Wohoooo! I'm still standing! (And oddly enough, I can hear Elton John singing in my head. Weird.) Where I live, we got incredibly lucky and suffered no real damage. We were without power for about 18 hours, but most people right around here didn't lose power at all. And THANK GOD the Susquehanna stayed well within its banks. I believe the eye passed only about an hour and a half south of us, but I live in a valley in the Appalachians, and I think maybe it was the mountains that spared us the brunt of it. (And of course, I'm sure all the prayers you all sent helped.) My brother lives south of here, closer to the where they eye passed, and while, thankfully, they had no major damage either, they're still without power as of Friday night, as are cousins in New Jersey. Please keep all the victims of Sandy in your thoughts, hearts, and prayers.
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I'm so excited! Several months ago one of my lovely readers, Cared, was kind enough to review and recommend I remain, Yours on Rob Attack, and I thank her very much for that! Now, as we are at the end of another year, they are having a poll to vote for your favorite fic reviewed and recommended during 2012, and IrY is in the running for Best WIP of the Year! Now, since I am very definitely not above begging for votes, I am doing just that-so please, PLEASE, PLEASE, vote for I remain, Yours for Best WIP of the Year on Rob Attack! I do have a link, but FFn won't allow links-they delete them automatically-and I'm afraid to try to post it removing the dot com's and risking pissing of the FFn Gods and getting my story pulled. If you google Rob Attack Best of 2012, it'll take you to the site and you can scroll down to the right link, or check out Twilighted or The Writer's Coffee Shop for the link if you have trouble finding it. The winner will be announced on December 28th.
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Please vote for I remain, Yours!
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Now, on with the show!
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As always, thank you to my PTB betas, Thir13enth and SecretlySeverus.
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Disclaimer – All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc., are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Bella sighed. "I am going to miss you so much."
Edward grinned; he kissed her forehead, her eyes, her chin. "It's only two nights, and you'll love Seattle." And I'll be closer than you think.
Suddenly, Bella pulled away from him, sneezing and blowing her nose—again. Edward grimaced. He knew it was only a simple cold—he really did—but his Bella had been sick now for two days, and every time she coughed, his chest seized up. "This is my fault. I let you stand out in the cold the other night, and now you're sick."
She snuggled up close to him again. Her body was warmer than normal but only slightly so. "I have it on very good authority that colds are caused by germs and viruses and not standing outside in the cold, Mr. My-Father-Is-A-Doctor."
"Very funny."
"Tyler, Ben, and Angela were all absent today with the same cold I've got, and a bunch of other kids had it already, too. It's just a cold." His mate looked at him very seriously, as if she understood his concern. She repeated herself. "It's just a cold, Edward. Another day or two, and I'll be fine."
Edward had been afraid every minute since her first cough when she woke up yesterday morning. As usual, he'd waited in the trees until she was forced to accept that she couldn't hit the snooze button one more time and finally climbed out of bed. He had just turned to leave when she coughed. The sound had frozen him in place—then she'd coughed again.
With their perfect memories, the images he'd seen in Carlisle's mind of that horrible influenza nearly a century ago were as vivid as if it was happening now, and every one of those memories had been running wildly through his head since yesterday morning. The sound of the coughing of its victim's, of his parents and himself….
Logically, Edward knew the virus Bella had caught was a simple cold and not the same as what had killed so many millions, his parents included—but 'logic' didn't stand a chance against the abject terror of his mate being sick.
Edward knew she had gotten her flu shot, just like she did every year, but he also knew that no vaccine was an absolute guarantee of protection, and he had called Carlisle at the hospital in a blind panic. Just because it wasn't the same virus that had claimed tens of millions of lives, didn't mean it couldn't be potentially dangerous. Carlisle had patiently assured him there was no need for concern, that humans got colds every day, but it hadn't reassured him at all. His mate was sick, and he was as helpless today in 2010 to help her as Carlisle had been when he and his parents were sick in 1918.
"You should've stayed home from school. How is your head? Are you sure I can't get you anything?" he asked.
"I hate cold medicine. It makes me so tired. 'May cause drowsiness' my ass. More like 'May cause you to fall asleep standing up.' And it doesn't work anyway. All it does is make you so spacey you don't care that you're sick." She stretched and kissed his jaw before snuggling closer to him, even though it made her shiver. "I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow," she assured him.
Except she hadn't.
Tanya had given Charlie three tickets to the Seattle Mariners home opener for his birthday, and they'd decided to make a weekend out of it. Friday came and, with Bella not wanting to let her cold get in the way, the three of them climbed into Tanya's already packed SUV for the drive to Seattle as soon as her father got home for work. They had hotel reservations for Friday and Saturday night at the Hotel Sterling, a beautiful century old stone building with original marble pillars surrounding the two-story lobby, featuring a mezzanine with detailed wrought iron railings and a highly ornate copper ceiling, the centerpiece of which was a spectacular Tiffany skylight. They had plans to show Bella the Space Needle and other Seattle highlights. Bella had slept in the car most of the way and had barely eaten anything at dinner. Her throat had started to hurt, and she just wasn't hungry, she'd said.
Edward had followed in a car a short distance behind them and was booked into the room next to theirs.
The weather on Saturday cooperated, just as Alice had said it would, being overcast but warm and dry. In spite of her cold, Bella enjoyed the Space Needle and loved the Pioneer Square area as much as he'd known she would. She had spent over two hours roaming from one quaint little specialty book store to another with her father and Tanya trailing behind her, and Edward was sure she could've spent days had she been on her own.
But she'd been coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose the entire time.
The three of them got a late lunch at a small café and took it to go, walking the few blocks to the Waterfall Garden on Second Ave. to eat, but just like at dinner the night before and breakfast that morning, Bella barely touched hers.
Not having slept well the night before, Bella was tired, and after they ate, Tanya suggested they go back to their hotel so Bella could take a nap before the game that night. There were some samples Esme had asked her to pick up, and there was no need for Bella to have to go since she was tired.
That's where they were now: Bella in her room, Edward in his.
Charlie had wanted to stay at the hotel with her. He was a protective father—his approval of a vampire courting his daughter notwithstanding—and he hadn't wanted to leave her alone sick in a strange place, but Bella had insisted he go with Tanya. "Have some alone time," she'd said. She'd even winked.
Once they'd left, Bella collapsed onto her bed and groaned. Edward could hear skin rubbing against skin as she massaged her forehead and sinuses and sighed tiredly. "Ugh, it feels like someone's drilling holes into my head and filling it with cement."
After a few minutes, she got up and changed into the old T-shirt and sweat pants she liked to sleep in. Edward could hear her tearing open the plastic and foil packet containing the cold medication that just last night she'd told him she didn't like to take because it never worked. She downed the two capsules with a large glass of water and fell back onto the bed, groaning and coughing.
He didn't like that she felt sick enough to take the medication, but he hoped that at least it would help her finally get some sleep. Sleep and liquids, that was what she need most. But even with the cold medicine she'd taken, Bella was still lying in bed and tossing and turning, sneezing and coughing, nearly an hour later.
For the tenth time in two days, Edward called Carlisle, who patiently assured him Bella's symptoms were the same as doctors all over the country were reporting and did report every year at this time. Her lungs were clear, at under 100 degrees her temperature wasn't even high enough to really be considered a fever, and she was taking in liquids, even if she barely ate. His mate had a cold, his father assured him, a viral infection that just had to be allowed to run its course. A simple, common cold, just like countless humans got every year.
Except none of those other humans were his mate, his Bella.
Edward was a doctor himself—if only on paper. He knew all these things. But this was his Bella who was sick, and even with his medical degrees there wasn't a single thing he could do to help her.
He paced back and forth in his room, wincing with her every cough, every sneeze, every sniffle as the feeling of helplessness in him grew.
After another twenty minutes he heard her mutter, "Oh, screw it," under her breath and throw the covers off herself angrily. She unzipped the outside pocket on her overnight bag, and he heard her tear open another section of the card containing the capsules. The water in her bathroom ran for a moment and he heard her swallow another two capsules.
The dosage on the medication Tanya had packed in case Bella changed her mind and wanted them was two capsules every six hours. Bella had taken four in just over an hour.
It wasn't enough to be dangerous, Edward assured himself, but this was the same girl who had once warned him about taking more than the recommended dosage when she'd tried to send him 21st century medicines through their desk.
As his Bella climbed back into bed, the blankets rustled. Her breathing was muffled. She must've pulled the blankets up and over her head, he decided.
After a minute or two, she threw them off and got out of bed again. She must've been aggravated by the way she stomped her feet. He heard her dig around in her bag for a minute before music started to play. She'd gotten her iPod. The music was dampened when she put the ear buds in as she climbed back into bed, then dampened further as she pulled the blankets up and snuggled into them.
She sang along quietly with her favorite songs, and he couldn't help but smile. Bella sang softly to herself—or so she thought—for nearly twenty minutes before the double dose of cold medicine finally kicked in, and she fell into a sound sleep.
The temptation to sneak into her room and watch her as she slept was nearly overpowering, but he couldn't do it, no matter how desperately he wanted to. Instead, Edward curled up next to the wall between her room and his, listening to her slow, steady breathing and wished he could lie next to her and hold her. But he knew he couldn't. Charlie had been very clear. He'd been very accepting, very supportive of Edward's relationship with Bella; he was even genuinely happy for it, which had surprised Edward to no end. When he'd had to face the man and admit that he had been wrong when he'd sworn to him that all he hoped for with Bella was friendship, nothing more, that in spite of how deeply he loved her that would be enough, Edward had expected angry refusals to allow him to ever see her again and for Charlie to send Bella back to her mother immediately in an effort to keep him away from her. But he hadn't. Charlie was even aware that Edward stood guard over the little house nightly, just as Tanya had once done, and that he was at that moment in the room next to theirs.
Edward shook his head at his own foolishness, his own stupidity. How could he ever have thought friendship alone would be enough?
Charlie had been surprised at his formal request to be allowed to court Bella—it wasn't as if seventeen-year-old boys today routinely asked a father's permission to date their daughters—but he had granted his consent readily. The feeling of hope that had coursed through Edward at that moment was indescribable. To have Bella's friendship had been more than wonderful, but the hope that he might have her heart, no matter how little he could ever hope to deserve it, was beyond words.
Charlie had known all along he'd been deceiving himself, just as his family had. Charlie had known from his own personal experience with Tanya, and also from what he had observed from the rest of their family, that Edward's intention to limit himself to friendship was futile. He had given his consent to the courtship, if it was what Bella wanted, but he'd set very strict limits.
Their activities the other night in his room sprang to mind yet again, and Edward's body reacted. He had very definitely violated those limits that night. Edward shifted, trying to get more comfortable, but it was useless.
Strictly speaking, though, Charlie had forbidden bedrooms. Edward didn't have a bedroom, technically. There was no bed; it was just a room. Another technicality occurred to him. Tanya had reserved a two-bedroom suite for them for privacy. He could be in the living room area of their suite without another violation of Charlie's limits. Technically.
But Charlie's meaning had been clear.
His words still made Edward both laugh and cringe. "You may be bulletproof, but I can get a flamethrower," his mate's father had said, and Edward knew he hadn't been joking. Betraying the trust Charlie had placed in him was just one more reason to feel guilty for what he had allowed to happen. No matter how much Bella protested, it had been he who had allowed it. As the man, it was his responsibility to protect Bella, not only physically but also to protect her virtue. Throwing her to the floor and rutting against her was doing neither of those things. But it had been more perfect than he ever could have imagined.
The way his Bella had moved… the sounds she'd made… her scent…. As perfect as it had been, it hadn't been enough. It had left him craving more. Craving a next time. Wanting to know what the rest of her body felt like… tasted like…. What sounds she would make if he touched her other places….
Unable to stand the painful throbbing of his erection any longer, Edward opened his jeans and slid his hand inside. It wasn't what he wanted. As his fingers wrapped around his length, he tried to imagine how Bella's soft, warm fingers touching him there would feel. How she would move against him, arching into his touch, if he touched her how she had touched him… if he touched her even more intimately…. How it would feel if he was inside her, her body surrounding him, yielding to his, accepting him inside….
Crying out, Edward came into his hand, his body collapsing against the wall separating him from the love of his existence. He stilled. He was aware he hadn't been quiet, and he was afraid he might have wakened her. But the walls were solid, and her breathing remained the same. Slow. Steady. Undisturbed. She slept on, unaware that he was only a foot away from her or of what he had been doing. Or of what he had been thinking as he did it.
This was hopeless. He was hopeless. He wanted her.
Now that he'd had a taste of what being with Bella physically could be like, he had to have more. He had thought to himself before that Bella was like a drug to him, and she was exactly that. Only a drug was a danger to the user. In his case, he was the danger to her.
Preoccupied with his thoughts, Edward cleaned himself up in the bathroom. It was as he was stepping into the living room of his own suite that he first caught the scent, and it paralyzed him with a fear so absolute it immediately pushed everything else from his mind.
It was faint, but growing. And it wasn't far.
He could smell the unmistakable stench that could cripple him with terror unlike any other—smoke. Edward could smell smoke. He could also hear the crackling of a small fire. It wasn't the smell of a fire burning safely contained in a fireplace; it was the smell of burning paper and plastic; it was chemicals and synthetic fabric burning. It was the smell of a small but very rapidly growing fire. And it was somewhere in this building. Definitely in the hotel.
The building he was in was on fire. The building his Bella was in was on fire. And from the thoughts he could hear of the others in the building, no one knew it yet but him.
A fear more intense, more crippling than anything Edward had ever known paralyzed him where he stood, and he was unable to move. So many thoughts were running simultaneously though his mind, he was unable to think rationally.
As he gained control of his mind, it was only the restraint Edward had learned to master over the past nine decades that prevented him from knocking his way through the wall and snatching his Bella from her bed. This was nothing like the danger the bear had posed to his mate last summer, he tried to assure himself. Then, there had only been one course of action, one possible way to save his mate. He'd had to act immediately; there had been no time to spare. There had been no other way to protect his mate other than for him to do it himself. The risk exposure to his existence would have posed to his Bella had been so secondary to the certainty of his beloved mate's fate were he not in time, that the danger she would be in if she were to learn of the existence of his kind had not even occurred to him.
This, Edward told himself as his eyes fixed on the sprinkler head recessed into to ceiling, was different. This time he could ensure her safety with no threat of exposing her to another and equal danger.
Over and over, he calculated and recalculated how long it would take for his mate to flee and escape the hotel via the emergency stairwell only three doors down from her room, each time trying to account for variables: how much time might be lost if she thought the alarm was a hoax, if she panicked, if she spent precious seconds pulling on shoes or her coat, grab belongings—all things he knew had meant the difference between surviving or perishing for an innumerable amount of humans throughout time.
Twenty-eight seconds had passed since he had first caught the scent, and the seconds continued to tick by both with terrifying speed and agonizingly slowly while the stench grew stronger, the flames grew louder, but still the alarm did not sound; the sprinklers did not turn on.
The fifteen-story stone structure dated to 1898 and featured a fatal design flaw common at the time—an elaborate grand stairwell that went from the two-story lobby all the way to the fifteenth floor. Similar designs had been responsible for terrible losses of life by acting as chimneys and allowing deadly smoke and flames to rise and spread rapidly throughout the building.
It had now been forty-seven seconds since he'd detected the fire, but still the alarm did not sound.
The fire was burning seven floors directly below them, in a small ballroom being used to temporarily store new furniture for an upcoming renovation of several guest rooms. While out of commission, the ballroom was often also being used by a small group of hotel employees for a quick smoke break in the nonsmoking building before the dinner rush started in the hotel's popular restaurant. Afraid of getting caught, they would turn off the hotel's automatic fire repression system, wrongly believing it would detect their cigarette smoke. But this time, joking and laughing with each other as they'd left, they had forgotten to turn it back on.
Another eleven seconds passed, and Edward monitored the growth of the fire continually. It was growing rapidly, but there was still time—for now, it was still contained to the ballroom. He would wait another fifteen seconds, but then, if the alarm didn't sound, he would pull it himself manually.
Finally, after the longest one minute and seven seconds of Edward's existence, a woman screamed. Then another. Another six seconds, and the alarm finally blared, manually pulled by terrified hotel staff.
The fire had engulfed the ballroom—the highly flammable mattresses and bedding, wooden furniture, and boxes of window treatments stacked nearly from wall to wall and floor to ceiling serving as kindling—and deadly smoke and flames were about to spread into the hallway and toward the staircase that would allow them to travel to every floor in the building in mere minutes.
Edward listened for Bella to awaken, but she did not stir. She slept on, not hearing a sound. Loud though it was, the alarm was not enough to wake her after the combination of the double dose of cold medication, her iPod, and the blankets pulled up and covering her ears. He pounded on the wall, cracking the plaster, and yelled. But still she slept on. He tried to call her cell phone, but she didn't hear the ring.
The fire was growing exponentially, rapidly consuming the 112-year-old chestnut wainscoting, vintage wallpaper, carpeting, and the highly polished original hard wood floors, and Bella slept on totally unaware.
Virtually every item in the hotel except the stone of the exterior walls was highly flammable and fed the fire.
Precious seconds were passing, and Edward pounded on the wall, desperately trying to wake his mate. People were screaming and crying, trapped by the flames licking at walls and doors and, worse, the smoke funneling up the staircase floor after floor and spilling down narrow hallways like poisonous rivers, preventing them from reaching the safety and escape of the emergency exists at the ends of hall.
In very little time, the world had changed abruptly for anyone unfortunate enough to be in the hotel at that moment. A typical, uneventful Saturday afternoon had tuned into hell on Earth.
Edward screamed for Bella to wake up in terror growing as rapidly as the fire. He pounded holes in the wall. Her room was only three doors from the emergency stairs. The smoke had not yet reached their floor. There was still time; she could get to the emergency stairwell and get out. If she would just wake up.
In the distance, sirens could now be heard and were rapidly growing louder as the fire department raced toward the burning building, but it was already too late for many on the floor where the fire had begun and those immediately above it, hotel guests and staff trapped, cut off from the emergency exit stairwells by the thick black smoke. Precious time had been lost because, as he had feared, people had mistakenly believed the alarm to be a prank and had not evacuated while there had still been time.
For some victims, a delay of only seconds would prove to be too much.
The trapped included mostly the hotel's staff and dozens of business people in a meeting room on the fifth floor gathering to see-and-be-seen before an awards dinner to be held that evening. Fortunately, few of the hotel's guests were in their rooms at this time of the afternoon, or the loss of life would have been even greater than it was going to be.
Edward could hear the tears and desperate prayers of a young mother who had returned to their room only a short while ago with her small children so the children could nap. She was trapped in her room by the thick black smoke creeping in under the door and on the phone with her husband telling him she loved him.
The fire had spread from a small wastepaper basket and engulfed a large portion of the century-old building with incredible speed, and Edward could hear people collapsing as they succumbed to the deadly smoke and carbon monoxide. The thick smoke indiscriminately killed anyone unable to escape, maid or millionaire, nineteen-year-old college student or sixty-nine-year old grandfather of five.
Three maids working four floors below them were able to get to the fire escape and were crying and praying in three different languages, clinging to one another as they descended the exterior staircase on trembling legs from seven stories above the sidewalk.
Others were not so fortunate. Windows were being smashed as those trapped tried to find fresh, cool air. Even through the smoke, Edward could smell the human blood in the air as the broken glass sliced their hands and arms.
In their panic and desperation, some were beginning to jump. Most didn't survive the fall. It was a horrible decision for the trapped to make—the smoke or the fall.
At that moment, a man jumped from the window of a smoke-filled seventh floor room; his last thought was of his pregnant wife. Filled with regret for a meaningless affair, he hadn't wanted her to be told he'd been found in a room with his mistress.
The smoke had reached their floor and was now creeping down the hall outside their rooms, and Edward couldn't wait any longer; it would begin seeping in around the doors in seconds. He needed to get Bella and get them both out of the building now, and with two kicks, he crashed through the one-foot thick wall separating him from his mate.
The noise of the collapsing wood and plaster succeeded where everything else had failed, jolting Bella abruptly awake, and he grabbed her roughly from the bed, startling her further. Dazed and disoriented from being pulled so suddenly from her deep sleep, his mate looked wide-eyed at him and then around the room, those brown eyes coming to rest on the giant hole in the wall as she pulled her ear buds off. "Edward? Wha…."
Edward's control had been hanging by a thread, but now that he had acted, his ability to reason was lost, and he was ruled by his instinct—that instinct being to get his mate and himself out of the building by the fastest means possible, and the emergency stairwell was forgotten. He thanked God Tanya had booked a room with a balcony. There were very few in the hotel, only from this floor and higher. She had thought it would be nice for Charlie and Bella to have breakfast on the balcony in the mornings. Now, it prevented him from having to break the window and risk cutting his Bella.
"Edward? What's that smell? What are you doing here? Oh, my God! Is that smoke?"
Rather than take his arm from around his Bella's shoulder, Edward kicked the bedroom door down. She stared up at him in shock, her mouth falling open.
"There's a fire. Don't be afraid. I'm getting us out of here," he said.
Bella held him tighter, her face going as white as the sheets on the bed he'd pulled her from seconds ago. Her voice was barely audible. "A fire?"
"It's all right, love. It's going to be all right. Don't be afraid."
Tanya, having been called by Alice, was racing to the hotel with Charlie. Her thoughts were frantic, but she had absolute confidence he would get them out safely. Charlie's fear for his daughter was so great his thoughts were more concealed from Edward than normal.
Although floors away still, Edward could feel the heat from the flames, and he was barely able to resist his instinct of running across the suite's living room to the balcony at his natural speed. What he was about to do—what he had already done—would terrify his Bella enough.
He stopped in front of the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony. The fire had burst through the windows on the fourth floor, and billowing black smoke rose up the side of the building like a thick curtain, filling the balcony completely. He tightened his grip on his mate as much as possible without hurting her. "Bella, listen to me." Her heart was beating dangerously fast, and she was deathly pale. As pale, even, as him. She silently nodded her head. "We're going to have to jump," he said.
Her mouth soundlessly formed the word, "Jump?" Her eyes made it a question.
Eyes wide with fear and filling with tears, she swallowed before speaking as if to a small child, "Edward, we're on the eleventh floor."
"Listen to me," he pleaded, praying for the strength to stay calm as to not frighten his Bella further. "When I tell you, take a deep breath and hold it. Don't inhale again until I tell you. Do you understand?"
Her frightened eyes darted between him and the balcony. Edward was sure with her limited eyesight, she wouldn't even be able to see the decorative stonework of the balustrade only ten feet away.
Her eyes looked deeply into his, and she nodded her head. A decision clearly written across her face along with her absolute faith in him. "Just like Titanic. Do you remember when I wrote to you about it? You jump, I jump." Bella didn't give him a chance to answer before clenching her hands into tiny fists, scrunching the fabric of his shirt in her grasp, and tightening her arms around him as much as she could. She buried her face into his neck. "I trust you, Edward."
He felt her inhale as deeply as she could and hold it. His shock at her words was so great, Edward felt numb as he slid the door open. Instantly, thick black smoke poured into the suite. Equally as instantly, Edward lunged forward and was up and over the heavy stone balustrade.
An eleven story drop was no different to him than stepping off the curb would be to his Bella, but she would never survive a fall of even half that distance. The fall lasted less than four seconds, and Edward was careful to land so that he absorbed the impact with his legs to protect Bella. Even then, the jolt was enough to dislocate her shoulder, and she cried out in pain involuntarily, inhaling a large amount of hot air which caused her to cough violently and jostle her already injured shoulder.
There was emergency personnel everywhere. It was an organized and highly skilled chaos as fire fighters directed powerful streams of water at the building and raised ladders in a race to reach people leaning and hanging from windows and balconies in desperation, and with their attention focused on their jobs, and the horror of the onlookers, no one had noticed them.
Paramedics were already treating the injured. Sheets were already being spread out over the dead. People were walking around aimlessly and crying. Others were struck dumb with terror and shock, still as statues staring up at the burning building.
The husband and father of the young family trapped in their room was screaming helplessly for the wife and children he didn't yet know had already been lost to the deadly smoke.
Edward carried Bella to a secluded area away from the smoke, whispering to her that he loved her over and over, and carefully set her down. Her beautiful face was twisted with pain, but her eyes still looked at him with nothing but love and trust.
Tanya had heard them and led Charlie to where they were. They came upon them as Edward was running his fingers along Bella's shoulder examining it carefully. "It's dislocated." He looked into his mate's eyes but was speaking to both her and her father. "I know it hurts. I can place the bone back in the socket, but it's going to hurt like the Dickens."
A small laugh escaped Bella's lips and she inhaled sharply, as even just the small movement shot waves of sharp pain from her shoulder. Her father was at her side and holding her hand. She looked at him and smiled weakly. "'Like the Dickens,' he says. Must be 1918 talk for it's going to hurt like fucking hell." Bella bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. She nodded her head and leaned against her father. "Do it, Dr. Masen."
Desperately fighting back the horror he felt as his precious Bella so casually confirmed she knew who he had once been, Edward grimaced and gently placed his palm against her shoulder. The heat from her body seared his cold hand, burning him as badly as any fire ever could. He applied just the slightest pressure, and the bone went easily back into place. Bella cried out and collapsed against her father, breathing heavily.
The pain left her face almost the very moment the head of her humerus bone was back in the joint, and she gingerly moved her arm. Bella smiled up at him, "Good as new, doctor."
Charlie looked faint with relief and tightened his grip on his daughter; she winced and cradled her arm.
Edward felt like he was watching a scene in a movie. A horror movie.
She knows. She knows. The two words repeated through his mind, all else forgotten, everything erased by those two horrible words. She knows.
This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. "The rotator cuff isn't torn, but the arm needs to be kept immobile. Carlisle will get a sling for you." Edward spoke mechanically, his voice sounded like an unrecognizable, hollow, echoing noise in his ears. The screaming and crying of the victims and witnesses receded into the background. The vicious, relentless fire, the noxious smoke, the determination in the minds of the firefighters, their sheer bravery—all of it faded away. Edward's world was collapsing around him. It was reduced to those two words—she knows.
Charlie pulled his eyes from Bella to look at him. "Edward…. Son, thank you." He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his daughter, his arms around her never loosening.
"She knows." Edward's words were spoken so softly only Tanya heard them.
Yes. She knows. She's known the truth, all of it, for several weeks, and she still loves you.
Edward shook his head in denial. Bella couldn't know; she somehow knew it was him, but she couldn't know the whole truth. She couldn't know everything. She couldn't. If she did, she'd be repulsed by him. He was a monster. She only loved him because she didn't truly know him… know what he'd done… know what he could have done.
Tanya's cell phone rang in her purse, but she didn't answer it. She didn't need to. She knew who it was and why she was calling by the frantic look in Edward's eyes as he looked back to the burning building. Edward, don't do anything stupid. She's been traumatized enough today.
Edward could only repeat those two words: "She knows…. She knows…."
Tanya tried in vain to reassure him. Yes, she knows. She also knows you just saved her life. If you were human, you would both be dead. If you were human, she would have died last summer; she knows that too.
Edward stood and backed away slowly. He felt like an intruder. He was an intruder. His Bella was still scared, her heart was beating much too fast, but she was safe now. She was with her father. She belonged with her father. Charlie would take care of her. He, Edward, was worse than an intruder; he was a monster.
And Bella knew.
His movement caught her attention, and her eyes filled with concern he didn't deserve. She lifted her head from her father's shoulder. "Edward?"
He shook his head. He couldn't do this. He had to get away. He wasn't worthy of her. His Bella deserved so much better than him. She deserved someone with no blood on his hands.
Edward looked away from his reason for existing, back to the burning building. Without Bella…. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I…."
Edward! Don't!
Edward turned and ran. Tanya tried to reach for him, but he was too fast. He evaded her iron grip easily.
Bella watched helplessly as the man she loved seemed to disappear into thin air. She blinked in shock, swallowed, and turned to face Tanya.
Tanya sighed and shook her head before placing her hand on Bella's forearm. "Bella, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your boyfriend is an idiot."
The words were spoken in such a way that they immediately cut through the confusion and fear, and the corners of Bella's lips twitched in spite of the nightmare around them.
"You OK over here? Anyone hurt?" Two paramedics came over to them, but Tanya assured them they weren't needed. The two men turned and walked away as if in a trance.
"We should get out of here. News crews are on their way," Tanya said.
Charlie hadn't spoken except that one time to thank Edward. He nodded to Tanya and stood, holding his hand out to Bella to help her up. With her good arm, Bella pointed to the smoke-filled parking lot next to their hotel. "Um…. The car is over there."
"Carlisle is on his way. He's bringing a sling for your arm," Tanya said.
Bella's confusion returned as she looked down at the arm she cradled against herself. How could Carlisle already know she'd hurt her shoulder? No one had talked to him.
Tanya read the question in her eyes and answered cryptically, "Honey, you've still got a lot to learn."
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Whew…. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. I know this was a rather short chapter in comparison, but I think it was rather weighty in spite of being short.
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First, please let me assure you the last thirteen chapters are not a rewrite of New Moon. I tried to show that by Tanya's reaction, I wanted her to show exasperation more than worry for him. That being, said, you'll just have to wait for the teaser to see what the remaining chapters will hold.
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I hope you're all satisfied with the way I let the cat out of the bag. I really wanted it to be a very dramatic scene where Edward's hand was forced, but I didn't want to do just another near car accident or group of drunk jerks prowling around with someone they don't know is far worse than just another drunk jerk. I really wanted something that was a just as much of a threat to Edward as it was to Bella, and a fire fit the bill. I hope his reaction was feasible. For the first seconds, he was too paralyzed with fear to react immediately. Then, he tried to let the fire alarm and sprinklers do their job, hoping Bella would be safe from the fire without having to subject her to the very real danger knowing the truth about him would present. He was able to wait because he knew if he absolutely had to, he could get her out. Finally, there was no other way, and he had to act. But he was only able to do one thing—think or act. Once he'd acted, he was acting on pure instinct and unable to reason, somewhat similar to when he hunts. All he could process was that jumping got both him and his mate away from the danger faster.
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I tried to be as accurate as possible about the way a fire would spread through a building, and looked up several deadly hotel fires. I took bits of different fires to build the fire at the Hotel Sterling, particularly that it started in a small ballroom being used to store furniture etc. for a remodel—that came from a fire at the Dupont Plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is terrifyingly remarkable just how quickly a fire can spread through a building, and that's nothing compared to the smoke, which is the real killer. The problem of the grand staircase running from the lobby to the top floor is real; it acts like a chimney, letting the smoke travel throughout the building incredibly quickly. A few years ago, the house across the street from me caught fire. You cannot even begin to imagine just how very thick and dark smoke can be and just how much of it there can be unless you've seen it close up. I was standing in my kitchen and could not see my front porch. All there was out the front door (which thankfully was closed) was dark, charcoal grey. If you've never seen an educational video on just how quickly a fire spreads, you really should check one out. It's shocking. Google it, and you'll find plenty.
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The Hotel Sterling is (unfortunately, soon to be was) a real place. Thanks to a combination of corruption/greed/and sheer incompetence it is probably going to collapse in on itself before the powers-that-be finish their pissing contest as to who has to pay to tear it down. Never having been inside, at least that I can remember, I tried to describe the lobby as accurately as possible from old pictures. If you look at the banner the lovely and talented Readergoof created for me, in the background you can see a stone wall with a balcony with a heavy stone banister, just under which you can just barely make out the name STERLING. That is the balcony Edward jumped with Bella from. It's a picture I took of the real Hotel Sterling. The real hotel has no balconies, the picture is of the top of the side entryway. Readergoof had to edit out a sapling, which has to be at least four feet tall and is growing out of the masonry.
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Bella's reference to her telling him in their letters about the Titanic movie was not the last time something they talked about in their letters will prove relevant to what happens now, but you'll just have to wait to see what else will come up again.
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Look for a teaser for chapter 38 on Fictionators – Teaser Mondays, Twi Fic Central – Wednesdays, Twi & VD Fic Recs – Tuesday, and Twilight Fic Zone – Sunday. I will also try to visit the Sneak Peek campfire on A Different Forest on Monday night. It's the same teaser regardless of which site you see it on.
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Again, thank you so very much for all the well wishes. Please keep those affected by superstorm Sandy in your thoughts and prayers.