What Happens In Vegas

Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight saga or any of its characters. This story is mine, though. Please be respectful of that.

A/N: You guys are too funny! I made someone speechless and someone else whine. I think that's a first for me. THIS CHAPTER IS TOTALLY DEDICATED IT LOLAFALANA BECAUSE SHE LOVED IT THE MOSTEST. And because I love her hard. That is all.

I am posting this early because you all begged me so sweetly and you are the best readers in the entire fandom, maybe the world. Thank you for all of your support!

Chapter 28: Fear

EPOV

I left the hospital after two am Thursday morning and groaned at the fact that it was too late to call Bella and apologize for leaving the game. I knew that I had to call her today and I just hoped that she would answer the phone. First, though, I needed some sleep since I had to be back at the hospital by noon.

Kate was waiting for me when I arrived on the surgical floor. There were a couple of procedures she thought I should help with. One was pinning together a shattered ankle and the other was a cyst removal. Each gave me experience with a new field and would be great practice.

My first patient was a sixteen year old boy that had broken his ankle while playing basketball in the park. According to him, he felt it snap when he let go of the rim and hit the ground but the real pain started when his friend tripped and stepped right on it. Dr. Carver was confident that he would regain full use of it but there was no way for the bones to heal properly on their own. We inserted three steel pins and splinted his ankle. Dr. Carver preferred to leave joints uncasted so the patients could strengthen the tendons and muscles that surrounded the damage.

Dr. Hyksos was the gynecologist on the next case and was removing a large and painful cyst from a thirteen year old girl's ovary. We worked to save as much of the organ as we could while we removed the golf ball sized lump relatively quickly. I was impressed with Dr. Hyksos' skill and vigilance with her patient. When I mentioned this to her, she explained that she felt it was her duty to protect not only the life of her patient, but to work to save as much of her future life as she could. While the little girl had no thought of marriage and children now, she would someday and Dr. Hyksos wanted to do all she could to make whatever dreams she did have a possibility. It was so far beyond the credo of most physicians I encountered and I was struck by the simplicity. She treated the whole patient, including her mind, emotions, and dreams, instead of just a cyst. I loved that she had the bond with her patient to even think about it. It brought "Do no harm" to a whole new level for me.

I brought Kate a late cafeteria dinner while she reviewed some of the charts for the day. We discussed some upcoming cases and tossed around alternative therapies. The night began to encroach when she leveled her steady gaze at me.

"Have you talked to her yet, Edward?" Unlike last time, her voice wasn't demanding; it was soft and understanding.

"No." At her look of disappointment, I continued, "I went to her soccer game last night with the hope of taking her out and talking over dinner afterwards but I got called in just before the game ended. The splenectomy was a lot more involved than we suspected it would be and I didn't get done until it was too late to call. I was going to call her sometime tonight and ask her to go tomorrow."

"You better get on that. It's almost ten," she informed me.

I groaned, jumped up, and looked around for a quiet place to make my call.

"Why don't you go take a few smoke breaks?" she suggested. "I know you don't smoke but you can take the time that all those that do take. Get some fresh air."

"Thank you, Kate. I really appreciate this," I told her. I gave her a hug and jogged to the elevator. The night air was breezy and I strolled around the doors to try and muster the courage to dial the phone. I began to walk down the block in hopes of giving myself a little bit of privacy. There appeared to be two people arguing a couple of blocks away but I dialed the phone anyway.

It took only a second for me to realize that the scream that came from the woman down the block was one of pain and terror. I pulled my phone from my ear and started to run towards them. Over the man's shouts, I heard the tinny chorus of a very familiar song. Hey, Soul Sister was ringing out from the woman's phone and I knew in that instant that I was watching Bella as she was kicked through a plate-glass window. My heart jammed into my throat and I roared in anger.

My shoulder connected with her attacker's rib cage and it knocked him backwards and to the ground. I raised my fist and pummeled his face with more rage than I knew I was capable of feeling. The crunch of his nose beneath my fist was sickly satisfying. It didn't take long for him to stop fighting me off and I left him there to bleed as I checked on Bella. She was barely conscious and her breathing was shallow. Blood poured from one leg while the other lay at an odd angle. I dialed 911 and explained to the dispatcher who I was, my location, and the type of assistance I needed. While I spoke, I held her head with one hand and applied pressure to her thigh with the other. The glass had sliced through the area housing the femoral artery and we would be incredibly lucky if it hadn't been severed. Judging by the amount of blood pooling around her, I didn't think we had been.

The EMTs arrived within minutes since they had been at the hospital already when the call came in. They were closely followed by two police cruisers. I hastily explained who I was and pointed the officers to the man in the alley way. One of them cuffed him while the other called for another ambulance and poked around the alley.

Bella's gaze never left my face and I wondered if she knew that I was there. Just in case she could hear me, I whispered to her softly while I kept the pressure on her leg steady. I told her that I was here and I wasn't going to leave. I whispered that I loved her and asked her to hang on for me.

Finally, her neck was braced and we carefully loaded her on to the stretcher and into the ambulance. I whipped my phone back up to my ear and dialed.

Garrett answered on the second ring. "Edward? What's going on?"

"I need you to cover for me, Garrett," I said hurriedly.

"Things go well with your lady, then?" he asked suggestively.

"Not really. She was attacked about two blocks from the hospital. We're in the ambulance and in route now."

"Oh shit. I'm on my way." He disconnected without saying goodbye.

I ran with the EMTs into the emergency room because I was still the only one applying pressure to her wound. A team of doctors swarmed her and took over as they dismissed me and asked me to wait in the hallway. The lead EMT brought me Bella's handbag and a towel to wipe off my hands.

"She'll be all right, man. That's a good team in there," he assured me. I nodded, unable to verbalize anything.

Two people that identifyed themselves as police officers barged into the trauma room and I could hear them argue with the doctors about fingernail scrapings and samples from her clothes. Eventually, they came back out with the cut and torn remnants of her jeans and white shirt, both covered in her blood. I could not tear my eyes from the sight.

"Dr. Cullen?" a petite blonde nurse called out to me. I remembered working with her once or twice over at Children's the year before. "I'm sorry to bother you, but if those are the patient's effects, I need to see them. We need to get in touch with her next of kin."

I snapped my head up at her words and the air left my lungs in a rush. "Next of kin?" I managed to say through the lump in my throat. I couldn't even think about what that might mean.

"Yes, you know, parents or a spouse. She can't give consent for any treatment," she explained, more patiently than I deserved.

"Oh, yeah, um, next of kin. That would be . . ." My mind flashed to Charlie and then her mother, Renee, in Florida. Neither of them was close enough. I screwed my eyes up and clutched her bag. If only I could . . . "That would be me," I uttered without really thinking about it.

"You?" The nurse, whose name tag read Amanda, asked, startled.

"Yes, me. She's my wife." The words flowed out of my mouth more confidently than I felt. Amanda's mouth formed a little O and she nodded vigorously. She ran back to the station to grab all of the forms she would need and another ring from Bella's bag distracted me.

"Hello?" I answered without checking the caller ID or thinking, really. My mind was listening to the sounds coming from the room beyond me.

"Edward? What are you doing answering Bella's phone?" my mother asked.

"Mom?" I was thoroughly confused.

"Yes. I take it that Bella made it to you, then. Did you like your surprise?" she asked gleefully.

"What are you talking about, Mom?" My voice took on an urgent tone. "What do you mean 'she made it here?' "

"Edward? What's wrong, honey?" My panic spurred hers. "Where is Bella?"

"She's in the ER, Mom. Bella was assaulted a few blocks from here. Was she on her way here?"

"Oh no! Is she okay? She was bringing you some breakfast for tomorrow. What's going on?"

"No, Mom. She's not okay. I've got to go; the doctor's coming out to talk to me." I hung up the phone and stood purposefully from my chair.

"Dr. Cullen? I'm Dr. Hothstand. Amanda says that you are acting as next of kin?" he asked crisply.

"No, I am her next of kin. How is she?" I corrected.

"I think we have her stabilized for now. She was lucky you were there. The glass cut her femoral artery and there was a significant blood loss. We put a temporary closure over it but it will need to be repaired surgically. Her left shin is fractured cleanly, but I think it will need surgery as well. We've already given her one pint of blood and she will need at least a couple more, I think. There is also some evidence of head trauma on the front and back of her skull. The x-rays revealed no fractures but we will need to do a CT as soon as we can to monitor for swelling or hematoma. They are prepping the OR now and we will probably get her up there within a half-hour or so. As soon as Amanda is done with the paperwork, she will show you up to the waiting room."

"Thank you," I offered in temporary relief and he shook my hand.

Another man identified himself as Officer Pete Barillo and told me he had some questions for me and we sat back down. He asked me to recount my version of the evening's events. I included what information I had from my mother's phone call and he nodded while he took notes. He asked me a few cursory questions about my role in subduing the perpetrator and complimented me on my nose breaking technique. Once he had my statement, he sighed and looked toward the trauma room where Bella lay.

"She was really lucky, Dr. Cullen. We think the guy that attacked her is the one responsible for all of the other assaults in the city. We found his cab at the end of the street and there was a duffel bag with zip ties, duct tape, a hood, a dirty cloth, and a knife in it. I think we'll have enough evidence to put him away and if we can get a statement from Ms. Swan, it would really be helpful."

"When she wakes up I am sure that we can arrange that," I said to try and be as positive as possible. He nodded and patted me on the shoulder before he took his leave.

Amanda handed me a stack of consent forms and I was struck by the gravity of the situation. I was going to make medical decisions for Bella by agreeing to risk her life to save it. The tears started to flow before I had a chance to stop them and I signed them as quickly as I could. I knew the risks as well as anyone but the chance of her survival without the surgeries was minimal.

"Does she have any allergies we need to be aware of?" Amanda asked.

I laughed and Amanda gave me a strange look. That conversation seemed so far away now. "Just penicillin," I remembered.

"That's what is listed in her chart but I wanted to make sure," she responded before she stepped away to the desk. I wondered how thick her history was, given her ability to trip over thin air. She lifted the phone and I could see her nodding into the receiver. Moments later, Alice and Jasper bolted through the emergency room doors and my sister engulfed me in a huge hug.

"How is she?" Jasper asked in a strained voice.

"She's stable for now but they are getting ready to take her up to the OR," I responded mechanically.

"How bad is it, Edward?" Alice whispered.

I closed my eyes against the words I knew I had to say because being honest was the only course of action. "It's pretty bad, Alice. She's lost a lot of blood."

Sobs broke in her chest and her arms fell from my waist. Jasper pulled her to him and held her up. Amanda motioned for us to follow her as a series of stretchers barreled through the doors. We followed her to the waiting area and found several other people in there. Jasper talked quietly into his phone and held Alice together.

"How did you all know what was going on?" I asked Jasper when he hung up.

"Your mom called Alice in a panic and we ran straight out the door. What happened?"

I recounted what I knew of the story and Alice's eyes widened. I hadn't made it to the end when Rosalie and Emmett burst into the room. Rosalie's eyes were tear-streaked and she ran for Alice. The two friends comforted each other while Emmett laid a hand on my arm and gave me a penetrating look. I shook my head and screwed my eyes up against the welling emotion. I left the room in a rush, determined to pull any strings that I could to be with my wife.

Several nurses were busily tending to Bella when I strode through the trauma room doors. At the sight of my scrubs and coat, none of them questioned my presence. I flipped through her chart and made a note of all her injuries. One of the nurses was busy disinfecting various scrapes from her fall and another was preparing her bed for transport. She looked so small and frail on the bed with tubes and hardware that covered her already small frame. The right side of her face was already bruised and there was a large knot over her brow.

Another nurse peeked in the room and indicated that the CT was ready when we were and I walked with her down to the machine. The required pictures did not take long and we transported her back to the same trauma room. Her vitals were dangerously low, but everyone was distracted by the victims of a multi-car pile-up that had been brought in shortly after Bella. I hooked up another pint of blood to be infused so that she would be strong enough to withstand the surgery.

Dr. Hothstand appeared back in the room and did a double take. He was about to comment when her vitals flashed again on the screen and he saw the fresh bag of blood and fluids dripping into her I.V. Instead, he made some more notes on her chart and then turned to me.

"Thank you for taking care of that. We are going to be taking her up in a few minutes. Her CT was clean. There does not appear to be any internal damage from the head trauma, but we will have to wait and see when she wakes up."

"Of course," I murmured and looked only at Bella.

"We've moved your family up to the waiting room if you want to go give them an update," he suggested. "I'm going to monitor her for a few minutes."

I agreed, squeezed her hand, and left the room before I could change my mind.

As I started to enter the waiting room, I distinctly heard Alice talking to Angela, Bella's friend from work. I wasn't sure who had called her and when, but I was grateful because I knew they were close. I didn't want to interrupt and I paused outside the door.

"Has Edward even bothered to come over here and check on her?" Angela asked venomously. I was startled. When I had seen her before, she had seemed friendly.

"Angela," Alice started.

"No, Alice. I know he's your brother and that you are going to defend him, but you haven't been here. You haven't had to see Bella absolutely devastated for the last two weeks. Did you know that they haven't spoken since they got back from your wedding? It's not that Bella hasn't tried; he just won't answer the damn phone or call her back! She's his wife for god's sake!"

Alice floundered with what to say and, in truth, she shouldn't have to defend me. I screwed up and I deserved Angela's ire. With a deep breath, I stepped into the room and five sets of eyes immediately locked on my face. I must have looked even worse than before because Alice stumbled to a chair and closed her eyes.

"How is she?" Jasper asked quietly.

"They still have her down in the ER. Her left leg is broken and there are lacerations everywhere from the window he threw her through. Her femoral artery was nicked. There is also some evidence of head trauma and a possible concussion. She's lost a lot of blood and will need emergency surgery," I responded clinically. I tried to maintain the façade because internally I was screaming.

"Is she awake?" Angela asked briskly.

"No." My voice broke and I sank into the nearest chair. I rested my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hands. I had no idea what I would do if she didn't survive this and there was a really good chance of that. That small woman was my world and I hadn't known how to tell her. If, and when, she woke up, I would rectify that immediately. At some point, Alice had moved across the room and rubbed my back gently. I turned my head and gave her a small smile.

I let her comfort me for a minute before I reined in my emotions. "I have to get back down there. I just wanted to let you all know what was going on," I said robotically as I stood to leave the room. Dr. Caruthers, the head surgeon, was waiting in the doorway.

"Edward, we're taking her up for surgery now. I need an extra pair of hands because of the car accident. Can you scrub in?" he asked authoritatively.

I wasn't sure if I was up to it, but going in there meant that I didn't have to leave her side for the next several hours. That alone made the decision for me. "I'll be right behind you. Did all the test results come back?"

"No, but they will call us in the OR when they do. We can't wait anymore," he responded.

I turned to look at my family and friends before I stepped out of the room. "Go," Alice said with a push. "She needs the best." With a half-hearted smile, I turned into the hallway and made my way to the surgical suite.

The OR was buzzing when I entered. The OR nurse was arranging the surgical instruments on a tray and there were several metal rods and curved plates ready to be inserted into her left leg. Another nurse checked the bags that delivered vital fluids to my Bella, all with the intent to keep her alive. The anesthesiologist had followed me into the room and bent over to double check her vitals, the endotracheal tube, and the steady drip of opiates and muscle relaxants. I removed her wedding ring to prevent the nurse from cutting it off and slipped it into my pocket. The anesthesiologist nodded to Dr. Caruthers and I and we both snapped on our gloves.

The ER team had temporarily closed up the arterial wound, but double-checking that was our first priority. She was already critically low on blood and still bleeding from other areas. We could not afford to have this wound reopen as we repaired her other leg. One small graft and more than three hours later, we switched legs and Dr. Caruthers readied her shin for incision. I re-checked her vitals and they were steady. I forced myself not to look at her face and to treat her as if she was just another patient. It was the only way I could cope.

The break to her shin was clean and straight, but the bones had completely separated. We realigned the bones and screwed two metal plates over the break to hold it in place. I watched as Dr. Caruthers deftly repaired the blood vessels that we had cut through and we were sewing her leg back up when the OR phone rang. Nancy, the head surgical nurse answered it and called Dr. Caruthers over while I finished. I used the splinting material we had on hand to immobilize it. We would cast when we were finished. There was quite a bit of blood on the table at the apex of her thighs. At first I thought it was from the groin wound, but the gauze was clean. Her vitals began to slip slightly and her blood pressure lowered again. Dr. Caruthers called directions to everyone in the room, but it was all noise as I watched my love's life stain the sheets.

The door to the OR crashed open and Peter Stanton, one of the OB/GYNs I was familiar with, rushed in with an ultrasound machine.

"Edward? Edward? Dr. Cullen, I need you to focus here," Dr. Caruthers called while he shook my shoulders. I looked at him square in the face and he continued hastily, "Isabella's blood work came back and there were some unusually high levels of hCG. The blood we are seeing on the table could be menstrual or she could be hemorrhaging. Keep an eye on her vitals." His tone was clipped and clinical and I forced my mind to focus on the tasks at hand.

Dr. Stanton adjusted the vaginal ultrasound wand as the images on the screen took shape. The grainy image on the screen clearly showed a gestational sac but it was cloudy. Peter pushed on her stomach and tried to adjust the wand. Fluid pulsed out over his hand and he grimaced. A slight shake of the head to Dr. Caruthers confirmed the fears that had taken root when he walked in the door.

"Dr. Cullen," Peter began firmly, "the injuries she sustained tonight and the blood loss have caused her pregnancy to terminate. We can't keep enough blood in her while she is hemorrhaging so I am recommending an emergency D&C. I know you've spoken to her family. It's surgery, but we have time. I'll go get permission from the next of kin while you finish up in here and we will just take care of it while she is still under. Who do I need to speak to?"

"Do what you need to do, Peter," I mustered out numbly. "Save the patient you can." I leaned against the table for support.

"I planned on it. Who do I need to get to sign off on it?" he asked testily.

"Me," I retorted angrily. "I'm her next of kin, Peter. Isabella Swan is my wife. I'll sign whatever you need me to when contamination is no longer an issue, but do what needs to be done. If there is no chance of saving the fetus, take care of the bleeding."

Shock flitted across his features and he regained his professional demeanor quickly. He left the room to prepare for his own operation while we finished ours. Her leg was securely cast and the arterial wound was heavily bandaged. About thirty minutes later, Dr. Stanton and his team re-entered the room and prepped.

Dr. Caruthers pulled me to the side. "Dr. Cullen," he said gently, "I'm not going to ask you to leave at this point, but I am going to suggest that you focus your attention on your wife and not the procedure. If you cannot do that, you need to leave the room now."

"Thanks, Mitch," I responded mechanically as I helped the rest of the team shift her body down the table. Instead of returning to work, I clasped her tiny hand in mine and turned my back on the procedure that was occurring at the end of the bed. I watched Bella's face and her chest as the tube pushed oxygen in and out of her lungs. I was thankful that the CT scan earlier showed no internal trauma to her head, but it did not prevent me from worrying about what would happen when she woke. I watched as the blood and chemicals dripped steadily into her fragile body. I had no idea what I was thinking when I decided I needed to separate her from my life. There was no life worth living without her in it.

The OR door swung open and distracted my attention from the small form on the table. Dr. Stanton was finishing up as Dr. Caruthers prepared to move her. The anesthesiologist came back in for a few words and we all agreed to keep her sedated until Saturday so she would have more time to heal without the accompanying pain. We moved her to recovery and I cleaned up briefly before I faced our family and friends after the seven and a half hour surgery. Mentally, and physically, I was decimated.

The first thing I recognized when I returned to the waiting room was that there were a lot more people in there than before. My mother immediately rushed forward and embraced me while everyone else looked at me expectantly. Alice and Jasper were still there and had been playing cards with Emmett, Rosalie, and Angela. Charlie paced and two people I knew only from the photos in Bella's apartment sat in the uncomfortable chairs. Renee and Phil had flown in too.

"Mom, how did you all get here so fast?" I asked flabbergasted. I knew they would come, but to make it so quickly was astounding.

"Sometimes your grandfather comes in handy. He had his corporate plane meet us in Port Angeles," she said quietly. I merely nodded. I would have to thank him later.

"So," Charlie stated to finally break the tension, "how is she? What's going on?"

I took a deep breath and sat on the edge of a chair near the door. Everyone leaned toward me and my mother sat next to me and held my hand. "She has two concussions, but it does not appear that there is any internal damage. Several ribs are bruised and her femoral artery was nicked by a piece of glass. Her left shin was broken. We used a graft to repair the arterial damage and set her leg using plates and screws. All of her procedures went well. Bella is in the recovery room right now and will be transferred to ICU shortly. We're going to keep her sedated until sometime on Saturday." I didn't want to share the details and necessity of the other procedure yet. I had no idea if she even knew about the pregnancy and I wasn't ready to share those intimate details with everyone else we knew.

"When can we see her?" Renee pleaded.

"As soon as we get her settled upstairs, I'll see if I can get you in," I offered. "It will probably be at least another hour before we move her though."

"Do you need Renee or me to sign anything? The nurse said you took care of everything, but I know I always have to find the next of kin to approve treatment when there is an incident at home," Charlie stated. He rode a fine line between Chief Swan and Bella's dad and struggled to understand what his role here needed to be. I had hoped to avoid this conversation for awhile, preferably once Bella was awake.

"No, sir, I signed everything," I responded simply in hopes that he would drop it. It was not my lucky day—not by a long shot.

"How is that allowed? As her parents, we are her next of kin," he insisted. Mom squeezed my hand and Dad patted my shoulder in reassurance.

"Actually, Charlie, as her husband, I am her next of kin," I said calmly and firmly.

"Her what?" Renee cried. "What? When did this happen?" Charlie's mouth worked furiously, but no sound came out.

"We got married almost six weeks ago. It was rather sudden," I said quietly. Emmett snorted. "I know there is a lot more to say and I know that we owe you all more explanation than that. I promise you will get it. Now, though, I need to get back to her." I stood and took a deep breath. Mom and Dad followed me out of the room and Dad stopped me.

"I'm sorry, Dad, and thank you. I just can't say more than that right now. You know how the last two weeks have been and it has been a really tough night."

"I know, son. How are you holding up?" he asked.

I just scoffed and shrugged. They both hugged me and I thanked them for coming before I disappeared back into the recovery area where my wife lay.

I'm sorry that we didn't get Bella's point of view in this chapter, but, as she isn't conscious, I thought it would be pointless to include it. As always, let me know what you think.

(That is lolafalana's input).