Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer . . . or am I!?

(I'm not . . . not, in this particular universe, but since we know very little about space and time I can't rule out that I am, in fact, her in another universe. I am definitely not in this one though and "own" absolutely nothing except the AtB concept.)

This is really just a fancy lemon, guys. It's got a top hat and everything. Consider this your smut warning/confirmation.

He was so pale he nearly vanished into the deceptively innocent white light of this awful day. I knew it was hopeless to try saving anyone because he hadn't started. We just stood there, like lost children, staring blankly at the devastation before us. I don't remember how it all happened. I knew I was fighting actively, my shield useless against everyone that was left and then it all just stopped and it was only me and Carlisle, alone together, marooned on an unfamiliar planet by a grief too large to comprehend.

Finally, he said, "Bella, you should go back to the house. I'll take care of this."

I shook my head. Not only did I not want to be alone, I also didn't want him to stay here and go about the terrible process of burning all of his friends and family alone. He was so kind to everyone, it seemed inordinately cruel for this to happen to him. I only felt numb. And grateful that Jacob and Renesmee were, hopefully, very far away from here.

"Okay," was all he said. He took the ornate torch the Volturi had brought and began reverently setting fire to each body after gathering the pieces together into dignified funerary positions. He treated each one with equal consideration, including the remaining Volturi guard. His extraordinary warmth extended even to those who had made themselves his enemies.

I trailed him silently until at last everyone was gone and the field was empty except for a few scattered patches of ash which were quickly being picked apart by the wind, caught up into the air and mixed with the snow until everything was the same flat dark grey and then light grey and then white again. As though it never happened.

He took my hand and I intuitively slipped my fingers in between his in a gesture which was a little too intimate considering our relationship. At least, the relationship we'd once had. I don't know what we were now. Acquaintances. Friends. Family still?

He smiled at me with a sad affection that made my chest ache. He didn't think I was being inappropriate. I wondered if he ever thought bad things about anyone. He squeezed my hand gently. It'll be okay. I didn't know how it possibly could be but his silent assurance crept sweetly into my heart and an unexpected peace filled me.

He led me through the trees, still carrying the torch. We passed silently by my little house without looking at it. He seemed to know I wouldn't want to go in there now. I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that if anyone should survive with me, anyone but Edward, that it was Carlisle. I loved all of them but his quiet manner, maybe honed by being a doctor for so long, made having him with me like being protected by some strange angel who was carefully guiding me through this terrible experience with an unearthly delicacy I was certain I did not deserve.

As we neared the house I had a eerie feeling of disconnection overcome me as I watched his face take in his now empty home. A home which had been his for a very long time and which contained the memories of his beautiful family like some nightmarish museum designed especially to torture him. I felt as though I had never seen him before. He was a very familiar stranger.

He led me up the steps without looking at me. When we got inside, he softly let go of my hand, patting it with his other first to show he wasn't pulling away from me—just letting go of my hand.

And then we stood there, next to each other, mute, like in the field. This may as well have been a field full of bodies as well. Everywhere there were reminders of our lost loved ones.

"What are we going to do, Carlisle?" I said after a long time. My voice was a sanguine mix of terror and resignation.

He put his hand on my back. The careful pressure of it and the sweet sensation of physical contact nearly made me collapse.

"We'll figure it out, Bella. Though we will have to leave Forks," he was watching my face, "sooner than we planned."

I nodded. My hands were in tight fists at my sides. I couldn't even say goodbye to Charlie. He would ask where Renesmee was and what could I say? "Sorry, she ran off with Jacob Black to protect her from some evil cult of supernatural royalty who live in Italy and came here to murder her because they think she's a baby vampire"? No. I would just have to go and never look back. He wasn't even in Forks anyway. He was still on the diversionary fishing trip we'd sent him on.

"You're taking this very well," he said apprehensively.

It seemed almost perversely self-sacrificing for him to be comforting me. Every member of his family was dead.

And it was my fault.

"I . . . don't know how to feel yet."

"You can feel sad," he said simply.

But that was crazy. Sad was a one dimensional feeling that didn't begin to cover the emotions coursing through me at his words.

"I can't."

"You can lie down for a while while I prepare things for us to leave. Edward's room is still—"

He stopped at my vehement head shaking.

"—Alice and Jasper's room," he amended.

That was better I could maybe do that. He squeezed my shoulder and started to walk away. I didn't move. He stopped and turned back to me, taking in my catatonic expression and rigid stance. He came back and took me by the elbow, leading me to the stairs. He took me all the way to the hallway and stopped in front of the door to Alice and Jasper's room which was slightly ajar.

He looked at me sympathetically. It was starting to make me uncomfortable. His total lack of reaction to this. His clear-headed actions. He leaned in to give me a professional-feeling hug and I responded without thought, pulling him close to me until our bodies met, pressed close in a fierce, demanding embrace. I heard a quiet gasp from him and I pulled back. Him choosing to be a rock for me was one thing, me trying to cling to him to keep myself from drowning was selfish. But I always was selfish.

I released him but as I did my cheek brushed his, just barely and a new, frightening sensation spiraled through me unexpectedly. I had never thought of Carlisle in any way but as Edward's adopted father and Esme's husband. But the same way I had suddenly seen him new while we were outside, I was seeing other things about him now in a rapid-fire series of perversely lovely realizations.

His hair had more colors than I had ever noticed before. Who knew there were so many shades of gold? And his eyes—which had always seemed a little lighter than everyone else's—were a bright, clear gold I was certain existed nowhere else—not even in the incredible spectrum of his hair. His lips were parted slightly and I was staring at the venom-perfected shape of them, wondering how much they had had to be improved upon from when he was human or if they had been that alluring originally—when I realized that although I had pulled away, I had only done so with my head and shoulders, he arms were still around my waist, holding me flush against him.

The look on his face, I realized then was a mirror of my own. Fear and pain and a kind of crimson-colored shock. We stayed like that frozen for what seemed a long time, our arms around each other, our faces close.

And in the end it was me, the selfish one, who moved closer to perform an act that would create a wound in both of us that was also a bond. Forged in guilt and infused with sorrow, insuring that it would fester for a long time before it healed—if it ever did.

I kissed him. Just a light touch against his lips, I could still pull away, apologize. Blame the shock, not make him do something I was sure would destroy us both with the guilt. But before I could he was kissing me back, his hands tightening just barely on my waist.

A magnificent fire, fueled by some unknown cruel light, filled me with exquisite flame as our kiss continued and his tongue grazed mine. I made a small, needy sound as this happened and he pushed me down to the floor, with the same kind of heartbreaking tenderness he had shown me since the battle ended—leaving us all alone. But there was a slight edge to it now. His hands had turned a little rougher as he came down after me, covering my body with his.

A ragged desperation surged through me, obliterating the guilt utterly and leaving me suspended in a perfect, dumb limbo, empty except for his hands on me and his mouth now leaving surreal, overlapping areas of pleasure on my throat and across my collarbone.

I wrapped my legs around him, pushing my hips up to make firmer contact between us. He moaned against my skin and it sounded so full of want and hurt that I almost pushed him away and again said I was sorry—so sorry to have done this to him and then run from the house and very far away so I would never again have to look him in the face and see him judging me for my impulsive physical attack on him.

But he was pulling my jacket off and then my shirt which he settled for tearing away when it got tangled between my hair and my arm. I arched my back, now naked from the waist up and feeling a scandalous absence of shame as he looked down on me for a moment, my lips moist and open and my eyes only half-open, before he brought his mouth down to repeat the deliciously agonizing treatment he had been inflicting on my throat a moment before. When his mouth covered one of my nipples my hands flew to his hair and I let out a high, long moan that disappeared in an exhale somewhere in the middle.

A violent lust took over then and I tore at his clothes until our skin was gloriously exposed together. His hands flew down to my pants and instead of undoing them he inserted his fingers between the waistband and my skin and yanked sharply, destroying the closures. I helped him by lifting my hips as he dragged them down my thighs. His hands went to his belt and in a few seconds we were both naked, poised at a crossroads we couldn't ever return to.

He paused, ready to complete this dishonorable crime against our loved ones, looking down at my face—looking, I assumed, for permission or encouragement or a shift in consent away from what was about to happen. I felt a sick surge of guilt at taking away his eternal purity but I pushed it away.

Even though I was sure the look on my face, obscenely wanton and revealing at this point, was probably enough, I placed my hands on his hips, tugging on him and urging him to continue.

When he entered me he stopped again, our bodies as close together as they could ever be without becoming the same being—a rich cry, tangled up in guilt and pain fell from him, breaking against my skin. I was certain I would have an ugly, black mark there forever after, a badge declaring this terrible thing I had done to a person who had been only wonderful to me.

"I'm sorry," I said without meaning to, my voice sounding steeped in the salty scent of human tears I couldn't cry anymore. "We can stop. I'm so sorry."

"Do you want to stop?" I felt that he was trembling slightly, trying to resist the urge to move.

"No. I thought that you—"

"I—I am not perfect . . ." he said.

It was the same as another person admitting to lying or stealing. Or to murder. It was murder. The Carlisle Cullen I had known was gone. And it was me who killed him—I'd killed everyone. It was fitting that I was now destroying the only thing that was left. I kissed him and he responded without hesitation. He thought he wasn't perfect but he was.

His lips, always directing the soft syllables of courteous words past them, also knew the language of carnality and spoke it with a fluidity that reminded me what a novice I was at it. The action of his hands was as practiced and precise at this as it was at swiftly tying the elegant knots of a series of stitches. Like those he'd put in my arm on my birthday. Only a little over a year ago now. That was when I'd first truly understood how perfect he was—during that moment of being closer than we'd ever been while we were alone. His face had remained serene as he'd worked, as he wiped the blood off my arm, then off his hands and I really believed he didn't even feel tempted to taste it. Carlisle was the safest person in this world.

"Yes, you are. You ar—"

"No," he put his forehead against mine. "I need to not be perfect. Please let me be something else. Just today. Please."

I kissed him again and then we didn't talk anymore and he thrust into me with heavy, even strokes until I came with a bright red scream rising from me and echoing around the hallway, and within it, the sound of his own release, swirling upwards and expanding outwardly in infinite, delicate bright white filaments that combined with the full, crimson darkness of mine creating a complex tapestry illustrating in quickly dissipating detail our everlasting transgression, which would hang, a cloudy, silent specter, in the air of this house forever—for as long as we lived to carry the sinful, satisfying memory of it in our skin.