18

Bella stared at Emmett for a solid ten seconds before she laughed. Laughed from the bottom of her gut. A cure. Dr. Emmett McCarty was standing before her claiming he would be able to cure her incurable, terminal disease. "God, you're so full of shit."

"No, I'm not," he insisted, taking a few steps toward her, but stopping when Bella moved away from him. "Look, just hear me out."

"No," she scoffed, and turned and walked into the kitchen. As she started pulling her meds out of the cabinet, she heard someone enter the room behind her, and somehow knew it was Esme. "Don't, Essie. I don't want to hear it."

"Why not?" she asked. "He's telling you he can give you your life back, Bella!"

"My life," Bella snarled, turning and looking at her sister. "My life, Essie? What life? Terminal, incurable, a death sentence. Don't stand there and pretend that you don't know just as well as I do that I'm not getting out of this alive. Kufs killed Dad and it's killing me, too!"

"But it doesn't have to." Emmett stepped into the kitchen with Carlisle and Edward right behind him. "Look, I'm not promising anything, Bella, but I really think I can help you."

"Got a magic pill in your pocket, Doc?" she scoffed, shaking her fistful of pills at him. "If so, please hand it over, because I'd love to toss these in the trash."

"Well, no," he muttered.

"Well, there you go, then." Bella tossed the pills in her mouth, chugging a bottle of water after them. Slamming it onto the counter, she placed her hands on the counter, trying to regain control of her emotions. Felt like all she had done over the last handful of days was cry. "I've accepted that I'm dying. It sucks, but it is what it is."

"It doesn't have to be, though," Esme insisted and when Bella turned and faced her, she found her sister with her hands up. "Please, just listen to him."

Closing her eyes for a moment, Bella nodded. "Fine, but you need hurry. I have work."

Bella could tell Esme wanted to argue with her about finishing her contract, but there were some things she wasn't going to bend on and fulfilling her contractual obligations to the PV tournament was one of them. She'd never breached a contract before and she wasn't going to let a little thing like Kufs cause her to start now.

Bella followed Esme, Emmett, Carlisle, and Edward back into the living room, sliding her hand into Edward's as they settled on the smaller of the two sofas. Emmett sat closest to her, with Esme and Carlisle next to him.

"As Carlisle already told you, I've been using infusion therapy with my MS patients, but what he hasn't told you, is that I've been experimenting with a mixture of infusion therapy and stem cell therapy. Now, I'd only been cleared by the FDA to work on MS patients until a few months ago, when they gave me the go ahead to work on other neurological disease, like Kufs."

"How many MS patients have you cured?" Bella asked.

Emmett frowned. "Well, none, but MS is a lot different than Kufs."

"How many Kufs patients have you cured then?"

Again, he frowned. "None, but I've never found a candidate that fits all the requirements I need for my trial."

"And I do?" she asked, causing him to nod. "How?"

"You're young, early stage, you haven't lost control of your motor functions," he rattled off.

"Yet," she quipped.

"Bella, this is good news," Carlisle said, shifting so that he was facing her and Emmett. "Dr. McCarty—"

"It's Emmett," the stocky, brown haired man said before turning his attention back to Bella. "I understand you're scared, Bella, but if I didn't think I'd be able to help you, I wouldn't have gotten on a plane and flown half way around the world at the drop of a hat."

Bella sucked the inside of her lip between her teeth as she shifted her eyes from Emmett to Esme to Carlisle and finally onto Edward, who had been oddly quiet while his brother offered to save her life. It was weird, she thought, that the man offering her salvation was related to the man who had given her the love she hadn't even realized she wanted, or needed.

"What . . ." Bella blew out a deep breath and looked back at Emmett. "What exactly would this magic cure entail?"

"Our first step would be running a full panel of tests. Even though you fit my trial now, your tests are three months old. So much can change in a short amount of time. If nothing has changed, then we would start with phase one of the trail."

"Which is?" Bella asked, quietly.

"Four weeks of intense infusion therapy, using a special cocktail that I've created to use with my MS patients. After that, we'd move into phase two." Emmett paused. "Which involves surgically placing a device at the base of your skull that would slowly filter a mixture of the infusion cocktail and cells from a donor over the course of the next four weeks."

Bella felt her shoulders tense. "And this donor would have to match what? My blood type?"

"There are several markers that we use when testing potential donors," Emmett explained. "But with this type of transfusion, a parent is usually the only match."

Closing her eyes for a moment, Bella exhaled a sharp breath. "I knew it was too good to be true." And opening her eyes again, she looked back at Emmett. "My father is dead, Dr. McCarty. There is no parental match."

"Sure there is," Esme said, causing Bella to shift her attention to her sister. "Mom."

"Mom?" Bella scoffed and scrambled to her feet. "Too bad Mom isn't around, isn't it?"

"But she is." Cautiously, Esme stood. "She's here on the island."

Bella stared at Esme in disbelief. It almost sounded like she said the woman who had abandoned them more times than she could count was back on the island. Shaking her head, she heard herself laughing. "That's not possible. She . . . She's not here."

"She is," Esme insisted. "She came back about a month after Dad . . . after Dad died."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Bella snarled.

"Because you didn't exactly hide your feelings, Bella," Esme quipped, folding her arms in front of her.

"Well, it doesn't matter." Bella matched her stance. "She can't help me anymore than Dad can."

"You don't know that," Esme exclaimed, reaching for Bella, who pulled away. "Bell!"

"Fuck her and fuck you, Essie," Bella whimpered, moving closer to the door. "Help me? She didn't love me enough to stick around when I was kid. What makes you think she will now?"

And without giving her sister the chance to reply, Bella rushed out of the bungalow, down the driveway, and to her jeep. She didn't wait for Edward to catch up, wait to listen to anyone beg her to try, beg her to ask the woman who gave up on her when life wasn't hard. No, Bella ran from any hope of a cure. There was no way in hell she'd go crawling to her mother on her knees.

—BD&BH—

Bella felt like she was underwater as she drove to the pit. It wasn't until she pulled up and saw the almost empty parking lot that she remember that there weren't any matches that day, only the photoshoots with the biggest and the best the PV had to offer. Cursing under her breath for letting her emotions get the best of her, she parked her jeep next to Alice's yellow Porsche, and wandered through the front gates, down the pit where Alice was waiting with Rose, Tanya, Seth, and Felix. The five of them shared a look before Alice shoved her cell phone into her back pocket before she picked up the bag next to her and met Bella halfway. It didn't take a genius to know that Esme was calling to warn Alice of Bella's horrible mood.

"Damn, Swan, you look like shit," Alice tittered. "Wearing the same clothes as yesterday? Have you no shame?"

Bella shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing matters, Peanut. Nothing at all."

Concern marred Alice's features. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"What's not wrong?" she murmured. "Did you know, Peanut? Did you know that she was back?"

Alice sighed.

"Of course you did," Bella scoffed. "How long have you known?"

"Long enough to know she changed," Alice murmured. "She came by the office just after you had your first episode. I wanted to tell you, but you were barely hanging on as it was. Bringing her up wasn't going to help."

"You should have told me, Peanut." Bella yanked her bag from Alice's hand. "I don't need you here today."

"Swan, I'm sorry!"

"Yeah, whatever."

Bella turned her back to Alice, knowing that she was hurting her best friend, knowing that Alice had never done anything but be there for her. Yet, she was angry. Pissed because a chance to live had been dangled in front of her only to be yanked away again.

Once she was sure Alice was gone, Bella turned her attention back to Felix, Rose, Tanya, and Seth, all of whom were watching her with leery eyes and guarded expressions. Clearing her throat, she tried to get control of herself, remind herself that she was a professional.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, her voice cracking. She blew out a thick breath. "Give me a few minutes to get set up and . . . and we'll begin."

"Yeah, sure, okay," Rose said, sharing a look with Tanya.

"Just, um, take your time, I guess," Tanya added before motioning for Rose and Seth to follow her to the other side of the pit.

Bella dragged her hands over her face and through her hair, wishing she had a hair band to pull her hair out of her face. She had just knelt in the sand when she heard Felix clear his throat and a moment later, he was kneeling next to her. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, which she shrugged off.

"Figured I'd get some shots here and then maybe we can go down to the water, or I don't know," Bella murmured.

"Are you okay?" Felix asked. "I mean, you don't seem okay."

"I'm . . ." Bella shook her head. "No, I'm not okay. I'll never be okay again, but right now, I just want to do my job, so if you don't mind, maybe we can be sappy another time." She shifted her eyes over to him. "Please."

"Okay, Swan," Felix said, reaching for her arm, but pulling his hand back. "If you need anything, you know how to get ahold of me."

Bella nodded, blinking back the tears that lingered in her eyes. Once Felix left, she loaded a new memory card in her camera, made sure her lens was clean, and turned back to where Rose and Tanya were sitting with Seth, who was ignoring the conversation his wife and her partner were having. No, Seth's eyes were locked on Bella, and somehow, she knew he'd figured her out, knew she was dying. A tear slid down her face, which she quickly brushed away. Damn her for letting herself care.

"I, um, I thought we'd start with some . . . with some action shots, and, um, maybe some with you both posing together," Bella rambled, hearing her voice tremble. She blew out a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I . . . I'm a little off my game today."

"It's okay," Rose said as she and Tanya stood up and started walking across the pit toward her. "Why don't Tanya and I just volley a little, and you can see what you get?"

"Yeah, we could use the practice anyway," Tanya added with a smile. "My serve is shit."

"It's not," Bella disagreed. "Probably one of the best I've ever seen, but it sounds like a plan."

Bella tried to focus her attention on Rose and Tanya as they practiced their serve, blocks, and spikes, yet her attention wasn't with her job. All she could think about was Emmett's magical cure, the chance to live, yet it wasn't, was it? She had accepted her death sentence, accepted that she was going to die. Then Edward came crashing into her life, giving her a reason to live, a reason to love. Tears once again filled her eyes, and though she tried to keep them from falling, she found herself on her knees as they cascaded down her face. Though she fought her feelings, there was no point in lying to herself any longer: She was in love with Edward Mason.

"Oh, my God, Bella!" Rose exclaimed and moments later, Bella felt her warms wrap around her. "What's wrong?"

"I love him," Bella sobbed, her camera dropping from her hands. "I didn't want to, but I do. I fucking love him, and it's too late."

"Too late?" Tanya asked, kneeling next to her and Rose. "Honey, you aren't making any sense."

"Say it again."

Bella gasped as she spun on her knee, finding Edward standing a few feet behind her.

"Say it again," he said again, a smile curving upward. "Say it, Bella."

"I . . ." Finding her way to her feet, she heard herself say, "I love you, Edward. I do. I love you."

Edward closed the distance between them, his lips finding hers. Her fingers curved around the front of his T-shirt as his cradled her face. He pressed his forehead against hers. "I know you're scared, but I need you to fight. I need you to live. Please, baby, just live."

"I can't," Bella whimpered. "I can't ask her to save my life after she left me like I was nothing. I can't, Edward. I love you so much, but I'm going to die."

And without giving him a chance to argue with her, she leaned up on her toes and pressed her lips against his once more, wishing more than anything that love was enough.

Thank you for all the reviews. Faith, people. Have some faith.