Disclaimer: Sadly I don't own Twilight Stephenie Meyer does.

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Chapter 21

Alice was sitting on the couch with her face buried in her hands. She couldn't move or breathe. Not until either Carlisle or Bella came down. Carlisle had taken Bella upstairs to examine her and had send everyone away so that he could concentrate. That was now twenty minutes ago and time had never passed so slowly for Alice. The pain and fear that had blossomed in her chest when Carlisle had told her Bella could be in a coma was slowly crushing her.

'What if she's in a coma? What if she doesn't make it? What am I going to do then? I can't stand being twenty minutes away from her. How am I going to handle eternity?'

"She's not going to die, Alice," Edward murmured having heard her thoughts.

"You don't know that. You can't know that."

"Neither can you," Jasper interjected softly.

"Yes, I can. I feel it. Something's wrong with her. I feel it in my unbeating heart," Alice whispered sounding agonized.

"She may have just fainted, Alice," Esme murmured soothingly.

"She may have," Alice agreed hoping beyond hope that that was the only thing wrong with her mate. "But I think it's more serious," Alice confessed.

"I'm afraid you might be right," Carlisle whispered coming down the stairs.

"Is she…" Alice started but she was unable to finish her sentence. What was she going to ask? Is she dead? Is she in a coma? Is she going to be okay?

"How is she?" Edward asked knowing Alice wasn't able to ask herself.

"She's in a coma," Carlisle answered bluntly knowing he needed to be completely honest and kicking himself for not noticing how the usage of her powers had drained her. "I don't think it's anything permanent, but she has obviously overdone it and her body has shut down. She needs to rest so she's probably going to be sleeping for a couple of days," he continued hoping that he got it right this time. It was a tricky business trying to determine when someone was going to wake up from a coma and the fact that Bella's brain worked so differently didn't exactly make it easier.

"But she's going to wake up, right?" Alice asked.

"She'll probably wake up in a couple of days yes," Carlisle answered.

"Probably?" Alice repeated hesitantly. She didn't want guesses she needed facts!

"For now it looks good. She's got about 88 % of waking up within the next four days."

"And the other 12%?"

"There's a 12% chance that her condition worsens which would mean she'd be in a coma indefinitely and could even result in death," Carlisle whispered and his family gasped at the news.

"Can't we do anything?" Esme asked sounding pained.

"Not really. It's up to her and how much strength she still has left. The only thing we can do is sit by her side and wait," Carlisle murmured.

"I'm going to go do that now," Alice said unable to handle the distance from her sleeping mate any longer.

"What are we going to do about her father?" Edward asked knowing that the Chief expected his daughter to be home tonight.

"We call him and let him know she collapsed," Carlisle answered.

"He's going to ask what caused the collapse," Rosalie said

"We tell him we don't know. We were playing baseball again and she collapsed," Carlisle said.

"I'll call him," Esme said needing to do something other than sitting around thinking about one of her daughters in a coma.

"How did she do it?" Edward asked.

"How did she do what?" Emmett replied.

"How did she hurl that Dean guy into the fire? He was still invisible and me and Carlisle were having trouble determining where he was . How could she have known exactly where he was? Her senses aren't as acute as ours and I didn't think her powers were that strong," Edward said sounding puzzled and pained. He felt guilty. If he had just fought better or if he had been faster and stronger none of this would have happened.

"She saw him," Alice whispered brokenly from Bella's bedside as she thought about what had happened minutes before Bella had hurled Dean and James into the fire.

"Oh," Edward said surprised as she saw what had happened.

"Oh what?" Emmett asked.

"What happened Edward?" Carlisle asked pleading with his son to tell him because guilt was weighing heavy on him.

"Dean's power didn't work on Bella so she could still see him. She saw us struggling to fight him and wanted to help, but Alice was afraid she would get hurt and wouldn't let her," Edward replied.

"Oh," Carlisle said. "I should have thought of that."

"Thought of what?" Jasper asked frowning.

"That she was able to block Dean's ability. Laurent said Dean's ability had to do with optical illusions. I think he was able to make us think he was invisible. But since Bella's mind works differently from that of a normal human or vampire it didn't work on her."

"Like Alice and Edward's gift doesn't work on her," Jasper said as comprehension dawned.

"Charlie's on his way," a sad looking Esme said as she walked back into the living room.

"What did he say?" Carlisle asked looking worried.

"He was shocked and wanted to know how it happened and what could be done. He wanted to come and see her."

"Did he want to move her to a hospital?" Carlisle asked dreading the answer.

"No, he knows you're one of the best doctors in town and I told him I'm trained as a nurse and will help out as much as I can."

Six hours later a sad looking Alice was watching the sleeping form of her Bella.

"Don't you dare leave me," she whispered as she stroked through Bella's hair. "I need you. So much. It hasn't even been a full day since I saw those beautiful brown eyes of yours and already I feel like I'm dying inside!" Alice choked out as the grief and the fear momentarily overtook her. "Charlie needs you too you know. He was here a couple of hours ago. God Bells, you should have seen the look on his face when he saw you lying here. You really need to wake up. For him, for this family and for me."

"How is she?" Carlisle asked softly as he entered the room studying the monitor.

"No change," Alice replied confirming what the monitor said. "How long before we know she's getting better or worse?" Alice asked fearfully. She cursed the fact that her visions didn't work on Bella. The one thing she really wanted to know, she really needed to know and she couldn't see it. She was going to have to find out the hard way: by living through it.

"I'm not sure since she's so different from other humans, but I think we should see change within the next three days. Alice nodded solemnly and resumed her stroking of Bella's hair needing the contact more than anything else in the world.

Four days later and Bella was still comatose. Sadly she hadn't gotten better, but luckily she hadn't gotten worse either. Alice hadn't left her side for more than two minutes and Charlie had visited her every day, at which point Alice always pretended to be asleep to give Charlie some 'alone-time' with his daughter.

"Alice, honey? It's time for me to examine her," Carlisle said softly reluctant to make his daughter leave her mate, but needing to do a couple of thorough tests to see if there had been any change. "You should probably take the time to hunt," he told her gently looking at her ink black eyes.

Alice nodded slowly. She cast one last look at Bella's sleeping form before jumping out the window and going for a hunt. Once she was at a safe distance away from the house and away from humans she let her instincts take over. When she picked up on the scent of a couple of deer she stove off in their direction. The chase was over before it began since Alice pounced quickly. Sinking her teeth into their necks and sucking them dry.

She was quick to dispose of the deer and hurry back home to her sleeping beauty. She knew she had really needed to hunt, but that didn't mean she was going to stay gone longer than needed. When she arrived home she joined her family in the living room waiting for Carlisle to finish his tests and inform them of the outcome.

"I'm glad you finally hunted," Esme said sounding relieved but not her normal happy self. It was obvious that she too had suffered these past four days.

'They're all suffering,' Alice noticed when she looked around the room at the familiar but drawn faces of her family. They were all missing the human that had so quickly become an important part of their family and were all feeling guilty for not being able to prevent this. 'Unbelievable. A human protected by seven vampires and the human manages to save the vampires,' Alice thought incredulously as she thought back to what had happened. Edward sent her a pained grimace as that thought went through her head. Alice's eyes quickly left Edward's face as Carlisle walked into the living room.

"And?" Alice asked hopefully.

"I... was wrong," Carlisle stammered looking pained.

Everyone looked at him in disbelief. Carlisle never stammered. Then the meaning of his words hit them.

"She's not waking up."

"No, please no," Alice begged.

"I'm so sorry Alice. She has gotten worse. It seems that her body has given up and completely shut itself down when the usage of her powers became too much."

"But she'll wake up again right? She just needs to rest a little while longer?" Alice asked slightly hysterical.

"I'm afraid that won't be the case. It looks like-like she's dying," Carlisle answered pained. If he could he would be crying. His words caused his entire family pain and it caused Alice the worst kind of agony. She slumped down on the floor dry sobbing and in seconds Edwards arms were around her. Emmett had his arms around Rosalie and they were trying to draw comfort out of the embrace. Jasper stood alone with a pained look on his face. It was obvious that he was trying to keep his own pain in while keeping everyone else's pain out. Esme came up to him and hugged him then because it had been obvious he needed the comfort but also because she herself needed his embrace. He closed his eyes and wondered if he was going to be able to live with all this guilt and the feeling of having failed his family and even more so the girl that had become so important to his family.

"We can save her right?" Emmett asked knowing it was far from an ideal solution but feeling hopeful at the thought of not losing his youngest sister nonetheless.

"Can we really?"Rosalie whispered. "Not once has she asked to be one of us. Are we going to change her knowing that maybe she'd prefer death?"

"She accepted us for what we are without hesitation. It could be that she would choose this life over death," Edward replied hoping that it was the truth.

"There's something else we need to consider. We don't know what changing someone like her into a vampire will do to her. It could make her fainting and headaches permanent," Carlisle stated quietly knowing it was a possibility. "And it isn't guaranteed she'll wake up from the coma since her metabolism is different from other humans. There's no telling what changing her will do to her."

"I just don't want to lose her. She's like a daughter to me," Esme whispered.

"She's family to all of us but I think it has to be Alice's choice," Jasper said looking Alice who was still on the floor in Edwards embrace.

"I don't know if she wants this life. We never really talked about that. What I do know is that I never wanted this life for her. But I can't go on without her. If she dies I die with her. I can't imagine my existence without her so I'm going to be selfish and hope that she'll be able to forgive me for this," Alice said and the rest of the Cullens felt relieved. None of them wanted to lose Bella no matter what the consequences were going to be.

"I'll go hunt then," Carlisle said.

"No, I want to be the one to do it," Alice said standing up.

"Alice are you sure?" Esme asked concerned.

"I can do it. Bella's everything to me. There's no way I could kill her," Alice said confident. "I love her and I'll be the one to change her."