Carlisle looked towards his son, his face was pained and in complete shock. If vampires could shed tears, he knew Edward would be as he took a tissue on the side of the bed and dabbed Bella's closed eyes, removing her tears from earlier.
Carefully laying Bella's limp body back onto the bed, Carlisle pulled her hospital gown back over her chest and tied one of the strings at the back. He decided to continue with his inspection of her injuries. He raised the hospital gown to inspect a cut on Bella's hip bone trying his best to protect her dignity by pushing the gown fabric between her legs. He slowly removed the large white bandage and inspected the healing. He sighed. The cut had become slightly infected with a mass of green escaping the sides. He turned to the desk in the corner of the room and took out some cream. Placing a glove onto his hand he rubbed it on the infected area. While he was cleaning the cut, Carlisle noticed the small bulge of skin on Bella's abdomen. Her bladder was rather full. He had just given Bella a sedative and knew her body would not hold until she next awoke.
"She needs a catheter Edward, I best go get a nurse." Carlisle smiled slightly in his sons direction, it did not meet his eyes.
"Just do it", Edwards whisper of a voice met Carlisles trained ears. "She won't mind".
"Of course," Carlisle calmly replied, pressing the nurse call button next to the bed.
Instantly, a nurse from the ward entered the room.
"Doctor Cullen, is everything ok?" she said.
"Can you please bring me the equipment I will need for a catheter insertion", Carlisle said as he replaced the gloves he was just wearing with new ones.
The nurse nodded, glancing quickly at Edward in the corner of the room and left.
"You are going to have to get cleaned up," Carlisle nodded towards Edwards knee which was covered in sick.
"I will call Alice." Edward mumbled, taking his phone out of his pocket as the nurse returned to the room.
She was pushing a stainless steel tray on wheels, topped with the contents that Carlisle would need for the procedure. She had a second item and Carlisle could tell Edward read her thoughts as soon as she entered the room as Edward instantly put the phone away. She handed Edward a pair of scrub pants.
"These may be helpful, dear", she held them out towards Edward, eyeing his soiled pants off and gave him a plastic bag to place his current pants into.
"Would you like me to assist with the procedure?" she mentioned turning back towards Carlisle.
"I will fair just fine", Carlisle smiled warmly towards the nurse, she nodded slightly and left the room.
Edward stood up quietly, removing his pants and sliding the mint green tinged scrub pants on.
"You don't have to stay while I do this, if it makes you feel uncomfortable", Carlisle could sense his sons reluctance to stay.
"I have to stay with her", Edwards pained voice replied as he tied the string around his pants, taking Bella's hand.
Carlisle pulled the blankets further down until they were around Bella's ankles. He then pulled the hospital gown up to her thighs. Carlisle was very keen for the procedure to be over as quickly as possible, he cared for Bella and he would do anything for her, but he felt like he was crossing a privacy line Bella had no choice over. Edward looked away towards Bella's face and stroked her hair.
He very quickly and seamlessly inserted the catheter and noticed the instantaneous release, almost completely filling the contents of the catheter container. Once it was close to full he changed the container and went to leave the room to dispose of the full one.
"I will be back in a moment," Carlisle said towards Edward who had his head in his hands, elbows leaning on the side of Bella's bed.
Carlisle opened the door only to almost run into a very worried looking Charlie when he turned towards the nurses station.
"Ah.. doctor Cullen" Charlie said.
Carlisle smiled, closing his eyes, "Carlisle, Charlie".
Charlie nodded for a moment, "Of course, Carlisle. How… how is she?" Charlie said eyeing the full catheter container Carlisle was holding.
Carlisle sighed, he didn't want to promise Charlie everything would be ok when he knew that Bella was not out of the woods, but from a father to a father he could imagine the pain of knowing your child was incredibly ill.
"It is serious, Charlie. But I will not leave her side, I have taken some leave from the hospital so I can be with her whenever she needs. Along with me she is getting 24 hour care. I was just taking this to the nurses station, but you can go in. She isn't conscious at the moment, she had a turn earlier and I had to sedate her for her own good. But I expect her to come around in the next couple of hours."
Charlie swallowed hard and continued forward, Carlisle cringed when he heard Charlie's audible gasp when he saw Bella for the first time.
He continued towards the nurses station and emptied the contents of the container into the waste sink. He took the time to update the details of Bella's situation on the nurses board, all the while thinking about her injuries and how they were still causing her so much pain, even when she was under the influence of very strong pain medication. As he was returning to the room, he collected himself for all the questions Charlie would be asking. Carlisle knew Charlie had every right to be asking these questions, but answering them did Carlisle just as much pain as Charlie will have hearing them. He was surprised upon returning to the room, when he found that Edward was no longer next to Bella, and Charlie was in his seat.
Carlisle smiled as he entered the room, though he knew he could not hide his small wrinkles of worry for Bella from Charlie.
"Where has Edward gone?" Carlisle asked, closing the door behind him.
Charlie choked, there was some tears in his eyes as he reached for Bella's hand. "What happened Carlisle? I heard something about a crash?"
"I believe so, Charlie. I have not been informed of all the details. She was with Jacob when the crash took place and from her injuries…" this is something he had tried very hard to keep from Edward within his thoughts, "it seems like she was possibly on a motorcycle or got thrown from a car".
Charlie adjusted himself uncomfortably his eyes were filling with anger, definitely for Jacob. "Oh, um, Edward said he needed to go check something." Charlie mentioned.
This made Carlisle uncomfortable. He knew what this meant. Edward was going to see Jacob.
"Do you mind if I excuse myself, Edward has taken this really hard. He is in shock." Carlisle said.
"Aren't we all," Charlie said sadly.
"I won't be a moment, but you and the nurse have my number if anything major happens. I expect her to sleep for a while." Carlisle murmured as he left for the door.
Carlisle's senses were on high alert, as he left the room and was walking down the hallway, he continued to use his hearing to listen to the monitors connected to Bella and listen for any differences in her heart rate and breathing. He seemed happy with how steady she was for the moment and continued onto Edward. He walked as fast as he dared through the hospital down to the recovery ward where he knew Jacob had been placed. Ironically, Jacobs injuries were far less serious than Bella's.
Carlisle turned a corner onto ward D and could already hear a small ruckus coming from a room just opposite the nurses station.
"Do you have any idea what you have done…" Edwards voice snarled.
Carlisle broke into a run towards the room. He trusted his son not to do anything he would regret, but when Bella was hurt and love came in the way, he didn't know how Edward would react. When he entered the room Edward reeled around quickly, from first inspection Carlisle could see he was shaking. Looking towards the bed in the room, Carlisle was surprised to see Jacob looking seemingly unscathed. There were some wounds around his head and his arm was in a cast, but he was alert and reactive, much more than could be said for Bella. He put this down to some healing properties werewolves may have. Carlisle would never admit it, but a small reaction of the same anger Edward was having entered his body. How could Jacob have been so careless with Bella. He shook this feeling away, knowing it would not help the situation.
"Edward…" he warned.
Edward ignored Carlisle, "How can you be sitting her looking like this when Bella… my love, is gasping for air down the hallway", he growled.
There was a definite light of panic in Jacobs eyes. No matter what he had done, Carlisle knew the boy had feelings for Bella too, and although reckless, would not have meant for this to happen.
"Look…" Jacobs quiet voice replied, "I'm sorry.. we got into an argument and… I lost control." He bowed his head into his hands, "Please… tell her I'm sorry…"
Edward growled again, "I can't tell her that when she is lying unconscious because being awake is too painful for her!" He slammed his fist down on the end table of the bed, leaving a small dent in the middle.
Carlisle stepped forward, ready to intervene, but Edward put his hand out to stop him.
"Bella. Is. My. Fiance! And she will never be with you…" Edward said in a small whimper, his anger leaving his body as he turned and left the room.
Carlisle watched Jacobs reaction, his face was a mixture of shock and anger. Bella had asked Edward not to tell Jacob they were engaged until she could find the right moment to tell him herself. Edwards anger at the situation had obviously caused him to lash out at the one thing he knew would make Jacob hurt more in the situation. The whole stress had caused Jacobs blood pressure to rise as one of his gauzes was starting to ooze blood. Carlisle's doctor instincts overcame him and he walked forward.
"Let me change that for you," he said, inspecting the gauze covering Jacobs head wound.
Jacob flinched back for a second and then relaxed.
"I am a doctor, " Carlisle shortly chuckled.
"Right," Jacob said, lying back and letting Carlisle change the gauze.
"I apologise for Edward," Carlisle's soft voice said. "He is dealing with a very stressful situation."
"Yeah.. how is she.. really?"
Carlisle paused for a second, not meeting Jacobs eyes before he continued, "Not the good I am afraid. We can't seem to get her pain under control. She has multiple bruises to her stomach and back and some broken ribs."
Jacob was silent, wincing as Carlisle applied some cleaning solution to his cut.
"I really am sorry.. I didn't mean for anything to happen" Jacob said, tears welling in his eyes.
"I'm sure" Carlisle said finishing up cleaning the wound and removing the gloves he had placed on for the procedure.
Just as Carlisle was cleaning up, his doctors pager alerted him, his face losing all its colour with shock as he read it.
He was being paged back to Bella's room, it seemed she had stopped breathing. Himself, and a full code blue team had been called. He ran from the room, probably slightly too fast than normal but he didn't care, he needed to get to Bella.