Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight

Authors Note: Eight years ago someone very closed to me was viciously attacked at an ATM and left for dead. While they beat all the odds and survived, they suffered irreversible brain damage. That event robbed them of the life they should have had. Instead they have been left with severe short term memory loss and struggle daily to remember things that may have happened only an hour ago. I wish with all my heart that I could change what happened, because...all they want is normal life. This one shot was their idea. So I dedicate this story to my child with all a mother's love.

Pain and Love often go Hand in Hand

She'd been attacked outside of an ATM sometime late last night and here she was in the early morning hours lying in my ER with no ID and unconscious. Who was she, where was she from? I don't know all I know is that she's beautiful and I'm addicted to her already. Everything about her draws me in her dark mahogany hair with a slight widows peak, pencil thin brows, unnaturally pale, yet silky porcelain skin. She is petite and slight, deceptively toned yet not muscular. Her hands are soft and tiny with slender fingers that would get lost in my grasp. Her lips were hidden by the tape holding the endotracheal tube in place but I imagined full and luscious lips, her perfect chest was rising and falling to the rhythm of the ventilator.

Concentrate Cullen she needs you. "Okay people let's run a panel, get another large bore IV into her, type and cross for two units to start with." She had sustained head trauma the only visible injury from the attack, she had not been raped thank god, but she was hypothermic, consequently her heart rate and blood pressure were both very low. "Let's get her warmed up and down to radiology for an MRI." She was just stable enough to transport the three floors down to X-Ray. But her neurological status had me worried the left pupil was fully dilated the right was sluggish in its response to light, she had no response to any other stimuli including pain. Did she have a bleed, was it a contracoup injury, could we operate or was it too diffuse of an injury. I wouldn't know until I got the MRI results. She had no other fractures or obvious injuries, portable films of the chest and abdomen were negative. I needed that MRI. Her vital signs were only just acceptable as we moved down the hallway to the elevator and the trip to radiology.

Two weeks later and my beauty had still not awakened. There was no evidence of any severe brain trauma, no bleed that could be evacuate, only generalized swelling of the brain tissue. Once we had warmed her up, her vital signs had normalized and she was breathing on her own within forty eight hours. And she was no longer my patient. I was on my ER rotation but I would slip up to the sixth floor to spend my breaks with her.

The police had stopped coming, they had sent out her picture first across the state and then across the country. There were no missing persons matching her description. The only one that came close was when a woman in Florida had enquired after seeing a picture of her in a supermarket tabloid. She thought it might be her estranged daughter, but when she arrived and saw her she said that my mystery girl was not her child.

Carlisle was not impressed that I was spending so much time on the sixth floor. Not only was he my superior in the ER, he was my father and was very concerned with my obsession. The rest of my family didn't feel the same way. They were actually excited for me. I had never shown an interest in any female before. Other than being able to appreciate a beautiful face or other attributes, I had always been disappointed when it came to their minds. I didn't need to talk to any of them to figure out what they were thinking. The women I met were generally looking for one of two things from me, sex or my money and in most cases it was usually both.

My brothers Jasper and Emmett were both married to their soul mates. I didn't know what my problem was it wasn't that I was unattractive. Every woman I met thought of me as sex on legs, HOT or a bronze Adonis...bronze was the colour of my hair not my skin. But here I was, sitting by the bedside of a comatose stranger hoping that she was my soul mate. I had been waiting for a long time at least it seemed like it to me. Carlisle would just chuckle whenever I said that. He had to wait ages before he had met Esme and fell in love. Esme was my mother, though I had in fact lived with Carlisle longer than she had.

My family is very unique, there are five kids and none of us are Esme or Carlisle's biological children, they couldn't have children. We had all survived some tragic circumstance in our lives and Carlisle had been the one to whisk us away from oblivion. But we were closer than many families, because we chose to be a family and were bonded by mutual love, understanding and respect. However I was the spare, the man without his other half. It was a lonely existence a times. I didn't know if I believed that I would eventually find a mate, not so long ago I had despaired of it ever happening. But I was drawn to this dark haired nymph, everything about her called to me it was so strong I almost wanted to consume her. My need for her and to be with her was that powerful.

I sat by her side on a Saturday morning talking to her about my family when Carlisle came in. It was now week three of her stay in the hospital. She was without an identity and therefore without insurance. He told me that administration was making plans to transfer her to the county hospital. I stepped forward and offered to pay for a private room, to keep her nearby. Carlisle was concerned that I was losing perspective and argued that she couldn't stay here indefinitely, he said she belonged in a chronic care hospital...he didn't even mention Rehab. I spoke with Esme about bringing her into our home. She agreed based on something Alice had told her and she was prepared to change over the spare room. I begged Esme to let her stay in my room, I would be responsible for her care. Carlisle wanted to know how this would affect my residency...I would take a sabbatical. It's not like I couldn't pick it up again at some other time and some other place. Surprisingly he finally agreed, he said that Alice had told him that I needed this, but the pixie had told me nothing.

My Bella, that's what I called her...Bella for beautiful, was a rose without thorns and my angel on earth. I longed to talk to her and to see her smile, to see her eyes open and to hear her laughter. I would give anything just to hear her voice. My room had been rather Spartan before Bella moved in, now I had a dresser devoted to her lingerie that Alice insisted on, my music was still housed wall to wall as usual, along with my books and the mementos of my life. Each member of my family spent time with us, they were drawn to her. The only time I ever left her side was to get something to eat. We all told her our stories and I even shared my deepest and darkest secrets with her. I would spend my nights watching her sleep and lay beside her on top of the covers praying and hoping that one day she would awaken. I was tempted more than once to play Prince Charming to her Sleeping Beauty, but that seemed to me like it would be a violation. I settled for kissing her hand whenever I left and whenever I came back. Alice, Esme or Rose bathed and dressed her each evening while Carlisle and I looked for a way to awaken my love for that is what she was...I could never live without her now.

It had been six months and still she lived on. I would carry her outside on warm days and read to her. I would take her down to the river and climb into the cool water with her for our own version of hydrotherapy. One day I had gone out to get something to eat and had received a text from Alice all it said was, "She's asking for you." I stopped breathing and turned back towards the house. When I arrived her eyes were open, she had a shy smile on her face and was lying propped up against at least a dozen pillows the covers pulled over her knees. She was pale but beautiful. I sat down on the edge of the bed. I wanted to hold her, her to kiss her and to hear her voice so badly and yet I was afraid. She weakly reached out to touch my hand and turn it over, laying hers in my palm. It was so small and so warm she smiled and looked at me. "Edward?"

"Ye...yes, my...oh...what do I call you?"

"My given name is Marie. But Isabella is my middle name, my grandma use to call me Bella just like you do." She blushed and a muted rose colour rose in her cheeks.

She must have remembered everything, I just looked at her and she nodded yes. Did she hear me? No I was the mind reader not her. "Edward, we have so much to talk about. Can you take me out to the garden? I'd like to see Esme's roses with my own eyes, though your descriptions have left a powerful impression on my mind. She raised her arms to me and I picked her up, the others made to follow and Bella asked. "Just Edward and I...for now okay?"

I sat with her in my lap as I always did, it felt natural and she made no objection. "Bella...um Marie?"

"No, please call me Bella...but let me go first Edward. I feel like I've known you all my life, and I understand it's because of you that I'm still alive." I opened my mouth to respond and she placed her fingers against my lips. "No don't say anything." She took her fingers away but I reached out to hold onto that hand and to touch my lips once again to those fingers. She smiled the most heart wrenching smile and I believe I saw love for me in her eyes, if that was even possible. "Edward all my life I have been used by people. My father hadn't seen me since I was two and wanted nothing to do with me because of my mother. When he died suddenly I found out that he had left me everything, so I came here to settle his affairs. My mother came with me, looking for any scraps that Charlie might have left. After she saw the house and what his pension was worth I knew my days were numbered. It was my mother and her husband that attacked me at that ATM and left me for dead. I guess they were hoping that Charlie's estate would default to her with my death. I'm sure by now she's back in Jacksonville just waiting to have me declared dead." She took a shallow breath that seem to catch in her throat like she was about to cry. She touched my face and my lips and said "You're so beautiful...I know that's the wrong word for a man, and you are handsome, but you're so much more. It's what's inside of you that makes you beautiful it's in your eyes and your smile Edward."

All I wanted was to get lost in her eyes but she had said something I needed to clarify. "Jacksonville...Florida?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"Your mother was here, she came to the hospital. At the time she posed as a mother looking for her estranged daughter, she left saying she didn't know you."

"Oh god Edward she can never know that I survived, she will never leave me alone."

"She'll never hear it from me and the hospital thinks you're in a private clinic out of state." She was very weak and leaned into me. Her head rested against my chest and her scent aroused me on so many levels.

She looked up at me shyly, "Edward, all those things you told me while I was asleep are they true?"

I never realized that she may not believe me. "Yes."

"Hmm...Then I guess I shall have to try and pull together some kind of life for myself."

I felt like the earth had just drop away and I was frozen in space. "Bella..." I didn't know what to say, so I went with the truth, that's what Esme, Rose and Alice had told me to do. "Bella, you can have a life here with me...I mean us."

She flushed slightly and looked at her hands. "But you know nothing about me."

"I know all I need to know, I know that I love you, that I want to be with you forever."

"Edward I feel like I've always known you...no, that's wrong...I feel like I've always been looking for you. And as crazy as it may seem, I've fallen in love with you too over all these months that you have cared for me. I want to be with you forever." She yawned and winced.

"Bella are you in pain?"

"Just a slight headache, I'll be fine." Then she closed her eyes momentarily. I panicked and called for Carlisle. Her eyes fluttered opened, "I will always want to be with you Edward, forever." I leaned down and for the first time our lips met and my heart exploded into a million pieces...I had not lived until now. Then she closed her eyes again just as Carlisle arrived. He checked her pupils and vital signs. "Edward she's bleeding into her brain, she won't make it to the hospital...I'm sorry son." He stood there with his hand on my shoulder. I shook my head and held her close to my chest. I stood up and took her back to my room and lay with her on the bed, holding her close and promising her forever. Alice came to me and told me what she had seen. I shook with the pain of what I was faced with. I had just found her, could I let her go and live on without her? Could I follow her into oblivion? The answer to both questions ironically was no. There was only one solution so as her heart beat slowed I move her hair away from her face and neck, I leaned in and gave her one last kiss then turned her face away from me.

...and bit down. I would bring her into my world and we would have forever together.