A/N: Still not mine, SM owns twilight.
Huge thanks to my Master Yoda, Jessica1971, she makes my words prettier! MWAH!
Thank you to all of you who are reading & reviewing this story. It means so very much too me, I apologize once again that I have not been able to reply to all of you but please know I appreciate your kind words.
On to the story...
Chapter 9
Visiting hours...
EPOV
Leaving Bella in the hands of my mother was dually the most difficult and the most natural thing I had ever experienced.
There was something about seeing my mother accept Bella so readily and quickly that shot straight through to my heart. Even with the embarrassing things my mother decided to reveal about exactly how strongly I already felt for Bella, the two of them seemed to hit it off right away.
I had rarely brought anyone home to meet my parents. Frankly, very few women had meant enough to me to warrant the privilege of meeting my family. Even so, my mother was never what would be considered openly warm with the women in my life.
She never liked Irina and the few girls I dated before; they were more a nuisances that she tolerated rather than truly enjoying their company.
With Bella I could see the light in her eyes the moment she saw her. I knew that I would be getting an earful later when I arrived back at my apartment where she would be lying in wait for me.
Thankfully, it would be considerably late, especially if I was going to visit Bella and Olivia before leaving for the night.
The memory of holding Bella in my arms made my whole body hum as I made my way to the scrub area to prepare for Jake's surgery. I could see that he was already fast asleep and the team had prepped the area around his upper thigh where I would be affixing the outer stabilization. The fact that we had to wait to repair the break properly so he could receive the infusions of Factor-9 before surgery only complicated the case further, requiring the bone which may have begun to knit be re-broken and set once again, surgically held in correct placement with the steel halo around his leg I would be placing shortly.
As much as I wanted nothing more than to be with Bella at that moment, to hold her hand and comfort her, to provide the shoulder she needed to rely on, I could only pray that when the time came in the future, Bella would allow me to be there for her then.
I took a deep breath as I entered the surgical suite, clearing my mind of thoughts of Bella and her daughter.
I had a patient waiting and I needed to be focused on the task at hand.
Several hours later, after successfully repairing Jacob's leg and ensuring that he was comfortable, I completed the last of my follow-up visits on a few patients who were still inpatient before making my way down to the locker rooms to shower and change.
Knowing Olivia's immune system was compromised with her condition, I wanted to make sure that any contaminants I may have come in contact with while doing rounds were washed away so that I didn't bring anything into her room.
Though my knowledge of Cystic Fibrosis was limited, I did know that most of the patients on the respiratory floor had 'touch precautions'.
Luckily I kept a change of clothes in my locker for whatever occasion might arise where I needed to be a little more dressed than my usual scrub attire.
Once I finished with a quick shower, I slipped into a white button down shirt, a pair of dark wash jeans, and my favorite thoroughly worn pair of brown Doc Marten oxfords before making my way to the first floor.
I rushed off the elevator in hopes I wasn't too late to get to the gift shop before it closed for the evening. I hoped to find a gift for Olivia on the first of what I hoped would be many times we would see one another.
As I arrived, Mrs. Geneva was just turning the lock on the door. I sighed in relief as it seemed I was in fact lucky that she had worked the closing shift and not the early one. If it was anyone else closing up, I wouldn't have had a chance of slipping in before they closed for the night.
She looked up over her rimmed glasses to smile as I called out to her.
"Hi, Mrs. Geneva," I said, smiling at the tiny grey haired woman.
Mrs. Geneva was a sweet lady that reminded me quite a bit of my grandmother Cullen. She even had a slight Scottish lilt to her words which sealed the resemblance for me to my favorite grandparent.
We had developed a great friendship over the last several months during my morning trek to the small coffee kiosk inside the gift shop where she worked. Mrs. Geneva was the barista most mornings when I would come by for my requisite cup of black coffee for the day.
"Oh, Edward, my dear boy," she laughed lightly. "What brings you by here at this time of night? I was just closing up shop."
"Yes, ma'am, I see that, but would you mind if I popped in to get a gift for a little girl that I'm on my way to visit?" I asked, giving her the most pitifully pleading look I could conjure up.
She laughed again, placing a hand on my forearm. "You are a charmer aren't you?"
"I'll only be a moment. Thank you so much, Mrs. Geneva," I said, bending to kiss her cheek.
"Psh, like I could tell you no, dear boy," she said, a slight blush to her cheeks.
I quickly made my way to the back of the shop to peruse the selection of stuffed animals. Suddenly, I was struck with the fact that I had no idea what to get a girl Olivia's age and had even less of a notion as to what her interests were. I was at a complete loss.
"You need some help, don't you?" Mrs. Geneva chuckled from behind me and I turned to see her smiling up at me with a knowing look on her face.
"Yes, ma'am, I do. I have no idea what I'm looking for, I'm sorry," I said, smiling sheepishly and rubbing the back of my neck as she laughed at my predicament.
Mrs. Geneva asked a few questions about who I was shopping for and I filled her in a little on Olivia's condition.
"So," she smiled as she chose a few teen magazines from the rack and a pack of colored pencils along with a drawing pad. "The mother is someone special to you, hmm?"
"Yes, she is," I nodded. "Or at least I want her to be."
Mrs. Geneva nodded with a knowing smile on her round face as she placed the items inside a gift bag along with colorful tissue paper and tied it all together with a small Get Well Soon balloon.
I paid for the gifts and thanked her with another kiss to the cheek before making my way to Olivia's room on the third floor.
Stopping just outside the door to Olivia's room, I took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly to calm the nervous churning of my stomach.
I could hear what sounded like voices from inside, but they seemed to be from a television and not from Bella or her daughter.
I knocked softly.
Bella's voice called out quietly in answer. I pushed open the door to find both Bella and her daughter propped up in bed with the rolling tray table stretched across the bed, a half eaten dinner plate in front of both of them.
A wide smile broke across Bella's face as our eyes locked. I felt a similar smile reflected on my own face as I stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind me. I watched as Bella slipped from the bed and quickly closed the space between us, never breaking eye contact with me.
"Hi," she whispered.
"Hi," I whispered, sucking in a breath as she looked up at me through her lashes.
"I'm glad you came by….I didn't know if you would…." She turned to look at Olivia before looking back to me.
My eyes bounced from Bella's face to the tiny cherub of a child sitting in the center of the hospital bed, who at the moment was staring at me with a questioning stare reminiscent of the one her mother had worn the first day we had met.
With her long blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail, Olivia looked at me with the same wide brown doe eyes as her mother. The dark circles under her eyes stood out in stark contrast to her alabaster coloring. She looked beyond the point of exhaustion, but she smiled shyly at me as I looked between her and her mother for a moment before part of what Bella said finally sank into my consciousness.
My brow furrowed in misunderstanding as to why she would think I wouldn't come to see them as I had promised. "Why wouldn't I come by, Bella?"
"She's only been truly awake for about half an hour, just long enough to have dinner," Bella continued, ignoring my question as she looked up at me with a shy smile.
"She's beautiful, Bella," I murmured, struck once again by her innocent beauty.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
The love she held for her daughter was radiating from her every pore and it quite nearly brought me to my knees as I stared at her in awe. I remembered often seeing a similar expression on my mother's face as she looked at me or Alice as we were growing up, and even now as adults it was still there.
"How did the bronch go?"
Bella's smile widened and she raised her face to look me fully in the eye. A sense of utter relief flooded her entire being; although the fatigue was plain behind her eyes, they sparkled in a way I had not witnessed before, and I felt my heart stutter in my chest.
"Everything went exactly as I hoped. The results were good, no bacteria other than what we've dealt with in the past," she said, glancing over her shoulder toward Olivia once again.
"That's wonderful, Bella," I said, feeling a sensation of relief that I had never experienced before, and I realized at that moment how concerned I had unconsciously been for what they would find out. "I….I brought her a gift. I didn't know what type of things she liked, but um…well, I hope she'll like it."
I held out the gift bag, feeling unsure of the items that Mrs. Geneva had chosen. I hoped she was correct in her assurances that Olivia would like the magazines and that the drawing tablet and pencils would give her something to pass the time when she didn't feel like going to the Game Zone.
"Oh, Edward," Bella sighed. "You didn't have to bring her anything….thank you, though. That was very sweet. Come on, I'll introduce you and you can give it to her."
Bella took my hand and led me over to Olivia's bed.
"Olivia," Bella said, smiling at her daughter as she released my hand and sat on the corner of Olivia's bed. "This is a friend of mine, Dr. Edward Cullen. You probably don't remember, honey, but you met his mother earlier when you came back from your procedure?"
Olivia looked at her mother as her little brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to remember my mother.
"Yeah, kind of, I guess," she shrugged unsurely and looked up at me with questioning eyes.
Bella turned to me, smiling. "Edward, this is my daughter Olivia."
"It's nice to meet you, Dr. Cullen," Olivia said, her eyes still wide with question as she looked from me to her mother several times.
"Hi, Olivia," I said, smiling gently down at her. "It's very nice to meet you. I brought you a little gift."
Olivia's eyes widened even more in delighted surprise as she looked from me to the gift bag, then to her mother.
"Go ahead, honey," Bella prodded gently, a smile on her face.
"Thank you," Olivia said as she took the bag from me and began untying the ribbons which held the balloon in place on the handles of the bag.
"You're very welcome."
I watched with apprehension as she was finally able to remove the balloon from the bag and hand it to her mother before ripping the tissue paper out of the way to reveal the gifts inside.
"Oh, wow!" she cried, looking up to meet my eyes with a wide smile. "Thank you very much, Dr. Cullen."
"You're welcome, Olivia. If it's alright with your mom," I said, looking to Bella in question, "you can call me Edward."
Bella turned to stare at me for a long moment before a smile spread across her face and she nodded, "I think that would be just fine, Olivia."
"Cool," Olivia sighed, lying back against her pillows as she pulled out the magazines Mrs. Geneva had chosen. "Mom, look I didn't have this one yet and it has Justin Bieber on it."
She turned the magazine to face Bella.
I could see the face of some young boy smiling up from the page with the name of the magazine splashed across the front in hot pink glittery letters spelling out Bop.
Bella nodded and smiled before looking back to me with a roll of her eyes.
"She's into that Justin Bieber kid. He's annoying, but…." she shrugged with a chuckle.
"Mom, he is not annoying," Olivia grumbled, furrowing her brow in apparent aggravation at her mother. "He's awesome."
"Okay, whatever you say, sweetie," Bella sighed, smiling at her daughter indulgently as Olivia huffed an annoyed sigh and went back to looking through the magazine.
I chuckled at the two of them and felt myself relax a bit knowing that at the very least Olivia seem to like the gift.
Bella slid off Olivia's bed to stand in front of me and smiled up at me.
"Thank you, again, that was really a nice thing to do," she murmured. "Would you like to have a seat? Maybe hang out with us for a little while…"
I looked into her eyes for a long moment before nodding, "Yeah, I think I would like that….a lot."
Turning to Olivia, I asked, "Would you mind if I hung out for a little bit, Olivia?"
"No, sir," she said, glancing up with a smile from her magazine. "I think that would be cool."
I gestured for Bella to lead the way and we rounded Olivia's bed, where I settled in the rocking recliner which was standard in all the rooms within the hospital. Bella continued on to sit on the sofa, kicking off her scuff slippers and tucking her legs under her.
"So, what kind of doctor are you?" Olivia asked, looking up from her magazine. "You're not like the ones that usually see me, are you?"
I chuckled, shaking my head as I ran a hand through my hair. "No, I'm actually…..I fix broken bones and stuff like that."
"Oh, kind of like Em, huh?" Olivia's eye brightened with understanding.
"Yeah, exactly like Emmett," I said, smiling. "Actually, Emmett's kind of like my boss."
"That's funny," Olivia giggled. "Emmett doesn't act like somebody's boss."
"Olivia," Bella admonished with a barely held together stern look on her face.
It was easy to see she was fighting a snicker of her own.
"Sorry," Olivia said, though the grin she shot me when her mother turned away told me she was anything but.
I winked at Olivia before dropping my head so Bella wouldn't catch me laughing at the truth in Olivia's precocious statement.
Olivia went on to fill me in about all things Justin Bieber, The Jonas Brothers, and Harry Potter. Even though I had heard all the names in passing with my own patients, I had no true knowledge of who any of them outside of Harry Potter actually were.
When she asked me whether I had seen any of the Harry Potter movies, she was completely appalled that although I had read all the books, I had never actually watched any of the movies.
She schooled me on the musical talents of both this Bieber kid and the Jonas Brothers. Though I think I might have impressed her that I did know a few of the Jonas Brothers' songs, she was sure to inform me that I didn't know good music if I had not listened to something called Oh baby or Baby, baby by Justin Bieber.
I smiled at Bella, who rolled her eyes with a grimace as she leaned over, placing her hand on my forearm and whispering to me, "Believe me, you're not missing anything – at all."
The shock of Bella's touch was immediate and I looked up to see her staring wide eyed at me, but she didn't remove her hand.
"I probably should get going, Bella," I said quietly as her hand slowly slipped from my arm and I pushed out of the rocking chair to stand.
Bella stood slowly and followed me to Olivia's side.
"Goodnight, Olivia," I said, crossing to her bed. "I'm very glad I got to meet you. I hope you feel much better soon."
"Thanks," she said through a yawn as she lay back against her pillow and pulled her blanket up to the center of her chest. "I'll be good as new in a few days. I have to be because I have a ballet recital in like….a month, I think. Are you gonna come?"
"I…uh, I'm not…I," I stammered and looked to Bella, completely taken off guard by Olivia's request.
"We'll have to see about that, Olivia. Edward's a very busy doctor, so he may not be able to come, okay?" she smiled at her daughter before looking at me with the same unsure expression I was positive I also had represented on my face.
As much as I wanted to spend time getting to know Bella and her daughter, I didn't want to make Bella feel pressured in fear that she would push me away again. Something had definitely changed in regards to her feelings on whatever was going on between us, and I had no intention of doing anything that would put her back in the same mind set she had been in when she ran away from me the first time we met.
I said my goodbyes to Olivia, promising I would try to stop by again to see her before she was discharged and turned to make my way to the door.
As I reached for the door knob, I heard Bella speak to Olivia and my heart dropped to somewhere around my knees in fear of what she would say.
"Olivia, I'm going to step outside to speak with Edward for just a moment, okay?"
I knew that much of Bella's resistance to letting me into their lives was the fear of Olivia getting hurt.
Would she tell me she didn't think this small step into her world was such a good idea after all?
Thank you all once again...I will be out of town through sometime next week but will be posting chapters as I have been but since I know this ends on a bit of a cliffhanger I will post chapter 10 tomorrow instead of Friday. Please visit the thread at Twilighted to discuss or ask questions.
For more information on Cystic Fibrosis please visit www(.)cff(.)org
Until tomorrow...
xoxoxoxo
bellasunderstudy1
