A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts.

As you guys can probably tell, "Broken" Edward, and "Break" Bella have been on my mind quite a bit this week. ;)

Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.

Chapter 14

Mid-August – Ten Months since the 'Break-Up':

Emmett adjusted the lens over the microscopic specimen.

"So, you invasive pathogen, you. I hear you're causing a bit of mayhem in Asia."

"Just a bit." I chuckled, standing somewhat impatiently behind Emmett, arms crossed against my chest and occasionally sneaking peeks over his shoulder, though I couldn't see what he saw. Even if I could, I wouldn't understand it. Though, I'd never admit that to Emmett.

After a minute, Emmett carefully eased the Hong Kong Island-labeled slide from the mount, set the slide aside, and typed some quick notes.

"Pass me the Kowloon slide," he said. While he reconfirmed the airtight fit and soundness of his gloves, I reinserted the Hong Kong sample into the slide case and cautiously removed the Kowloon sample.

"So, give me the run down one more time," he said as he reconfigured the lens again.

"There have been twenty-two reported cases of a severe, Influenza-like pathogen wreaking havoc in the areas in question in the span of two weeks. Ten of those cases were reported on Hong Kong Island proper; seven popped up in Kowloon, which is separated from Hong Kong by Victoria Harbor; five others in Lantau Island, southwest of the main peninsula. A total of nine of these individuals received this year's Influenza inoculation, the same inoculation we're preparing to distribute here in the U.S. in a few weeks, which'll cover the same strains. Of these nine, five were inoculated weeks ago, and four were inoculated just days before they became symptomatic."

"And the other thirteen?"

"No inoculation."

"Deaths reported?"

"Still only one. A male septuagenarian from Hong Kong Island, whose immune system was already compromised. That was when the W.H.O got the CDC involved. Obviously, the government over there's concerned about the advanced rapidity of the spread considering the population density-"

"And our government's concerned that whatever's going on over there will spread over here, if indeed it's an influenza strain not covered by this year's vaccine. Okay." He slid out the Kowloon sample, took notes, and set it aside. "Pass me the Lantau Island sample."

We switched samples again.

"Any difference in severity in how the symptoms present themselves, either due to region or inoculation status?" Emmett asked as he studied the microbe smear.

"None. Whether inoculated weeks ago, recently, or not at all, Hong Kong, Kowloon or Lantau, they all present with high, hallucinatory-grade fevers; severe chills, muscle aches, nausea, acute lethargy, and in some cases, loss of consciousness, all of which come on in the space of sixteen to twenty-four hours."

Emmett whistled through his teeth. "You're a badass pathogen, aren't you? Perhaps there's another factor which contributed to the severity of their symptoms?"

"I conducted a thorough investigation."

"Yeah, I don't doubt that for a sec. Just thought I'd throw that out there. So, how was the flight, Edward?"

"Exhausting," I said. "I only slept for a short while, and it wasn't the most restful sleep."

"See, you've got to do like me and overdose on antihistamines before the flight takes off."

"So the flight attendants can call security when the flight lands because there's an unresponsive guy with long hair all over his face, who might be dead?"

"Well, in your case, there wouldn't be the long hair."

We both chuckled. He looked up for a second and quickly back into the microscope.

"Why don't you head for the hotel? Not much you can do here at this point. You did your part; this is my area of expertise," Emmett chuckled.

"Nah, it's fine." I waved off his offer.

"Ed, you've been continent-hopping for months between Asia, South America, North America, back to Asia, back to North America. Dude, slow it down and take a breath. You remember my theory on how all this'll end anyway, don't you?"

"Sure, I remember that bright and hope-inducing attitude: No matter what we do, one of these days, we'll turn around, and the world will have ended not with a loud blast or even a fight, but with a quiet whimper, decimated by disease so quickly there won't be time for more than that."

Again, we both chuckled.

"We're a couple of morose fuckers. You think that's why we're still single?"

"Who knows?"

This time, when Emmett lifted his eyes from the microscope and sighed, dropping into the chair beside him, I knew he was done. Shifting his gaze to me, he frowned.

"Seriously, you look exhausted. Go to fucking sleep."

"I'd rather not."

His eyes narrowed.

Leaning against the desk behind me, I sighed.

"Em, do you remember…the woman, the one I…met in the coffee shop about a year ago?"

Emmett quirked a brow as if to say 'seriously?' But when he replied, his voice was embarrassingly sympathetic. Leaning back in his chair, he lifted his feet over the desk and got comfortable, knitting his hands behind his head.

"Yeah, Ed. I remember."

I looked away from him and through the windows to the well-manicured, green landscape of CDC's Atlanta headquarters.

"For months, following our argument, I had a recurring dream. It stopped eventually," I smiled, "I haven't had one in…I mean, I don't even think about her any- not really, not consciously. Anyway, on the flight back from Hong Kong, I had one again."

"Ed, what was the dream?" he asked after a pause, during which I rethought and regretted my entire confession. But it was too late. Like a dog with a bone, there was no way Emmett would let it go now.

"The dream wasn't always exactly the same. There were variations, mostly revolving around the time period within our relatively short association. Sometimes, the dreams took place early on, within those first couple of weeks, when we first got to know one another at the coffee shop. Sometimes, the dreams took place a bit later. But the main deviation was always when I told her who I was, and that I'd been there That Day, before she learned it somewhere else; the way I should've handled it."

Emmett pushed the chair back, balancing it on its two back legs, and rocked back and forth.

"Trust you to torture yourself by turning what was a pretty shitty scenario into an investigative case."

I snorted. "It's what I do best, isn't it?"

Emmett sighed. "I won't argue with that. And yeah, you should've told her, Ed. I hate to say, 'I told you so,' but…"

"I know." I sighed. "I know."

"So, what did your confession change in these variations?" Emmett wondered.

I raked a hand through my hair and chuckled humorlessly. "Honestly? Not much. In every alternative, she was justifiably furious, though to somewhat differing degrees. But in every single one…she ends up walking away from me without giving me any assurances she'll ever be able to forgive me. I haven't found the solution, nor the correct time period in which to tell her, the one where she'd be okay with it. In the dream I had on the plane, for example, I told her right off the bat – the day we met, or rather re-met at the coffee shop. That was the worst variation of all. She sprang to her feet, flung a cup of hot coffee in my face before accusing me of stalking her, then threatened me with calling the cops if I ever came near her."

"Holy fuck," Emmett snickered. "She was a bad ass in that variation."

"Yeah. She was…is a bad ass in real life." I smiled and wistfully brushed the bridge of my nose.

We were both quiet for a bit. "So, do you want my opinion, Ed?"

"Not really." I shot him a rueful smile. "I regretted this conversation pretty much as soon as I began it. It doesn't take an armchair shrink to tell me I fucked up; plain and simple."

"Yeah, you did fuck up."

I scowled at the wall, nostrils flaring. "I was no better than that bastard Jasper, her ex-husband, or any better than my father in the way I continuously lied."

The memory replayed itself in my head of the scene the night after I got off the phone with Bella.

'Edward, honey.' Esme walked into my apartment, instantly searching my face and my body for injuries. 'What happened? Are you hurt? I was getting ready to head to the airport for my flight to Atlanta when I received your text, and…Edward what is it?' she asked in a panic.

'Mom,' I whispered in a ragged voice, the phone still clutched in my hand. 'Mom, I fucked up," I choked, dropping my head to her shoulder, 'so badly.'

She'd stroked my hair just as if I were five, and over the course of the night, the entire sordid story had poured out.

But that still hadn't been enough to calm me. Before sun-up, I'd shown up at my parents' apartment.

'I should've known better than to ever trust you," I hissed at the great Carlisle Cullen.

'Edward, your mother was…upset, to say the least, when she arrived home in the early hours of the morning. Now, I apologize if I was careless in the way I phrased things when I spoke with Alice, but-'

'If you were careless?' I seethed. 'I fucking asked you to keep her name out of any conversation!'

'I did keep her name out, but my immediate concerns were you and Alice, not the young woman in question.'

'Not me,' I sneered, shaking my head, 'not me.'

'Yes, you. I don't trust the woman. She has a right to hate Alice, and thereby use any means at her disposal to hurt-'

'You seriously think everyone is as conniving as are you, your daughter, and your daughter's mother.'

'And you can't possibly be this naïve, Edward. You've been out there in the real world too much to be this naïve. But I know…I know what a pretty face can do.'

I chuckled bitterly. 'If I showed any naivete in this situation, it was when I trusted you. Don't worry,' I grinned. 'I won't be making that mistake again.'

A half hour later, I showed up at Alice's apartment before she could leave for work. She was feeding JJ a bottle while getting ready for work - for the job she'd stolen from Bella. She looked…tired, frazzled, yet I had zero sympathy for anything she brought on herself by hurting others.

Meanwhile her useless, jobless, bastard of a boyfriend lounged around in sweatpants and a ratty tee shirt, spread out on the sofa behind us.

'Edward. What are you doing here? I'm already late for work, and I don't have time for-'

'Here, give me the baby and finish getting yourself ready while we talk.'

She'd handed JJ over somewhat warily, and then rushed to get on shoes, lipstick, straighten out her laptop bag, etc.

'Hey, little guy, how are you doing?'

After JJ replied with his usual gibberish, I helped him hold his bottle and held a conversation with my sister.

'So, I know you're in a rush, but I've got a quick question for you.'

'What?'

'Do you know how a restraining order works?'

She went perfectly still, her hand buried inside her bag. In my periphery, I saw the fucker's ears perk up, and his chest began heaving.

'Let me give you the quick and easy answer to that question, being as you were quick to get one but not so quick to understand its functionality.' All the while, I spoke calmly, keeping my gaze on JJ as he happily drank his bottle. 'You don't really know how they work. They run both ways, by the way, meaning just as she's not allowed to come near you, you're not allowed to go anywhere near her. She can contact her lawyer about that, so get ready because if I were her, I sure as hell would. Either way, if I ever hear you broke the conditions of that order again, I'll call the cops and lawyers myself.'

'How the hell do you-'

'Nope. Unlike the restraining order, this conversation doesn't go both ways." I kissed JJ's forehead. 'Alright, buddy. Go with Mom.' My gaze panned to Jasper, who stood up and squared his shoulders as I took a step toward him. 'Uncle Ed wants to have a super quick talk with your dad next. Alice, take your son into the other room.'

'Edward, get out of my-'

I looked at Alice. 'Alice, let me have a talk with him. Two minutes. You're not stupid. Let me have a talk with him. Don't worry,' I grinned coldly, 'for my nephew's sake, I won't touch that pretty face that's caused so much trouble.'

She didn't walk away immediately, but after a few seconds, she retreated wordlessly and warily, JJ safely and unaware in her arms.

As soon as the bedroom door shut, Jasper spoke.

'Ed, I don't know what my ex-wife's been going around saying, but like I told Alice, I never-'

He must've seen something in my eyes, or perhaps in my furiously vibrating posture. After a few seconds, he tried again. "How the hell does this involve you anyway; at least, from her side of things?'

I made no reply.

'She doesn't need you to play her hero,' he hissed next. 'She's always been well capable of taking care of herself, as evidenced by that skewed nose you sport nowadays. And if she does need a man-'

When I lunged forward, he dropped to the couch and pushed himself as far against the backrest as he could. I towered over him, shaking my head and fisting my hands at my sides.

'I'm going to keep my promise about not touching you – for now," I stressed, 'for my nephew's sake; not for Alice's or yours. However, if I ever hear you've gone near her again, yeah, I'll call the cops myself, but after I've beaten you to within an inch of your life.'

And with that, I left their apartment.

I snorted at the shitty memories. "As much as I've always resented my father for what he did, I kept the truth from the woman I supposedly-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Emmett bounced the tips of his gloved fingers against his gloved palm. "Let's slow down the self-loathing train a bit and put things in some proper perspective here."

"What other perspective is there?"

"Well, there's the perspective that- jodienda!" He swore when he tried to scratch his head, jumping up from his chair. "Let's get rid of these fucking gloves."

We headed for the sink and removed our gloves, disposed of them, and scrubbed our hands. Then, we leaned across the glass wall, side by side.

"Ed, I've never sugarcoated it for you, panita." Reaching over, he patted my shoulder. "I told you from the get that keeping the truth from her was going to come back and bite you in the ass, bigtime. But in all your self-castigation, have you even figured out why it bit you so hard?"

"Why?" I echoed in bemused disbelief. "Because like a fucking asshole, I lied to her."

"Yeah, like an asshole, you lied to her, but what made it worse for you is that you're not like that Jasper dude or your dad."

I snorted.

"Ed, you're responsible, you're honest, and you're straightforward, sometimes to a fault – ask Kate; ask poor Maria," he grinned. "But you weren't acting that way during the time you knew her. You were being self-involved and self-centered, and you were more worried about how the truth would affect you than you were about how it would affect her."

"Like I said, I was an asshole."

"Remember when I said once that you never let women in too close?"

I nodded warily.

"Well, for the first time, a woman actually got close. The other women you dated before, yeah, it was easy to be upfront with them because the outcome didn't really faze you one way or the other. But with her…the outcome was all that mattered."

Snorting yet again, I shook my head.

"Yeah, Ed, you were an asshole, but none of what you did rose to the level of douchery that fucking Jasper dude or – perdoname – even your dad displayed. Those other two were married, and they lied and cheated. Have some perspective, man. Here's my opinion," he held up two fingers, "and it's two-fold."

"Great," I groaned.

"One." Emmett folded one of his raised fingers. "The truth bit you hard because you have a conscience, and it was eating at you the entire time you were lying to her, which is why you were acting so out of character. Had you been like Douchebag Jasper or – perdoname otravez – your somewhat douchey dad, there would've been one or two dreams, max, because there would've barely been a guilty conscience. Don't compare yourself to them, Ed. Intentions do matter."

"And the second part to your opinion?" I asked after a long pause.

"The second part." He sighed and dropped the lone finger he still had up. "Ed, in those recurring dreams, you never found a solution because there was no solution. There was no winning scenario. There was no point in time at which you could've told her who you were and had her be okay with it. To put it plainly, your sister fucked then stole her husband, her job, and the future she envisioned for herself. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she witnessed the screwing with her own eyes, then ended up in jail for it, and with probationary requirements before getting her life back. Ed, your confession wouldn't have served to salvage or establish a relationship with her. Your confession was meant to salvage your conscience, and to get rid of a weight on your shoulders which grew heavier with every passing day you kept up the lie, and which was beginning to affect the rest of your personal life as well as your career."

"So, what you're saying is that the truth wasn't about her, it was about me."

He sighed. "You know how CDC always stresses to us that we have to get ourselves out of danger before we can get others out of danger; that we have to save ourselves before we try to save others?"

"Yeah, I get what you're saying," I said after a while.

"Good."

"So, she and I…" I said after another long pause, pushing a hand through my hair, "there was never any hope."

"I mean, you never know what the future has in store, do you? Doesn't mean you stand still and wait for it, either. You grab the opportunities it sets before you and see where they take you."

"That's exactly what I've been doing."

"I know – a bit to the extreme lately, but I wouldn't expect anything less from you."

I drew in a deep breath and exhaled it, ready to change the subject and get us back on track.

"So. This pathogen."

Emmett sighed. "Definitely Influenza…and definitely not one of the strains in this year's inoculation."

"Fuck," I spat.

"Yep," Emmett agreed.

"It usually takes six to nine months to develop sufficient quantities of a flu inoculation which has already been researched."

"And we know close to nothing about this strain, and we've got two months before the North American flu season gets into full swing."

I sighed. "We'd better get the word out to everyone at the Center. Schedules are going to have to be cleared. The next few months are going to be hectic."

And with any luck, they'd be hectic enough to keep my mind fully engaged so that I could finally…finally stop thinking of her - once and for all.

A/N: Thoughts?

Chapter Song Rec: Unwell by Matchbox Twenty

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