Chapter Text
April 3rd, 1886.
Carlisle growled at the papers before him, their words and images blurred into a vat of pointless, useless information. None of this was helpful, none of this was of any use to him. He was half convinced Bella had told them she needed this research as a ploy to keep them busy. His annoyingly clever girl. It was really just relentless busywork heaped onto him by Tanya to stop him running to Texas at the slightest provocation.
The lady in question glanced sharply up at him from across their cluttered table.
“I think you will find that your papers have done very little to provoke you, Carlisle.”
He grunted and pushed them away from him. “I don’t even know what we’re doing here.”
“We are helping Bella. She needs to know the historical movements of the Romanian coven.”
“No we’re not!” he exclaimed, pushing back in his chair and pacing about the room. “And no she doesn’t! If we were helping Bella we would be seven hundred miles south right now!”
“Must I have this conversation with you every day, Carlisle?” Tanya stayed in her seat; her stern grip on the table was the only signal to her true frustration. “Bella is here for a reason! We can’t let our feelings get in the way of her work. She trusted you in letting us come down to Kanzas to wait, so in return you must trust her to keep herself safe. She is more capable than you give her credit for.”
His eyes flashed. “I know how capable she is. Even a girl with her talents and ingenuity does not stand a chance against twenty rabid newborns.”
“And neither do you.”
Tanya stared him down, not flinching from the furious eye contact until the tension drained from his spine and he fell back into his seat.
“We’ve had no word from her in a month,” he whispered. “What if we never see her again? What if I sent my only child to her death?”
She leant forwards and gripped his hand. Loose curls of her ice blond hair fell onto her shoulders; she and Irina had been less scrupulous in their appearances in recent months. Kate had given up altogether.
“There is no way you could have stopped her going.” She squeezed. “She has Kate and Garrett at least. She’s not alone, and you’ve seen her letters. She has Peter on board. He won’t let her come to harm.”
“We hardly know anything about him,” Carlisle grumbled. “She barely knew him before coming here, she told me herself. It’s Jasper that we’re supposed to trust, but apparently he’s the most dangerous of them all.”
He watched as Tanya bit her lip, she was clearly holding back another speech about trusting Bella. He sighed and looked away, his eyes falling back to the maps in front of him. He would take one more second, he told himself, one more second to drown. Then he would return to his useless work, swallow his worry and settle to sit and wait for word from the daughter he loved.
Little did he know that Kate was racing towards the house, a hastily scribbled note clenched in hand; carrying news that his child was alright.