WhatsMyNomdePlume is my hero for beta'ing this on the plane on the way to her vacation, just so I could update early. If I was in the tropics with her, I'd buy her a fancy frozen drink, but sadly, I'm not.

*0*0*

I have to work the next day, which could either be a good or bad thing—I can't tell yet. In one very basic sense it sucks, because I'm really hung over, in spite of the water and Advil. I'm tempted to call in sick, but I've never done that and I feel bad doing it for a stupid, self-indulgent reason like this. Plus, I have shit to do when I get to the store—something I've put off long enough already.

So I crawl out of bed and pull myself together, and when I arrive, Carlisle's in his usual spot behind the register waiting for me. I follow my routine, too, setting his hot tea down next to my large coffee. He acts surprised to see it and thanks me profusely for being so thoughtful, even though I bring him a cup of tea every single day that I come in.

He moves off the stool to make room for me and putters around, gathering up his stuff. He's been hard at work, plowing through the Quickbooks manual Charlotte left for him, which is now littered with post-its and little penciled-in notes in the margins.

I stow my bag and shift uncomfortably, trying to figure out how to say what I intend to. I was really determined when I left the apartment this morning, and I know it will make him happy, but still, I'm having a hard time getting the words out.

I clear my throat experimentally. My voice sounds all low and raspy, part of my hangover, but it can't be helped.

"Um, hey, Carlisle? Can I ask you something? Or… well, talk to you about something?"

"Of course, Edward. What can I do for you?"

It makes me smile a little. Always so polite and proper. "Well, you know how you said… well, you offered… I mean, if you still want me to, I'd like to manage the store."

I couldn't have botched that up more if I tried and I certainly didn't sound like management material, but Carlisle beams at me like I just gave him the best gift a man could ask for.

"I'd love that, Edward. The offer still stands. Esme will be delighted. She's been on me to take off more so we can do some traveling. There's no one I would like to leave the store with more than you."

I smile at my feet, a little embarrassed by his praise and gratitude, but also pleased. I'm not entirely sure why I decided to take this step first, or what it even means, but this has been hanging over my head for years. Step up and take control or stand back and let it keep passing me by.

I'm stepping up.

*0*0*

I spend the rest of the morning with Carlisle, discussing how my new status will work and what will change. It turns out, not much. I've been all but managing the store as it is for years. I already know the opening and closing procedures, how to do the bank deposits, and how to run the new computerized bookkeeping program better than Carlisle. I have to learn payroll, but I glance over it and by mid-afternoon, I've pretty much figured it out. That sort of thing has always come easily to me.

The distraction is good. I need to deal with Bella but I also need enough distance so that when I do talk to her, I'm not as angry and raw as I was yesterday. Otherwise I'm liable to say something stupid and make things worse. When I turn my phone back on mid-afternoon, I see that she hasn't called since last night, which makes me feel like shit. I want to call her immediately, but since I don't know how the conversation is going to go, I don't want to start it while I'm at work. I'm forcing myself to wait until I'm home to do it.

Spending the afternoon manning the register almost makes me lose my mind. All I can think about is her. It's a little bit of a relief that she hasn't called again today, because ignoring her calls again would be awful; but on the other hand, she hasn't called today. I'm so scared of what that means.

I pick up my phone so many times, looking at her missed calls. I want to talk to her so badly. I know I should ask her a million questions, demand a million explanations, but mostly, I just want to go see her and make things okay again. I just pray that she wants to.

By five o'clock, I feel like I'll go crazy if I don't call her soon. I'm even debating asking Carlisle if I can cut out early to do it. Some way to start my new tenure as store manager. When my phone rings, I lunge for it, not even caring anymore what kind of plan I had or how I was going to handle things. I just want to hear her voice and tell her that I'm on my way over and that we'll sort it all out when I get there.

"Bella?"

There's a pause on the other end of the line and I realize that I didn't even look at my phone when I answered it. I just assumed it was her.

"Um…is this Edward?" a young, high-pitched female voice asks.

"Yeah, this is Edward. Who's this?"

"This is, um, Jane? Eddie's girlfriend? Edward Senior, I mean?" Her voice goes up at the end of every sentence, turning them all into questions.

"Oh," I say, trying to figure out why Dad's girlfriend would be calling me. "Is there something you need?"

"Um… he's, well… Eddie's in the hospital. I figured you should know. Or something. In case you want to come."

"What? What happened to him?"

"Um… he had a… oh, what did they call it? A myo— something cardio? The doctor said it was like a heart attack."

"He had a heart attack?" I'm shouting, but I can't help it. My pulse is racing and this girl is just babbling incoherently. "What did the doctor say? How is he?"

"They said, um… fuck. I don't remember. There were all these complicated names for stuff, and…" Her voice abruptly gets pinched and high and I can tell she's crying.

"Jane? Hey, Jane, calm down. I'm on my way, okay?"

Jane mutters her understanding and gives me the hospital details before I end the call, already racing through the store to the back room.

"Carlisle? That was… it's my dad. He's in the hospital. I have to go."

Carlisle stands up and moves around the desk until he's in front of me. "Of course you have to go. Will you be alright? Are you sure you're okay to drive? I can close up and take you myself."

I smile in spite of the grim situation. "No, really. That's so generous, but you don't have to. I can get there fine. I'm sorry to just cut out, especially today after everything we've talked about."

"Edward." Carlisle gives me a stern look. "You know you don't need to apologize or explain yourself. He's your father. You need to be there."

"Thanks. You're too good to me, Carlisle."

"It's nothing." He brushes off my compliment and pulls my coat off the stack of boxes in the corner, pushing it towards me. "Now go. And give us a call when you have the time and let us know how he's doing."

"I will."

*0*0*

It's rush hour by the time I get out of the store and to my car, and the drive to Harborview Medical Center is endless. I sit through countless red lights and try not to think of what might be happening, what might be going wrong at the hospital.

Once I get there, it takes me another thirty minutes to find Jane. I forgot to ask her what floor she was on and since my father came in through the E.R., the computer records aren't current. I try to call Jane back on her cell, but she's got it turned off, which really pisses me off. Who the hell turns off their phone in the middle of an emergency?

I'm finally directed to the fifth floor nurses' station. The woman there is older and thin, with a tired-looking face at odds with her soft pink scrubs.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for my father? Edward Masen?"

She gives me a dismissive glance and turns to glance at a white board over her shoulder.

"He's getting a CAT scan now. No visitors yet."

I swallow down my irritation at her complete lack of concern. It's certainly not her job to be warm and comforting, but it wouldn't hurt. She could at least not sound so insufferably bored. "His girlfriend should be here somewhere. Jane?"

She looks bored. Still. "You can try the Family Room. Down the hall on the right."

"Thanks," I say, even though I really don't mean it.

As I walk down the hall to the Family Room, it strikes me how fucked up this is. I have no idea what Jane looks like. We've never even met. And now we're stuck in this nightmare together. The overhead fluorescents are really bright and everything is off-white; the linoleum floor, the walls, the acoustic-tiled ceiling. I've only been in a hospital once before, when I fractured my wrist playing baseball when I was fifteen. I remember my mother fluttering around the room, worried about how much school I might miss while my father—when he finally showed up—clapped me on my shoulder and told me he was proud of me for handling the pain like a man.

When I enter the Family Room, finding Jane is made easy on me. There's one heavy-set middle-aged man sitting on the couch along the left-hand wall and on the couch on the right is, I presume, Jane.

She's young. I knew that, but knowing it in your head and seeing it in person are two different things. She's my age. She's small and really thin everywhere but her chest, which looks too big for the rest of her. She's got long pale blonde hair pulled up tight in a ponytail. She's fairly casually dressed, a long knit shirt and leggings, but she's still wearing stupidly high heels and the diamond studs in her earlobes are huge. I wonder if my father bought them for her. I shake off unhelpful thoughts like that and brace myself to meet her.

"Jane?"

She looks up, her wide blue eyes taking me in as her mouth falls open.

"Edward. You look just like your pictures."

It's an odd, personal comment that I'm not ready for. But I brush it off because we're not here to get to know each other or anything. "How is he?"

She shrugs one shoulder. Her hands are in her lap and she's twisting a large gold bracelet around her skinny wrist nervously, but her face is placid and her eyes are dry. "The same, I guess."

"When was the last time you got an update?"

"Um, before I called you."

"That was over an hour ago."

"Really?"

"Yeah, your phone is off, so I guess you lost track of time." I sound pissy, and I guess I am.

"Oh, fuck!" Jane scrambles for her phone to turn it back on. "Shit! I missed so many texts."

And that's all she has to say about that. She starts scrolling through her texts and ignores me completely. I stare at her for a second in disbelief before I give up and head back out to the nurse's station. They must know more by now.

That same bitchy nurse from earlier is still there. I want to start pounding on the counters and yelling, but I know that won't get me anywhere. I need to behave myself.

"Excuse me? The doctor has been with my father for over an hour and we haven't gotten any news. Can you check on him for me?"

She barely even looks up from her computer monitor. "The doctor will come to talk to the family soon."

I grind my teeth together. "Yeah, but he hasn't. Look, I'm his son and I need to know what's going on. Can you just make a phone call or something?"

Her eyes narrow at me, but she reluctantly picks up the phone and punches a few buttons. "Have a seat back in the Family Room. He'll be down shortly."

"Thanks. I really appreciate all your help."

Her mouth falls open slightly, because she knows damn well she wasn't the least bit helpful, but I just turn on my heel and stomp back down the hall to Jane.

We sit in uncomfortable silence side-by-side on the couch. I feel like I should probably say something, try to talk to her maybe. But I have no idea what to say and she's on her Blackberry texting non-stop anyway. The soft clack of her long nails on the phone keys is making my spine crawl. Who the fuck could she be texting now anyway? She's like a freaking fourteen-year-old girl with that thing.

It's another full half-hour before a doctor in green scrubs appears at the door. He's young, maybe thirty tops, and short. He's got glasses that are too big for his face and they keep sliding down his nose. When I imagined the doctor that would be taking care of my father's heart attack, I was imagining someone tall, stately, maybe with white hair, a lab coat and a bow tie. Someone who seemed born to handle things. I was certainly not imagining this overgrown Doogie Howser.

The doctor in question pushes his glasses back up his nose with one stubby finger as he peers at the chart in his hand.

"The family of Mr… Masen?"

I shoot to my feet and cross to him. "Is he okay? What's going on?"

"Are you the next of kin?"

His phrasing makes me feel nauseous, but I nod my head. "I'm his son."

"Right," he says with a tired sigh. "I'm Dr. Stewart. Mr. Masen suffered a major myocardial infarction. In layman's terms, a heart attack."

"But he'll be okay, right? You've got him set up now?"

His eyebrows hike up and his glasses slide back down his nose. "Well, when patients arrive in the condition your father was in—"

"Wait. What kind of condition? What do you mean?"

Dr. Stewart's eyes flick to Jane and he looks uncertain. I look at Jane. She looks back at me, blue eyes wide.

"I assumed you knew," Dr. Stewart says. "By the time your father had arrived in the ambulance, his heart had stopped. The paramedics kept him alive with chest compressions. In the E.R., we were able to reestablish a heartbeat and—"

I look back at Jane. "His fucking heart stopped? Jesus, I thought he was just having chest pains or something."

"He passed out in the bathroom," she snaps. "So I called the ambulance."

"You could have told me that part."

Jane just shrugs. "Sorry. I didn't think it mattered."

"Well, clearly it does."

Her jaw tenses as she glares at me, but she doesn't say anything. It's official—I hate Jane. But that's just wasted energy right now, so I take a deep breath and focus on Dr. Stewart.

"So you got his heart started again. That's good, right?"

Dr. Stewart looks back at his chart and scowls. It's like he's just reading it for the first time, which doesn't instill a lot of confidence. "It took us a long time to get him stabilized enough to perform the tests."

I feel my skin prickle all over. None of this sounds at all good. The next few minutes are a blur. I try really hard to remember everything he says, because it's all important, but it's coming at me so fast and I'm so freaked out. All I can do is nod and tell him I understand. He shows me an x-ray of my father's chest and points out gray blobs that are supposed to be worse than some other gray blobs that look exactly the same to me. He talks about drugs and treatments and monitors. He talks about statistics and possible outcomes. I can't tell which ones he thinks will happen and which ones are just things that might happen. I feel completely overwhelmed and Jane is no help. She just hovers slightly behind me and stays completely silent for the whole thing.

"Do you have any questions?" Dr. Stewart finally asks at the end.

"What happens next?"

"We try to keep him stable and we wait to see how well his heart heals."

I let out a ragged breath and drag my hand over my face. "Just tell me honestly. How bad is this?"

Dr. Stewart pauses for a minute before he answers me. "I'll be frank. Only about thirty percent of patients who present with this level of damage to the heart recover from the incident."

The words hit me like a freight train.

Thirty percent.

The odds are two to one that he's going to die.

Dr. Stewart is talking again, telling us that he'll give us an update as soon as there's anything new to tell. I can only nod dumbly. Then he's gone and it's just me and Jane.

"Shit," she breathes. "This sucks."

This sucks.

Well, yes Jane, yes, it does suck.

I'm not looking at her, but I can sense her digging around in her bag and a second later, she's produced a Kleenex and she starts to sniffle into it just loud enough to be noticed. I'm sure I'm supposed to comfort her or something, but I just can't—not when I'm so close to falling apart myself.

"I need to call Mom," I mutter.

"Elizabeth?" Jane leaves off her elegant weeping, her voice suddenly sharp. "You're calling Elizabeth?"

"Yeah, I'm calling his wife."

"Ex-wife."

It's still more than you'll ever be to him.

The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, and I want to say them so badly—to illustrate to this stupid girl how insignificant and fleeting her role here really is. But this isn't the time or place. I'll cause all kinds of unnecessary drama in the middle of this nightmare if I say something like that. So I say nothing—I just turn and leave the lounge to find a quiet corner.

My mother's phone rings and rings. It's just about to go to voicemail when she answers, her voice grainy. "Hello?"

"Mom, it's Edward… It's Dad. He's in the hospital."

I'm greeted with a long silence, broken only by the sound of her breathing. Finally, I prompt her. "Are you there? Did you hear me? He's had a heart attack. The doctor says it's really bad."

She pulls in a long breath that sounds like static on the phone and I'm just starting to wonder if she's crying when she finally says something. "I'm sorry to hear that."

She's not crying. She doesn't even sound upset. She sounds regretful and detached, like I'm telling her about some celebrity who's died, not like it has anything to do with her.

"Mom, I'm not sure if he's going to make it. The doctor said the odds are bad."

"I'm sorry you have to deal with this, Edward," she says, still detached, still not remotely upset.

"Things are a mess here and there's nobody else. You know he doesn't have any family. Mom, can you come? I thought you'd want to be here."

She sighs again, long and slightly pained. "I can't do that, Edward. I just can't."

My exhaustion and fear morphs to anger like lightning. "Can't or won't? I mean, I know he's not your husband anymore, but he was. Doesn't that mean anything to you? Don't you care even a little?"

"He's a human being. Of course I care. But I just can't have that man in my life again. He's toxic for me. I know this must be hard for you, but you have no idea what you're asking. I just can't get involved. I can't be dragged back into his life. I'm sorry."

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head, not believing I'm even hearing this. Stupidly, I imagined that the minute she heard the news, she'd be on her way, willing to forget all the anger and animosity so we could reunite as a family in the face of this crisis. Clearly I over-estimated her. Again. "I'm sorry, too. Look, I have to go."

"Take care of yourself, Edward."

"Yeah, you too." You're really good at that.

I hang up and let my head fall against the wall, oblivious to the flow of nurses and visitors behind me. She won't come. Even though he might be dying, she won't come. When did they become these people? When did this ocean of resentment and anger develop between them? Was it always there and I just missed it? Once again, I feel like my whole life was a lie and the two people I was closest to are strangers now—to each other and to me.

I think about Jane waiting back down the hall in the Family Room. I think about Jasper, throwing himself headlong into his new life with Alice. I think about my mother, washing all of this away with a bottle or two of white wine.

I've never felt so alone in my life.

I want Bella. Nothing is any different and nothing is solved, but I don't give a shit. I just want her, whatever way she'll be here, however she'll come. I'll beg if I have to. I just need her.

I don't wait to think it through or plan out what I'm going to say, I just dial her number.

She picks up in the middle of the second ring and she's breathless. "Edward?" She sounds urgent, frantic. And so, so good. My throat hurts with how much I've missed her, even though it was just yesterday that I saw her. It feels like years and miles and oceans ago.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm… um…"

"Edward," she cuts me off, sounding a little desperate, "I need to talk to you. Can we—"

I'm sure whatever she's going to say is important and it means everything, but right now I have only one need and one question for her to answer, so I cut her off before she can go any further.

"My dad's in the hospital. It's… Bella, it's really bad."

There's a pause and I think I hear her draw in a breath. I'm holding mine, too, because if she turns her back on me, I really don't think I can face it. Not now.

When she speaks, her voice is much calmer and it soothes me immediately. "I'll be right there."

*0*0*

I can't sit in there with Jane. I probably shouldn't leave her in there on her own since we're reluctantly in this thing together, but I don't give a shit. I don't want to talk to her or try and buck her up and tell her it will be okay. I feel like I'm dealing with this entirely on my own, so she can, too.

Instead, I slowly pace the white-tiled hallway outside the family room. The elevators and the nurse's station are at one end, and the bitchy nurse is still there, so I turn around before I get to her on each circuit. The hallway turns to the left at the other end so that's where I turn back each time.

Back and forth, back and forth.

Past unmarked pale wood doors with little slit windows and past laminated signs promoting asthma awareness and free blood pressure screenings. Every overhead page clangs down my spine like an alarm and I try not to drive myself crazy, parsing them apart to see if any are about my dad. Phones ring in the distance, things ping and buzz, voices filter in and fade away. I just walk, watching my dark high-tops against the white floor.

I can't think too far into the future. Every time I do, I picture funerals and tears and a whole lot of stuff that I can't begin to deal with, so I just stay focused on each moment I'm in. Nothing exists beyond right now.

At the far end of the hall, I turn to make my circuit back towards the nurses' station and when I look up, the elevator doors are just sliding closed behind Bella. She just stands there for a second, looking at me looking at her. Then, before I can even move, she's heading towards me, her mouth set in a grim line, eyebrows furrowed together.

She stops right in front of me and looks up at my face. Then she reaches up with both hands, resting each along my jaw, as her fingertips brush my neck. My eyes close on their own at the contact and I exhale, finally feeling a tiny bit of weight lift of my chest.

"Edward."

I open my eyes to look at her again and now I notice how tired she looks, how pale her skin is and how dark the circles are under her pink-edged eyes.

"Edward," she starts again. "I need to tell you—"

I raise a hand to stop her, suddenly so weary I feel like I can barely keep standing up. "Wait. I know. I know we need to talk and we have so much stuff to deal with. But right now, can we just… not? Can you just be here?"

She looks at me for another moment with her dark eyes that are so much older than she is. Then she reaches up on tiptoe to slide her arms around my shoulders. She's pulling me in and my arms circle her ribs, crushing her against me. She buries her face in my neck and inhales.

"I'm here," she murmurs. Then she presses her lips against the side of my neck and it makes me want to cry. My grip on her tightens. My eyes squeeze shut.

"Don't go."

"I won't go," she whispers. "I'm right here."

*0*0*

A/N: I researched the medical information, but I'm no professional. Apologies for any inaccuracies.