DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING BUT THE PLOT

Story Playlist: Pink - 'Please Don't Leave Me'; Pink - 'Sober'; and No Doubt - Don't Speak

HEY YOU! YEAH THAT'S RIGHT I'M TALKING TO YOU! THERE'S AN AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE BOTTOM.


Comatose

Bree POV – June 10, 2008

It happens like this…

You're walking down the street, going home from your last day as a sophomore at the local high school in the city of Chicago with your older siblings. Bella and Mark, the twins, my sister and brother, are the ones walking me home. We're laughing and talking about the wacky things their teachers did during their last classes last month. Like how Mr. Berty, the English teacher, had jumped up on the tables and tried to sing a Gwen Stefani song with his tie around his head during third period AP senior English. Bella and Mark couldn't stop talking about what happened when he got to the edge of the desk. (He fell and had to go the nurse…) They said it was a good way to end their high school lives before graduation.

We stopped at the intersection of Catacomb and Valentine, looked both ways for cars, and finally crossed when there seemed to be none coming our way.

Then it all happened so fast.

Right as we were walking in the middle of the crosswalk to the other side, a dark blue Mercedes sedan came skidding around the corner straight for me. Then suddenly I was being spun away by my brother, screams emitting from somewhere. I try to figure out where it's coming from through the little that I can understand, but can't.

It's me, I realize.

The smell of blood wafts through the air and attacks my senses. The one scream of pain that doesn't come from me, pierces my heart when I finally notice that my sister isn't by my side with Mark. I start to struggle in his arms, screaming at him to "Let me go!" When he finally does, knowing it's futile to keep me away, I run to Bella's side and take her into my arms, crying as I kneel on the ground and not caring that her blood is all over me. The only thing that runs through my mind is that she did it to save my life, but in the process sacrificing her own.

The screams are back. Lights are flashing in the distance and sirens are blaring; the Mercedes long gone. Mark must have called the police, meaning Dad is coming. (He's the head deputy, chief of police in the big city of Chicago, Illinois.) Cars are pulling up; three in particular catches my eye. A silver Volvo XC60 – Edward and Alice – and a white BMW M3 Convertible – Rosalie and Jasper – and a hunter green Jeep Wrangler – Emmett. Suddenly a large pair of arms wraps around me and subside my screams for the time being. It's my cousin, its Emmett – my Aunt Emma's son, Dad's sister's son - he's here with everyone.

"Bree, come on. When we get to the hospital Sara's going to care for Izzy personally. She said so herself," he said to me, trying to sooth me with his soft tones, so unlike the loud, boisterous one at lunch when he came to visit me and Alice. It felt like such a lifetime ago.

I nod my head and turn away from the mangled body of my sweet sister that didn't deserve this. Her birthday, and Mark's, was coming up in a few months and I was so happy for them even though Bella wasn't as enthusiastic. Mom and I had planned to throw a surprise party for their nineteenth. There's no point anymore, everyone's going to be too distraught to be very cheerful for their birthday.

A sudden cold wind caused by Edward, Bella's boyfriend, as he runs past me to her, shakes me out of my now-sickening thoughts about the twins' birthday. I cringe into Em's side as I hear the sickening screams of my mother mixed along with Edward's and Rose's and Alice's. A tall blond man holds the small pixie-like Alice Cullen as she sobs into his chest and occasionally lets out a strangled scream. The man's so quiet that I almost didn't notice him until he rubbed his hand soothingly up and down Ali's back. I finally realize that it's her boyfriend Jasper Hale.

On the ground next to them is his twin sister Rose as she beats the concrete with her fist screaming out agonizingly, "No, no, no! It can't be happening – not like this, not yet! She's not supposed to die! No!" Edward Cullen was off to the side, the closest to Bella other than my mother, pulling at his bronze hair desperately, making it even wilder than it usually was. His eyes were already bloodshot from the all of tears that were running down his cheeks. Edward looked the worst out of everyone present…but me. I was covered in Bella's blood, eyes puffy and red, throat sore from all of the screaming I had done.

Emmett scooped me up in his arms suddenly and put me in the back seat of his Jeep next to Mark even though I'm covered in my sister's blood. After he moved away from the window after he shut the door, I saw that the ambulance had finally arrived and the paramedics had come out with the gurney and had Isa on it already. That brought on a whole new round of tears, causing Mark to pull me into his side, shielding me away from the upsetting scene laid out before us.

~Swan-McCarty~

I didn't realize that someone had changed me out of my bloody clothes, into designer ones, and cleaned the blood away from my face and arms and hair while I had slept. Alice, I realized. She changed me, I could tell by the designer sandals she wore to the mall two weeks prior are now on my feet.

Looking around the room, I saw that I was in one of the private hospital rooms in one of the white, sterile beds. I pulled the curtain that divided the room back to reveal my big sister asleep in the other bed. She looked so peaceful now that she was cleaned of the blood on her. I slid off of the bed and snuck over to the end of the bed and stole the charts hanging off the end. I pulled up a chair next to Edward, who was asleep in one of the chairs half laying on Bella's bed, holding her hand. Looking through the charts, I found some upsetting things about my sister's condition written in my cousin's professional script…

Patient Name: Isabella M. Swan

DOB: 9/13/89

Doctor: Dr. Sara Masen (MD)

Nurse(s): Abigail Chase (RN)

Patient Injuries: broken leg, 2 broken ribs – 3 cracked, sever loss of blood, concussion

Comments: injuries sustained will heal properly – estimated time one month, concussion may lead to coma…

That was as far as I was able to read before I had to put it back on the bed, sick to my stomach. I looked all around the room, anywhere but the clipboard with Isa's charts. I finally realized that it was futile to not look at the charts, a frustrated groan slid out of my clenched teeth.

"What? What's wrong?" I looked at Edward after I woke him up by accident. He still looked bad. Ed's eyes were still a bit bloodshot, but not as bad as before; his face was pale and ghostly – the face of a dead man.

I smiled weakly, it was more of a grimace, and whispered, "I'm sorry that I woke you up, Ed. It's just that I read the charts and they're…unsettling."

"What do you mean, Bree Bree?"

I sighed heavily and laid my head on his shoulder and whispered in a voice so sad, "Isa's concussion might put her into a coma…"

"What? Are you sure, Bree?" All I could do was nod my head against his shoulder. A sudden thought came to mind as I gazed at my older sister.

"Edward…How many times has she been awake?"

"Five times…Why?" I ignored his question and asked another instead, pulling back to look him in the face.

"When was the last time she was awake, Ed? It's very important that you tell me." My voice had risen higher and higher with each word. If it was hours ago…I don't even want to go there.

He pulled the sleeve of his leather jacket and glanced at his watch. "Well, it is 10:27 pm now…so Bella was awake three hours ago. Bree, you have to tell me what's wrong." Oh my God…Bella…she's…

I bolted out of my seat so fast that Edward sat back in shock and looked up at me. "Try to wake Bella up, Edward. I need to find Sara; it's really important." And with that, I bolted out of the room and ran toward the nurse's station at the center of the floor. I ran so fast out of the room that it made every one of my friends and family to go running in the opposite direction, toward the room.

Once I got to the nurse's station, I looked around for a person with a head of long spiky blond hair in a pair of scrubs. Looking around frantically for a good fifteen minutes, causing the other nurses to give me dirty looks until they realized that I was the chief of police's youngest child, I finally spotted Abby walking out of one of the rooms, clipboard tucked under her arm. "Abby!" I screamed out desperately, trying to catch her attention. She stopped and turned around to face me.

The alarmed, distressed look on my face must have tipped her off that something was wrong automatically. (Abigail Chase is my Cousin Benjamin Masen's wife.) Her bright blue eyes were wide as she gazed into my chocolate ones. I ran to her side, not caring enough to watch where I was going, but enough not to trip.

"What's wrong, Bree? Is it Bella?" All I could do was nod, as if my voice had left me for the time being. Abby took me by the shoulders and guided me to the elevators and roughly pushed the down button. Her foot was tapping impatiently as we waited for the doors to open. But once they did, she pushed me in and leaned around the edge to push the ground button. "Go straight for the cafeteria, don't stop. Sara should be there – tell her what's going on with your sister. I'll go get the room cleared of everyone but Charlie, Renée and Mark. Go!" she urged me one more time in a rushed tone.

Just before the doors closed, I whispered, "Thank you, Abigail."

I watched overhead the numbers going down from 5 all the way to the digital 1. If I didn't tell her myself, I knew Mark would never be able to tell anyone that his own twin was never going to wake up. The sudden sound of the doors opening brought me out of my depressing thoughts. Looking up, expecting it to be the ground floor, I saw that the elevator had stopped two floors above and standing before me were three people that was supposed to be all the way in New York City. They were smiling sad smiles at me, my aunt and her two children.

"Hello, darling," my Aunt Vivian whispered in her light Italian accent. I looked up at Mom's older sister and saw in her icy blue eyes the unshed tears. I could never stand when my Aunt Viv cried because she was the hardest to crack through her tough shell after her husband died. So you could imagine what happened next… I pulled her into my arms and told her in the most soothing way I could about Bella's condition without making her breakdown. All she did was nod and pulled her girl and boy, my cousins Casey and Carson, to her and pushed the fifth floor button.

As I waited for the doors to open on the ground floor, I felt Carson's gaze on me. "What?"

"Tua sorella sta andando bene, Bree Bree," he told me in Italian, but it had a bit of his Russian accent to his words.

I didn't even look at him as I spoke. "I know, Carr, I know." The doors finally opened to the first floor and as I stepped out, I called out my family, "I'll see you guys upstairs soon," before I ran in the direction of the hospital cafeteria. I got dirty looks again as I ran and ran and ran to the woman with the long reddish-brown hair in the white lab coat who sat with her back to me. My cousin sat there, half asleep laying her head down on the arm of her husband Adain.

"Mom," I heard her eldest daughter Christine, who is only seven, say as she shook Sara lightly.

"What is it, cara ragazza?" she whispered as I reached nearer. Chris pointed in my direction making her mother turn around to look too, now alert and awake. "Bree?"

I almost keeled over into her arms as I stopped, but I caught myself before anything happened. "It's Bella," I panted tiredly, "She's slipped, Sara…"


July 20, 2008

It's been a month since Bella fell into a coma. She was on life support for a short while when the blood that was transfused to her wasn't enough. Me, Mark, Mom and Dad had each given a pint of blood along with Edward who was coincidentally the same blood type – O negative - as the five of us. A few people that were friends of Dad's from the station with the same blood type were kind enough to become donors for us. Then less than a week later, after the blood was transfused, Isa was taken off of life support seeing as it was no longer needed.

I remember nearly having a heart attack when Sara and Abby came into the room wheeling those machines in and hooking them up to Bella…

It's early Sunday morning, 8:48 to be exact. It's just me, Edward and Mark in the room with Bella, waiting. Waiting for Isa to wake up and never leave us again. Marcus is asleep on the other bed in here, while Ed and I are just sitting on opposite sides of the bed she's on. Mom had came in half an hour ago to pick up the dead vase of pink roses and changed them with a new one filled with white carnations and multicolored tulips. I was staring intently as Ed said decided to break the comfortable silence in the hospital room.

"Did you know I was going to ask her to marry me?" Edward asked me suddenly.

I tore my gaze away from Bella, broken from my trance, to look at him. "Hmmm…? Did you say something Edward?"

He nodded his head and turned to me. "I asked you if you knew that I was going to ask your sister to marry me after we got into college."

"She would have said yes, Edward. Bella loves you so much that you would never be able to comprehend how much." His head snapped to look at me at those words. Ed's piercing green eyes were boring into the side of my head.

"How do you know, Bree Bree?" he asked me.

"Because…She told me herself, Ed." I looked over at him and smirked lightly. "Isa would always have something nice to say about you. There was this one time that I caught her talking in her sleep. She said, 'Ti amo, Edward. Per sempre e sempre, per il resto della mia vita.'"

His eyes were wide at my confession. "She really said that?" he asked unbelieving.

I nodded my head, glancing back at Bella. "Yes…Yes, she did…"

Ten minutes later Sara snuck into the room with a large paper bag. "Here guys – it is breakfast in the bag." Edward got up to take from her just as she cast a glance at my brother. "Make sure Marco get some, okay? And don't let Emmett get any of this when he comes."

"Why, Sara?" I asked curiously.

She smirked a bit. "Because Mom made it especially for you and told me specifically to tell you that." Then she walked out of the room to take care of her other patients on the floor once we started to eat.

It isn't very surprising Aunt Lilly said that. Whenever Emmett sees food, no matter what the situation, he will eat it. Even during the tenses of them all, when everyone else has lost their appetite, you'll find him in the kitchen, or wherever the food is, eating it like he doesn't care. Which he doesn't…


August 13, 2008

It's been two months since the accident. But it's felt like two years instead. Bella's injuries were properly healed in the estimated timeframe that Sara and Abby had made and they say that if she wakes up it will be very unlikely that she has lost any of her memories and feel any pain.

Everyone has been visiting her almost every day, but it's me and Edward that's by her side 24/7 in the hospital. The only time we leave is when our parents ask us to, knowing that we never could do it willingly.

The flowers on the bedside are changed every week. There has been everything from roses to daisies and tulips to carnations. The room always smells of flowers. Occasionally you can find a large vase in the white room filled with freesia and in the water there are strawberries at the bottom. Strawberries and freesia are her favorites…

So many memories of stories that everyone told me came to mind about Bella suddenly…One in particular stuck with me because it made me laugh.

I remember late on Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago when Rosalie and Alice were in here…

"Rose, remember the time when we went to the mall with Bella?"Alice asked suddenly.

Rose raised one eyebrow at her and rolled her eyes in Ali's direction while facing me. I giggled at them both, wondering what the all-knowing one was talking about. "Which time was that Alice, we've gone shopping with Bella thousands of times throughout the years?" she asked dryly.

"I'm talking about the time we thought she was still in the dressing room at Victoria's Secret…"

I watched as Rose snickered into her hand at the memory. "Oooh, you mean that time."

"What, what's different about that time guys?" I asked them confused.

"Well…" Rose started, "We were in Victoria's Secret and Alice had given Bella a large pile of lingerie and nightwear to try on. Your sister was tired already and wanted to go to Barnes and Nobles to finally go pick up her books and maybe look through for others. I was all for going with her to the bookstore, but Tinkerbelle here was insistent." She jabbed her thumb in Alice's direction. "Tink pushed your big sis into a dressing room, Bree, and you could hear her complaining about not wanting to be there anymore, but she was changing. Or so we thought at the time.

"Forty-five minutes later, she still hadn't come out," Rose continued, chuckling at the memory. "We waited another five minutes, and still Izzy was in there. We asked one of the employees to open the door for us. Once the door was open we saw that the pile was still untouched from when Ali threw it into her arms."

Alice then took over the story from Rose. "It was easy to figure out that she had crawled out from under the door. So after we paid for our items, and the few that Bells had said she liked, we went straight for Barnes and Nobles. We went up to the counter automatically and asked if Bella Swan had come to pick up her books. The sales clerk said that she did, so we took to looking around the aisles in the sections she always could be found in. Twenty minutes later, she still wasn't found. So Rose and I split up and went different floors. I was on the first floor, Rose on the second."

"I was starting to get thirsty so I went to the food court and straight to Starbucks," Rosalie took over again. "While I stood in line I was still looking around. My mouth dropped open at what I had seen in the very back corner near the glass windows overlooking the parking lot." She paused and smiled.

"Well, Rose, what did you see?" I asked impatiently, wanting to know.

"I saw your sister asleep in Edward's lap. They were sitting there with my brother and that cousin of yours, Emmett McCarty."

I giggled at that site she painted in my mind. Then I laughed at her last few words as I thought of them again. "That cousin of mine, Rose, is your boyfriend!"

"I know, Bree…"she smirked.

I was brought out of my memories by the sound of voices arguing outside the door. Before sliding out of my seat to slink to eavesdrop at the door, I kissed Bella's cheek and whispered, "I'll be right back Bella. I'm going to do something that you don't like me doing."

As I neared the doorway of Bella's hospital room, I recognized the voices at once. "Carlisle, you and me both know that it was the Volturi who did this to my baby cousin. The Italian mob, Carlisle, the Italian mob of all people," Sara hissed furiously at Edward and Alice's dad.

I think I heard Carlisle sigh. "Sara…" he trailed off.

"Don't you 'Sara' me!" she snapped. "I asked Mark what he remembers from that day and do you know what he told me?" It sounded rhetorical. "He told me that the car was a Mercedes and it wasn't going for Bella. It was going after Bree. Marco said he caught a look at the driver. Do you know who it was, Carlisle?" Sara hissed furiously.

"No…" he whispered.

It's not very surprising that Dr. Cullen was afraid; she scares everybody that gets on her bad side. Sara has the easy flaring Masen temper. She learned different types of martial arts when she was a young teen before she got married at 19 and became pregnant with her first child six months later. Then during the time period after Christine was born and she got pregnant with her second girl, Samantha, in college, my eldest cousin learned more forms of self-defense…I remember that there was this guy named Jacob Black who was trying to steal my sister away from Edward a year ago. Bella told Sara what was going on. The next thing you know, the douche was in the hospital with some broken bones and a bit of internal bleeding under Sara's care and a sexual assault charge was reported on him by my sister along with a restraining order of 800 yards…

"It was Felix Volturo behind the wheel," Sara snarled. "It was confirmed when his cousin Demetri was on my doorstep at midnight a week after the accident confessing how sorry he was for being a part of the planning. Midnight, Carlisle, fucking midnight. Now you know when someone you've known since you were a little girl is on your damn doorstep at fucking midnight begging for forgiveness is sorry. He told me that if he had known that the Swans were related to me and Ben he never would have been part of it in the first place."

It was quiet between the two until, "My father has always liked Demetri Volturo even though he was related to Aro and Caius Volturo. His father, the third Volturo brother, Marcus, was always a good friend to Constantine, and his twin, my Aunt Vivian. You and your wife Esme, Carlisle, are good friends to my father like Marcus Volturo."

It sounded like she paused for dramatic effect… "Never forget that." Then you could hear the sound of her heels clacking as she walked away on the linoleum. The sound of Carlisle walking off in the opposite direction let me know that the conversation was over.

I closed my eyes and let myself think of what would have happened if I had died as I slunk to the floor. No, I didn't say get put into the hospital, I said died. That's worse than falling into a coma…like Izzy. I saw my funeral flash behind my closed eyelids and it was too depressing to describe. Don't think like that, I berated myself; you're not going to die yet…

The sudden guitar riffs of 'Burn It to the Ground' by Nickelback emitting from my ringing cell phone shook me out my disturbing musings…

Well, it's midnight, damn right, we're wound up too tight
I've got a fist full of whiskey, the bottle just bit me
Oh, that shit makes me bat-shit crazy
We've got no fear, no doubt, all-in, balls out
shirt, shit faced
We got 'em lined up, shot down, firing back straight crown

We're going off tonight to kick out every light
Take anything we want, drink everything in sight
We're going 'til the world stops turning
While we burn it to the ground tonight

We're screaming like demons, swinging from the ceiling
I got a fist full of fifties, tequila just hit me
Oh, we got no class, no taste, no

We're going off tonight to kick out every light
Take anything we want, drink everything in sight
We're going 'til the world stops turning
While we burn it to the ground tonight

[Interlude]

Ticking like a time bomb, drinking 'til the night's gone
Get your hands off this glass, last call, my ass
Well, no chain, no lock, and this train won't stop
We got no friend, no doubt, all-in, balls out

We're going off tonight to kick out every light
Take anything we want, drink everything in sight
We're going 'til the world stops turning
While we burn it to the ground tonight

We're going off tonight to kick out every light
Take anything we want, drink everything in sight
We're going 'til the world stops turning
While we burn it to the ground tonight

I scrambled to my feet, hands going to cover my heart at the sudden noise that almost gave me a heart attack. There sitting up in the sterile white hospital bed, wide awake as she ever could be, was my big sister. My sister Isa.

"Bella, you're awake…" I whispered in shock, eyes wide.

She smirked just like Sara does and said, "Of course I'm awake, Bree." I blinked furiously at her, still in total shock. Is she really awake? "Well, are you going to come give your sister a hug after she woke up from her coma?" she asked playfully, arms wide open. As she said the words, my shock had worn off and I was already flying across the room and into her arms. Half incoherent words came out of my mouth as the tears fell from my eyes.

"I missed you so much, Bella…" I cried through my tears. I can't believe she's finally awake after all of these months.

I felt her hands rubbing up and down my back and heard her softly cooing for me to calm down. "Bree…ssshhh…It is okay, Bree."

"I know it is, Bella. I'm just so happy you're finally awake!" I bawled into her shoulder, trying to wipe the ongoing tears away. A sudden realization came to me when the door opened to reveal Edward standing in the doorway. I jumped off of the bed and ran behind Ed and pushed him in, smiling the whole time. "Edward, Bella, get reacquainted with each other. Oh, and Ed, make sure you tell her what has been going on for the past two months. I've got to go."

"Where are you going, Bree?" Edward asked from his spot next to my sister just as I was going to run out.

I smiled wider at them in response. "To give the good news to Dr. Masen and Nurse Chase, that's where I'm going of course, Silly."


A.N.

Okay...As you can see this is a oneshot story...NOTHING ELSE!

It may be sad, but hey...it has a happy ending!

Love always and forever,
Gemini

P.S.

If your reading my other story 'Mixed Signals' there is going to be an update soon!