I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT!

CHAPTER 7

I had been home now for a couple days and it wasn't easy either. Edward had to pick me up and put me in the wheelchair or in bed. I had tried once to walk on my feet, yeah not a good idea, as soon as I put any weight on then it was instant pain, I got yelled at by Carlisle and Edward for not telling them that I needed to get up. Now that I was finally "settled" I wanted to know what happened in the basement.

"Can I ask you something?" I turned to look at Edward, he was hesitant to answer me, but nodded anyway. "How did you find me? Who was it that was shot?"

"Ok, um, well, when we got to your apartment James had already taken you, we had no idea where he would have gone. The cops had to look up you past encounters with him unfortunately that didn't help us either. They dug up everything that they could get on the guy, past cellmates, everything that was in his name, that's how we found you he had a house that he was renting. When they went there originally nobody was home or at least that's what they thought. They kept a visual on the place in case he was to show up and he did about 3 days later. There was another man with you and him. They couldn't just go in; at least that's what they told me. I don't know the specifics of how they got in or what they did, but I was there that day they finally went in, when everything was done I ran to the basement to get you but you were already passed out. While you were in the hospital they had to take you back right away for surgery because you had a rib that had punctured your lung. That went well; they kept you in ICU for a couple of days, and then placed you in the room that you woke up in. You were in and out of conscience for a while, my dad said that it was because of the pain meds they gave you, they wanted to keep you in as little pain as possible because of all the damage done and because of your rib, and they wanted to give it a good chance to heal first. You were out of it for about a week I think before you finally started to come around. At first you would open your eyes and that was it, you would moan in pain once in awhile but nothing more than that. I was getting worried because they had lowered your dose so that you would start to wake up more but the first day was the same as the others, nothing. Then the second day you woke up for about a minute, you moaned and called for me once then went back to sleep once I put my hand on yours. Your heart would go crazy anytime the door would open, or when someone was touching you other then your hand."

"I don't remember any of this, the only thing I remember is waking up thinking that I was alone until I felt your hand on mine. I think that was my biggest worry was being left alone, it still is. Who was it that got shot at the house? I remember hearing a gun shot and then nothing, after that I remember the door opening then everything went black."

"The guy who was shot, his name was Lonnie, he had been the one James used to keep an eye one you, that's how he knew where you were every time you moved. They found a tape recording made by him of you also, when they searched his house, they also found multiple pictures of you. They think that he was sending them to James in jail also, he was the only on to visit him."

"I don't even know anyone named Lonnie and he didn't look familiar to me either. What happened to James, did they get him or is he still out there?" Edward took in a huge breath letting it out slowly, I could tell that he didn't want to answer me; I knew then that he was still out there.

"Unfortunately he did get away, but they are still trying to get him. When they do he will go to prison this time, when the cops went in to the house he threw Lonnie at them and slipped out the back window on the second level. I haven't heard anymore about him yet, sorry. I can call the detective and see if he knows anything more if you like."

"Please, I want to know what is going on at all times when it's concerning him. I need to know if he is still in the area, what if he tries to come after me again. He already knows where I live; I really need to look into a new place to live also. I will pay you for the repairs that were needed to my apartment, once that's finished and I can move around more I'll have to start…" Edward placed his hand over my mouth to shut me up.

"Now listen and listen closely ok?" I nodded my head that I was listening; he still had his hand over my mouth so that I couldn't talk. "You. Are. Not. Going. To. Move. Do you understand me?" He said everything slowly like he was speaking to a child, I nodded that I understood him. "Good, now what is going to happen is when your place has been repaired, which you will NOT be paying for under any circumstances, you can box your stuff up and put it in a storage unit if you want. However you will not be moving from this building, you will be moving in here with me, permanently." He uncovered my mouth so that I could answer him now. I didn't really know what to say, I did like staying here with him but was it too soon? Did he really want me here or was it just to baby sit me?

"Yes I really do want you here with me; I have loved having you here even though it's only been a couple of days. I am not babysitting you, you are my girlfriend and I want you to live with me, as for it being to soon, I don't know I personally don't think that it is. If you're worried about James finding you don't, I will protect you, if I have to leave there will be a guard outside of the door while I am gone. I love you and I don't want anything to happen to you again." I threw my arms around him and hugged him as tight as I could even though it hurt to do so. He gently picked me up and placed me sideways on his lap so that I was more comfortable.

"Did I really say that out loud? I love you too. You have no idea how scared I was that he was going to kill me and I would never get the chance to tell you that. I do want to move in here, but I'm afraid that he is going to find me and then go after you to get to me. It would kill me if I lost you to him." I was trying so hard not to cry but it wasn't working, the more I thought about James going after Edward the worse the scenario I would come up with.

"Don't worry about me ok, he can try to hurt me, it's you that I worry about. When we couldn't find you I was yelling at everyone, even my parents and they had nothing to do with this. When we finally found you and they had taken you into the hospital I would not leave. The nursing staff told me that I couldn't stay in your room so I would sit right outside your door on the floor and wait until they would let me. Eventually the nurses got sick of me and let me stay in your room, that and my dad talked to them." He laughed, I could see him sitting out there waiting and annoying the nurses until he got his way.

"You know that annoying the nursing staff isn't going to help you any right?" I asked him and he just shrugged his shoulder, he didn't seem to care too much.

"Yeah but you know it worked this time. Do you have anymore questions about what's happened?" I shook my head, "Ok then, I'm going to go call the detective and see if he can stop by and talk to us ok?" I nodded, I was starting to get sleepy and I needed to take my pain meds, so I wheeled into the kitchen to find something to eat. I noticed that his kitchen was well stocked this time, the last time he didn't even have food here. I reached up to grab a yogurt from the fridge and was instantly met with pain, it was hard to remember that I could only reach so far and being in the wheelchair really limits me. I must have cried out in pain but didn't realize it when Edward came running into the room.

"What, what happened? Are you ok? Do you want me to call my dad?"

"No…not yet…give…me…a…minute," I wheezed out, I tried to slow my breathing down so that I could talk. Edward waited patiently for me to catch my breath, when I finally did I told him that I was just trying to reach for the yogurt so that I could take my pain meds. He reached up and grabbed the yogurt for me and then got a spoon also, he left the kitchen and came back a minute later with my pain meds and handed them to me with a glass of milk.

"Thank you," I said, I was really grateful that he was doing all of this for me but it was frustrating that I couldn't do it myself. I'm used to being on my own; since my parents had passed I was the only one.

"Hey don't be so down on yourself ok. I know that you aren't used to having someone take care of you, but you had better get used to it, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere ok." He had crouched down in front of me while he was talking so that he would be eye level and I had to look at him. I could see the sincerity in his eyes so I nodded.

"It's hard though, I've been on my own since I was 19 and even before that, while I was growing up I took care of the meals, both mom and dad worked so I also took care of the cleaning. They were great parents don't get me wrong, they took care of the bills, when it was time for the grocery shopping I went with so that the right items were bought. I didn't mind, I liked going to the store with my mom when it was grocery shopping, now clothes shopping of any kind and I am so against it. Did you know that your sister still keeps trying to get me to go with her?"

"Well you don't have to worry about that then for the next few weeks." I rolled my eyes at him he clearly didn't know his sister very well. There was a knock at the door just then so Edward went to answer it. I rolled myself into the living room to see who was here; it was none other than Alice herself with Jasper, Em, and Rose in tow.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" I was wondering why they were all here together; did they know that Edward had called the detective?

"Love, I called them to come over so that when the detective gets here he can fill us all in on what is going on. We will all be here to help you threw this ok?" I nodded. We sat around and talked until the detective was do to show up.

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Around 3pm the Detectives Sam and Emily showed up, Edward led them into the living room so that we could all be present and hear what he had to tell us.

"Glad to see that you are out of the hospital Miss. Swan, how are you feeling?" Detective Emily asked me as she came into the room.

"Better, I'm still in a bit of pain," Edward snorted at that, I just looked at him and narrowed my eyes telling him to shut it. "Shut it you!" I told him and then looked back at Detective Emily, "I have times that are worse then others but I'm managing. Plus it help that Edward takes such good care of me." I felt him kiss the top of my head in gratitude. "So shall we get started? I would really like to know what happened while I was out of it."

"Well I'm sure that you know James did get away, we have the house he was renting under 24 hour surveillance, as of right now he has not been back there. There is no car registered in his name so we don't know what he is driving. We have also been monitoring his credit card activity, but there hasn't been anything on it either. Did you know a man named Lonnie?" I shook my head no, "he was also in the house with James, when they came up the steps James threw him at us so that he could get away, and unfortunately he was shot and did not survive. We have not been able to make any connection as to how he knows James, I know that we don't have a lot of information to tell you right now but we are still looking into things. It took us a bit to get to you because when we first found the house nobody was there. He showed up about 3 days later at night, it looked like he was carrying you while Lonnie opened the doors. Lonnie was the one who would leave the house to get supplies they needed, he didn't really get much just food. I know that you are worried about him coming back for you but I really don't think that he will we are watching the house he is renting and here as well. He has not turned up at either place; we also are watching the train stations and airports."

"So basically you're saying you have no leads and no clue where to go right?" Emmett asked with annoyance, I could feel it too, this was total bullshit.

"Yes we are unfortunately; I wish that we had some idea about what his motives are." Sam said, "Do you know if he was taking any drugs? What about his parents, were they around while you were dating?"

"No he told me his parents were dead, he didn't tell me how they died and I didn't ask because if he wanted me to know he would have told me. As for the drugs he wasn't taking them that I was aware of."

"Well his parents are not dead, in fact they haven't seen him in almost 4 years, they said that one day he just up and left no note or anything at all. They did say that he was in and out of a rehab close to home but he hadn't been using in awhile." Emily told us, this was news to me.

"He never said anything to me about being in rehab, he never really talked about his past much, when I would bring it up he would change the subject. I just thought that it was sore spot for him and didn't want to talk about it so I didn't bring it up anymore."

"I don't think that he wanted anyone to know who he was, when we checked into the rehab place he would always ask to be called Charles."

"Was that his middle name?" Rose asked.

"No his middle name was Henry, he hated that name. I don't know what his parents names were though."

"His father's name is Aro and his mother's is Irena, they seemed to be nice people from what we could tell when we met them. They were worried about him, he had just turned 18 when he left home so they couldn't call the police and report him, not to say they didn't try. The report said that they were worried that he might have been taken but because he was of legal age they just listed him as a runaway. There was an investigation done but he was never found until now."

"So he knows how to stay under the radar then, if he has been doing this since he was 18, he's now what 24 years old?" Jasper asked.

"Actually he's 28," Sam told us. I was shocked to hear that because he told me that he was 21 when we met. We continued to talk for awhile longer, they were going to keep surveillance on the apartment here and his house along with the airports and train stations. If he was going to be leaving the country we would know.

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"Why not? I will be able to walk hopefully today." I was pleading with him to let me go outside and walk around for a little while, I was getting cabin fever. "Plus I need to return to work, Jasper has to be going out of his mind right now."

"IF and only if my dad says that you can start walking then we can go for a short and I mean short walk, you have to remember that its been almost 3 weeks since you have walked, your legs are going to tire out quickly. Jasper's not worried about you not being there right now, he knows that you want to come back and you will but it will be short shifts at first. Let's just see what dad says when he gets here ok love, I don't want you to tire yourself out right away, and you need to work up to it first."

"Fine, but I want to do something, even if it's only to walk to the elevator a few times, how else am I going to get my strength back?" Edward just rolled his eyes at me, but he wasn't saying no yet we had to wait for Carlisle to clear me first. He was going to be coming over after his shift ends tonight; personally I was excited to be out of this chair and being able to do things on my own. I knew that I had another 3-5 weeks before I could really do much, my ribs were still giving me problems but I didn't need to take the pain meds as much now so I knew that I was healing.

Around 7pm that night Carlisle came over to look me over, I was waiting in the living room for him. I knew that he was going to want to look at my ribs also and make sure that none of the cuts were infected.

"So I hear that you want to run a marathon later tonight huh?"

"Not a marathon just walk around a little bit, I have to get my strength back somehow, and I need to get back to work. This sitting around all day doing nothing is driving me crazy, I can't do anything!"

"Well how do your ribs feel? Are you still taking the Norco regularly?"

"No I only take maybe 3 a day now, when I move the wrong way it bothers me but just sitting here doing nothing I'm fine. First thing in the morning I need to take one, usually right after getting out of bed seems to still be the most difficult for me."

"It's going to be that way until they are completely healed I'm afraid. What about any of your cuts, do they bother you at all?"

"They itch like crazy, some days I want to just tear off my skin to make it stop, but I've been putting on that cream still 3 times a day. Most of them are gone and didn't leave any scars behind."

"That's good, I'm going to take a look at them also, but how about I start with your feet I know that you want to walk and you might be able to later." He sat down on the chair that Edward had brought in for him and started to unwrap my feet, he didn't really say anything; he would just run his hands over them and hum a little.

"These look good, why don't you try to stand and see how it feels then we can go from there." I made sure the breaks were locked and started to pull myself into a standing position, as soon as I put my feet down on the ground I wanted to cry. It was hard, they were sore and stiff, and I knew that I was going to have trouble when I first started to walk but I didn't think I would be in this much pain.

"What you're feeling right now it the new skin stretching out; it's going to be painful. Once you are up and walking more it won't be so bad, the first few times it's going to be very painful. What you can do to help stretch the skin is flex your feet until it's too much and then point them until the pain subsides, keep doing this for about 10 minutes at a time. It's not going to take away the pain completely when you stand but it will make it easier. As for running that marathon, sorry to say it won't happen today, but you can do so some walking, I suggest you use crutches to help you walk until you have more balance. Short walks though, start with just walking around the house for the next couple of days, then if you're doing ok you can walk to the elevator and back a few times or to the end of the hall. Keep doing that for a couple of days, then you can increase more if you're still doing ok. If at any point while you're on your feet other then when you take the first couple of step do you feel any pain you need to stop. For example if your walking fine with little or no pain and then you start to notice that the pain is getting worse you need to stop and sit down, you are over doing it. I know that you want to get back to work as soon as you can but I can tell you right now it's not going to be for another 4-5 weeks before that happens. Your ribs need time to heal first and with the quick moving and bending and heavy lifting that you do it's going to be too much. I will be back to check on you at the end of the week ok?"

"Yeah, I can walk around but only in the house for now, and then in a couple of days I can walk to the end of the hall, if I'm still doing ok then I can walk further. Got it, now can I stand up for a while, like if I wanted to make dinner or lunch?"

"That should be fine, but again if you start to feel pain you need to sit down." Edward was sitting right next to me the whole time so I knew that he was going to be watching me closely to make sure that I didn't overdue it. Carlisle said that he wanted to check the rest of my cuts next and then he would check my ribs.

"Let's see about the other cuts, you said that some of them were gone completely but some were still there, I want to see the ones that are still here first to make sure that they didn't get infected. Are you still taking the antibiotics?" I nodded my head, he said that he was giving me a months worth to take because of the cuts on my feet, it's a place that bacteria like to grow he said. I still had one more week left and then I would finally be done with those.

"Good, you should be about done with them in the next week. Keep taking them; I don't want to take any chances with your feet especially now that you will be walking around. That fact that your other cuts are itching I hate to say is a good thing that means they are healing." He was looking at each cut and would run his hand along them; I didn't understand why he was doing this so I asked him. "I like to see how they feel, it tells me how well they are healing most cuts if they are going to leave a scar will be raised throughout the healing process, most of yours are not raised any longer so they shouldn't leave a scar. Unfortunately there are some that may because they are still raised; those are the ones that were deeper." He moved on to my ribs then, he said they were healing nicely and when he listened to my lungs he said that everything looked good. I was so happy that I could finally get out of this chair and walk around; I knew that it was going to be painful but I could live with that. Carlisle said that he couldn't stay because Esme was at home waiting for him with dinner; I thought that was sweet of her.

Once Carlisle left I started to stand on my own again, Edward was right there next to me so that I could hold on to him, I didn't have the crutched yet to help me so he was going to do. I wanted to walk around as much as I could so I told him that I was going to walk around the apartment just so that I could stretch the skin. I had been walking for about 10 minutes when there was a knock at the door, I told Edward to walk us over there and he did. When he opened the door it was Em and Rose, Emmett was shocked to see me up and walking and Rose was happy that I was able to walk around now.

"So how does it feel to have your legs back?" Emmett asked me.

"I'm so glad I can finally start to do things on my own again, I hate having to rely on people. No offence but I'm used to taking care of myself and others, not having someone take care of me."

"But I love to take care of you," Edward pouted.

"Yes but you need to get back to work, I know that." I reached up to touch the side of his face with my hand, he was so loving and caring with me, I would really miss it once he went back to work.

"I see you're kicking me out! And here I thought that you loved me," he was trying to act like he was hurt but I knew better.

"Yep," I said popping the 'p'. Edward shook his head at me and went to talking with Emmett, still trying to act like he wad hurt but the smile on his face gave him away.

We continued to talk for a couple of hours before they headed home; I decided that I was going to go to bed also. I was getting tired from the walking around but I didn't want to admit it to Edward yet. He gave me a kiss goodnight and said that he would be in after awhile. Once my head hit the pillow I was out.