Bella awoke to the sensation of something cold touching her forehead. Whatever it was felt good and she had to resist the temptation to lean into the strange touch. When the sensation pulled away, Bella let her eyes drift open only to find an ethereal, pale woman sitting next to her. Bella's face contorted into confusion as her eyes drifted over the woman's face. She had honey-brown hair and a soft, inviting smile. And her eyes—they reminded Bella of Rosalie's.

Instantly, all the memories of the earlier that day flooded into Bella's head and her eyes opened comically wide. She opened her mouth to say something but the beautiful woman next to her beat her to it.

"How are you feeling honey?" she said. Her voice was beautiful and the way it vibrated through her mind, made her think of a quiet river running through a forest. The aura that surrounded the woman was gentle and calming and Bella instantly felt herself relax back into the pillows behind her. Bella barely even registered what the woman had said to her but responded that she was fine. Her typical response.

She looked around herself and realized that she was in a hospital room. Bright, white walls surrounded her while the smell of sterile bedding filled her nose. She wrinkled her face at that. She hated hospitals. She'd spent enough time in them as a kid, and she never appreciated going back.

"I'm Esme Cullen," the woman said, pulling Bella out of her scrutiny. Esme was smiling at Bella warmly. "I believe you know some of my children."

"Oh, um, yeah," Bella muttered, gracefully and nodded. Her head felt like a bobble-head doll and the sudden, jolted movement sent a shot of pain through her skull. Her hand went up to hold her head, pressing against the sides to hold the rattling still.

Esme stood quickly and held out an ice pack that Bella hadn't noticed in her lap. "Here you go dear. This should help."

The cold sensation returned to her forehead and she once again felt comforted. Now she understood why. Esme just seemed to have that effect on her.

Bella took the ice-pack from Esme's hand. Her fingers brushed softly over the older woman's and she had to hold back a flinch at the coolness she felt from the woman. While holding the ice pack to her head, Bella cautiously looked for any sign of Rosalie in the room. She'd been there when she passed out.

"She went for dinner," Esme said. Her smile once again comforting Bella. "She should be back soon."

"Oh," Bella said. She had to remind herself not to nod her head again. "Do you know what happened? What about Tyler? Has anyone called Charlie?"

The flood of questions startled Bella, and she flushed a crimson read. Esme placed her hand across her arm that lay along the side of the bed. "Your father is on his way. I'm merely a placeholder to keep an eye on you. As for the accident, well it seems the entirety of the high school knows what happened. They are all in the waiting room. Tyler is okay but he is going to be on crutches for a while."

Bella felt like her head was going to fall off from how much she'd been nodding but she responded again with a nod. She continued shyly, "What about Rosalie?"

"Rosalie is fine dear." Esme's smile seemed the warmest it had been yet.

Bella's response was interrupted by the door to her room opening and Charlie walking in. He was still in his work gear, and his eyes were frantic. They washed over her in panic as he approached. "What happened Bella? Are you okay?"

"You know me and blood," Bella chuckled. Her hand reached up and touched her forehead where she could feel the scab forming. "I just fainted. I'm fine."

"Bella, you just got hit by a van," Charlie said. The exasperation seeped into his voice and he threw his hat down on the bedside table. Esme rose from her place next to Bella and turned toward the distraught father.

"Your Bella is a trooper," Esme said. "It's good to see you again Sheriff. If only it were under better circumstances."

Esme seemed to have the same effect on Charlie that she had over Bella. He immediately calmed down, and ran a hand through his hair with a sheepish smile. "Thank you for watching out for her while I was on my way. Was a few towns over, investigating those wild animal attacks and couldn't get back as quickly as I wanted."

"Oh, it was no problem at all," Esme said. "I was already here bringing Carlisle his dinner anyways. I like to lend a hand when I can."

A knock sounded from the door, and it opened slowly to reveal probably the most gorgeous man Bella had ever seen. He smiled at Esme and nodded a head towards Charlie before he leveled Bella with a caring look.

"Hi Bella, I'm Dr. Carlisle Cullen. How are you feeling?" Carlisle said as Esme slipped out of the room. Bella merely shrugged in response. She felt fine. And she'd continue to say it until they let her go home.

"Well that's thanks to Rosalie, I'm totally fine," Bella said. "She pushed me out of the way."

If Bella hadn't been watching, she would have missed the way his smile faltered slightly at the mention. It made her suspicious. She knew something was up. Rosalie had been nowhere near here when Tyler started to slide towards her. In fact, she'd been half way across the parking lot, but had some how managed to get to Bella in time to push her away from what could have been certain death.

"Yes…" he said. He continued to talk about possible tests to run Bella through as he felt around her head for other bumps and bruises. Bella winced when he poked a particularly tender spot near the base of her spine but was otherwise fine. "You shouldn't need any x-rays," he continued. "But we should do an MRI just to be safe."

"I'm fine," Bella felt herself saying it before she could stop herself. "Really, it's okay."

"Bella," Charlie said drawing her attention. He looked tired. He'd been up out late and up early nearly every night for the last week. The bags under his eyes were getting bigger by the day but he was more worried for Bella than his own health. "He's the doctor. If he thinks you should do this, then do it."

Bella sighed. If nothing else, she'd do it to keep Charlie from worrying, but she already knew what they'd say. Besides a headache, there was nothing wrong.

Sure enough, one MRI and an hour and a half later, Carlisle returned with the results of the test. "Just a bump on the head." he said with a chuckle. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief. "Take some Tylenol and if the headache worsens or you have vision problems, call me or come back. I'll go get a nurse so we can get you started on release forms, and then, you should be set to go."

Carlisle shook Charlie's hand as he left the room and several minutes later a nurse returned with papers for him to sign. Bella in the meantime, sat and contemplated what had happened that day.

Something was up with the Cullens. She wanted to shake it off. Bella knew she as probably just crazy. She had hit her head after all. But something just wasn't right.

She'd decided to save it for another day though when a yawn threatened to suck her whole face in. She was exhausted, and she still had her homework to do that night. She didn't even realize how hungry she was until her stomach rumbled so loud, she felt the rest of her body shake with its resonance.

The waiting room was an awkward experience all together. When Esme said the entire school had shown up, she wasn't exaggerating. In fact, some of them had been right outside the door to her room. Mike, Jessica, and Angela had rushed up to her as she came out and immediately released a floodgate of questions onto her. Rather than drown, Bella gave a blanket "I'm fine" statement, then followed after Charlie out to the cruiser.

The ride home was done in silence. Bella too absorbed in her own personal dilemmas to talk to her father, stared out the window of the cruiser and watched the forest fly by. She could have sworn she saw something running through the trees but chalked it up to a trick of light. Disappointment was the emotion that eventually won out. Rosalie never come back to the hospital. Or Bella left before she got there.

She wasn't exactly sure why she cared so much, but it weighed heavy in her chest like someone hung weights on her ribs and heart. The way Rosalie had looked at her after the crash. Her eyes so afraid. Bella just couldn't figure out why Rosalie even cared or where a look like that could have come from. That was the first time Rosalie had even spoken to her. And her voice, Bella's breath hitched just thinking about it.

Bella was forced to stay home the next day. She tried to convince Charlie that she was fine but he had finally seen through the repeated words and refused to bow down to his daughter.

"Bella, you almost died," he said. It was soft. Bella had never heard Charlie speak that way before. It was because he was scared for her. Bella knew that of course but she didn't want the attention that missing school the day after an accident brought. The other students would probably show up at her door after school wondering if she was dead.

So, she stayed home. Bored. Eventually she settled on cleaning the house. But since only one person had lived there before her, there wasn't much to clean and she was done by noon. Thoughts of Rosalie were a constant in her head but she tried to ignore them in exchange for blaring loud rock music and trying not to trip as she danced across the floor with the vacuum.

3:30 PM rolled around and Bella found herself draped across the couch flipping through crappy television shows. She paused on a cooking show that involved some kind to twisted BDSM hand-cuffs to inhibit the chefs, and spent an hour or so laughing at the absurdity.

The doorbell rang halfway through the third consecutive episode, and Bella groaned as she got up off the couch to get the door. She swung it open to reveal Mike on the other side. She'd have groaned louder if she didn't think that would offend him.

"Bella!" he shouted. "How are you feeling? I brought you your homework. Figured I could help you out with some of it since you missed the lectures."

"Hi Mike," she said trying to hold back the resignation in her voice. She grabbed the books from him and stepped to the side to let him into the house. She considered telling him that she was fine and wouldn't need any help, but he'd been nice enough to bring the homework over so she figured she'd at least give him a little time. "Thanks for bringing it."

She guided him into the living room and plopped down in her dad's recliner hoping to avoid the close proximity that came with sitting on the couch. "So, what did I all miss?"

"Well Jessica wrote up those notes for you from your morning classes so I don't know what you missed from there," he said. "But! In biology, we did another lab. This time we were testing our blood types. It was really cool. Found out I was O negative. Mr. Banner said that's the universal donor, which I guess is pretty cool. In gym, we moved onto basketball…"

Bella zoned him out as he rambled on about the basketball game in gym. Something about Eric and Tyler on the other team and Bella couldn't get herself to care. She glanced over the notes that Jess had written for her, they were in a pink gel pen that made Bella's eyes hurt a little to read but they weren't half bad and might actually prove useful. She flipped through the few pages of English and Government notes until she paused on a page with a different hand writing. It swirled in a beautiful cursive that looked almost like calligraphy and it was so mesmerizing Bella didn't even read what it said.

"Oh," Mike said. "Those are from Alice Cullen. She heard I was collecting notes for you and offered hers from third period. That was the only class none of us had with you."

"That was nice of her," Bella muttered still staring at the hypnotic letters only to realize they were actually numbers and these were Algebra II notes."

"She's got really nice handwriting," Mike said close to her ear. He'd been sitting on the couch moments ago and the sudden sound caused Bella to jump and squeak. Mike grinned at her and gave her a chuckled sorry.

"I have to get to football practice," he said after several moments of silence. " I just figured that the earlier I got these to you the better."

He looked reluctant to leave as he had barely moved toward the door. Bella got up from her chair and walked with him over to the door, thanking him again for bringing her homework and notes. He blushed from the gratitude and opened the door.

"It was no big deal, really," he said. He went out the door and paused on the top step before turning around to face Bella again. He looked like he wanted to say something, or rather, he wanted Bella to say something but he just shook his head and continued on down the steps.

Bella sighed once the door was closed, partially grateful for the distraction her homework would provide, and partially disappointed that this would probably mean more unwanted attention from Mike.

The next morning, Bella rose early to get to school. She wanted to get there with enough time that she could find Rosalie and thank her for saving her. But Bella also wanted answers. How had Rosalie gotten there so fast? She needed to know.

Her feet carried her across the parking lot where she saw the Cullens leaned against their vehicles waiting for the first bell like they did every day. They were all as beautiful as ever. Alice and Jasper were holding hands and talking close to one another. Occasionally Alice would let out a small giggle and lay her hand on Jasper's chest. Edward leaned against his Volvo, staring at the crowd of students in the lot. He was being broody in Bella's opinion. He looked like he was about to spout off some nihilistic poetry about the meaningless lives they live. Emmett had gone inside almost the minute they'd gotten there and Bella had been relieved that she'd have at least one less Cullen to speak in front of.

As she got closer, all four Cullens turned their heads toward her. Alice was smiling at her encouragingly, but Rosalie was grimacing and looked ready to bolt. Wanting to keep that from happening, Bella increased her speed until she was half jogging across the parking lot to get to them and she arrived out of breath.

"Hi Bella," Alice said. The energy in her voice made Bella crack a smile around her labored breathing.

"Hey, Alice," she said around breaths. "Thanks for the notes. They were way better than anything I'd have been able to do."

"Of course," Alice said moving closer to Bella and grabbing one of her hands happily before releasing it and pulling Jasper off towards the school buildings. Edward took this as his cue to be anywhere but here and moved languidly across the parking lot to one of the outer buildings which Bella thought had some music rooms in it.

"Rosalie," Bella said looking at her feet. She heard a hum come from the other girl and pushed her chin up to look her in the eye but Rosalie avoided eye contact like she couldn't actually see Bella's eyes.

"I wanted to thank you for the other day," Bella said softly. "If it weren't for you, I might not be here."

Bella could have sworn she saw a flash of something in Rosalie's eyes but she wasn't sure what.

"I don't know how you got to me so fast bu—"

"I was beside you the whole time," Rosalie said quickly.

"No—"

"I was beside you the whole time," she said again leaving no room for argument. Suspicion only grew at Rosalie's insistence and she squinted at the blonde who had still refused to make eye-contact.

"Um, well, no," Bella said. "But regardless, thank you."

"Don't mention it," Rosalie said. "To anyone."

Rosalie walked away leaving an empty and ominous feeling growing in Bella's chest. She hadn't understood what the blonde had meant and she had a sinking feeling that it had more than one meaning.

Bella tried to catch up to Rosalie before she got to whatever class she was going to, but she tripped too many times to keep stride and lost her just before she entered the classroom. Giving up for the time, Bella went to her own first period class and plotted. She would get Rosalie to talk to her one way or another.

And above all, Rosalie would look her in the eye. No matter what it took. Rosalie would give her the truth.