Disclaimer: I own nothing

JPOV

The next few months directly following the incident were brutal. The moment we arrived in the clearing, seeing Bella covered in the man's blood, I knew we were in trouble. She was blank in both expression and in the sense that I couldn't get any sort of read off of her. It was as if she had turned off her emotions completely—like there wasn't anyone there at all.

Alice was all cool calmness on the outside but I could feel the panic bubbling behind her façade. She couldn't see Bella's future anymore, and Edward was constantly changing his mind to keep us from finding him. She was frustrated and grieving for the loss of her brother and the loss of a best friend she expected to love. Instead she was left with a shell of a girl; lifeless, listless and broken.

When Carlisle and Esme returned from the sea, the family met and decided that we would continue caring for Bella (a completely unanimous decision) and that we would not go after Edward (a not-so unanimous decision). Edward couldn't be forced into anything and therefore, the idea to come home had to stem from him. We wouldn't be able to convince him of something he wasn't open to. He'd come home when he felt he was ready.

For a while, Rose was calling Edward every day. She'd leave him messages of the day we'd had. In the beginning months, she was supremely angry and hostile. The messages were never pleasant and she made no attempt to sugarcoat things for him. She told him of the ghost of a girl lingering in our upstairs bedroom, refusing to eat, blink, and breathe. She told him of the utter mess our family had devolved into with his absence and Bella's condition.

Everyone felt the effects of the incident. Carlisle and Esme had kept to themselves much more. We all knew Esme was completely heartbroken by Edward's departure and I could feel Carlisle's disappointment over Edward's choice and surprisingly, his guilt that we were all here experiencing this tragedy in the first place by creating most of us.

Rose was on a mission to bring as much pain to Edward as possible through her messages but she also was merciless in her attempts to rehabilitate Bella. She rarely left her side. Day after day, Rose cared for her by talking to her, grooming her, attempting to feed her.

Alice had tried too, in the beginning, but the lack of progress and her inability to see whether or not the efforts would pay off took away her motivation. She still loved Bella deeply but couldn't put in the emotional effort of taking care of her any longer.

Both Emmett and I were feeling the effects of our less than present mates. Emmett was the most resilient of us all, but even his jovial attitude had made way for a more somber presence. We needed our mates—we needed our family to be whole again. I had a feeling things weren't going to improve until Bella did and I doubted Bella could be reached without Edward.

The sheer weight of the emotions in the household was making it hard for me to even be there. Alice and I would take extended trips. Though she wouldn't admit it to the family, I knew she was hoping to run into Edward. These times away from the house provided at least some sort of relief but then our anxiety about the situation we'd left would grow and we'd miss our family too much to be separated much longer.

For three months we lived like this. Bella was basically withering away before our eyes. Since she wouldn't eat, her skin was turning translucent and had started taking on a papery quality. The worst part was her eyes. After the attack they had such a vacant expression in them—as if she was dead—but with every passing day they had started becoming milky and clouded.

While Bella declined, we trudged along and coped in our own way. Emmett became the caretaker, Rose continued her obsession with Bella's recovery and hating Edward, Carlisle and Esme retreated into themselves and Alice and I took our trips away.

I could feel the despair eating us alive until hope appeared again. Alice and I were on one of our breaks when we received a phone call from Esme.

"Come home. Bella is moving!"

With those five words we were off, tearing through the forests, heading home. While we were running, Alice could see Bella's face but the visions were hazy and fractured. I felt Alice's smile before I saw it.

In the next few months, things got significantly better. With Bella's slow revival came a sense of renewal for the family. Once again, we had something to unite us. Her progress was excruciatingly slow. At first, she was simply blinking and breathing. Next, she began to feed from blood bags Carlisle had taken from the hospital. Slowly, but surely, Bella began to seem aware of the world around her. She began to acknowledge us, respond to our questions and communicate with us. She refused to hunt—all blood had to be brought directly to her. Though she wouldn't leave the house she was finally exploring our home thoroughly. She had taken over a guest room that she worked with Alice and Esme on to make it her own. She seemed almost normal again.

It seemed like a miracle to see her walking through the house, talking with my family members, but I still felt that void where I should have sensed her emotions. It was almost like she wasn't there at all. She showed almost no emotions on her face and I could sense even less. Brief flickers of happiness, shock, appreciation, hurt, anger, and guilt would appear but almost as soon as I felt them, they were gone.

Rose had continued to update Edward through voice messages. The fact that she was able to leave a new message every day was a good sign—he was alive out there. If he wasn't listening to them and deleting them then his phone would have run out of storage quite a while ago. This told us that he was deleting them immediately or listening then deleting. Either way, Edward was active out there somewhere, doing who knows what, but at least it was something.

We had given up hope that he would return after the first few months, and all of us avoided talking of him completely when Bella was around. It seemed like she relapsed when he was mentioned so we all desperately tried to avoid the reaction all together. Aside from Rose's messages, we rarely spoke his name.

One day, two months later and completely out of the blue, he called Alice. She had a vision a second prior—her sudden spike in surprise and relief alerting me to something big happening. I rushed to her side in an instant to listen. He said that he missed us and that he was thinking of settling down. He said he wanted to stop running and that he wanted to trust us not to come after him. Above all, he made Alice promise to keep Bella safe, but also, to make sure she never came near him again. Even through the phone I could hear his anguish. His voice sounded tired and worn—so unlike his voice before the accident. Alice promised and told him that we loved him and that we hoped he would change his mind. As wished him luck with everything, she smiled.

When she got off the phone she looked straight into my eyes and told me that he would be okay. She knew where he was, but she couldn't tell us. He needed to be alone for a while longer. I was a little frustrated that she was keeping this from me, along with everyone else, but I couldn't help being affected by her happiness from hearing from him finally. She told the rest of the family quietly, so as not to disturb Bella, but her excitement was contagious. Moods lifted and I felt such an overwhelming sense of relief. This was the most relaxed and contented I had felt since before Bella's death and I reveled in it.