Chapter 10 - Case 8339

"You see, I knew this was going to happen," Aro said with his slithering voice as he sauntered into the room.

"Fuck! This has nothing to do with you, so go the hell away!" Edward yelled at him.

"Oh, I don't think so. This has everything to do with me, and you know it." Aro walked towards Edward and got within inches of his face. "I own you, and I own her. That makes this my business. I knew you were going to race for the abortion, which is why you are no longer allowed to be alone with her... Dimitri!" he called.

"No, fuck you! You are not taking her from me!" Edward yelled as Dimitri grabbed him from behind and started pulling him towards the exit. I reflexively moved to go to him, but then Felix caught me from behind and restrained me. "Let her go, you son of a bitch!" Edward yelled.

"Relax son, he's not going to hurt her," Carlisle said calmingly, but with a warning undertone.

"Carlisle, she's…."

"I know, but we don't exactly have a choice here. We are all the best doctors in the world; we'll see her through it."

"For now on, you will be supervised at all times. Do you understand me?" Aro said challengingly to Edward. They stared each other down for a few long moments, and finally Edward reluctantly nodded and backed down. "Carlisle, if you know what's best for your little clan here, you'll start working on case 8339 again," Aro said with a smug sleazy smirk.

I looked over at Edward, and he was absolutely fuming. If Dimitri wasn't holding him, I was sure Edward would have physically attacked Aro, but to my pure agonizing chagrin, I still didn't understand why. I glanced at the other Cullens, and they seemed to be pretty upset as well, but none of them said anything.

"Felix, I think our Isabella has had enough excitement for one day; please see that her visitors leave her to rest," Aro instructed.

"Yes, Sir," he said and then motioned for everyone to leave, which they did… all but Edward. Edward shook his head at him with a deadly glare, but Dimitri grabbed him again and forced him out without allowing him to say another word.

"Oh, and Bella," Aro said as he was about to leave as well. "Edward will not be joining you tonight. He's on a time out until he learns to behave himself."

I was so beyond pissed that I couldn't even see straight. I had no idea what time it was, but it had to be in the wee hours of the morning because it had been an extremely long time since I slept last. My mind was fuzzy and it hurt to think, but I was shaking from the emotionally stressful day and I doubted that I'd be able to sleep anyway.

Case 8339. Case 8339. What the hell was that? The number was definitely familiar, and it seemed to keep coming up, I just needed to figure it out. And then I remembered where I saw it - the computer Carlisle had let me use - the computer that I still had! I opened up the first file, and started skimming through it again.

Case 3763 was a rare form of Multiple Sclerosis. Years of research and then a discovery, which had nothing to do with Multiple Sclerosis - Case 3763 became case 8339. But that was it, it didn't say what the case was and there were no clues as to why it was deleted from the file log.

8339, 8339, what the hell was that?

And then I remembered something else Edward had said. Right after he caught me in the Special Unit building, he told me a little about what was going on. He said - "Carlisle worked for five years, but instead of finding a way to save his wife, he found a cure for a different disease, and that was the real beginning of KRO."

Case 3763 was the first file, and then it became 8339, so it would make sense that case 3763 was Carlisle's wife Esme. Carlisle never found a cure for his wife, but found something else instead, so that must be case 8339… the case that was erased from the files I was reading.

"Ugh, this is so frustrating!" I yelled.

Eventually my head was pounding so hard that I finally fell asleep, but it wasn't very restful.

…

I was in a grassy field full of yellow wildflowers. It was the same location which Edward had always appeared in when I used to dream about him in the beginning. But Edward wasn't there this time, it was Teddy… and he was walking.

"Oh, my god… Look at you!" I said astonished.

"I told you I was going to be better now," he said with his bright blue eyes sparkling exactly like the beautiful clear sky.

"You also said that you weren't coming back to visit me," I said with a grin.

"Well, I think you just need a little nudge."

"Really, how so?" I asked him.

But then everything changed. Suddenly we weren't in the field anymore, we were back in my apartment, and Teddy was sitting next to me on the bed, but his face was distorted or even blurry in an odd way that was almost frightening. But it was Teddy, and I refused to be afraid of him regardless his appearance.

"Call me," Teddy said strangely.

"What? I don't understand what you mean."

"Call me," he repeated and then picked up a phone off the nightstand, and handed it to me. I didn't really have a phone there, so I wondered why my dream would put one there, but the whole thing was so confusing that I just went with it.

"I don't remember your number," I said trying to think back to when I was thirteen.

"Call me, NOW!" he yelled, which turned into a shrilling scream.

"Teddy, what's wrong…. Teddy?" I asked concerned, but he didn't stop screaming. "Teddy STOP!" I yelled, and then, there was silence. …..

.

I sat up in my bed and realized it was morning, but I couldn't get Teddy's shrill out of my mind. It was like a ringing in my ears, and it was vibrating right through me.

'Call me NOW!' - His words repeated in my head... so I did the most ridiculous thing; I went to the kitchen, and picked up the telephone. The phone had been long disconnected since I started living there, but for some reason, I just felt like I needed to try to dial something.

I looked at the keypad, not really sure what I was doing, and then I saw it.

123

456

789

Each number had a series of letters. 2ABC, 3DEF etc. and I realized then that the case numbers could actually be words. After studying the first case number, and working out all the possible words that could be made from those numbers, it became obvious that 3763 stood for Esme. It was clear as day, and I couldn't believe it took so long for me figure it out. But like my dad had always told me - "Sometimes the most simplest things are the most difficult to see".

But 8993 was harder, because nothing seemed to make sense with those particular letters that went with the numbers.

'Call ME!' - Teddy's imaginary voice screamed in my head.

"Ugh, I can't think straight!" I shouted and threw the phone onto the couch out of pure frustration. It was like the answer was right in front of me, but I just couldn't see it and my mind was getting painfully fuzzy the more I tried.

Just then, Carlisle came to the door and didn't look very happy.

"Hey, how's Edward?" I asked, knowing how upset he was.

"Well, I can tell you that you are definitely a more cooperative prisoner," he said solemnly.

"Carlisle, can't you do something here? I mean, you started this company, right?"

He shook his head. "I started the research, but Aro had all the money. I've lived here for twelve years, and I never once took a pay check, if I had, maybe I could have saved it to branch out on my own. But it wasn't about money for me, it was about the work. I had all my needs paid for, but besides that, I've always been a simple man and never really wanted for anything that money could buy. But without money to pay for the materials, there isn't anything we could do away from here."

"We need her now," A doctor I didn't know said as he came into the room unannounced.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Aro has ordered testing done on you and your fetus," Carlisle said apologetically.

"Testing? What kind of testing?" I asked in a panic.

"Bella, I'm sorry. But when we did the DNA test yesterday, we also tested for genetic diseases… and it was positive for Lytchenstein Kolff Disease."

I felt like my heart just leapt out of my chest. "What? How…?" I couldn't form a full sentence, and the words I did say were jittery and uncontrolled. "I never heard of that before," I managed to spit out.

"Not many have, it's extremely rare. There have only been forty confirmed cases worldwide, and only nine have survived birth," he said sympathetically.

"Only nine have survived birth?" I repeated horrified. "Wait, did you say Kolff? As in Dr. Kolff the Biomedical Engineer? The same Dr. Kolff KRO is named after?"

"The very same. Dr. Kolff was a pioneer in biomedical engineering, which is one of the reasons why we named KRO after him. It just so happens he was also the first to identify and document cases of this particular disease."

"OK," I shook my head, trying to refocus on the issues my child would face. "So it's a genetic condition?"

He nodded. "And the reason it is so rare is because both parents have to be carriers…. Unless, of course, one of the parents actually has the disease….. Then," he sighed. "Then the child would have a ninety eight percent chance of also having the disease."

"So, Edward and I are both carriers?" I asked incredulously.

"I didn't say that," he said, which confused me.

"We need to go now!" the doctor came back and demanded, so Carlisle led me gently by my arm, and I walked absently beside him.

"I tried to give Edward time to tell you, but you deserve to know," Carlisle said while we walked. "Lytchenstein Kolff Disease is closely related to cerebral palsy, except it's a mutation of the disease... and terminal. When I said that only nine have survived birth, I meant that the mothers have also died. We don't exactly know why, but it has something to do with the fetus not being able to absorb nutrition properly from the umbilical cord, which results in it taking what it needs from the mother's other organs. It drains the mother of all her nutrients and causes extreme dehydration. Like I said, only nine out of forty have survived."

My head was spinning as I struggled to focus in order to understand what he was saying, but I was so foggy brained that it was difficult to process. "So, Edward…"

"Edward and I wanted to give you the abortion right away, because we knew if Aro found out, he'd force these tests on you and wouldn't allow you to get an abortion. Bella, I'm not going to tell you that this baby will kill you, but it will definitely be the fight of your life."

"And when it's born…."

"Of the nine who survived birth; most died in the early years of life. If it survives even that long, the child will have no control over any of it's motor functions, will never speak, and never walk."

I unintentionally let my hand drop to my abdomen and Teddy's face flashed in my mind. Perhaps that's what my dream was trying to tell me. In some odd way, maybe it was Teddy telling me everything was going to be ok.

I swallowed hard. "Well, I'm glad Aro stopped it then," I said quietly as we entered the lab.

"What?" Edward said from behind me. I didn't know that he was there, or maybe he just came and heard the end of our conversation, either way, he wasn't happy about it.

I turned to face him. "I'm glad Aro stepped in and stopped you from forcing me into an abortion," I told him strongly. I was in a whirlwind of emotions, and I couldn't decipher between them. I was scared and worried about my baby, I loved Edward and missed him whenever we were apart, but at the moment, I was pissed. "Who do you think you are, anyway? You have no right to try to kill my baby without my permission!" I said angrily to Edward after realizing that was exactly what he planned on doing without even explaining it all to me first.

"Bella, it could kill you!" he said agitatedly.

"It's still my decision," I insisted.

"And what kind of life do you think the kid is going to have, huh?" he asked full of resentment. When I didn't answer right away, he continued. "Even if we somehow managed to take it from this awful place, all it would know is pain, and suffering, and loneliness, and the feeling of being trapped."

"Really? Is that how the Cullens describe their lives? Because I know for a fact that it's possible to be happy, even if you're disabled."

"And how do you know that?" he asked bitterly.

"Because I was very close to someone who was, and he was the most pure, loving soul I ever encountered, and if our baby has even a portion of that life I saw inside him, then it's a life that deserves a chance."

He shook his head. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he said while his angry emerald eyes pierced straight through me.

"And you do?" I provoked. "Everyone is different, and maybe Emmett and the others hate being in their 'natural' state because they know how it feels to be different, but before they knew that, you can't tell me that they were never happy. How can you do the work that you do, and still believe that people with disorders don't deserve a chance to live? To you, they're just faceless diseases unless you can bring them out of it the way you do with the Cullens, and that's why you can detach your emotions from them. You talk about the many 'others' that came before the four of them as if they didn't mean anything, as if because of their diseases, they didn't have emotions. That's wrong Edward, and if you ever really got to know any of them, if you spent time with any of them other than just trying to fix what you think is broken, then perhaps you'd understand why I'd want to have our baby regardless of any diseases it may have."

He was quiet for a moment as he thought about everything I said. And then, he sighed. "You're right. I never have spent time with any of them. Apart from the Cullens, I never sat by someone who was mentally and physically disabled and read them a story, or even looked them in the eye to try to see who they really were on the inside. But it has nothing to do with not believing. I know damn well what goes on in some of their minds, and the truth is that I just don't want to think about it. Aro may be an insensitive power-hungry jackass, but what we are doing here is important. If I stopped to get to know every patient that came in here, I would go insane. Sometimes a few people have to be sacrificed for the greater good."

"Tell that to the ones who have been sacrificed!" I said angrily, just as I had told Carlisle when he tried to sell me on that same sentiment.

"Ok, I'm here. Let's get started on case 8339 and a half!" Aro said way too excitedly.

"You never take part in the lab work," Carlisle said to him confused.

"Oh, but this one is going to be different. I can feel it."

"If you touch her, I won't hesitate to kill you," Edward warned Aro.

"Don't worry child, I'm a doctor… or did you forget?" Aro replied mockingly.

"I swear…" Edward started to say, but Aro cut him off.

"You swear what? We have already discussed this. If you threaten me again, I'll cut you off and send you where all the other rejects go. And then I'll disband the Cullen division and let all them go back to la-la land as well. Do you understand me?"

There was a beat of silence, and then - "Ya," he mumbled.

"What? Speak clearly, otherwise what's the fucking point to even making you better," Aro demanded. "Do you understand?" he repeated.

"Yes!" Edward yelled in his face.

"Very good," Aro said arrogantly, and then he turned to Carlisle with fake enthusiasm. "I am so excited that we get to study and test this rare and fascinating disease from the very beginning. As soon as the fetus is matured enough to survive outside the womb, I want it out."

"Aro, this is ridiculous. Bella had no knowledge of this and you're putting her life in danger. We need to abort," Carlisle tried reasoning.

"Absolutely not. Technically, she's already dead, so if she dies during this, then so be it. I want the medication administered as soon as the infant is born," he said sternly.

"We've tried the medication on other Lytchenstein Kolff patients, 8339 is the only time it's worked," Carlisle said frustrated.

"And this is 8339 and a half. If it was to work on anyone else, it'll be this infant," Aro said resolved.

"And then what? We won't be any closer to a cure, you'll just have two people needing the medication and draining your wallet," Carlisle argued.

"Oh no, 8339 has been on the medication far too long. Perhaps he isn't as different from the others as we thought. Maybe he just can't be cured permanently because the medication has blocked it. This infant will be a new start. I want an alternative version of the medication. Come on, Carlisle; I know you can figure this out…. You don't want any more lives on your hands, do you?"

Carlisle just glared at him.

"I didn't think so," Aro said, and then walked out of the room.

"Okay, what's 8339?!" I exploded. I had enough, and I wasn't going to relax until I got some answers. "I know case 3763 means Esme, and it became case 8339, so what is 8339?"

"It means Teddy!" Edward said, shocking the hell out of me. "T.E.D.Y… They had to drop one of the D's."

"Yes, well it needed to be four digits in order to fit in our data base system at the time. It was just a simple way for us to keep track of the cases." Carlisle explained softly - not that I was listening to him at that point.

"Teddy?" I said with a knot in my throat. Surely it was just a coincidence; surely it couldn't be my Teddy.

"Teddy was one of our first test subjects," Carlisle jumped in.

"And… This Teddy…. he had Cerebral Palsy?" I asked, seriously hoping that I was coming to the wrong conclusion and they were talking about a different Teddy. I could never function and continue to be friendly with any of them knowing they had used my Teddy as a lab rat. I wasn't ok with them using anyone, but because I was so close to him, I knew I could never get past it.

"No, he had Lytchenstein Kolff Disease," Carlisle said slowly.

"Like my baby?"

"Yes," Carlisle replied. "It's a disease that can be confused with Cerebral Palsy because the symptoms are similar, but on a cellular level it's quite different.

"You said Lytchenstein Kolff Disease was genetic. You told me that it had to be carried by both parents, or that one of them had to have the disease?"

"Your child inherited it solely from Edward. You are not a carrier," Carlisle said softly.

I didn't realize that I was crying at that point, but so much information had just been told, that I needed a minute to fully process it.

I took a deep breath, and then turned to Edward.

"You're sick?" I whispered, unable to speak any louder at the moment. He had been starting to get stuff together for whatever testing they were going to do on me, but he then stopped and turned back to face me.

"I should have told you, but… I just didn't want you to act any differently around me. I never expected things to go this far, and when they did, I just… didn't know how to tell you. But I swear, we were sure that I couldn't conceive children, otherwise I would have never put you at risk like that," Edward explained shakily. He seemed like he was on the verge of having a breakdown, but he forced himself to keep it together.

I looked back at Carlisle. "But, you and Edward both said that when they were searching for a cure for Esme, they found a different cure for 8339?"

I was painstakingly trying to piece everything together, and hoping that there was a simple solution for everyone's sake, but I already knew that wasn't the case.

"It wasn't exactly a cure," Edward said gently. "It allows me to function, but I need to take a medication every day."

"Like the Cullens?" I asked mechanically.

"No… I never deteriorate the way they do. I'm able to stay functioning all the time… unless I don't get the medication."

I felt like I couldn't catch my breath as I listened to him. It was like my entire world came crashing down on me, and I didn't know how to handle it.

"So, you have Lytchenstein Kolff Disease?"

He nodded.

"And… you're Teddy?" I said, no louder than a breath. In fact, I may have just mouthed the words without sound, but it didn't matter, he understood.

He stared at me for a few moments…. and then he nodded again.

"Teddy Masen?" I asked a little louder, just to be positive that we were talking about the same person.

Once again, he nodded.

"No…" I said crying again. "He died… I went to the funeral…. I was with him right before it happened… My mom said…" I had to take another deep breath, because I was starting to hyperventilate.

"She didn't know… No one did," Edward explained quietly. "Aro and Keller approached my parents and told them that they had an experimental procedure, but they had to sign a waiver. So they signed it and allowed me to go to their facility in Chicago. Two days later, they were told that I had died."

I shook my head absently. "You don't look like him," I said in denial.

"The muscular issues that the disease causes changes the way the face looks," Carlisle told me.

"Your eyes are green… his were blue," I said still shaking my head.

"It's the medication," Edward explained. "It causes yellowing of the iris. The Cullens all have it. That's why Emmett's and Alice's eyes look hazel; they were brown before, but the medication changed them. Rosalie and Jasper both had shades of blue eyes as well, but now they're green like mine."

"But you said you had different medication then them?" I asked, reaching for anything that could make it untrue.

"They are all different, but they all have a similar compound which affects the eyes," Edward explained.

"Teddy… Why would they call you Edward if your name is really Teddy?" I asked absently. As more information became clear, my mind seemed to go from denial to a serious state of shock, but I still had questions and I asked them as if I was on autopilot.

"Teddy became the name of the case…. I didn't want to just be a case anymore, so I decided to go by my full name," he explained.

"Isn't Teddy short for Theodore?"

"And Edward," Carlisle jumped in. "It's not the most common nick name for it, but if that was a Masen family name, then it would make sense that they would carry it on."

"Teddy was named after his great grandfather," I said, remembering when I saw an old picture in Liza Masen's bedroom. I had asked who he was, and she said he was Teddy's namesake.

"Bella…" Edward said, and then he hesitated and seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say.

I looked at him closer, and tried to see him for who he really was, but I couldn't find any trace of Teddy inside of him at all.

"Do you… remember me… from before?" I asked slowly. "Did you know who I was when we first saw each other here?"

"Yes, I knew. I was surprised to see you, and I swear, I had nothing to do with you being hired here," he assured me. "I remember a lot from when I was a kid in that state. I remember my parents, your mother… the way you used to come home from school every day, and spend hours telling me every little thing that happened to you."

I couldn't handle it anymore and I broke down, so he took a step closer to me.

"I used to… wait for you," he went on. "I didn't understand time very well, but I knew at some point you'd be there, and with your musical voice, you'd let me into your world. It didn't matter that I was unable to respond to you, you just kept coming back, day after day, and you'd look at me as if you knew I could understand you. When you had reading assignments, you'd come read out loud to me, and it meant more then you'll ever truly understand," he said softly.

I felt like I was falling as the gravity of the situation hit me full force, but at the same time, I felt like my feet were finally on the ground as everything began to make sense. All my dreams of Teddy weren't him coming back from the dead to deliver a message, or to say goodbye, it was him trying to tell me to open my eyes and see him there in front of me. It was my mind subconsciously telling me that I already knew the truth, but refused to believe it.

"Everyone thinks you're dead," I said through my tears.

"Everyone thinks you're dead too," he pointed out.

A part of me wanted to run to him, and wrap my arms around him; I wanted to hold him as Teddy, and as Edward. But my feet were locked in place, and I couldn't close the distance between us. I wiped my face, and tried to clear my head. I still had question that I needed answered.

"So, when you... woke up, what did you think? Were you scared?" I asked short of breath, still feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach.

"Carlisle had been explaining things while the testing was being done. I didn't understand everything though, it was like there was a block in my brain, or even a filter that only allowed some things to be processed. But the moment I was given the proper enzyme in the right dose, everything became clear. It was like… having a massive migraine all my life, and finally I was able to think without it hurting. And then everything became simple. My mind was always working on overdrive just to understand the most basic things before, and when the blockage was gone, my brain just soaked up everything like a sponge."

"That's why most problems seem easy to you?" I concluded, thinking about how he'd answer the most complex questions in lab like they were elementary.

He nodded.

"And what? You were able to get your medical degree as easily?" I assumed.

"Well, technically, I don't have a degree, at least not a legal one, but yeah. I was sixteen when I was first put on the medication, and I was helping Carlisle with Alice a year later. We thought when we discovered the other enzymes that they would work for them as mine did for me, but we were wrong. We still can't seem to find the missing link that will allow them to live the way that I do."

"And when you said that you can't leave here?" I asked.

"I need the medication. If I don't get it, then I'll go back to how I was. It's a terminal disease, so I have no idea how long it would be until it killed me, but I also can't leave the others here either. "

"And this is the only place you can get the medication?"

"Carlisle and I make it here. If we had proper funding, we could do it somewhere else, but it's extremely expensive. It's a complex compound, and even if we were to do it a million times, we would still need the procedure in written form to follow. And there is no way we could ever get that information out of the facility."

I closed my eyes tightly, trying to recover from the violent onslaught of information I received, but I just couldn't figure out how it all made me feel. I was bewildered by the whole thing, and I knew it would take some time until I was fully able to comprehend everything.

"So, there's a chance that the enzyme will work for our baby as well?" I asked feeling a twinge of hope in the hopeless situation. It was the only thing I could grasp, so I was going to hold onto it with everything I had.

"We've tried it on others with the same disease, and Edward is the only one it's worked for," Carlisle explained heavyhearted.

"But like Aro said, the baby has your DNA, so if it was going to work on anyone else, it'll be it, right?" I asked Edward.

"Bella, before we can even consider any of that, we would have to get you both to survive the pregnancy. My mother almost died, but she was one of the lucky few," Edward said gently but intensely, trying to make me understand the reality of the situation. "An abortion is the best solution."

"Well, that option as been taken away now, hasn't it?" I asked with a twinge of resentment. I couldn't believe he was still hoping for that, even after Aro forbade it.

"I know, but… we can still find a way," he said determinedly.

"Really? Well, Felix and Dimitri over there, say otherwise. I'm having this baby, and I don't care what the consequences are."

"Bella…."

"No Edward, just stop. If you go against Aro, he'll take the funding for your medication away and you and the Cullens will be helpless," I said, suddenly finding some dormant strength. I then sat in one of the chairs, and put out my arm waiting for Carlisle to come and draw my blood.

Carlisle cleaned my skin and then punctured me with the needle, and I didn't even feel it. I was so numb and emotionally drained that there was no way I could feel anything in that moment.

Edward was really Teddy… or Teddy was Edward; I was still unsure which one was correct. He had some terrifying disease but it was being controlled by an enzyme that could only be made at KRO, and we were having a baby with the same disease.

It was all just too much, and if I wasn't numb I would have surely imploded. I just needed to find a way to accept my new reality and try to find a way to live through it.