***A/N: This is it! I'm already hiding from all your rotten tomatoes. LOL. Many of my stories have a big twist that makes me lose some fans and gain others (Moon Scars' not so deadly death, Innocent Sins' guilty victim, and She Will Be Loved's maternity shocker). Well, this is one of those types of twists. I hope you like it and stick with me, but if not, I still appreciate your support up until this point :)

P.S. A few people have guessed it right already, so the clues have been there from the start (even the banner has clues)

Chapter 10

I didn't want to do it. My stubbornness almost made me pass it by. But there I was, lying across Edward's bare chest after making love to him for the second time of the evening. Celine Dion's 'It's All Coming Back To Me Now' was playing on repeat in my head, and I was at serious risk of becoming crazy if I wasn't already. It was too much, too soon, and yet, it felt absolutely right….and a little wrong deep down at the same time. What the hell was going on with me?

"What's wrong?" he murmured when he heard me sigh a little louder than I intended to.

"Nothing."

"Something," he insisted.

"No…everything is perfect. I just get a little…pessimistic whenever things go so well. I got that amazing trait from my mother," I said with a laugh.

He chuckled. "We have that in common. Well, except I get mine from Carlisle. You know, they were more alike than they'd care to admit."

"I thought you said he was better now?" I questioned while absently stroking his arm.

"He is… Esme has really helped him….But the damage to my psyche has already been done," he said with another laugh.

"True."

We eventually got too tired to keep our eyes open, and the next time I opened mine, it was the following morning…and I was alone in his bed.

"Edward?" I called out to him, wondering if he was in the bathroom.

When he didn't answer me I sat up and looked around the room. Fluffy was giving me the stink eye but was otherwise fairly docile, but everything else seemed strange. It was almost like something was off; different from the night before, and I couldn't quite figure it out. It gave me the willies. My clothes were pooled on the side of the bed, so I hesitantly got dressed and then ventured out of the bedroom to look for Edward.

"Edward?" I said again, thinking I'd find him in the kitchen making coffee.

But he wasn't there…he wasn't anywhere. There was no note explaining where he had gone, the only clue I had was back in his bedroom. His EMT uniform was gone - the one he had worn for the past two days which had been tossed on the floor during our desperate fit of passion the night before.

And then I remembered what he told me about his job – "Sometimes I get called to work in the middle of the night, and I need to get there quickly."

I thought it was odd that he wouldn't leave a note explaining where he'd gone, but there was nothing stranger than the idea that he would put on a dirty uniform when he had three freshly clean ones hanging in his closet. And then there was the fact that he didn't have his keys, so how could he drive anywhere.

Red flags began waving around in my mind, but I shook them away and refused to think there was something dishonest going on. A friend could have picked him up for all I knew.

I waited around his apartment for over an hour, but then I decided to head home. He knew I was living with my mother, and he knew where she lived. He'd be able to find me whenever he was finished doing whatever he was doing.

Except he didn't show.

Two days passed, and he never contacted me.

I didn't understand it, and despite the fact that it seemed as though he ditched me, I refused to believe it. Why would he? If he just wanted to fuck me and leave then why didn't he do that at the hotel? I had offered. But no, he introduced me to his niece, and brought me to his apartment where he tore down my last defensive wall and made love to me. It just didn't make sense.

I decided to try to give my heart a break and distract myself for a few minutes by running into the diner to pick up my last check. I had already called to resign, but I still had pay from my last week of work. Of course, being a small town diner owner, Waylon didn't have a problem asking me to make one last delivery. "I'll pay you two bucks," he offered. "And you can keep whatever tip you make."

It would cost me almost that much in gas just to drive across town, but I really didn't mind; in fact, I almost felt like I needed to go to the hospital just to ask Carlisle about Edward.

Each of the three times I had delivered Carlisle his food, he looked so…stressed, but this time it was far worse…as if he aged ten years since the last time I saw him a few days prior.

"Hey Bella," he said with one of his familiar uncharacteristic hugs.

"Hey Carlisle, how is everything?"

He shook his head slowly, and then surprised the hell out of me by breaking down and sobbing into his hands. I didn't know what to do except rub his shoulder supportively, but internally I was freaking out. Somehow I just knew it had something to do with Edward.

"Carlisle, what happened to Edward?"

He wiped his tears and forced himself to calm down. "God, look at me. I'm the chief of staff, for crying out loud."

"It's okay. Just tell me what happened."

He sighed. "It's just been a long night. Keeping him stable has really been challenging."

Keeping him stable. The words shattered through my mind like a bowling ball tossed through a fine china store. "Wha...how did he get here. What happened to him?"

"You don't know?" he asked surprised. I shook my head no, so he took a deep breath to explain it to me. "Edward was working an overnight shift when he was called to an accident on the Quileute Pass. He was out tending to a patient, but the police didn't have the scene barricaded properly yet. A passing car was going too fast around the bend…the roads were wet, and the driver swerved, but…" He couldn't finish, and he didn't have to.

"Oh my god. No. He's fine, tell me he's okay!" I practically shouted at him.

"He's stable…right now. But it's been so touch and go."

I took a second to breathe a sigh of relief. Edward wasn't dead. Carlisle would make sure he made it through. "Where is he? What room?"

"305. Right down the hall there," he said while pointing in the direction he had come from. I didn't hesitate, I just ran straight there and was relieved again the moment I saw him. He was sleeping, but he looked good – well, good considering the fact he was in a hospital bed with tubes shoved down his nose and throat; his color was decent and there were no visible lacerations.

I vaguely sensed that Carlisle had followed me.

"He's okay, right?" I asked, wondering why he was crying before.

"He had a lot of internal bleeding from the initial impact of the car pinning him between the gurney and the ambulance. Thankfully his spinal cord is fully intact, and technically speaking there's nothing that should keep him from walking again. He's had five surgeries to repair the damage to his organs, and he's healing well….I just have no idea why he's still deteriorating."

The word 'deteriorating' was terrifying, but something else Carlisle said caught my attention even more - "How could he have five surgeries in just two days?"

"Two days? Bella, his accident was over three weeks ago."

My heart jumped, and then there were several beats of nothingness before I felt my head slowly shake back and forth. "No. I just saw him."

"I know this is hard," Carlisle started cooing, but I wasn't about to listen to that shit.

"No! I just saw him. Literally. Two days ago!"

He sighed. "I'm so sorry, Bella."

"No. Don't say that. Something is going on here."

"What do you mean?"

"I just saw Edward two days ago. He introduced me to Bree; I spent the night in his apartment!"

"I'm sorry sweetheart, that's just not possible. He's been here for three weeks. He's never woken up, and I'm not sure he ever will," he said while getting choked up again. "He keeps going into cardiac arrest. Two nights ago was the worse one yet, and his brain activity hasn't spiked since….I just don't understand it. This is my job. To fix people. And I can't even fix my own son. What the hell kind of doctor am I?"

"Doctor Cullen?" a nurse said softly from the doorway. "I'm sorry, but you're needed in Labor and Delivery."

He nodded and then squeezed my arm tenderly before leaving me alone with Edward's stand in. I had no idea what was happening, but the thing that made the most sense was that Edward had a lookalike and somehow they convinced everyone that they were the same person. He said he was adopted; perhaps the guy in the coma was his identical twin - Okay, so it didn't really make any sense at all, but I couldn't think of anything else.

I took a step closer to him, and tried to see some sort of clue as to who the person in Edward's place really was…but he just looked like Edward. Beautiful, perfect, sleeping Edward.

Suddenly there was a strange beep on the monitor, and I felt the presence of someone else enter the room. I figured it was a nurse, but something made me turn around regardless, and the world immediately stopped turning….Standing there in the doorway, looking absolutely befuddled, was Edward.

"Why are we here?" he asked casually while looking around the room like he had no idea anything was happening.

"Edward?" I said slowly, unsure if it was really him or not. I wasn't sure about anything at that point.

"Yeah… What's going on?"

I looked at him and tried to make sense of it. He was wearing his same EMT uniform…except it was different. It was ripped and torn, almost as if he was in an accident.

"Oh my god," I whispered to myself. Had the rips been there all along? How could I have not noticed?

"Bella, what's wrong?" he asked while moving towards me. When I took a numbing step back, he paused. "Why are we here?" he asked again. "Are you bringing Carlisle lunch? Please tell me you didn't take that stupid job back."

I shook my head slowly as a deadening haze devoured my entire body.

"Is it Bree's mom?" he asked concerned.

"No…It's you," I told him, unsure how I even moved my mouth to speak.

"Me?" He looked past me at the person in the bed, and then he raised his brows in shock. "I don't understand."

"Neither do I," I admitted, feeling like I was seconds away from losing it completely. Maybe I already lost it; I wasn't quite sure.

We stared at each other for a torturously long moment, and then a nurse came in abruptly…walking right through Edward and making his image dissolve like a cloud of smoke.

I just stood there completely flabbergasted. What the hell was happening?

***A/N: Yep, this is me hiding from your tomatoes.

I got inspired for this story from the chick flick 'Just Like Heaven' (remember I said there was a 'Sweet Home Alabama' connection, i.e. Reese Witherspoon). The ghost/coma thing is really the only part that's similar to the movie, but it was still my inspiration :)

Once again, sorry if you're disappointed. I hope you continue to read through the end, but I understand completely if you don't. Thanks so much either way 3