Set in Eclipse, during the fight between the newborn army and the Cullens. Esme and Carlisle have always been my favorites in Twilight, and I wanted to see more of their brief relationship with Bree. Tagged to the movie, slightly AU to the book.

The girl trembled in the cold... and for one wild moment, Esme thought she was human. But no, her red eyes — she was a vampire, impervious to the elements, and yet she trembled, as if she were freezing.

Esme stopped short, and without having to look at him, she sensed Carlisle stop with her, their footsteps in sync on the forest floor. Their fighting instincts retreated from them like animals on the run. The girl's shivers, her wide, dark eyes darting back and forth from Esme to Carlisle... it was a frigid winter day, but she wasn't cold. No, she was frightened.

Like any vampires, they were immortal, with hyper-acute senses and inhuman strength and speed. But they had other instincts too, ones that had nothing to do with being vampires. As they looked away from the girl and met each other's eyes, they weren't hundred-year-old vampires anymore. They were parents, a normal, loving mom and dad, no different from any other in Forks. They were partners, communicating with their eyes, asking, What should we do with this one?

"She's a newborn," Carlisle said in a low voice, for he could tell that Esme wanted to keep her. "She's dangerous."

"We've raised vampires from newborns before," Esme answered immediately. "We could take her in, teach her our ways. We have a spare bedroom."

A spare bedroom. If only it were that simple. Carlisle knew that in Esme's mind, she was already taking this new girl back home, introducing her to their children, fixing up that spare bedroom for her. "How do you like it? We could rearrange it if you want, move the desk over there. What color curtains would you like for the window? I was thinking purple."

Something inside Carlisle suddenly shivered with fear for Esme — and for the girl, too. No. He shook his head and pushed that fantasy away.

"If we take her in, the Volturi will be watching us, and we can't be under scrutiny from them, not while Bella's still human," Carlisle argued. "Esme, you have to think about the whole family." Nothing mattered more to Esme than their family. Surely she would see the sense in this...

...but she didn't even hesitate. "I am thinking about them," she insisted, as if it were obvious. Carlisle was caught off-guard, a feeling only she could ever give him. "I'm thinking about what kind of a lesson we'd be teaching them if we didn't help this little girl."

Little girl. Those words startled Bree out of her stupor. Little girl? She looked around, confused, to see who these people were talking about. But there was no one nearby — only the bushes and the bare, empty trees — and she realized with a pang that they were talking about her. She was the little girl, and that made her heart ache. It had been years since her mom died, since she'd been anyone's little girl.

Perhaps her face betrayed her sadness, for just then, the woman said to the man, her voice hushed, "Carlisle... just look at her."

Carlisle looked and sighed, defeated. As much as he knew this girl was dangerous, it impossible to argue with how utterly helpless she looked. Likely she'd been turned vampire with no explanation, no guidance — a cruel thing to do to anyone, especially one so young. No wonder Esme wanted to adopt her; she'd always been so compassionate. He looked back at Esme and nodded. They held each other's eyes for a moment, as the feeling between shifted from opposition to unity. They had made their decision.

Esme looked back at the girl and stepped towards her. "What's your name?" she asked gently.

Honey-Bree, she almost answered, and it startled her, how close she came to blurting out that silly old childhood nickname. She hadn't heard it in years. Her mom used to call her that when she was little, because she'd loved Winnie-the-Pooh so much.

It seemed to catch in her throat, as if she'd swallowed a tack, but she forced that answer down and said, "Bree."

The woman — Esme, the man had called her — nodded, reached out, and took Bree's hand. Bree jerked a bit at her touch, for despite the cold day, her hand was warm. But weren't vampires all supposed to be cold? Did they feel warm to each other?

"Bree, honey," Esme said, "listen to me. We're going to help you, if we can. But we need to be careful. You have to promise me you'll stay with us, okay?" Bree couldn't answer, but she nodded and squeezed the woman's hand with her own. "Promise me you'll do what we tell you."

Bree nodded again but still said nothing, and the man prompted her, "We need you to say it."

"I will," she said immediately. "I promise." She remembered something her mom had taught her years ago, when she was little. She'd told Bree that if she ever got lost, "You look for a woman with kids to help you, okay? Look for another mother." This woman holding her hand now had no children with her, but Bree could tell that she was another mother. God, yes, she would do whatever they said. God, yes, she wanted them to take care of her. "I promise I'll stay with you."

Esme smiled, though her golden eyes were full of uncertainty. "Good girl."

x

Bree kept her promise. She stayed with them. When the Volturi arrived, Carlisle and Esme stood close together right in front of her, as if they were trying to hide her, and that made Bree feel safer.

But Esme had never promised to save her, only to try. They did try to help her, try to hide her, but the Volturi spotted her anyway, cowering behind Esme's shoulder. Bree saw her body tense when the blonde Volturi girl's red eyes landed on her, and when she smiled and said slowly, "You missed one," she shuddered with a terrible foreboding and crouched lower behind Esme.

Esme said desperately, almost angrily, "She didn't know what she was doing! We'll take responsibility for her!" It was more opposition than anyone had ever dared to show the Volturi, but it wasn't enough.

Dying hurt. It hurt even more than becoming a vampire, and that had felt like being burned alive. Bree screamed and writhed on the forest floor, but when she raised her head to beg them to stop, instead of the merciless red eyes of the Volturi, she found the calm, golden eyes of the woman who'd held her hand. Esme couldn't help her now, but she held her gaze, at least, never flinching or looking away. Her lips weren't moving, but over her own screams, Bree swore that she heard her voice, soothing, "I know it hurts, honey, but it'll be over soon. It'll all be over soon." Her voice made the pain a little quieter.

It was nice, getting to pretend, for at least a little while, that she had a mom again.

x

Later, when they were all safely back at the house, their children didn't understand why Esme was so quiet. Edward, who'd been so far away during the fight and so relieved that Bella was safe to notice much else, whispered to him as soon as they were alone, "Carlisle, what's wrong with Esme?" Alice, who'd always been the most perceptive of them, hugged her and said, "Just so you know, I think you're a great mom." Esme smiled at that, but it didn't reach her eyes. Carlisle doubted if even Alice understood what was troubling her. But he didn't expect them to. They weren't parents. They didn't have the same instincts that he and Esme did.

He found her, very late that night, alone in that spare bedroom, and he took a deep breath as he went in and stood beside her. He'd been afraid of this, of Esme getting too attached to that girl only to have her ripped away by the Volturi. He knew how deeply she'd wanted to protect her today. But the Volturi might've killed their entire family if she'd tried to stop them, and so she had drawn on every ounce of willpower that she had, and forced herself to stand there and watch as they killed Bree.

"Esme, you have to think about the whole family."

They didn't need words to communicate with each other... but sometimes, they wanted them.

"I just..." Esme began, but she faded out, taking in the moonlit squares on the floor of that empty room, hearing in the silence the echo of Bree's screams.

"I know." Carlisle squeezed one arm around her shoulders. He was furious with himself for not finding some way to prevent this. Couldn't he have refused to give in? Couldn't he have said, No, Esme, we can't keep this one? Maybe she would have listened to him, and maybe then, she wouldn't be falling apart right now.

"It felt like she was supposed to be ours," she said, her voice trembling. She still didn't look at Carlisle. "She wanted to be ours. I could see it in her face. She wanted us to keep her." Carlisle remembered the girl's dark, desperate eyes. As much as she'd hungered for human blood, she'd been far hungrier for a family, for two good parents like them. He hadn't seen that right away, but Esme had.

"You can't blame yourself," he whispered fiercely. "You did all you could for her." But Esme didn't look comforted at all, and suddenly, Carlisle realized why. She'd had a miscarriage. That's what this was. She thought they were going to have another child, but now, they weren't. As much as he and Esme had been through together, they'd never had a miscarriage before. His anger at himself melted into sadness for her, and he chose his words carefully before he said, his voice gentler now, "I know you would've been a good mother to her, Esme. I'm sorry things happened the way they did."

She finally turned to him then, turned to him and buried her head against his shoulder, wrapped her arms around him and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt in both hands. They couldn't cry, and they didn't say anything more, but they didn't need to. It was enough to simply stand there as the moonlit windowpanes slowly moved across the floor, holding each other, mourning their lost daughter.