A/N: Good morning! Let's check in on Bella, shall we?
Carlisle was restless. Popular theory was doctors made the worst patients, but that wasn't true. Doctors who had patients to tend to made the worst patients. Not that Bella was his patient, but he was frustrated.
"Dr. Cullen." Dr. Tanya Ivanova's tone was mild. "If you would sit still for just a few more minutes so I can finish these stitches, you'll be out of this room quicker."
"I'm sorry. I just wish someone would come tell me how she's doing."
She took her eyes off her work for a few seconds to look him in the eyes. "This isn't your fault."
Carlisle said nothing, and Tanya sighed. She stood up, taking off her gloves as she did. "Well, you know the drill, I assume. Your insides are bruised. Stay home. Don't let the girls climb on you, and do not try to come into work at least the rest of the week." When he looked toward the door she got in his way. "I'm serious."
"I am a doctor, Dr. Ivanova."
"Then you know what could happen if you don't." She studied him for a long moment before she was satisfied. "Okay. I'm sure Ali and Rose are beside themselves."
Of course Carlisle wanted to see his daughters, but he knew they were fine. Scared for their daddy, but he would live. He wanted to know more about the girl's condition. Bella, her husband had called her. He wanted to erase that last image of her: her hand limp and outstretched.
Then again, she could be dead.
No. He wouldn't allow himself to believe that. It was too much waste. A young woman felled by a fellow runner in a freak accident? No.
The moment he stepped out into the hallway, he was distracted by two high pitched, overlapping voices calling for him. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy."
"Whoa. Whoa." Jasper tried to hold Alice and Rosalie back, but they were desperate to get to their father. "Girls, be careful. Daddy is hurt."
Rosalie skidded to a halt, but Alice kept right on. She barreled into his legs, and Carlisle winced.
"Ali," Rose said. She wagged a finger in her sister's face. "You hurt Daddy."
"No. Look, the other doctors made him all better." Alice pointed at his bandages and looked up. "Right, Daddy?"
"I'm fine."
"See?" Alice brightened, and lifted her arms for a hug. Not to be left out, Rosalie skittered to his side and held her arms out.
"Are you sure you should..." Jasper cut himself off. He rolled his eyes as Carlisle stooped to gather his girls to him.
It hurt, but their tight hugs were well worth it.
"I promise I'm fine." He kissed each of them before he set them down. "Now I need you to go home with Jasper. I need to do a few things."
"Carlisle," Jasper said. The word was an admonishment and a plea all at once.
Carlisle looked up, running his fingers through his daughters' hair as he spoke. "I have to see if there's anything I can do. I'm responsible."
"What do you think you can do for that girl?" Jasper kept his tone light, but his eyes were narrowed.
"I don't know. Something. Maybe I'm her blood type, and I can give blood."
Jasper's eyes went to the exposed scrapes on his arms, the least of his injuries. "I think you already gave enough blood today. You gave your girls a scare. You should be with them."
"This won't take long. I'll be right behind you."
"How are you going to get home when I have the only car?"
"I'll take a taxi." When Jasper still didn't move, Carlisle shook his head. "Please."
His friend and the girl's nanny sighed, but he nodded. "Do what you have to do, but get home soon."
Carlisle spared a smile for Jasper. He was a good man, and he'd been a good addition to Carlisle's struggling family. "Yes, dear."
Jasper shook his head. He reached down, gathering first one then the other girl in his arms. "Come on, my beautiful princesses."
"But Jaspa, Daddy has to come home now," Rose said. She held her arms out for her father, but Jasper had already turned around.
"The quicker we let Daddy get back to work, the quicker he'll come home."
Carlisle waited for Jasper to get around the corner with the girls before he tracked back to the nurses' station. He received two more strong suggestions to go home to his babies before he got the information he was looking for.
Isabella Swan. Age twenty-one. Unresponsive to her environment. Comatose. There was swelling in her brain they were trying to treat with medicine, but her doctor had noted he thought it was likely she would require surgery soon if the pressure got worse.
No insurance was listed.
"Please arrange to have her bills sent to me."
Nurse Cope balked. "Dr. Cullen-"
"Please," he said, and before she could argue again, he headed in the direction of the ICU.
As a doctor, Carlisle had seen many horrific injuries. He was a surgeon. He saw people's insides on a regular basis. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the dismay that hit him like a blow to the chest when he saw the woman in the bed.
She seemed smaller than he remembered, dwarfed by the machinery in the room and the bed she lay in. Her leg was in a cast. There were bruises and contusions all over her exposed leg above the cast and her arms. The worst of the bruising was to the side of her face, where her skin was variegated hues of purple and red. The swelling made her features look odd.
Carlisle lingered in the doorway, watching the unnatural way her body moved with the aid of the respirator.
"Excuse me. Can I help you?"
Carlisle's attention was drawn to the form sitting by her bedside. It was the young man he'd heard calling Bella's name at the scene. He looked drawn and irritated. Carlisle couldn't blame him. He supposed it looked like he was staring at the woman like she was a sideshow act.
"I'm sorry. I came to pay my respects and apologize, for what little that might be worth right now."
The young man's eyes swept over him. "You're a runner. You were hurt, too."
Carlisle hung his head. "I'm the one who tripped." He looked up. The young man's face had gone blank. "I'm so sorry."
The other man stared, and Carlisle thought he saw anger flash through his green eyes. But then he took a deep breath and looked back to the woman in the bed. "Bella would say you were being silly for blaming yourself. She trips all the time." He looked back to Carlisle. "I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt her."
"No. Of course not." He paused a beat. "I'm Carlisle Cullen. I'm a doctor here."
The man nodded, and he ran his hand over his face. "Edward Masen. I'm here for a patient, obviously."
"Your, um..." Carlisle checked his fingers for a ring. The young man didn't have one, but then again, he wouldn't have been allowed in the ICU if he wasn't family or a medical power of attorney. "Your wife is in good hands here."
Edward huffed. "She's not my wife. She's everything to me, but she's not my wife or my girlfriend. Not that it matters. I'm just tired. And worried." He took a shaking breath. "I don't know what to say to her little boy."
Carlisle's heart skipped a beat. "What?"
"Jacob. He's three. It's just her. No family. She's all he has."
"Christ," Carlisle murmured under his breath.
"But it's fine, right? Because she's going to live."
Carlisle raised his head and nodded. "Yes. Yes, of course she's going to live."
~0~
Over the next few days, Bella's condition didn't worsen, but it didn't get better either. She slept on, oblivious to her visitors, what few of them there were. Edward visited most often. He brought Jacob with him as often as possible, but he was right. Bella was all that little boy had and vice versa. She seemed so alone, too alone. The idea got under Carlisle's skin.
Unable to sleep one night, Carlisle left a note for Jasper and went to sit by Bella's bedside. He tried to observe her with a clinical eye. He studied her charts and noted for himself the improvements he saw. Her face wasn't as grotesquely swollen as it had been a few days before. She was banged up, her face scraped and bruised, but her features were clearer. She was very pretty.
Guilt came on the heels of that thought, and Carlisle sighed as he sat in the chair next to her bed. He had no right for thoughts like that, to admire her while she lay there fighting for her life. Not when it was his fault.
Carlisle believed in miracles. He believed the touch, sound, and presence of their loved ones helped people heal as much if not more than doctors and medicine. Edward took care of the love. He was there as often as work and caring for Bella's son allowed. He brought Jacob with him in the evenings. Tentative, Carlisle reached out to take Bella's hand, telling himself she could only benefit from touch - the physical anchor to the tangible world.
Her skin was so soft.
"I met your son today," he said as though they were old friends. "I'd missed him before. He's a beautiful boy, Bella. Very smart." And precocious. He was a handful to be sure, and he was displacing his fear for his mother with anger at Edward. "He's a good boy."
He rubbed his finger over her knuckles as if he could soothe the healing scrapes there with his touch alone. "I have kids just a few months older than Jacob. Twin girls. Rosalie and Alice."
Carlisle's throat felt tight. Almost five years later, it was still difficult to talk about this. Why he was telling this comatose woman, he didn't know, but that didn't stop him. "My wife- her name was Esme. My wife and I had trouble conceiving. It was very difficult. We lost several pregnancies, and Esme was so tired. She was ready to stop. I know she wanted nothing more than to carry her own children, so I... I pushed her to try. Just once more. I told her I had a good feeling, and what do you know?" He smiled, clasping Bella's hand in both of his. "We got a two for one deal."
His breath stuttered. He never got used to this mixture of the pleasure and pain when he thought about it. On the one hand, he got two perfect miracles, and he couldn't imagine his life without them. But on the other hand… "I love my girls. They're my heart and my life, but if I'd known…" He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Esme was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer. We had a limited window, and she was pregnant. By the time the girls were born, it was too late, and she died when they were four months old."
For long minutes, there was only the noise of the ventilator and Carlisle's ragged breath. "I sat here like this with her, and I felt like it was my fault. She told me I was stupid. We wouldn't have figured out she was sick until much later if she wasn't pregnant."
He looked up, studying the young woman's features again. "Edward said you'd tell me this wasn't my fault, but that hardly makes a difference. I see another woman dying because of me and another baby without a mother."
He shook his head. "But it's not the same, right? You're getting stronger. They say tomorrow they're going to try to take you off the ventila-"
Bella's body jerked. The hand he was holding gripped him so hard, Carlisle gasped, but he didn't have time to dwell. Bella's eyes were open, unfocused. She thrashed and gagged, fighting the ventilator. Carlisle hit the call button.
"You're going to be okay." He cupped her face, trying to still her head. He stroked her cheeks to comfort her. "Calm down, sweetheart. You're going to be just fine."
A/N: How are we doing out there, kids?
