Father's Cross, a twilight fanfic

Do not post without permission. Do not copy/print without including the above disclaimer in its entirety.

A/N: The dates are actually canon Twilight, despite Edward stating that Carlisle didn't know the exact year he was born, since two paragraphs earlier he says Carlisle just celebrated his three hundred sixty-second birthday. If you know how old you are and what year it is now, it doesn't take a vampire's intellect to figure out what year you were born! (I compromised by having him not know the exact date, and picking a "birthday" at random.) Barbie

1648

The little boy leaned against his father's knee, watching as the man painstakingly carved a cross from a piece of dark wood.

"Can I try, Da?"

"No, tadpole," he replied, smiling kindly into the gray eyes turned up to his. "The knife is sharp; thou might cut thyself."

The boy's lip pouted, his eyes clouding. "I'd be careful, Da."

"No, son. I lost thy mother — I won't lose thee." He passed his hand over his eyes, remembering his wife's death. Such a minor thing that cut had seemed; just a nick. But the infection had spread through her body, and in a short time she was gone.

He rose, setting the unfinished cross aside on a shelf, the knife beside it. "Bedtime for thee, my son. Come up and say thy prayers."

He rested his hand on the child's golden hair as the little boy knelt beside the bed. "Now I lay me down to sleep…"

oOo

The father had gone for the day, no one in the house but the boy and the fourteen-year-old girl paid to look after him. But she was neglectful, as happened far more often than the father realized, and the child was left to his own devices.

Standing on a chair, he reached up and reverently touched the partially finished cross. He could do it; he knew he could.

Almost without knowing what he was doing, he took the cross and knife from the shelf and sat on the chair. His brow furrowed in concentration as he carefully cut away a sliver of wood.

It didn't look like his father's neat work, and he frowned, trying again.

Suddenly the knife slipped, cutting finger and cross. With a cry the boy let cross and knife fall unheeded to the floor as he sucked his bleeding finger. *

It was there his father found him. Picking him up, he held the distraught boy close.

"I ruined it, Da!" the boy sobbed. "I'm sorry; I'm sorry!"

"Shh. Hush now, my son. The cross is not ruined; see there? The mark is at the back; it won't show. Now let me see thy finger, tadpole."

He hid his fear as he bandaged the cut finger, and gradually the boy's sobs subsided.

The finger healed cleanly, and the cross was completed and oiled to a softly gleaming finish. The boy's eyes gleamed blue with excitement when his father allowed him to help rub the oil in. Finally, the two of them carried it to the church to grace the back of the altar.

"It looks fine up there, doesn't it?"

The boy nodded proudly. Hand in hand, the two walked home together.

oOo

1676

Carlisle

It had been ten years since I last walked this city street. Ten years since I fled London as a newborn vampire.

And I wondered again why I had come back now. There was nothing here for me anymore; I knew that. I had few memories of my human life, but the fanatical light in my father's eyes as he sent me to kill that coven of vampires that final, fateful night was one of the clearest. He had burned so many innocent victims in his crazed efforts to stamp out the "nests of evil"; I had little doubt that if he met me now — even if he recognized me for his son — he would not hesitate to drive a silver stake through my heart.

I laughed humorlessly; as if that could actually hurt me now.

No, there was nothing here for me…and yet something was pulling me back. Memories too faint to recall pulled at the back of my mind, drawing me back to my past.

The service was already half over when I slipped into the back of the little stone church. Another humorless smile twitched at my lips; my father would never dream one of my kind would dare set foot on hallowed ground.

My eyes fell on the dark cross hanging behind the altar, and I felt a tug of remembrance that faded before I could grasp it fully. The elusiveness of human memories was frustrating to one who now had perfect recall. Was that why I was here? To try to capture some of those dim memories?

But what was the point? Did I want to remember a childhood with that half-crazed lunatic who had been my father? Wasn't it better to start over fresh?

It was not my father who stood at the front of the church; my father's face was one thing that was seared into my memory, and I knew I would have recognized him.

I could have slipped out as I had come and merely gone on my way, abandoning this useless, purposeless quest, but instead I joined the line of people filing through the doors.

"I wonder if you could tell me what has become of the man who was priest here ten years ago; Father Aloysius Cullen?" I questioned the priest after exchanging words of greeting.

His face sobered. "Ah. Father Cullen is still vicar here…though not for long, I fear. He caught a severe chill that went to his chest; I expect word of his death before the week is out."

The news hit me harder than I would have expected. I had half expected to hear that he was dead; he had been old ten years ago, for the short lifespans of those times. But dying…

"He's still in the same house?"

"I believe so, yes."

"Thank you," I managed, and made my way out the door.

The way from the church to the house had been so familiar to me at one point that I found it now without having to ask directions of anyone. Even as my feet carried me there, I wondered again what I was doing; what I hoped to accomplish. Surely nothing productive could come of this.

But I had gone too far to stop now; I stepped up and knocked on the door.

"Come in," a coarsely feminine voice invited. I pushed the door open and saw a slovenly woman sitting sewing beside a small fire. "What'd ye want here?"

"I've…come to ask how Father Cullen is doing."

She snorted. "An' what is it ta ye?"

Indeed, what was it to me? Why should I care if the man I used to call my father now lay dying? He would not own me as his son now, if ever he had thought of me in such terms at all. "He's my uncle," I extemporized. "I was told at the church he had taken ill."

"Aye. Dying he is; not like to survive the night." She bit off the end of her thread.

Something stirred within me. I heard but one heartbeat from upstairs, and she had not come down merely to let me in. "You would leave a man to die alone?" Even the man I called Father in my memories did not deserve that.

"He called me a witch!" she said, drawing herself up in offense. I looked at her stringy gray hair and missing or blackened teeth, and was little surprised. My father had burned women on scanter evidence than that. "He's out of his head," she continued, "beggin' for his dead son Carlisle."

I reeled as if she had struck me. Whatever he had done, could I deny a dying man his last wish? "His son was my cousin; 'twas said we resembled one another. Perhaps I might be able to comfort him?"

She shrugged. "Don't make no difference to me."

I swallowed a mouthful of venom at the callous unconcern of her manner and turned quickly toward the stairs.

I slowly pushed open the door to my father's bedroom, and instantly smelled the odor of sickness and death. A clove of garlic sat beside a stoppered vial of holy water on the bedstand, while a silver cross hung from the bedpost. I smiled slightly; the charms had no affect on me, though the garlic was far from the most pleasant thing I had ever smelled.

"Carlisle. Carlisle, save me. They're coming for me, Carlisle; help me! Keep them back; keep them away!" His voice was faint and hoarse with his delirious ravings; his lungs sounded full of fluid.

In two strides, I crossed the room to his side. "Shh, Da, I'm here; I won't let them touch thee."

His hand groped for mine. "Carlisle?"

"Yes, Da; it's me." I wondered at the intimate name that fell so easily from my lips; I had called him Father in my memories of him, and meant it almost more as a title of office than a familial one.

I brushed a hand across his forehead. "Da, you're burning up." There was a pitcher on the stand, and I poured some water on a cloth and laid it on his forehead.

I knew that nothing anyone could do now could prevent his death; I could only make him as comfortable as possible. Smoothing the cloth over his forehead, I let my cool fingers linger for a moment on his temples, his pulse throbbing hot under my touch.

"Carlisle! Behind you! The red eyes!"

The terror in his voice was so real that I was ready to drop into a crouch as I whipped my head around, though logically I knew I would have been aware of any intruder in the room long before my father was.

"There's nothing there, Da," I assured him soothingly.

"They're coming! They're coming for me! They're coming to steal my soul!" His words dissolved into a horrible fit of wracking coughs. Pulling him upright, I rubbed his back as he choked and struggled to breathe. "Easy. Easy, Da."

At last the spasm passed, and I eased him back down, wiping the sputum from his mouth and replacing the cool cloth that had fallen from his forehead.

"Don't let them take me, Carlisle," he half whimpered, clutching at my hand.

"They have no power over thee, Da," I assured him softly. "Doesn't thou remember? 'My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand.' 'For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' [John 10:27-29; Romans 8:38-39, KJV] They can't have thy soul, Da; it's claimed."

"There…aren't any demons, Carlisle?"

"No."

"No vampires?"

I hesitated a split second. "No. No vampires," I lied.

"You…won't let them in, Carlisle?"

"I won't let them in," I promised. He was calmer now; I wasn't surprised to see him drop into a fitful sleep. For several hours I sat beside him, bathing his face with the cool water.

Fear. Why had I never seen it before? Once again I took out my memories of my father, and this time recognized the fanatical light in his eyes for what it was — pure terror.

And while that alone could not absolve him of the innocent lives he had taken, it did make it a little easier to understand. I found myself regretting now my last words to him as a human, wishing that I had been a little more understanding. Had he been begging me to keep him safe from demons then, as he was now, and I hadn't recognized that fact?

Suddenly his eyes opened, startling me with their clearness and sanity. The delirium had passed for now, and I dropped my own gaze lest he see my changed eye color and refuse to recognize me as his son.

"Carlisle?" he whispered in disbelief.

"Yes, Da; it's me," I assured him softly.

"But…you died…that night you went to fight the vampires…or did I dream it?"

I gently squeezed his hand. "I suppose you must have, since I am here."

"Yes…" Unexpectedly, I saw tears in his eyes. "You were right, Carlisle. So many…I put to death…so many innocent!" He began to weep with dry, rasping sobs.

"Shh…Da, stop; thou wilt give thyself another coughing fit."

"A murderer, Carlisle! Can you not see it? I, who claimed to be so righteous…a murderer. My soul will burn in hell for my sins!"

"What then of the cross, Da?" I asked softly. "Christ did not die for the innocent; He died that the guilty could be forgiven." Forgiven. If only I could believe that that forgiveness was extended to vampires as well as humans.

"Pray for me, Carlisle," he pleaded.

Pray. I had not truly prayed since becoming a vampire; shouting to the heavens my frustration at being unable to end my existence wasn't prayer. I wasn't convinced that God would even hear the prayers of one of my kind. But if He wouldn't listen to me for my own sake, surely He would listen if I prayed on behalf of a human.

Clasping my father's hands in mine, I rested my other hand on his forehead. * "Father God, Thou has heard my father's confession of sin. He has sinned against Thee by the taking of innocent life, but the blood of Thy innocent Son is sufficient to cover even that wrong. For His sake, Father, forgive Aloysius Cullen his sins and welcome him into Thy presence." Forgive me, holy God, for daring to ask anything of Thee… Unstoppering the vial of holy water, I dipped my finger in it and lightly made the sign of the cross on my father's forehead. "In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen."

A peaceful expression crossed my father's face, and he smiled slightly. His eyes remained closed, though I could tell by the sound of his breathing that he wasn't asleep.

Over the next hour or so, my father's breathing slowly grew more labored. He coughed several times, but it was shallow and ineffectual; he was so weak now that he didn't have the strength to clear his lungs of the fluid I could hear gathering in them.

Finally I sat on the bed beside him, slipping my arm around his shoulders and raising him up. At first it seemed to help; his lips lost a little of their blue tinge, and he smiled faintly at me. Then he drew a final, shuddering breath, and his head fell against my chest. His heart continued on for a few more beats, and then faltered to a stop. And my father died in my arms.

Gently, reverently, I laid him back on the bed. Then I rested my head on my father's chest and cried with tearless sobs.

oOo

After the funeral, I slipped back into the still, quiet church. I slowly made my way to the front, keeping my eyes fixed on the dark wood cross above the altar. Kneeling at the communion rail, I bowed my head, letting it rest on my arms. *

I could remember it all now…or enough. My early childhood had been a happy one. I remembered leaning on my father's knee, watching as he carved the cross, listening as he told me the story of Christ's death for the forgiveness of sins. He had told me then also that the blood of Christ was sufficient protection from the forces of darkness and evil.

But when I was around ten years old, something had changed. Try as I might, I could not remember the catalyst; perhaps I never knew. I only knew that my father had become obsessed with destroying all "pawns of Satan," to the point of killing even those I knew to be innocent and demanding that I follow in his footsteps.

What had changed? When had my father stopped trusting Christ's sacrifice for sin as his protection and given way to that half-crazed fear?

I did not allow myself to dwell on the deeper question; was I truly the spawn of Satan that he had claimed? Surely I had proven I was not by my abstinence from human blood. I could not earn Christ's salvation, but surely I could buy back my humanity and have as good a chance at heaven as anyone else.

I had vaguely heard the priest come in behind me, but he had left without disturbing me in my grief, and now I was alone. Slowly I got up and crossed the dais to the cross. I carefully lifted it down, handling it as reverently as on that long-ago day when I had disobeyed my father and attempted to do some work of my own on it. Turning it over, I smiled slightly at the gash, the wood stained slightly darker around it. If I concentrated, I could still smell the faint trace of my blood. I stared for a moment at the second finger of my left hand. The skin was smooth now, unmarked, but I had borne the scar of that slip the remainder of my years as a human.

Reverently, I wrapped the cross in a length of white linen. I would carry the cross away with me, along with my father's heavy Bible that I had taken from his house. It was stealing, I supposed, but the cross meant more to me than it could to any of the parishioners. I would commission a better one for them; an ornate one with gold inlay. They would be happy with that; humans thought anything with gold had worth.

They couldn't know that my father's love in this cross meant more to me than all the gold in the world.

I had found what I was looking for.

The End

* Link to illustration can be found on my profile.

I proofread all my stories at least once before posting, but if you see any mistakes I might have missed, please let me know!

Please note that I have internet access only once a week, and may not have time to respond to all reviews/messages. If you have questions regarding my Twilight alternate history, check my profile first to see if they're answered there. Thanks for your understanding! Barbie