Thank you so much IamTheAlleyCat for beta'ing and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading. You people are amazing. I was nervous about the last chapter, the hint of what's to come after so long of a slow-burn, but you were all great about it.

You're not hallucinating. This is another update this weekend as I needed help but a dear friend offered her services so I've deleted the ask. IamTheAlleyCat will probably kill me for posting again so soon - adding even more urgency to her workload - but I really needed the help, so I will deal with her wrath.


Chapter Fifteen

Bella

I must have fallen asleep as, when I woke, Edward was gone and, in his place, was a sheet of hospital stationery with his perfect handwriting on it. Be Safe.

I remembered the first time I had seen those words in his script, and I felt a wave of nostalgia. It was in the earliest days of us, when he had left me to hunt in preparation for us going to the meadow.

I tucked the note in my bedside locker and took out my phone. It was time for me to face the drama and call my parents.

I shifted up the bed and dialed Renee's number. It rang a few times before Phil answered, sounding sleepy. I realized I hadn't checked the time, and when I glanced at the clock on the wall, I saw it would be past midnight in Florida.

"Hello?"

"Phil, it's Bella. I'm sorry to call so late."

"Bella? Is everything okay?" he asked.

In the background, I heard Renee's voice, sounding wide awake and demanding the phone. There was a rustle, and then my mother's voice came over the speaker. "Bella! Bella! Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, Mom. Calm down," I said in my most soothing tone.

"Are you hurt?" She didn't sound like she was calming at all.

"I had an…accident at work," I admitted. "And I'm in the hospital, but I'm fine now. I just have sore ribs."

"Ribs!" she said stridently. "You were shot, weren't you? Phil, she was shot! Find me a flight. I'm going to Oregon. Tell me the truth, Isabella, how bad is it?"

"Mom, take a breath. I'm okay now. It's just bruised ribs, that is all. Nothing worse, I swear. You don't need to come."

"I do," she argued. "I need to see you."

"Then come to Forks," I said quickly. "I am heading to Charlie's when I get discharged. The chief has already said I'm off rotation for a while." More hoops to jump through.

"You're going to Charlie's," she said, sounding a little offended.

It made more sense for me to go to Washington to see my friends as well as family rather than go to Florida where I would only see her and Phil.

"Yeah, Mom."

"Okay." She held the phone away from her ear, and I could hear her talking to Phil. "I'm going to Forks instead. Can you find me a flight, sweetie?"

I knew from the term of endearment that she was calmer now, and I thought I would be okay to leave her to Phil's care.

"I need to go, Mom," I said. "I've got to call Charlie."

"Okay," she said reluctantly. "Take care of yourself, Bella. I love you."

"I love you, too, Mom. I'll see you soon."

I ended the call and leaned back against my pillow, sighing. She had taken it better than I'd expected, but it still wasn't well. I could only hope Charlie would handle it better. He should. He was a cop, too. He knew what risks came with the job.

I dialed his cell. It rang a couple times before he answered, sounding strained. "Bella?"

"Hey, Dad," I said. "You okay?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"I'm fine," I said automatically.

"Yeah, I'm sure you are," he replied. "Hang on a minute, Bells."

Frowning, I fell silent and listened to the clip of his footsteps through the phone's speaker. The door to my room opened, and I sucked in a breath as I saw my father standing on the threshold. I lowered my phone and tried to get my shock under control. I hadn't expected him here.

"Who told you?" I asked.

"Chief Bennett. I'm your emergency contact. Getting shot counts as an emergency, Isabella." He sounded mad, but I was pretty sure he was angry at the situation rather than at me.

"Sorry, Dad. I should have called you sooner, but with the meds and everything…"

He sat down in the chair Edward had sat in and stared into my eyes. I could see the fear in his. "You don't need to apologize for anything," he said gruffly. "Just…" He shook his head. "You scared me, Bells."

"I was pretty scared myself," I admitted. "I always knew it could happen, but… He came back for me, did the chief tell you? I was in the ER, and the call came through. The guy that shot me was on his way here. I think he wanted to finish the job."

To be hated so completely that someone wanted to kill me was a surreal experience, not to mention upsetting. James had just wanted the chase, and Victoria had wanted revenge. It was never really about me for either of them. With Max it was different.

"I heard he was taken down."

I nodded. "He pulled on Frank. Apparently, he and the chief took a shot each."

"Good," he said brutally.

I bit my lip. "I guess, yeah."

Charlie shook his head. "No, Bella, it is good. He shot to kill you. He pulled on your friend. He would not have stopped there. It could have been a massacre—a hospital of defenseless people. You did your best the first time, but the man was dangerous."

I rallied for a change of topic. "I just got off the phone with Renee."

He looked a little guilty. "Yeah. I guess I should have made that call myself straight away…"

"I'm glad you didn't," I said quickly. "She would have lost her mind. I could barely stop her hopping a flight here as it was."

"You stopped her?" he asked, sounding impressed. "How did you manage that?"

"I told her to come to Forks instead. I was planning to come see you as soon as I was discharged."

His lips quirked into a smile. "Yeah, saves all your buddies making the trip to you, I guess. They don't know what happened yet, but Seth knows something's going on so don't expect it to stay secret long."

No, I thought, with the pack mind it would be all laid bare fast when Seth wheedled it out of Sue.

Charlie yawned widely and apologized.

"It's okay, Dad," I said. "Go get some sleep." I reached over to my nightstand and pulled out the plastic bag of my personal belongings that they'd taken from me in the ER. I handed Charlie my keys and said, "The spare room is clean. You just need to put clean sheets on the bed."

Charlie looked reluctant, so I yawned behind my hand and said, "I'm probably just going to sleep now anyway."

He sighed and took the keys. "I'll be back in the morning, okay?"

"I'll be out by morning, I'm sure," I said. "Then you can give me a ride back to Forks."

"Don't rush it, Bells." Then Charlie did something he hadn't done in a very long time. He leaned over the bed and kissed my cheek. He seemed embarrassed as he said, "You take care, Bells," and ambled out of the room.


When I woke again, in the early hours of the morning, there was a vampire standing at the end of my bed.

"You're watching me sleep, Em?" I asked. "Isn't that normally Edward's thing."

He forced a smile. "Yeah. I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Didn't seem much fun to me. All I saw was you drooling and talking up a storm."

"I didn't drool," I argued.

"If you say so."

I gestured to the chair beside the bed and waited for him to sit before asking, "So, really, what's the deal, Em? Visiting hours are long over. If you're telling me you came through the window, I'm going to have a chat with Carlisle about learned behavior from your brother."

Emmett clasped his hands between his knees and looked up at me with serious eyes. "I guess I just had to make sure you were okay." His voice became strained. "I saw you get shot today, Bella."

"It was the vest that took the shot, not really me."

"Don't!" he said harshly. "Don't be all Bella Swan about this. Don't pretend it was just another stumble. I watched the bullet fly, I saw you hit, and I did nothing!"

"You couldn't have done anything," I said reasonably. "You would have been seen."

"You think that's what stopped me?" he asked incredulously. "Bella, I froze. I didn't stop because of exposure; I stopped because I was so completely caught off guard. I'm a vampire, for fuck's sake, and I could have watched you die today because I froze!" He sounded furious as he spoke in a hiss.

"Em," I said gently, "I'm glad you froze. I'm fine, but I wouldn't have been had you been seen. You would have had to run, leave me behind again, and I…" I couldn't bear that again.

Emmett shook his head. "We couldn't have run. We probably would have been killed. Us or all the people that saw. Or both."

"Killed!" my voice was a squeak.

"The Volturi," he said as if that explained everything.

"The Kings?"

Emmett's mouth pressed into a thin line. "That's one word for them, I guess. Law keepers would be better. Didn't Edward tell you about them?"

"Not much. He said he had stayed with them, and Carlisle lived with them for a while. He said something once about provoking them, but that's all."

"Provoking…" he said thoughtfully. "Edward and I are going to have a talk about that. The Volturi police our kind. They deal with risks to the secret. The most absolute law is that we keep our existence a secret. Transgressors are dealt with quickly and fatally."

"But Edward lived with them!" I said. "Why would he do that? They sound awful."

"They're not the enemy, Bella. They keep us safe. They're Carlisle's friends, even. I imagine they weren't amused to hear about you, but they took no action, so they obviously didn't think you were a risk. But eyewitnesses to me stopping a bullet, cell phone footage, even, that would have meant they'd have to step in."

"So you did the right thing today," I said. "Not only would you have risked your own life, you would have risked other people's, too."

"And what about your life, Bella?"

"I'm fine."

What I couldn't say to him was that my life was a human one. The time limit was part of the package. Also, I was a cop. We ran risks other people didn't. I was happy with my life in spite of that.

Silence fell over us for a while, which Emmett broke, looking uncharacteristically nervous. "When you went down, after the shot, I heard you say something."

I nodded. "I remember."

"What does it mean, Bella?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "If I knew that, I wouldn't be so tied in knots right now."

"What are you going to do?"

I shrugged and winced. "Think, I guess. Try to make sense of it all."

"He loves you, Bella."

"I know," I said.

I loved him, too. The problem was that I wasn't sure if that was enough.


The Cullens descended the next morning just after breakfast, laden with flowers and chocolates.

I was tired after my disturbed night. Even after Emmett had left, I had trouble falling asleep again, and when I did, I dreamed of an aching hole in my chest that refused to heal. It had been a long time since I had dreamed of that, and it left me feeling vulnerable.

When they all entered, my eyes searched immediately for Edward, and I had to swallow a need to ask him to hold me. I had not been that woman for a long time, and I didn't like the regression.

I smiled, though, as they settled themselves around my room, Alice perched beside me, and Emmett on the foot of the bed. Their human act was flawless, though there was no way of hiding their otherworldly beauty.

Alice quickly threw herself into quietly spoken apologies for not seeing what Max was planning until too late. They assumed he had been unsure in his resolution until the very moment he saw me, despite the planning he put in with what the chief said was the fake 911 call. Otherwise, she would have seen sooner.

Emmett seemed more settled than he had been during his nighttime visit. I was glad. I didn't want him blaming himself for what had been the fault of Max Briers. Edward also seemed different. I had no doubt he had seen the details of my and Emmett's conversation in Emmett's thoughts, but he seemed serene. I supposed to have some hope for us if friendship remained there despite my decision was enough to calm him for now.

We were just falling into conversation about my planned visit to Forks when I saw Edward stiffen.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Charlie," he said stiffly.

"Oh, crap!" I clapped a hand to my mouth. I had known I couldn't keep their presence from Charlie forever, but I had hoped I could ease him into it without a ton of drama. I was apparently wrong.

"We can leave…" Carlisle offered.

"Yeah," I said quickly. "That's probably best."

They slipped out of the room swiftly and the door clicked closed behind them. There was a minute of tension before the door opened again and Charlie entered.

"Morning, Bells," he said brightly. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better," I said honestly. The pain was less, and I was happy from my short visit with the Cullens.

He took a seat beside me. "Good, good. The guys been by already?" he asked, looking at the flowers on my locker.

"Uh… No. Actually, it was the Cullens. They visited just before you got here."

I watched as his color change from flushed to red then puce. "Excuse me!"

I drew a deep breath and spoke in a rush. "Carlisle and his family are living here in Astoria. They've been here a while. I met Carlisle when I brought Max Briers in the first time and then the others later when they got here. I've been seeing them a few times a week. Carlisle is working in the hospital, in fact. Breathe, Dad!" I realized he hadn't a drawn breath in the time I had been speaking.

He sucked in a heaving breath. "They're here."

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell me because?" he asked.

I was annoyed by his tone and it made my response sharper than I would have liked. "The same reason you didn't tell me Edward came back four years ago!"

His color faded quickly to pallor, "Bella… about that…"

"No, Dad. I don't need an explanation. I understand why you didn't tell me. I know what I put you through after they left, and you were protecting me, but I didn't tell you for that same reason. I didn't want you to worry again."

"Is he here, too?"

"They all are."

"He's here," he hissed.

"Yes," I said firmly. "They're here, and they're my friends."

"Friends!" he choked. "Some kind of friends."

I sighed. "Dad, what happened to me wasn't their fault. We broke up. They left town. The fact I couldn't handle that is on me, not them. People break up all the time. How could he have known I'd fall apart like that?"

I could see he was resisting my logic as he muttered to himself. He was my father, and he loved me, I knew that, but I wished he had taken it a little better than this. It dragged back the memories of all those months of pain without Edward.

"I don't like this, Bella," he said.

"I'm not asking you to," I said calmly.

"If he hurts you again…"

"He won't," I interrupted.

"He did last time."

"I'm not the same person, Dad," I said. "I won't let that happen again."

"Do you really think you can control that, Bells?"

"Yes," I said emphatically, though, internally, I wasn't so sure.

That was the problem. What my heart wanted and what my head wanted were two different things. Could I allow myself to risk misery again for the chance of happiness?

I didn't know.


So… Yep, they're still not back on track for romance, but rushing it would be unrealistic—even in a story about vampires. Bella needs time to think through everything.

Until next time…

Simaril xxx