He laughs softly.

Well, she is. She's his mother; it's her job. Hugs and all.

"I have been wondering if I should introduce you to Esme. And reintroduce you to Carlisle. Or if that would be uncomfortable."

That surprises a laugh out of Edward. "I don't know if 'mother' would be the best way to describe the relationship, anyway, except for convenience's sake, inadequate words for the odd configurations that crop up in covens - we often presented that way, but just as often I posed as her brother. Once as her nephew. Carlisle I do have more of a filial feeling for, and she's his wife, in addition to being a generally motherly person."

Edward laughs. "I'm glad. Particularly considering you picked him out for me."

"Well, there wasn't exactly a vast selection on offer at the time. But if there had, I'm pretty sure I still would've gone with him."

"Very lucky," Edward agrees. "The Denali coven were the only other vegetarians active at the time, and I don't think I'd have fit in as well with them as creators instead of cousins."

"I take full credit for this near-total accident."

"What would you have done, if it hadn't been Carlisle? I'm not sure why anyone else would have been here, but it wouldn't be unheard of. Alice came from a hospital that had a vampire working at it, albeit not one dedicated to treating the flu."

"Alas, I have no examples ready to hand. The one in Alice's hospital was studying her witchcraft, which does not apply."

She shrugs. "I would've found out how to get them to, anyway. Carlisle was easy; if you poked him with something sharp, altruism would pour out. Metaphorically speaking. I understand you folks are pretty much impervious to sharp objects and there's not much pouring going on when you aren't."

"Quite impervious, not particularly liquid," agrees Edward. "He did require prompting, though. I was the first person he turned, and he'd had prior chances. He wasn't sure it was right to do that to someone. I wasn't either, for a long time. Bella, of course, could convince me that the sun was blue and the sky yellow."

"But he didn't exactly take much of a push once I put the idea in his head. Convenient, that."

"He'd recently met Esme. And managed to leave her where she was. He was intensely lonely," says Edward softly.

"Lucky for him he managed to scoop her up again later."

"Very. Occasionally I wonder if he would have eventually broken and gone looking and I'm not sure. I tried to go away from Bella, once, when I was afraid I'd snap and drink her blood; I lasted less than a week. Carlisle didn't have that concern to hold him back and he managed, for years, until a sheer coincidence put her in his path."

"I say again: if you poked him with a sharp object..."

"I'm not going to disagree with you," laughs Edward. "I admire him intensely."

"I can tell."