Mr. Cullen's Mercy

by RachelShubert 

Heathcliff was moving erratically in front of the windows. He was breaking things again. I'd been listening to his raving screams for days now, and I knew it had to be tonight. If I didn't change him tonight, I'd lose him to his own insanity or to death.

I'd waited eighteen years to be with him, and had endured a human lifetime of eighteen ill-fated years before that. Both of us had been pushed to our absolute limits. The reward was going to be a new life together--one that was limitless. Heathcliff simply didn't know it yet.

As I sat there in the damp heather, waiting for the rest of the household to quiet down and go to bed, my thoughts turned to the one that had made our future possible: Carlisle Cullen. He was the merciful doctor's apprentice who had attended to me in my final days as a human. He was the reason my sweet baby Cathy was alive, why I was alive, why my beloved would be still be alive tomorrow.

I turned my head and looked beyond the fields to the dim lights of Thrushcross Grange, the opulent prison from which Carlisle had freed me. The young trainee had followed Dr. Kenneth about the grand house so quietly, and spoke so softly, I think he was scarcely noticed by anyone but myself.

The first time I saw him, I thought he was an angel. He was unearthly pale and inhumanly beautiful, and some sane corner of my mind wondered if my fevered visions of hell had given way to a heavenly hallucination. Still, when I saw him smiling kindly upon me, I reached out to him and cried for help. Dr. Kenneth and Nelly and others swarmed in at once, torturing me with damp cloths and vapors and instructions, so that by the time they parted, the angel was gone.

I awoke later that evening to the feeling of a hand on my forehead. I was sweating and twisted in the linens of my sick bed, and the hand, cold from the chill night air of the moor, made me sigh with relief. I opened my eyes with effort and saw that it was attached to the angel. I grabbed his wrist. It felt like stone.

"You're real, then?"

He smiled. "Forgive me, Mrs. Linton, I didn't mean to startle you. My name is Carlisle Cullen. I'm training under Dr. Kenneth."

I winced. "Don't call me that, please. I hate the name." I pushed myself upright in the bed, struggling under the foreign weight of my belly. "Catherine will do."

Mr. Cullen gently pulled away the damp strands of hair that were stuck to my forehead. "What can I do to make you more comfortable? And how is the baby moving tonight?"

"The baby is kicking as much as always. And there is nothing you can do. I'll never be comfortable in this place."

"Why is that?" His curious eyes appeared amber in the candlelight.

"Because I don't belong here. It was a mistake to come here and a greater mistake to stay."

"Where do you belong, then?" he asked.

"Out there," I replied, darting my eyes toward the window. "Wild and free with Heathcliff, like when we were children. It's the only place I've ever felt at home."

Someone cleared their throat. It was Nelly; she had entered my bedchamber with an armful of laundered nightgowns. "Ma'am," she began, reaching for my covers.

"Leave, Nelly. I will not change now."

"Very well, but Mr. Linton is nearby. You oughtn't talk so--"

"Get out!" I screeched, wrenching a pillow. It was a sufficient threat. I knew she was tired of cleaning up feathers.

Nelly fled with laundry still in hand.

"They all think I'm mad," I explained, settling back into my cushioned nest. "But I'm sane enough to understand my situation. Death is the only escape from this torment."

"I don't understand. Are you not treated well here?" Carlisle was studying the dark shadows under my eyes with fresh interest.

"I'm treated well. I simply made a grievous error. I thought a life of refinement...a new family that was more...more refined...was the correct path, but...and now with the baby coming I am never..." I was weeping, already struggling with the words.

"I understand," he replied. "More than you could ever guess, I do understand."

It was such a relief to not be hushed or drugged or handled by some well-meaning fool that I ended up telling him everything. At least--as much as words could convey about the connection between Heathcliff and myself. Explaining the relations between the Linton and Earnshaw families was vastly easier. He listened intently, still as a statue, barely blinking. I'd have doubted my sanity again and believed him to be an apparition if Dr. Kenneth didn't come into the room from time to time and exchange words with him.

"And so the only decision to make now is whether to kill myself before the baby is born, or after," I concluded, after an hour of speaking. "I don't know which is more merciful to the child."

"That is the only aspect of your tale that I cannot relate to," Carlisle said quietly. "I ache for a family. I cannot imagine parting from a child willingly."

"Why don't you have a family already?" I asked.

"I will tell you about myself soon," he answered. "But the hour is late. You must rest now. And you must promise not to do anything to yourself until we speak further. I have some ideas, but they require further thought."

"What could you possibly do--"

He pressed a finger to his lips. "Do you promise?"

"Very well." I sighed. "I have months to go before this poor wretch arrives, anyway."

Little did we know that baby Cathy would arrive quite soon, after only seven months' development. I am fortunate that Carlisle wasted no time in telling me who he was. What he was. What he had in mind for me.

It was his second visit to Thrushcross, just days after the first. After enduring some nonsense with Dr. Kenneth and Mr. Linton at my bedside, I was left alone with the trainee once more.

He took my hand carefully into his own. "Listen, Catherine. What I am about to say may sound cruel. And I may frighten you a great deal. Despite this, I am trying to help you. Will you hear all I have to say?"

I nodded, intrigued.

"Do they truly believe you to be insane?"

"They think I slip in and out of insanity. Ask them about my episodes, as they call them."

Carlisle patted my arm. "They have told me. Your husband says you are hysterical..." He smiled sadly, too kind to go on. "The things I am going to tell you will seem insane, but they are not a figment of your imagination. And this is not information you can share with anyone else. If you do, I will have to pretend to side with the others and claim that you are insane past hope and that I cannot attend to you any longer."

I sat up straighter in the bed. I was holding my breath.

"I am a vampire. I live off the blood of wild animals."

I exhaled in a warm gush. "I knew you were not human. Only I thought you were an angel!"

He chuckled. "I used to be human." He backed away from me, just a hair. "You...believe this? So easily?"

I cocked my head to one side and studied his white skin and peculiar golden eyes. "I do not think it impossible."

"Let me show you something," he said. In three strides he was before the fireplace, sticking his hands dangerously close to the flames. He held them there, motionless, long enough for me to protest in alarm. It was three strides back to my bedside, where he placed his palms upon my cheeks. They were as cold as ice. I snatched them away and inspected the flesh. It was flawless, as hard and smooth as polished marble.

"Why are you here?" I whispered. My throat felt terribly dry all of a sudden.

Carlisle filled a glass with water from the carafe on my bedside table. He handed it to me and proceeded to tell me the most extraordinary story I had ever heard in my life. By the end of it I was convinced once more that he was indeed an angel, and also a vampire, and also someone that felt compassion for me. After all, he had been drawn to the high culture of the Volturi the same way I had been drawn to the sophisticated Lintons, and now we both found ourselves bound in ways we resented.

Carlisle was standing and stretching now, preparing to leave for the night. "So I have a new question for you to ponder. It is not about suicide. Please banish that from your mind, and resolve to let your child live. Do you want to become a vampire, if it means you can be wild and free with your beloved again? You could run about the moors with Heathcliff for an eternity so long as the two of you don't draw undue attention to yourselves. I could change you after the baby is born."

"Yes. I do not need to ponder it. Yes! Anything to be free again!" I was shaking and trying to rise from the covers. They weighed on me like lead.

My excited voice brought Nelly and my husband barging into the room. "Is she unwell again?" Mr. Linton asked anxiously.

"Leave us," I moaned. "I can scarcely breathe with the two of you around."

"But my love--"

"Out!" I screamed. I launched my drinking glass at the wall and it shattered to my satisfaction.

Carlisle headed for the door behind them, bag and hat in hand. "I'll talk to them about your treatment," he said as he crossed the room. "Goodnight."

He meant the Volturi. Carlisle had never created a newborn before and he wanted their blessing. I wondered how many days he needed to journey from Yorkshire to Volterra and back.

At any rate, I soon lost track of the days, for Heathcliff started coming around again, setting the entire household into a frenzy. My health, only recently restored and therefore delicate, was destroyed anew. I was enraged at his maneuvers with Isabella and wondered if I might prefer death after all. Dying would punish him to the greatest extent possible, and he deserved to be punished. He deserved to suffer.

The fateful afternoon came. He had snuck in while Mr. Linton was at church and our argument drove me into a state of delirium. He had broken me at last, which I believe had been his aim ever since my engagement! I fainted in Heathcliff's hateful tender arms, and later came to in bed, surrounded by chaos.

The bedclothes were soaked in blood, announcing the baby's impending arrival. The maids were there, and Dr. Kenneth, and standing away from the rest, Mr. Cullen. I could hardly make sense of what was happening. All I remember clearly is Carlisle springing into action once Nelly carried my poor runtish Cathy from the room, swaddled in linens. Dr. Kenneth was on her heels. We were left alone less than a minute.

He was at my ear in a flash. "You are bleeding out. Do you still want this?"

"Yes. I want to haunt Heathcliff, " I slurred. "He does not deserve a moment's rest!"

"You will have to stay away from him for some time, if you want him to live. Otherwise you will be the haunted one, Catherine. He will be at peace in the grave and you will be left with the bitterest regret, as you will surely drink him dry if you come around him too soon. You will have to remain under my care until you learn to control your thirst. I wish I had more time to explain everything, but you must decide now."

"Very well."

His tone was low and urgent. "This is going to hurt. You must give no sign of being alive, or this is all for naught. Let them bury you, and do not move a muscle. Trust that I will take care of you."

"Whatever is to come cannot compare to the pain he has caused me already. Do it."

Carlisle pulled me forward so that I was sitting upright. He held a vial in his left hand. I swooned at the sight of the two leeches inside. After all of Kenneth's ministrations, I hated them so! I felt the vampire pull clumps of hair apart at the back of my head, until he could see my scalp at the very center. Then he bit me--a sensation unlike any other--and placed a leech over each puncture. He rearranged my hair deftly and lay me back down.

"I hate them," I whimpered. Even in my dire state, the irony was not lost on me.

"I will remove them soon," he whispered. "We cannot have you bleeding all over the pillow. They must not find the marks. I am sorry."

The others were bursting back into the room now. The pain was blooming in my head and beginning its southward searing course through the rest of my body. I convulsed amidst their shouts, then found it within me to embrace the heat and the agony fully, and fell limp in surrender.

"Eclampsia, perhaps," I heard Dr. Kenneth mutter darkly.

And then I heard everything. Everything. I heard every word Heathcliff said to Nelly outside, under the trees. I heard his entreaty to me.

"Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

I heard the wet sound of Heathcliff's forehead smashing open against a tree trunk, and the howl that followed. I knew I had made the right decision then, and I was happy to comply with his wishes. I would not leave him. I would not rest. I was taking on a new form. And I would indeed haunt him to the brink of madness.

It was as if he knew, somehow.

Carlisle kept his word. He stayed nearby, yet in the background, and excavated me from my grave as soon as possible. Then, for the first time in my life, I had to leave the moor.

I stayed away for five years. Carlisle was like a patient brother to me during this time, more of a brother than Hindley had ever been. He had all the self control that Hindley lacked as well, and helped me cultivate the same.

I hated disappointing the angel--for he was an angel--but ultimately, I could not live as he did on animal blood alone. I simply could not be constrained in this way after so many human years of practicing restraint, of stifling my truest hungers and passions. I did drink from animals more often than not, but I demanded the freedom to hunt human prey as I desired, when I desired.

Carlisle and I parted ways over it. After five years of bosom friendship, I expressed my undying gratitude to him and told him how highly I esteemed him. I urged him to put further distance between himself and the Volturi--to go somewhere new and create the family he deserved. He thanked me and set out to accomplish his dream.

I returned to Wuthering Heights. I lived on the grounds, and around Thrushcross Grange, and everywhere in between the two. The moorlands were mine again.

I let them see me sometimes, just the briefest flashes, usually outside the home. I had to give Heathcliff something to hold on to as the years passed, even if it was only the conviction that my ghost remained close to him. I looked in on the children and watched my Cathy grow into a lovely creature. I confess I let Linton see me the most; I do believe that dread of me contributed to his poor health and ultimate demise, but I did not kill the lad outright. He was an irksome souvenir of Isabella and Heathcliff's traitorous relations and I was not sad to see him go.

I refused to change Heathcliff until things were right with the children. It was the only bit of mothering I was ever able to perform.

For thirteen years, I watched my beloved sleep. When he believed no one was around, he spoke tirelessly to me. I knew when to return to my grave, only for the show of being dug up again for Heathcliff's viewing. And I knew when to relieve him from his hell.

Tonight, in fact. It had to be tonight.