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Esme POV

It was a normal day when I received the call from Carlisle. I was having a lie down when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Es, she's dead." What the hell?

"What Carlisle, who's dead, what are you talking about?" I got out of bed and rushed downstairs.

"Mom, she's dead. Dads in surgery now. It's touch and go." I could hear the tremor in his voice.

"Oh sweetheart, I'm on my way ok. I will be there soon. I love you." I heard him mumble out an I love you back but the line when dead. I called down to Rob and he drove me to the hospital. Once I got there I made my way up to the surgical department, where I found Carlisle with his head in his hands shaking. I ran over to him, sat down and hugged him.

"I'm so sorry my love." I said as I hugged him. I kissed the side of his head. He turned to me and broke down. I didn't know what to do or say so I just held him. Rubbing his back and running my fingers through his hair, trying to offer some comfort. I don't know how much time had passed but soon I heard Marcus and Grace arrive. I just nodded as I couldn't get up.

"Do you know what happened?" Marcus asked. I could see his eye were red from crying.

"No I don't, Carlisle didn't say. Honey do you know what happened?" I gently asked.

"Aro." Was all he said. I just closed my eyes any prayed for Anthony.

"Excuse me are you the family of Mr Cullen." The doctor was in scrubs still.

"Yes I'm his son, my brother, my wife and sister in law." Marcus stood and took the lead. "How is he?"

"He's alive, we have placed him in a coma so that his body can heal and not have to worry about doing the normal functions. We will bring him out when we think his body can handle it"

"I'm sorry doctor, but I don't know what has happened nobody has told us." All of us were confused.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Your father came in to 5 gun shots to his stomach, chest and head." I heard Grace cry out, I know I did. I felt Carlisle go stiff. "God must have been on his side today. The shot to his head is just a graze. There was a shot to his collar bone which is just a flesh wound. The other went through his lung, but we got that under control. Now one of the bullets went into his stomach, nicked his liver and spleen. We had to remove his spleen and also part of his liver, but that will grown back. We had to flush out his abdomen as stomach acid would have caused major damage if left. The final bullet was just a through and through didn't touch any organ at all. But we think it's best for him to be in a medical induced coma."

I couldn't see through the tears, but I heard Marcus thank the surgeon. We sat in silence for a while trying to grasp the situation. I don't know how long we sat there but after a while two people came into the room identifying themselves as detectives assigned to the case.

"I'm terrible sorry for you loss, but we need to ask you some questions if you are up to it." The one that was talking was tallish with glasses the other was rather older and had a few too many doughnuts.

"Yeah sure we can tell you what we know, but it's not much." Marcus answered.

"Do you know who would do this to your parents." Glasses asked

"Yeah my brother Aro Cullen." Marcus spat out. "We have had problems with him in the past."

"Yes I know we have read the reports, do you know where he is?" Doughnuts guy asked.

"No we don't, he hasn't been seen since he took my children and hurt my wife." Marcus was getting annoyed. I could see Grace rubbing his shoulder and arm trying to calm him."

"We won't take up anymore of your time, if we have anymore question I will let you know." And then they were gone. Shortly after that someone came in and gave us Elizabeth belongings and said if we wanted to we could see the body. Carlisle just shook his head, Marcus got up but Grace stayed put. "Do you want me to come with you Marc"

"No, you stay here, I won't be long." And with that he left.

It was 6.30pm when the doctor came in and told us we could see Anthony, but only two at a time. Marcus and Grace went first as she was getting tired. After they left Carlisle and I went in, he hadn't said a word since I got to the hospital. He didn't say anything when he saw his father, he just stood there, after about 15 minutes he turned and gently pulled me out of the room. I sent a text to Rob saying that we were leaving and he said he was outside waiting. All the ride home Carlisle remained silent. Once we got into the house he went straight upstairs, I left him to it. I made myself and Carlisle a sandwich and grabbed some soda, then made my way upstairs. I could hear the shower running. It was after about 10 minutes I heard the shout, I went running into the shower and found Carlisle standing under the water, it was so hot it was burning his skin. I quickly shut off the water grabbed a towel, wrapped it round him and got him out.

"Honey, what are you doing to yourself?" I had him on the toilet seat with the towel round his waist. I got a flannel, wet it with cold water and gently placed it on his back, he hissed.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to have it so hot, but I just couldn't feel it so I kept turning the temperature up." When I looked at him he was crying. I threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled him into my chest to let him cry it out.

"Ssssshhhhhhhh it's alright honey, let it out it's ok." I just let him cry. Once he had calmed down I took him into the bedroom, set him on the bed. I got undressed and climbed into bed, Carlisle had done the same. I cuddled up to him.

"Now, do you want to talk about it?" I asked gently not wanting to push him.

"I just can't believe it, I was just talking to dad yesterday, how could Aro do this, what did they do to him, and mom I was so harsh with her, with they way she was treating you, god she must hate me and I can never tell her I love her." With that he broke down again.

"Hey, sweetheart, no matter what happens between you and your mom, she knows you love her, no matter what. Yes there were words said but deep down a mother never stops loving her children, she always loved you and always will." He was quite after that. I just let him process what I said and what happened today. We fell asleep after a while cuddled together.

The next few days were hard, very hard. Anthony was healing slowly they were gradually reducing his coma drugs but as of yet he was showing no signs of coming out of it. The investigation was ongoing, Aro still at large, so it was just sit and wait, which we all hated doing.

We all through it was best to wait to bury Elizabeth, so that Anthony could attend. But we don't know when that will be. He was now off all drugs to keep him in a coma, but still not walking up, the doctors think subconscious he doesn't want to wake up and face what has happened. One of us is always with him, talking to him, holding his hand and telling him all the news.

2 Weeks past and Anthony had still not woken up and everybody was getting worried. Grace was nearing her due date and I was just over 20 weeks pregnant and due a another scan in 2 days. It was decided that I will go to the scan, Carlisle will meet me there, he had to return to work last week. Marcus is able to work from home so he spend all his time in the hospital with his laptop. Grace's parents were staying with them helping with the children and Grace.

"See you at 10.45 Esme?" Carlisle called as he walked out the door, I was in the shower. I was nervous as this is the scan to see if everything is ok, they should be able to see all the limbs, organs and what sex it is. We are still adamant that we don't want to know. I get out of the shower, wrap a towel round me and go into the bedroom to get dressed.

As I was getting dressed I ran my hand over my bump I still couldn't believe it. Our baby. I looked at the clock. I'm running late so I quickly got dressed and ran out to where Rob was waiting.

"Cutting it a little fine aren't we Mrs Cullen." He has a smug little grin on his face.

"Oh shh you and drive." I laughed as I got into the car.

I walked into the ultrasound department to find Carlisle waiting for me.

"Hi hunny, how was your morning," I sat down next to him and kissed his cheek.

"It was good, pretty quite, hence why I'm I here early. How are you did you go back to sleep." He laced our fingers together and kissed my knuckles.

"Yeah, I was daydreaming and lost track of time. I was just thinking about the baby." I placed our joined hands over my stomach.

"Esme Cullen," a nurse called. We both got up and followed her.

"Hi my name is Penny and I will be your Sonographer today, are you Mr Cullen?" Carlisle nodded. "Ok if you could just take a seat and we will go over a few details." She went over some personal details, then came over to the sonograph machine. "Ok right if you would lower your pants and lift your top, I will place some paper over you so not to get gel over your clothes. Right jelly, I will be looking in general first then I will be looking for all babies organs, spine, brain ok. If I don't talk please don't be alarmed I'm just concentrating."

We both watched the screen and saw little hands and what we thought were feet.

"Right so here's your baby's heartbeat." She pushed a few buttons then I could hear the thump, thump, thump of the heartbeat. I looked at Carlisle and we both smiled. I took his hand.

"Right here is baby's head, I'm just going to take some measurements ok."

This carried on for about 45 minutes. We got to see our baby's nose, mouth, hands, fingers, toes and baby was healthy. We walked out with 2 little pictures smiling like idiots.

The next 4 months flew by like crazy. I thought it would drag but it didn't.

Anthony woke up 1 month after our scan, it was like he just woke up from a good night sleep, he didn't remember anything, so that was heartbreaking for Marcus and Carlisle to have to tell him about Elizabeth. He came to live with us for about 3 weeks until after the funeral. We were surprised when he said he wanted to keep the house as we were sure he would sell it, but he told us it's for when all his grandchildren come to stay.

He adjusted very well to living alone, we were all surprised. He hired a housekeeper and a gardener, but he did a lot of the garden himself, it was for the jobs he didn't want to or couldn't do. All we cared about was his happiness.

Grace went into labour a week after Anthony woke up and had a beautiful baby girl Heidi Elizabeth. She was perfect. With everything that was going on, Graces parents stayed for about 6 weeks after Heidi was born. Both parties were glad they were there to help, but also glad when they went home.

Carlisle was working hard as he usually does, working 15-16 hours days sometimes. He was sad that he wasn't able to come to a couple of scans but it couldn't be helped. I was loving pregnancy, well apart from the tiredness, nausea, swollen ankles and constant trips to the bathroom it was great. We had decided that we didn't what to know what we were having we just wanted a healthy baby. We got everything we needed for the baby and probably loads of extras as well. I just couldn't wait now to meet our baby.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Some of you may know that some authors are going zooms to raise money for Carey Williams. It's $5 to ask questions and lots of other things. I will be going my zoom call on August 23rd at 3pm central time. It would be great to hear from you.

Anyway please review I always love hearing your thought and comments. X