There will be one more chapter after this, so hang tight.

It was by sheer coincidence that Edward Cullen witnessed Mary Ann Brandon's arrival at Chicago Memorial. One of the ER nurses, Jessica, had invited him to breakfast at the end of a long overnight shift, and Edward had been waiting at the nurses station, wondering what was keeping her (as she had always made it a point to be overly available to him in the past), and passing the time with Kate, Jessica's friend and co-worker.

"Good morning, Dr. Cullen."

"Please, Kate, just Edward. You've seen me naked for God's sake."

"Not a fact I would advertise; and anyway, it was an accident," Kate said defensively, not looking up from her coffee cup.

"You accidentally walked into the mens room thirty seconds after me?"

"I- Okay, fine. You were new and hot and we were all curious, but now we know you and it's just gross, so can we not talk about it anymore?"

Edward pouted. "Jessica doesn't think I'm gross."

"No, she doesn't. But we both know you don't care. In fact, I'd bet the only reason you want me to think you're cute is because I have Garrett now. I'm not a threat."

"Not a threat," Edward scoffed. "Like the time you zapped me with the paddles?"

"Okay, now that was an accident."

"You seem to have a lot of accidents around me. Am I really that distracting?" Edward turned his best gooey eyes to his friend, who seemed flustered, but recovered quickly.

Kate was just about to respond, with something snappy and sarcastic no doubt, when Jessica rushed past them without sparing a glance. She had gotten a call, which explained her absence, but Edward still thought she could have paged him. He had not only wasted ten minutes of sleep just standing there, but now he would have to wait for this patient to clear the doors before he could leave, lest he should get in the way.

Now, Edward was no stranger to the emergency room, and he had seen his fair share of abuse victims, but that never made it any easier. The woman they brought in was badly beaten: broken leg, broken ribs, and had obviously had her head smashed in. She was barely breathing, let alone conscious.

Edward watched and listened, unable to stop himself, as they rushed her past. Blunt force trauma, punctured lung, internal bleeding… they had had to re-start her heart twice on the ride over. By all rights, the woman should have been dead already. She would be lucky to survive the night, and pulling through without permanent disability would be downright miraculous.

"Dr. Cullen!" yelled Kate, tearing his attention from the corner her cart had disappeared around. "You should go get some sleep. Jessica's not going anywhere. You can shut her down tomorrow morning."

Edward tried to laugh with her, but it came out as more of a cough. He nodded and walked out the door; if the patient managed to hang on, he would likely be called upon to assess her neurological health, and he wanted to be well-rested.

oOoOo

"Permanent damage, here, here, and here," said Dr. Patel, pointing to various spots on the negative image of a brain. "It's likely she'll never regain coherent speech. Probably be eating through a tube for the rest of her life, which won't be long, judging from her test results. Best make her comfortable, kid."

People like Dr. Patel were one of the many reasons Edward had become a neurologist: he hated them. They were all very smart, very smug people who always knew what they were doing, always knew best, and never yielded to anyone. Because the brain is most arguably the thing that makes a person who they are, neurologists tended to think that they had the most important job on the planet—and each and every one of them thought that he or she was best at it.

It was times such as these, with doctors like Patel, that Edward really shined.

"Actually," he started, clearing his throat for good measure. "I believe that this one here"-he pointed to the first damage sight- "is just left of vital. And this"-he pointed again- "seems only to be a surface lesion and will likely heal entirely with time. I do agree, however, that she'll have to endure speech problems and assisted living for a time, though that's mostly due to the fact that her trachea was nearly crushed, which has nothing to do with us, so we really shouldn't focus on it."

Dr. Patel gaped for a moment, then let out an undignified snort. "Son, I've been doing this for nearly forty years, and I say she'll be lucky if she wakes up a vegetable. I understand that you've made some sort of name for yourself in comas—sketchy field, mostly luck—but you're in my house now."

"Yes, sir," Edward said. "We'll see."

"Yes, we will." Appeased, Dr. Patel went back to his regular patients, leaving the latest and, in his opinion, most hopeless case to the new guy.

Three hours later, Edward was back in Dr. Patel's office, Mrs. Brandon's latest test results in hand. Needless to say, one of them was about to be severely disappointed.

"Whaddya' got, sport?" Dr. Patel asked with laughter in his voice.

Well, Edward thought as they went over the chart together, there had to be worse things than being wrong. Sure, he might feel like a fool in front of his colleagues, but he was certain Dr. Patel would recover. After all, wasn't losing face better than losing a patient? From the look on the elder's face, maybe not.

"Well, this looks… promising," said Dr. Patel, swallowing hard.

Edward nodded. "Yes, sir. I'd like to wake her up tomorrow. The sooner she speaks with the police, the better off she'll be, and we'll need to test her cognition before then."

"Quite right, Dr. Cullen. Quite right."

oOoOo

Through a series of nods, head shakes, and half-hearted hand signals, Mrs. Brandon was able to communicate the basics of what had happened to the police. Her husband had beaten her to bloody pulp for no reason other than that he could. She would have to make an official statement as soon as they were able to remove all of the tubes from her throat, but it was enough to put out a warrant for Frank Brandon's arrest.

Mary Ann remained calm throughout the proceedings, resigned almost. She listened first while all of her doctors went over everything he had done to her and what that meant. Then the police came, and she was forced to re-live the night through their questions. Edward nearly cried for her, his hardened professional facade saving him that embarrassment. She passed out halfway through questioning, unable to hold onto consciousness any longer. Edward felt she had done quite well under the circumstances.

As they left, one of the cops pulled him aside. He couldn't have been a minute over eighteen, and Edward wondered how he had managed to become an officer so quickly.

"Strictly speaking, Dr. Cullen, this conversation won't have taken place."

Edward nodded his agreement, worried what the boy might have to tell him.

"You see, I'm a little worried here. I need help. The other guys…they're strictly by the book—no heart, no conviction—and I'm sick of watching people suffer because we're doing what we're supposed to. I know you know what I mean."

And Edward did know. He knew what it was like to have to turn someone away because they had a job with no benefits, because he wasn't allowed to make decisions, because it was standard protocol not to act until it was almost too late. They suffered, all of them, needlessly.

The officer watched Edward's face carefully, saying finally. "I knew I'd found a brother in you."

"What can I do?" asked Edward.

"There's a girl," he said, gesturing toward the unconscious woman. "A daughter. Just turned three. Totally helpless, and no one knows where she is. The neighbor says she never leaves the house."

"Doesn't she have family or…" Edward trailed off as the officer shook his head.

"There's no one. The house was swept by some lazy asshole who never even brought in a dog. James and his I can find anything bullshit… Anyway, there's no evidence. We're working under the assumption that she was abducted by the father."

Edward contemplated that for a moment: A three-year-old girl, kidnapped by the man who had almost killed her mother. It was a depressing thought.

"But we need to know," the officer continued forcefully. "The Amber Alert is out, but if she's not with him, if she's out on her own or still in the house…"—he ran his hands through his wild blonde hair— "The minute she's conscious again, you need to ask her. Call, but don't wait for us to get here. Just find out if she knows where the girl is and tell whoever shows that she brought it up on her own."

Edward nodded. "I'll call," he promised. "I'll call you directly, Officer…"

"Whitlock," he said, offering his hand. "Jasper Whitlock."

oOoOo

Fourteen hours went by. Edward was well off his shift, but he hadn't left Mary Anne's side. She might wake up at any moment, and where would he be? Safely at home while a three-year-old suffered? He didn't think so.

And there was no way he would pass along Jasper's request to someone to else. Edward felt as though he had been hand-chosen by Officer Whitlock, and to turn his back on this would be to turn his back on the girl, and to take the one man who would damn the rules to save her and throw him under the bus.

Again, not likely.

He suffered the agony of hospital paste (they called them "mashed potatoes") and a thick, mud-like sludge ("coffee") because it was the only thing the nurse would bring him, and he was afraid to leave. If she woke while he was away, they would probably sedate her. She had too much healing to do, too much pain to deal with. It would be the most humane thing, to help her sleep through it. But this was more important. Edward would endure a lifetime of whatever Nurse Clearwater thought to bring him if he had to.

Around one, the shift changed, and Nurse Weber brought him a cheeseburger. Unlike her predecessor, she didn't stop to ask Edward what he was doing every fifteen minutes, assert she was not his waitress, or try to make him go to the on-call room and "get the hell out of her way." Angela just smiled softly, sympathetically, and worked around him as needed. He understood now why Ben had always harbored affection for her.

Whenever Edward brought it up, Ben had always protested that nurses hated doctors, especially surgeons. Edward didn't bother to inform him that it was the members of his own profession that most nurses hated on principal. Although, considering their attitudes, it may have gone without saying. But surgeons also tended to be cocky and domineering, and the nurses tended to not like being told they were "good little helpers". Of course, Edward knew that Ben had never said, nor would he ever say, such a thing. Nurses were the backbone holding the hospital upright; every good doctor knew that.

But Ben was stubborn, and he wouldn't take "It worked on Scrubs" as an answer, either. He had divided the classes, placing hurdles that didn't exist. Ben was not a cocky asshole, and Angela was quite clearly not a prideful, bitter harpy. Hell, if she would bring a neurologist a cheeseburger without comment she was probably a saint. Edward would definitely have to fix them up some time.

The cheeseburger came with fries, and Edward thought briefly about telling Ben to go to Hell; he would marry Angela himself. But as the delicious smell of deep-fried potato product wafted out of the bag, two things happened: Edward's stomach rumbled, which wasn't altogether surprising, and Angela gasped. At first, he had thought it was her surprise at his extreme hunger, but what could she expect with the orderlies gone and no one but Leah to turn to?

Then he saw what had really caught her attention: Mary Anne's eyes were open.

"Nurse!" Edward barked out without properly thinking. "I mean, Angela… Would you please call this number and ask for Officer Whitlock? Inform him that the patient is awake and that I am seeing to her personally. Then, after you've spoken with him, please page the attending."

"After, Dr. Cullen?" Angela asked, flipping Jasper's card in her hand. She was not questioning his instructions, only clarifying.

"After," he confirmed.

The moment Angela had cleared the door, Edward rounded on the patient.

"Miss, do you know who you are?"

She nodded.

"Do you know where you are?"

She nodded again.

"Mrs. Brandon, where is your daughter?"

Mary Anne's heart rate soared, the monitor off the charts. Edward hastily silenced the alarm and placed a restraining arm across Mary Anne's torso. When she had found herself unable to speak, she had decided to start removing the tubing herself.

"Mrs. Brandon, you have to calm down," Edward told her. He was sure that Angela would ignore the alarm as long as possible, knowing he was in there, but soon she would have to come and his opportunity would be lost. "I'm going to remove the tubing, but you've got to calm down. If the other doctors see you like this they're going to sedate you again, and by the time you wake up, it may be too late."

Mary Anne nodded frantically, keeping her body as stiff and still as possible. There was nothing to be done for her racing pulse or the mixture of snot and tears she was now drowning in. Not now that she remembered her baby. Edward allowed himself to pity her for a moment as he removed the tracheal tubes. It was only temporary, but still ill-advised. She would need to be intubated again right away.

He would make his excuses when he had to. For now, he had a child to save.

"Cl—Closet," she gasped out immediately. "Un— Derstairs— Locked!" she cried. "Locked in!"

"Dr. Cullen, what is the meaning of this?" Eric "Rejected-By-Every-Nurse-To-Cross-His-Path" Yorkie was there to save the day.

"She—" Edward started, but Yorkie would not allow it.

"Why are you here? What have you done to this patient? Why aren't you allowing my nurses to do their jobs?"

Angela, who had rushed in with Eric and immediately set to the task of sedating Mrs. Brandon, looked up, dumbfounded at being referred to as his nurse. She made a noise halfway between confusion and disgust before turning to Edward.

"Officer Whitlock is waiting downstairs," she told him, then turned toward Eric. "Are you going to intubate or what?"

At the mention of Jasper, Edward remembered his assignment. It had only been two days; they might still have time. But they had to go now, and he wanted to be there. He fled down the stairs with ungodly speed, cheeseburger cold and forgotten.

Hangin' in there, loves?

P.S. This was unbeta'd. Feel free to point out any major mistakes. I will most likely fix them.