It seemed like she shouldn't have been pretty now. It was logical that she wouldn't be. But God, how she was always pretty. Through every kind of weather, whether standing in the sunshine or the rain, dancing or standing still, Edward never had any option but to see her as beautiful. Even while in a dimly lit room, eyes solemn and sad, her lips flattened with lack of optimism. But that wasn't a descriptor of how she looked now. Despite what was expected of her in the current situation, she was smiling at him. Those caramel eyes of her were tired, skin chalky and pale, but her smile made her seem brighter ... as if he could focus only on her pretty face, he'd be able to forget how sick she was.
Her hand lacked its usual warmth, and Edward more than often wished he could have been warm for her. To hold her close and keep her from being so cold and so frail. She did look so frail here; those machines surrounding her were so dominant, ominously beeping or breathing and constantly reminding her that they were in control of her life. The bed, the gown, they were both too big for her skeletal frame, and they seemed to devour her. She slowly moved her eyes from his and went to look out the window at the rain, which was slowly stopping before the sun set for the say, leaving the gray clouds to the blackness of night. She let out a convulsive shiver without cue, and Edward instinctively removed his hand from hers to pull his sweater off. "Come here, my love..." He mused, his voice softer, and much weaker, than it often was. But he had been here with her for so long, it exhausted his mind and his emotions. He spread the sweater around her torso, though unable to put it on her because of the tubes in her arms. It would've been a poor decision to try. He knew it was often okay to give patients their personal items to wear if they've had such an extensive stay, but ... in case something were to go foul without warning, it would be a barrier to saving her life.
But Edward had to catch himself from thinking this. It was a hypothetical he'd contemplated for a while, and with every passing day he spent with Imke, he knew the "if" of the situation was slowly growing into a "when." The truth was a pain to think of, but Edward couldn't cower away from the reality of the situation for much longer. It wasn't anything more than a matter of time.
The notion alone was enough to cause him to move from the chair next to her bed, to the bed itself. First he sat at its foot, stroking her side gently. His fingers felt like feathers, brushing up against her discolored and bruised skin. There was a great deal of morphine in her system, keeping her from as much pain as possible, but she could note through this that his touch felt nice.
"Will you ... please come closer?" It was the first thing she'd said the entire day, possible a longer length of time. The hours blurred after the first few days; after a while, it had become a switch between the hours passed and the hours left. The poor girl, her voice was so weak, and within it he could hear evidence of the morphine not being sufficient. She was in pain. Her breath had become notably louder, and had slowly shown itself in the past several hours to become more desperate – breathing was no longer simply an unnotable task; now it was a fight. Even with the nasal cannula, it was a struggle for her, he could tell. He avoided all the tubes and sensors, brushing them away from where he soon laid down beside her, on his side so he could see her pretty young face. Too young to be here, struggling for breath. If she made it to tomorrow, Edward knew Carlisle would suggest putting her on a ventilator. Edward moved away from the thought; it wasn't easy to imagine. The epitome of vulnerability, seeing his girl's life completely controlled by machines, unable to live without them. Though he'd never acknowledge it, he was hoping that if her life were to end soon, it would be before then. Before that pathetic state, while she was still able to retain a piece of her rapidly fading humanity. Before the morphine felt like nothing at all, in comparison to the pain of her body failing her so rapidly that the doctors could do nothing to comfort her. He didn't want that for her.
He kept his eyes on the paneled ceiling for a few moments, the fluorescent ceiling lights off for the night, before turning his head to see her again, to wrap his arm around her abdomen. He held most of its weight from leaning on her, knowing surely It would cause her discomfort. He saw her looking back at him. However much her body had changed, disintegrated in the face of disease, how those eyes had stayed so much the same. So beautiful and gentle, the eyes that peered back at him weakly in the near-darkness, they were those that he'd looked into for the first time eight months ago. They were just a bit more tired. "Are you in pain?" He whispered to her, and she shook her head. He was able to see how she hesitated to lie to him. She didn't like to lie, but she didn't like to worry him either. "They can't give you any more morphine right now, Imke." He told her, head heavy as he did. He didn't like to see his girl in pain and have an inability to fix it. She nodded slowly, understanding. She struggled for a few minutes to form words again, her tongue heavy against the bottom of her mouth, throat feeling so thin.
"They think ... I'm going to die soon."
"Shhh." He stopped her. He ignored the truthfulness of the statement; Carlisle had told him so curtly this morning, to let Edward know the reality of the situation. But optimism was what was needed here, for Imke. And for him. She stopped saying it, though she didn't seem afraid. She seemed ... content. In pain, weak, but content that her love was laying beside her. She managed to discard more of her slowing breath:
"You ... your eyes." She smiled to herself as she said this. "How could someone so han-dsome, come to love me?" With that, a small laugh which quickly fell into a painful sounding cough, the swelling of the throat.
He placed a hand on her cold cheek, stroking it gently until it subsided. He could manage no response, aside from a gentle and somewhat forced smile. It was the best he could manage under the pressure of knowing this was very possibly the last night he would spend with her.
"Tell me ... how you came to do such a thing ... as silly as loving me ..." Another hacking cough. A drop of blood had spattered on her chin, and he took care to wipe it away, resisting temptation as easily as he ever had with her. His eyes came to meet hers again and he brushed her curly dark hair back with his hand. He smiled back at her, and cleared his throat. "You want the whole story, do you love? It would take years to describe how much I have come to love you." That made her smile wider. Her dimples were present as ever, making her youth radiate from her.
"As long as there is ..." Her voice trailed.
"From the beginning?" He let his forehead gently fall against hers , and she nodded. He gave her a gentle kiss on the nose as a confirmation:
"From the beginning."