A/N: Many thanks to a few members of my group who reminded me how cars work. Kate Eovino ruining Edward's day. Lol.

Bella was alive.

Every muscle in Edward's body burned. His leg trembled every few steps. His lungs felt as though they were in a vise; like he would never take a deep breath again. His ears rang from hours of listening to Aaron's shrieking cries. His skin was super-heated and wet where he carried the boy in the hastily arranged sling. His throat was dry and scratchy as sand.

But Bella was alive.

He repeated it in his head—a mantra that was the only way he could keep moving. She had to still be alive. This wasn't how the story ended. After all she'd been through to survive, there was no way her worst nightmare had come to pass. That keeping Aaron alive had put her right back where she'd started—at the mercy of those who'd reduced her to a convenient incubator. That Edward was inept; he didn't have what it took to survive on his own. He'd never had to because he'd never been the target.

Why hadn't he taken Demetri's gun? More importantly, why hadn't he made sure the man was dead?

He hadn't killed Demetri, and Bella had to make a choice. She had one gun and one bullet. She'd had to choose. Edward and Aaron or herself.

She'd done so much to survive. It just couldn't end like that.

Edward's legs buckled and he caught himself against a tree. He wheezed, shutting his eyes tightly. "It can't end like this," he whispered to himself.

She's alive. She's alive. She's alive. She's alive.

The bullet had hit Demetri right between the eyes. He'd been dead before he hit the ground. Bella… Bella had reached the ground alive. In that endless, awful second after she disappeared over the edge of the cliff, Edward had screamed her name. He'd scrambled to the ledge and looked over to find the embankment wasn't a straight drop. Even without having seen it with his own eyes, he could tell Bella and Felix had rolled down the cliff. The sight at the bottom was gruesome. Bella, sprawled over Felix's body, was covered in dirt and blood. Her leg stuck out at an odd angle, but she was breathing. Strange, wheezing breaths, but she was breathing.

Felix had gotten what he deserved. Like his friend, he was dead on arrival. Bella had stabbed him in the chest, and that might have killed him off eventually. The rock he'd hit that had bashed his skull in had hastened his way to hell.

In the space of a heartbeat, Edward had impossible decisions to make. The cliff wasn't impassable. He could make it down to Bella with some effort, but to what end? Her injuries were more than he could handle; he knew that much. She needed a 9-1-1 call, an ambulance screaming down the highway or, even better, a medivac helicopter. She needed a pristine surgery bay, modern medicine, and a team of the best doctors.

In lieu of all that, she needed his father.

His father was a good four to five hour walk away. If someone was able-bodied, which Bella wasn't.

"I'm going to get you help," he'd called down to her, a frantic edge to his voice. "I can run. I'm going to get you help. I'm going to run. You're going to be okay."

He'd barely turned when her pained cry stopped him in his tracks. "Edward."

When he turned back, he saw that she'd rolled off Felix and pushed herself up onto one elbow. Her hand was pressed to her chest, her face twisted in pain. "You can't…" She wheezed. "You can't…"

"I don't want to leave you," he'd said, assuming she didn't want to be left alone like that. The idea of it killed him. "You need help.."

She shook her head. "You can't… You can't get there. In time." She moaned, her eyes pinched closed.

"I can. I can get help. You just have to hold on."

"With. The baby?"

Half dead, she was still giving him crap.

And, as usual, she was right. He'd almost forgotten the baby, still turned into his neck. Aaron was a deadweight. He'd grunted and whimpered a bit, protesting at being jostled, but stayed mostly asleep and still. Edward thought fast. Could he leave the baby? No. No, of course not. In the time he was gone, the boy would wander into the thick forest or fall off the cliff. No. Edward would have to take him, which would slow him down.

"Edward," Bella gasped. She sounded so tired. "Just… Just throw me your gun."

She'd only had one shot. Of course. "Yeah." Edward looked around, realizing his gun was back by his pack. Another mistake. Demetri's was close by though. "So you can protect yourself while I'm gone."

"When you tell Aaron..." She gasped and lay her head down on the mossy floor. "When you tell him. About me? Don't. Don't tell him I almost killed himֵ."

A chill had gone down his spine. "You're saying goodbye," he realized. The gun wasn't for protection.

"It's fine." Her words were so thin by then, he could barely hear. "Like the Oregon Trail." She gasped. "Survival. It's survival. It is what it is."

She wanted him to leave her behind to die.

He went quiet as he got Aaron in his carrying pack, still slung around his shoulder. He tightened him to his chest.

Bella would know better than he could how badly she was injured. And she could do math. She knew how long she would be alone and helpless out here. Demetri and Felix had friends nearby; she knew that, too.

Just like the day they'd met. She'd known keeping Aaron would be a death sentence. She wanted what she'd tried to give him—a clean, quick death.

"I can't," he said, his voice desperate. "I'm going to get help," he told her.

Her eyes, fluttering closed, flew open. "Edward."

"No. I can't. Just hold on. Hold on."

"Are you going to make me slit my own throat?"

His stomach churned. She was capable. She had plenty of knives on her.

"Just make it easy," she pleaded. "It's okay."

He shook his head, eyes tightly shut. He blew out a breath and opened his eyes. "Trust me. You said you trusted me. You can beat this. We can beat this. Please give me a chance."

"Edward."

"I'm sorry."

And he'd run. She called his name, pain and anger thick in her voice. But he'd run.

And run.

And run.

Over the rocky, wooded terrain. Over roots that threatened to trip him and mud puddles that threatened to trap his foot. He ran with a baby who didn't understand the urgency and why they couldn't stop to eat. To drink. To rest.

He ran.

For too many hours without stopping.

Just when he thought he couldn't take another step, that he was going to collapse right there against the tree, he glimpsed a brightness in the distance. A break in the trees, he realized.

Streets. Highway in the distance. The remnants of civilization.

Pressing a hand against Aaron's back, Edward took a deep breath and sprinted.

Bella's original path had avoided the streets and highways until the last possible second. But now, his priorities had shifted. He was so close. Twenty minutes if only he had a car.

And, as he had observed in his travels before, there were cars abandoned all along the highway. He'd tried to convince Bella they should try to find one, but she'd shot that down. Even if they could find a car that hadn't been drained of every drop of gas, cars were noisy and obvious. They'd be a target.

Edward took off at a shaky run, whispering comforting words under his breath. In theory, it was Aaron he was trying to calm. In reality, the baby couldn't hear a thing over his wail. Edward was trying to keep himself calm.

"This isn't kosher, little guy. This isn't good. You're hurting and you're thirsty and you probably got a good case of diaper rash going on. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. But you're going to be okay. We're all going to be okay."

He'd emerged in a small neighborhood. It was strange to feel solid pavement beneath his feet. Even as he darted to the first car he saw, he heard Bella's voice, exasperated as usual.

So much for being in a rush. You're on the verge of collapsing yourself and dying in the street, but you're going to take the time to check all the cars? You have to find the one car that's unlocked, has gas, and either has the key in the ignition or a helpful hoodlum just waiting for you to drop by who will hotwire the car for a swig of whiskey which you don't have anyway because you left everything but the baby on a cliff.

"Shut up," Edward said through gritted teeth. He was still moving forward. He was just peeking in car windows as he went. "You're a damn pessimist."

Realist.

"Shut up."

Of course he knew it was a long shot. The people in his compound had a team dedicated to pillaging every home and business. They had a grid system and the ability to both carry a lot and take their time doing it. Slow as they were going, salvaging every last scrap of everything they could, it was unlikely they'd made it this far, but they weren't the only people in the area.

"I'm still moving," he muttered, turning down another street, peering in the window of a dusty, cob-webbed car. "Making progress."

Take your time, her voice said scathingly in his head. He shivered.

He'd left her to die a slow, painful death beside a corpse.

When Bella had told him stories about the Oregon Trail, how people left their ailing family members to die alone by the side of the road, he'd had the idle thought that it would have been more merciful to shoot someone who was beyond help. It must have been torture watching the wagons carrying their family roll away leaving them helpless, alone, and doomed. What agony to wait for death.

She hadn't even asked him to end her pain. She'd known he wouldn't be able to. She'd just asked for the tool.

"No," Edward growled as he pushed forward to another street. This was different. They weren't in the middle of a 2,000 mile trail with nowhere to go but on. His own life didn't depend on leaving her behind. He was running for help. He was running to get back to her.

"I will make you safe again," he said to the voice in his head.

She rolled her eyes.

He pushed on. Checked another car. Turned down a main street. Turned into another residential cul de sac. Tried another cobwebbed car. And another. And—

There was a click, and Edward almost fell over when the door of the car came open. He blinked, leaning heavily on the door as he tried to remember how to breathe. It took a few precious seconds for his rational thought to kick back in. His fingers trembled as he held Aaron—whimpering softly now, exhaustion thick in his tone—tighter to him as he started to search.

His Bella voice, silent for too long, kicked back in. I'm having a thought.

Edward had a thought himself. More accurately, he had a memory. The car, he noted, was one of those keyless starts; the kind that started at the touch of a button.

Car batteries don't last long. We're talking weeks not years. If it hasn't been driven consistently—

Edward remembered how often he got in a car with his mother and she'd flashed him a grin. "I have no idea where the keys are. If it starts, they're somewhere in the car."

—the car won't start.

He jammed a finger into the start button. The car came to life.

Which means if the car starts—

As Edward worked to get Aaron loose from his carrier, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. A person. A person whose features twisted when he saw Edward in his car. Somewhere in the back of his exhausted brain, he realized he'd been wrong about where he assumed he was. Somehow, he'd covered a tremendous amount of ground in the hours he'd been running. Which was great except that it put him in the known territory of a group of survivors who were spiky on their best day.

"What the fuck." Edward heard the words clearly. More importantly, he heard the rage.

But nothing was going to stop him from getting back to Bella.

He leaned over in a quick movement, setting Aaron on the floor of the passenger seat as he slid into the car. The figure that had appeared had darted back into the house. Edward knew he had to be gone a minute ago. He slammed his foot down on the gas.

He was out of the driveway when the sound of a gunshot made him jump in his seat. "Shit!" He ducked his head as another shot rang out accompanied by a ricochet. Aaron shrieked, his face turning red as he tumbled around the floor of the car.

"Sorry. Shit." Edward's heart had never pounded the way it was now. His chest burned. His eyes seemed frozen permanently wide.

But he rounded a corner, tires squealing, and the rain of bullets faded into the background.

Luckily, the road to Anacortes was a straight shot. It was almost impossible to go the wrong way. Edward screamed onto the highway, cursing a blue streak as he maneuvered around a few abandoned cars.

It took minutes to get where he wanted to go.

"Cars," he muttered, pulling his over to a small wooded area.

His people, the people who had claimed the islands some months after the virus, had gotten to the port well after it had been picked over and destroyed. Anyone who came and went did so from a small stretch of beach a short walk through the woods. His arms trembled as he gathered Aaron to his chest.

"Hey."

Edward whirled, glad for more than one reason that he hadn't left his gun with Bella. He'd had it at the ready when he got out of the car, paranoid after being shot at. He brought it bear now, gritting his teeth as he tried to get his arm to stop shaking. "Not today, you get it? Take the car. I don't have anything else."

The man—older than him by a little, taller than him by a little—raised his hands, his face open. "No harm," he said in accented but clear english. A Spaniard something in the back of Edward's frazzled mind thought. "You're Carlisle and Esme's boy, aren't you?"

Edward blinked, not quite able to process his parents' names.

"Edward Cullen," the man said again. "Your father has pictures." He gestured with his hands though he kept them raised. "I'm… new. To the island. I'm one of you."

Edward's gun arm waivered. "One of us."

"You're home, son. You need help. I can see that." He gestured again, pointing his chin at the fussing child. "Let me help you."

Edward hesitated. He listened for the Bella voice in his head, waited for her to curse him out for being too naive and trusting, but she was silent. He let his arm hang limply at his side.

"My name is Eleazar." The man approached slowly, his eyes wary but expression kind. "I'm going to take him, okay? And we'll get to the boat. We'll get you home to your parents. Everyone's been worried."

Something in Edward's brain clicked, processed the man's words. He was home. Safe.

Not yet, Bella's voice and his own, normal, internal voice said together. He couldn't afford to stop until she was safe.

"There's a woman," he said, his voice sounded reedy to his own ears. "We need to… She needs help."

Eleazar took Aaron, who gave a moan of terror but didn't resist, from his arms. "I didn't catch that. What did you say? Come on, now. We should get under the shelter of the trees."

Edward fought his body's need to give in to exhaustion. He needed to get help. If he passed out now…

"Bella. She's…" His thoughts were getting hazy, thick. His mouth was too dry. Weakness hit him down to his bones though he stumbled after Eleazar as he began to walk. "She's going to die if… If…"

And that was all. That was all his body had left. As much as he fought it, he couldn't keep his vision from going fuzzy; he couldn't force his muscles to keep him upright. He fell, knocking into Eleazar and crumbling to the forest floor.

"She needs help," he whispered as the man crouched over him.

And then the world went black.

A/N: I know. I know. I'm already working on the next chapter.