(Untitled)

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle looks only slightly more formally dressed than he usually does, today - he was presenting a patient who had crashed his motorcycle west of First Beach who had complications that were 'academically intriguing

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[themidnightson]

He doesn't have to look. He's halfway to the bar (another facade he's falling back into doing without thinking; remembering to be) when the words tumble through him. He doesn't look. He doesn't have to. His fingers settled on the bar. Disjointing whatever his order was going to be. Water or soda or coffee or wine or any number refuses. An action that would give him away.

Finally, his mouth opened --

-- but a bag appeared. Again. He stared at it, verging on an expulsion and several other reactions. He'd chosen against it. He knew where it should be at this second. This bag. This very bag. Down to the hairline tear in one crease.

He picked it up with an expression of a mingled incredibly faint frown bypassing the urge for a sigh. And turned around looking across the room. There wasn't any semblance of pretending to study the room, only looking to him. And then walking away from the bar. With it.

He's somewhere maybe ten or fifteen feet away, attempting something far more speculatively light than his own mind, or that of pushy intanimate objects. "If I had a penny for every thought, I could likely fill another bank account. Heywood could have chosen a better medium."

[ofthefamily]

"Edward."

It's a tone of surprise. He usually notices when his family come through the door.

Would you actually offer to pay me for mine?

[themidnightson]

"No," is a chosen single response at first, after barely two seconds passing. A collection of milliseconds slinking by as the thought ticked through only honest and more honest.

"They give me more than they should already."

[ofthefamily]

His thoughts, giving things away.

Carlisle smiles gently, looking at the chair across from him in mild invitation.

[themidnightson]

Edward took the chair, setting the bag down on the table, amid those thoughts. They give him the foundation of his world. The common constant over thirty thousand days. A music all its own. Even when or if they aren't talking.

"There isn't a price for them that would ever be enough, or too much."

[ofthefamily]

It's.

Well. It's the first direct and...nice thing Edward has said to Carlisle in some time. He almost doesn't know what to make of it.

Carlisle's mouth twists as though shamed slightly by his own thought - Edward doesn't have to be nice to him, certainly not all the time - and doesn't say anything aloud.

His attention turns to the bag on the table.

[themidnightson]

Edward's expression wrinkled, a disruption to almost calm features. "It's yours."

He's still not sure if that should be an explanation or an apology.

[ofthefamily]

But why?

The question doesn't go anywhere, and he has nothing better to do - Carlisle reaches for the bag, automatically assuming the object inside is a book given the shape which forms under his fingers through the paper.

Carlisle pulls the book out carefully, offering a small "What is it?" without looking at the spine for his answer first.

[themidnightson]

It's old. Not incalculably. But old. Which probably isn't hard to tell both by its appearance and by the bits that seems to woosh into the air even at its smallest movement.

"Libellus de Egritridinibus Infantium." Looking more at Carlisle's fingers and the book, and the table framing those two, than Carlisle's face. "It's the first medical treatise to make its original appearance in print."

Er. From the late fifteenth century. When print first started. In Latin.

Which is still less awkward than, "It was supposed to be for Christmas."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle mentally stuttersteps at all the new information.

It was supposed to be for Christmas.

A book that Carlisle himself had only ever seen once.

There is a cracked sort of noise which coalesces into an "Oh."

(Carlisle doesn't notice that he's clutching it.)

[themidnightson]

"I had thought maybe it would be best to forget about it after-" There's the faintest pause. For too many things. Christmas itself. The phone call. Everything that had followed. How tenuous they were. "-everything."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle inhales awkwardly, looking down at the book again.

Incredibly carefully: "Valuable things should not be forgotten."

[themidnightson]

He can not change time. Unmake choices. Unlearn all the things he knows about himself, both again and anew. And he doesn't miss the implied parallel. Except.

Except that the book is a worthless object in comparison to the parallel.

Even then, his words, soft and precise still. Penitent. "No. They shouldn't be."

[ofthefamily]

Thank you for the gift, Edward. I know it wa--

I appreciate it very much.

[themidnightson]

Edward settled this time for nodding, because it was probably the grace he could manage right now. And, perhaps, in some part wanting to keep the unbroken moment still unbroken a few seconds longer if he could.

[ofthefamily]

But here's the thing about moments. Something always happens.

Another person walks by the table, the wake of their movement knocking over the paper the bag was wrapped in.

Edward, what's that?

There is a folded paper that has fallen out of that wrapping. A letter?