer, then leaned back, his voice lowering. “It pains me to see you so conflicted, old friend. You wear it like iron around your shoulders.”
Carlisle looked up, and for a moment, his golden eyes held nothing but quiet exhaustion.
“And yet,” Eleazar continued gently, “I have never seen you so… alive. Not in all our time together. Not like today.”
Carlisle’s mouth quirked faintly at the corners. “She’s… unlike anyone I’ve met.”
“I gathered as much.” Eleazar gave a small, knowing smile. “I hope this works out, truly. For both your sakes. But be careful. The world is watching now.”
Carlisle said nothing. Only turned once more toward the window, the faint echo of her laughter still drifting somewhere in his memory like the light of a distant star.
.
The Denali kitchen was polished and spacious, far too pristine to have seen much actual use. Pale marble countertops gleamed beneath copper pendant lights, and the cabinets, though full, seemed untouched. The scent of pine from outside crept faintly in through the windows, carried on a breeze that stirred the sheer curtains just so.
Carmen laughed softly, the sound like wind chimes. “Forgive us,” she said, gesturing to the untouched stovetop with mock sheepishness. “We’re terribly remiss as hosts. Anything we might cook would likely be… blackened beyond recognition.”
Kate smirked. “Unless you fancy scorched deer.”
Irina leaned lazily against the kitchen island, grinning. “We did stock the fridge. There’s eggs, fresh vegetables, all sorts of human food. Help yourselves to anything.”
Heather smiled, touched by the gesture. “Thank you. I’ll make something simple.”
Bella perched on a stool, watching as Heather moved easily around the kitchen. The refrigerator clicked softly open and shut, the clatter of a pan being set on the stove filled the warm hush of the space. Heather rolled up her sleeves, fingers moving on instinct—garlic, pancetta, egg yolks, butter, pasta boiling gently on the back burner. The sounds of chopping and stirring were soothing in their familiarity.
Behind her, the Denali’s lingered, curious but careful not to hover.
“So,” Tanya said lightly, “what brought you to Forks, Heather? Do you have family there?”
Heather didn’t turn immediately, her eyes fixed on the pan as she stirred the pancetta. It crackled and hissed softly. Steam curled up from the pot.
“It was just me and my mum,” she said quietly, voice steady but distant. “Growing up. She had me young. We’d visit my Nan often. She loved her garden—she had these hydrangeas that never seemed to die, no matter how harsh the winter.”
She stirred a little slower now. Bella glanced at her but said nothing.
“My nan passed when I was fourteen,” Heather continued. “Dementia. She’d been sick for a while. We all sort of knew it was coming, but… knowing doesn’t make it easier.”
The eggs were whisked in a bowl. Butter melted in the pan.
“My mum died when I was twenty-one. Breast cancer. She fought it hard. It didn’t matter.”
A silence fell over the kitchen, soft and respectful.
Heather finally glanced up, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “After that, I just needed… something different. Somewhere quiet. She used to talk about my Granddad’s home—he was from Washington. Had all these old pictures in his study of trees so tall they seemed to touch the sky. I always wanted to see them in real life.”
“And so you came to Forks,” Carmen said gently.
“Yeah.” Heather turned off the heat and drained the pasta. “A new start.”
Bella reached across the island, touching her hand briefly.
Heather offered a tired smile, then quickly returned to the pan, tossing the pasta with the glossy sauce, letting the steam rise and curl around her face like a veil. The smell of warm butter and garlic filled the space.
Dinner was swiftly eaten, simple and human and comforting—much like the soft ache in her chest.
Notes:
Ok guys, we are now nearing the end of this story. I mean there is 22k words left haha but we are now working towards the end. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :) Please leave a review <3
Chapter 18: A Language Made of Instinct
Notes:
Hello all, there are scenes of an intimate nature in this chapter so if that's not your thing, then please skip this one <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The fire crackled gently in the hearth, sending golden light flickering across the walls and casting everyone in a kind of softened glow. The great room was filled with the gentle hum of voices, laughter rising now and then like smoke curling into the rafters. Outside, the Alaskan night pressed close, silent and silver-blue.
Heather returned once again from the kitchen. She set a steaming mug down beside Bella—peppermint, to settle her nerves—and ruffled her hair affectionately. “Drink that before you melt into the floor.”
Bella blinked sleepily, half-curled under a throw blanket, eyelids heavy but stubbornly open. Edward played softly on the piano across the room, his fingers gliding over the keys with effortless grace, the notes wrapping around the room like a lullaby. Bella tried to stay upright, fighting sleep with each fluttering blink.
Heather came back with two more mugs, one cradled in each hand. She handed one to Carlisle—just hot water, nothing more—but her gesture was careful, deliberate. A small kindness. Something in her seemed to quietly delight in providing for him, even when he couldn’t enjoy things in the same way she could.
He looked at her with something like reverence and accepted it without a word, letting the warmth seep through the porcelain into his marble skin.
Heather curled into the sofa beside him, sipping her tea slowly, as if dragging the moment out, not yet ready for the night to end.
“Off to bed with you, sweetheart,” she murmured to Bella, nudging her with her foot, teasing but tender.
Bella groaned, her body already halfway asleep. “M’fine. Just resting my eyes.”
Heather smirked. “Edward, honey, take that stubborn one upstairs. She needs her beauty sleep.”
Edward rose with the fluidity of something born of moonlight, crossing the room with a ghost of a smile. Bella barely protested as he scooped her gently into his arms.
“Night,” she mumbled into his shoulder, eyes finally closing.
“Sleep well,” Heather called, softer now.
When they’d disappeared up the staircase and the door above had shut, a subtle shift occurred.
Carlisle grew looser at the edges, the tension that always lingered in his posture quietly unwinding. With Edward and Bella gone, and the others deep in conversation across the room, he finally allowed himself to exist unguarded.
He slid his arm along the back of the sofa and gave her a slight, open look—offering the crook of his shoulder without words. She didn’t hesitate.
Heather nestled into the space beside him, curling into him with ease, her head resting lightly against his chest. He moved closer, letting his chin drop to the top of her head, his nose brushing against her temple in a feather-light nuzzle. Catlike, almost instinctive.
Then he inhaled. Deep and slow.
It was meant to be discreet, but it wasn’t.
She felt the rise and fall of his chest, the stillness that followed it. And then the press of a kiss—barely there—against the curve of her cheek.
Heather exhaled softly, letting her tea rest in her lap. Her free hand brushed gently across the fabric of his sleeve, tracing idle lines like she didn’t even realise she was doing it.
He rested his face atop her head once more, and together they sank into a shared silence—not hollow or strained, but natural, filled with the gentle noises of the house around them.
The fire whispered. The piano had long since faded into memory. Kate laughed across the room, a quiet, unguarded sound. Someone—Emmett, likely—was retelling a story with too much enthusiasm and not enough accuracy.
Heather’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment, not from tiredness but from the stillness. The ease.
A life ago, she would never have imagined something like this: curled into the side of a vampire, in a coven’s house in Alaska, while snow fell like stardust outside.
But here she was.
And in that moment—safe in his arms, warm tea in hand, the weight of his affection resting quietly against her skin—it didn’t feel strange at all.
It felt like home.
.
At some point, the warmth of the fire became a lullaby in itself. Heather stirred against Carlisle’s side, blinking herself awake with a soft hum. Her tea had gone cold in her hands.
She yawned, blinking slow. “Alright,” she mumbled, drawing herself upright. “If I don’t go to bed now, someone’s going to have to carry me up the stairs.”
The others turned to look, offering their own gentle goodnights. Carmen smiled knowingly, reclining beside Eleazar on one of the oversized armchairs. Emmett gave her a mock salute. Edward, just returning from tucking Bella in, lifted his brows as if to say took you long enough.
Heather gave a wave that barely passed for a farewell and pushed herself to her feet, rolling her shoulders with a quiet groan. “Goodnight, everyone. Thank you for letting us invade.”
“You’re not invading,” Carmen said with a wink. “You’re family now.”
Carlisle was already on his feet. He didn’t say anything—just fell into step beside her as they moved toward the stairs, silent but certain. There was no question that he would follow, though he didn’t need sleep and likely wouldn’t even sit down once she was gone. It wasn’t about the need. It was about her.
Upstairs, the hallway was quiet and dim, the pale light of moon on snow filtering through the window panes in soft pools. Heather stepped into the guest room they’d prepared for her, brushing her fingertips over the folded throw at the edge of the bed, the tall windows, the simple charm of it all. She moved slowly now, drowsy.
Carlisle paused in the doorway, not yet crossing the threshold, as though waiting for permission.
She turned to him, half-lit by the moonlight. Her eyes were softer now, more vulnerable. “You don’t have to hover,” she said gently.
“I’m not hovering,” he said, with the faintest smile. “I’m… loitering with intent.”
A tired laugh escaped her. “Intent to what?”
His smile didn’t grow, but it deepened in warmth. “To make sure you’re alright. To say goodnight. To be close, for just a little longer.”
Heather stepped toward him. Her feet were bare against the rug, and her hair, soft and fresh from her earlier shower, had dried in loose waves around her shoulders.
“I’m alright,” she said softly, reaching up to brush his lapel with her fingers. “Tired. Full. And…” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “Grateful. For all of this.”
He looked at her a moment, as if committing the scene to memory. The rise and fall of her chest. The fine pulse at her throat. The way her eyes softened when she looked at him—uncertain but curious, trusting despite all logic.
“I’ve never had anything like this,” he murmured, barely audible. “Not with anyone. Not in all my years.”
She tilted her head. “Not even close?”
He shook his head slowly. “Not even close.”
The air thickened a little, heavy with the things unspoken, the proximity of two people standing just close enough to feel the pull.
Then, because the moment felt too charged and she was too tired to handle it, she broke the tension with a smile. “You know, you could sit down. Just once. It wouldn’t kill you.”
He huffed a laugh, the sound low and fond. “I’ll consider it.”
She moved to the edge of the bed, sitting with a sigh, her body already aching for sleep. But she looked up at him one last time. “Stay with me. Just for a bit. You don’t have to say anything.”
He didn’t hesitate now.
Carlisle paused for only a breath before moving to her side. He sank onto the edge of the bed with an ease that made her breath hitch—graceful and precise, like everything he did. Then, slowly, reverently, he slipped under the covers beside her, the weight of his body barely disturbing the mattress.
She shifted instinctively, curling toward him with a hum. He welcomed her without words, one arm sliding around her waist, pulling her into his chest. The coldness of his skin made her shiver at first, but only for a moment. It was a welcome contrast, grounding—like ice melting against fire.
He pressed his face into her hair, breathing her in like she was oxygen and he’d spent decades starved. A sound escaped him—low and resonant, like a hum buried deep in his chest. It rumbled through her ribs, not quite a growl, not quite a sigh. More instinct than language.
Heather, though exhausted, felt her blood stir.
Sleep tugged at her like a tide, but the heat between them was stronger. She tilted her face up toward him, brushing her nose along the line of his jaw. “Carlisle,” she whispered.
He looked down at her, his gaze darkened by restraint and hunger in equal measure. And still, he waited—for her.
So she took it.
Her hands found his neck, pulled him down, and their lips met in a slow, aching kiss. She’d kissed him before, but this was different—needier, fiercer, driven by the weight of everything they couldn’t say aloud. His mouth was cool, but his kiss burned, undoing her from the inside out.
He groaned softly, a sound he couldn’t contain, and rolled above her, bracing his forearms on either side of her head, careful with his strength even as his control frayed at the edges. His hair brushed her forehead, his weight pressed her into the mattress just enough to feel surrounded, sheltered, wanted.
She gasped against his mouth as his hand skimmed her side, memorising every inch of her like she might vanish. She clutched at him, fingers curling into his shoulders, chasing the shiver that trailed down his spine.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured against her lips, voice low and fraying.
“I won’t,” she whispered back, pulling him closer.
The tension between them deepened—breath hitching, skin warming, the kiss turning more urgent, less restrained. The world narrowed to just this.
Heather's hands slid beneath his shirt, fingers grazing over the fine lines of his torso, tugging fabric with purpose. Her legs curled around his hips, anchoring him to her, drawing him in like gravity. His breath caught—if he could still lose breath at all—and he leaned into her, foreheads pressed together, eyes locked.
“We have to be quiet,” he murmured, voice hoarse and thick with want. “Vampire hearing...”
A sly smile touched her lips, her answer a challenge as she brought his hand to her mouth, slipping his fingers past her lips with aching slowness. She kept her eyes on him as she took them deeper, all the way to the back of her throat, her tongue curled around the digits, a muffled moan vibrating through her.
Whatever restraint Carlisle had left, it frayed in an instant.
His serene patience gave way to something more primal—something hungry and unguarded. He pulled back only enough to draw his hand down, coating himself in the warmth she’d left behind, eyes fluttering shut for the briefest moment as the sensation hit him.
Then he found her again—completely, unhesitatingly—his body moulding to hers with reverence and fire. Their rhythm built slowly, intimately, the tension between them igniting like the striking of flint and tinder.
Heather clutched at his shoulders, her breath stuttering against his skin, every movement deliberate yet desperate, as if they were trying to burn the shape of each other into memory. The world outside vanished. It was only this—the hush of night, the hush of breath, the silence filled with everything that mattered.
He held her like a man made alive by touch.
The room was hushed, save for the rustle of sheets and the soft cadence of breath. They moved together like a secret, like a prayer whispered beneath arched ceilings. Carlisle buried his face into the crook of her neck, lips brushing skin too warm, too alive, like fire against snow.
Heather’s hand slid up the inside of his arm, slow and certain, and then guided him. Fingers curling over his wrist, she placed his hand gently at the base of her throat.
“You won’t hurt me,” she whispered, voice trembling with certainty.
His movements faltered.
Time held its breath.
His palm splayed against her pulse, and he felt it—alive, fluttering like wings beneath his touch. A place so vulnerable, so human. He could crush it without effort. The reminder should have repelled him. Instead, it gripped something deep inside, something ancient, something he had caged for centuries.
Her hands guide him, confident and soft. Her thighs tighten around his waist like a command. When she places his palm to her throat—whispers, “You won’t hurt me”—he nearly comes undone.
How can she know?
How can she trust so completely what even he still fears?
His hand spans her neck, fingers trembling. Not from hunger, but reverence. The silk of her pulse beats steady beneath his thumb, and he swears he could fall in love with just the sound of it.
But then her breath hitched. And her eyes rolled.
And he liked it.
He liked the weight of her trust. The way she didn’t flinch. The way she looked up at him—knowing what he was and still pulling him closer, as if her heartbeat wasn’t a fragile thing beneath his palm, but a drum calling him home.
She watched his eyes—gold gone dark, ancient and aching—search hers. That flicker of hesitation there. Of fear, not for himself, but for her. Always for her. The careful way he held her, something precious, something valuable.
And in that moment, she felt something shift.
She wanted him to forget the fear.
She wanted him wild.
Not because she didn’t know what he was.
But because she did.
He leaned into her again, barely restraining the instinct to devour. Her nails curled into his shoulder, and her teeth caught her bottom lip, biting down to stifle a moan.
A sharp, clean scent bloomed between them—blood.
He didn’t think.
He reacted.
His tongue was at her mouth in an instant, lapping the drop from her lip like it was ambrosia. The taste of her—salt, skin, iron, life—set him ablaze. He kissed her hard then, deep and consuming, tongue seeking hers with a desperation that shook them both.
He shifted—sudden, fluid, like a current catching her off guard.
One moment she was curled beneath him, cocooned in their closeness, and the next her breath hitched as he flipped her onto her stomach. The movement was smooth, practiced—inhuman in its precision. Her back pressed flush to his chest, and she gasped, but didn’t resist. She didn’t need to.
A low sound rumbled in his throat—as though he were speaking in a language made of instinct and want.
His palm found her throat again, firmer this time, not cruel—never cruel—but possessive, reverent. The weight of it was like gravity, like trust made tangible. Her pulse beat beneath it, strong and sure, and it made something inside him stutter with awe.
“You won’t hurt me,” she had said.
And still, he asked it of himself, again and again. Even now, when she melted into his control like she'd always been meant to.
One arm kept her close, cradled in steel and silence. The other snaked low, slipping to the place between her thighs, anchoring her completely against him. Every inch of her felt like fire against his cool skin, every breath a battle against the urge to fall apart entirely.
There were no words after that. Only movement, heat, the rhythmic tremble of restraint pushed to its limits. The world narrowed to the rustle of sheets, to soft gasps muffled by twilight, to the storm rising between them.
She clung to his arm, nails clawing into skin that won’t break, breath shuddering in his ear as his name left her lips like a benediction. He held her through it, through the fading tremors and the afterglow. With haste, he removed himself, pressing his lips to the back of her neck, a low, involuntary sound rumbling deep in his chest—sated and awed and something long past undone. His teeth ached. With his fingers he massaged his venom into the curve of her behind, drew his digits up her back to the dip of her spine as it arched. Marking. Possessive. Mine.
The aftermath was warmth. The hush after the storm. The silence between heartbeats where something fragile and real lingered.
He kissed her again, softer this time.
And just for a moment, he let himself pretend there was no future to fear, no Volturi watching, no threat hanging above them.
Only her.
Only this.
Notes:
More character building than plot, but I hope you enjoyed it :)
Chapter 19: A Knife’s Edge
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The scent of fried eggs and toasted bread lingered in the Denali kitchen as Heather sat at the wide wooden table, lazily swirling her fork through the last remnants of her breakfast. The morning light poured in through the tall, mist-fogged windows, casting a golden sheen over the counters. Outside, the snow was soft underfoot, half-melted from the weak Alaskan sun.
She glanced out the window absently—and paused.
Rosalie stood just beyond the tree line, arms folded, gaze cast toward the horizon. Her silhouette was all clean lines and perfect stillness, golden hair catching the light like a halo. It had been days, and Rosalie had barely said a word to her.
Heather missed her. Missed their quiet conversations, the unexpected moments of shared vulnerability.
Without thinking, she pushed her chair back and stepped outside, the cold biting gently at her exposed skin. Her boots crunched against the snow.
“Hey,” she called softly.
Rosalie didn’t turn right away, but after a beat, she glanced over her shoulder, then sighed, unfolding her arms.
“I was wondering when you’d come find me,” Rosalie said, her tone guarded but not unkind.
Heather offered a half-smile. “I’ve missed you.”
A long silence settled between them, the crisp morning air wrapping around their breath like smoke. Rosalie finally spoke.
“It’s not you,” she said. “It never was. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t… disappointed in Carlisle.”
Heather’s stomach twisted. “Because of me?”
“No.” Rosalie looked at her properly now. “Because he’s put you in danger. Both of you. You and Bella. The Volturi—”
“The what now?” Heather interrupted, brow furrowing.
Rosalie exhaled slowly, then nodded to a nearby log, motioning for Heather to sit. She did.
“They’re our… royalty. Rulers. Enforcers, really. The Volturi keep our kind secret. Hidden. Humans aren’t supposed to know about us. Not ever. And now two do. That’s a threat to everything we’ve tried to protect.”
Heather’s voice dropped. “What do they do… when someone breaks the rules?”
Rosalie looked away. “They remove the problem. The human. Or the coven that exposed them.”
Heather felt the blood drain from her face.
“But they are diplomatic with Carlisle, they have history with him.” Rosalie added. “They’ll talk before they act. Still—he’s walking a knife’s edge.”
They fell quiet for a moment before Heather reached out and touched Rosalie’s arm gently.
“Thank you for being honest.” She whispered, “I don’t want to lose you.”
For a heartbeat, Rosalie just looked at her—eyes unreadable. Then, without warning, she stepped forward and pulled Heather into a hug. No words, no warning—just comfort, strong and anchoring. Heather froze, then melted into it. She hadn't realized how much she needed it until now.
The tension in Heather’s shoulders melted by degrees. Her fingers curled gently into the back of Rosalie’s sweater, grounding herself in the rare moment of quiet understanding. Snowflakes landed in Rosalie’s hair and stayed there, like stardust in spun gold. The wind whispered around them, but for a few seconds, the world stood still.
“Thanks,” Heather murmured finally, voice muffled against Rosalie’s shoulder.
Rosalie pulled back just enough to look her in the eye, a hint of a smile softening her sharp features. “Don’t make me regret caring,” she said, voice dry but not without warmth.
Heather huffed a small laugh, swiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. “I’ll do my best.”
Rosalie rolled her eyes, but her hand lingered at Heather’s elbow for a beat longer than necessary before finally letting go.
They started walking, the snow crunching beneath their boots as the Denali house came back into view, smoke curling softly from the chimney.
As they reached the porch, the first hints of conversation drifted toward them—low voices, the murmur of the Cullen household carrying through the winter air. Heather glanced at Rosalie, who only nodded once and pushed the door open.
As they stepped through the doorway, the sound of Edward’s voice rang out from the sitting room.
“Oh, for the love of—Carlisle,” he groaned. “Again?!”
Heather barely had time to process what she’d heard when the universe reminded her it wasn’t done with surprises.
A moment of silence. Then a disgusted noise. “Do you forget I can hear everything?”
Heather blinked in confusion, eyebrows raised.
Edward reappeared in the hallway a beat later, casting a pained glance toward her.
“I’m begging you both—for some discretion.”
He rubbed at his temple like it physically hurt him. “There are things even I shouldn’t be forced to know.”
Then, with a put-upon sigh worthy of a Shakespearean actor, he muttered, “I’m going for a walk,” and swept past them, coat flaring behind him.
Heather stared after him. “What… was that about?”
Rosalie, lips twitching, replied smoothly, “It’s his gift. He can read minds.”
Heather’s face went pale. “Wait. You’re not serious.”
Rosalie gave her an angelic look, then turned on her heel and walked away.
“Rosalie? Rose—tell me you’re joking!”
But Rosalie was already gone.
The blood drained from Heather’s face.
Oh God.
All the thoughts she’d had. The fantasies. The things she'd done with Carlisle. Thought about doing again.
Poor Edward.
She hurried after Rosalie, grabbing her arm. “Wait, wait. Please—who else in the family has gifts?”
Rosalie turned, clearly enjoying this. “Jasper can manipulate emotion. Alice sees the future—well, possible futures. It seems that Bella’s immune to mental gifts, which drives Edward mad.”
Heather swallowed, nodding as if this was a perfectly normal conversation. “And the Denali’s?”
“Kate can channel electricity through her skin. Like a current—she’s careful not to shock anyone by accident. Tanya and Irina don’t have active gifts like that, but Eleazar—he can sense gifts. Like, know what someone can do just by being near them.”
Heather exhaled sharply, reeling.
“I need tea,” she muttered.
Rosalie laughed. “Might want to offer Edward a cup too. Poor guy probably needs chamomile and therapy.”
As Rosalie’s footsteps faded and the hallway settled into quiet, Heather stayed frozen in place, hand still braced lightly against the wall. The tea could wait. So could Edward. Hell, everything could wait.
Her thoughts were a slow avalanche.
The Volturi. Mind readers. Emotional manipulation. A supernatural monarchal death squad.
And Carlisle hadn’t said a word.
She wasn’t angry—at least, not in the way that sparked yelling or slammed doors. It was something quieter. Weightier. A dull thud beneath her breastbone.
He hadn’t lied. But he hadn’t told her either.
And maybe it was meant to protect her. Maybe it was kindness, or guilt, or some twisted version of patience. But Heather was done being the soft spot people tiptoed around. The secret he tried to keep safe by keeping her in the dark.
She needed to speak to him. Not later. Not when the timing was better. Now.
No more revelations in the hallway from third parties. No more quiet edits of the truth. If she was really going to be part of this—if he wanted her to stand beside him, to trust him—then he needed to stop treating her like something breakable.
Heather turned on her heel, jaw tight with resolve. Her feet carried her toward the library before she could second-guess it. The truth was long overdue—and she wasn’t going to wait to be offered it anymore.
The hallway was quiet as Heather closed the door behind her, the click louder than she meant it to be. The warmth of the Denali home no longer felt quite so comforting. Her thoughts buzzed, unsettled—like static behind her eyes.
Carlisle was seated in the library off the main corridor, a book open in his hand, though he wasn’t reading. The firelight caught the pale gold strands of his hair, casting flickers of amber along his profile.
He looked up the moment she entered. “Heather?”
She didn’t speak immediately, just stood in the doorway, her hands twisting in the hem of her sweater. There was something stiff about her posture, a weight she hadn’t been carrying before.
“I just spoke to Rosalie,” she said finally. Her voice was soft, but it carried.
Carlisle rose in a heartbeat, concern blooming in his features. “Is something wrong?”
Heather let out a breath—quiet, but tight. “She told me about the Volturi.”
Silence fell like a dropped curtain.
She met his eyes. “Carlisle… why didn’t you tell me?”
He stepped forward, gently closing the library door behind her. “Heather—”
“No,” she interrupted, not harshly, but with a tremble in her voice that made it more painful. “You should have told me. They’re—what? Vampire royalty? Enforcers? Rosalie made it sound like they’d kill me just for knowing. And Bella too. That if they come, we might all die. Why wouldn’t you—why didn’t you—tell me?”
He was close now, close enough to reach for her, but didn’t. He could feel the storm of emotion in her, and he respected it. Respected her.
“I didn’t tell you,” He said softly, “because you already had too many shadows hanging over you.”
She blinked at him.
“Victoria,” he explained. “The fear of her still lingers. You’ve been watching the treeline, double-locking the door, waking up tense. I didn’t want to give you another reason to lose sleep. Another danger you couldn’t fight.”
Heather looked away, jaw tightening. “But I should’ve had the choice. I deserve to know what I’m facing.”
“You do.” His voice was quieter now, touched with remorse. “And I was going to tell you. Just… not like this. Not from someone else. Not before I could explain what the Volturi are and what they are not.”
He stepped forward at last and this time she let him close the space between them.
“They’re powerful,” he said, “and dangerous, yes. But they don’t act without purpose. I didn’t want you to live in fear of something that might never come.”
She looked up at him, eyes wet—not crying, but heavy.
“I’m not weak, Carlisle,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to protect me from the truth.”
A pause passed. Then, so gently she almost didn’t feel it, he brushed his fingers along her cheek.
“I know you’re not,” he said. “You’re brave in ways I struggle to understand. But I love you, Heather. And that love… it makes me reckless with caution. I would carry the whole world on my shoulders if it meant sparing you an ounce of pain.”
She exhaled shakily, leaning into his touch. “But we’re in this together.”
He nodded. “Yes. We are. From now on, no secrets.”
There was a pause—then she stepped into his arms, and he gathered her close. Her cheek rested against his chest, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
The fire crackled softly in the hearth. A quiet pact had been forged in that stillness—equal parts trust and apology.
Carlisle held her for a moment longer, then stepped back with a sigh—not one of frustration, but resolve.
“You’re right,” he said. “This can’t stay between us. Not anymore.”
He moved to the library door and opened it. “Come with me?”
Heather nodded.
They walked together down the long hall, her fingers brushing his briefly in quiet reassurance. When they stepped into the main room, the soft hum of voices quieted.
Alice looked up first from where she sat on the arm of the couch beside Jasper. Bella was curled beside Edward, a half-finished mug cooling in her hands. Emmett stood near the hearth, arms folded across his chest. Rosalie was beside the window, watchful. From the far side of the room, Carmen, Irina and Kate entered from the veranda, trailed by Eleazar and Tanya, who closed the glass door behind them.
Carlisle didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
“We need to talk,” he said simply.
The tone in his voice drew everyone in.
With little more than a glance passed between them, the room shifted—chairs were pulled in, the fire stirred to life, and within minutes, the Cullen and Denali families gathered together in a loose ring. Bella stood and took a seat beside Heather on the sofa. Their knees touched.
“No more secrets,” Carlisle said quietly, as he looked from face to face. “Not from each other. Not from those we’ve sworn to protect.”
Heather felt a flush of heat rise in her cheeks, but she held her head high. No more whispers in corners. No more finding out from someone else what monsters lay waiting in the wings.
Carlisle gave her a small nod before turning to the others. “Heather knows about the Volturi.”
There was no gasp, no dramatic response—but the weight in the air changed. Tangled into it was something old and solemn. Tanya leaned forward, her eyes narrowing slightly. Kate tilted her head. Eleazar’s fingers steepled under his chin.
“She had a right to know,” Rosalie said, voice clear, standing a little straighter.
“She did,” Carlisle agreed softly.
Heather looked around the room—at the strange, fractured family who had taken her in, protected her, and risked everything to do so. Her hands tightened in her lap. Bella glanced at her and gave a small, knowing smile.
For the first time, she felt not like someone being protected—but like someone standing with them. Part of the whole. Ready to face what was coming.
Then Eleazar spoke.
“There are too many eyes watching,” Eleazar said once everyone had settled. “The Volturi will not remain silent for long. You know this.”
“I do,” Carlisle said. “But I need to understand how much danger we’re in. And whether...”
He glanced briefly at Bella. Then, slowly, his gaze returned to Heather.
“...whether we’ve already crossed lines that cannot be uncrossed.”
The meeting wore on. Talk of treaties. Of shifting power. Of the wolves in Forks. Of what would happen if the Volturi deemed Bella or Heather a threat to secrecy.
Heather listened, absorbing what she could. She didn’t understand it all, not yet. But she was beginning to see her place in this fragile structure of alliances and secrets.
And most of all, she was seeing Carlisle—not just the doctor, or the vampire, or the would-be peacekeeper—but the man who had chosen her, against all odds, in the middle of a war he never wanted.
She reached for his hand as the day moved on outside. And when he folded his cold fingers around hers, it felt like a promise.
At the end of the discussion, the room settled into a heavy silence, the weight of unspoken fears and fragile alliances hanging thick in the air. Heather glanced around at the faces — some grim, others weary — all marked by the strains of the day. They had laid bare enough truths for one day, until the edges of their resolve blurred.
Carlisle’s gaze found hers, steady and unyielding. In that moment, the world outside the walls seemed distant, like a breath held just beyond reach.
“Let’s take a break,” Carlisle said softly, his voice slicing through the tension like a cool breeze. “We’ve all earned it.”
The group rose, the clatter of chairs echoing in the suddenly empty room. They stepped outside into the biting air, the garden blanketed in snow, pristine and still—waiting. The snow-packed garden behind the Denali house had seen everything from quiet snowfall to the roaring chaos of a Cullen-level snowball fight—but today it was the quiet before a different kind of storm.
Heather blinked against the pale light, then caught sight of the old pine tree, its scarred bark telling stories of past challenges and rivalries.
She glanced toward the makeshift target nailed to the old pine. The bark was scarred with previous attempts, rough from practice and competitive egos. Emmett stood nearby, grinning like the overconfident brute he was, twirling one of her bone knives between thick fingers, how he’d managed to snag it, she’d never know..
“Go on then, tough guy,” Heather called out, “Have a go.”
Emmett’s grin widened. “You’re gonna regret that.”
He squared his shoulders, flexing his fingers as if warming up for a big game. With a cocky smirk, he spun the knife once between his thick fingers, then lifted it like a javelin and launched it forward with full force. The blade slammed into the tree, off-centre, bark splitting beneath the sheer strength behind it. The knife vibrated from the impact.
Heather raised a brow. “The idea isn’t to break the tree in half, Em,” she drawled. “It’s to hit the middle.”
He shrugged, flexing his arms with faux innocence. “What can I say? Accuracy’s for people who can’t throw a truck.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped up to the mark, unsheathing the other matching knife from the pair.
“Watch and learn.”
Heather took a moment. The cold air tightened around her, the sound of chattering from the porch fading to a low hum. She spun the blade once, feeling its weight, then twisted her shoulder back. A full-body motion—graceful, precise—she swung from the waist, and let go.
The knife cut through the air sideways, a gleam of silver against the pale backdrop of snow and sky. It spun like a bird catching the wind, elegant and deadly. It struck the centre of the target with a solid, ringing thud, the echo lingering through the clearing like a bell tolling in admiration.
Dead centre. No wobble. No splinters.
Heather smirked.
“Bet you can’t beat that. Not so cocky now, are you?”
Emmett’s face twisted into an exaggerated pout. “I loosened it for you,” he grumbled.
“Sure you did,” she teased, folding her arms smugly. “You want me to go easy on your ego next time?”
From the porch, applause rang out. Bella clapped with a broad grin. Even Tanya let out a whistle.
Emmett, grumbling something under his breath about lucky throws, trudged toward the tree to retrieve the knives.
But not everyone was laughing.
Eleazar stood at the edge of the deck, arms folded, brow furrowed. His eyes weren’t on the tree or even the blade—but on Heather.
That was... too accurate, he thought, almost startled by it. That level of precision… it’s rare. Even among our kind.
He didn’t finish the thought aloud. But it lingered there, unspoken between the sound of knives being pulled from bark and the shared laughter of friends.
Heather, still grinning, turned back toward the others—unaware that behind his calm expression, Eleazar’s mind was turning.
Notes:
This story is now fully written! Whoop whoop, honestly I have had this in my head for the last 10 years so its very cathartic to finally put it out there. I hope you guys enjoy the next 8 chapters, they will be posted very soon <3
Chapter 20: Walk With Me
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Later that evening, after the low hum of conversation and laughter had faded into a comfortable quiet, Carlisle stood alone in the Denali study. The flames in the stone hearth cast a golden glow over the rows of aged books, flickering softly against the snow-muffled windows.
He turned a page in the worn journal he’d brought, but his mind was elsewhere—still lingering on Heather’s easy smile earlier, the way she had outmatched Emmett with such quiet precision.
The door creaked slightly.
Carlisle glanced up as Eleazar stepped into the room, his expression thoughtful.
“May I?” Eleazar asked, gesturing to the armchair opposite.
“Of course,” Carlisle said, closing the journal and setting it aside.
For a moment, they sat in silence, the kind shared between old friends who understood the weight of words.
“It was impressive,” Eleazar said finally. “Her throw.”
Carlisle nodded once, though something in Eleazar’s tone made his gaze sharpen. “You noticed.”
“How could I not? That level of control? Even accounting for practice, for natural talent—it’s exceptional.” Eleazar leaned forward slightly. “Carlisle, that throw would have been impressive from one of us.”
Carlisle’s eyes narrowed faintly, the physician in him analysing, turning over questions already half-formed.
“You think it’s more than practice.”
“I think it’s more than coincidence.” Eleazar folded his hands in front of him. “You said she’s descended from a line that had interactions with supernatural forces. That she inherited those daggers, and they respond to her.”
Carlisle nodded again, slower this time. “Yes.”
Eleazar turned to close the study door softly behind him. The firelight danced across the grain of the wood-panelled walls, casting shifting gold across the volumes that lined the shelves. Carlisle paused, arms loosely crossed, his expression calm—but Eleazar had known him long enough to see the quiet tension running beneath it.
“Carlisle,” Eleazar said gently. “My friend, you know there are no secrets between us.”
Carlisle turned to face him, one brow slightly raised in quiet invitation. “Of course.”
Eleazar stepped closer, his voice lower now, more cautious than it usually was. “Very rarely do I sense anything significant from humans. But Bella... from her... Even as a human, I can feel it—her gift already beginning to unfurl. A shield. I believe once she is turned, she will be powerful—immensely so.”
Carlisle nodded, unsurprised. “I’ve long suspected the same, the way Edward can’t hear her thoughts…”
“Aro will desire that,” Eleazar added. “You should bear that in mind, and prepare.”
“I am.”
Carlisle had sat through countless conversations like this over the centuries—warnings cloaked in concern, theories whispered beneath the crackle of firelight. Always about threats, risks, what might one day come. But this time felt different. It wasn’t fear prickling at the edge of his thoughts. It was something deeper. Something personal.
Eleazar hesitated. “But it’s not Bella I am here to speak about.” His voice lowered further, and his eyes met Carlisle’s with quiet gravity. “It is Heather.”
Carlisle straightened almost imperceptibly. “What about her?”
“There’s something… unusual,” Eleazar admitted. “When I met her, I expected to feel very little. But instead, I felt something strange… not quite a gift in itself, but something designed to hide one.”
Carlisle’s expression shifted—wariness flickered in his gaze, the kind reserved only for rare moments when uncertainty truly took root. “Hide what, exactly?”
“That,” Eleazar said, “I don’t know.”
He stepped toward the fire, watching the flames flicker as though searching their movement for understanding.
“It’s like there’s a sheen over her—something subtle, a quiet suggestion to overlook her. A gloss of unremarkable. It wants you to move on. To forget. To dismiss. But the more time I spend near her, the more I begin to feel... that it isn’t something she’s doing consciously. It’s woven in. Cleverly crafted. Ancient. I’ve never encountered it before.”
Carlisle’s voice was low, steady. “Do you think she’s in danger?”
“I think you both may be. If that cloak ever lifts.” Eleazar turned toward him again, eyes darker now, not with suspicion—but with caution. “You must prepare yourself, Carlisle. There may come a day when what’s underneath is revealed—and you’ll have to decide what to do with it. What she will do with it.”
A heavy silence passed between them.
“There are tales,” Eleazar said at last, voice dropping like a stone in a still lake. “Whispers of beings other than us. Things older, stranger. Things the Volturi do not speak of—because they don’t want anyone to know they exist.”
Carlisle’s jaw tightened. “Speak plainly, what do you mean?”
“Have you considered that whatever blood runs through her may not be entirely ordinary?” Eleazar asked softly. “We don’t know the extent of what she’s inherited.”
Carlisle exhaled. “She’s not other,” he said quietly. “She’s still Heather. She is mine. She surprises me constantly… I won’t treat her like something to be examined.”
The fire crackled softly behind them, its light casting long shadows across the floor. Carlisle looked down at his hands, at the smooth, pale fingers that had healed wounds and held lives together for centuries.
“I wouldn’t suggest you do,” Eleazar said. “But if the Volturi come asking questions—if they see what we saw today—they won’t be so understanding.”
He paused a moment, letting his comments sink in. “And if she were to be something more,” Eleazar murmured. “You must be ready—for when the world demands that you see her fully.”
Carlisle said nothing.
But the flicker in his eyes—the tension that hadn’t been there before—spoke volumes.
A beat passed.
Carlisle looked toward the fire, then back. “You’ve always been perceptive, my friend. But I won’t live in fear of what the Volturi might do. I trust Heather. And I love her.”
Eleazar’s gaze softened. “That much is clear. You look… lighter. More alive.”
A quiet smile pulled at Carlisle’s lips. “I feel it.”
“Then I hope she is everything she seems,” Eleazar said gently, “and that you are right to trust what’s inside her.”
Carlisle didn’t reply right away. He looked again toward the fire, the reflection of its flames dancing in his eyes.
“I’d stake everything I have on her.”
.
Evening had settled gently over the Denali home, wrapping the mountains in a deep indigo hush. Inside, the golden glow of firelight pooled across the wooden floors, casting slow-dancing shadows against the walls. The record player in the corner crackled to life, its gentle whir giving way to the notes of a slow, timeless waltz—strings soft, almost drowsy, weaving something old and elegant into the room.
Carmen was the first to rise, her smile blooming with playful fondness as she reached for Eleazar. “Come,” she said, tugging at his sleeve. “Don’t pretend you’re too tired for this.”
Eleazar chuckled, rising with grace that betrayed the centuries tucked into his frame. He let her draw him in, one hand settling easily at her waist as they began to turn in smooth, effortless circles near the hearth. The others followed suit—Kate twirling Irina in a mockingly grand dip, Tanya gliding with exaggerated flair, pulling Emmett into a surprisingly graceful sway that had Rosalie rolling her eyes and Edward grinning from the piano bench, fingers still lazily pressing keys.
The room had changed—softened, as if touched by something sacred. Laughter threaded gently through the music, low and lovely.
Carlisle stood from the arm of the sofa, casting a look toward Heather.
She had been curled under a blanket, watching the scene unfold with an absent smile on her lips, chin in her hand, tea long forgotten on the side table. When she looked up and met his eyes, the room narrowed to just the two of them.
He stepped toward her, and with a tilt of his head and a slight bow, offered her his hand.
“Dance with me?” he asked.
Her brows lifted. “Carlisle…” she started, laughing softly as she glanced at the dancers around them. “I have two left feet.”
He only smiled, the warmth in his expression like sunlight at the edges of dawn. “Then let me guide them.”
With hesitance that quickly melted into trust, she took his hand. It was cool, steady—certain. He drew her up and close, one hand resting lightly at her waist, the other cradling her fingers as though they were made of porcelain.
He began to move with unhurried grace, his body leading hers through the rhythm as if the music came from him rather than the record. She stumbled slightly at first, an embarrassed laugh leaving her lips, but he simply chuckled and held her closer, his cheek brushing against her temple.
“I’m beginning to feel that this is just an excuse to hold me,” she murmured, a teasing smile tucked into the corner of her mouth.
He answered with a whisper, barely above breath. “Guilty as charged.”
She relaxed into him then, the music curling like smoke around their bodies. Her cheek found its place against his collarbone, and she could feel, in his stillness, how utterly present he was in that moment. His hand traced gentle circles against the small of her back, and for a long stretch of time they said nothing, letting silence do the speaking.
To Heather, it felt like falling into something ancient and soft. Like her bones remembered a waltz they'd never learned, as if her soul had always known the sound of his steps.
To Carlisle, it felt like breath after centuries without one. Like finding spring in the depths of winter. She was light in his arms—not in weight, but in presence. Her warmth pressed against his chest, the beat of her heart as steady and fearless as the music surrounding them.
They moved together until the song waned, slowing into silence. But he did not let go. He kept her there, in the stillness between tracks, forehead resting gently against hers, his hands reverent on the curve of her waist.
“Dear heart,” he whispered, voice threaded with something fragile, something he didn’t dare name.
And Heather, without needing to understand the enormity of what he meant, smiled and held him tighter.
Outside, the snow continued to fall. Inside, two hearts—one mortal, one carved from endless time—danced quietly, beautifully, as if they had always been meant to find each other here, at the edge of the world.
The next track clicked softly into place, but Carlisle didn’t move. Not yet. His forehead still rested against hers, their breath mingling in the quiet.
Then, gently, he pulled back, meeting her eyes with a look so tender it rooted her to the moment.
“Come,” he said softly, lacing his fingers with hers. “Walk with me.”
Heather nodded, her heart steady in her chest, and let him lead her through the house. They passed the others still dancing, laughing, lost in their own rhythms, and stepped out into the deep silence of the Alaskan night.
The cold met them like a breath held too long—crisp and clean, tinged with the scent of pine and frost. Snow stretched in all directions, blanketing the earth in untouched silver. Above them, the moon rode high in a velvet sky scattered with stars, so vivid it felt like they could fall upward into it. The trees, heavy with snow, stood like silent witnesses, their dark trunks etched against the shimmer of winter.
Their footsteps crunched softly in the snow as they wandered beyond the house, hand in hand. The world was hushed, sacred—like the mountains themselves were holding their breath.
Carlisle’s thumb brushed over the back of her hand, slow and thoughtful. After a long moment, he glanced sideways, a subtle question blooming in his eyes before it ever touched his lips.
“What do you think your answer might be,” he asked, voice quiet and even, “if I were to ask you to marry me?”
Heather laughed—softly, tenderly, not unkind. She tightened her grip on his hand, offering silent assurance.
“No offence taken,” he said with a faint smile, already reading her.
She was quiet for a beat, her breath misting in the air between them.
“I wouldn’t say no,” she said finally. “But I would say… slow down.”
He stopped walking at that, turning toward her fully.
“You always do this,” she said gently, her voice almost a whisper in the snowy stillness. “You rush forward. Not recklessly, but... with purpose. You throw yourself into things—healing, helping, fixing, loving—as if time’s always slipping away from you, even though you’ve had more of it than anyone.”
He blinked, as if the observation struck deeper than expected.
Heather reached up, brushing her fingers lightly against his coat. “I want to love you. Truly. But I want to feel every moment of it. I don’t want to sprint to the end. I want to walk through it. Slowly. With you.”
He stood silent in the cold, the wind playing through his golden hair, eyes fixed on her with a kind of reverence that made her stomach flutter.
And then, as if he understood not just her words but the spaces between them, Carlisle dipped his head, pressed his forehead gently to hers again, and whispered:
“Then we’ll walk.”
Above them, the moon spilled light like silk over the snow, and hand in hand, they wandered deeper into the quiet, taking the long way back—step by step.
Notes:
Honestly, I'm surprised he waited this long haha. This is the last cute one so buckle up kids, the plot awaits. Love, Crab
Chapter 21: The Quiet That Watches Back
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Volterra was quieter in the off-season.
The summer tourists had long gone, leaving behind echoes of their voices in the winding stone streets. Autumn had settled in with soft grey skies and a cold that clung to the old brickwork like memory. The piazzas were no longer crowded with cameras and laughter. Just the soft shuffle of locals now, their scarves pulled high, their shoulders hunched.
The day was shorter than expected.
A surprise drizzle in the morning had driven the tourists inside, their umbrellas blooming like dark flowers along the slick stone streets. By mid-afternoon, the clouds remained, but the rain had moved on—leaving only the hush.
The café emptied early. Fewer customers meant fewer shifts, and for once, no one argued when she untied her apron and slipped it into her bag. Her co-worker, Matteo, had offered her a shrug and a tired smile.
"Vai, vai," he’d said, waving her toward the back door. Go on.
She left quietly. The alley behind the café smelled like rosemary and wet plaster. A puddle caught the faintest sheen of overcast light, the kind that turned the world into washed-out silver. Her boots echoed lightly on the stones as she walked, alone, past shuttered shops and quiet stoops. There were no pigeons. Not even the usual blackbirds in the eaves.
She noticed. But she didn’t think about it.
The apartment was just up the hill, a narrow walk and a creaky stairwell with three uneven landings. She paused at the top, unlocking her door with the old iron key that always stuck just a little.
Inside, the cat meowed.
“Ciao, micino” she said softly, crouching to scoop the tabby into her arms. He was warm. Soft. He pressed his cheek into her collarbone and purred, the sound like an engine rumbling in the dark.
Her Nonna’s apartment was just downstairs. She still lived in the same sun-washed flat she’d moved into with her late husband before the war. Every Sunday, and sometimes Thursdays when the café was slow, she visited. Today felt like a Thursday.
She stopped only long enough to feed the cat, wipe down the kitchen counter, and braid her hair loosely over one shoulder. She still smelled faintly of espresso and steamed milk.
Downstairs, Nonna had made lentils.
“Eh, Chiara, you seem tired,” Nonna said the moment she opened the door. “Sit, sit.”
She did. They ate quietly. The windows were open, but the air barely stirred. Chiara could hear the bells from San Michele ring the hour, but the usual flutter of wings around the bell tower was missing.
Even Nonna noticed. “It’s too quiet today.”
Chiara just nodded, stirring her spoon in a bowl that had already gone cold.
That night, after helping clean the dishes and kiss her grandmother goodnight, she returned home. The cat sat like a guardian on the windowsill, his tail wrapped neatly around his paws. He was staring at something across the square.
There was nothing there. Just the ancient stone and deepening dusk. Still, she closed the shutters a little more tightly than usual.
She told herself she wasn’t afraid. Just tired. Just tired.
That night, she dreamed.
But not the nonsense dreams of too much coffee or television left on low. This one came quietly, like mist curling under the doorframe.
She was standing in the square, though it looked... wrong. Empty in the way a stage is empty before a tragedy. The fountain was dry. The buildings were taller. Or maybe they leaned in.
And she saw the red-haired woman again.
She never moved. Just stood at the far end of the square, her eyes never visible, her face angled just so. But Chiara felt them—like hooks, sinking in slow.
The woman raised her hand, slow, elegant. Pointed.
Not at her. Just... near.
Chiara woke with the sound of her cat hissing. He stood arched on the bedframe, fur raised, eyes locked on the window.
There was nothing outside.
But the silence was back.
The café was quieter the next morning. Matteo joked about the weather scaring off the tourists, but even he didn’t laugh. The old man who usually fed the birds on the corner hadn’t come. A child dropped her croissant and didn’t cry. A dog tied up near the awning wouldn’t stop staring down the alley.
That same alley. The one behind the café.
Where the stone never quite dried, no matter how long the sun lingered.
Chiara wrapped her arms around herself and told herself it was nothing. Just weather. Just nerves.
She did not sleep that night.
But the red-haired woman did not return.
The stone arches of the old library loomed against the grey sky. Something told her she should go there today. Inside, dust motes floated in the stale light. The catalogues were brittle, handwritten tomes leaning against the shelves like silent voyeurs.
Chiara stood before a narrow wooden table, a faint ache in her chest. She flipped through a folio of Volterran folklore—pages yellowed with age, ink faded but words still clear. Legends of angels who wore red, of pale kings, of wandering women who walked the twilight without ever aging. One passage caught her: a pale lady whose hair “burnt the sky and drew unwary souls.”
She touched the letters lightly with trembling fingers. The air inside the library tasted of old paper and dried lavender. She closed the book and headed for the door, unsettled.
The street outside was quiet. Shops were boarded up; shutters fell into place with creaks that echoed like the closing of heavy lids.
Up the narrow stairwell she climbed, carrying a small bag of cat food. At the top, she pushed open her apartment door with a sense of foreboding she couldn’t explain.
“Nonna?” she called into the hush. No answer.
She placed the cat food on the tile by the door with a soft clink. Still no meow.
“Nonna?” Her voice shook, ricocheting off walls. The kitchen lay lifeless. She walked into the small living room. The cat bowl remained untouched.
“Nonna?” Her whisper turned to urgent call. Fear began to rise.
A sudden flash of red in the corner of her eye. She whipped around. Nothing. Just a darkened hallway and the echo of her own breath.
She pressed a hand to her chest. Heart pounding. Calm, she told herself. Everything’s fine.
She made to turn back toward the bowl—
And froze.
There, inches from her face, were the deepest red eyes she had ever seen. Crimson. Vast. Piercing.
A face she knew only from her nightmares—pale skin, red hair framing perfect bone structure, lips curved into a fanged smile.
No time to think. Victoria lunged.
Chiara’s scream tore through the apartment.
.
Alice’s eyes flew open. The scream—the sound was hers, yet not—echoed in her head, visceral and unbidden. She sat upright, mind spinning, eyes aflame as spectral horror painted across her vision.
There had been an innocent girl. Fear in her eyes. Beautiful, unfamiliar, overwhelmed. And beside her—A red-haired woman, cruel and magnificent, fangs bared.
Alice gasped.
Someone shook her shoulder. Rosalie’s voice hovered: “Alice, you okay?”
Alice’s voice trembled. “It’s Victoria.”
The room had gone still.
Alice stood in the middle of the lounge like a lightning rod for panic, her delicate hands trembling by her sides. Her amber eyes, wide with the aftershock of her vision, darted to each face around her. Jasper had a hand lightly on her back, steadying her like she might fall apart under her own weight.
"She killed a girl,” Alice whispered. “She was kind… soft… just a girl.”
They were all there now—Rosalie perched on the arm of the leather couch, Emmett pacing, eyes hard and jaw tight. Edward leaned against the piano, his arms crossed, but his posture was wound, brittle. He hadn’t spoken since Alice screamed.
Carlisle stood apart, near the fireplace, shadowed. He hadn’t looked at Edward once.
“It was Victoria,” Alice confirmed again, voice low and shaken. “She’s in Volterra.”
Silence.
The word Volterra settled into the floorboards, into the very walls of the Cullen home. Even the trees outside seemed to hush.
“Why Volterra?” Rosalie asked. Her voice was firm, but her fingers clenched where they rested. “Why go there of all places?”
Edward’s laugh was sudden, hollow. “Because she’s clever. Calculated. And because she knows exactly where to strike.”
Carlisle remained silent. A weight had settled in his chest, ancient and familiar. The Volturi. The name alone conjured the cold of stone halls and Aro’s cold, probing voice.
“She’s baiting them,” Jasper murmured. “Or aligning herself with them.”
“No,” Alice said, shaking her head, clutching at her temple. “Not yet. But they’ve noticed. They’ve seen her. Or… they will.”
A shiver passed through the room. The notion of Victoria was dreadful enough. But the Volturi?
Unthinkable.
Notes:
I actually feel very sad writing about poor Nonna. Because I am not a complete heathen, I will add that the cat managed to stay outside and is absolutely fine, healthy and very well. He had a good sense of self-preservation. Can't say the same about Chiara :/
Chapter 22: A Letter in Crimson Wax
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The room had dissolved into quiet dread. No one had to say it out loud—Victoria had made her move. And she had chosen Volterra.
Carlisle was the first to rise. “We can’t stay,” he said, not with anger or panic, but with the steady certainty of a man who had just seen a line drawn in the snow.
Tanya’s face fell. “So soon?” she asked, though the edge of her voice revealed that she already understood.
Eleazar stood beside her. “If Victoria has shown herself in Volterra, then the Volturi will know. It’s only a matter of time before they ask questions we can’t afford to answer from here.”
Emmett was already halfway to the staircase. Rosalie close behind.
Alice turned to Carmen, a flicker of guilt in her expression. “Thank you for everything. I wish we had more time.”
Carmen nodded, warmth tempered by concern. “Just promise you’ll call when you know more.”
“We will,” Carlisle said. He offered his hand to Eleazar, who took it without hesitation. “Thank you—for the warning. And for welcoming us.”
“You don’t need to thank us,” Eleazar replied.
The snow was falling again as they loaded the cars. Farewells were quick, subdued. Carmen wrapped Heather in a tight hug, whispering something soft and foreign in her ear. Tanya gave Edward a final, unreadable look. Irina lingered near the treeline, arms crossed, eyes shadowed.
When they pulled away from the Denali estate, the manor faded behind a curtain of white—its tall glass windows reflecting only trees and sky.
The flight was unremarkable this time. The drive back was quiet.
Bella sat with her fingers curled tightly in her lap, gaze fixed on the blur of snow-laced trees whipping past the windows. Beside her Heather drove with a quiet focus. The others had run.
They all felt it: the countdown had begun.
Forks greeted them with a curtain of rain, soft and relentless. The Cullen house emerged from the trees like a sentinel in the mist. It looked unchanged. Quiet. Waiting.
The car rolled to a slow stop in the gravel drive. No one moved for a moment.
Then Heather pushed open her door. The sound of rain filled the silence, and one by one, they followed.
Home again. But everything had changed.
.
Forks General Hospital was unusually quiet that morning, a rare lull between flu season chaos and the usual string of minor injuries that peppered the ER. Carlisle Cullen moved through the halls with calm precision, white coat crisp, stethoscope looped neatly around his neck. He had already seen to two patients with minor injuries—one dislocated shoulder from a skiing mishap and one toddler with a splinter that had his mother more distraught than the child himself.
Nurses smiled at him as he passed, familiar with his almost preternatural bedside manner. Dr. Cullen was a fixture now—calm, composed, respected. Revered, even, by some of the younger staff who couldn’t understand how a man who looked so young had so much medical experience.
He reviewed charts, consulted briefly with radiology about a scan that concerned him more than it should, and gently convinced an elderly man with pneumonia to accept antibiotics over herbal remedies. It was routine. Purposeful. Almost soothing in its familiarity. Almost.
But beneath it all, Carlisle moved like a man holding back a tide.
The hours trickled by.
He hadn’t thought of Volterra once that morning—had tried not to. His mind stayed trained on sutures and vital signs, not red eyes and stone walls. But somewhere under the surface, he carried it with him: the vision Alice had seen, the scream echoing in her head, and the unspoken dread curling around his family like smoke.
By noon, the constant murmur of the hospital had begun to press in. The fluorescent lights, the antiseptic tang of bleach and old coffee, the endless shuffle of soles on tile—he needed a moment. A breath. Even if he didn’t need air.
Carlisle excused himself from the nurse’s station—gently dodging questions about his lunch preferences and ignoring another intern’s desperate attempt at flirtation—and made his way down the hall to his office.
It was tucked away near the quieter end of the floor, behind a frosted-glass door with his name etched in a simple serif: Dr. C. Cullen. He let himself in with a sigh that only another immortal might hear, the door closing softly behind him.
Carlisle’s office was an oasis of order and restraint. The room was dimly lit, the blinds half-drawn against the grey Forks afternoon. A tall bookcase lined one wall, filled with old medical journals, classics of anatomy, and several first editions—personal keepsakes hidden in professional camouflage. A framed print of Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica hung near the bookshelf, its faded ink a nod to another life.
The desk was a solid block of deep walnut, old but lovingly maintained. A vintage brass reading lamp stood at one corner, its light warm and amber. His chair, like everything else, was chosen not for luxury but for quiet longevity—worn leather, high-backed, familiar.
Carlisle crossed the room slowly. Removed his stethoscope. Unbuttoned his coat. Let the silence settle around him like balm.
And then he saw it.
There, at the centre of his desk, lay an envelope.
At first, it seemed unremarkable—heavy cream vellum, slightly textured, neatly placed among a few patient files and departmental memos. But as his eyes moved toward the seal, his breath caught.
The wax was dark crimson, almost black in the low light. Pressed into it was a crest he had not seen in decades, and yet would know anywhere.
A single, stylized V rose behind a shield, which was divided into four quadrants. Within each quarter: stark black silhouettes—barren trees and birds in flight, their wings poised mid-beat, the impression both elegant and ominous. Curled flourishes crowned the top and bottom, reminiscent of baroque scrollwork and Roman architecture. And above it all, the empty oval—an eye, an eclipse, or something more ancient still.
The symbol of the Volturi.
His hands didn’t shake, but the chill ran through him nonetheless. He reached out but stopped short of touching the envelope. His fingertips hovered, as if even contact might trigger something.
His throat tightened. He had hoped for more time. Time to prepare. Time to think things through. Time for answers.
He had none.
For a moment, he simply stood there, staring at the seal as though it might vanish if he refused to acknowledge it. It didn’t. It waited. Silent. Heavy with implications.
No doubt it had been delivered discreetly—some hospital courier who hadn’t known what they carried, or perhaps one who did and had already forgotten the memory. Aro’s reach was long, and the Volturi played their games with quiet efficiency.
Carlisle stepped back from the desk. He wouldn’t open it here. Not alone.
This was no ordinary letter. This was a summons. Or a warning. Or both.
And he would not face it in isolation.
He turned, collected his coat, and left the office without another glance behind him. The envelope remained, sealed in wax, sitting like a guillotine in repose atop the quiet order of his desk.
He would take it home.
To his family.
Where they could face it—together.
.
The drive home was short, but it felt endless.
Rain slicked the windshield in rhythmic sheets, the wipers sweeping steadily like a metronome counting down to something Carlisle couldn’t yet name. The letter sat on the passenger seat, untouched but potent, like a second heart beating in the car. The wax seal remained unbroken. Red. Final. Watching.
The Cullen house stood quiet against the deep green blur of trees, windows glowing faintly through the curtain of mist. Safe. Familiar. But tonight, even that didn’t soothe him.
He stepped out into the drizzle and didn’t bother with an umbrella. The letter remained clutched in one gloved hand, his other curled into a fist as though warding off something colder than the air.
Inside, the house was warm, lit by the low glow of lamps and firelight. Voices drifted from the kitchen—soft, half-laughing. He heard Emmett say something about Jasper’s taste in music, followed by Alice’s teasing retort and Bella’s familiar chuckle.
Heather was nearby too. He could smell her scent—her presence like sunlight behind clouded glass.
Carlisle closed the door behind him and took a moment to compose himself. One breath. Then another. He walked toward the door slowly, every movement deliberate. He didn’t rush—his body was composed, quiet—but inside, his thoughts raced.
Edward was the first to see him.
He crossed the hall with grace, expression hardening—eyes dropping to the envelope in Carlisle’s hand. His lips parted, and his voice barely carried. “Carlisle…?”
He shook his head once, not in dismissal, but quiet confirmation.
“Call the others,” he said gently. “Please.”
Within minutes, the entire family had gathered in the living room. Edward and Bella on the far end of the sofa, Alice perched on the armrest beside Jasper. Rosalie leaned against the mantle, arms folded, Emmett by her side with a frown etched into his usually light-hearted face.
Heather hovered near the doorway, uncertain, but his eyes found hers immediately. He nodded once. Come. She stepped forward, slipping into the space beside him. He didn’t reach for her hand—but only because he feared what that would say before he’d spoken.
The fire crackled in the hearth. No one spoke.
Then, slowly, deliberately, Carlisle held up the envelope.
He didn’t need to say who it was from. The seal told them everything.
Even Edward flinched, barely.
Alice leaned forward. “When?”
“This afternoon. At the hospital.” His voice was quiet, but clear. “It was waiting for me on my desk.”
“They know where you work?” Bella asked, startled.
“They’ve always known,” Edward answered before Carlisle could. “They just never had reason to remind us.”
Carlisle turned the envelope in his hand, the crimson wax glinting like a drop of blood. “I haven’t opened it. I thought… I should do it here. With all of you.”
Rosalie scoffed under her breath. “Generous of them to write instead of just appearing.”
“It's a message, not an attack,” Jasper said quietly, but tension threaded his voice. “For now.”
Heather finally spoke, her voice steady. “You think they’re coming?”
Carlisle looked at her. “I think they’re watching.”
He crossed the room to the coffee table and placed the envelope down as if laying a weapon between them. No one moved.
Then, with care, Carlisle slid his thumb beneath the seal.
The wax cracked.
He unfolded the letter with the precision of a surgeon—careful, methodical, braced for what lay inside.
The texture was thick, luxurious—ancient, in a way paper rarely was now. There were no words of greeting. No false pleasantries. No flourish. Just crisp, impeccable penmanship.
His eyes scanned the page. Just once. Then again, slower.
Carlisle read it aloud, voice cold and clipped:
To the respected Dr. Carlisle Cullen and his Coven,
It has come to our attention that a significant irregularity has emerged within your territory.
We understand a human—two, in fact—have become closely entangled with your family.
This has not gone unnoticed.
We request your presence in Volterra in one fortnight’s time. The entirety of your coven must attend, accompanied by the humans in question: Isabella Swan and Heather Bishop.
Your long-standing reputation for discretion and diplomacy precedes you. We trust you will not disappoint us.
– A.
The signature was only that single initial. But they all knew who it was.
Aro.
Silence fell again. Thicker this time. No longer just dread—but certainty.
The last time he’d stood in front of the Volturi, he had walked away with careful words and centuries of restraint. But this time, he was no longer sure he could hide everything.
Not Heather.
Not the choices he’d made.
The others were still silent. Waiting. Watching him.
“They know,” Alice whispered.
“They suspect,” Edward corrected, lowering the letter. “But they don’t have proof. Not yet.”
“They will,” Jasper muttered. “If they’re already reaching out, they’re circling.”
Rosalie stepped forward, eyes narrowed. “What do we do now?”
Carlisle’s gaze moved around the room, face pale but resolved. “We prepare. We stay together..”
Jasper leaned over the letter, eyes scanning every word. “And if we don’t go?”
“They’ll come here,” Carlisle answered flatly. “They’ll come to Forks.”
The weight of it settled on them again. Even the sunlight outside seemed to dim.
Edward moved to the far side of the room, away from Carlisle. He didn’t speak, but the tension between them was thick as storm clouds. The air hadn’t cleared since the confrontation.
Carlisle didn’t approach him.
Instead, he picked up the letter again and folded it precisely. “We leave in ten days,” he said. “We’ll need to prepare… all of us.”
.
The drawer sticks again. Heather gives it a frustrated tug — it opens with a rasp, scattering old receipts and buttons across the floor. She sighs, tugs her cardigan tighter around her ribs, and leans to scoop them up. Dust clings to her fingertips.
Her suitcase is half-packed. A mess of folded jumpers, toiletries, socks without pairs. It doesn't feel like preparation. It feels like abandonment.
She pauses. In the mirror above the dresser, she catches her own face — drawn, tired. Blue eyes dim. Worn thin, like fabric gone sheer from overuse.
A knock at the door.
Not loud. Not tentative. Just… known.
Her feet move on instinct, pulse tightening as she pulls the door open.
Bella.
She was dressed in her usual layers—practical, a little oversized. Her tan canvas jacket hung open over a deep maroon and plum-striped henley, the fabric clinging slightly to her narrow frame in the damp Forks air. Her jeans were tucked into worn boots, scuffed at the toes, clearly built for function over fashion. Everything about her appearance was unassuming, grounded—like she hadn’t even considered the idea of dressing for the drama they were walking into.
But her expression said otherwise.
Bella’s eyes were steady, jaw tight, her brows drawn together in a look Heather was starting to recognize as something far more dangerous than it appeared: determination. She didn’t fidget or offer a polite smile. She simply stood there—shoulders squared, rain in her hair—like someone who had already decided they weren’t going to flinch, no matter what waited on the other side of the ocean.
She looked tired. But she also looked ready.
“I thought you might need help,” She says gently. “Packing.”
And just like that, Heather stepped aside and let her in. “Come in.”
She does. The door clicks shut behind her.
Inside, the air feels tighter. Her cottage is usually cozy, but now the bookshelves seem to lean inward, the low ceiling too close. She goes to the kitchen, fills up the kettle from the tap, water sloshing over the lip. Places it into its holder and clicks it on. She picks up a scarf from the sofa, folds it with unnecessary precision.
“Do you think we’ll be gone long?” Bella asks.
Heather doesn't answer right away.
“I hope not,” She says eventually. “But I don’t know.”
She doesn't want to lie to her. But also doesn’t know what it means — that they are going to a place where nothing is promised. Where power wears a smile and watches the world burn for sport. That they are going closer to danger, not away from it.
Heather lowers herself to sit at the edge of the sofa, her old cup of tea cool on the coffee table. She hasn’t drunk it. Just held it. Let the warmth seep into her palms.
Bella sat on the floor, knees tucked to her chest. Her hair hung loose over one shoulder, and her eyes squinted into the pale brightness outside the window as though unsure whether to trust it.
“You ever get the feeling,” Bella said, “that peace never lasts around here?”
Heather gave a small, almost-smile. “Constantly.”
There was something comforting about sitting beside someone who didn’t expect small talk. Who didn’t try to fill the silence. Bella understood that silence could be its own kind of healing.
“I’ve missed normal,” Heather said softly. “Just sitting. Hearing birds.”
Bella glanced at her, then nodded. “Even if it’s just for a moment.”
Inside the kitchen, the kettle clicked off.
Bella stood. “I’ll get it.”
Heather stayed in the lounge, alone now, listening to the wind shift through the open window.
She had planted new herbs two days ago, trying to breathe life back into her small windowsill herb garden. Her rosemary was taking, but the sage was still sulking, stubborn as ever. She stood beside it, fingers brushing the soil. It felt good to do something ordinary. Good to touch the earth.
The scent of steeping tea and honey drifted to her. Bella had found the radio and was fiddling with the dial, trying to land on anything that wasn’t news or static.
Something gentle drifted through. Acoustic. Barely there. Bella turned it down and poured tea.
Notes:
Going to leave it there for today, hope you guys enjoyed the updates <3
Chapter 23: The Storm and the Spark
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The bell above the shop door jingled softly as Heather stepped inside, brushing stray petals wafted up by the wind from her coat collar. The air smelled faintly of paraffin and pine cleaner—signs of an older place, well-loved, well-used. The small florist’s on Main Street had been her first client when she’d arrived in Forks, and the elderly woman behind the counter blinked at her with warm recognition.
“Heather, dear. You’re early.”
Heather offered a weak smile and tightened the scarf around her neck, as if it could shield her from more than just the weather. “Just stopping by. I wanted to say I might need to take some time off. A couple of weeks, maybe more. Something’s come up.”
The woman’s face fell. “Oh. Is everything alright?”
Heather hesitated—an unbearable pause. She looked down at her gloved hands. The calluses beneath on her palms suddenly seemed alien. “I... don’t really know.”
She went to each of her clients after that. The widow who had her tending raised beds out back. The family with the young twins who always waved at her from the window. She gave each of them a variation of the same vague message: she might be away for a little while. She didn’t know how long. No, she wasn’t sick. Not exactly. Just... life being life.
No one pried too hard. That was the Forks way. A few concerned glances. A gentle hug. A plate of cookies wrapped in foil “just in case.”
By the time she finished the circuit of town, her legs ached from walking, but she didn’t want to go home. Home didn’t feel like hers anymore.
Then she spotted him. Sheriff Charlie Swan, standing by his cruiser, his hat tipped back on his head, sipping coffee from a paper cup. He noticed her and raised a hand in greeting, his weathered face softening.
“Miss Bishop,” he called. “You look like you’re carrying the weight of a full-grown elk on your back.”
She let out a small, dry laugh. “Feels heavier than that.”
“Come on,” he said, jerking his head toward the small café across the street. “Let me buy you a coffee.”
They sat by the window. The mug warmed her hands. Steam curled upward. Outside, a few autumn leaves skittered down the sidewalk like nervous birds.
“I heard you’ve been spending time with Bella,” Charlie said after a moment, staring down into his cup. “She talks about you, y’know. Not much else these days, to be honest.”
Heather looked up. “She’s... been through a lot.”
He gave a quiet, fatherly huff. “She won’t tell me a damn thing. Acts like I’m some stranger off the street. I know teenagers have secrets, but... it’s different. She’s different.”
Heather looked away, pressing her fingers to her temple. “She’s safe with me,” she said softly. “I promise you that.”
Charlie turned to her. Something in his expression shifted—gratitude, maybe. Or desperation wearing a brave face.
“I appreciate it, really,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “I don’t know what’s happening with her and that Cullen boy. Edward. He’s polite, sure, but... there’s something off. Something I can’t put my finger on. Like he’s not real. You ever get that?”
Heather didn’t answer immediately. How could she? She knew more than she could admit. Knew now that the world was stranger and far more dangerous than she’d ever imagined.
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “She has more love around her than she realises.”
Charlie covered her hand with his other, rough and warm from years of carrying weight. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re a good one, Heather.”
The moment lingered.
Then the café door opened.
Cold air cut through the warm space like a blade. Heather knew who it was before she turned around.
Carlisle Cullen.
Impeccably dressed in dark grey and navy, hospital badge still clipped to his coat. His golden hair was slightly mussed, as if he’d driven fast. His eyes—usually calm—burned a shade deeper today, like honey stirred with fire.
“Ah,” he said with that disarming smile. “Heather. There you are. We’ve got that... thing, remember? The appointment.”
Heather blinked. “We do?”
Carlisle looked at her for a beat too long, his smile just a little too fixed. His gaze flicked down to where her hand still rested beneath Charlie’s. Charlie, oblivious to the shift, began to stand.
“Dr. Cullen,” he said politely, offering a hand.
Carlisle took it. Firm. Too firm. Heather saw Charlie wince slightly, his knuckles shifting under pressure.
“Sheriff Swan,” Carlisle said smoothly. “Always a pleasure.”
There was something sharp in his expression then. Teeth behind the charm. Heather felt her stomach twist. Possessiveness? Jealousy? Something primal hummed beneath the surface.
Carlisle turned back to her, his smile cool but his tone warmer than before. “We really should go. Don’t want to keep them waiting.”
Heather stood, confused, but nodded. She cast a last look at Charlie, who was flexing his hand with a faint frown.
“Take care,” she said softly.
Carlisle held the café door open for her, the gentleman in every movement. But as they stepped outside and the door shut behind them, Heather could feel the storm in him.
“Was that necessary?” she asked under her breath.
He didn’t answer at first. Just kept walking, his long strides slow, measured. “I- I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
She sighed in frustration. “Carlisle—”
“I know,” he said. “It’s wrong. It’s not my place. You’re free to do whatever you wish. I just...” His voice faltered. “I’m not used to feeling like this.”
They stopped by her truck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down. “Truly.”
Heather leaned against the metal, staring at him. The doctor, the father, the man who looked like God had carved him from marble and guilt.
She didn’t respond, slipping into the truck and shutting the door with a slam.
Inside the café, Charlie sipped his coffee and watched them from the window.
“Fucking weird lot, those Cullens,” he muttered. He flexed his hand, bones aching.
.
The road unspooled ahead in a long ribbon of dusky grey. The sun had dipped low behind the trees, casting burnt-orange light across the windshield. It made the world look half-submerged in fire.
Heather sat in the passenger seat of her own truck, arms folded, jaw tight. The silence between them had stretched since leaving town. Weighted. Suffocating. Carlisle’s hands rested on the wheel at ten and two, his profile carved with the stillness of a statue.
But Heather wasn’t still. She was a storm wearing skin.
Her nails tapped against her thigh. She fidgeted, arms crossing tight over her chest, gaze locked out the window.
Carlisle drove with the kind of control that made her teeth grind—elegant hands on the wheel, posture perfect, not a hair out of place. The quiet had thickened into something unbearable. She could feel the air vibrating with it, pulsing like pressure behind her eyes.
Finally, she snapped.
“Pull over.”
He didn’t move. Just a brief flick of his eyes to her, unreadable. “We’re nearly back—”
“Carlisle. Pull the damn truck over.”
He blinked, and something in her tone must have cut through that smooth composure, because he obeyed without another word. The tires hissed onto gravel as he eased into a narrow lay-by, the road behind them stretching into loneliness. They were alone. No traffic. No wind. Just trees on both sides, thick and watching.
As soon as he put the truck in park, Heather shoved open the door and stepped out. She slammed it behind her, the sound echoing through the stillness. A bird startled from a nearby branch and took off, its wings flapping loud in the quiet.
Carlisle sat for a beat before getting out, calmly, as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t just radiated fury next to him like a live wire.
She turned to face him the moment he stepped onto the gravel. “What the hell was that back at the café?”
He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant.
“He was holding your hand.” he said, as if the words surprised him too.
Heather stared at him, eyes wild with disbelief. “And what? You nearly crushed his fingers. Do you even hear yourself?”
Carlisle looked down, jaw tight. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, you weren’t thinking. You never say anything, Carlisle. You just—show up. Loom. Say all these polite little things like a perfectly sculpted gentleman while the rest of us are losing our goddamn minds.” She exhaled sharply, hands raking through her hair. “My life is falling apart, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
He stepped closer, voice soft. “I have noticed.”
Heather ignored the tremor in her chest. “This... Volturi thing, being hunted like prey—do you even realise what kind of world I’ve been pulled into? I kill one vampire to protect a child, and suddenly I'm supposed to just uproot my life and go to Italy like this is normal?”
Carlisle’s voice dropped, the gravel beneath it barely held together. “I never wanted this for you.”
“Well it happened,” she snapped. “And now I have to deal with the consequences.”
That landed. His expression winced for a split second, like something old had been stirred up in him.
She saw it—and regretted it. A little.
He took a slow step toward her, measured. Controlled.
Heather opened her mouth but nothing came out.
Carlisle’s tone shifted—low, velvety. “You want me to apologise for caring?”
She blinked, caught off guard. “That’s not—”
He stepped in closer. “Then say what you do want, Heather. Because I’m tired of pretending that watching you risk yourself doesn’t drive me out of my mind.”
She could smell him now—earth and clean linen and something cooler, like rain on marble. Her pulse spiked. The breath she took caught halfway.
Their eyes locked.
“I didn’t ask for your protection,” she said, voice cracking.
“I know,” he said. “But you have it.”
The tension stretched, coiled, trembling between them. Her chest rose and fell too quickly. His eyes flicked to her mouth. Her heart pounded so loud she could feel it in her wrists.
“You have no right to be jealous,” she said. But her voice was soft now, not angry. Not really.
He looked down at her then, gold eyes sharp and bright like they held a thousand unspoken things. “I know that, too.”
Then silence. Long and hot and full of something neither of them wanted to name.
She didn’t move. Neither did he.
She hated how drawn in she felt. Hated how his presence filled every crack in the air around her. Hated most of all how badly she wanted to lean in.
But she didn’t. Not yet.
“You don’t get to be possessive of me,” she said, almost whispering.
“I’ve tried not to be,” he murmured.
They stood like that for another breathless moment—sunlight bleeding out behind them, their shadows long and tangled across the gravel
Heather had always been a storm in disguise.
A gentle breeze one moment, all honeyed glances and calm composure—and then the thunder would roll in without warning, swift and electric, as if her skin couldn’t quite contain the wildfire she held inside. That duality hummed in the air between them now, invisible but undeniable.
She stood there, gaze locked to his, unblinking. A stalemate of breath and quiet fury. Her chest rose and fell—not shallow, but slow, methodical. You could almost hear the clockwork ticking behind her eyes as she weighed her next move, like a dancer waiting for the swell of the music.
Then, suddenly—
She moved.
A spin, smooth and fast, like the sudden snap of a predator turning on its prey. One second she was in front of him, and the next her hands were on his chest, shoving him back with every ounce of strength in her human body.
He let her.
His back hit the truck with a dull, metallic thunk, bouncing once against the panel before settling. She wasn’t strong enough to force him if he resisted—no mortal was—but that didn’t matter. Because he’d given in. He always would, if it was her.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch. His breath caught, held.
His golden eyes stayed fixed on her, unreadable but wide—half in wonder, half in surrender. If she was about to scold him, scream at him, break herself against his silence—he’d take it. And if she was about to press her mouth to his, fierce and unapologetic—he’d take that, too.
He would take whatever she gave, because she was fire, and he had spent centuries cold.
And then—
Without a word, she dropped.
Not a collapse. Not dramatic. A slow, deliberate slide down the front of him, her hands brushing the fabric of his shirt, his trousers, as she went, leaving behind the sear of heat and intent. Her breath ghosted over his ribs, his waist, and then lower, until she was kneeling before him on the gravel, chin upturned, not breaking eye contact.
He stared down, frozen, half in awe.
But her hands didn’t reach for him. Instead, she took the loose lace of his shoe in delicate fingers, tucking it between her knuckles with quiet precision. No drama. No seduction. Just her, tying the knot slowly, gently.
And yet—
He felt it like a brand.
Her proximity. Her control. The weight of her kneeling at his feet not in submission, but in statement. I could have undone you.
She finished the knot and stayed there for just a breath longer than necessary, palms resting on the top of his foot. The contact was simple. But somehow it said everything.
When she rose again, it was with that same precision—unrushed, unapologetic. She didn’t explain herself. Didn’t smile or soften or look away.
She just met his eyes again, chest to chest now, her pulse loud in the air between them.
“I’m not reckless,” she murmured, voice low but clear. “I choose.”
And Carlisle, still braced against the truck like she’d knocked the strength from his bones, simply nodded—because there was nothing else to say.
“Get back in the truck, we’ve got places to be.” Heather stated. “I’m driving.”
.
The truck pulled into the Cullen driveway as it had many times before. The night air had quieted around them, heavy with the unsaid and the almosts. Heather stood from the drivers seat, the imprint of gravel still on her knees, the intimacy of the moment still humming through her limbs. Carlisle remained still, watching her with that unreadable softness in his eyes—part apology, part awe.
They didn’t speak as they entered the house. The porch light buzzed gently overhead, casting warm golden shadows across the threshold. Inside, the familiar hush of the Cullen home wrapped around them like a blanket. The scent of old paper, faint cologne, polished wood, and distant pine filled the air.
Heather shrugged out of her coat and hung it by the door. Carlisle moved quietly beside her, slipping out of his overcoat with careful hands. From the kitchen, the low hum of the fridge and the quiet clink of cutlery gave the impression of domestic ease.
In the sitting room, the others had already gathered.
Rosalie sat languidly in the corner armchair, flipping through a heavy hardback with one leg crossed over the other, her golden hair pinned up with surgical precision. Emmett was sprawled beside her on the floor with his back against the couch, fiddling with what looked like an old chess set missing a bishop. Jasper leaned half-in, half-out of the open French doors to the back patio, one hand in his pocket, the other absently flicking a pebble between his fingers.
Bella and Edward shared the long leather sofa. Bella was curled beneath a throw, her feet tucked up under her, a steaming mug in her hands. Edward sat beside her, fingers interlaced, the creases at his brow betraying the way his thoughts never quite settled.
Alice perched on the armrest nearest the fireplace, sketchpad in her lap. She was mid-line of a swooping fashion figure when the front door clicked shut behind Carlisle and Heather.
Heather gave a small wave. “Hey.”
A few heads turned. Rosalie offered a curt nod. Emmett raised his hand in lazy greeting. Jasper gave a polite glance, then went back to the shadows.
Heather sank down onto the arm of a nearby chair, her muscles still stiff, adrenaline faded now into something that felt like ache. A soft, familiar silence settled over the family. Even among immortals, there were rhythms. Nights like these—quiet, shared, still—had their own kind of sanctity.
Until Alice’s hand froze mid-sketch.
Her whole body stilled. Spine taut. Fingers rigid around the charcoal pencil.
A beat passed.
Then her eyes snapped upward—wide, dark, shining.
The sketchpad slid to the floor.
Jasper turned instantly, crossing the room in a breath. “Alice?”
Without warning, Alice gasped—a sharp, strangled breath—and stood bolt upright. Her eyes clouding with a vision no one asked for but everyone needed.
A flash of Heather, pale and ragged, kneeling in a circle of scarlet light. Hair like fire whipping around her, wind howling.
Her face twisted in pain, mouth open in a silent cry.
And then: fire.
Flames licked at the edges of her vision—hungry, rising.
Victoria’s silhouette looming. Grin feral. Her eyes glowed like embers. A head rolling. Screaming. The vision shattered against a whisper: a promise of violence.
The vision cracked and twisted violently, plunging Alice into something darker still.
The world shifted.
Now she was in the halls of Volterra. But it wasn’t the sanctuary of cold and order—it was chaos.
Every room warped in a strobe of destruction. Fire burst from doorways. Rubble crumbled underfoot. Furniture lay splintered and blackened, ancient walls scorched and cracked. There was no order, no elegance. Only ruin.
The bodies of Volturi guards lay in shattered heaps, reduced to stone fragments, dust already thick in the air. Their robes—once symbols of fear and command—were torn, scorched, scattered like paper in a storm. Piles of ash drifted in corners like snowdrifts in hell.
She was pulled down the corridor, through the chambers, toward the throne room.
And it was worse.
Flames danced across the vaulted ceiling, licking high into the archways. The walls glowed like the inside of a furnace. More bodies. Dozens. The scent of burning marble and old blood clung to the air.
The thrones—those infamous black chairs carved from a single slab—lay toppled, cracked through the middle. One was engulfed in flame.
On the floor lay the remains of what must have been the Volturi leaders.
Three corpses lay still, twisted and mangled beyond recognition. Limbs at impossible angles. Chests caved in. Their once-impervious skin had been torn open, marble splintered like old wood. But Alice couldn’t see their faces. The vision blurred, warped by heat and smoke and flame. Her eyes strained, searching for Aro—for confirmation—but the fire took them before she could know.
The vision dissolved.
Smoke bled into white light. Then nothing.
Alice staggered back, hand to her temple, eyes wide. She gasped as if coming up from deep water, her back slamming against the wall of the Cullen living room. Her hands clutched at her head, trying to ground herself. She couldn’t breathe—not because she needed to, but because the memory of heat and blood and fire burned so vividly in her lungs.
Everyone was already there. They had seen her falter. Felt the shift in the air.
Jasper was kneeling beside her in a blink, hands steady but eyes sharp, focused entirely on her. “Alice. What did you see?”
She was shaking. It took her three tries to speak.
“They were dead,” she whispered. “All of them. They—” her voice broke. “They were dust. The halls were burning. There was ash everywhere. It was... war.”
Carlisle stepped forward, his face drawn. “Who was dead?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see.” Alice swallowed hard. “But the throne room was on fire. Someone—someone did it. They destroyed everything. The leaders—Aro, Marcus, Caius—I think they were... I think they were there. Something had just happened. Something terrible. It’s Victoria, it must be.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Carlisle’s face was unreadable. Heather’s complexion was grey. Rosalie looked stunned. Emmett’s jaw was clenched. Bella had gone sheet-white, her hand gripping Edward’s with bruising force.
And Jasper… Jasper looked ready to catch Alice.
Alice sat slowly on the nearest armchair, with Jasper’s help, her voice still unsteady, her limbs stiff, fingers trembling like she’d touched a live wire.
“I don’t know if it was a future or a warning. I don’t know when. But we need to leave. Now.”
No one spoke.
Because somewhere deep down, they all knew—
That kind of destruction doesn't come from prophecy.
It comes from choice.
And someone, soon, was going to make one.
Carlisle’s gaze dropped to the floor. For a long, dragging breath, he said nothing. Then he closed his eyes—just for a heartbeat—and when they opened again, the weight of centuries rested behind them.
He looked at Heather. Just once. No words. But in his eyes: I feared this. And it’s begun.
Rosalie muttered something under her breath. Emmett was ashen. Bella still hadn’t let go of Edward’s hand.
The room was a collection of taut fear — flickering from candle-still faces and quiet, insistent dread.
Heather found strength in her grip on Bella’s sleeve, Bella found resolve in her eyes. This wasn’t just a trip. This was a descent.
And they were going in.
Notes:
There you have the catalyst, more fun to come soon! <3
Chapter 24: Be Brave
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They left before dawn.
Forks slept beneath a gauze of mist, and the Cullen house—normally so full of quiet conversation, soft music, the clatter of chess pieces—was stripped of sound. Only movement remained. Precise. Quick. Efficient.
Within the hour, they were in two sleek black SUV’s, each interior heavy with unspoken thoughts. Carlisle drove whilst Edward sat beside him.
Heather sat between Alice and Bella. Alice, usually incapable of stillness, sat subdued, eyes unfocused, trying to reach forward in time—but every glimpse she caught was blurred. Bella sat curled against the window, pale and silent on heathers other side. Heather had her hands closed tightly in her lap, her eyes occasionally catching Carlisle’s in the rear view mirror.
The airport lights bled out of the morning fog as they arrived. Carlisle parked the SUV far from the terminal, away from the flood of security cameras. From a hidden compartment beneath the seats, Alice retrieved a manila envelope—passports, boarding passes, forged documents for everyone but Bella and Heather. The humans had booked theirs properly, of course, but Alice had ensured all the details aligned. She handled most of the logistics, Commercial flights were difficult for vampires—not because of airport security, but because of the unpredictable proximity to humans. Still, it had been done before.
Carlisle, Bella, and Edward would fly up front, a necessary concession to appearances. Jasper and Emmett took the rear, near the emergency exit, heads bowed and eyes closed as if resting—but Heather knew better. She could feel the tension radiating off them in waves, coiled tight and waiting.
She sat between Alice and Rosalie, the middle seat a cage of unspoken fear.
Her knives were packed, tucked carefully in her checked baggage beneath layers of clothing and sealed within a lined leather roll. Alice had reassured her—charmingly confident—that with the influence they had, and the contacts she'd maintained over the decades, the weapons would not be questioned. Still, Heather felt exposed. Like she'd brought her past into a place where the rules were written in blood and silence. She watched passengers drift past the terminal windows—families, couples, laughter over coffee. It felt like another world.
The flight itself was uneventful in the way funerals often were. Calm. Heavy. Rosalie stared out the window the entire time, her jaw locked tight. Bella’s hand was clenched in Edward’s, knuckles white. The hum of the engines felt too loud. No one spoke above a whisper. No one slept. The only warmth came from the memory of their home—of firelight, and music, and laughter in the living room.
They landed in Florence beneath a dull grey sky that did little to soften the mood. A rented black Mercedes van waited for them on the tarmac—another string Alice had pulled with ease. Its windows were tinted, the engine low and purring like a watchful cat. They piled in wordlessly. Emmett drove, Rosalie in the passenger seat. The others filled in the back, Heather nestled between Carlisle and Bella.
The road to Volterra wound through the hills of Tuscany like a ribbon draped over bone. The sun had begun to set behind the olive groves, casting long shadows over the land. Heather leaned her head against the window and watched the light die slowly across the sky, her reflection overlayed with the anxious face of Bella beside her.
Inside the van, quiet wrapped around them like wool—thick, itchy, inescapable. Carlisle’s hand found hers once, a silent squeeze—reassurance or desperation, she couldn’t tell. She squeezed back.
Volterra rose ahead of them, carved from stone and secrecy, its towers silhouetted against the violet horizon. The city itself looked ancient and asleep, but Heather felt its awareness pressing in already—like the ground itself could feel their arrival.
They would be expected.
They would be watched.
She exhaled slowly, fogging the glass with her breath, and whispered to herself more than anyone else, “Well… here we are.”
Carlisle’s voice came low beside her. “Together.”
But even then, she felt it—the shift in the air. The story was changing now.
And Volterra was waiting.
.
The road ended where ancient stone walls met the Tuscan sky. The rental van rolled through heavy wooden gates that closed behind them with a deliberate thud. The Cullens—and Heather—exhaled as though the weight of the world had shifted to their shoulders, and now that they’d passed through, there was nowhere left to hide.
Silence consumed them inside. No one spoke as Emmett led the way, opening the massive iron doors. Beyond lay an expansive courtyard lit by torches. The stone underfoot was hewn rough and cold. Guards in dark finery flanked the entrance— more people walked around, humans and vampires both, their eyes flicking over the newcomers with intent that felt hungry, predatory, suspicious.
There were humans here, Heather realized. Humans who served the Volturi. Under the promise of power or immortality or something equally as self-serving. Their gazes measured her, catalogued her. Even from a distance, she sensed their tension, their curiosity, maybe envy.
The Cullens lined up behind Carlisle, who stepped forward, voice low and confident in Italian. Heather’s heart thundered against her ribs as a pair of torch-bearers led them onward.
They entered an antechamber whose ceiling curved high above, ribbed with dark green and white marble stripes pulled from Tuscan churches. The air was cool, dry, and reverent. No warmth save for the torchlight. No music. Only the rustle of cloaked feet.
The hallway stretched. Unfathomably long. Its walls recessed with niches that housed statues so tall they seemed to bear the ceiling themselves. The footsteps along the passage echoed endlessly. Every step felt like a lifetime.
Heather felt dozens of unseen eyes. Vampiric eyes, each red-rimmed and watching. Some with hunger. Some with contempt. Some burning with an anger she could feel like a migraine rattling her skull.
Bella gripped Heathers hand, silent tears threatening her composure. She brushed her shoulder against the Bella's they walked deeper into the labyrinth.
Heather’s gaze wandered—and froze—
She stood before a painting, enormous and framed in burnished gold. It depicted a grand balcony overlooking a hedonistic ruckus below. Three pale figures stood regal and distant. They watched below—a tableau of power. behind them, another figure was turned away, faintly apart, posture softer yet impossibly dignified. His posture was straighter, quieter. There was a grace to him, something restrained. Pale hair, robes from another century—A silhouette she recognized.
Carlisle.
Only not as she’d ever seen him before.
The man in the painting looked eternal. Sacred. Ashamed. And utterly alone.
Heather felt the breath catch in her throat. Until now, she had known Carlisle as calm, gentle, unfailingly kind—but this… this was something else. This was a man who had stood at the edge of tyranny and not stepped in. Who had borne witness. Who had endured.
She saw it now—the cost of his civility, the centuries of quiet sacrifice etched in that turned shoulder and softened gaze. All those years of diplomacy, of restraint, of walking a line no one else dared.
And now, she realized, she was part of the weight he carried.
Something in her chest ached. She wished she could’ve been there for him. Before.
The moment tightened her throat, but the procession broke her from the spell. A guard cleared his throat, and she was shepherded onward. The painting faded behind her, but her heart hammered harder than before.
Finally, they reached the throne room.
It yawned open like a cathedral of law and dread. Marble pillars soared to a vaulted ceiling. Latin inscriptions curled along the arch. At the end stood three thrones: monolithic, carved from black stone, void of ornamentation—blank sentinels of judgement. In the middle, Aro—pale lips curved in that unreadable half-smile. Marcus, impassive to his right. And to the left, Caius, his expression closed as death itself.
The Cullens halted. Heather could only stare. Her breath hitched.
Aro’s eyes swung to her, claret and unnerving. His nostrils flared faintly—just enough to unsettle. As if he were tasting her on the air: blood, bones, mortal resolve.
He tilted his head.
“Carlisle, how delightful it is to see you,” he said—voice soft, amused, devoid of warmth.
Heather felt her knees shake. Carlisle stepped forward, protectively in-front of his family, under the guise of greeting.
Bella made no sound, but her grip on Heather tightened.
Heather sensed it all—the weight of this room, the hunger behind each stare, the stone-cold power of those thrones. Aro’s gaze slid from Heather to Bella, eyes flicking with silent calculation.
Heather swallowed.
She squeezed Bella’s hand.
And as the walls of the Volturi compound closed around them, she whispered, “Be brave.”
Notes:
I can't believe this story now has over 1k hits, honestly its amazing how you guys are keeping this fandom alive. Down to the last chapters now before this story ends, but thank you for staying around for the ride. Love, Crab
Chapter 25: Trial by Fire
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
A deep hush fell over the throne room as Aro leaned forward, the faint torchlight reflecting off the polished stone beneath the immense black chairs. His pale features were alight with a crafted curiosity—smile poised, eyes sharp but welcoming.
“Introductions, please,” he said, voice smooth and inviting.
Carlisle swallowed, heart steadying beneath the weight of ancient power before him. He stepped forward, voice measured. “Of course. This is my family.”
He subtly guided them in a line:
“First, my son, Edward Cullen. To his right, his mate, Bella Swan.”
“Next, my other children; Rosalie Hale. Emmett Cullen. Jasper Whitlock. And Alice Cullen.” Finally, he placed a careful glance toward Heather beside him. “And my mate, Heather Bishop.” he added quietly, the silence that followed like a held breath in the vast chamber.
Aro’s red-flecked gaze swept over each member of the Cullen line, lingering slightly longer on Heather—flickers of interest sparking in his eyes—before settling, with satisfying calm, on Carlisle.
“Piacere di conosceria,” Pleased to meet you, Aro said. He rose smoothly, his movements fluid and inhumanly graceful, as though he floated rather than walked. No one stirred in the group as he crossed the room, the distance shrinking and shrinking until he stood directly before Carlisle.
Heather’s pulse pounded in her ears. It was as if the walls themselves held their breath.
Aro extended a slender, pale hand. “May I?” A command disguised as a request.
Carlisle’s jaw clenched, but his posture remained respectful. He offered his hand.
Aro closed the distance, lifting Carlisle’s palm, brushing his fingertips against Carlisle’s skin. The air quivered around them. Heather felt the moment stretch, taut as a bow. The breathing torchlight cast Aro’s shadow across the stone floor, long and inverted.
And then—
Aro’s eyes fluttered closed.
Heather could almost feel the hum of his gift passing through Carlisle, probing memories, secrets, truths.
All heat drained from Heather’s limbs. Every thought of Carlisle’s—fear, joy, shame, desire—warped and twisted beneath that silent gaze.
Carlisle’s face remained calm, but she saw the faintest tremor of tension at his throat, a bob of his adams apple, a flicker behind his luminescent eyes. He was under siege.
The stillness was endless.
Then—without warning—Aro drew in a sharp breath, lowered Carlisle’s hand, and tilted his head back.
A piercing, crystalline laugh chimed through the chamber—shrill as a bell, reverberating across the marble, cutting through the tension like lightning through midnight air.
The laughter shattered the spell. Hearts that had held their breath stuttered. The room exhaled as though waking from a dream.
Aro’s smile brightened—mischievous, knowing.
“Fascinating,” he said, voice still ringing with that shrieking laugh. “I didn’t know you had it in you, old friend. How exciting.”
He stepped back, hands clasped behind his back, eyes glittering with predatory delight as he took in the full tableau of the Cullen family—including Heather, whose throat was tight.
Aro began the ritual silently, stepping forward across the marble floor. One by one, he approached the Cullens:
Jasper first—Aro’s fingers brushed lightly over his knuckles. His expression was one of deep fascination. Jasper’s gift of emotional manipulation whispered to him, tales of hearts bending in Jasper’s presence. A soft smile curved Aro’s lips.
Next, Edward, the mind-reader. Aro paused, his eyes flickering, absorbing the stream of other thoughts and emotions that Edward’s mind offered. Sharp. Precise. Unfiltered. Useful.
Carlisle watched, chest tight, but remained composed.
Bella was next. Aro brushed her skin as he raised her hand. He closed his eyes and waited—and waited—and found nothing. Her mind was a sealed vault. No thoughts, no feelings, no secrets. The sunlight in her mind, silent as alabaster.
Aro’s eyes flattened, his polite smile fading. He released her palm more quickly than he had the others and took half a step back—pausing with deliberate care.
This surprise, he recognized, deepened his intrigue. A shield so absolute held value in ways other gifts could not. He moved on.
He moved swiftly between Rosalie and Emmett, only holding their palms for a moment. Unremarkable.
Alice stepped forward next. When their skin touched, he lingered longer—an inquisitor drawn to the dark sparkle of prophecy in her gift. Her eyes met his, defiant, like blades. He saw flashes of various futures she’d glimpsed.
Aro’s eyes closed as his hand settled tighter over Alice’s palm. The room seemed to hold its breath, the air growing taut—thicker, heavier. Time stretched, dragging out in a way that set Heather’s nerves on edge. The faintest flicker crossed Aro’s face, barely perceptible: a tightening at the corners of his mouth, a shadow that darkened his brow. His usual amused, almost playful façade—so carefully crafted—fractured for a heartbeat, revealing something far colder, sharper, and infinitely more dangerous beneath.
Heather’s gaze locked on him, heart hammering. She couldn’t read his thoughts, but the shift was undeniable. The pleasant veneer slipped, replaced by a raw tension, a quiet storm barely contained. His fingers clenched tighter, as if the knowledge he’d glimpsed clawed at him from the inside. His breathing, almost imperceptibly, grew more deliberate—controlled, but strained.
The silence lingered, thick with the weight of unspoken dread.
When Aro finally opened his eyes, the sparkle of amusement was gone, replaced by a dark glint that did not promise mercy or patience. He withdrew his hand with slow precision, as if reluctant to leave the touch but unwilling to linger in that place any longer.
“Fascinating,” he repeated, his voice softer than before but edged with an icy undercurrent—an unspoken warning carried in that single word.
Heather’s skin prickled; she felt the room tilt ever so slightly, as though the very walls themselves recoiled from what had been revealed. Whatever Alice had shown him, it was a threat no one dared speak aloud, but one that sent ripples through the ancient power of the Volturi.
He turned at last to Heather.
His hand extended—pallid and smooth—taking hers. Carlisle’s touch had always been soft, grounding, gentle. But Aro’s presence was all contrasts: firm touch, distant command. The breeze that stirs leaves before a storm.
Heather’s skin prickled. Her breath hitched in her chest. Desperate, she tried to still her thoughts—tried to imagine a still lake, a soft sky, a cold desert. She willed every speck of memory, every shiver of fear and love, away.
But Aro’s eyes flicked down her arm, his expression unreadable. He closed his eyes and pressed his senses inside her—scooping at the corners of her mind like a formless net. Heather caught her breath. It was too close, too raw. She felt violated, naked in her own hidden rooms.
Aro pulled back slowly, as though savouring her discomfort. He held her hand for one last heartbeat, then released it with supreme elegance.
He studied her face—her flushed cheeks, the thin sheen of panic in her eyes. He narrowed his gaze.
“A… compelling link,” he said quietly. “To dear Carlisle.”
The words slipped into the silence like ice cracking underfoot.
Heather’s heart thundered, and for the first time, she saw Aro not as distant ruler but a calculating predator—his interests sharp, his methods flawless, and his notice of her relationship… both invitation and warning.
The air in the throne room thickened as Aro’s voice cut through the silence with deliberate calm.
“I shall not leave you in suspense, my friend, on why you have been summoned.” His gaze fixed on Carlisle with an unsettling certainty. “You see, something of a very distressing nature was brought to our attention recently. And we have brought your coven here to address this situation.”
He moved with the regal grace of one who commands centuries of power, circling the chamber like a king surveying his domain. Marcus and Caius remained statuesque—silent wraiths of judgment—yet Marcus’s eyes lingered on Heather with a sorrow so profound it was almost tangible. His look was heavy with unspoken words, an almost pitying lament that unsettled Heather far more than any decree from Aro could. She felt it like a cold shadow slipping beneath her skin, an invisible warning whispered without sound.
A tightening coil of dread curled in her chest—like the moment before a plunge into icy depths, the sharp anticipation of impact. This was not going to end well.
From the shadows behind a towering column at the back of the hall, a figure slipped forth—a sinuous silhouette painted with danger. The woman moved with a predator’s grace, every step deliberate and measured. Fiery red hair cascaded over her shoulders in wild waves, her skin dotted with freckles that stood out starkly beneath eyes like pools of liquid blood.
Heather’s breath caught. She had never met this woman face to face, but she knew her instantly. The whispered fears, the tales that haunted the dark corners of her mind—Victoria.
The presence of the enemy, so close, so undeniable, sent a shiver through the room, setting the stage for the confrontation they had all been dreading.
Aro’s voice resonated through the grand chamber, cold and measured, each word slicing through the heavy silence like a blade.
“You see, dear Victoria here came to us with a most worrisome story. That our dear friend Carlisle Cullen had exposed our kind to two humans—one as his mate, the other as the mate to his kin. This in itself is a grave crime.” He paused, eyes glinting with calculated authority. “However, we would be most inclined to discuss the terms of transforming dear Isabella and Heather if this were all. But there is more.”
His gaze sharpened, capturing the room’s full attention. “Victoria also brings news that her mate has been killed. By a human.” He pauses for a moment, letting the moment linger, before his eyes drew back to Carlisle. “By your mate, Carlisle. Your human mate. With weapons that can harm our kind.”
The words hung heavy in the air, a suffocating weight pressing down on every soul present.
Victoria stepped forward then, her red hair a fiery halo in the dim light, her head bowed in supplication as if bearing the weight of a profound disservice. She clung to Aro’s words as though they were her only shield.
“Victoria has requested her right, as a widowed mate, to challenge her mate’s killer. A single fight. To the death. As conforms with our laws.”
The room seemed to constrict, the walls closing in as the Cullens felt the ground shift beneath them, the rug ripped from under their feet.
Heather’s breath hitched, her face paling until it seemed almost translucent, the blood draining away like a fading tide. The weight of those words settled on her chest, crushing and inexorable.
Carlisle’s heart thundered in his chest, a sudden, overwhelming helplessness crashing over him. His voice cracked as he demanded, “What do you mean, Aro?”
Aro’s expression remained unreadable, a mask carved from centuries of power and judgment. “The Volturi have debated this matter extensively. There was a unanimous vote. The court has ruled in favour of this request.”
His eyes swept the room, the cold finality in his tone leaving no room for argument.
“To ensure this is treated fairly, as per our laws, the court has also ruled to treat Miss Heather Bishop as Vampiric.” His gaze locked onto Heather with a piercing intensity. “Victoria is perfectly within her legal rights to request this appointment with Miss Bishop.”
He turned back to Carlisle. “After this matter is settled, then we shall discuss the situation with Miss Swan and Mr. Edward Cullen.”
A suffocating silence followed, heavy as stone.
Heather’s heart hammered in her chest like a relentless drum—her world fracturing in an instant, the death sentence burning bright and cruel.
Carlisle’s knees nearly buckled beneath him. He never imagined this—never allowed himself to believe it could come to this. The very foundation of his world was crumbling.
Around them, disbelief rippled through the coven—stunned faces, breath caught, the palpable terror of the unknown.
The chamber seemed to pulse with tension, the air thick with the promise of violence and the cold inevitability of fate.
This moment hung, raw and eternal—a silent storm before the breaking of all that was.
“No,” Carlisle said—once, firm, almost under his breath. But when Aro’s smug silence met him like a closing door, the word tore from him again. Carlisle’s mind raced—reason clashed with panic, diplomacy lost to dread. This wasn’t justice. It was spectacle. “No, Aro. No.”
The illusion shattered.
Carlisle surged forward, mask of civility breaking like glass beneath his panic. “You can’t do this!” His voice was hoarse now, rising in desperation. “Aro please—don’t do this! Please— let us discuss this further. ”
But Aro only raised a languid hand.
“Hold him.”
It happened so fast Heather couldn’t even register the movement—just a blur of black-cloaked guards descending like shadows given flesh. Suddenly, Carlisle’s arms were wrenched back by two of them, then four, iron grips biting into his limbs.
“No!” he roared, struggling against them. “No—No, you can’t!” In his long life, Carlisle had faced death, war, plague. But nothing—not even his own turning—had ever made him feel truly powerless. Until now.
And then something snapped.
Literally.
With a snarl more animal than man, Carlisle twisted hard, throwing one of the guards off with shocking force. The body slammed against a stone column with a sound like thunder. His other hand tore free—he grabbed the nearest guard by the wrist and yanked, cracking the creature’s arm clean from its body. A vicious sound echoed as its torso split down the side like stone under pressure.
Gasps rippled through the chamber.
The other Cullens fought too, restrained by the swarm. It took five to hold Emmett back, every muscle in his frame straining, veins bulging with fury. Jasper’s face was a mask of rage, Rosalie screamed at them—Alice struggled, reaching for something she couldn’t yet see.
Carlisle, wild-eyed, dripping with fury, stared down Aro like a predator betrayed.
“If you do this,” he seethed, teeth bared, “you will pay. Aro, I swear on everything—”
“Carlisle—” Heather choked, but it was drowned out.
“I’ll kill you myself,” he roared, surging forward.
Even bound, he moved like lightning—dragging the guards with him, his strength dragging stone-dense bodies like they weighed nothing. He got within a breath of Aro, close enough that the old vampire actually stumbled back, robes swirling like a spectre caught in a gust of fear.
Aro’s face dropped its veil of charm. A flicker of something more primal—fear—surfaced.
“Jane!” he called, voice high and thin.
From behind the throne’s dais stepped the blonde girl, her face impassive, eyes burning like dying embers.
“Pain,” she said softly.
Carlisle dropped like a beast shot mid-charge, screaming.
His roar tore through the throne room—raw, guttural, ragged. He writhed like a body pulled apart from the inside, every tendon locked in fire. The sound made Heather’s bones ring. His body convulsed against the marble floor, knees scraping stone, muscles twitching in a thousand invisible shocks. His teeth were clenched, bared like an animal—utterly undone by agony. Guards swarmed him again, subduing him with sickening crunches of stone-on-stone as limbs were pinned in unnatural angles. The sound of it made Heather sick.
And still he fought.
Still he screamed her name.
Until he knelt there—crushed, caged, panting. Still fierce. Still full of fury, like a bull that would die only on its feet.
Aro let out a puff of air, brushing his sleeve as though flicking away dust. The air in the chamber pulsed with the echo of screams. With threat. With betrayal.
Heather hadn’t moved.
She stood alone, untouched, but frozen—limbs stiff, chest barely rising. Her mind was blank, utterly blank, save for one repeating truth that bloomed cold and undeniable in her chest:
She was going to die.
Not a possibility.
A sentence.
And nothing—none of them—could stop it.
Not now.
A voice rang through the chaos.
“Stop.”
It wasn’t loud, but it cut through the throne room like a blade.
The noise ceased instantly—Carlisle’s ragged breath, the growl of struggling bodies, the shuffle of cloaks and stone. Everything halted.
Heather’s voice had silenced them all.
She looked toward Carlisle first—on his knees, chest heaving, lips parted in a silent plea. Then back to Aro, her gaze steel-wrought despite the tremor in her limbs.
“Please,” she said quietly, barely more than a whisper. “You’re hurting him.”
Aro tilted his head, expression unreadable.
For a long, frozen heartbeat, their eyes locked—her pain meeting his amusement, her plea meeting his perverse curiosity.
Then, without turning from her, he flicked his fingers toward the guards.
They loosened their hold fractionally. The horrid grinding of stone against stone lessened. Carlisle’s breath came in short, brutal bursts, as the arm around his neck no longer pinned with such cruel force.
“Heather—” he rasped, voice breaking, pleading, “don’t.”
She had never heard his voice like that—wrecked, desperate, hollow with terror. It stripped her bare inside.
But she didn’t move to him.
She swallowed hard and spoke again, her words trembling like a blade poised to strike. “So it’s against your laws to fight back against someone trying to kill you?”
Silence. A dangerous pause.
And then—Aro laughed.
The sound echoed, crystalline and high-pitched, like fine glass cracking under pressure.
“No, my dear,” he said smoothly, “you are food. Food doesn’t fight back.” The words struck her like a slap. Not anger. Not yet. Just a cold, clinical severing. Not a person. Not a soul. Food.
Heather blinked once.
The world narrowed, slowed.
She turned her head—one movement, measured and surreal—to look at her family.
Bella was crumpled, sobbing openly, her face a mess of salt and panic, her hands white-knuckled against Edward’s arm. She was shaking like a leaf in a storm, her whole body wracked with tension.
Jasper stood statue-still, but there was fury behind his eyes, restrained only by force of will and iron discipline. His jaw clenched tight enough to crack.
Edward was wide-eyed, lips curled in helpless rage, straining against invisible tethers.
Emmett growled low and furious, eyes flickering between the guards, gauging the impossible odds like a soldier ready to die fighting.
Alice stared ahead, expression unreadable—but her fingers trembled at her sides.
And Rosalie—
Rosalie’s face was shattered.
Not angry. Not even fierce.
Broken.
Tears glistened unshed, and her eyes were fixed on Heather like a daughter watching her mother walk to the gallows. Something inside Heather cracked at the sight. Something deep and maternal and indignant.
Her daughter.
Her children.
These people—impossible, inhuman, and fierce—were hers.
Family, not by blood, but by choice. By bond.
And no goddamn ancient vampire monarch was going to take that from her. Not for laws. Not for sport. Not even for vengeance.
She turned back to Aro, the swell of her chest shallow and taut.
One last glance at Carlisle, still on his knees, face turned toward her with agony etched in every line. His golden eyes begged her to stop, to find another way.
But there was no other way.
Her voice was flat now, devoid of fear or warmth—like the calm eye of a hurricane.
“If I were to win,” she said, “since you’re trialling me as a vampire—then I have the same rights as one?”
A murmur rippled through the crowd, like dry leaves catching a sudden breeze.
It wasn’t Aro who answered.
“Yes.”
The word came from Marcus—quiet, hollow, ancient. He looked at her, not as predator or judge, but as a man who had seen too much. There was pity in his eyes.
Aro nodded slowly, a half smile curling his lips. “Indeed. It is only fair.”
Heather exhaled once. The air felt sharp in her lungs.
“And if I win,” she said clearly, “you let my family go. Unharmed. All of them.”
There was a pause, heavy and monumental.
Aro’s face lit up as if she were the most delightful creature he’d ever encountered. “Of course,” he said with glee. “A fair exchange.”
The chamber pulsed with silence.
So many eyes on her. So many breaths held.
The floor beneath her feet might as well have dropped away.
“Then I accept your terms,”
The room erupted—not with noise, but with pain.
A wail rose behind her—Rosalie, heartbreak torn from her chest. A gasp from Bella, another sob. The guards tightened again. Carlisle roared, surging once more against them like a beast trying to tear free from a burning cage.
“No!” he screamed, his voice raw. “No! You can’t! Aro this is madness!”
He thrashed, shook three guards off, but more replaced them. He was still fighting, wild and ragged. Thrashing with every word.
“No—please—you can’t —I won’t—”
His voice cracked again as he bellowed. “HEATHER—!” He would trade centuries, his immortality, anything—if it meant reaching her now.
But Heather didn’t turn.
She stood still, shoulders squared, jaw clenched, fists shaking at her sides.
She didn’t move toward him.
Because if she did, she’d break.
She stood tall—for him, for them.
Because if this was the end, she would meet it standing.
Notes:
oh my goodness, this one was so fun to write. only two more chapters left now! eeep Honestly my heart broke for Carlisle in this chapter, I hope you all liked it <3 please review :)
Chapter 26: Fyrbrynen
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Heather turned to face her executioner.
If she was going to die, she would look death in the eye—unflinching, unbroken. Victoria stood with her chin high, red hair a molten flame under the low-hung torchlight, her crimson gaze burning with anticipation. Her smile spread wide, too wide, revealing a perfect row of gleaming teeth. The canines glinted like ivory knives, catching the firelight with every flicker.
Around them, the throne room stilled. Not silent—never truly silent—but expectant. The shuffling of cloaks, the click of boots repositioning, the hush of words drawn in as though none dared speak too soon. This was theatre. Spectacle. A blood sport dressed in royal robes.
Heather moved to the centre of the marble floor, directly beneath the cold gaze of the thrones. Victoria mirrored her, each step liquid and feline, like she was dancing to a melody only she could hear.
Two shadows cast long in the flickering light.
Two opposing stars dragged into orbit.
The hush deepened. Even the guards holding Carlisle seemed momentarily entranced.
Victoria’s voice broke the stillness, lilting and cruel. “Get those little knives out, girl. I want to see them.”
Heather didn’t speak. She simply reached inside her jacket—hands steady despite the firestorm in her chest—and withdrew the bone knives. They caught the light differently than metal, duller, more ancient. Primitive. Personal.
She shrugged her coat off in one slow motion and let it fall behind her. Pulled up her sleeves. The air kissed the skin of her arms and she didn’t shiver. Knife in each hand. One for survival. One for retribution.
They stood now a mere few meters apart.
Time stuttered.
The world constricted to the space between them, to the burn in her lungs, to the hammering of her heart so loud she could feel it in her teeth.
Victoria never took her eyes off her. Her voice was sugar-dipped venom.
“I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Her head tilted, that flame-red hair cascading like blood over her shoulder.
“I’m going to make you suffer.” A pause, deliberate, stretching the moment taut. “Slowly. While your mate watches. While he can do absolutely nothing to help you.”
Heather didn’t need to turn to feel Carlisle’s pain. His ragged breathing, the wild thrash of energy being barely held back by the guards, the sound of stone creaking under the pressure of his restrained arms. His pain was hers. And Victoria fed on it.
“All he will be able to do,” Victoria whispered, her eyes gleaming with delight, “is listen to your screams. And then he’ll know what it feels like to lose a mate.”
The air in the throne room seemed to still entirely. Even Aro stopped smiling.
Heather inhaled—slow, quiet, final.
There was no plan. No advantage.
Just her. Her knives. And a will that would not bend, no matter what she was facing.
This woman had come to steal her life. And worse—she had come to break her soul. But Heather Bishop had lived through fire before. And fire leaves behind embers. And embers, given wind and fury, can rise again.
The marble floor beneath her feet felt cold and grounding. Every muscle in her body coiled tight, not in fear—but in readiness.
She looked at Victoria. Really looked.
A beautiful predator. But these knives had killed. And they can do so again.
Heather's knuckles whitened around the hilt of her knives.
She didn’t reply. Words would do nothing now.
"Begin," Aro commanded.
It was the only warning Heather got.
Before she could blink, the world snapped sideways.
A cold, slicing slap tore across Heather’s face—so fast it was just sound and pain, like shrapnel cutting through fog. The momentum yanked her clean off her feet. Her boots screeched against polished marble as she skidded, limbs flailing, the impact rattling through her spine.
Her balance broke. One knee slammed to the ground before she caught herself. The left side of her face flared with heat and throbbed with a sharp, deep ache. Her vision swam. Blood filled her mouth.
Victoria stood a few paces away—casual, almost bored. She brushed imaginary dust from her hip and smiled with cold delight.
“Slower than I expected,” she said, voice velvet-smooth, as if discussing the weather.
Heather didn’t wait. She launched herself forward—low, fast, knives aimed for soft points.
But Victoria was already gone.
Not running—veering.
She shifted away with uncanny instinct, her body bending from the arc of the blade before Heather even committed to the strike. Like she knew what was coming the moment Heather meant to kill her.
The knife struck air.
Victoria reappeared to the left, wrist snaking out like a whip. She caught Heather mid-movement and twisted her arm back in one smooth, brutal wrench. Something popped at the elbow. Heather screamed—a raw, involuntary sound that made Victoria’s eyes glint.
Then she shoved her.
Heather flew backward, crashing into one of the stone columns. The joint in her arm jolted back into place on impact—but fire lanced through her shoulder. She slumped down the pillar, gasping.
Victoria didn’t chase. She stalked. Her boots tapped rhythmically on the stone, graceful and unhurried.
“That itch in the back of my skull?” Victoria said, voice low, lilting. “That little pull that told me you meant to kill me? I’ve always had it. Always known when to run.” She paused, smiling to herself. “But not tonight.”
Her voice grew darker, hungrier.
“Tonight, I want to see how long you can scream.”
Heather rolled to her feet—barely. Her vision pulsed. She raised the knives again, trembling.
Then she stumbled.
Her ankle gave way, body tipping sideways. A sharp gasp tore from her throat as she dropped to one knee, blade dragging slightly along the stone. She whimpered, blinking, disoriented, mouth open as though trying to steady her breath—appearing broken, off-balance, exposed.
Victoria’s eyes gleamed. A predator watching the inevitable end.
And that’s when Heather moved.
A blur of will and fury—she launched herself forward, knife arcing up with sudden, terrifying speed. There was no cry, no battle roar. Just silence, breathless and clean, as steel flashed for Victoria’s throat.
It almost landed.
The blade missed by less than a whisper—a single breath, a shift of wind. Victoria recoiled at the last possible moment, jerking her head back with an inhuman grace that left a trail of red hair slicing through the air like a warning flare.
A strand of it fluttered down, severed.
The onlookers shifted, the stillness briefly fractured
Heather hit the ground hard, her momentum carrying her into a roll, but she came up ready—knives in both hands, chest heaving.
Victoria’s expression had changed. No longer amused.
Now she was watching.
Heather met her gaze and spat blood onto the stone between them. She lunged—faster this time, feinting left and slicing hard right.
And again—Victoria moved.
Not with speed, but precision. She felt the direction of Heather’s will, the flicker of lethal intent forming in Heather’s mind before it could even become motion, and she adjusted. Avoided it easily. Not because she read Heather’s body—but because she sensed the danger and moved around it.
Heather’s blade scraped stone.
Victoria laughed, though there was no humour in it. “Is that it? That all the fire left in you?”
Heather roared and slashed again—Victoria spun a heartbeat before impact. And Heather’s knife hit nothing but air and the echo of Victoria’s taunting smile.
Heather turned, but it was already too late.
A swift push to the side. She landed hard—distant, sprawled, dazed. Her weapons clattered from her hands. Her chest heaved. She couldn’t breathe.
Victoria stalked her now like a lioness circling a dying gazelle. Red eyes gleamed, every step slow and sure.
Heather crawled, found a knife and then the other—closed her fingers around them. Blood smeared the hilt.
Victoria paused.
Her eyes flickered—not with fear, but awareness. Heather’s pulse surged with rage, the will to kill burning behind her eyes. That same primal warning scratched at the back of Victoria’s mind.
Danger.
And for a heartbeat—she hesitated. Her body twitched like it wanted to step back.
But she didn’t move.
Not this time.
Because rage had its own gravity—and Victoria was furious. Heather had hurt her. Enough to insult.
Her gift—the siren call to self-preserve—was shrieking in her bones.
And she ignored it.
Victoria stalked toward her—not running, not pouncing—just walking, in no hurry, The lioness, finally done playing.
“What’s the point in ending it quickly?” she said aloud to no one in particular. Her red eyes gleamed, and she rolled her shoulders with a sensual sort of readiness. “I want him to hear every breath you take. Every bone I snap.”
Heather pushed herself up, still crouched, knives raised, arms shaking.
Another blur—crack—and this time it was a boot to her stomach. A brutal, unrelenting kick that landed with all the precision of someone who had killed before.
Heather’s body flew.
She hit the floor and rolled like a thrown doll—her limbs twisting unnaturally, the marble floor scraping against her arms, her ribs screaming.
She came to a stop, several meters away. Chest heaving. Skin on fire. Pain blooming in her spine and sternum like flowers of agony. An unwanted whimper escaped her lips, torn and helpless.
She growled it away, forcing her body to move.
Heather crawled to her knees. Knuckles down, palms wrapped about metal and bone. On all fours. Her breath came in short gasps, air sharp and useless in her lungs. She tasted iron. Blood filled her mouth—metallic, thick—and she spit it out, red splattering the pristine white floor.
That got Victoria’s attention.
Her eyes snapped to the smear of blood like a shark scenting it in the waves. Her expression darkened with hunger.
She started to circle, slow, deliberate, steps soundless.
“Perhaps I’ll drink your blood as I kill you,” she mused, voice low and honeyed, deadly. Her grin was all teeth. “Pathetic little thing.”
Heather’s pulse beat like war drums.
She couldn’t think. She could only feel. Her body screamed. Her heart screamed louder.
But then, in the rubble of pain, something stirred.
Heat.
Memory.
A sudden clarity bloomed in her core, clean and abrupt, like the first sip of cold water after hours under a punishing sun.
The pain ebbed—not vanished, but dulled, receding like a tide pulling back from shattered shores. Her limbs, moments ago limp and treacherous, steadied beneath her as though the ground itself lent her strength. The marble under her knees no longer felt cold. It hummed—low, steady, warm. As if something ancient stirred beneath the stone, something watching. Waiting.
Heather’s breath slowed. The chaos around her—the thrum of blood, the crackle of firelight, Victoria’s circling footsteps—drifted into the distance like a storm held at bay by sheer will. Time seemed to pause.
She closed her eyes.
Her mind slipped sideways, unbidden, into memory.
The smell of summer-dried grass. Smoke in the air. The low creak of wood ready to splinter. A hand wrapped around hers—steady, calloused. A voice in her ear, low and sure: “say the words, darling.” The roar of flames far from this cold marble hell.
The barn had burned that day.
A whisper of that same heat stirred inside her now—soft at first, then rising, curling through her like a forgotten melody. It was deep like marrow. Memory. A birth right older than civility.
She opened her eyes—and met Victoria’s stare.
And one word slipped from her lips—barely more than breath, more instinct than thought.
“Fyrbrynen.”
It was a prayer. A curse. A song.
And then the fire came.
It roared up Victoria’s body like the breath of a god, flames erupting in a spiral of blinding gold, blue and white, curling from her boots to her scalp in the blink of an eye.
The vampire screamed—sharp and inhuman—as fire clung to her like it had chosen her, eating through flesh that should not burn. The inferno licked the vaulted ceiling. The throne room flared in heat and chaos.
Heather moved.
She spun on her knees, twisting her body with momentum, and threw the first knife. It sang through the air like an executioner’s bell.
Thud—the blade sank into Victoria’s collarbone.
One half a spin later—thud—the second knife slammed into her neck.
The vampire howled.
But Heather wasn’t done. Using the momentum, thighs straining, she spun to her feet. Her legs pumped beneath her like pistons, propelling her across the marble, teeth clenched in feral rage.
She closed the short gap between them.
With a roar that tore through the room, Heather seized the knives lodged in Victoria’s collarbone and throat, wrists crossed, she ripped them free in a savage downwards cross-cut. twin slices cleaving flesh and flame. Then—
She drove her boot into Victoria’s chest, hurling her backward in a final, brutal break.
Victoria crashed to the floor in a rolling, flaming heap.
Dust and fire erupted in tandem.
The body lay limp.
Ablaze.
Victoria’s head rolled free, bouncing once on the stone before settling beside her corpse—eyes open, glassy, unseeing. Her face blackened, hair a burning halo around her as the fire began to consume what remained.
Ash bloomed.
And silence fell.
The only sound now was Heather’s breathing—shallow, uneven. She stood hunched, knives dusted with white, her shoulders rising and falling in ragged rhythm.
The moment hung, suspended.
The entire throne room stared.
Unmoving.
Aro rose slowly. One word—sharp, accusing, awed—cut through the silence like a blade drawn from velvet.
“Witch.”
Notes:
Burn the witch!! Well there is the grand reveal! I'm sure it didn't come as much of a surprise haha, but I hope it didn't seem too cliché. Also kudos to my love for BBC Merlin that inspired me to use old English for the spell <3
Chapter 27: The Third in the Trifecta
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Witch.”
The word fell like a gavel. Final. Irrevocable. A sentence passed before the trial could begin.
Heather didn’t move.
She stood in the wreckage like a revenant born of fire—bloodied, burned, her blades limp in her grasp. Breath dragged through her chest like razors, raw and scraping. The fire still danced behind her eyes, a ghost that hadn’t yet left her. The marble beneath her feet was streaked with ash and bone, and the sweat that dripped from her knives sang against it in quiet, rhythmic taps.
No one spoke.
Not even the guards.
Smoke curled in languid spirals toward the vaulted ceiling, as if afraid to break the silence. The scent of it mingled with scorched flesh and ancient stone—a battlefield disguised in finery. The torches lining the walls flickered, casting long shadows that shifted like spirits, uncertain whether to flee or kneel.
Aro descended from his throne in silence.
His footsteps echoed—slow, measured, impossibly loud. Each one struck like a drumbeat through the stillness, a countdown to something none of them could name.
Even Marcus stirred, leaning forward in his high seat, his usually distant eyes alight with something resembling interest. Lines carved deep into his ancient face seemed to soften—less weariness, more wonder.
Caius, by contrast, recoiled like he’d tasted something foul. His lip curled in disdain, fingers clenching the edge of his armrest like it might steady him. To him, she was an affront to every law that had ever kept their world in order. Something unnatural. Blasphemous.
Aro stopped just feet away.
He did not speak.
He studied her the way one might study an ancient text written in flame—dangerous, sacred, and not meant for mortal eyes.
His crimson gaze glinted—not with fury, but with something colder. Curiosity sharpened into calculation. Reverence touched with danger. Like a collector encountering the one artifact he dared not touch for fear it might bite.
Heather looked like death incarnate.
Her skin was streaked with soot, blood dried at the corner of her lips. A gash split her temple, the line of it jagged and rust-red. Her clothes were scorched and torn, clinging to her body in tatters. Her breath rattled like wind through broken glass. She didn’t shake. She didn’t bow. She stood.
And she stared right back.
By contrast, Aro was a statue of pristine control. Not a fleck of ash touched his perfect robes. His skin was moonlight pale and untouched, robes gleaming like liquid shadow. The torchlight kissed his face but found no flaw, no emotion—only the mask of someone who hadn’t bled in a thousand years.
“Witch,” he said again, quieter now.
The word slipped from his lips like a prayer left to rot. There was no hatred in it—just quiet contempt. And beneath that, fascination. As if he had already imagined her burning. Had already etched her silhouette against the pyre in his mind.
A witch.
The final piece of the old trifecta.
Vampires. Werewolves. Witches.
Predators. Rivals. Enemies.
But witches were different. Silent. Unseen. The undervalued. The underestimated. The threat tucked in plain sight.
They weren’t beasts of fang or claw.
They made weapons of bone and dust, of flesh and fur, they did not rip or bite — they undid. With spells, with whispers, with potions grown from the dead and cursed by time. They hid in plain sight. They remembered every wound.
The maid. The mother. The unburnable.
Aro’s gaze dropped to the knives still dangling from her hands—blades not just bloodied but wrong. Old. Sacred. Cursed. His expression flickered, just once. He didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to keep her. Dissect her. Preserve her in amber and keep her behind glass.
Heather saw it all in a single glance.
And she raised her chin.
Her voice was torn and raw, but unyielding. “You said it yourself, Aro,” she rasped, each word coated in blood and iron. “You declared it before your court. That I have the same rights as a vampire.”
He said nothing. But something in his posture shifted—tense. Watching.
Heather stepped forward, slow and shaking. One foot met cold marble with a wet crack. Her ribs protested. Her muscles screamed. She didn’t care.
“Do I not, then—” her voice rang through the chamber “—as matriarch of this coven, have the right to protect my kin?”
Her eyes met his—ice-blue, rimmed in fire and ash.
“I won.”
The silence that followed wasn’t still. It coiled.
Aro’s expression did not shift, but the air around him did. A subtle pause. A flicker of shadow across his eyes. For the first time, he was weighing something he hadn’t accounted for. She could see it.
And she pressed in.
Another step.
Close enough now to feel the cold bleeding off him. Close enough to smell parchment, ancient stone, and the iron tang of old, old blood.
“Alice showed you,” Heather murmured. “Her vision.”
Aro smiled faintly. Not warm. Almost indulgent.
He thought she was bluffing.
But she wasn’t.
“Every second,” Heather continued. “Every moment you hoped to prevent. If you keep us here — if you go back on your word — I’ll make sure it all happens. Down to the last detail.”
His eyes flickered. The faintest twitch of tension at the corner of his mouth.
Heather lowered her voice to a hush—a whisper not meant to be overheard.
And for the briefest heartbeat, he remembered.
The vision Alice had shown him —
Flames licking up the walls of Volterra’s great hall. Screams swallowed by the roar. Marble splitting, guards torn like paper. And at the center of it all: her.
Heather, with fire behind her eyes and blood on her hands, not running — rising.
Not a girl, not a witch, but a reckoning.
He saw it again now, that flicker in her gaze — not threat, not plea. Just certainty. A fire lit long ago, burning still.
And for the first time in centuries, Aro felt something ancient and uncomfortable coil low in his spine.
Not anger. Not intrigue.
Fear.
She leaned in, close enough to see the pale mole beneath his left cheekbone — a flaw almost tender in its intimacy — and whispered, as if sharing some delicious secret meant for him alone.
“My Nan taught me one last spell,” she breathed — soft, coaxing, threaded with promise and peril. “One just for vampires.”
The words seemed to darken the air between them. Even the torchlight dimmed, as if the room itself was listening.
Her mouth didn’t curve. It didn’t need to.
“She said it makes great men crumble.”
Not burn.
Not fall.
Crumble — the word like rot in stone, inevitable, final.
Aro didn’t flinch, but something in him shifted — a single breath held too long, a vein tightening in his throat. His jaw clenched with the restraint of a man who’d just glimpsed the edge of his own extinction.
The silence that followed wasn’t emptiness.
It thrummed.
Alive.
Heavy with a terrible, ancient knowing.
Heather let it linger — let it stretch like a drawn bowstring — because she wanted him to feel it:
The promise.
The warning.
The truth.
That he was not untouchable.
Not anymore.
“Tell me,” She whispered, eyes not leaving his. “Are you a man of your word, Aro? Or shall we find out what this other spell can do?”
The silence was no longer still.
It strained.
One of the guards shifted. Just a step, a weight change. But it was enough.
Carlisle’s head snapped up—his golden eyes flaring. Not with fear. With wonder.
Heather didn’t look away from Aro.
“Let him go.”
She didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t plead. The words cut through the chamber like a blade drawn slow and deliberate.
No one moved.
Then—Aro did.
A small flick of his hand, graceful and precise, like brushing lint from velvet.
The guards released Carlisle at once. Their hands fell away as if commanded by gravity itself.
He collapsed forward onto his knees, breath catching in his chest, the stone scraping his palms. But he was already moving—dragging himself toward her with a kind of reverence that held no hesitation, no judgment, only the quiet, unshakable devotion of a man who had made his choice long before he knew the whole truth.
He reached her in a breath.
His hands cupped her face, the hands of a surgeon shaking despite centuries of discipline. Like he was afraid she might vanish between blinks. His fingers moved to her shoulders, her arms, down to her sides—searching, frantic, as if trying to convince himself she was real. Alive. Still hers. Still his.
Heather leaned into his touch. Barely. But it was enough.
Not surrender.
Just contact.
Behind them, someone sobbed. A sound torn from the soul.
Bella. Or Rosalie. It didn’t matter.
It was the sound of relief that hurt to feel.
Carlisle pressed his forehead to hers, breath shaking. His eyes squeezed shut like a dam threatening to break. And for a heartbeat, nothing else existed.
Then—
Aro’s voice, sharp as a blade dragged across stone.
But it had changed.
No longer playful.
Measured. Curious. Wary.
“Congratulations on your victory,” he said, the words ringing like a warning disguised as praise. His eyes were unreadable. “I’m sure we will speak again.”
He raised both hands—slow, almost ritualistic. A priest closing ceremony.
“Let them go,” Aro said, voice smooth but blade-sharp. “For now… the matter is settled.”
Notes:
so this was originally meant to be one final chapter but I've decided to break it up into two (I'm not ready for this one to be over! <3) so here is the first half.
Chapter 28: Ask Me Again
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The silence followed them out like a ghost.
Heather didn’t look back.
Not at the marble thrones.
Not at the ash.
Not at the body.
She kept her eyes ahead, step by halting step across the ash-slick floor, Carlisle’s arm a steady weight at her waist — anchoring, real. The scent of smoke clung to her skin, burnt hair and scorched velvet, a reminder that what they’d survived wasn’t a dream, and never would be.
Behind her, the others fell into step — slow, watchful, like they half-expected the walls to crumble or the shadows to rise again. Bella’s hand brushed Heather’s briefly in passing — a silent thank you, a quiet plea. Emmett limped, his broad shoulder held at an odd angle, his jaw clenched to hide the pain. Even Alice, always electric with motion, looked subdued. Her eyes flicked through possibilities only she could see, but her expression gave nothing away — only the weight of futures not yet chosen.
The heavy doors creaked open, just as they had when she entered. But this time, the air beyond was different.
Cold. Clean. Free.
The hallway outside stretched like a tunnel between worlds — dim, carved from centuries-old stone, filled with the echo of breath and the memory of pain. Light slanted through high, narrow windows, casting fractured silver on the floor. For a moment, no one moved. Even the torches lining the corridor seemed reluctant to flicker too loudly.
Heather turned her face slightly toward Carlisle. His eyes were still on her — reverent, pained, searching for something in her face he wasn’t sure he had the right to name.
She gave the barest nod.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, barely audible.
Carlisle leaned in, pressed his lips to the crown of her head, and murmured back, “You’re not. But it’s okay.”
Heather almost smiled. Almost.
They walked.
Each footstep was a small rebellion, a quiet victory. Her body was a graveyard of pain — burned muscles, bruised ribs, skin split and stiff with dried blood. Every movement felt like fire in her joints. But beneath it, deeper, there was something new. Not strength, exactly — something older. A strength. A steadiness. A root that wouldn’t break.
Halfway down the corridor, someone let out a breath — sharp, shaky, real. It might’ve been Bella. Might’ve been Heather. It didn’t matter.
It was the sound of something unclenching.
The sound of survival.
Ahead, the long hall to the outer doors came into view. Heather felt it — that strange, subtle shift in gravity. The pressure on her skull she hadn’t noticed until now had lifted, like a crown made of barbs finally removed. Aro’s power still whispered in the air, faint as smoke. But it no longer pressed down. The leash had slackened.
Not gone.
But no longer taut.
The great final doors loomed at the end of the hall — iron-bound and scarred, their surface glinting dully in the low light. Smaller than she remembered.
That’s what fear does, she realized. It makes things feel larger than life. Until you outlive them.
Heather reached out. Her palm, raw and streaked with dust, met the cold metal. A grey print bloomed against the surface — her mark. Proof. A promise.
The iron groaned, then shifted. Stone slid against stone. The doors swung wide.
And the world exhaled.
The cold outside was sharp, alive — the kind of cold that made lungs burn. The kind of cold that felt earned. Wind whispered through the alleyways of Volterra like a benediction. The scent of moss, old rain, and distant pine filled the night, undercut faintly by blood — always blood — still clinging to their skin, their clothes, their memory.
Heather stepped into the open.
The stars hung low above the rooftops, faint behind drifting clouds. Somewhere, far away, a bell tolled once — solemn and low, like the city itself was acknowledging their emergence. Like it knew.
She took a full breath.
Then another.
The air filled her, sharp and bright.
Behind her, the Cullens emerged in silence, blinking into the freedom like creatures unused to daylight. Emmett wrapped one arm gingerly around Rosalie. Jasper touched Alice’s elbow. Edward stood close behind Bella, his hand ghosting the curve of her back. A family — battered, but unbroken. Threaded together by something that had been forged under fire.
Heather stood apart, just for a moment. Her breath clouded in the night, every inhale a declaration. ash painted her arms in crusted trails. Her clothes— or what was left of them— flapped around her knees like battle-torn cotton. Magic still clung to her, faint as embers.
But her eyes — bright, burning, ice-blue — were clear.
They had walked out alive.
Scarred. Changed. But whole.
And for the first time since all this began, the future no longer felt like a noose.
It felt possible.
She turned.
Carlisle stood just behind her — as he always had.
His coat was torn, his shirt stained at the collar, his golden eyes ringed in exhaustion. But when she looked at him, she saw not a doctor or a vampire or even the centuries behind him. She saw the man who had touched her hand in the dark and said, Come with me. The one who had stood beside her in a throne room built for monsters and never looked away.
He looked at her like she was the only thing still worth believing in.
Heather took a step toward him.
And another.
Until there was no space between them but breath.
Her voice was quiet — threadbare, but certain.
“Ask me again.”
Carlisle’s brow furrowed slightly. “Ask you what, dear heart?”
She gave a faint smile — wry, worn, and honest. A warrior’s smile. A woman’s.
“To marry me,” she said. “Ask me again.”
Time seemed to slow.
The others didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
Alice tucked herself into Jasper’s side, her lashes wet. Emmett bowed his head slightly. Rosalie watched with quiet grace. Bella stood still as stone, Edward’s arm wrapped around her ribs.
They watched.
But for Heather, the world narrowed — not to the people around her, not even to the stars above or the cold stone beneath her feet, but to the man in front of her.
Carlisle.
She saw him as he was now — his coat torn, gold eyes dulled with sorrow and ash — and yet her heart filled with every version of him she’d known. The first time she'd met him, he hadn’t smiled with his mouth but with his eyes, offering her calm in the middle of a storm. No promises. Just space. Just steadiness.
And then came the slow unfolding. The way he listened. The way he never asked her to be anything less than what she was — fire, fury, softness, scar. The way his hands always touched her as if she were breakable, even when she knew she wasn’t.
He had kissed her like she was something holy, and then held her through hell.
And she'd loved him — slowly, then all at once. Somewhere between whispered strategy in a dim library and blood-soaked silence in battle. Somewhere between the moments he said nothing and the ones when he said exactly what she needed to hear.
She hadn't known love could look like that — like quiet witness. Like devotion without demand.
She thought of her Nan, of summer smoke, of ash and ancestry. Of the girl she had been — stubborn, scarred, tired of running.
She thought of her mother, too — of the absence that never stopped aching — and how she'd never get to meet the man Heather loved, never see the strange, fierce family she'd forged from fire and choice.
And now, standing here, wrecked and whole, she realized: love hadn’t saved her. But it had met her. Matched her. Stood beside her.
And in Carlisle’s eyes, she saw not just the man, but the memory of every moment they’d shared — a mosaic of small tenderness, strung together until they became a home.
Carlisle didn’t kneel.
He didn’t need to.
Instead, he reached for her hands — careful, reverent — and lifted them between his own. His thumbs pressed softly into the spaces between her knuckles, where the blood hadn’t dried. His touch grounded her, reminded her that she was still here. That they both were.
His voice, when it came, was both solemn and full of awe.
“Heather Bishop,” he said, lifting her hands toward his lips and pressing a reverent kiss to her knuckles — gentle, grounding, a touch steeped in awe. “Will you grant me the highest honour I know — to consent to be my wife and allow me to walk beside you as your husband?”
He squeezed her hands gently, like a promise made flesh.
“Will you marry me?”
A breath.
A heartbeat.
Heather looked at him — really looked — and saw not a perfect man, not an immortal myth, but the one who had chosen her again and again. The one she would choose just the same.
And when she answered, her voice didn’t shake.
Her fingers tightened around his.
“Yes.”
Notes:
I'm sorry about the delay in this one, I'm about 80k words into another fanfic I'm writing (This is is set in the Harry Potter world, so watch this space if that interests you). I really hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I couldn't help but add a sappy ending. I had to write this story as its been in my head for the last 10 years and I think I would go mad if I didn't somehow get it out! Love, Crab
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