Thank you for reading and your wonderful reviews. Thank you for being willing to suspend your disbelief and for reading the silly things I like and saying nice things about it. A couple of you seemed to be confused as to a few things, like who is human and who isn't (only Edward isn't human), whether Edward and Bella are dating (they're not), how old Bella is (she's got an MBA so we're talking mid-to-late 20's) and some other stuff that hopefully this chapter clarifies.

Thank you to buriedalive0/S, and so much love and adoration to arfalcon.

Business Casual
Chapter Three: Sick Daze

The truth is even Edward Masen didn't really know who Edward Masen was. Soon after I'd figured out the truth and confronted him, he told me his story. He'd woken up in 1918 with no memory of his life before, clutching the crumpled obituaries of Elizabeth and Edward Masen, Sr., who died of influenza. They had a son named Edward, though he had no idea how old the boy was or whether that was actually who he was. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was no longer human, had supernatural strength and speed, and could read minds. He spent years killing rapists and murderers, until sometime in the 1940s, when he realized he couldn't handle the guilt that came with killing people, even terrible ones. That was when he had switched to consuming animal blood.

Finally hearing his story made me understand that Edward was truly good. He wanted to use his abilities to make the world a better place, even when he'd had such a difficult time himself. That was when I convinced Edward to liaise with the government; to use his gifts and money to improve the plight of the world, like he'd once wanted to. But this time in a way that wouldn't be so taxing on his conscience. He'd agreed almost immediately, and we began building a company that would fund medical research for cures for various diseases, Edward insisting that if these cures were found, we would not privatize their distribution.

Working with the Army was something he did a little more reluctantly. So far, the partnership consisted mostly of Edward reporting what he did, though they constantly pressured him to let them run tests to discover more about vampire physiology, since he was the first one who had ever agreed to cooperate with them. For all we knew, he was the only vampire in existence, though that was unlikely, as he must have had a sire. The alliance with the government was a tentative one; they didn't trust him, he didn't trust them and I knew exactly why. They always looked at him like he was a turkey, and it was early November—these were his words, not mine, though I agreed with the sentiment. But I could also understand their fascination with him. Unbelievable as it was, he was a real, live vampire with completely different biology than anything else on the planet. Curiosity about what made him tick wasn't limited to them alone.

Sitting in a hard plastic chair in the army hospital, I felt miserable. In all the time I had known him, Edward had rarely shown a weakness, human or otherwise, if you didn't count his inability to be serious. And now, he was in the hospital. I wanted to approach this situational rationally, like I did all my problems. Rationally, my boss was sick and of course, I was concerned. But that pretense lasted all of a moment because Edward was my boss, but he was so much more: he was my friend, my ally, my confidante, my family. I wasn't concerned; I was devastated.

"Ms. Swan?" A man in a soldier's uniform approached me, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I'm Corporal Crowley; I'll take you to see patient 4239."

"Patient 4239? Is that Ed—"

"Yes, ma'am, it is," he interrupted. "We assign patients numbers in order to protect their identities."

I nodded. It made sense; we were actually deep below the army hospital, in what was clearly a wing with restricted, highly monitored access. I'd had to go through about eight handprint and retina scanners just to get here. I felt completely out of my depth. But that barely mattered as I followed Corporal Crowley down the hall; every other feeling was superseded by the intense and overwhelming anxiety I felt for Edward. It felt like it took a year to get through the winding hallways until finally, he opened the door to a small room for me and stepped back.

I stepped in the room, surveying the people crowded around the bed, making it so I couldn't see Edward. I recognized Jasper and no one else, but when Crowley shut the door after I entered, they all turned to look at me.

"Bella! Uh, Ms. Swan, let me introduce you to Agent Newton, who is our liaison with the FBI," Jasper said. Agent Newton moved forward to shake my hand as Jasper introduced me to the other gentlemen in the room, a Major Aro, followed by Captain Caius and then a few more. But I barely registered anything; I could now see Edward, lying on the bed, looking so weak and vulnerable that it nearly broke my heart. He stared back at me, giving me a small smile that was so far from his teasing grins. His eyes were heavy and tired instead of alert, his hair flat and messy in a completely different way than its normal disarray.

"Hello," he said, quietly.

"Hi," I replied. Silence fell over the room but I barely noticed it was the awkward kind till Jasper cleared his throat.

"Ms. Swan is Mr. Cullen's assistant, for lack of a more appropriate term. Nothing gets done without her; she's his right hand," Jasper explained to everyone. My eyes flicked to Edward; in a healthy state, he would have never let that "right hand" comment go by without some sort of remark. "I assume that Mr. Masen is alright with her presence here."

"Mr. Masen demands her presence, in fact," Edward interrupted.

"Alright, then we'll just cut to the chase. From what tests we've been able to conduct, it appears Mr. Masen is incredibly weak. Perhaps, at such small increments that he hasn't noticed them, he's been getting weaker for some while now. His collapse merely highlights how severe his condition has become," one of the doctors told us.

"And why is he so weak, Doctor…"

"Cullen. Carlisle Cullen." The doctor gave me a brief, but genuinely sympathetic smile. "I'm not sure why, Miss Swan, except that it appears he's no longer reacting to blood as he used to. It doesn't seem to be enough to sustain him."

"Why do you think this has happened all of a sudden?" I asked.

Major Aro stepped forward, frowning. "We really don't know. We barely know anything, and since Masen is the only specimen of his kind, we have no history to compare to. We assumed that he doesn't age and is immortal, but for all we know, maybe every vampire suddenly experiences this at some point of time and then dies. Maybe they experience this and get better. Maybe Mr. Masen is an anomaly of nature, living against the rules of existence until they catch up with him. We can do nothing but monitor his condition and run different tests to see what could possibly help him."

"So I assume asking for a time frame is out of the question," I said. I was surprised that I was able to keep the tremor out of my voice. The urge to touch Edward was so strong, my hand was nearly twitching with the want to hold his.

"I know Mr. Masen uses the wealth he has amassed to run a company. I'd suggest that you put someone else in charge for the interim," he said.

I bristled. Angela might be CEO and Edward might be the owner of the company, but Masen Tech wouldn't run without me, even if I was just a personal assistant on paper. Hell, Edward wouldn't run without me. I loathed the assumption that I was nothing more than a secretary to Edward.

"I'll worry about the company, Major. You worry about getting him better," I said. Aro stared at me for a few minutes, no doubt searching for something in the way I held my own. Whether he found it or not, I didn't know, but a few seconds later, with a curt nod, he exited the room. The rest of the personnel, including Jasper, followed him, leaving us alone.

"Is it ironic that I spend my money and time trying to find cures for incurable diseases only to be struck by something similar myself?" Edward mused. "Or is that not irony?"

I fell into a chair across from his bed. "I'm sorry, I'm too busy trying to translate what they just said to worry about irony."

"Okay. I'll just assume it is." He sat back. "And I think the gist of what they were saying was that I'm dying."

"Edward—"

"I mean, they don't know what is wrong with me and they don't know how to fix it. I'm not able to feed myself on the only sustenance I've known for eighty years now. I'm fairly certain all that adds up to the conclusion that somehow, despite not really being alive, I'm dying."

"Stop being so morbid and negative," I scolded.

"Well, I am on my deathbed. Quite literally."

"Shut up."

"Bella, can I ask you something?"

"Didn't you just?"

"Ha ha, very funny."

I smiled, even through the worry. "Go ahead."

"Will you kiss me?" he asked.

"No."

"I might die!"

"Well if you die, I'll kiss you," I conceded.

"Ew, Bella, necrophilia? Really?"

"You are a vampire. You're dead as it is!"

"But Bella... I'm dying."

"No you're not."

"Yes, Bella, I am. I'm dying so you should kiss me—"

"God damn it, stop joking about it, Edward!" I shouted, nearly in tears, beating down on the door of hysteria. "Stop joking about dying, stop saying you're dying, because you're not, okay? You can't die, I won't let you. You're too important, you're too special, you're—"

"Bella..."

"If you die, Edward, I'm out of a job. Hell, I'm out of a life. You're. all I've had for six years now. You're it. So... just don't. Don't joke about dying, don't talk about dying, and most of all, don't die."

He was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments. "Bella?"

"I'm not kissing you," I snapped, my hysteria snowballing into despair, but coming out as anger.

"I'm scared," he admitted, quietly. "I don't know what's happening to me and I hate this feeling. I've only had it once before, when I first woke up. And I'd been turned into this. I don't understand what's happening to me and neither does anyone else and I… feel so alone."

"You're not alone," I told him firmly. "I'm here. Like I have been, like I always will be." We stared at each other for a beat longer than normal and that feeling rose in me again. A fluttering, like a butterfly trapped in my chest but with all the impact of a bomb.

"Bella? Will you give me—"

"I'm not giving you a kiss, Edward," I replied. But it was half-hearted; suddenly it seemed like the lines I had drawn for us all these years, shaky as they were, had no more meaning. I refused to believe Edward wouldn't survive this, but even the mere notion that he wouldn't had shaken me so deeply, I could no longer pretend that it was professional admiration or concern for a colleague I was feeling.

"I was going to ask you to give me your hand," he said. It was the softest—gentle soft, not quiet soft—I'd ever heard his tone.

I walked over and pulled a chair next to the side of his bed. When I laced my fingers through his, I noticed our joined hands were shaking. Whether it was my hand or his, I couldn't tell.

It didn't matter. We'd shake together.

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