Eclipse, Chapter 27

Sarah's worried voice broke through Carys' haze. "...should be improving. You're saying there's been no change whatsoever?" she asked.

"None." Carlisle sounded stilted. "If I hadn't watched you hang the blood, I'd question whether or not she'd received it."

There was a pause, in which Sarah's voice was lost, and then Carlisle said, "Yes. I agree. We move her when we can. I should have taken her straight there..."

"Don't sweat it," Sarah reassured, her voice moving closer. "You did all you could at the scene and you came to the right place. Sue was closer and equipped for a bear attack. Hell, I'd say you made all the right choices. Not to blow my own trumpet."

"I apologise, Sarah. I know you're in charge. It's just... this is Carys. I don't mean to suggest I doubt-"

Sarah cut him off with a short laugh. "Stop worrying. You're beginning to sound like her. It's weirdly nice to see; it doesn't matter how exceptional a doctor you are, you're as human as the rest of us."

"Hmm...," Carlisle replied noncommittally. "I say when it runs down we hang another four units. It has only been a couple of hours; she's in shock - it could be affecting things. What do you think?"

"Yes, we'll do that, but you said it yourself: this is Carys. She's strong... Okay. Let's run through. She's stable; no signs of internal bleeding; no concuss..." her voice slipped away.

For a time, there was nothing, and Carys floated almost peacefully through the pain.

"Love?" Carlisle's soft voice pulled her back up, almost to the surface. "We're going to move you to the hospital for..." he trailed off.

Next, someone was stroking her cheek with a single finger. Carys rolled her face to the side with a murmur of displeasure. It was too warm for Carlisle's finger, and she didn't want anyone else touching her like that.

The finger followed her as she moved, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She didn't like anyone touching her hair without express permission either. Only Carlisle or her mum were allowed to do that. "No," she murmured unintelligibly, trying to dislodge it. Trying to move her arm, to bat it away, was no use. "Mmph. Stop."

"It's me." Carlisle's soft fearful whisper accompanied the press of cool lips against her temple. "It's me. Can you open your eyes for me, Carys?"

"I..." She tried to force her eyelids up but she couldn't, despite what he asked, slipping down, down, down.

Voices swept in and out of the nothingness after a while. Snippets of life too far away to grasp, too quiet to hear more than a few words. It was nice - to know she wasn't alone in the foggy haze. No matter how hard she tried, they were too far away, the pain was too much. She floated, their words breaking over her as waves against the shore.

"Bear attack..."

"...at the scene... stitches..."

"Responses minimal... worsening condition..."

Bear? When had there been a bear? Carys couldn't hold on to the thought for long enough to remember why she was lying there in so much pain.

A bright light assaulted one eye, stabbing through her skull. She wanted to tell them... What? What did she want to tell them...? The light moved away; the finger holding her eyelid open moved with it. There were more voices this time. Hands all over. Pressing, poking, pulling. Stop... please... stop.

"She can hear us," a voice whispered once the voices shifted past the end of the bed. "Bits and pieces." Who was it? She couldn't-couldn't- she recognised it but not enough to- "Edward." Ah... Edward. "I can hear you, don't worry. Can you..."

When she managed to open her eyes a crack, the light was dim, the people and Edward were gone, and something rested against her thigh.

Carlisle turned his head and sat up so quickly it made her head spin. "Good morning, darling," he whispered, gently pressing his forehead to hers.

"Where... Where am I?" she managed to rasp. It looked different from the room she'd been in last. Starker despite the cards and flowers arranged on the table opposite the bed.

"We moved you to the hospital," he murmured, stroking her cheek. "I wasn't sure if you heard me... Alice thought you'd be up an hour ago. Did you want to bring her down a peg?" His smile and breezy tone faltered even as he said the words. His eyes flickered over her face, settling more than once on her lips before he returned to meet her gaze.

She cleared her dry throat. He moved away for a couple of moments, and then pressed something against her lips. Cool liquid trickled into her mouth, spreading across her tongue, easing the ache.

When he removed the cup, she groaned. "Hurts... Everywhere hurts."

"I know, darling."

"Why?" she cried.

It was more of an all-encompassing question. Why was she in pain; why was this happening to her; why did he know everywhere hurt; why did her skull and left arm feel as if they'd been bludgeoned and ripped to pieces respectively.

He kissed her hand, speaking so close to her skin that his lips brushed her with each word. "Your ribs are-"

"No," Carys groaned, drawing out the word. Not again. The memory of the last time they'd been broken was so intense, it surpassed her befuddlement.

"-bruised," he finished. "You don't need to think about any of that right now... You gave me quite the scare, love." His knuckles swept up and down against the side of her neck.

"I did...?" She licked her lips again. Her mind was so...

"For a little while there, you weren't responding as we expected you to. You had no internal bleeding and your arm was under control, and yet your body misplaced the three units of blood and one of plasma. Gone without a trace. You've provided us with quite the medical conundrum."

"Do you know why?"

"After a variety of tests, we have... absolutely no clue, unfortunately." He sighed. His cool breath was so sweet against her skin. She wanted to ask him to keep breathing. "If I don't work it out, I'm quite sure it will eat at me for eternity."

"I'm tired," she whimpered. Wetness slipped down the side of her face, blistering her raw skin.

"Go back to sleep, darling. I'll be here when you wake."

"Promise...?"

"I promise. I called your parents. They're on a flight and Rosalie will meet..."

Carys shifted away from the gentle tapping against her cheek, but it moved to the other side, slapping away at her skin. And then both cheeks at once. Whatever was the cause was small - tiny - and incessant.

She frowned and murmured.

Wetness engulfed her nose, coupled with what felt like a tongue. And teeth. She half-opened her eyes. "Ahh!" she rasped, recoiling from the small brown face, large brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and mop of almost-black curls, all latched onto her face.

"What did I tell you?" Amy asked, and then Shauna was gone. "If she can wake Findlay after he's been out on the lash, she could likely raise the bloody dead. Hello, sweetheart. Welcome back."

"Mu-mummy...? I-uh-" Carys struggled, trying to force her eyelids up further in the bright painful light, to follow not just the voices, but the faces, so that she could work out who her mum was speaking to. "I mean, Mum."

"I'm here, sweetie."

Carys' dazed gaze floated between them all.

Carlisle held her right hand in his, gripping it tightly as he watched her, pressing it to his lips. Findlay strode across the room and bent to kiss the side of her forehead. Sarah stood above her, switching transparent bags of liquid. Her gaze resettled on Shauna.

Shauna squealed, clumsily clapping her little hands together. "Cawwie!" she called. "Rah."

Amy snorted. "Exactly! Bears go roar. Say buh-bye. You're going to go back with Daddy now," she cooed, "so Mummy can tell your silly sister off for being an utter idiot and baiting bears, aren't you?"

Shauna waved her arms up and down. "Nun-night Cawwie."

"Tha..." It was about all she could manage.

She blinked and Findlay and Shauna were gone. There was even more light this time. Amy was speaking to Sarah on the other side of the bed. Carlisle sat slumped in a chair beside her bed, his eyes closed as if sleeping peacefully.

"You'd think all those hours reading We're Going On A Bear Hunt would've stuck, but no..." Amy looked pointedly down at Carys - one hand firmly on her cocked hip, the other on the board at her daughter's feet - and jumped a little. "Forgot the whole running home bit, did you?" she asked once she'd recovered.

"Carlisle?" Carys rasped.

"He's here," Sarah assured her. "Resting. He's been up with you all night... You've been in and out for over a day."

Amy settled herself on the end of the bed.

"I'm dying..."

"No, you're not," Amy admonished, "Sarah says you're going to be just fine, don't worry, Carys."

Carlisle chose that moment to sit up. He must have heard. Carys could have kissed him.

She closed her heavy-lidded eyes instead.

Rhythmic beeping cut through, increasing in tempo. The voices returned. Sharp and loud, calling to each other about infections and injections, infusions, draining, and IVs as hands gripped and pressed, and needles probed deep.

And then Carlisle's face swam into view again as a cold hard clamp adjusted against her right hand.

She knew she was dreaming when she recognised his office but found herself curled up in the setee from their bedroom while he studied her from the wingback chair, set, as it never was, behind his desk.

"Alright," she appealed, sounding far away and too dull to her own ears, "would you tell me another?"

Carlisle leaned back in his chair and rubbed at the nape of his neck. "There are the twins," he sighed. "A sorry tale... They possessed strange power from infancy. Good things would happen to those who were kind to the pair, bad to those who wished or caused them ill. Their untapped potential drew Aro's attention, as others' had.

"He watched them, planning for when they reached adulthood.

"Over time, people - villagers who suffered or profited from their abilities - grew more and more afraid of their strange gifts. The fear increased as they came to the cusp of what we now call teenagehood... I do not know the specifics, but what I do know is that the judgement was made that they were witches...

"Little more than children, they were set to the stake... Aro heard of this, too, and arrived in time to rip them from the burning pyre. He turned them and raised their village to the ground, killing all those involved - all those who witnessed the event in its entirety.

"One - Jane - forged herself within the flames. She became one with her suffering and turned the excruciation outward, controlling it. Her ability comes in the form of pain none she turns it on can escape. It makes her utterly invaluable to the Volturi. Imagine torture that incapacitates and renders unimaginable pain without ever touching, ever physically damaging the victim.

"The other - the boy, Alec - wanted so much to deaden himself to the excruciating burning, that he forged himself without. That is, outside, the fire. He possesses an ability to rival and oppose his sister's; a fog that removes all sense of smell, sight, hearing, touch. His fog takes from others all that which he sought to take from himself."

The dream shifted. Edward's voice washed over her. "...fever dream... remembering... stories of the Volturi."

"As humans," Carlisle went on, his voice distorted as the room twisted and swirled, "their abilities remained locked in their subconscious minds, as many are, as yours is. It could be forged during their change. If they had lived their lives and come to their end - to vampirism - in a less violent manner..."

The clamp around her hand tightened. Smooth cool marble settled against her temple, a balm to her heated skin.

Carlisle.

Real, this time.

"Carys... Carys, please," he begged. "Wake up. Come back to me. I didn't make you promise me, too, and so I need you to wake up. Please."

She strayed back into the nothingness. In her delirium, she shifted, shuddering against the biting cold, fighting against the dry heat. Dreams clashed and cut into one another, thrusting her headfirst through memories and yanking her back to float.

The twin anchors through it all were the hand clasping her right one, and the flaring throb of her left arm. Almost every time she rose high enough to hear the voices, she heard Carlisle - sometimes chanting in another language, sometimes pleading with her, begging her, other times assuring someone that she would pull through.

Eventually, she settled and everything evened out. The pain lessened again, she didn't feel quite so hot or cold, and she could find calm.

Carlisle was there when she slowly awoke - her head pounding worse than ever - and he wasn't alone.

"I'm just saying," Emmett complained. "If you'd turned her-"

"Emmett now is not the time," Rosalie snapped. Her voice gentled. "The fever's broken; her infection's gone. She'll be up soon, Carlisle, won't she Alice?"

"I don't know," Alice moaned. "I was wrong last time. It's so hard to see now."

Jasper sounded alarmed. "You can't mean-!"

"No, I don't think-oh, I don't know! Edward will know."

"When will he return?" Carlisle urged as he squeezed Carys' hand.

"They'll be back from the diner soon," Alice promised. Her high-pitched voice speared through Carys' brain. "The baby's lingering over her waffles."

Emmett sniggered. "Did you see she spit up all over Bella's arm? Babies don't spit up like that at her age. I swear she did it on purpose. Solidarity. Love to see it."

"She hardly did it on purpose," Esme softly chided, above where a hand gripped Carys' ankle. "Such a lovely little girl."

"She is," Rosalie wistfully agreed, "and she's far too young to be taking anyone's side in anything."

"You shouldn't have held her," Jasper warned, "either of you."

"Shauna noticed about as much as Amy did," Esme informed him. "Besides. She was asleep for most of it."

Did they get sleeping baby cuddles? Carys groaned, opening her eyes a crack. "Don't make me," she murmured, "jealous..."

A flurry of activity followed her words, along with a deafening crack as Jasper slapped Emmett over the back of the head.

It caused Carys to wince. Carlisle bent over her, his lips skating over her cheek and temple as the others talked.

"Ow!" Emmett protested, rubbing at the painful spot. "What was that for!?"

"Don' shoot the messenger now," Jasper drawled with just a hint of amused pride.

"Rose?"

"You said we should have changed her," Rosalie hissed.

Nurse Nichols ran into the room, panting lightly. "What was that!?" she cried, looking over them all. "It sounded like a-a boom," she said hesitantly, as if unsure of her description, "or something?"

Emmett dropped his hand. "Bird hit the window," he lied. "Big one. Think it was a hawk or something."

"A hawk?" Nurse Nichols asked suspiciously, staring towards the windows. "In Forks?"

"Your best guess is as good as mine," he told her with a confidence which was difficult to deny, "I was just like 'whoa! Is that a hawk?' then it just smashed into the window. Weird."

Rosalie shrugged when the nurse looked at her. "Can you get Doctor Martins?" she asked haughtily, tipping her head towards the bed. "Carys is awake."

Nurse Nichols' gaze turned sharply to meet Carys' half-lidded one, and then to Carlisle, who studiously avoided her eye under cover of checking his other half's pupil responses - sending sharp stabs of pain through her skull in the process - and then she was gone.

"The old hawk in the city trick," Emmett announced with a conspiratorial grin, "works every time."

Carlisle looked up from Carys, clicking his torch to remove the blinding light. "It really shouldn't," he said serenely. "It's almost as bad as Edward's 'the fluorescents' excuse."

"You tell people you stay young from good air!" Emmett retorted sotto voce, sparing the doorway a glance as he did so.

"If you admit you have had plastic surgery as soon as they ask, they will be more likely to ask who, when, where. Let them think they've caught you. Now." Carlisle waved his arm in a wide arc, encompassing the group. "Out, please, all of you. And please," he added with a beleaguered sigh, "wait until you're home to hit each other next time?"

"Or, don't hit each other at all," Esme corrected, herding the group from the room. Before she, too, disappeared into the hall, she returned with a comforting smile to squeeze Carys' lower leg.

Carys tried to smile at her, before turning to blink lazily up at Carlisle.

"Please don't give me that look," he beseeched, pouring water from the jug beside her bed. "Sarah will be here in a matter of moments, and you've given me enough terror to last every one of my lifetimes, and then some."

She frowned. "What..." He pressed the cup to her lips, and all thought of anything but the sweet liquid deserted her until it was removed. "Are you mad at me?" she rasped.

"Mad?" His eyebrows lifted high. "No. I simply doubt how kindly Sarah would take to having to work around me."

She smiled sleepily and tried to push up.

Her left arm stabbed, buckling under her immediately. Her right side did the same, though without the accompaniment of intense pain. Carlisle pressed her back against the pillows but set to lifting the bed so that she was propped to recline a little higher, all the same.

"Well, well, well," Sarah called, sweeping into the room. "Look who's alive." She grabbed the chart from the end of the bed, checking it against the monitor for a moment before rounding on Carys, running through the same checks as Carlisle had. "Getting into a fight with a bear wasn't enough?" she asked. Her tone was teasing, but underlaid by genuine concern. "You had to contract an infection as well?"

Carys glanced at each of them in turn. "I did?"

"You did. I think you almost gave Carlisle here a wrinkle or two in the process," she said, indicating him with a nod as she bent over Carys' arm. "If you look really, really closely," she whispered, glancing up with a wink for Carys, "you'll see he's wearing a three-day outfit. He's letting himself go."

Carys choked on a laugh, descending swiftly to a coughing fit which tugged at her aching joints and was only eased by more water. When she'd recovered, she tried to insist she was well enough to know what had happened while she was out.

Happy that she was able to be asking at all, Carlisle and Sarah explained that she had seemed to be out of the woods when infection had set in - deep within her arm - despite their best efforts.

For three days and nights, the fever raged before it finally broke. It had taken another half-day before she'd woken.

She tried to work out the time she'd missed, but, in the end, Carlisle answered the question for her. It had been Saturday when she had been injured. It was now Thursday the following week.

Sarah lingered.

For a little while, Nurse Nichols joined her and Carlisle, discussing inconclusive test results, setting up new scans and tests, adjusting medications, and running over readings. Though they all made a point of actively including the near-silent Carys in their conversation, explaining the parts she seemed particularly nonplussed about, she was too tired to decipher or understand much of it.

The moment they left the room, she turned slowly to Carlisle. "What happened?" she appealed.

"We don't have much time before your mother returns." He sat down on the side of her bed, her hand in his as he hesitantly asked, "What do you remember?"

She wracked her addled brain. "Parts, I think... Was anyone else hurt?"

"Not as you were," he said tenderly, stroking her wrist and forearm with his free hand. "A couple of the wolves sustained breaks, but they heal inordinately quickly."

Looking down at her arm, she found it wrapped in bandages. Her fingers twitched when she tried to move them, just as much as her other hand. Weak, but not unresponsive. She could not be sure why, but she wanted to know... "Who was it?"

"Victoria," he informed her with a sad shake of his head. "Your scream distracted both her and Edward." He shuddered, briefly closing his eyes against the pain which flashed in their depths. "By that stage, she was undecided over whether to kill you or change you as planned. As it happens, she almost killed you after all. I suspect the infection came from her nails."

Carys knew she needed to change the subject slightly if she wanted to hear more before she was sick or he told her to rest again. Once he did that, she knew she would give in almost immediately. "You were there... And then... We were somewhere else," she attempted. "Where was I before?"

"Sue Clearwater's clinic. Sam proposed a deal when you were injured; before we had to move you here." Leaning forward, he dropped his forehead to her shoulder for a few moments and when he spoke, his voice was muffled by her gown. "It was strange. To cross the treaty line. You caused quite a fuss, darling."

Carys hummed her assent. She didn't want to sleep just yet. A memory surfaced and she clung to it. "You weren't always there..."

Though she hadn't meant it as or made it into an accusation, he sat up sharply, the pain in his eyes leeching into his expression as his hands twitched. "No. I'm sorry about that. It was because-" he broke off as if holding something back, and then said, "Leah stayed with you while I was required elsewhere, as per the agreement."

"She did?" she gasped.

"I'm not sure if you heard her, but she broke with every instinct to visit you here a couple of times as well. Seth... Well," he added with a musing tip of his head, "he seemed absolutely fine with us, to be perfectly honest with you. Oh." He grinned all of a sudden, the expression taking over his entire being, filling the room with warmth, or at the least, that was how it appeared in Carys' biased opinion. "It seems you have another bridesmaid. Leah promised you she would 'take the hit' if you woke up."

"I should-should get my arm ripped more often," she whispered with a smirk.

His grin dropped. "That's not funny." Horror-struck, he held her hand to his chest.

She felt a jolt of remorse. "Sorry..." Looking around, she finally noticed the size of the room. It confused her. "I didn't know we had a room this big...," she said, looking up at him once again.

Carlisle's shoulders shook as he let out a shaky breath. "This is a ward, love."

"Huh..." She smirked. "Slow week, I presume?"

"Ah," he replied with a tip of his head and a shrug of his shoulders, "we've had worse."

"Hmm... Someone said I was rambling."

"On and off through the fever. You should-"

Carys cut him off before he could tell her to rest. "What about?" she asked, unwilling and unready to give up his face or voice just yet. She tried not to so much as blink unless she had to. It wasn't easy given her inability to focus as much as she'd like. Though she didn't want him to know it, she was scared. Terrified, really. If she closed her eyes for a moment, she might fall unconscious again, and she didn't know how long it would be before she saw him again...

"It can wait," he said, disregarding her attempt to stall with a small smile designed for comfort, stroking her jaw with his free hand. "You should rest now, but we have many fever-dream related questions."

The news alarmed her. Her eyes had begun to droop despite her best efforts, but now they widened more than they had since she'd woken up. "Did I give anything away?" she cried fearfully.

He shook his head and kissed her forehead. "Not unless you count insisting I breathe or lie on you to keep you cold," he assured.

"I did?"

"Multiple times," he chuckled. "You were very vocal about it. It was attributed to delirium. Especially as you took to muttering about being chased by geese."

"There were geese in my dreams?"

Carlisle dropped his chin to his chest. Raising just a little, he fixed her with an amused look from beneath his long golden lashes. "No." He laughed openly as she tried and failed to tug her hand free of his hold. "However. However," he tried again over her protest, "the first part was true..." Sobering, he sucked in a sharp breath and indicated with his index finger. "Oh. Your mother knows that your father got in touch, so you know."

Now that was something she could jump on and run with until her mum got there.

"Go to sleep love," he insisted before she could speak, "but I warn you I'll be waking you periodically, just to be sure you're still with us," he added when she wavered.

Her lips twisted but she frowned worriedly at their joined hands. He shifted her just enough that he could lay next to her, curling himself around her uninjured side, and Carys hugged his arm to her chest as she murmured, "I promise. I won't leave you, either."

His arm tightened around her. "I love you, Carys," he whispered shakily against her ear. "I love you so much it hurts... It physically hurts. It's selfish, I know. But I don't know if I can go through that again. I don't know if-"

"Shh," Carys soothed, turning her head to kiss his cheek as she rubbed his forearm. "I love you too and we'll put it off as long as we can. It won't be like that..." She knew she was lying to them both, but she wanted him to think one of them wasn't scared, at least.

"No," he agreed. "It will be worse. So much worse."

She sighed and closed her eyes, kissing him again. "You look hungry," she told him. "It's only been a week, but you fought. You should eat, Carlisle."

His arm tightened. Though his touch remained ever so gentle, Carys opened her eyes to see his darken as his voice turned harsh. "The only thing I'm hungry for is you," he told her. "Ferociously. Now go to sleep before I share some of my more inventive ideas."

Carys giggled through her body's stomach clenching response. He couldn't be serious. "Injuries aside," she said, closing her eyes again, "I'm pretty sure three days of fever does not an attractive prospect make."

"You've had sponge baths," he replied lightly, "but I suppose it should wa-"

"Wait." Her eyes snapped open. It was only a small town. A small staff.

"Go to sleep."

"Who-"

"Go to sleep," he laughed.

"No, but-"

"Shhh..."

I was going to add a couple of paragraphs to this chapter saying what happened before Carys goes home, but I decided we deserved some Amy, Findlay, Shauna, Leah, Seth, Sarah, Monica and Charlie encounters before the book ends very soon, so they'll be in the next chapter.

If anyone would like to know what Carys' dreams and memories were - I'm collecting together old snippets I cut from the story for time and also for canonical reasons, and putting them in an outtakes chapter to show her fever dreams. No reason why. Just thought it'd be fun. And I have over 40,000 words in my cuts, partial scenes, and outtakes doc.

Thank you to: BMBMDooDoo-Doo-Doo-Doo, BubblyYork, Serena Salvatore, chellekathrynnn, Books-n-Harleys, NeonKat (Oh, yeah, my mum's not a fan at all either, and she'll be the first to bring up the cheating as a reason why to start! Carlisle and Carys discussed it back in New Moon (hypothetically) - Henrietta Amy for a girl (I invented Carlisle's mum a name) and Henry Findlay for a boy, but if they do have one, it will be slightly different to those), Momochan77, Guest (I'm so glad you liked her! Poor lovely!), GuestMG, seconddragon, Nana (Thank you! I'm thinking I might do a Carlisle POV, but it takes a bit longer to write those, so I might put it in the outtakes once I've got around to it. Hahaha! "Feed your child"! Ha!), jhaenox, Guest (Thank you, thank you!), KEZZ 1, Rosiekay, hellocherryblossoms, 0oKitteno0, TheWiseQueen, Jane (Delirious thing! But something did happen in this chapter...), and TDI-Ryro-Eclares for your reviews!