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Chapter 6
Emmett ran through the forest, the trees moving past him in a blur. He had picked up her scent as soon as he reached the house and followed it out of the back and into the thick of the foliage. He hadn't heard from Rosalie in a few days since Bella first went into the hospital. No one expected to hear from Rosalie and to their shame, they hadn't thought to check on her either. The vulnerable one in the family was Bella and that's all they could focus on. But underneath the impenetrable skin and frozen heart, the fragile humanity lingered, and Rosalie carried that burden the hardest.
Suddenly Emmett found himself coming to a halt where her scent had stopped. A flash of gold caught his eye from up in the trees and without hesitation, he took a leap and bounded through the branches until he was face to face with his wife. He took a seat next to her silently, letting his legs swing from the branch as Rosalie's did, sliding an arm around her waist, allowing her to lean into his strong embrace, resting her head on his shoulder.
After a while, time stopped meaning anything to the Cullens. They had no luxury such as sleep. They lived one endless day. There were those days when a new member would join their family, change would occur, their family dynamics would shift ever so slightly and then time would stop again. Yet after centuries together, no one day felt different otherwise. Time wasn't something they felt, like a human would because as Rosalie had pointed out so many times, they were frozen. Never moving forward. It's what she missed the most, the possibilities. While watching over Bella in the hospital, Emmett was reminded of this very fact and without a word, he disappeared to find his wife.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," Emmett murmured, lacing his fingers through hers.
Rosalie didn't reply for a moment as she felt the resentment simmer through her. She swallowed the bitter taste of anger that she knew was just bubbling below the surface as her whole family, including her husband, hovered over Bella as she lay in the hospital.
"I know why you didn't," Rosalie acknowledged quietly. She sighed, taking in the sight of the greenery, yet still not quite seeing it through her golden eyes. "I just couldn't be there." She didn't elaborate. She didn't need to.
"We know," Emmett replied, squeezing her hand gently.
"How is she?" Rosalie asked.
Emmett's eyebrows raised ever so slightly in surprise at her apparent interest.
"She's been better," he answered, letting out a large gust of air. "She sleeps a lot. Honestly, she didn't respond to treatment very well at first and she's really weak." He paused for a moment. "To quote Carlisle: she had a raised pressure in the pulmonary artery, and it caused problems in the right ventricle of her heart. I can't say any of us understood any of that drivel, but Edward said that it just meant her heart is weak. She's now on medication for blood pressure to relieve the stress on her heart. Carlisle is hopeful that she'll make a full recovery."
Rosalie listened to Emmett's update silently, a frown present between her eyebrows.
"She wouldn't be there if it wasn't for being involved in our family," she murmured quietly, but Emmett's eager hearing picked up every word.
Emmett looked down at Rosalie and pressed his lips together. They have had many arguments before regarding Bella. Usually Emmett tried to pacify her, rather than voice that he had no problem with Bella. He understood why Rosalie was initially so angry, then resentful and of course, bitter about having Bella around and involved so fiercely with Edward but he knew there were just some things that she couldn't let go. But neither could Bella.
"You're right," Emmett agreed, much to Rosalie's surprise.
She leaned back and looked into his eyes. She could see that he genuinely agreed with her.
"Why are you so shocked?" he asked with a frown.
"You agree with me on this," she stated the obvious.
"Well, if she hadn't have fallen in love with Edward and by extension, our family," he explained, "she wouldn't have had her heart broken and felt the full force of what it means to be human." He pressed his lips together again and cupped Rosalie's face with his hand. "But someone else could have broken her heart. Something else could have put her in a state of depression. She could have gone through anything that any of us did." He sighed and leaned forward to press his lips against Rosalie's gently. "This isn't because she knew us."
"The difference is," Rosalie argued, "if she died, she'd move on. We can't. And now, neither can she."
"You forget that heartbreak very nearly killed Edward, too," he reminded her. "We're capable of having our hearts broken." He rested his hand above her heart and leaned forward. "It means it still works."
If she was capable, Rosalie knew tears would have fallen from her eyes. Emmett was the only person who ever loved her, even when she hated herself the most. She fell into his embrace as he held her close. It was the only safe haven she had, and it made her feel selfish. It was the only thing in this world that had ever made her feel so. She forced the life she detested onto the man she loved the most, yet he idolised her no matter what. He'd embraced his new life. She thanked whoever looked down on her for giving these moments between them to her, for reminding her that her even vampires had humanity underneath it all. It's what she had to hang onto.
"You're all I ever needed, Rose," he told her.
She smiled into his jacket, inhaling his sweet scent. She knew that this was true of Carlisle and Esme, Alice and Jasper, and now, Edward and Bella.
Edward sat at Bella's bedside, her hand clasped in his carefully. He no longer heard the heart monitor that stood behind her bed to the side, or the foot traffic that went on beyond the door to her room. Honestly, he didn't even smell the blood that tainted the hospital anymore. All he was aware of was her. The motion of her eyes while she slept indicated that she was in a deep sleep, dreaming.
"Oh, Bel," Gran sighed, holding out her hand for her granddaughter to take.
Bella frowned, placing her hand in her Gran's without thinking twice about it.
"What is it, Gran?" she wondered, following her Gran as she pulled her forward with her. She looked around her and found that they were in the meadow, where the sun was shining down particularly brightly.
"I wasn't supposed to see you again so soon," she replied, wagging her finger at her.
"Why not?" Bella asked, sadness passing over her face. "I like it here."
"I know, dear," she sighed, stopping in her tracks. She looked up at Bella through her chocolate brown eyes that reflected Bella's perfectly and she considered her thoughtfully. "You're not ready yet."
"For what?" Bella questioned, looking worryingly at her Gran, whose face appeared to mirror her own.
Edward had been sitting motionlessly with his eyes closed for a long period of time. He stopped believing in a deity a long, long time ago. He didn't think anyone had had his back, right from the beginning of his life. His human memories were fuzzy now. Every moment of his vampire life was crystal clear, and it was tainted red. It brought him no joy to reflect on his time on this Earth before Bella entered his life. His heart still carried the scar of losing his parents, one after another and then losing his own life. He could never forget that he lost the time to do what he wanted to in life before the influenza struck his family. Then the hunger took hold of him when he turned. His gift, or curse depending on which way he looked at it, was hardly a blessing. He couldn't survive as a nomad and it made it so much harder when he tried to live up to Carlisle. To live everyday hearing everyone else's hopes and dreams and never being able to fulfil his own hurt him deeply. As he sat at his fiancées bedside, he couldn't help but feel he was having another thing that he cared about dearly being taken from him again.
That's when his eyes shot open in shock.
The door opened and Carlisle walked in. He simply walked over to the machines to check on everything like he usually did then paused as he took in Edward's expression.
"Son, what is it?" he asked in concern.
"I can hear her," he whispered, the shock evident in his voice.
"What do you mean?" Carlisle wondered, looking between the slumbering Bella and his son.
"Her thoughts," he murmured, his eyes flashing in worry up at him. "They're not clear, but I'm having snippets of thoughts. Everyone sounds different. No two people sound the same. I couldn't miss it. It's like I'm getting images of what she's seeing in her dreams. The odd thing she's thinking about." He looked up at Carlisle. "Is she dying? Tell me, please."
Carlisle sighed. "I could never lie to you. With any illness, there's always a chance that someone could succumb to their illness, but the likelihood of survival is so much higher these days than before." He looked at Bella for a moment. "She's strong, Edward. She always has been. She's just weak right now and that might be why you're hearing her thoughts. Her guard is down." He paused for a moment and mumbled to himself, "I do wonder how that works." He put his hand on Edward's shoulder. "Recovery is never immediate. It'll just take time."
The problem was that Bella had had a lot of time and time was what had almost killed her.
