A/N…I don't own characters…But I do own three bottles of champagne that I'm going to be enjoying over the course of this weekend.

I was still frozen on the couch when I heard the elevator close. Emmett looked around with a content but curious look on his face. I was trying my hardest not to look directly at him. He caught me though, and it seemed to make him happier than he already was.

"You hungry?" He seemed overly excited at the mention of food. I shook my head no.

"Suit yourself. I'ma make some grub." I watched as his huge frame sauntered over to the fridge and started pulling out stacks of food. While I enjoyed watching him work, I didn't want him to get mad at me for looking at him, so I turned my head and tried to drift back off to sleep. My meds were wearing off, though. That or I had enough adrenalin running through me that I couldn't sleep.

"Here," a sandwich was shoved in my face, "You need to eat something."

I looked up to see Emmett smiling a huge grin holding a turkey sandwich out in front of him in one hand and another twice the size of mine in his other hand closer to him.

"Um. Thank You."

He nodded and sat back down in the chair across from the couch I was still laying on. I started to eat the sandwich with tiny bites.

"So…you wanna watch some tv?"

I shrugged. Emmett turned on the tv and started to enjoy some cartoon I hadn't seen before.

"You ever seen Sponge Bob?" I shook my head 'no'. "You don't say much do you?"

"I'm not sure what to say, really."

"Can I ask you some questions?" I nodded slowly. I wasn't sure what he wanted to know and I was only willing to answer so much of whatever he did ask.

"What happened?" He pointed to my feet and my hands.

I swallowed hard. "I had glass embedded in my hands and feet." His face didn't change.

"Where'd the glass come from, Bella?" I didn't want to tell him much. But I figured at this rate he was going to ask me more questions.

"I jumped into a dumpster and landed on a ton of broken bottles. When the glass cut my feet I fell forward and the same happened to my hands. I didn't have anything to pull it out with."

He was the one to swallow hard this time. "Why'd you jump in a dumpster?"

He didn't know? What had Edward told him? Wait, what did Edward know?

"Um. I was looking for….um" Shame washed over me and I couldn't finish my explanation.

"Yeah?"

"food." I said it so quietly I wasn't sure if he heard me or not. I wasn't sure what he'd say or do. If he'd get angry with me or pity me. Either way I didn't want to experience those reactions.

He didn't say anything remotely close to what I had anticipated.

"Then you better finish that sandwich. You need to eat and the food will help your body heal faster. You're not going hungry on my watch." He smiled widely again.

That's a new response. Just waiting for the expected replies I wasn't getting was exhausting.

"Is it okay if I try and take a nap?" I didn't want to be rude, but I was quickly falling asleep.

"Bella, do what you gotta do and make yourself comfortable. I'm just here to keep you company and make sure you're safe. I'll talk to you in a few, okay, hun?"

I nodded and rested my head on the pillow Edward had left me. It didn't take long for me to drift off.

* * * *

When I woke up I was not on the couch. At first I was startled because I was in the bed I'd been sleeping in for the last three weeks. What this all a weird dream? Is Edward going to walk in and check on me any minute? I had to check.

"Edward?"

No answer.

I waited for a minute longer before trying to climb out of bed and walk back to the living room. As I put my feet on the floor and began to stand up I quickly realized I was in no shape to be walking on my feet again. They were numb from not having moved them in a few hours. But this thought occurred to me as I fell face first onto my hands. I screamed as the scar tissue in my hands split open painfully and started to cry.

"Bella?!?" Emmett came running into the room. I had started crying.

"Fuckin' hell Bella! What happened?" He sounded angry. Fear shot through me laced with lingering shame from this whole ordeal.

"I'm sorry!!! I fell. I called for Edward but he didn't answer and I wanted to see if he was in the living room and I got out of bed and….and…." I was sobbing so hard from everything washing over me at once that I couldn't even finish explaining myself.

Emmett picked me up quickly and rushed me to the bathroom. My feet were fine. The bandages on my hands were starting to turn pink and red from the open wounds. I kept apologizing over and over again. I didn't know what else to say or do. He pulled me close to him and started to shush me.

"Bella, it's okay, sweetheart. I'm not angry. It's okay. It's okay, honey. I just heard you screaming and I didn't know what was going on. Calm down, honey. No one's gonna hurt you."

He continued to comfort me until I calmed back down. He sat me on the tub where Edward had before. He gently put his hands on each side of my face and waited until I looked up at him.

"Bella, why were you calling for Edward? He's not here. He won't be back for a couple, ah, days. What's the matter?" I had realized when I saw Emmett that Edward wasn't here and that it hadn't been a dream. I cried harder. I was so overwhelmed with sadness that Edward wasn't there right then that I didn't know what to do. I felt desperate.

"I thought maybe, because I woke up in the bed that meeting you had been a dream. I just didn't want to be alone." A fresh wave of guilt and shame washed over me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, Emmett. I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

He sighed heavily as he rocked me back and forth. "Bella, you didn't upset me. As long as you're not hurting, everything's gonna be okay. Let's change these bandages and see if we can't find something for dinner, okay?"

I nodded. How long had I slept? Was it dinner time already?

)))))))

Emmett had been engrossed in a video game for a couple of hours when Rose came over to help me get cleaned up. And while it seemed he had been obsessed in his game playing on the tv, when he saw Rose it was like he just started playing twenty games on twenty big screens at once.

I watched as he opened the door and his eyes lingered on her backside as she sauntered into the apartment with grace and class as she always did. Alice followed after her quietly bouncing into the apartment.

"Hey Alice. Hi Rose! How ya been?" It was obvious- the difference between how Emmett felt for Alice and how Emmett felt for Rose.

Rose rolled her eyes and smiled. She knew what she did to him, and it was clearly apparent that she enjoyed exciting him to no end.

"I've been good, Emmett. How have you been?" With the way she asked him you'd have thought there was some inside joke between the two of them that I didn't know about.

"Been good. Better now, though." He gave her a huge smile. When he caught me looking at the two of them in their moment, I blushed hard and droped my head. You shouldn't be watching. This is none of your business.

"Hi Bella! How's the healing going?" Alice didn't seem to pay them any attention. She hadn't been on one of Rose's visits before so I was slightly alarmed as to why she was here. And while she had apologized for her nail technicians and their mistakes, I was pretty sure she still felt guilty about them finding glass in my skin.

"She fell this morning." "I fell this morning." We said it at the same time. Except Emmett's voice was low and serious while mine was quiet and frightened.

Rose looked angry and Alice seemed incredibly concerned.

"Bella, how did you fall? " Alice asked.

Rose was mean mugging Emmett and Alice was looking at my bandages with my hands in her lap. I looked at Emmett, unsure if I wanted to really tell them that I was panicked and looking for Edward. Emmett seemed to notice my sudden intentional silence and spoke up.

"Fuck, it was totally my damn fault. She was asleep and I moved her to the bed so she could be more comfortable. I came back in here to watch tv. I didn't hear her calling for me. When she tried to climb out of bed to come look for me she lost her balance and fell."

I thanked Emmett with my eyes and nodded in agreement. "I really needed to pee."

While Rose was still glaring at Emmett, Alice started giggling about how guilty he looked.

"You idiot! You were in here while she was asleep in the room? Edward told you about that, damnit!"

I hadn't been paying much attention to their discussions until they mentioned his name.

"Told him about what?" What had he told them about me?

"Bella," Emmett sounded cautious, which made me nervous, "Edward told me that I couldn't leave you alone, not even when you were sleeping."

I gasped.

"Not like that, I mean…he said that you needed someone to watch over you 24-7 and when you were sleeping I was to stay in the room with you in case you needed anything."

"Emmett, tell her the rest." Rose demanded.

He sighed again. "He said that you cry out in your sleep with nightmares and that if you had one that I was to make sure you knew you were safe and not alone. He doesn't want you…uh…we don't want you to be unhappy."

I was still stunned. How the hell did he know about my nightmares in the first place? And then it registered. He was always there when I woke up. He always seemed to know when I needed a pill or just something to eat.

"So when I've been asleep you've been in the room with me? And when Edward was here he was in the room with me, all night?"

Everyone nodded with solemn looks on their faces. Immediately, I felt overwhelmed with shame. Tears started to pout down my face silently.

"I'm so sorry."

Emmett knelt down in front of me on the couch and wiped away my tears. "Bella, you don't need to be sorry for anything. We don't mind taking care of you. that's what we do, we take care of our own."

"You mean you take care of people Edward holds captive?"

Emmett blinked dumbly for a few seconds longer than I thought he would. I knew they knew why I was here. They had to have known.

"Bella, you don't get it do you?" Emmett was still wiping away my silent tears.

"Get what Emmett?"

"Fuck, Bella, Edward is trying to protect you. he doesn't want you killed or hurt any more than you already were when he found you. Granted, he can't let you leave, but it's to fuckin' keep you alive…"

I blinked out more tears but they quickly dried up.

"And fuck, if he wanted to kill you, he'd have done it. I've seen it myself. He doesn't hesitate on that shit."

"I can't stay here. I don't want to be a burden to anyone. And the five of you keep taking time out of your lives to help me and I don't deserve this. I'm sorry I've been so needy. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"Bella….we take care of our own. Stop with the worrying. We wanted to help. Otherwise, we wouldn't fuckin' be here."

"Your own?" What did that mean?

Rose cut in to our conversation right after I asked. It left me feeling like they didn't want to really answer that question yet.

"Bella, instead of a shower tonight, what do you think about a bath? I brought you some new products." Rose waited for me to think about it while Emmett looked at the two of us with a gleeful look.

"You two shower together? Can I watch?" Rose rolled her eyes. I blushed again.

Emmett smiled sheepishly at me. "Okay, okay, let's go Bella. Hey Rose, won't she get her bandages wet?"

Rose held up baggies and tape. "She won't get them wet, dummy. We put these on before we get her all cleaned up."

Emmett smiled that huge smile again. "Can I watch next time you help her shower? If you're in there too, that's gotta be pretty fuckin' hot!!!"

Rose hit him up side of his head. "I wear a bathing suit. It's not about getting it on, it's about taking care of Bella."

"Well that's pretty hot too…" Emmett mumbled under his breath as he lowered me into the tub.

Rose cleaned me up and washed my hair. When she was done she brought clothes for me that Alice had bought. And Emmett carried me back into the bedroom. I took a pain pill and quickly drifted off to sleep as Alice ran her fingers through my hair keeping me company.

A/N: want a sneak peak at the next BIG chapter? Write a review and I'll respond to you with it…BUT DON'T SHARE!

Smooches.