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Trafficking

Chapter 25

BPOV

Within moments upon sitting up I groaned and immediately dropped back down into bed.

"What's wrong love?"

"I think I'm sick." I heard Edward chuckle from somewhere in the background.

"Don't laugh. I'm serious. I think it's strep throat." As a child I got strep throat every year at least twice. This was just perfect, I had so much I wanted to get done and now I felt like crap. My head ached, my throat throbbed every time I swallowed and my swollen neck hurt with the slightest of pressure.

"Here." Edward tossed a sweatshirt on my lap. I looked incredulously at Edward. Did he really expect me to go anywhere?

"Oh, don't give me that look Bella. We're going to the doctor. Carlisle's not here, you're sick, you need medicine."

Ugh. I hated going to the doctor; I considered myself the worlds worst patient. Carlisle even agreed with me on that account, thought he was always very patient with me.

I took my time putting on my sweatshirt attempting to delay the inevitable. I really didn't want to move. "Come on love, the sooner we leave, the sooner we get back." I groaned and slowly rolled out of bed.

"Silly Bella. I'm not going to let you walk." I found myself wrapped in Edward's hard arms, and sank against him. "Rest, I'll wake you up when we get there."

I closed my eyes trying to ignore my sore neck and actually managed to drift off.

"Wake up love. We're here." I opened my eyes to gray surroundings. I was fastened into the passenger seat of Edward's Volvo. My door was opened and Edward unbuckled me, lifting me from the seat and placing my feet on the ground. He guided me towards the entrance and I recognized the whoosh of the doors sliding open in front of us. Edward led me to a chair that I quickly sank, and went to go to speak to…well dazzle a nurs about getting me in to see a doctor.

"Well, the nurse promised we'd be next to see the doctor. Unfortunately the regular doctor is out sick today, so we'll be seeing the replacement."

Just my luck. Not only did I not get to see Carlisle, I didn't even get to ee the regular clinic doctor.

"Bella Cullen." At least they were quick. Edward and I followed the nurse into the exam room. She took my temperature, slightly above normal, and my heart rate, which was also elevated. She wrote everything down in my chart and left.

I sat on the exam table swinging my legs out of boredom. I really just wanted to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head and ignore my aching throat.

"Knock knock!" Already I could tell I wasn't going to like this woman. In walked a slender brunette, probably in her mid thirties. She smelled and looked like she had just come from a wonderfully social lunch and wiped her hands on her white doctors coat before doing a quick rinse in the sink.

"How are we today Miss Cullen?" Wasn't it obvious?

"Sick."

She picked up my chart and clicked her tongue. "Are you nervous? Your heart rate is a little high."

"Um…no." Has this woman even gone to medical school? She sat down on a stool and rolled over to the exam table.

"What seems to be the problem hun?" I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my jaw. I hated it when people called me hun. I counted to five before answering her, if I hadn't my answer probably wouldn't have been so polite."

"I have a really bad sore throat, and my neck hurts as well. I used to get strep a lot when I was younger, it might be that." Honestly, this felt different from strep, but at this point I had no idea what was wrong with me.

The brunette doctor reminded me of Alice in the way the she moved, fast and with a purpose. Her cold, though not as cold as others I had felt more recently, hands kneaded and probed my neck, causing me to wince in pain. She didn't seem to notice, but Edward did, stepping forward out of instinct. I held him back with just a gesture of my hand.

Having this woman as a doctor was better than no doctor at all, which is what the situation would be had I let Edward continue on with his plans. He wasn't going to drink her blood, but I'm pretty sure he would have scared her enough to prevent her from returning to the exam room.

And while I'm sure Edward was more than likely more qualified to diagnose me, he couldn't write prescriptions. And that was my only motivation to get out of bed, that magic slip of paper.

"Let's take a look inside." I obediently opened my mouth ahhing and moving my tongue when asked. She took out a swab and I automatically stuck out my tongue and shut my eyes. The feeling of the swab on my tonsil caused me to grimace and I fought my gag reflex. "I'll be right back with this."

She left and I glanced at Edward. "She's horrible! I'm surprised she got through med school." Edward rolled his eyes at my remark. Ok, I'm sure she wasn't as bad as I was making her out to be, and most of my opinions were triggered by my moodiness but I could have sworn the air of incompetence around that woman was tangible.

The doctor literally popped back into the room five minutes later. "Well hun, the rapid strep test came back negative, so it's not strep throat. And you don't look tired enough for this to be mono. I think you just have a cold."

She held down one side of my nose and instructed me to breath, then switched to the other side and did the same. I wasn't even congested. "Um, yeah. I think it's just a cold. Go home, rest, drink, lots of fluid and Tylenol and come back if you start to feel worse."

Yeah, right. Like I'd be back to see her. I wanted to smack that peppy smile off her face.

I jumped off the table as soon as the doctor game me one last sickeningly sweet smile and left. "I don't want to hear it Edward. I just want to go home."

"Okay." Like the wonderful boyfriend he is, he tucked me into my seat and drove us home.

I woke up in the bed in Edward's room, minus Edward. I was actually surprised he wasn't in my room. I was freezing and really wanted another blanket but I was too cold to get out of bed and get one. "Edward." I rasped.

Even though my voice wasn't loud, I knew he would hear me. I curled into a ball on my side trying to find some internal source of heat while waiting for Edward.

"You're up." Edward walked in with a tray holding a steaming bowl of soup and glass of water. "I made you chicken noodle soup."

"I need another blanket." Edward finally noticed me curled up in the bed with a case of chills so bad I almost looked like I was convulsing.

"Oh love." I could hear the pain in Edward's voice. He had confessed to me during the car ride home that he felt helpless, unable to do anything to help me feel better. And he hated that. I had been mocking earlier and sneered to him that it was ' just a cold'. Now I just whimpered, unable to muster the energy to do much more.

I felt the weight of an extra blanket placed on top of me. "Open your mouth." My eyes were closed but I trusted Edward and did as he asked. I recognized the familiar shape of a thermometer under my tongue and closed my mouth.

When the thermometer beeped Edward pulled it from my mouth and sighed. "Well if you didn't before, you definitely have a fever now. 101.9. I'll be right back."

Edward didn't even need to tell me he was leaving the room, I wouldn't have noticed, he returned in seconds. "Come on love, you need to sit up so you can swallow these." Edward's glacial hand grabbed my bare upper arm in attempts to help me sit up making yelp. The iciness caused me to break out in a fresh wave of chills.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't even realize." He handed me two Motrin and I swallowed them both with the water, gripping the sheets as a shooting pain burned through my throat. "God, this is the worst sore throat I've ever had."

I quickly burrowed my way back under the blankets trying to stop my shivering.

"Do you want some soup? It's warm. Besides the doctor said get plenty of fluids." Doctor, I guess you could call her that….like you could call this a cold.

"I'm so sorry Edward. I don't really have an appetite and it's too painful to swallow anything right now." I closed my eyes concentrating on swallowing as few times as possible.

Edward sat on the bed next to me, careful not to accidently touch me. "Bella...maybe I should call Carlisle. This is definitely not a cold, you seem to be getting worse."

"No. I refuse to make them cut their trip short because of me. You were the one who made me go to the doctor. She's a licensed doctor, Edward. She must know what she's talking about. It's just a cold." My voice dripped with sarcasm. That was really uncalled for.

"I'm sorry. I'm just really cranky."

"It's alright love. I understand. Just try to sleep."

I managed to fall asleep and stay asleep until early the next morning. The next few hours went by painstakingly slow as I drifted in and out of sleep first shivering uncontrollably, then waking up hot and soaked in sweat.

And now I really needed to pee. And wash my face. My full bladder won out over the comfort of the bed and slowly and carefully I walked to the bathroom on unsteady legs.

After fifteen minutes, I had managed to pee and wash my face without getting hurt. I was about halfway back, proud of myself for making it that far when my legs felt weak and the walls around me started to move. Unsure of what to do, I sat down trying not to panic. "Edward."

He was at my side in an instant, peering at me with worried eyes. "I can't go any further." Edward easily lifted me into his arms and sat me up in bed. "You should take more Motrin."

That sounded great right about now. I put the two orange pills on the back of my tongue and grabbed the glass of water. Whoa, I didn't remember it being that heavy. My hand shook from both chills and exhaustion. Realizing where this was going, Edward took the glass from me and held it up to my lips. The cool liquid tasted so good, but only served to increase the pain in my throat.

"Bella, you should try to drink more. You're dehydrated." I shook my head. "I can't. It hurts too much."

"Can you try to drink a little of this then? Please, for me." Edward was holding a blue bottle of Gatorade. At least it wasn't yellow.

"Since when do we have Gatorade?"

Edward laughed. "Since Emmett started driving me insane with his thoughts about you. So I sent him out to pick some up. He's very worried about you as well. He wants Carlisle to come home too. Alice called, she saw you in a vision. I told her we had everything under control and to not worry the others. But now I'm starting to rethink my decision."

He swung the Gatorade bottle in his hand in front of me. "Fine! You play dirty Edward."

"I'll play however I have to, to keep you safe."

He helped me drink about a quarter of the bottle before I had to push him away. "No more. God, my throat hurts." I rolled over and bed and squeezed my eyes shut willing away the pain.

I was starting to get bored, spending all of my time lying in bed and sleeping. But I honestly did not have the energy to do anything else. Not even read. Finally day turned into night, and being the diurnal creature I was, my body told me to sleep. So I tried.

And this night was a repeat of the last night, except instead of sleeping in until a semi-respectable hour, I was wide awake at three am and in excruciating pain.

I knew I was being stubborn by not letting Edward call Carlisle, he even tried to reason with me and settle for just taking me back to the clinic. No thank you. I would rather be in agony until dad got home.

And here I was two days later at my wits end. I was lethargic, weak, moody. Poor Edward, he had so much to put up with. I had to do something to put both of us out of our misery.

As soon as Edward walked into the room I broke down. "Call him. Call Carlisle, I'm tired of being stubborn. Please, just call him and tell him I need him. This pain has got to stop."

Edward sat next to me and pulled me into his lap, wrapped in two layers of blankets. "Shh, I'll call him right now. You're going to exhaust yourself."

He whipped out his cell phone and speed dialed Carlisle. I heard him answer on the second ring. "Carlisle. We need you back here as soon as possible. Bella is sick. We did. Completely wrong. Worse. Okay. I'll try. See you soon."

I only heard one side of the conversation but I could understand what was going on.

"They'll be here in a few hours."

Those were the longest few hours of my life. I had taken the maximum amount of Motrin Edward would allow me to take and yet the pain was still excruciating. My jaw ached from clenching it every time I swallowed. My neck was still swollen and tender. My temperature skyrocketed even with the Mortin.

Edward never left my side, using his hands as a cold compress against my flush face. I was exhausted but the pain wouldn't let me sleep. "I need dad. He always makes me feel better."

I groaned as a particularly nasty wave of pain hit me. "Just a little longer love. Hold on just a little longer."

I held on, for Edward. His presence was the only thing keeping me sane at this point. "Do you think he'll be angry at me?"

"Why would he?"

"Because I didn't go back to the doctor. That probably would have been the smartest thing to do."

Edward smiled tightly and kissed my forehead. "No love. He won't be angry." He paused. "I just wish there was something I could do to take away your pain."

I tried to lighten the situation. "Well pretty soon, we won't be getting in situations like this anymore."

He shook his head. "No, I guess you're right about that. Though, you're already pretty close to looking like us."

I knew he was right. Last time I had seen myself, I was pasty white, and huge dark circles had taken up residence under my eyes. Unlike the rest of my family, I looked dull and lifeless. How ironic considering they actually were dead.

"Want to try and drink a little more Gatorade for me?"

I shook my head. I had pretty much given up on trying to drink anything these past few hours. The brief step into heaven as I liquid filled my mouth wasn't enough to tolerate the pain.

"They're home." Edward must have heard them turn on to the huge driveway because it was about a minute before I heard anything, and that was just the car doors slamming shut.

The door opened and Carlisle walked in, bag in hand. He looked concerned, and I felt bad. I was the cause for his worry. "Daddy." I rasped. Just seeing him made me emotional.

He knelt down at the side of my bed and smoothed back my hair. "Oh sweetheart."

"I'm sorry daddy. We went to the clinic, but the doctor sent me home, saying I just had a really bad cold. Clearly, that's not the case. I just didn't think it would get this bad."

While still listening to me speak, Carlisle gently felt my neck and jaw line.

"102.9" Edward spoke to Carlisle. Oh, a silent conversation, fantastic. Carlisle's hand moved to my wrist, taking my pulse. He asked me to open my mouth and I did. Carlisle shined his penlight and winced.

"Damn it." The room stilled. That was the first time I had ever heard Carlisle say anything remotely close to a bad word; he was always a gentleman. "How anyone could even think 'cold' when trying to diagnose this is beyond me."

He placed a cool hand on my forehead brining me sweet relief from the fire burning within me. "How are you feeling little one?"

"It hurts so bad." My voice cracked with sickness and emotion. "I'm so thirsty, but I can't bring myself to drink anything. It's not worth it."

Carlisle sighed and pulled out his cell phone. "Hi Rob, it's Carlisle Cullen, how are you? Listen, I'd like to call in a prescription for 10 days worth of ampicillin capsules, and I'd also like two days worth of ampicillin injections for a teenager roughly 105 pounds. Thanks."

"Edward, stay with Bella. Esme and I are going to run to the hospital to pick up the antibiotics."

"Why are you taking Esme?"

"I need someone to keep me from finding this woman and giving her a piece of my mind." Carlisle's angry face softened and he turned toward me again. "I'm sorry sweetheart. We'll be right back, just hang in there a little longer.

AN: So this is actually something that happened to me a few years ago minus the whole Twilight part. Crazy huh. Some people really shouldn't be doctors. Anyways, review please! I'll love you forever.

-lmbrtvll