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Chapter Three:

The forest around me looked positively boring as I sat on a large boulder, overlooking a wide range of varying hues of green. Emmett wanted to go hunting and of course, I had been the one elected to accompany him. There was an ulterior motive for this, I was sure. But some reason, I couldn't sift out what that was entirely.

Alice had been unhelpful in this area as we prepared to leave. She had thankfully agreed to monitor Houston for me in case her health took a turn while I was away. But there was something going on and even Rosalie had averted my gaze when I looked to her for some kind of internal confirmation from her thoughts.

"Quit playing with your food!" I snapped playfully, not even needing to force my tone into lightness as I watched him wrestle with the large bear he'd come across by simple luck. Bears, grizzlies especially, were his favorite of the animal population and he always acted the same when hunting the daunting beasts. Time would never assauge him of the anger he felt when he remembered that first, fateful quarrel with a grizzly.

"Shut up!" He snapped happily, nothing ever rankled him to the point of anger. He paused long enough to grin brilliantly at me then cussed loudly when the bear noticed his preocupation and sliced at his chest. The shirt he'd worn out of the house was rags within seconds and another low curse flowed past his lips. Rose is going to kill me and I'm sure Alice's gonna help! I keep ruining all the shirts they get me.

I chuckled aloud at his thoughts, even shaking my head slightly before a less-than-appealing scent wafted underneath my nose. My preference, a mountain lion was prowling around the area looking for his own dinner. My muscles coiled almost instantly and I was barely aware of Emmett's mental greeting as I took off after my own prey. Finding the lion was perhaps the easiest part of hunting, even with my mind filled with thoughts of Houston spending the day with Alice. I never left her alone at night anymore, it was something that I just could not allow. Her nightmares were growing more intense and she was to the point where she needed as much rest as possible. The simple things were starting to become difficult for her and it was actually painful to watch.

I easily vaulted onto the lion's back and pushed us both to the ground as a recent memory filled one part of my mind. The pain in Houston's legs had been particularly intense that morning and she'd been unable to stand up without help. I remembered Jasper entering my bedroom to fill her with his deceptive calm when the pain made her eyes tear up, moisture spilling over almost instantly when she collapsed back against the couch in gasps of pain. The memory twisted my insides and flooded my veins with anger, forcing me to puncture the animal's neck with more force than I'd initially intended. Maybe hunting hadn't been such a bad idea after all.

Once I was done, with no evidence of my kill; I drifted back over to the rock I'd been perched on before catching the lion's scent and found Emmett finishing up as well. His dark hair was clotted with leaves, dirt, and sap from where he and the bear had uprooted a small spruce. He grimaced at his shirt for a brief second then hopped up onto the boulder and settled himself beside me calmly. "How's Houston today?"

"Not good." I sighed and frowned in sheer reflex. It hurt to think about her wasting away, but in an odd way, I suddenly felt the need to talk about it. To hear my brother's take on the entire situation. How would he react if he were in my shoes? What if it were Rosalie, human and dying with cancer, instead of Houston? "The pain's so bad in her legs that she couldn't even get up this morning."

Wow. Emmett breathed mentally, becoming like a statue beside me as he interpreted my words. I can't even begin to understand how you do it, Edward. It kills me to watch her and I don't have the same tie to her that you do. How can you be so strong about all of this?

"I honestly don't know." I shrugged and turned my head to actually look at him. "I guess it's because I know there's a light at the end of that proverbial tunnel. Her fate's been decided, it just needs to be acted on now."

"But why wait?" Emmett surprised me by voicing this question aloud, instead of just thinking it. "Why make her suffer when she doesn't have to? That's the part I can't understand."

"It's what she wants. She wants to remain human as long as possible because she's afraid of what changing her will do to me. Even with all of this, with her body shutting down, she's more concerned with my place in it all than her own. She has no idea what's ahead of her, but yet she doesn't really seem to care."

"Do you think she's going to change her mind? Think she'll want to die and stay dead instead of become one of us?"

"I asked her about it." Another sigh filled the air after my words and I looked out, unseeing, into the giant mass of trees surrounding us. "She's adamant about her decision. She actually apologized yesterday for not being ready to give me up yet. She thinks that she's the selfish one in all of this."

And of course, you still consider yourself the monster in her fairytale. You need to let yourself off the hook, bro. Maybe this life will be cakewalk compared to what she's already gone through.

"I sincerely hope so." I whispered with the feverish wish for that to be true. For someone as physical and simple as Emmett, I was constantly surprised at how deep his thoughts and emotions ran. I knew that he loved Rosalie fiercely, no one could ever deny that once they saw the true love underneath our human facades as adopted children to Carlisle and Esme Cullen. But Emmett rarely injected himself into the more harsher undertones of our lives. He was perfectly content with what we were, and that was one way Houston reminded me of my brother. They both had the same outlook on vampirism. It was better than death.

The rest of our time was spent in silence from there. A pack of elk soon caught our attention and we focused on them before returning home. I was anxious to get back to Houston, hating it every single time I had to be away from her. I was never sure if, when I left her, it would be for the last time. My new fear had become not being able to be there to save her like I'd promised.

Thank you. Emmett's thoughts snatched me away from my own as we ran back to the house.

"For what?" I asked calmly, easily keeping pace with him as we sprinted through close clumps of trees and deaden forest life.

Coming out with me. I know it's hard to leave her, but I needed to ask my questions without her around.

We had reached the house just as his most important question yet finally came to the forefront of his mind. What would I do if I were too late to safe Houston?

"I'll find success in an area that thwarfed Carlisle." I answered automatically and abruptly walked into the house. I knew that my answer wasn't simple and he would stew on it for an unimaginable length of time. Emmett had one of the most brilliant minds I had ever looked into, but I knew that my choice of words sometimes brought him up short. Especially since I had chosen to bring a part of Carlisle's past into my answer. If I did fail Houston and bring her greatest nightmare to fruitation, I would find a way to cease my existance. The world would mean nothing without her there to share it with me. I saw no point in eternity, in the very core of my abilities, if it failed her.

I knew the change that would grip me if Houston no longer existed and didn't want to spread that into the lives of my family. I refused to fill Esme's eyes with sorrow at my suffering, knowing that she was agonizing like me. Houston's death would take it's toll on all of us, but my family would survive it. We would never be the same, but my heart would become even more silent if I were to lose my reason for existing.

Refusing to think about it, I just ran up to our room and threw the door open. A loud gasp filled my throat at what greeted me, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world I had ever seen. That still resided with the memory I carried of catching my wife's limp body in the shower.

Houston had been moved from the couch to the hospital bed and a tube was now protruding from the crook of her left elbow. Carlisle had been forced to go back to feeding her with fluids. She looked away from the window when I gasped and a soft, almost serene smile covered her features as her hand, which lay on her swollen abdomen, twitched as if she wanted to reach out for me, but couldn't. "Hi Handsome."

Pain pierced me like a knife as I closed the door behind me and slowly dragged my feet over to the small chair Carlisle had brought in when she had needed constant surpervision. "My heart." I sighed and leaned over to kiss her forehead, then both her cheeks, nose, and finally; her lips. The usual warmth that molded against my stone skin was just barely there and more jolts of unease coiled in the pit of my stomach. "What happened?"

"I fainted again." She sighed and the hand on her belly twitched again. She was trying to brush the change in her health off as some inconsequental thing. As if I shouldn't be worried that she needed the bed once again. "Carlisle says I'll be fine in a couple of days." She nodded and smiled up at me encouragingly. I caved to the briefest of agonizing smiles before I noticed the tube sticking out from underneath her blanket. Sliding one hand into the one that rested against her side, my eyebrows puckered as I lifted the blanket with my other hand and inspected the new tube. Panic replaced pain this time when a needle disappeared into the soft skin that covered her lower midsection. She sighed again and I pulled my eyes back to her face when I heard her hair rustle against the crisp linen underneath her head. She was looking at the window again, seeing something that her eyes could not make out. "I have too much fluid building up, Carlisle is scared that it'll cause a rupture or make my infection worse."

I could not believe Houston sounded so calm as she spoke of all this! She should've been rushed to the hospital immediately, her stomach was painfully distended from her body now, resembling nothing I'd seen since her kidneys had begun to fail. "I'll be back." I promised quickly and kissed her cool lips, then her naked left hand and launched out of the room. The sear that had appeared when I didn't see her rings flared aggressively as I ran downstairs in my search for Carlisle.

I found him in the living room, staring at the flat screen in boredom with Esme on his right, Alice and Jasper on the floor in front of them, and Rosalie curled in the chair next to the couch.

"Why isn't she at the hospital?" I whispered angrily, feeling every single muscle in my body tighten as I forced my voice below Houston's hearing range. I didn't want her to hear me so angry with my family. She wouldn't like it.

Carlisle looked unphased as he glanced away from the TV and stood to meet me in the entryway. "Because she didn't want to go. Edward, she's refused any kind of medical attention that I can't provide. While I don't feel good about treating her in this manner, I cannot go against her wishes."

"Think about it." Esme joined in as Alice stole from the room, her thoughts focused on Houston as she moved.

I'll keep her company, get yourself under control.

I forced a deep breath into my lungs, no longer feeling the need to wince when Houston's lingering scent in the room filled the breath. Letting it out slowly, I turned my agonized stare onto Esme when she grasped my hand and pulled it toward her chest. "We can do more for her here, where there are less eyes to watch her. Do you really want her in the hospital when it comes time for her transformation? Carlisle won't be able to steal her from the morgue with her heart still beating as he was with you and me. Trust him, sweetheart. None of us are taking her condition lightly."

Rosalie snorted suddenly and I finally looked over at her for the first time since storming into the room. Of course, she was pissed that we were talking about Houston, instead of her. I don't see why you don't just change her already. Her life's over, there's nothing else she can do. You're being selfish by condemning her to that hospital bed.

My only response was the low snarl that filled my chest. I glanced at my parents one more time as my lips set into an angry line. I wasn't entirely sure who I was mad at as I sprinted out of the house, and as far away from my family's intruding thoughts. I blended in with the trees for the second time that day, anxiously awaiting the familiar calm that always enveloped me when I ran. It was effortless, requiring no thought, like breathing. But as I continued to run, I didn't find the satisfaction I once knew. There was no pleasure in running because it was taking me away from Houston. My dying wife that I had the ability to save. My course changed unexpectedly and I was soon running the exact way I'd come. For all of her resentment and bitternes, Rosalie had a point. In almost every single sense of the word, Houston's human life was over.

It was finally time to address that and not let the subject shift onto anything else. A decision was going to be made.