A/N for 2020-02-15: My thanks to chaysara for her beta work on this story. This chapter had a new part added at the beginning, which did not benefit from her excellent services. Other parts have been fiddled with, so all errors are my own.
A few words about some of your responses to the last chapter: some of you were critical of the doctor and social worker, and some of you of Bella. Interesting. Very few of you were critical of Edward, who neglected to stop when she told him to. Not that I'm in favour of punching people to solve my problems, but that punch was understandable, new-mom-and-life-altering-circumstances considered.
As for the interfering hospital staff, I had similar run-ins when my third child was a newborn. I was fortunate enough to have a legally-informed spouse at hand to fend off the spinal-tap eager residents.
But I digress. Happy reading. Always lovely to hear from you.
~ Erin
Walking back to the car, Bella was mindful of Edward's hovering hand, which didn't touch her, but whose presence suggested connection. And then she was mindful of her own empty hands, one broken, and one not. She had nothing to carry, having given the diaper bag to Charlie. Her wallet and keys fit snugly into her jacket pockets.
Her face felt as ashen as Edward's, and as they sat in the car, their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
"I'm so sorry, Bella,' Edward said.
Still shocked at what had just happened, she nodded, but didn't say anything.
"I shouldn't have done what I did—"
"And I shouldn't have said what I did to the doctor." She shouldn't have. It had been stupid. She shook her head. She wasn't sure what had come over her. It wasn't like she'd been tired. She'd just been . . . overcome with feelings. And as she brought her gaze to rest on her casted hand, she made herself take stock of just what she had been feeling. Anger, yes, but it only hid the harder things that wanted feeling. Pleasure. A warmth bled up her cheeks as she remembered how Edward's touch had tangled with other emotions. Guilt for having pleasure when Jake was gone. So much guilt. She stole a glance at Edward but quickly returned it to her lap. Hurt. Edward had left and left her wanting in so many ways even before he left. And now he was back and everything had changed.
But he was here, and he'd been trying to help her in a myriad of ways.
And he was very quiet, Bella realized. She recalled, after his many apologies to her, how she'd snapped at him, telling him to stop. He'd obviously felt so badly, and she'd been so rude.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you," she said.
Edward seemed to swallow before he spoke. "I don't think you have anything to apologize for, Bella, considering the problems I've just caused for you and Sarah."
"You've been trying to help us, Edward. And I am sorry for snapping. You didn't deserve it." She meant it, and she meant much more, too, but the loss and urgency of Sarah's absence were pressing in again.
Edward seemed to sense this. "We should go," he said softly.
She only had to nod, and he started the car.
When they walked inside the house, it was clear that Charlie had been there already. The playmat was gone as well as the mat they used for changing her diaper downstairs. There was a basket of clean laundry, obviously rifled through, sitting on the dining room table.
Bella felt like she'd been robbed.
Mostly because she had been.
She sat down on the couch, not sure what to do with herself. Everything over the last few months had centred around what Sarah needed. It was like having a limb amputated, feeling its ghostly presence and needs, but then looking and finding it gone.
The pain of Sarah's absence, though, was very real.
It must have been very obvious because Edward sat gingerly beside her, a tentative hand on her arm. "She's safe with Billy," he said. "He loves her."
She nodded, "I know." The tears hadn't really stopped since she'd given Sarah to Charlie, but they were waxing again.
She didn't resist when he pulled her to him, wrapping her in both his arms.
"It might help," he said softly, "if you make a plan for the next few days."
"How?" she asked, pulling back, wiping her face. "I need to be close to her. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this." She looked around the house as if overwhelmed by what it presented.
"You can drive there," he said. "I'll leave you the car."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he spoke again more firmly.
"I will leave you the car. I would drive you myself, but I can't." He had both hands still on her arms, facing her, and his own shoulders softened bit, seeing her nod, even reluctantly.
"What are some things you can do between visits there?" he asked.
But Bella was sliding backwards into herself, allowing the many horrific and terrifying possibilities of the investigation to overwhelm the immediate future. "What if—?
"Don't think about it," he said softly. "It helps . . . it helped me when I was away." Here, his own voice shuddered under the weight of that remembered difficulty. "I just thought about the next thing I was going to do. That way, it was manageable. Thinking about everything after that . . . " He swallowed. "Just focus on the thing you can do next."
Bella did, compiling a very small list of tasks that needed her attention, but the power of her now maternal body to speculate in worry and uneasy possibility won over, and she was again trying to find the air she needed.
Edward felt a wave of thirsty vengefulness. It was so easy to envision grisly ends for the people who'd hurt Bella—who'd taken Sarah. These feelings evaporated when she turned her body into the comfort of his arms.
He pulled her carefully to him, so she rested, her small body curled over his. He made a low murmur of reassurances to her and to himself. "We'll fix this. She'll be fine. We'll get a lawyer involved if we need to. It'll only be a few days, and she'll be home with you. I promise."
He felt guilty, feeling the relief of holding her, but it was nothing compared to the stinging culpability she carried.
Edward heard Charlie's approach before she did.
"Your dad's almost home," he said, holding her and feeling her nod.
They were still that way when Charlie walked in the door. He didn't react but stood, hands at his sides, uncertain, before he spoke. "Bella," he said, "we can visit from one to four today, so we should get going pretty soon."
She nodded, unfurling herself. "Okay," she said, "I'll just get a few things ready."
Edward's insides clenched. He would have to leave her, at least temporarily. "I'll drop the car by later."
"Right," she answered, ignoring Charlie's quizzical look. "Thank you." Squeezing his hand, she turned and left to run up the stairs.
Charlie lost no time. "A word outside," he said, leading the way back out the front door.
Edward followed, and Charlie turned smartly to face him as soon as the door was closed. He had a good idea of what was coming from Bella's father.
"I just wanted to talk about where things stand," Charlie said.
Edward nodded, hearing the general bent of his thoughts.
"You are the man who broke my daughter's heart and then left her in the woods, alone. She got lost, and I had to mount a frickin' search party to find her."
There wasn't much Edward could say to this, so he kept his response simple. "I am."
"And now," Charlie went on, "you're the man who just happened to be there when her baby got taken from her."
"Yes," Edward said.
"She's a grown woman," Charlie said, looking down, scuffing a stray leaf off the porch. "Her friends are her own business." He looked up at him. "And she seems to want you around." This was said in a way that made it clear that he didn't appreciate or agree with her preferences. "But if you hurt her or Sarah in any way, or if it so much as seems like you've hurt her, I will use every resource at my disposal to remove you from their lives."
Edward waited a moment to make sure Charlie was done.
"There is no excuse for what I've done," Edward started.
Charlie interrupted him with a contemptuous grunt.
"And I am the first to lay blame at my feet. I was wrong—stupid, foolish, idiotic. It was the worst decision I could have made to leave her." He made sure he had Charlie's eyes for this next statement. "She knows that, and that I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make up for what I've put her through."
Charlie said nothing, still glowering at him. He put his hands in his pockets, though, his stance slightly more relaxed.
Edward blew out a breath before he added more fuel to Charlie's fire.
"What happened today was my fault, too."
Charlie shook his head and rolled his eyes, blowing out a breath in exasperation.
Edward went on to explain what Charlie already knew in part, had heard from the rumour-mill that clunked into his work at the hospital. "When I helped Bella before, I made the resident look bad. I wasn't trying to, but he took it that way. Today he took his anger with me out on Bella, and then he asked her some very leading questions. If I hadn't done that—" and he sighed— "Sarah would still be here."
Charlie hadn't expected Edward to be so up front about the damage he'd caused. He didn't fault him for what the resident had done—some people were just jerks. But he didn't want to let him off the hook either. "You can say sorry all you want or that you're responsible. It doesn't make this better."
"No, it doesn't," he said calmly. "But I think you know how I feel about Bella and why I'm here. I'll do everything I can to help her and Sarah. And I will keep doing it until she tells me to stop—not you." The challenge was clear.
Charlie didn't like it, but knew where he had ground to stand on and where he didn't, so he switched tactics, probing other weaknesses. "What happened to her hand?"
Edward paused before answering, taking a moment to appreciate Charlie's intelligence. And his own stupidity from the morning. "Bella hit me."
Charlie laughed, a sort of barking snort. "Was that you helping her?" he asked.
"I'll let you ask her that," Edward said. They'd barely discussed, and he hoped they soon would. At least, after Sarah was returned ot her mother. "I expect Bella might need you. I'll go, but I'll be back later to drop off the car for her." Seeing Charlie's look, he said, "So she can get there herself."
Charlie wondered why Edward wasn't offering to drive Bella but didn't ask. He concluded that Edward might be wisely giving her some space. He begrudgingly approved.
"If there's anything else I can do, or my family, please tell us. I know they'll be very upset to hear this—Alice and Esme, especially."
Charlie grunted in acknowledgement. It was the most accepting sound he'd made during their exchange.
Edward left, leaving Charlie to mull over what the boy had said. His ruminations lasted long after Edward's car disappeared out of sight.
Bella opened the door, drawing her father from his slowly changing perspective on Edward Cullen. "I'm ready," she said.
"Good." He nodded towards her, wondering what she was thinking about the boy who'd just left. But instead of asking, he looked in the direction of the Quileute reservation and said, "Let's go."
DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.
