*August 14, 2015 – Chapter rewritten from the original

This is Edward's POV. PS Sorry, I suck at writing Edward! The first part is just a little introduction and then the second part takes place where the last chapter left off.

Thanks to all who have reviewed, you guys are so amazing!

Chapter Six
Hallucinations

Playing human day after day, year after year, was tedious. The only reason I kept up the monotonous façade was because the love I had for my family. But playing human meant blending in; doing human things. For my siblings and I, that consisted of school. The younger we posed, the longer we could stay in any one place without arousing suspicion that we weren't aging.

High school was boring for my brothers and sisters. For me, it was hell. I could have dealt with the mind-numbing classes, the endless hours, if it weren't for the constant steam of the inner thoughts of the entire student body.

Nothing ever happened in small towns and Forks was even more mundane than the usual places we ended up settling in. With mundane life, in such a small place, made for extremely dull thoughts in the people that occupied this watery hole in the road.

We had been here over two years. Each day that passed was even less interesting than the pervious.

Except the day Bella Swan arrived.

That was when the small log town got a whole lot more interesting.

Only Alice understood why I was so attached to the new girl. None of my other family members seemed to know why I was so drawn to her. In fact, I was not even sure myself. I tried to tell them, and myself, that it was because, in all my existence, I had never met anyone vampire or human, whose mind I could not read.

There was literally nothing from her. Completely blank. And it was the most frustrating thing I had experienced. At first, it made me uneasy, but throughout the day, while watching her through her classmate's minds, the uneasiness flittered into fascination. I had to know her. I needed to know the thoughts behind the closely guarded girl whose mind was a complete block to me.

I thought that by asking her to sit with me at lunch would be the beginning of trying to unlock what I couldn't hear with my extra hearing. I thought being near her, asking direct questions and getting to know her, would help me see into her mind.

But she fell ill before I even uttered one of my many questions. It was then I realized that I wasnt prepared to lose the only person with whom I could have a concersation and surpise me before they said a single word. It was then that I realized that Bella's silent mind was a gift. And I didnt want to lose such a precious gift.

-x

As I raced toward my own house as opposed to Bella's, I ran through all the common illnesses that could plague a human. Gastroenteritis, food poisoning, the flu, a migraine. The list was endless.

So far the most obvious one was gastroenteritis. The pain, the fever, the vomiting. Simple stomach flu.

I hoped.

But then I couldn't help but imagine all of the worst case scenarios. And I pictured Bella grey and lifeless. Dead. Humans were so fragile that even a simple infection could kill them without warning. Once the organs started to shut down, it would hit them hard and fast and there was little medicine could do about it.

That thought almost paralyzed me.

I was struggling to rationalize it because I did not know Bella well at all, but the thought of her not being alive anymore, the thought of not seeing blush in her cheeks, of not seeing those brown eyes light up when she smiled, was more painful than I could put into words.

I felt as if I had known her for years, as if I had cared about her for all that time.

As I pulled into the drive way over the lawn, I had never been so pleased to see Carlisle's car parked in the drive. Although I considered myself a fairly competent doctor, despite not actively practicing, I knew Carlisle was the best. Even if Bella did just have a simple ailment, I still wanted Carlisle to reassure me so.

Bella was unconscious by the time I pulled her from the car. Alice had run ahead to find Carlisle. He and Esme rushed to my side as soon as I stepped in the house with the Swan girl laying lifeless in my arms.

"No blood was spilled," I said quickly. Before they could stop themselves, both Carlisle and Esme thought that one of us slipped up and taken the girls' life. "She is still alive. But she is ill."

I could hear my parent's apologies, but I waved them off, setting Bella on the cream sofa in our large living room.

"She has deteriorated in the time it has taken me to get here," I told my father as Esme opened his medical bag. "Her heart rate was just a little over one hundred. Now it is near one-eighty. She has vomited twice that we know of. Fever and the shakes. And pain in her abdomen." I ticked off all Bella's symptoms.

"And we think hallucinations," Alice said. "Before we got her into the car, it appeared as she if was having a conversation with someone who wasn't there…"

I tried to explain to the others what I saw Jacob Black's mind when he saw Bella yesterday. It was strange. He was remembering a painful time. His mom had just died. He wanted answers from Bella. Then I saw clear as day from the kids' memory Bella talking to someone that wasn't there, then looking back to Jacob and explaining what she…heard.

Rosalie nastily suggested schizophrenia, and Bella was talking to voices in her head, but I dismissed her theory. Jacob's mind was clear, yet snarly. It was hard to interpret exactly what he was remembering and thinking at the time.

And Alice was right, she was talking to someone who wasn't there minutes ago in the parking lot. We saw it for ourselves.

Carlisle stayed silent as he examined Bella, his mind listing all the possible illnesses that I had already thought of. He took her blood pressure – which was extremely low – and other vitals. She still hadn't stirred, or made a sound at all.

"I need to get some blood work, urine sample – even a spinal tap," Carlisle said. "It could be anything from Gastro to meningitis. We need to get her to the ER so I can get her the right treatment."

"I'll call ahead so they are prepared," Esme said as Carlisle picked up Bella gently in his arms. "And then I'll call her father."

I followed Carlisle toward the front door, an odd feeling rose within me. Then I realized that I was jealous. I wanted to snatch Bella from Carlisle so that she was in my arms. I wanted to hold her. To be near her. To sooth her.

Bella's labored breathing distracted me. But her eyes opened which gave me somewhat relief.

"Bella?"

"Put…me down," she said weakly.

"She's going to vomit," Alice warned.

There wasn't time to set her down before she vomited all over the porch, somehow missing Carlisle's feet. I held her hair, and stoked the side of her arm. .

When she finished, she looked up at me, tears sparkling those beautiful brown eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"Don't worry about it dear," said Esme, standing on Carlisle's other side. Poor thing, she looks so ill, she added in her head, not even giving the vomit a second thought.

"Let's go!" I said urgently. I wanted to take her in my arms again, but this time to run with her to the hospital. I knew I was faster than even than Carlisle's Mercedes.

Carlisle looked sideways at me. He really does having feelings for this girl…I wonder…

I blocked out what he wondered, my only concern was Bella. I almost tore the car door open and sat in the back of the car. Carlisle gently placed Bella over my lap, while Alice hopped in the front. Esme stayed behind as there was no room, and Carlisle broke a couple of rules of the road to get to the hospital urgently.

We reached the hospital in record time. I almost pulled Bella out while the car was still moving. She had been floating in and out of consciousness the whole way, but she never said a word.

As I darted though the door of the ER, Bella coughed violently, gagging, before throwing up blood. She continued to choke, her breathing becoming restricted.

"A little help here," I demanded before several medics in scrubs came running.

I laid Bella on the gurney someone seemed to conjure, and a hive of activity went on around her. I ran with them, while the doctors tried to calm Bella down so they could help clear her breathe.

Carlisle became the cool, calm and collected Dr Cullen in an instant, relying to his team what he knew so far, and Bella was rushed into the resuscitation room.

"Come on, you don't need to see this," Alice whispered at my side. I look down to my little sister.

"Yes I do," is all I replied.

"I can't see her future," Alice admitted. "Her life is so unstable, so I can't see if she will be okay." Alice must have seen the pain in my eyes. "But Carlisle has her. She will be fine."

"Alice, go, the blood is strong, and we don't need accidents," I said, my eyes never leaving Bella.

"No, I will stay."

By now Bella had stopped brining up blood, but she was still struggling to breathe. Sweat beaded her forehead, but she was shaking like she was cold.

Monitors were placed on Bella and they had placed an oxygen mask on her face. The medical team were talking about skipping the endoscopy or CT scan and head straight into surgery, thinking that she had a perforated ulcer. An ulcer was a common human ailment. A perforated one was life threatening.

"Her SATs are still dropping," a nurse said in a clear voice and the doctors all looked up at the monitors.

Before they could decide anything, the monitors went wild.

Her heart rate dropped dramatically and her oxygen levels were low, despite the mask.

Bella was gasping for air, hyperventilating.

"Carlisle! She is turning blue!" I shouted, rushing to her side.

I barely heard the activity going on around me; I just kept a hold of Bella's hand. No one could understand what was going on; they couldn't identify the cause of her sudden respiratory distress.

A nurse was ordered to get her online medical file from Phoenix, and someone was on the phone to her father to see if she had any underlying medical conditions.

A tube was inserted into the back of throat so they could control her breathing mechanically, and slowly, her oxygen rose. I didn't let go of her hand while they worked around us.

When her vitals were stable enough, Bella went for an endoscopy; a thin camera down the back of her throat and into her stomach. What stumped everyone, was that there was no bleeding in the stomach at all. No ulcer, perforated or otherwise.

It was as if the blood she had vomited at disappeared as suddenly as it came. Which didn't make any medical sense. Carlisle ordered more tests. While we waited for the results, Bella was placed in the ICU and hooked up to several more monitors and machines, including a ventilator to help her breathe.

After each test came back clear, including the spinal tap to test for meningitis, and a clean CT scan, Carlisle became even more frustrated that he couldn't find the cause of Bell's sudden illness.

Since I was still stuck in the role of human teenager and wasn't supposed to have the medical degrees that I possessed, I was forced to play the helpless human friend.

For lack of something to do and because I wanted to be close to Bella as I could, I sat by her bedside, listening to the breathing machine, the beeps of the monitors and watching her chest rise and fall softly. I had known this girl for only a day, but I knew I would have gladly given my own life to protect her. I would have gladly taken her place; I just wanted her to wake up and be okay.

Just minutes of being in the ICU, I heard a frantic 'voice'.

"Her father is here," I told Alice and she nodded.

Carlisle greeted him at the nurses' station, telling him what was going on. He tried to prepare Chief Swan, telling him the monitors and ventilator looked worse than they were. When the door opened, Alice and I got out of Chief Swan's way.

He froze at the foot of the bed, horror struck. "Oh Bells," the Chief said stiffly. He walked to her bedside and touched the back of her hand. "She was sick last night," he croaked. "I thought it was just a virus or something. If I had known…"

Carlisle quickly looked at me, but I shook my head. I hadn't known that she had been sick the night before. It was like a kick to the stomach when I realized that if I could have only read her mind, then I might have known that she was unwell the previous night.

The venom in the back of my throat turned sour.

"It's not your fault, Charlie," Carlisle assured him. "We'll get to the bottom of this." Carlisle wasn't going to make promises. He wasn't going to say "she'll be okay in no time." Because he simply didn't know if that were true.

If I had a beating heart, it would have turned to stone in fear. If Carlisle was worried…

I didn't want to relish the thought.

Alice motioned for me to leave. To give Charlie a moment to see his only daughter hooked up to machines that were trying to keep her alive. I wanted to stay. To never leave her side, but Alice was giving me a pointed look, so I turned to leave with her.

"You were with her?" Charlie asked, his voice hoarse.

"Yes, we were having lunch and she said she couldn't eat because the food made her want to be sick," I told him honestly.

"Dr Cullen said it happened so fast, was she in a lot of pain?"

"I knew she was in pain, but she didn't really complain about it," I said. "Then she vomited in the parking lot before we took her to Carlisle… she was hot and sweating and I think she was hallucinating because of the fever." Even to my ears I sounded pained.

The Chief froze. "Hallucinating?" he asked sharply.

"Yes, with a high fever people tend to see things that aren't there," I said slowly. Then things fell into place. Charlie was given me the final piece to the puzzle of what the strangeness about Bella Swan. I couldn't speak.

The Chiefs' face boiled in anger, not realizing my reaction to his thoughts. "She was speaking to someone that wasn't really there?"

"Yes, something like that," said Alice, confused. But I was frozen on the spot. What I heard from Bella's fathers mind made more sense than all my theories.

"She has done it before, hasn't she?" I asked him.

"They don't ever leave her alone," the Chief said, raged. "She says she doesn't mind but…!" the Chief muttered to himself, shaking his head in disgust.

"They?" Alice asked, perplexed.

"Ghosts," Chief Swan replied, leaving Alice's mouth hanging open.

x-x

It had been eight hours since Bella was placed in a small room in the ICU. Eight hours of mental.

Chief Swan, or Charlie as he told me to call him, insisted I went home hours ago. But I insisted on staying.

Carlisle had stayed to help the doctors' figure out what was making Bella so sick. They ran every test possible. She had every part of her body scanned. She had had a full MRI, an ultra sounds on her heart and abdomen - she even had a brain scan. She had blood tests for every disease possible, but nothing had come back with answers.

If we couldn't find out what the problem was then we couldn't help Bella. She would have had to stay on the ventilator until she could breathe on her own.

Alice went home for a few hours to explain to the others, but she came back. More to keep me from worrying too much than anything. She was sitting at the bottom of Bella's bed, probing the future every now and then, but she was still getting her head around Charlie's confession earlier.

None of my family had ever imagined that ghosts existed.

Charlie didn't elaborate further about what Bella could do, how far her gift was extended. He said that he shouldn't have mentioned it; it was not his place to tell us about his daughters' extraordinary gift.

To my disappointment, his mind didn't give away much as he wasn't thinking about Bella's gift while we sat in ICU with her. I did, however, get the impression that he did not fully accept what his daughter could do. He wasn't ashamed of what she could do - he was proud that she helped people - but he thought she was too easily distracted with it and as he pointed out before, 'they' never left her alone.

I tried to understand what or who 'they' were. My hearing was perfect, so I knew Charlie had said ghosts, but I struggled to accept ghosts as something real. Souls of humans that walked amongst the living, invisible to all expect Bella, apparently.

I was conflicted. I believed in science. But then what was I? My family? We were not supposed to exist according to the humans who used the basis of our existence for their own entertainment. Fantasy. Myths about vampires dated back as far as lore of spirits…ghosts. Life after death.

Humans didn't believe in the things they couldn't see. That was their ignorance and I wanted to prove myself less ignorant as most humans. I wanted to be open minded, but if I was honest, I was only trying so hard because it was Bella.

Carlisle thought it was fantastic, which surprised me. He was a man of science also. Had been for all of his new life. But there was no skepticism in his mind. He seemed to accept what Charlie let slip as easy as he accepted that the sun rose in the east.

Alice was convinced, too. After the initial shock, she had been itching to ask Charlie a million questions, but she knew that it was the wrong place and the wrong time to curb her curiosity.

I tried to ignore her internal questions and focused on Bella. I counted her breath sounds. Her heart sounds. Watched her blood pressure changes; any spike in fever. She wasn't getting any better, but she wasn't getting any worse either.

Alice's visions caught my attention; she had gone ridged on the bed, staring into space. I watched the vision play out, then bolted off my seat. I almost ripped of door open in my haste to get out. I found Carlisle in the office down the corridor and I barged in. He was with Dr Warren, looking over Bella's test results for the hundredth time.

"Carlisle?" I tried to sound calm. Carlisle knew me too well and got up without even excusing himself.

He closed the door behind us. What is it Edward?

"Bella," I whispered urgently. "Alice saw that she is going to code in a minute, she can't see the outcome but it's bad."

It was frustrating knowing the future, but not being able to do anything about it.

We rushed back to Bella's room and stood by Alice who had already moved out the way for the crash team to be in place. There was already the necessary equipment in the room and Alice had already set it up. "Thanks," I whispered as Carlisle took his place at the bed. They lowered the bed down and took away the pillow from under Bella's head. .

"Carlisle what is wrong with her?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"I don't know, Edward," my father said without looking at me. "In all my years of practice, I haven't come across such a mystery." He was watching Bella's monitors "Prepare yourself for this." He looked at Bella's father. "Maybe you should wake Charlie up, he can't see this. How long Alice?"

"Eighty seconds."

Carlisle shook Charlie awake. His eyes flew open, looking startled. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just thought you could do with some coffee," said Carlisle gently. He had a way of calming people, even in intense situations. It was one of the many things I envied of my father.

"Yeah, I could do with some coffee, too. I will come with you," said Alice, making it sounds as though Charlie had already agree. Alice skipped to the door, trying to look as though she hadn't seen the fate of his daughter.

Charlie got up; glancing at Bella then followed Alice out without a word.

I moved over to the bed by Bella's head and stoke her face gently.

I felt utterly sick as I watched the seconds tick by slowly.

I had never felt scared in over a hundred years until now. I had only just met Bella, but I felt as if my life was tied to hers.

Right on time Bella's machines went off, alerting the medics to the code blue. Carlisle was already working on her frantically, trying to get her heart to re-start.

I stood back, watching helplessly. I wanted to help, but I knew Carlisle wanted me to stay out of the way. He thought I was too attached and wouldn't think clearly.

I had seen many people being resuscitated. I had resuscitated many people. But as my father worked hard to bring Bella Swan back to life, I felt as if my own life was slipping away, too.

The first charge of electricity from the defibrillator that went through Bella seemed to go through me as well. It was as if I was feeling her pain. I felt as weak as she must have been feeling, I felt myself fade.

I slide to the floor as I heard another shock of electrically over Bella's still heart. Then another.

Then another….