The family, coming from Milliways.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle originally hadn't wanted to go home. Everyone was so loud at Milliways, though, and when Edward starts to even think the phrase There would be fewer people to listen to -- Carlisle's already standing to go

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[themidnightson]

Edward doesn't ask to follow. His thought process barely ghosts over the nature of the idea of leaving Carlisle to his own devices at the moment. The steps are silent on the well kept carpet and wood paneling. The voices of his (their) family, the key stones of his very comfort, are an unavoidable onslaught to Carlisle. He wants to say it gets better (easier) but he doesn't. Because he hopes it doesn't get better. He only hopes it will stop soon.

Do you want them to know?

Edward would keep them away, after all, if he didn't.

He's not certain how yet, but the offer and the intent are iron clad.

[ofthefamily]

I think so? Does it get easier if there's one person to focus on?

Is it always like this?

Carlisle moves too quickly for human to his office, dropping himself in his usual desk chair with a weariness Carlisle hasn't experienced in centuries.

This has to be temporary, Carlisle starts to argue with himself, staring at his hand rather than Edward. The carpal bones are scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate --

[themidnightson]

You'll still hear them, because they are so close.

He can tell where all of them are right now, but then he can also tell where very much more than all of his family is. There are cars passing on the road and there's a convenience store that he hardly considers 'convenient.'

"Your focus might be served better if you talked to them one on one and not in a big group. It could be--"

Hell is what he doesn't think or say. Instead it's a catalog of mismatched thoughts and images and reactions and emotions all layering on each in a dizzying whirl. Having to deal with all them reacting or acting or thinking at once to him, at him, around him, avoiding their thoughts for his problem.

[ofthefamily]

This is going to give me vertigo. Or should.

Carlisle's already on to the bones of the foot.

How you managed when we traveled --

Carlisle's thinking of the times when they've moved as a family, and earlier.

[themidnightson]

"It won't."

It's not exactly a thought, had or avoided, that still admits with its tone and inflection, both out loud and in his thoughts, that there are times that it's worse that it can't cause the vertigo.

The other-- well, he hadn't had much of a choice.

And in the end he had nothing else to compare it to for an alternate.

[ofthefamily]

I can't work like this, it occurs to Carlisle suddenly. The patients, just the pain of them --

[themidnightson]

Edward frowned, more of a thin marred line in his expression than a downturn.

He wouldn't like Carlisle to experience that, and there was a small shiver in his thoughts of being chagrined in his reluctance to even have Carlisle known he went through that every time he stepped foot into his work place.

It was easier to stray his thoughts toward the important things (even as he made no move to hide where things went).

"I'll call them," he said, too smoothly. "They'll understand that you've fallen sick for a short time."

And hopefully the house wouldn't be flooded with well wisher cards and flower baskets form the small town folk who so adored Carlisle and understood the sheer miraculousness that someone so skilled chose their town, not the other way around.

[ofthefamily]

I always knew you heard them, Edward.

Carlisle's looking up and paying attention. Maybe more clearly than he has in a while.

Perhaps I never understood, but I always knew.

[themidnightson]

Edward didn't sigh. The thought about whether to do so, and whether it was because it was petulant or perturbed with the sheer scope of an honesty he'd avoided without lying about exactly, dawdled.

"I wouldn't have minded you not ever truly understanding the difference there."

Which was not the same as saying he'd not also wished he was completely understood, the same wave of which layered into unsaid.

[ofthefamily]

A shift of topic.

Why do you keep speaking aloud? I can hear you.

[themidnightson]

Edward blinked, as though just noticing, then he shrugged. All of it taking place within less than half a second.

Habit?

It isn't as though it's startlingly new for your side of the conversation to be had this way.

It was strange for him to be thinking and for his thoughts to be heard, his every reaction and inaction and connective moment. He felt the urge to shift as though something inside itched unsettlingly but didn't move.

[ofthefamily]

True.

Carlisle's on the tendons of the arms.

I can go back to Milliways. If it's easier.

For the family, not for Carlisle.

[themidnightson]

They're family. They're known. Comforting, even in chaos.

It'll be easier for you here.

He's almost positively sure of that. What he's not positively sure of is if it will be easier for *them* to have him here. And he's considering already punching the first person who dares to think of voicing that above a thought.

Carlisle had done more for all of them than anyone could ever hope to.

[ofthefamily]

No punching please.

[themidnightson]

Edward gave him a milliseconds half glare from one side, half in that it revealed his thought to be seriously kept still, before it faded instantly to a clear expression.

He scrubbed his fingers through his untidy bronze hair. "You belong here. This doesn't change that at all. Even while its happening."

They'd handled worse, hadn't they?

It wasn't as though Carlisle was acting insane.

[ofthefamily]

We've never handled worse because of me.

Except that maybe they have.

Once or twice.