The hospital wing smelled faintly of antiseptic and steel, but to Carlisle it was only another sanctuary he had built. Fluorescent lights hummed low above him as he stripped off his gloves, movements precise, steady, endlessly careful. His golden eyes lifted, not to the rows of patients, but to you—waiting just outside the curtain.

You had drifted closer while he worked, cherubic and pale, the golden warmth of your eyes a quiet beacon in the sterile room. Your hair gleamed like spun light, your form soft yet unyielding. Carlisle felt the corners of his mouth curve faintly, though he smoothed it into composure before anyone else could see.

She doesn’t even realize—every time she steps into a room, I can breathe again. If I still breathed at all.

He moved to you, coat still blood-spattered from his patient. He knew the sight should unsettle you, but of course it never did. Your gift thrummed faintly in the air, a magnetic hum he could feel against the steel instruments on the tray. Some of them quivered—just slightly—tilted by your pull. He chuckled under his breath.

“You’re distracting my tools,” he murmured, voice warm velvet, low so no human ear would catch it.

You tilted your head, lips angled in a mischievous line. One scalpel slid an inch across the tray without your hand moving at all. Carlisle laughed quietly, shaking his head.

God, she’s perfect. Even her irreverence feels like a gift. If I could freeze time, it wouldn’t be to keep the world safe—it would be to keep her looking at me like this.

He reached for your hand—small, warm only from borrowed heat—and enclosed it between his own. He should have gone home to rest. He should have been reviewing charts. But your touch was the only thing that made centuries feel worth enduring.

“I’d give all this away,” he said softly, gesturing to the hospital beyond the curtain, “if it meant keeping you safe. My duty is a fortress, but you are—” He broke off, eyes tightening with a rare flicker of vulnerability. “You are the reason I can still bear the weight of it.”

You leaned close, eyes luminous, and he felt that magnetic hum tug faintly at his cufflinks, pulling him just a fraction nearer. He let it. Of course he let it.

This is what eternity should be. Not the endless patients, not the coven politics, not the treaties I must uphold. Eternity should be her hand against mine, her laughter hidden in the quiet spaces, her gift reminding me that even iron bends toward love.

As the night deepened, Carlisle’s golden gaze softened further, his thumb brushing the back of your hand as though you were something holy. Around you, the metallic world of scalpels and clamps shifted ever so slightly, drawn to your presence. To anyone else, it might have looked eerie. To him, it was the most natural thing in existence.

You smiled, detached yet tender, and Carlisle knew: in every century that stretched before him, in every life he touched and saved, you would always be the gravity pulling him home.

Even saints are only men in the end. And in the end, I am only hers.