A/N: Since so many of you loved 'Melting the ice around her heart', I decided to do another Bella/Edward 1918 love story but this one will be shorter, like my last story, updates will be scattered. (Will be in Edward's POV) Two-shot.

Disclaimer: I know some people have already done something like this before, but NOT I'm plagiarizing anyone's works and I'm sorry if it seems like I am but I'm not.

Summary: Edward Masen is quickly losing his fight against the Spanish Influenza when Isabella Swan, a fellow patient of the illness, moves into his room; he knows that he can't let her die. Even in the midst of death, people can still fall in love, no matter how much time they have left.

Will both of them convince the other to fight this so they can stay with their soulmate?


All I feel is pain all over my body. I'm in so much pain that I've lost all track of time. How long have I got left on this earth and join my parents six feet under ground? How long do I have until I die? How long until I'm just as cold, dead rotting corpse like my beloved parents? A few days? A few hours? A few minutes?

What have I done to earn this kind of pain? Is it punishment for putting both my parents through torment about joining the Great War? Everyone knows I deserve it, after all I did put both my parents through such torment.

I remember watching as the many dead victims were carried out, the beds they occupied were replaced with new victims of the flu, dazed and delusional with the fever, knowing that they wouldn't last the night before they succumbed to the flu they contracted. I knew I got the worst of it when I felt like I had spent two long out in the July sun, something my mother always scolded me about, unable to cool down and collapsed when Mother passed on, not long after Father passed, I knew it wouldn't be long before I got dealt the same fate as my parents.

I could still feel the heat on my body, sweat covering my entire body, unable to get cool. I passed out as I followed the black buggy that carried my parents dead corpses away from me forever.

I awoke in the same room my parents occupied not even a few hours after they passed away, on my deathbed, an American Red Cross nurse leaning over me putting a cold cloth on my forehead, trying to get me to cool down.

How was this possible? How was it possible that everything I love slipped away without any warning? I thought to myself as I was lying in bed, looking out of dirty windows.

I found out that the room I'm in is reserved for first stage patients, patients who have a very slim chance of survival.

Don't the wealthy get some secret cure because of our social status or are we treated like the rest of the patients who had the flu? Would we be dumped on the corners of the city with the rest of the dead victims?

I weakly stroke mother's ring father proposed to her when they were my age, with my thumb. I made mother a promise that I would give this ring to the love of my life like my father did to her, if I lived of course. Now that I was close to dying, I wouldn't be able to find the love of my life to give this ring to so what would happen to mother's ring when I was dead? Would I be buried with it? Would it be sold as soon as I was dead?

My parents were lucky that they had found each other: they had a long life together and they died together, like they always promised they would do, I was always jealous of that.

I hear footsteps, the quiet murmurs, and a gentle 'thud' and it takes me a few seconds to realize that someone else is in my room with me, lying in the bed my mother occupied a few hours ago.

A slender body, perhaps female?, is in my mothers bed, their head on my mothers pillow.

The two people who had laid her down are tucking the blankets around her and putting a cloth on her forehead just like they had me when I came in with the first stage. The two nurses leave us alone, closing the door behind them, basking our room in complete silence.

"Hello." My roommate says: her voice is soft and like angels, but it's also full of pain. I look at her and I think I am dead for a minute until I see her eyes are brown, chocolate brown to be precise, her hair is long and wavy, brown I think but I can't see in the light, her face is well shaped and her lips are plump and light pink, overall she's perfect, too perfect to be in this depressing place waiting for death to claim her.

I'm usually good at reading people but this girl stumps me.

"Shall I ring for a nurse?" My roommate asks, startling me out of my trance. When she says that, I realize that I haven't answered her.

"Oh my apologies, Miss, please forgive my rudeness, no I'm fine, there's no need for you to get a nurse, I was just admiring something." I tell her then notice I haven't introduced myself, what would my parents say? "I'm sorry Miss, I haven't introduced myself, I'm Edward Masen." She giggles.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Masen, I'm Isabella Swan, but please call me Bella. No need to be bothered with formalities." She says lightly.

I smile weakly at her. "Well then, Bella, since you insist on me not calling you 'Miss Swan', I must insist you call me Edward." I reply: The beauty next to me giggles softly.

"As you wish, Mr Masen." Bella says.

We're silent for a few minutes. Our comfortable silence is broken by our hospital door opening with the entrance of our doctor, Dr Cullen, the pale doctor who tended to my parents just hours ago.

"Ah, Mr Masen, I see you've met Miss Swan, she put up quite the fight when she collapsed, she kept insisting she was fine." The blonde haired man says teasingly, with a coy smile directed at Bella, as he checks her over.

"And I am." Bella insists heatedly. "Just because I collapsed, does not mean I have the disease." She snaps. I can't fight the smile that finds its way onto my lips at her stubbornness.

"Miss Swan, I know you think you're fine but you're not." Dr. Cullen tells Bella who frowns slightly, she looks uncomfortable with being told she's not fine.

"Dr. Cullen, are they working on a cure?" I ask, directing Dr. Cullen's attention to me and away from Bella. The doctor sighs as he moves away from Bella. Even though I'm asking for a cure for me, I'm also asking for her: if only one of us can survive, I want it to be Bella, I like her too much to let her die of this horrible disease.

Dr. Cullen's behaviour goes from teasing to serious as he looks from me to Bella. "They're working as hard as they can but as it spreads, they believe it's.. incurable." He says, Bella gasps. "Are you sure? There's nothing they can do?" She asks, an uncomfortable sensation of suspicion settles in my stomach, I swallow with great difficulty as I take in his words:

Bella and I would not be coming out of this alive.

"Surely there's got to be something, anything?" I beg, I don't want Bella to die: she's far too beautiful for death.

Dr. Cullen closes his eyes. He locks his jaw as if he's trying to hold something back, that makes me interested: what's the doctor hiding? What doesn't he wasn't me and Bella to know?Wasthere a cure and he didn't want to tell us?Didwe have a chance to live?

Opening his eyes, Dr. Cullen looks at me and Bella, his eyes soft and kind.

"Try and make it through tonight, I'll check on you two in the morning." Then he leaves, closing the door behind him.

I watch as he walks down the hall and out of my line of vision. When I can't see the doctor anymore, I turn back to Bella and I know she'll be my new friend until we both go.

"Edward?" Bella asks. I look at her, looking at her brown eyes that are full of fear. I long to hold her in my arms and tell her everything will be fine, even though we both know it will not.

"Yes, Bella?" I whisper.

"I have to tell you something before our time is up. I'm in love with you Mr Masen, I know we've just met but I love you."

My weak heart stops momentarily.

This girl, whom I've only known for a few hours, loves me.

"I know we've only just met but I feel like I've known you for my whole life, Miss Swan, and if I were not bedridden, I would be on one knee asking for your hand in marriage because I love you too. Miss Swan, I can't promise you a wedding for obvious reasons but to me, we don't need a wedding as I see you as my wife."

"And I see you as my husband," she says with a smile. "if only we weren't dying." She adds with a sigh. I too sigh.

"Don't say that, love, we still have time, how much I cannot say, but we do have some left so we use what time we have left to our advantage: to find out everything we can about each other." I tell my wife as firmly as I can.

"Can I tell you a secret?" My love asks quietly. I nod my head.

"You can tell me anything my love, do not feel as though you can not." I tell her.

"I'm afraid to go to sleep in case I don't wake up and see your eyes and your face." She admits: she's terrified of not waking up and seeing me. Oh Bella, she must be so scared. I reach my hand out for her to take: her smooth, soft hand clasps mine with what little strength she has.

"Close your eyes and picture me holding you in a field of flowers, the sun beating down on us, none of this feverous heat, but a July summer, our wedding rings sparkling in the sun, close your eyes and let your mind take you away from this depressing place." I tell her softly, Bella looks at me.

"This place isn't so depressing: after all, I've got my husband by my side." I squeeze her hand back.

"Go to sleep, Love, I'll be here when you awaken." Bella finally gives in and lets her eyes close, her body succumbing to the sleep her body needs.

"I love you Mr Masen."

"i love you too, Mrs Masen."

"Indeed I am."

It's not long before I too join her in the land of dreams with our hands still interlocked: we fall asleep joined together as one.

Hopefully we'll wake up as one.