Sorry for the delay, anyone who cares, but this chapter turned out to be a monster. Not length-wise, obviously, but it took on a direction I really wanted to stray from. I tried, but in the end, Bella got her way. (Doesn't she always?) It was difficult for me to write, mainly because I didn't see it coming. I very much wanted to get to Carlisle this chapter, but he's just going to have to wait his turn. This family is full of screw-ups.
Oh! And: in the last chapter Emmett said something about pirates. Carlisle was not actually kidnapped by pirates, that's just the association Emmett made with Somalians. Bad Emmett! Just wanted to clear that up.
I still own nothing.
The hospital was just as sterile and white as Alice remembered. The light smattering of generic flower paintings and largely untouched Reader's Digests did nothing but give the eye a a focal point when staring into space. Every once in a while a block of blue and black interrupted her view of a pastel paint-by-number. Emmett hadn't been able to sit still since the night before, when Angela had been able to officially inform their mother of Carlisle's return.
Esme had reacted appropriately, shock and tears both evident in her voice. As Alice watched her melt into Emmett's chest, she doubted her mother was acting. Hearing of her husband's imminent release was probably surreal, having thought him dead for over three years. Even with the warning, it likely wouldn't seem concrete until she actually saw him, touched him, heard his voice for herself. Lord knew that's how Alice felt, and as far she knew he'd only been missing. The Seattle hospital had estimated Carlisle's transport would arrive in the wee hours of the morning. He would be given an examination immediately upon his arrival, then the family would be notified. They had no idea what condition he'd be in when he got there.
The family kept vigil over the phone that night, sleep a forgotten tradition. Each member had taken on the waiting pose that suited them best, the same positions they took on now. Emmett paced, restless with his own futility. Esme sat rigidly in the seat across from Alice, head held high and upper lip stiff, the slight tremor of her hand the only indication she held together by a thread. Rosalie sulked in a corner, texting back and forth with the babysitter while Edward did the thing he does best in times of crisis: fawning over his wife. He and Bella had taken up residence in the far corner of the waiting room so as not to disturb with their murmurs. Alice couldn't make out their words, but the light kisses, soft caresses, and unwavering eye contact were starting to make her sick. But she knew her brother. She knew this would pull him through whatever they were waiting for.
The world could be crumbling down around them—a fire in the hospital, the roof collapsed, zombie apocalypse, but Bella was here. Bella was safe, and she still loved him almost as much as he loved her—enough to change lives, risk careers, and forget the reason they were here. As long as these things were true, Edward could find his way. As long as he had Bella, life could soldier on.
Simple.
Easy.
Enviable.
"What the hell is taking so long?" Emmett burst out at noon. Alice didn't blame him; they'd been sitting for almost two hours.
"They never gave us a time," Esme reminded him softly. "They only said he'd be ready today, and we declined their offer to tell us when to come up."
"Yeah, but this is ridiculous! They know we're out here! Couldn't they at least send someone to tell us what we're waiting for? Does he need surgery? Is he unconscious? What the fuck are they doing back there?"
"If there was anything to tell us..."
"Oh, shut up, Ed! You work in this god damn hospital! You mean to tell me you can't just slip back and find ou-"
"You know I can't, Emmett!" Edward yelled, then the color drained from his face and he slumped over so that he leaned into his wife's neck. "Besides, I already tried. There were a couple of suits... Confidential. Classified. That's all I got out of them, and they wouldn't let me see him, wouldn't even tell me what condition he was in."
"So barge in there! Storm the castle! Fuck, I'll do it."
Edward put a hand out to stop his brother. " They had badges, Em. And guns. I get the feeling they won't mess around if you try to pull a Scarface."
"This is ridiculous! What the hell-"
A throat cleared, halting Emmett mid-curse.
"Are you the Cullens?" a very large nurse asked in a very small voice. Emmett turned on her like a wild animal, causing the woman to stumble back into Edward and Bella's corner, only just catching herself. "I'm so sorry," she said, steadying herself against the wall before turning to Edward, who still had his arms up in the spotting position. "I didn't- Oh, hello, Dr. Cullen."
"Hello, Ms. Stanley." Edward grinned and the nurse flushed, glancing down to his lap as though in lament. "Nurse Stanley?" Edward prompted.
"Oh...yes...so sorry, Dr. Cullen. I just...didn't see you there. You must be Mrs. Cullen." Nurse Stanley appraised Bella with the critical eye of jealousy before smiling and offering her hand. "Edwar- I mean, Dr. Cullen." she giggled, "has told me so much about you."
Bella turned an incredulous eye to her husband as she returned the gesture. Edward rolled his eyes and planted a kiss on Bella's cheek. "I believe you had something to tell us?" he said, gesturing to the others in the room, particularly his mother, who had recently shredded a ball of tissue to snow.
Nurse Stanley seemed to remember herself then. Shaking her head, she stepped back and smoothed her uniform over her curves before addressing the group as a whole. "Dr. Cullen will be receiving visitors shortly. We'd like to keep excitement to a minimum for now, so if one or two of you would like to come with me..."
Emmett took off for the door behind her back. Where he thought he was going, no one knew. Nurse Stanley hadn't given them a room number.
"All right," she hedged. "Mrs. Cullen?" Esme nodded and stood, reaching for Edward.
"One or two-" the nurse started, but clammed up when Edward leaned in close.
"My mother may need some assistance." Nurse Stanley eyed the doors Emmett had just burst through. "My brother will probably be lost back there for an hour," he said. "And I would sincerely appreciate your assistance in this matter, as I'm sure would my father."
Nurse Stanley appeared to mull this over, but everyone knew Edward would get his way. Even if he hadn't been able to charm the pants off her with a glance, their father would have been plenty of leverage. The infamous Carlisle Cullen. He'd been Chief of Medicine in the small-town of Forks, Washington, and though he'd never actively sought power, it invariably found him. Wisdom, compassion, and humility had garnered him much respect and many an important position. Only a fool would turn his son away.
Nurse Stanley proved not to be a fool.
As Alice watched them go, Bella moved to occupy Esme's vacant seat.
"You and Emmett are next," she said. "If he manages to find his way back, that is."
Alice couldn't help her half smile as she curled her knees up to her chest. Bella really was a wonderful person, and a truly integral member of the family. What had their home been like these past years, she wondered. How had she and Edward made it through? She was ashamed to realize she had no idea. Not even a theory.
"How's the store?" Alice asked. Bella seemed confused and Alice felt stupid. Was the store still open? She didn't know.
"It's fine," Bella answered after a time. "It got pretty rocky there for a while, especially with the way things are. People haven't had the money to spend, but they adjusted. Habits change over time. Priorities shift. People started buying books again, seeing movies. I think maybe it's just their escape. Times are tough, but Forks is tougher. They look after their own. I'm trying to get Edward to transfer so we can spend more time together."
"You want him to leave Seattle? I thought he was working toward head of his department?"
"He is, but the commute is killing us."
Alice blinked. Had she said "us"? Suddenly, Edward's re-commitment took on a whole new meaning. And the haunted look in Bella's eyes told her wasn't just about moving on.
"You know, that first year," she continued. "After Carlisle disappeared, after you left us, he wasn't even human."
Alice flinched at the mention of her desertion, but Bella didn't notice. She was being honest and, for once, completely blunt with her feelings. This is the way things were. This is what Alice needed, even if she no longer thought she wanted it.
"He used up all his vacation and sick days sitting around, waiting. He wasted months of his life. Of our lives. Our children... Our children watched him waste away. The hospital called, but he wasn't hearing it. I begged him to go back to work, to be the kind of doctor his father would be proud of."
Doctors, in Carlisle's opinion, were meant to heal and save, be it with policy or a bandage. Until his body stopped working, he would operate. Until his faculties left him, he would advocate. It was this philosophy that prompted his mission and subsequent capture. At sixty-five, when his hands first started to cramp, he volunteered to go overseas and spend his "last useful year" in the trenches. Literally. Six months in, they lost all communication. Alice wondered how soon after the last letter Esme had been notified. Bella seemed to be thinking along those same lines.
"She could have told us, Alice. She should have put a stop to it. We could have mourned him. We could have lived again. Wouldn't this still be a miracle if we'd done that? Wouldn't it still have been the right thing, even if he wasn't dead?" Alice had no answers, but Bella wasn't through. "Why did I have to watch my husband die in my living room? What good did it do? The hospital eventually threatened him. He could either go back to work or collect his severance.
"I didn't know what he'd do, but I didn't expect him to dive in the way he did. He worked long shifts, long weeks. At first he'd said he was catching up, paying for his absence. But it never eased up. He eventually stopped coming home for weeks at a stretch. I'd call him in the middle of the night and he'd be busy, sleeping, or sometimes just wouldn't answer. I thought he was cheating on me, Alice, I really did. He missed EJ's play and Ness' continuation. I thought he was done with us, so I... I left."
Alice gasped. "He never told me. I mean, we didn't talk much, but that's... That's big. That's so big, Bella. I had no idea. I'm so sorry. But that did it, right? You left him and he came after you? That brought him out of the funk?" Alice's optimism lasted approximately thirteen seconds. Long enough for Rosalie to chime in.
"Stupidity and misdirection are Cullen family traits," she said without looking up from her phone. "They don't know how to grieve. Emmett got arrested for bar fights, Esme lied to everyone, and Edward-"
"He didn't cheat on you!" Alice yelled at Bella, as though her saying so made any difference. "He never gave up! Edward loves you so much it's almost sick. Why would he abandon his family?"
"I don't know, Alice. I don't think he even knows. And no, he never cheated on me." Alice let out a sigh of relief. "But he did abandon us."
Alice gaped, disbelieving. Edward wouldn't. He couldn't. But Bella looked as though she was barely holding herself together as she spoke.
"He took me leaving as an opportunity. He moved out of the house, said the the kids and I could have it. He got an apartment in Seattle, visited on the weekends. Later on he told me he was saving money to go to Africa... if his paperwork fell through. He'd already volunteered, without telling me, for the same program your father was on."
Alice swallowed hard, barely able to talk. She eventually managed to ask, "How long?"
"Three months. Not so long, but at the same time...it felt like thirty years. I didn't know how to be without him. I fell asleep every night crying into his pillow. I'd call just to hear his voice on the machine. But he never answered, or called back. He'd come over for the kids at pre-appointed times, but he never looked my way. It was like I didn't exist to him until I got the papers. He filed for divorce."
"No!" Alice shouted, heedless to the others in the waiting room.
"Shh, Alice. Calm down."
"Calm down? You just told me you and my brother are divorced! Is that what this is really about? Getting married again?"
"No, Alice. We never got divorced. We never got that far."
"So what happened? God, Bella, you're killing me here! How did Edward fix this?"
"And why does he still have testicles?" Rosalie added from her corner.
"When I got the papers, Alice, it killed me. It killed me, but I signed them. I loved him with everything I had, but I finally had to give up and give him the clean break he was looking for. If it weren't for my children..." Bella shuddered. "I sent them to summer camp, thank God for summer camp, and hid myself away. I couldn't face life, but I knew I had to keep living. For them. Rosalie came around, tried to knock some sense into me."
"Sometimes literally."
"But I was empty. Just hollow. Anything she did or said... it couldn't affect me. It was like I was made of stone. I never thought I'd feel anything ever again. Until..."
"Until?"
"Jacob," Bella said with a grin.
Alice deflated. "Jacob?"
Bella nodded. "And Sam."
"Who's Sam?"
"And Emmett." Bella's grin turned manic.
"What the- Did Rosalie know about this?"
"For God's sake, Alice, shut up. You're making an ass out of yourself." Alice shot Rosalie the finger and turned back toward Bella, who shook her head.
"Jacob has never been more than a friend to me, Alice. And Emmett, the world's best brother. Edward has the scars to prove it."
"They beat him?"
"To a pulp."
"And yet he still reproduces," Rosalie said with a sigh. "What? I wanted to castrate the fucker. There's no shame in it."
"Edward never told me about any of this," Alice said to her shoes, then looked Bella in the eye. "So they threatened him if he didn't get back with you? And you just forgave him? I know he's my brother but that's so...so wrong."
Bella's eyes glazed over, seeing nothing but the past. "That's what I thought too. At first. He came to the house looking like hell, bloody and all busted up. He said he wanted to talk, and I handed him the divorce papers. He came back, and I slammed the door in his face. He spent a night on the porch, and I called the police. My dad was more than happy to escort him off the property and take his place on the deck. And when he got tired, or had to go, another officer took his place. Edward couldn't get within one hundred feet of my front door." Bella smiled wistfully. "So he came in the window.
"To this day, I'm not sure how, but he climbed into our bedroom and left a note on his pillow. It was nine pages long, full of reasons and excuses, and lots and lots of apologies. He said he'd never stopped loving me, and was only trying to leave me for my own good."
"You believed him?"
"Not for a second. But every morning, I woke up to something new. A flower, a picture, a note, even jewelry somewhere in there." Bella scoffed. "I couldn't figure out what his game was. Why would he try so hard to win me back? I'd already promised him a clean divorce. I wasn't withholding the kids from him. I told Jacob to keep away.
"He thought he was leaving me gifts, but to me they were physical proof of false love and broken promises. They tortured me. The fresh scent of him on the pillow each morning, it was my own private Hell. One night I left him a note. I begged him not to come back. I just wanted to move on, and I couldn't do that with daily reminders of what could have been."
"So what happened?"
Bella's head snapped up, as though just realizing Alice was there. She shrugged. "The notes stopped coming. The flowers dried up, and I threw them all away. I eventually took my dad off night watch. I lied and said me and Edward had talked it out. I never told him about the window."
Alice waited...and waited...and waited for Bella to continue, but her sister-in-law seemed to think she was finished with her story. "For God's sake, Bella! What happened? You told me you didn't get divorced, you're here today as his wife about to happily get re-married or committed or whatever, but you're just gonna stop there with you throwing Edward out and him agreeing. What the hell is wrong with you? When did you decide to take Edward back?"
"The day I realized he'd really stopped coming."
"That's... Well that's psychosis is what that is."
Rosalie snorted. "Tell me about it."
"It had been a week since the last letter," Bella continued. "Charlie had been gone for two days, and from the minute I woke up, I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew something was wrong. I was anxious all day, and when I went to bed that night, I kept waiting to be hit with memories of Edward. He blindsided me, ya know, when I tried to fall asleep. I kept waiting for the pain, but it never happened. I just laid there, all worried. The anticipation was killing me. So I thought, I should just get this over with. I should force a bad reaction. So I rolled over onto his pillow and took a deep breath."
"And?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing..."
"She said nothing!"
"Thanks, Rose."
"You're welcome."
"His pillow smelled like nothing, and that's when I knew what was bothering me. His pillow had always smelled like something. His hair, his cologne, just him. Sometimes it seemed stronger than others, but I always attributed that to stress and possible mental illness. I'd dream his voice and wake up smelling him all over me, only to find out it was just the stupid pillow all along. I hated it, but I couldn't get rid of the thing. It always smelled like him. The months he was away, it was like he was still with me. If I just closed my eyes and breathed, it was like he never left."
"So the pillow smelled like nothing?"
"Yes."
"And that made you take him back?"
"Exactly."
"I don't get it."
"Alice, don't you see? It took a week for his smell to wear off after the last time he was there."
Alice blinked at her.
"I had that pillow for months, and it always smelled like him. Months! It isn't possible! Unless..."
"Unless he used it at least once a week," Rosalie finished for her. Bella glared. "What? She wasn't getting it."
"So Edward was in your bed while you were separated?"
"Yes!" Bella and Rosalie said together.
"So he never really left you."
"No."
"And that's why you took him back."
"That's why I took him back."
So this is the story all about how her life got flipped, turned upside-down...
Admit it, you sang that, didn't you?
I know it was short, and not so sweet, but I'd really love to know what you think.
Carlisle next! (I hope.)
Did I mention this story was originally meant to be one shot focused on Alice?