The Black Balloon Contest
Title: The Red Hour
Your pen name: socact
Characters: Bella and Edward
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.
ALSO: This story touches on themes of domestic abuse (it's not gratuitous - ie. it's just alluded to, not actually depicted). Do not read this if you don't want to read about domestic violence. I completely understand if you don't want to read a fanfiction story about something so traumatic.
This story has no death. Angst, but no death. That was my own personal challenge.
Thanks as always for reading!
****
It was a red, dusky sunset, the kind his father had always appreciated. Laced with warning, he'd say. As if the sky could be dangerous, or menacing, or almost human. But the man walking down 55th street, with his hands as raw as the late December air, his face a pale, bloodless white, never noticed the sky anymore. He only ever saw the young, the old, the countless faces of women and children and fathers and people he met only once, yet remembered anyway. He couldn't forget them. He couldn't forget her.
He walked a little faster now, a silent race against the setting sun. It wasn't the safest neighborhood, so deep in Chicago's south side. But he walked anyway. It calmed him. Or maybe it was the cold, so raw and bitter and unrelenting that it was impossible to think about anything else.
He didn't think, really. He just walked.
"Shit, when did this one come in? I swear to God—"
"Sorry, Edward. I've been here since four."
"I've been here since three."
A weary look passed between them. Jasper shifted his weight to the other leg, but Edward knew that wouldn't help. They'd both been standing for thirty-six hours. His muscles ached, and his stomach yearned for something more than stale sandwiches and flat soda. More than that, more than anything, he wanted sleep.
"Fine," Edward breathed, as he swiped the chart from Jasper's hands. Jasper nodded once, managed a weak smile of gratitude, and disappeared down the empty hallways.
It was the darkest hour of the night, lonely and still. The few people working the graveyard shift acknowledged him, but said nothing. Their lives were separate, distinct. And yet at this hour, so late and so desolate, they shared something more than a sterile, aimless hallway. Maybe it was regret, or acceptance. Acceptance of a life that made sense only because someone had to do it, someone had done it before them, and someone else was doing it now.
He walked briskly down the halls, his footsteps echoing on the bleached linoleum. It took him four minutes to reach Room 256, a little corner of ugliness in the emergency department where they stuck the people with no connections, no insurance, no real medical problems. And so there those people sat, until some intern with no experience, no sleep, and no expertise came to stitch them up.
It was too late to knock, too late for Edward to care. He entered with a chart in one hand, the bell of his stethoscope in the other. Both fell from his hands at the sight of her; it was as though his routine, his world, his life—in one desperate gasp—had slipped away from him.
"Excuse me?" he asked, and the woman looked up, her eyes meeting his. They were a soft brown—soft, but not warm. Maybe they had been, once. But no longer. There was nothing there now but fear, hardness, ice. It startled him. In some ways, it terrified him.
"I'm Edward Cullen," he continued, forgoing the formalities. For reasons he didn't yet understand, but just simply knew, he wanted her to feel safe. Protected.
"My name's Bella," she said. She made a move to get up, but he shook his head. Even then she didn't relax; her hands trembled in her lap, although her gaze was steady. So steady it made Edward look away.
"Bella," he said, enjoying the sound of her name, the way it sounded and felt and filled the cold, lifeless air. "How far along are you?"
She looked down finally, at her hands, her shirt, her swollen frame. "Eight months," she whispered, drawing her eyes back up to his.
"Well, that's—"
"Don't," she said, her voice hard all of a sudden.
"I didn't mean—"
"It's the most selfish thing I've ever done," she said. "What kind of mother brings a child into a world like this?"
His eyes widened, his curiosity plain on his face. Before he could stop it, the question tumbled from his lips without the usual restraint that colored everything he did. "Like what?"
"This," she said, her shoulders sagging, as if she could, with one word, concede defeat. "My world."
The steel doors opened wide for him, bringing with it a blast of warm, dry air. He nodded at the receptionist, the one who always brought cookies and cakes and brownies, never for any occasion. Her daughter was a nurse, so she knew how hard she worked. How hard they all worked.
It didn't take long for him to slip into his routine. The ER was a busy place, crowded with people who didn't want to be there. He saw many of them, remembered all of them. The names meant nothing to him; it was just the faces, the smiles, the murmured words of gratitude. Those had meant something to him, long ago. But now he just remembered the faces, despite every effort he made to forget.
He passed by Room 256 a thousand times a day, though he tried to avoid it. But when he couldn't avoid it, when he had to examine one of the poor souls who waited there, he thought of other things. Not the number, not the night, not her…
Just…nothing. Like turning off a switch.
He wasn't thinking about that room tonight, and he didn't think about it when he knocked on the door to a different room. Three-fourths of a family sat on the crisp, rumpled sheets: a mother and her two daughters, a father standing beside them. Edward narrowed his eyes without thinking about it; he had seen this a hundred times, a thousand times, so many times that numbers didn't do it justice.
"Doctor," the man said, his voice as dark as his cool black eyes, his grip cold and strong in Edward's hand.
Edward looked at the girls sitting on the bed, a little bit of fire running in his blood. He spoke through thin lips and a tight jaw, showing nothing but the slightest twinge of emotion, which broke through his voice and into the air.
"Would it be all right, sir, if I asked you to step outside for a moment?" Edward asked, his tongue twisting around the word sir. It sounded like poison, even to his own ears.
"Why?" the man demanded, as Edward knew he would.
"Because I would like to talk to your wife without you," he replied, his voice like ice, but the words crackled and burned.
"I don't see why that's necessary." He glanced at his wife, who simply nodded. The girls said nothing, which didn't surprise Edward. The kids never talked, not with so much fear hovering over them.
"It's standard procedure," Edward said, his blood pulsing behind his ears, his rage coursing through his blood. It wouldn't be long now. Edward knew he should leave, knew he should call security…
But he never did. He held it together, he found a way, he remembered the woman in Room 256 and swallowed the acid in his throat because it could only hurt them, it could only drive them away.
"I don't see—"
"Sir," Edward said, his body stiffening, his grip tightening on the bell in his hand. "I can't help your wife unless I speak with her alone. Isn't that what you want?"
That was the last thing this man probably wanted, but Edward knew how the game was played. The woman sighed as her husband left the room, but her eyes lingered on the children who followed him out.
"I'm Edward Cullen," he said, taking his usual seat by the bed. She nodded once, said nothing. He guessed her at thirty, but she looked decades older. They all did.
Except the one…she'd still had time…
He shut his eyes, opened them, pushed the thought from his mind. The woman was watching him now, her eyes a dull, idle grey, but they pulsed with hope when he spoke.
"You've been here before, Mrs. Demetrius," he said, his voice softer now. The door was closed; he'd checked it twice. She looked at it anyway, and when she spoke, the words were little more than whispers on her lips.
"It's nothing," she mumbled. "It's not what you think…"
He said nothing while she sat there, turning the words over in her mind, debating lies and truths and stubborn excuses. She sighed softly, through chapped lips, her fingers itching for a cigarette or a drink or just a way out.
"I love him," she said. "He loves my children."
"Do you feel safe at home, Mrs. Demetrius?"
She shrugged, exhaling long and slow. "Sometimes."
"I can help you, if you let me."
She shook her head once, her gaze falling to her hands. "I can't," she whispered, but her voice broke anyway. He could picture her existence, like a tangible thing, like a house made of glass that was finally splintering.
Edward leaned forward, placed his hand on her shoulder. She tensed at first, as he was sure she always did when someone reached out to her. But then she looked up, and breathed, and allowed herself the rare, elusive comfort of human touch.
"My girls…"
"I know you love them," he said. "I know you want a better life for them."
"I do," she said. "But he's good to them, he doesn't touch them…it's just me. I can handle it, I can be better—"
The door swung open then, punctuated by a quiet voice and then a violent shove. Edward shot out of his chair, his eyes darting from the nurse on the ground to the man at the door. He blustered into the room, tendons twitching, fire raging in his coal black eyes. It didn't take long for all that rage to break through the surface—maybe seconds, maybe less. For them, it ended in violence, just as it had begun. For Edward, it always began with her.
And on nights like these, it ended with her.
"I can help you," he said, again and again and again, as if that would somehow be enough.
He was young, so young, an overwhelmed intern with no experience and no perspective. He thought he could help, because that's what they had taught him in medical school. Screen them for domestic abuse, they had always said. Ask the right questions. So he did. He always did. He could do something for this one. He could maybe even save her.
She smiled then, so soft and shy it left him breathless. When she looked up, he could always see his naïveté reflected in her lovely brown eyes; he could see it because hers were so different, so jaded. He realized it then, and it was a crushing blow that he wished he could undo.
"No," she said. "You can't."
"Why not? We have resources here, people you can talk to."
"Like who?" she asked, but even Edward, whose optimism knew no bounds, could hear the bitterness in her voice.
"Just…people," he said. "Social workers, police—"
"God, no," she said, the hardness resurfacing in her voice. "If the police come by my house, he'll kill me."
"Then we can come up with a plan, an escape—"
"No," she said, interrupting him a second time. "No police."
"I have to do something."
He expected her to protest, to argue, to tell him for the tenth time to just forget it. But instead her brown eyes softened, and her trembling hands seemed to still.
"Dr. Cullen—"
"Edward," he said, too quickly. She smiled then, and his eagerness probably should have embarrassed him, but he didn't care. The hint of a blush rose in her cheeks, and it was like a glimpse into her soul, when it was innocent and free and hers, just hers.
Edward decided right then he would kill the motherfucker who had taken that away from her.
"Edward," she repeated, and he wondered if he had imagined the smile on her lips as she said his name.
"Edward," she continued, "I can tell you're a good doctor."
"I'm hardly a doctor," he muttered. "I'm just an intern."
"Good interns make good doctors," she said, and when she smiled, it brightened her face and softened her eyes and brought her to life again. How could someone have beaten that out of her? How could any human being ruin something so beautiful?
"Maybe," Edward conceded. He didn't know the first thing about medicine—at least, he often felt that way, but he knew a thing or two about people. And that, he had come to realize, was underrated.
"Edward, can I ask you something?" she asked, and she leaned forward, her broken wrist grazing his knee. He had set it earlier, after he'd stitched up the cut above her eye. His hands, usually so steady, had trembled with each pass of the thread; he worried because her face was so flawless, and he didn't want to be the stupid intern who had scarred her for life.
"Yes," he said. "You can ask me anything."
"Do you see many women like me?"
He dropped his gaze to his hands, remembering faces. All those faces. Mothers, fathers, children, broken families. He nodded once, saying nothing.
"What happens to them?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said, looking up. Her stare found his, and he could see the sadness in her eyes, the compassion. He wanted to tell her that all those fucking wife-beaters went to jail, and all the women forgot all about them. But he couldn't say that because it wasn't true. He couldn't lie to a woman who knew so much about the world, at the ripe old age of twenty-two.
"Could you help me without involving the police?" she asked, and Edward felt his eyes grow wide and his breath catch. Yes, he thought. Yes! He wanted to scream it. Wanted to carry her out of that hospital and into the sunshine, like her own personal hero. He wanted to do all of it, no matter how unrealistic.
"I can help you start over," he said. "I can set you up with some shelters and different support networks."
"No police?"
"No police," he said, and he wondered if she could hear him over the frantic drum of his heart. He somehow resisted the urge to touch her, to hug her, to wrap her frail, broken body in his arms and hold her there forever.
"Okay," she said. "What do I have to do?"
"Nothing," he said, and this time he took her hand, felt the smooth expanse of her skin. Her hands were cold, but his were warm, and he believed in that moment that if he could give her warmth and comfort and hope, he could give her everything.
"Nothing?"
"Well, not nothing," he said. "This is probably the hardest thing you'll ever do."
"I know," she said, her fingers wrapping around his. "But I trust you."
Jasper didn't say anything when Edward sat down across from him at the far corner of the cafeteria. Edward reached up, traced the cut on his lip that oozed a dark, speckled red. Jasper sighed through gritted teeth, but Edward didn't look up.
"Kill the guy this time?" Jasper asked, without humor. The days of making light of Edward's heroics were gone. He hadn't found a way to avoid conflict like most of the other doctors had. Four concussions hadn't stopped him. The broken jaw hadn't tempered it. Edward welcomed such acts of self-destruction, and the worse he suffered, the better he felt.
"Sadly, no," he replied.
"Well, that sucks," he said. "Because one of these days someone's going to sue you, or one of those assholes is going to hunt you down and blow your brains out."
"I'm not worried," he shrugged.
"You should be."
"They're cowards, Jasper. The worst kind of coward. They'd never come after me. No, they only go after people who can't defend themselves."
"That's not always true," he said, but his voice had softened. They both understood human nature better than most people; they saw the darkest sides of it, the cowardice and the control.
Jasper lifted his coffee to his lips, grimacing as he swallowed it down. "This is shit," he remarked.
Edward managed a tight smile. "You say that every single time you drink it."
"Yeah, well, it is."
"Maybe you should take up iced tea."
"Is that code for whiskey?"
Edward shrugged. "Is it any surprise that so many doctors turn out to be drunks?"
"Most doctors don't work in the ER," Jasper said. "We're the morons here."
"Maybe," Edward admitted. "But I'd get bored giving flu shots all day."
"How about urology? Love those rectal exams—"
"Yeah, well, thank god I'm not married to one. Can you imagine being married to woman who knows more about your dick than you do?"
Jasper rolled his eyes while Edward grinned. Jasper's wife was, as it turned out, a very successful urologist. Lots of old men went to her, far more often than they had to. But it didn't bother Jasper. He knew he had an edge on those guys, and that edge was called a natural erection.
"How is Alice, by the way?" Edward asked. He hadn't seen her in months. Since last summer, now that he thought about it. She always told him he worked too much, and he always agreed.
"Good," she said. "As always. I'm a lucky bastard."
"Yeah," Edward agreed, finishing off the last of his stale pastry. "You are."
Edward stood up, savoring the silence of an empty cafeteria. It was early now, just after dawn, and the weak December sun was doing its best to melt the frost on the windows.
"Edward, it's been ten years."
"Since what?" he asked, but of course he knew. He knew because he thought about her now, with blood on his fingers and a tightness in his throat.
"Beating the shit out of every asshole who walks in here isn't going to bring her back."
"I'm not trying to bring her back," Edward said, as he looked east, toward the lake. Toward nothing but the blue sky, tinged with red.
"Then what the hell are you doing?"
"Nothing," he said, just as he had said that day, when she'd asked for his help, his support, his strength.
He was lying then, and he was lying now.
He had missed the sunset that morning. It was just after six, and Room 256 was empty. They were standing outside in the bitter chill, Bella's hood tied tightly around her chin. The cab pulled up to the curb, where it lingered while Edward checked the contents of her bag and the telephone numbers and the two cheese sandwiches he had tucked inside. She looked up at him with those soft brown eyes, gentler now, but guarded. He could see doubt within them, and fear, and uncertainty, and so he looked deep into those eyes of hers and told her again and again how strong she was.
"Are you sure there isn't anything else you need?" Edward asked, for the hundredth time. She shook her head as the wind kicked up, and she shivered in spite of all those layers.
"Okay," he said, handing her the bag. She took it with trembling hands, and even though he wanted to—dear God, he wanted to—he resisted the sudden urge to hug her and hold her and never let her go.
"Did you give me your number, Edward?" she asked, looking up. He swallowed hard, wishing the answer were different. It was against protocol, against the rules, against every standard medical practice he had ever learned to hand out personal phone numbers, so he hadn't done it. He couldn't cross that line, not with her, not with anyone…
Fuck the rules, his heart said.
But it was too late now. Too late to be something more to her than an emergency room doctor, who saw his patients once and simply let them go.
"No," he said. "I mean, I can give it to you if you want—"
"No, no," she said, waving him off. But he could see the hurt in her smile, quickly replaced by its usual flatness. It was as though she had allowed herself one moment of weakness, one split second of indulgence, and now it was gone.
He would regret it for years, he knew. Even then, he knew.
"I put the hospital's number in there," he said. "Just call and ask for me. And when the baby comes, if you deliver here I can make sure you have the best doctors."
"Thank you," she said, as the horn honked behind them and the cabbie shouted something from the window. Edward wanted to rip the tires off his damn cab, but resisted.
"You're welcome," he said.
The bag fell from her fingertips, the delicate whoosh sounding on the pavement. She stood on her toes, as straight as she could, and with one graze of her soft, lovely fingers, pulled his face closer to hers. She kissed him once, her lips finding the ever-present stubble on his cheek, her sweet, warm breath sweeping across his face.
"Don't worry about me," she whispered.
And before he could hug her, could hold her, could save her, she was gone.
He called the shelter that night.
And the next.
And the next.
No one had seen a young woman, eight months pregnant, carrying a black plastic bag and two cheese sandwiches.
He waited for her in Room 256.
For ten years, he waited for her. But of course he knew.
Even then, he knew.
Jasper disappeared down the hall toward the exit, toward home. Edward had one more patient to see, in Room 256 of all places, which ruined his morning and killed his caffeine buzz. He could feel it in the back of his throat, almost like bile, but weaker and less distinct. He hated that room now. Hated it most just after dawn, when he'd left it ten years ago, full of light and hope and a woman he couldn't forget.
He didn't knock this time, didn't bother to offer a fake greeting or smile or some other kind of doctorly entrance. He just walked in, scanned the room, and crinkled his brow at the sight before him. There was a kid sitting on the windowsill, his long legs dangling in front of him, his head turned toward the window.
"Excuse me," Edward said, and the kid whirled around so fast he almost knocked himself off the sill. His grip tightened on the ledge, his eyes trained on Edward's curious stare.
"Are your parents here?" Edward asked.
"Are you the doctor?"
Edward hesitated, studying the boy's hard, unwavering gaze. He couldn't have been more than ten years old, but right then, he seemed so much older. Ancient, even. As if the secrets of the world were hidden behind this child's eyes.
"I'm the ED attending, yes," he said. "Is your name James Jenks?"
"No, that's my dad's name," the boy said.
"Then what's your name?"
"Brady," he said. He crossed his arms, his gaze never wavering. Edward took a few steps forward, his little patient eyeing his every step.
"Brady, can you tell me where your parents are?"
He took a deep, shaky breath. "You sure you're the doctor?"
"Yes," Edward said. "Why is that so important?"
"Because there's a doctor-patient thing right. Like you can't tell anyone what I tell you?"
Edward felt a smirk coming on, although he couldn't say why. This kid reminded him of someone—maybe himself, maybe his brother. Or maybe just childhood innocence, which he so rarely remembered, yet so often missed.
"That's right, this is confidential. But I should talk to your parents, too."
"It's just me right now, okay?"
Edward's eyes widened, but he said nothing. He had suspected as much as soon as he'd walked in here, but it was so unusual that even now, he couldn't imagine why a ten-year-old kid—who looked perfectly healthy—would wander into a hospital at dawn.
"Okay," Edward said, because he didn't want to scare him away. He wanted to listen, although he couldn't say why. There was something about him, something faraway yet familiar, that made everything else suddenly unimportant.
"My mom needs help," he said, which sounded less like a plea, and more like a demand. Edward wondered how long it had taken Brady to work up the courage to come in here. Months, he guessed. Maybe more.
"Are you okay?" Edward asked. "I mean, are you sick, or hurt?"
"No," he said. "Just my mom."
"Is she hurt?"
He dropped his chin to his chest, let his arms fall to his sides. When he looked up, it was all fire in his eyes. Fire and softness. Fire and…
Edward felt his heart stutter, could hear and see and feel so many things at once, while that image of her sitting here in this room fought its way into his consciousness.
"She won't come here," he said. "She doesn't like police."
"This isn't a police station," Edward said, trying with every breath to keep his composure. He could picture her now, could hear her voice, could feel the warmth of her lips on his cheek while the sun rose in the east.
"But doctors call the police."
"I told her I wouldn't call the police."
Edward shook his head while the boy looked at him, his head cocked to one side, his eyebrow raised. For a few seconds, neither one of them said anything. Edward couldn't take it back, couldn't explain it. He didn't know why his subconscious had suddenly crossed over into his consciousness, why the past had so suddenly, and so recklessly, bled into the present.
"I knew it," he said, as he climbed down from the ledge. "I knew you were real."
Edward watched as the boy walked by him, out the door, down the hall, until he realized what was happening. By then the boy was running, and so was Edward, running through the halls and around gurneys and past a hundred rooms just like Room 256.
He didn't stop this time, didn't think. He just ran, thinking of nothing but her, and that night, and those years of thinking—believing—that she was dead.
He shoved open the front doors and stumbled into the sunshine, its grey light coloring the ice and snow from the week before. The street was crowded now with rush-hour traffic, congested with people and vendors and cabs and buses, and if his heart exploded out here on 55th Street he wouldn't have stopped. He'd run all the way to downtown if he had to, or Lincoln Park, or Evanston, or all the way up the coast of fucking Illinois just to see her, just to make sure she was all right.
Don't worry about me, she had said.
How could you ask me that? he demanded, a thousand different questions thundering in his brain. How could you believe I'd ever stop worrying?
But the boy was gone, as gone as she was and always had been. It was as if the streets of Chicago had consumed them both—once, twice, a thousand times. Every time he thought of her, remembered her, he lost her all over again. And now, today, to come so close to her flesh and blood, her son, her only reason for living at all.
He ran until he reached the shores of Lake Michigan, its waters fusing with the crisp blue of the sky. Her name fell from his lips for the first time in ten long years, over and over again, his throat was raw with tears and wasted words. He didn't give a shit about the cars passing him by, or the people, or the emptiness of the lake before him. He had cared then about protocol, about appropriateness, about restraint. And for what? For what?
"Who's Bella?" came a voice behind him, filtering through the chaos. He didn't even hear it at first, and if it was, he didn't care. But the voice persisted, soft and breathless, until it reached his consciousness and wrenched him back to life.
"No one," he said, as he turned around. He saw a woman standing at the water's edge, her cheeks as red as the sunrise.
"She sure sounds like someone," she said, but Edward shook his head.
"She was," he said. "She's dead now."
"I'm sorry."
He brushed the sand off his knees and stood up straight. Only then did he truly look at her, only then did he see the resemblance in her soft, delicate features and lush brown hair.
"Bella…" he whispered, because he wanted it to be her, wished it were her, would will her to life if he could.
But it wasn't her, of course. It was just a likeness, a woman who reminded him of the one he had lost. He turned around, leaving her behind, leaving them all behind.
"I never stopped worrying," he said to nothing but the wind and the empty air. "And I'll never forgive myself for letting you go."
***
Edward slipped back into the wards without much notice, thanks to a slow morning. Tuesdays always seemed quieter than the other days—calmer, even, or just subdued. This one was cold but clear, with the occasional flurry of activity when an ambulance roared into the bay. Edward noticed none of it on this particular morning. He saw her face, and nothing else.
It took him four hours to return to Room 256, which by that time was loud, chaotic, and completely unrelated to its early-morning counterpart. It was only by chance that he noticed the paper in the little girl's fingers, crinkled and wet from her efforts to eat it. He took it away as a precaution, nothing more, but stopped when he saw the thin black print.
He didn't recognize the name, of course. But he recognized the address—a women's shelter on the far north side, at the opposite end of the city. He had called them dozens of times over the years, asking about a woman whose name he didn't know, whose face existed only in his memory. He might have thrown it out, had it been any other day.
But it was the boy that changed his mind. The boy with her same brown eyes, her same shy smile. He reminded him of her. This boy had robbed Edward of the ability to think about anything else.
Edward finished his shift at five that evening, after an exhausting twenty-four hours. But the weariness in his bones hadn't yet set in; the usual fatigue seemed, for the first time ever, unlikely to surface at all. He walked the ten blocks to the El and rode it all the way north, as far as it would go.
The little brick building was smaller than he expected, hidden by trees and overgrown shrubs. Even in the dead of winter, it managed an existence of utter obscurity. He missed it twice, which convinced him he had found the right place. These kinds of places were impossible to find, for very good reason.
He knocked once, then three more times, until a tiny old woman came to the door. She opened it a crack, her eyes darting from Edward to the empty street and the littered front yards.
"Yes?" she asked.
"I'm Edward Cullen," he said. "I called earlier this afternoon."
"Ah yes," she said, opening the door a few more inches. "If you come around back, I'll let you in."
Edward didn't argue; he walked around the yard, through the fence, down the alley to the back of the house. The woman stood there waiting for him, her wiry arms crossed over her chest. When she stepped aside to let him in, he followed her wordless commands.
"Well, then, Dr. Cullen," she said, when they had reached the recesses of her office. He hadn't seen a single living soul, but he'd heard voices through the walls, the floor, the ceiling. There were clearly people living here, despite the fact that he would likely never see their faces.
"You've called many times over the years," she continued. "And now you're here."
He nodded, as his eyes took in the paintings on the wall and the pictures on the windowsill. Someone here had impeccable taste, but he had a feeling it wasn't this woman, whose wardrobe was inspired by a different century.
"May I ask why?" she prodded.
"I had a patient leave your number," he said, choosing his words carefully. "He suggested that someone here might be in trouble."
"The women here have fled their trouble, Dr. Cullen," she said. "That is precisely the point."
"Yes, I realize that, but a boy came in—"
"Just a boy?"
"Yes, he was about ten or so. Do you have any women here with ten-year-old sons?" he asked, trying to disguise the eagerness in his voice. But this woman caught everything, and her eyebrows lifted and her lips folded into a frown.
"You know I can't tell you that," she said.
"His name was Brady Jenks," Edward said, ignoring the desperation he felt. "If you have a woman here named Jenks, can you just make sure she's all right?"
The woman stiffened, her reaction so swift, so drastic, that it sucked the wind from Edward's lungs. It took her only moments to regain her composure, but by then it was too late. Edward had seen that flash of recognition, that moment of panic that permeated the air and buzzed in the room.
"We have no one here by that name," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Don't lie to me," he spat, placing his hands on the desk. "After all these years, don't you dare lie to me."
"Dr. Cullen—"
"Look, I don't care if you tell me she's here. Just do what you can to protect her, okay? I'm asking you. I'm begging you."
"Dr. Cullen, like I said—"
He stood up, the chair slamming to the floor as he rose to his feet. The woman jumped at the noise, a little gasp escaping her lips. And then the door swung open and someone walked in and Edward stopped breathing and fighting and wanting because she was there, just there, every bit as beautiful as he remembered her, even more so, and he cursed his faded memory for doing her such a grave injustice.
"Edward," she breathed, after what felt like hours. "I don't…how…"
She studied him as he studied her, and it was only when the old woman cleared her throat did either of them remember that the rest of the world existed.
"Excuse me, Bella," she said. "I was just showing Dr. Cullen out—"
"No," Bella said to her, forcing a smile. Edward looked between them, his confusion mounting. But then the woman was gone, leaving him with a memory come to life, a memory that had consumed him for ten long years.
"Bella, I—"
"What are you doing here?" she asked, her tone infused with a thousand emotions, some of which Edward understood, others which he did not. But it was her hesitancy that surprised him the most; it startled and saddened him, because for all the times he had recreated this moment in his mind, never once had he pictured her showing so much restraint.
"I just…your son came to the hospital."
Her eyes widened. "My son? He's there now?"
"No," he said with a slow exhale. "He was only there for a few minutes."
"How did you know he was my son?" she asked.
He looked up at her, at the little scar above her eye. His trembling hands hadn't completely betrayed him, he thought. At least he'd done something right.
"I knew," he said.
Even then, I knew.
He shook off the thought, averting her gaze so she didn't have to see the hurt in his eyes. Had she simply forgotten about him? He she tried to forget, just as he had tried to remember?
"Are you okay?" he asked, drawing his eyes up to hers once more. "Are you safe here?"
"Edward," she sighed, and she took a step toward him, a step that made him forget the last decade of his life. "I'm not living here. I work here."
"You…what?" he asked, forcing the words from the back of his throat.
"I founded this place six years ago," she said. "After my husband died."
Edward turned toward the window, his gaze settling on a broken window across the street. He could hear Bella's quiet breathing, mingling with the low drone of voices somewhere down the hall.
"I'm glad he's dead," Edward said.
"Me, too," she whispered, after a while.
"I just wanted to make sure you're okay," he said, despite every fiber of his being screaming for more. But he could have this, and only this. He could see her alive, and happy, and fulfilled. He could have this memory, this knowledge that something good had come of one woman's life, even though he had done nothing to change it.
"I'm okay," she said, her voice quiet now, so unlike the strong, steady resolve he remembered. It wasn't softness, though, that he heard. It was sadness, or something like it. Or worse, pity.
"Your son said you were in trouble, so I thought maybe your husband…" he trailed off, realizing the futility in that statement. In all of it, really. He forced a smile and reached for his coat on the chair.
"I'm not in trouble, Edward. My son…he worries about me…"
Edward nodded, his response dying in his throat. She had told him not to worry. It was best, after all this time, to let her think that he had listened. He could see that now.
"I should go," he said. "I'm sorry that I came here and disturbed you. That wasn't my intention."
"You didn't disturb me, Edward," she said, her voice breaking as she spoke his name. She took a deep breath, and forced a smile. Not the shy smile he remembered, not the smile against his skin as she kissed him for the first and final time.
"I did," he said, and for as much as he tried to hide it, the resignation was plain in his voice. "And for that I'm sorry."
He said nothing as he reached for the door, while she stepped back to let him pass. He could hear her breathing, faster now, her heart beating with such fury that he could almost see it in her face. Almost.
"Edward," she whispered, but he was already gone.
***
It took him most of the night to walk from the far north side to the far south. He tried with each step to forget about her, to wish her well, to let her go. By the time he reached the shores of Hyde Park, just a few blocks from his ER, he had almost managed it. He had a gift for detachment, even though he could never quite forget a person's face. But a name—well, those he never remembered. And he could forget hers, like all the others.
"Back so soon?" Jasper asked, his brow knitting together as he assessed Edward's windblown state.
"You know I can't stay away," Edward said, managing a smirk.
"Sucks to be you," he joked. "In any case, Room 256 needs you."
"You've got to be kidding me," Edward muttered, snatching the chart from Jasper's hands. "I'm finished with that room."
"Look, it has your name on it. Sorry."
"Jesus," Edward mumbled, as he headed down the familiar hallway to the worst room in the hospital. It was cold, cramped, and always crowded. He hated it, always had. But neither the hatred, nor the weariness, nor the sheer aversion he felt for that room could prepare him for the sight of her sitting on that bed, although he knew in some way he should have seen it coming.
"Bella," he said, wondering as he spoke her name how those two syllables could shatter his resolve. "What, uh, brings you in?"
She stood up, crossed her arms, looked every which way until her eyes finally settled on Edward's gaze. Only then did she seem to find her voice; only then did the tension slip from her shoulders.
"I'm afraid of being married again," she said. "Of getting close to someone else. I'm not in trouble, but my son came here because I talked about you for ten years, because I told him that a young intern—not just an intern, you know, but a doctor, a good doctor—tried to help me when I was twenty-two and afraid and utterly alone. I do what I do because you gave me the strength to leave, Edward. You gave me a reason. You gave me hope. You gave me a life I shouldn't have had, a life that would have ended that night if I hadn't shown up in your ER and sat in this horrible little room while you made me a cheese sandwich and something else with too much mayonnaise—"
She took a breath, choking on quiet sobs as the words poured out of her. Edward didn't speak, didn't breathe, didn't dare move for fear that she might disappear, or take it all back, or wish him away and out of her life.
Because that, he knew, would break him.
"Bella, I can't—"
"I'm sorry, Edward," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry for all those years of silence."
"It's all right," he said, and because it felt right, and because it breached all kind of protocol, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, feeling for the first time in a very long time that he wasn't too late.
But of course they couldn't stand like that forever, and soon his cell phone was ringing and his buzzer beeping, and the chaos of another day would soon begin. She stepped back, wiping the tears from her cheeks as he watched her force a nervous smile.
"You have to go," she said, glancing at the beeper in one hand the cell phone in the other.
"Never a dull moment around here," he said, and her smile softened just a bit.
"Well, Edward," she said. "Thank you for seeing me…and for understanding."
"Of course," he said, while Bella gathered up her things, fumbling nervously the buttons on her coat.
He turned toward the door, ready to greet the insanity of another day. She said nothing as he went, but he could hear her still struggling with her coat; he could feel her eyes on his back as he left her behind in Room 256. He nearly dropped the pen as he scribbled a note in the file, and stuck it inside.
"Oh," he said. "Just one more thing."
He walked towards her, his hand trembling the slightest bit as he handed her a slim file.
"Your son's discharge papers," he said. "I already signed them."
"Oh," she mumbled, pulling them towards her chest. "Thank you."
He thought about the papers later that afternoon, later that night, all the way through till the next morning. But he stopped thinking about it then, just kind of let it be, because if it happened, it happened. And if it didn't, it didn't.
But this time, at least, it could.
***