A/N: Standard disclaimer time. Characters aren't mine, I'm just messing with them a bit. What they do in this story does belong to me, though.

A/N#2: Thanks millions and lots of love to everyone who's taken a moment to leave a review to let me know what you thought, guesses over what's to come. I get these huge, moronic smiles on my face when I get review alerts on my phone. So thanks to you all – you're every one of you made of awesomesauce. Thanks also to those that have made the story a favorite or put it on alert. I'm glad you're enjoying it as well.

I'd thought before I'd even left the bathroom that it was going to be a long, fucking day. I'd never imagined that long day would start before I had even left my house. In retrospect, it shouldn't have surprised me. After all, I'd been the one to invite her to stay.

When I'd grumped my way into the kitchen, my only hope had been a quiet cup of coffee and a feeble attempt to wash away what I'd just done with a quiet caffeine fix before heading into the hospital.

I don't think I could have been more off base if I tried.

Not even in my worst nightmares could I have conjured up the sight that greeted me. Eighties punk music was blasting from my kitchen iPod dock, my sister was on a step-stool, and the contents of my cupboards were spread out over every available flat surface.

I didn't know if it was better or worse that she shut down the music when she saw me – it felt uncomfortably like going deaf.

"Morning, big brother! Sleep well? God, your cabinets are a mess, Edward. I tried to find coffee and couldn't come up with it anywhere. Did you know you had mac and cheese up here that expired two years ago? When was the last time you looked through these?"

My only answer was to shoot her a glare and stumble along on my previous trajectory.

There was an aroma of coffee in the air, so despite her prattle, she had managed to find it. Ah, yes. There it was, sitting in the carafe, warm and waiting for me. The dark liquid of life, nectar of the gods. I moved on auto-pilot, barely registering Alice's continued babbling. I poured a cup in my favorite mug and sipped, eyes closed.

Bliss.

"You didn't hear anything I said, did you?"

"Not a word," I lied, eyes still closed, enjoying my morning hit.

"It's a good thing I've got a thick skin where you two are concerned," she said and affected a sniffle, "or I'd have gone into a shell of depression long ago over such neglect from older brothers who are supposed to love and support me."

That got a laugh out of me. Well, that and the fact the caffeine was finally hitting my bloodstream.

I walked over to her and chucked her under the chin. "Nice try, Midge. But the tears haven't gained any influence just because you've been off living in Hollywood the last few years."

Her mouth quirked into a frown, then she stuck her tongue out at me. I used the silence of her mini-pout to take a better look around my now-destroyed kitchen.

"How have you even been able to do all of this? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were in a car accident yesterday, right?"

Alice shrugged. "I'm a quick healer, you know that. Two Advil early this morning and I'm feeling fine now," she said, then added a petulant sigh, "Doctor Cullen who isn't my doctor at all as my bones weren't injured at all."

I laughed and kissed her forehead. "All right, point taken,. You know I had to ask, though."

"Yeah, I do. Because you're just like Dad and he already called this morning to do the same thing."

I laughed. Of course he had.

I looked around the kitchen and sighed. Sometimes surrender was the only viable option. "If you want to rearrange my kitchen, go right ahead. Just do me a favor and leave me a map so I can find things later?"

Alice gasped, smile widening and small hands smacking my arm. "You did hear me," she accused.

"Hard not to. That voice pierces."

"You're hysterical, Edward, really. You should take that act on the road."

I managed, just barely, to not return the one tongue salute she'd given me.

I looked around the half disassembled kitchen and then back at my sister. "Does this mean you're not coming in with me today? Or is the process of deconstruction going to be an ongoing one?"

"Ongoing," she answered unapologetically. "I've got to get everything out first. Then decide where it flows best."

She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world; and that I'd been an idiot not to know that.

And frankly, I was. Our mother, bless her, had an almost ADD-like affliction where our childhood home was concerned. In the twenty years plus they'd owned the house, each room had been redecorated at least twice, some of them three times. The grounds had been landscaped, and re-landscaped. At last report, Dad was about to face round three with the back yard. He'd mentioned a koi pond.

I pitied the man, I truly did.

She'd stayed away from Emmett's apartment when he moved out after college. One visit to his college dorm room had cured her of meddling in his housekeeping for life. She said if he was happy living with whatever microbial mutant had spawned in his inability to clean properly, then she wasn't going to interfere. No one debated her on that one, and I thought it was a smart move. Staph infections could get nasty.

Because I had a harder time coexisting with filth, I wasn't so lucky when I'd bought the house.

I remember Dad took me out to dinner one night soon after I'd closed escrow. I thought it had been to congratulate me. I should have known better. He wanted to thank me. I'd ensured that he had at least a few years before he'd have to endure another conversation that began with the phrase "I've been thinking..." and ended with a loan application.

He was right, of course. The first three years I'd owned my house, it had been Mom's sole focus.

"Let me guess. Mom did the kitchen, but she let you put your things away in it, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did. Apparently that was a huge failing on her part?"

"Not a failing, no. You just don't know the rules about these things."

"There are rules?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course there are rules. I mean, look at this, Edward," she said on a huff, opening the cabinet where my coffee mugs were. "You've got the mugs here, but the coffee maker is way over there. What kind of system is that? And your silverware is no where near the..."

I tuned her out. I nodded in all the right places, looked contrite when her words called for it, and waited until I could tell she was running low on breath.

I spoke while she was in mid-inhale.

"And we need to get going if we're going to hit Emily's before we go to the hospital," I interjected, putting my empty cup in the sink and switching off the coffee maker.

It was fun, sometimes, to watch Alice throw on the mental brakes and go from one subject to the next without pause.

"Right, Emily's. I'd almost forgotten! Okay, the kitchen can wait. Let me get my bag and shoes and we can go. Hey," she called back, her voice trailing from down the hall, "Bella's not restricted to hospital food, is she? I can bring her a muffin, right?"

All I could do was thank God Alice wasn't in the room when she'd said her boss' name. I had no idea what my face looked like, but I felt my body go rigid with dream/shower memories the second I'd heard Bella's name. It took me a good ten seconds to regain even a semblance of control.

"Edward?"

Thank God, she was still by the front door.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, cleared my throat and readjusted my pants before walking out to join her. I was a doctor, damn it. Schooling my features to be blank and clinical were part and parcel of the job. I could only hope Alice didn't notice the effort.

"Sorry, just making sure the kitchen was closed up and the coffee maker off." I pulled on my own jacket, thanking God it was cold enough still for the longer one. "As for Bella, as long as she's tolerating the pain medication, she can eat whatever she wants."

"Yay!" She didn't seem to see a difference on me, so I relaxed. "Come on then, let's go."

I watched in awe as she shouldered a carry-all type messenger bag that looked about as big as she was.

"Alice, we're going to the hospital, not mobilizing for an invasion."

"What? This?" She indicated the bag. "All necessary, trust me. Clothes for Bella, she hates hospital gowns. Both of our laptops, a few scripts, phones and chargers, a book or three. Just the essentials."

"You carry that around all the time?" The orthopedist in me shuddered at one day having to operate on my own sister's spine or rotator cuff.

"No, not all the time. Bella got me this fabulous little phone. It keeps everything I need and syncs up with my laptop perfectly. But since we'll be in one place for a while, it's easier to type on the laptop. And I know Bella will want hers if she's laid up and immobile."

"All right then, but the doctor in me has to suggest you find something with wheels on it before you permanently injure your self."

"Yes, Mother," Alice stuck her tongue out at me again and trooped down the stairs to my Volvo.

I followed after locking up behind us, chuckling softly.

It was ridiculous, really, how much I'd missed having Alice around.

*~*~*~*~*~ Bella

"Mom. Mom? Mom! Mom, stop!" I had to scream the last, thankful that I had a room to myself. At least I wasn't bothering anyone but Jake. Not that my raised voice would wake him. The man slept like the dead.

"Not another word, Bella, I'm leaving the ship and hopping the first plane off this dinky little island and flying to, where are you again?"

"I'm not telling."

"You're in Seattle, no Port Angeles, that's right."

Shit.

"Mom, please relax, all right? I'm fine. Absolutely fine. The break was a clean one, the surgery's done. There's nothing for you to do here, but lose what tan you've got to hospital pallor. Jake's here, so is Alice."

"Bella..."

I jumped on the hesitation in her voice.

"You haven't had a proper vacation in years, right? And you told me you were having fun, meeting people, kicking ass in laser tag. Do you really want to trade that in to sit in antiseptic stench or stay on a boat, with a pool, drinking things with too much rum and little umbrellas in it?"

A pause.

"They really are good."

Victory!

I knew better than to gloat, however. I just went where she lead me. "I know. Remember the trip to Hawaii after Moonlight wrapped? When Alice and I decided to pound down the Mai Tais at the luau?"

Mom laughed and we traded reminiscences for a few minutes of that particularly wild night. I knew now that she'd be staying where she was and not cut her trip short. Thank God.

I loved her to death, but sometimes she didn't know how to shut off the hover.

"Good morning!"

I looked up and grinned when I saw Alice, impossibly fresh and chipper for someone who'd been in the same accident I had, standing in my doorway.

"Mom, I've got to go. Alice just got here."

"All right, sweetie. Give her my best and swear to me you'll call if you need anything, or if anything changes."

"I swear it, Mom. You'll be the first call I make."

Maybe. Or definitely not.

At least I was convincing on the phone. Sometimes, my profession had its side benefits.

It took a few minutes more of persuading before I was able to get my mother to hang up. In that time, Alice unpacked the reinforced messenger bag of doom she carried around when we traveled.

There was also a very un-hospital smell in the room.

"You brought food. And coffee. Real coffee." I accused as my hand shot out towards her. "Gimme."

"Well, I see we woke up with our manners this morning," she laughed.

"Knock it off, Alice, and hand over whatever you've got. I had runny scrambled eggs this morning that tasted like...absolutely nothing, coffee that was more like brown water. And a bagel I could have played street hockey with."

"You've never played street hockey. You'd never have survived it."

"Alice!"

"All right, all right. Touchy this morning, aren't we?"

"I'm about to fire your skinny little..."

And then there was a muffin under my nose. A huge muffin, roughly the size of a grapefruit, bursting with bluberries and sprinkled with sugar crystals.

"Oh God," I said reverently, taking it with the hand not in a cast. I brought it to my nose and savored. "Where did you find this? Are there more? Tell me there are more and I'll forgive you for not even limping while I'm stuck in this bed."

"More? You'll never finish that one."

"I know. I want the comfort of knowing that more is possible on the off chance I do finish," I said, inhaling the aroma again, savoring before I bit in. " I want one of these for every morning we're here. And then I want to have them delivered when we're gone."

Alice shook her head. "I'll bring them every morning, but delivery won't work. Believe me, I tried. I had my mom ship me a box of them Fed Ex, overnight express once when I was really craving them. They weren't the same – just a box of crumbs."

"Damn." I sighed and took the first bite. "Oh fuck that's good." Blueberries hit every taste bud in my mouth with just the right mixture of sugar added in. "Don't suppose I could hire whomever made them to come back to LA with us?"

"No chance. First, you don't make that much money. Second, the furthest Emily gets from the Res is to her shop in Forks. I think she and Sam went to Seattle for their honeymoon, but that's it. Offers of money wouldn't even register on her radar, I'm afraid. She's, well, they're both blissfully happy here. Go figure."

Through bouts of insomnia, long plane trips, and loads of days sitting around waiting in trailers, Alice and I had shared our life histories several times over, so I knew all about the small Native American reservation just outside her small hometown of Forks. And because Alice was a social creature, I also knew about all the people in and around both the reservation and her hometown.

The fact that it was really our hometown was what had brought us together in the first place.

She'd been working as the costumer's assistant and during one interminable fitting session for a period drama, we'd gotten to chatting. And found out that I'd been born in her hometown. It didn't matter to either of us that I'd only lived here for a year before my mother gave my father an ultimatum (he chose keeping us and relocating to Phoenix over staying here).

It was one of the reasons I'd taken Alice up on the offer to come home with her when Jake insisted I take a few months off to rest. I wanted to see the place I would have grown up in, if my mother'd had a higher rain tolerance.

"Ah well," I said, popping another small bite into my mouth. "I'll savor while I'm here and make sure we find time to come back and visit your parents. Often."

The room lapsed into a silence broken only by our mutual muffin moaning and caffeine appreciation. Every now and then Jake would snore softly in the recliner to break up the moaning.

Alice had been right about me not finishing the muffin; there was about a quarter left when my stomach put up the "full" sign. I set it down on my bedside tray, sipped at the coffee Alice had brought, then frowned when I caught sight of the clock. Ten fifteen?

I knew Alice was staying with her brother, with Edward (God, did I really just shiver saying his name? Yeah, I did. Pathetic.) so I knew he must be here somewhere. The same nurse that had taken pity on Jake and arranged for a recliner, Angela her name was, told me that he'd be around mid-morning to check on me during his rounds.

I'd estimated mid morning to be ten am. So where was he?

More to the point, why was I looking constantly at the door?

God, I really was pathetic. Capital P. Capital everything.

Thankfully, Alice finished not long after me, downing her whole muffin and the rest of mine, and offered me the distraction of work. I jumped on it so I wouldn't dwell on the door. Or, rather, the fact that he hadn't walked through it yet.

"Righto," Alice said in a voice that she only used when she was in business mode. Her laptop was out and on her lap, her tiny fingers moving at warp speed over the keys. "So Jake apparently got the press release drafted before he crashed and he's emailed it to me with strict instructions to send it out as soon as you'd talked to your mother. Honestly. Do I work for him? No. I don't. And he's not going to be ordering me around, oh no. We'll have a chat about that later."

She stopped long enough to throw a dirty look at him. I managed to not chuckle too loudly. Poor Jake.

"Anyway, I'll not be releasing anything until you say I can and then I'll kick his ass awake to send it himself, so that's beside the point. Now then. You were due to check in to the lodge last night, but obviously that didn't happen. I'll call over later and explain it to Harry and Sue. They're sweet, they'll understand. Probably won't even charge us the rescheduling fee."

"No," I interrupted, "I don't want them losing money because we had an accident."

Alice patted my hand. "I'll talk to them, don't worry. Need to talk to Dard before I do, though, see when you'll get out of here and how mobile you'll be."

I choked on the sip of coffee I'd just taken. "Talk to...who?"

"Dard," said a soft, seductive voice from the doorway. "It's an annoying thing she called me when she was little and couldn't say Edward."

"Oh good, you're here," Alice continued as if he hadn't spoken at all. "How long is Bella going to be here before we can get her moved to the lodge? I need to know before I call Harry."

It wasn't the first time I'd found myself grateful for Alice's take-charge get-it-done-now philosophy of life. I very much doubted it would be my last. Nevertheless, I was extra grateful this time. With Alice chattering questions at Edward, and him protesting that he didn't have answers yet, no one noticed that my eyes had somehow become glued to my doctor and didn't show signs of releasing any time soon.

I felt Alice's lips on my forehead, breaking my hyper-focus with a jolt.

"I'm just off to make a few phone calls and let you and Edward do the doctor/patient thing. I'll be back in a bit, all right?"

I smiled. "Bring back lunch? The menu they gave me said something about fish sticks."

"Don't worry, boss lady. I'll protect you from the inherent evil of the Gortons's fisherman."

We both laughed as she danced out of the room; our eyes turning to face the other again.

Any hope I'd held that my first impressions of Edward had been embellished by the aftereffects of general anesthesia were quietly laid to rest. He was still the most beautiful man I'd ever laid eyes on…and the only thing I had going on right now was a low dose of Percocet for the after-surgery pain.

"Good morning, Bella."

Oh God. Why did he have to sound so good saying my name?

I looked up, broken from my thoughts by the silky voice that had haunted what dreams I'd been able to manage. Dreams where...God. Focus, Bella.

"Good morning, Edward." Again, my profession came in useful and I was able to keep my voice calm and even, betraying none of the quivers I felt. Verbally, anyway. I hadn't figured out how to fool the monitors yet.

"How are you this morning?"

I laughed. "I feel like I've been thrown from a car?" And I did. Underneath the pain medication, I could feel a host of aches and pains whenever I moved. Nothing unmanageable, but not particularly pleasant either.

"Perfectly normal then," he agreed with a smile and...was that a wink? No, probably not. Maybe he had a tic or something. That's what he needed. Detractions. Something to counter the handsome...like tics, uncontrolled drooling, maybe webbed fingers? Was that really too much to ask?

I looked. Nope. Long, graceful fingers. Crap.

"Unfortunately, yes," I agreed. "It's nothing I'm not used to."

One thick eyebrow raised. "You get thrown out of cars a lot, do you?"

"Not a lot, no. But I fall down quite a bit. Or get tackled by stuntmen by accident because I'm standing in precisely the wrong place. Or walk into walls/doors/cameras. I'm a genuine, natural-born klutz, I'm afraid."

That didn't seem to surprise him.

I cocked a brow at him. "What, do I look the type?"

His head shook immediately, shock on his features. "No, nothing like that. I just saw the results of the MRI and CAT scans you had after they'd stabilized you downstairs. You have a lot of scar tissue and healed breaks. In any other case, I'd be oath-bound to make sure you weren't in an abusive relationship."

For some reason his eyes darted to Jake's prone form. Probably because the big oaf had just snorted out a snore. God, that really was annoyingly adorable.

"In any other case?" I asked, returning to Edward. "What, you're not as concerned about me?"

"No. Quite the contrary, actually." Something very serious danced over his face for just a moment, but the intensity in his eyes was enough to make me shiver again. Edward moved forward suddenly and pulled the blanket up from the foot of my bed and tucked it around me. He must've thought my shiver meant I was cold; I was ridiculously touched by the gesture. It didn't even bother me that his motions had almost an absent quality to them, as if he wasn't even aware he was doing them.

I brought my hands out from under the new blanket he'd just finished tucking up. Our fingers brushed. I nearly gasped when I felt the same zing straight up my arm. Immediately my eyes flew to his. I don't know what I was looking for. A sign he'd felt the same static charge maybe?

Whatever I'd hoped, there was nothing there. Just a blank face looking back at me.

Oh well.

I tried to refocus on the conversation. "Quite the contrary?" I asked, repeating his words back to him.

"Yes, you're my sister's friend, and employer, of course I'd be concerned," he said, then a smile crooked on one side of his face. The monitor pinged my reaction back to me. I was seriously going to have to work on getting that thing out of my room.

"But I know Alice. Not only would she not stand for anything of the sort, she'd be in jail for killing anyone who dared lay a hand on you."

I smiled. He did know his sister well. "You're right about that. She actually got in a producer's face once because he wanted me to try this one stunt on my own. Something about a stunt double's face being visible taking away from the drama of the moment. He was a little shorter than Jake, but not by much and she was screaming him up one side and down the other, right on the set."

"What was the stunt?"

"He wanted me to fall down a flight of stairs."

"Yesterday's Miracle," Edward said without pause, startling me.

"That's right," I smiled. "You saw it?"

He nodded, a bit reluctantly. "I read the book while I was an undergrad and was very interested to see how the adaptation would go."

His superior tone made my smile widen. "And how did we do?"

"Hmm," he said, a hand raised to his chin, scratching against the smooth skin. "Well enough, I suppose." He waited a bit, then sighed. "But the whole thing was blown for me when I saw a stunt double fall down the stairs near the end rather than the lead actress."

Our eyes met and I giggled. That was all it took and then we both burst out laughing at the same time. His green eyes twinkled with it. His face transformed as the smile lingered once the laughter subsided. How the hell could he possibly look better?

I hoped to God he would write the increase in my heart rate off to the laughter.

"Seriously, the film was very well done. You kept to the story without adding nonsensical embellishments. So many times that's not the case," he said. His face was still wearing a very alarming smile. Alarming in the sense it could make perfectly rational women feel the need to drop their panties. And I was nothing if not rational.

Stop thinking of your doctor and your panties in the same sentence, I admonished myself.

"No, I won't take projects like that. Anything that's being adapted, I read the source material first, before I even read the script. If the script goes off on wild tangents, I pass. I've been lucky enough in my career that I can make that choice."

"Really? You pass, just like that?"

I nodded. "Really. Unless it was a truly horrid book, it'll have fans. And any adaptation should respect those fans and what they loved about the story. Keep it loyal, you'll win the fans."

"And if it doesn't have fans?"

"Then it probably wouldn't have optioned in the first place," I answered with a teasing grin that he returned in kind.

My heart monitor twitched again. I began to wonder if I could disconnect it.

"Just out of curiosity, how did Alice finally talk the guy, the producer, out of it?"

"She told him I'd end up breaking a bone no one had ever heard of and set production back weeks."

"And you would have," came the sleepy voice from behind us both.

I giggled and looked around Edward to where Jake sat, rumpled and puffy faced with sleep.

"Hello, sunshine. You have a good nap?"

"Ha ha," he said and got up, stretching out his impossibly tall body until it popped and creaked itself awake. "It was a good enough one once that nurse, what was her name?"

"Angela," I supplied, glad I'd remembered it earlier myself.

"Angela, yeah. Once she brought the recliner instead of the torture device, I was actually able to sleep a bit." He paused and crooked his head to the side. "You don't seem to find it that uncomfortable, doc."

It wasn't until then that I realized Edward had taken the visitor's chair next to my bed and was sitting quite close to me. His hand was still on my blanket, too, right next to mine.

Another few beeps from the damned monitor until I was able to slow my pulse with some well-timed, and very stealthy, deep breaths.

Edward just smiled at Jake while he slowly made his way to his feet. "After residency, there's no such thing as an uncomfortable place to sit, or sleep for that matter."

"I've heard that," Jake said amiably. Or, I've seen it portrayed in movies. Guess I now know they based that part on real life, huh?"

Edward was still smiling, "most movies I've seen have done a fairly good job of it, yes."

"Good to know," he grinned and walked over to my other side. "I'm feeling like the underside of a shoe right now, though, Bells. The nurse told me there's a washroom or something for family just down the hall. I'm going to run down there and de-funk. You'll be okay until I get back?"

I sighed. "I'm not entirely hopeless, Jake. I doubt there's much that could happen to me while I'm chained into traction in a hospital bed."

He leaned down and kissed me softly. "I wouldn't bet the Audi on that one," he laughed, then ducked out of reach.

"You bastard," I called after him, my humor lightening the epithet.

"And you love me," he called over his shoulder as he pushed out of the room.

"Yeah," I called back. "Doesn't say much for my taste, does it?"

I smiled up at Edward. "Sorry about that. He's sort of the human equivalent of a battering ram."

"No need to apologize," he said simply and I was sad to see he'd stepped away from me, closer to the door.

Then I realized. Had I ever, in any of my trips to the hospital, had a doctor spend so much time with me? No, I hadn't. Not once. They came in, checked the wound, grunted a few times while they scribbled notes on my chart, then left. Sometimes they even said my name a time or two.

Edward had been here long enough to make himself comfortable in the chair at my bedside, and hadn't even asked about my leg or wrist once. I knew it was because Alice was his sister, but I was being selfish. Surely he had other patients to see?

"Should I be apologizing for utterly monopolizing your morning?"

"Is that what you were doing? I thought we were just talking."

"We were, are," I laughed a little at my falter. "Maybe I was monopolizing a bit. You're very easy to talk to."

This time it was Edward's turn to laugh. "You'd be alone in that assessment. The nurses call me Doctor Grouch most of the time."

My brow furrowed. "I don't see that at all. You've not been grouchy once."

"That's because you didn't see me this morning when I came downstairs to find Alice had started reorganizing my kitchen."

I had a quick mental flash of Edward looking rumpled and sleepy the way Jake did just a few minutes ago...then promptly told myself to put it straight out of my head. That way madness lay.

"Oh God, not you, too? She took mine over during a hiatus last year. I had about a month between projects, 30 days with nothing to do and she nearly went insane. I came home from a meeting with a potential director and my whole house looked like a tornado had hit it. The inside, mind you, not the outside."

I was glad to see his smile return. "That's Alice, all right."

"Still, I should let you get to the rest of your patients."

"No need. I only have ten in the hospital right now, and I saw them all first. You are my last patient of the day before my afternoon office hours."

"Then I should let you get home?" I questioned.

The grin he shot back at me ought to be illegal. "Are you trying to get rid of me, Bella?"

"Not at all," I replied, trying desperately to keep myself from stammering. "I just don't want to be selfish."

"Sometimes, selfish isn't such a bad thing."

End note:

I can't take credit for the line: "...another conversation that began with the phrase 'I've been thinking...' and ended with a loan application." That came from a stand-up comedian (I think it was Rex Havens), but I remember howling when I heard it on the radio, so I've borrowed it for this fic.