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

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

Broken - Chapter 33

Doctor Emmett McCarty - Microbiologist, Centers for Disease Control

You're asking me to tell the next part?

You sure you want me to do that? All right, then. But don't forget you asked me to do this. And if you do happen to forget, be assured I'll remind you. As for the deets, get ready because them micro parts that everyone always seems to think they can skip over and neglect while focusing on the big picture? Yeah, those are gonna be in full effect here.

Everyone always makes such a fuss over 'The Big Picture.' Pfft. Por favor. As if there'd even be a big picture without those minuscule yet massively important micro parts. What even is the big picture other than a collection of micro-images all pieced together? And by the way, don't let anyone fool you; more than occasionally, it's one of those micro pieces that molds and shapes the entire big picture into something that makes sense. When you finally get to that 'Aha!' moment, to the "So that's why all that went down' moment, more times than not, it's because of some small, microscopic factor you probably never even saw coming - unless you pay attention to them deets.

That's a good point right there; remember that point because never has the nucleus of a set of seemingly random events been illustrated more clearly than in the little parable I'm about to tell.

Hey, you asked me to tell the next part, remember? Well then, you need to keep in mind that I'm more than just a pretty-faced scientist with a kick-ass man bun and that you're gonna get a lot more than some dry-ass, scientific report when you ask me to relay an event. Doctor Emmett Miguel McCarty ain't just the CDC's best microbiologist by trade; he's also a hell of an armchair psychologist and modern-day philosopher by practice. Ask anyone you want; I tell it how it is.

Okay. Ready? Here we go.

So, the morning of Christmas Eve - or as we of Latino descent call Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, because let's be real, Christmas Eve night is the best damn part of the entire holiday. Am I right, or am I right? I mean, you've got your Noche Buena dinner chock full of lechon asado, arroz congri, and empanadas stuffed to their rims with picadillo. Then you've got Celia Cruz and her husky-as-sin voice crooning in the background. And we don't wait for no 'Santa Kloh ni Santa Kloh' or Christmas day to open them presents. We open them gifts at midnight. It's that impatient Latino blood, you know what I'm saying? Ain't no waiting 'til the next morning when the presents are right there.

Anyway. Christmas Eve morning, I was at the downtown CDC labs. The building was a veritable ghost town, what with Noche Buena and Christmas Day just a few hours away. By then, most of my fellow co-workers' brains had already been on holiday-mode for the past few days. Now, their bodies were on vacay right along with them, on their way to visit the familias and prepping for the madness and the drunk uncles and the rush and whatnot. Ahh, Christmas.

All right. So, the labs are all glass-enclosed rooms, which were pitch black, lots of the equipment turned off for the next week or so, doors locked, and an almost eerie silence hummed through the hallways. You know, like 'shhhhhh;' that whooshing sound you only hear when you're practically alone in a building, and only the air between your ears-

Look, let me finish telling it my way, and you'll see why I'm stressing the seemingly micro yet important detail that the building was almost completely vacant.

Fine, fine. It was dark, deserted, and quiet in the building; let's move on.

So except for me and maybe a handful of other people scattered here and there, I was alone while I waited for my panita, Edward. A few weeks earlier, he'd given his girlfriend, Bella, his H5N2 booster vaccine. See, it was our team that developed the antiviral, and so as a 'thank you very much for a job well done,' we got first dibs. But there was just enough for our team - and the director and deputy director, of course, and Bella had just gotten this pretty nice book deal with a publisher, and the publishers wanted her traveling all around the country. Never mind the influenza strain chomping on the bit like a rebellious teen aching to break loose and cause havoc on the unsuspecting population - in this case, a pandemic.

But that wasn't for them to worry about, was it? No, 'course not. That's on us here at the CDC to handle, isn't it? You guys don't take into account any of them little details, do you? Pardon me while I chuckle, but if you all only knew the number of deadly diseases, viruses, infections and whatnot threatening to eradicate the entire human population on the daily, you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning, much less traipse around the country for a book deal.

Fine, fine. I'll get back on track.

So, Ed gave Bella his dose of the booster because he was terrified she'd catch something while on the west coast before the antiviral became available to the general public. We're clear on that, right? Don't need to expand on that part? All right. Now, tell me who didn't see the damn writing on that wall after that decision?

Of course, then came a shortage of the antiviral - one of those demand-exceeds-supply scenarios that are great on a business's spreadsheet but not so convenient when you're trying to stop a nasty viral outbreak. Then, when we got a small supply in, Ed caught a bad cold. Here's the thing, the detail in there:

Before that cold, I couldn't recall the last time the man caught a cold in the almost two decades I'd known him.

But there you go, ponder over that one while you consider these next few details: Ed had a lot of shit going on in his head and in his private life. Took him two years of heartache to end up with the woman he loved. Part of that was his own fault, yeah, for lying to her in that coffee shop, which I warned him against doing, but that's a different parable. Yet, part of it was due to yet more of those seemingly random details. His little sister, Alice...holy crap talk about the proverbial thorn in one's side just poking you and poking you; she was the female version of Cain to Edward's Abel. For whatever reasons, which again, are beyond the scope of this particular part of the story that I'm telling, if Alice could find a way to make her big brother's life hell, she did.

Then there were his parents, who had their own drama going on, and when, as a kid, Edward saw something no kid should ever witness, all this drama messed with his head to the point where he wore some heavy-fucking-duty condoms before he met Bella, just to make sure he didn't create a family as fu-

No, I'm not just throwing that out there. It's one of those critical details, and we'll get to the reason why soon.

Anyway. So now, in its own twisted way, all that drama led to That Day in the lobby. But now, over two years later, Bella's ex, Jasper, wanted Bella back, and Alice hated Bella because Jasper wanted Bella back, and Alice was a shitty mom to sweet little JJ because she was too busy hating Bella, and Bella didn't know if she could ever face little JJ because despite how innocent she knew, in her heart, that he was, he was also a reminder of one of the worst times of her life. Then, you had old Doc Cullen continuously sticking his foot in shit trying to fix problems he should've nipped in the bud decades earlier, and Mrs. Cullen was simply weighed down by guilt and, perdoname y I'm sorry, she was acting pretty useless at the time - except for taking care of JJ and designing some kick-ass clothing while at it.

And all of this fucking melodrama worthy of one of those fucking Spanish Telenovela's my Abuela loves to watch was on Edward's mind and on his shoulders. Topping it off, he was silently panicked about the combustible shit show ready to detonate if...no, not if...when Bella and his family were all in the same room. And all that mental baggage weighs down your immune system. Fact, babes. I'm not making it up.

So, despite being thrilled at finally having gotten his girl, despite the week-long sex marathon he had before Bella left for the west coast, despite all his healthy eating habits - except for those frothy lattes - despite his fucking five-mile morning runs and those runner's highs he loved to show off with...Ed caught a bad cold. And when you catch a cold, you can't be immunized with a live sub-unit of a pathogen because your system is already compromised, already weakened, and it won't create antibodies to the original virus. So, we had to pass on administering that dose and wait for his cold to diminish sufficiently where his immune system was healthy enough to create antibodies when injected with the antiviral.

Yeah, yeah. There's some scientific talk in there after all, but like I said, el diablo is in the details.

All right, so back to Christmas Eve. The night before, I'd gotten word that another small batch of the H5N2 antiviral was being delivered to our CDC offices overnight, which I found to be a convenient stroke of luck because, over the last couple of days, Edward seemed better. What's more, Christmas Eve morning, Ed was due to fly out to Miami to spend the holidays with Bella over there. So, I texted him, short and sweet and to the point.

Yo, a new batch of H5N2-AV is coming in overnight. What time's your flight?

Early

This motherfucker, I thought to myself as I typed out my next response. I'm here trying to get him inoculated before he leaves, and he's being testy with me?

But I gave him a pass, recalling that he and I were as tight as brothers.

Then, I chuckled to myself because it was more like thick as thieves. Oh, he played that straight-laced-nerdy-yet-good-looking-scientist-all-the-females-and-quite-a-few-males-went-gaga-over-but-he-was-oblivious role pretty well; I'll give him that. But back in our college days, boy...

Never mind, never mind. That's not an important detail. No, I'm not suddenly trying to hide anything; got something stuck in my throat is all.

Tight as brothers; yeah, let's keep it at that. Ed saved my life, both literally and figuratively, more than once. I had some crazy family drama of my own back in the day; it...messed with my head. Then, there were a couple of incidents early on, on the job, when I wasn't as careful as I should've been, when I neglected the number one rule: Protect yourself before you can protect others. So, yeah, I know one thing leads to another.

Anyway. I texted back:

Meet me at the labs at sun-up, before you head for the airport. I'll administer, and you'll be good to go make love to your woman, without a care in the world, for the next seven and two-thirds days.

I'll admit, I chuckled at my continued taunting of him as I sent that one out, and I eagerly awaited the 'eff off' or something to that effect I knew was coming.

But, nothing immediately came.

Ed? I texted after a few minutes.

Okay

I figured he was either talking to Bella on the other line or in the middle of something work-related, so I let it go and didn't text anything more.

I let it go. That's on me.

He was late the next morning, unusual for him, but it happens, right? Even if his place was just a few, short blocks away. And anyway, I was using my time wisely as I waited, taking care of some last-minute holiday online shopping, had the radio on low, and was singing along with Jose Feliciano.

"Feliz Navidad, prospero año y felicidad. I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas. I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas. I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my-"

I stopped singing, lifted my eyes from the laptop screen, and listened past the relative darkness beyond the glass-enclosed lab, and beyond the shhhhh of the building's air system.

At first, I just heard what sounded like mumbling.

"Ed?"

I lowered the volume on the radio, strained my ears, and listened.

"Left it here. Can't get on that plane without it."

My brow furrowed. It was definitely Edward's voice, but it sounded...strange; confused. And...when he came into view through the glass walls, my eyes widened.

It was Ed. He was in sweats, a ratty tee-shirt, and nothing more despite the winter weather outside - not even shoes. His hair, which was always somewhat messy but in that way that made Maria and others gaze at it longingly as if they wanted nothing more than to run their fingers through it and tame the rough spots, was downright clumped. And his gait was kind of slow and uneven.

"Ed?"

When he walked right past the lab even though it was glass-enclosed, and I'd called out to him loud enough, I jumped up and headed for the door.

"Forgot it. Can't...can't go...she can't..."

"Ed?"

Edward stopped and slowly turned.

I think...what shocked me...what horrified me the most was how rapidly it had happened, though we'd known from the very beginning that's how this thing operated; with lightning speed, knocking its victims down before they even realized they were that unwell.

Ed's hair wasn't merely clumped; it was matted to his head as if he'd been alternating between sweats and chills for hours. His pale, white-boy face was scarlet, the whites of his eyes a matching bloodshot shade. His mouth hung slightly open as he took me in through glazed eyes, alternating between shivering and swaying as he stood there.

I cursed under my breath as I approached him because...because I'd been at this for too long. We'd been at this for too long, and I already knew, 'course I did, even though in our profession, we weren't allowed to make a diagnosis until all the tests were in. But I knew.

"Holy fuck, Ed. How long have you been like this?"

"I gotta find it, Em," he said in a voice that sounded sickeningly hoarse yet thick with phlegm. "I gotta find-"

"Ed, how long have you been like this?"

"I gotta..."

Taking him carefully by the shoulder, I guided him back toward the lab, where I'd left my cell phone.

"Panita, what you've got to do is let me get you to the hospital."

"No!" He shook himself off with surprising force considering his condition. "I gotta find..." he raked a hand through his mottled hair, "I forgot...forgot...her gift...gotta take it to the airport."

At this point, I held his gaze firmly and spoke with authority, the way we'd been taught to deal with people too sick to make their own decisions.

"Edward, there is no way you're going to Miami. You understand that, don't you?"

He made no reply, instead swayed on his feet and took me in through empty, half-lidded eyes. But I didn't wait around for an answer.

"Let's go." When I pulled him harder, he pitched forward so sharply I had to catch him before his knees buckled. "Holy hell, you're burning up. I can feel it through your clothes. Ed, let's go. We've got to get you to the hospital." Adrenaline raced through my veins as I lifted him and half-dragged, half-carried his ass down the hall, all the while reciting the known symptoms in my head:

High-grade fever. Check.

Severe chills. Check.

Muscle aches. Based on how he could barely walk? Check.

Acute lethargy. Check.

As we crossed into the lab, he stopped again and looked at me.

"Where is he?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Where's who?"

"The boy."

"What boy, Ed?"

"Tom...Tommy."

"Ed, we don't have time-" I yanked him forward.

"Where...where's my son?"

Hallucinations. Check.

"Ed, you don't have a son."

"Where's Bella. She has...she has...she's..."

"Bella's fine, Edward, and she's in Miami. Now, you've got to get to the hospital."

I sat him down on a stool, leaned his damp back against the wall, and snatched my phone off the table, hitting 911. It took two seconds. All the while, I kept my eyes on Edward.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"She can't get sick, Em," Edward choked.

I spat out the necessary info. "Operator, this is Doctor Emmett McCarty, calling from the Centers for Disease Control, and the address is 237 Broadway. I've got an extremely ill colleague with me at the offices, Doctor Edward Cullen, male, thirty-five years old. Presenting with an extremely high, hallucinatory grade fever, I'd say one oh three; chills, muscle aches, lethargy, disorientation - unvaccinated against H5N2. We need an ambulance, stat."

"I'll have an infectious diseases ambulance out to that address right away, Doctor McCarty, but can you confirm-"

One second, Edward sat there lethargically; the next, his body spasmed with a violent fury that dropped him to the floor, where he twitched and jerked convulsively.

"He's convulsing. We need that ambulance now!"

A/N: Thoughts?

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Will try to update again this weekend. Either way, "see" you soon.

Patty