It's both terrifying and tempting for a suffering person to imagine themselves alone. But, as the hours and days passed, it became clear to Bella that she was less alone than she'd been in a year, perhaps longer. Perhaps her entire life. But, of course, she knew now that her aloneness had been mostly false. They'd always been there, after all, watching over her, waiting for her.
This was different, though. Being watched in the mind of a psychic might have kept her alive, but it didn't comfort her the way Edward's touch did now. He stayed close, and when she reached for him, he took her hand in his. He didn't hide from her anymore, and she marveled at the feel of his skin, cold and silky against hers. She twined her fingers in his and laid her warm cheek against his wrist. The nurse's aid bustled around the room. She wished Bella a good morning as she took away her breakfast tray and brought her clean socks. Bella felt Edward's skin on hers, and it was like a secret, one she'd waited ten years to learn.
It was useless to wish that she weren't learning it here, surrounded by needles and nurses, sick with pain. It was useless, but she couldn't stop. Again and again, she imagined being with him somewhere else, somewhere beautiful and private. She imagined being with him brave and whole, not hollowed out by the loss of her family, her body shattered by a freakish mistake.
She imagined how that night in the clearing might have gone differently, how any one of a hundred small details might have spared her. If she'd arrived at the clearing just a little earlier, or even a bit later, Jacob might not have hurt her at all. She'd have gotten his attention, stopped him before he transformed. And they probably would've fought, but that would have been fine. Just fine. He'd have been angry, but she'd have walked away.
Or, even if he had already started to shift, it would have been okay, even if he'd hurt her, if only her arm hadn't been damaged. If she'd landed just a little differently, been turned just slightly to the left or the right, it might not have been permanent. It would've even been okay if her face had been disfigured, like Emily's had. Didn't Sam love her anyhow? Bella would be okay with that, if she could just move her arm again. Bella made bargain after bargain in her mind, knowing they were meaningless, not knowing how to stop.
It could've been worse, you know, she tried to tell herself. Remember what Carlisle said before? If you'd been cut a little deeper, you wouldn't have survived at all. You should feel lucky. The thought failed to comfort her. She tried to be grateful, but when she went to that particular well, she found it empty.
She couldn't summon gratitude for her own survival, but she didn't regret it either. Edward's skin was a secret that made her want to be alive to learn more.
After that first day, neither Carlisle nor Edward spoke again of Changing Bella. Instead, all focus was put on healing her human body. She received the blood transfusion Carlisle had recommended, and she found that it indeed made her feel better. Her heart didn't race so much, and she could catch her breath again. She was able to take more walks with her nurse, and, as she grew stronger and steadier, just with Edward. She wondered at how slow it must seem to him, one shuffling footstep after another, tracing that same institutional path again and again. But he never seemed to mind.
One of the hospital's occupational therapists visited Bella on the third day of her stay. She showed Bella some exercises to improve the dexterity in her left hand, and she helped Bella practice eating with that hand. The therapist had a large book full of things like a working zipper, buttons, keys and locks. Bella participated dutifully in the activities and tried not to let her discouragement show. She felt like a child, and a clumsy one at that.
Edward had left Bella alone to work with the therapist. When he returned, he saw her face and demanded to know what was wrong. After some coaxing, she admitted that the therapist hadn't given her much hope of meaningful recovery.
"I'm supposed to work on buttons for a few weeks, I think," Bella said, trying to laugh as she wiped her eyes. "She wouldn't even talk to me about driving."
He was quiet as he listened. When she'd finished talking and crying, he helped her settle back in bed to rest. Then he excused himself to make a phone call.
The next day, another occupational therapist came by. The gray-haired man wasn't on the staff of Forks Community, though. He introduced himself as Elton Morris, a staff therapist from John Hopkins Center for Rehabilitation in New York City.
"If you work in New York, why are you here seeing me?" Bella asked, although she had more than a small suspicion of why.
"Well, Dr. Cullen requested the consult," he said, opening his duffle bag and taking out strange tools and toys, as well as some brochures.
"And you always fly three thousand miles to consult at small hospitals for people you don't know?"
"I do when Carlisle Cullen requests it of me," he said. There was something knowing in his smile. It made Bella wonder.
This new therapist didn't show her books of buttons. Instead, he explained to her the science of how the brain forms a relationship with each extremity, and how that relationship can adapt to the loss of a functioning limb. He showed her promising stem cell research that might one day help people with nervous system injuries like hers. He told her that, until that day arrived, she'd be able to learn to do almost everything she'd done with two hands using only one.
The therapist worked with Bella for three hours. By the time he left, she'd learned that her car could easily be adapted for one-handed driving, and there was even a typing method designed specifically for a single hand. He gave her a long list of home exercises as well as referrals to skilled therapists in Seattle. She tried to thank him, but he waved her off.
"I saw Edward in the hallway on my way in," he said. "I've known him a long time, but I've never seen him looking like that before."
"Like what?"
"Like he's not in pain." He shrugged his coat on and opened the hospital door. "You don't need to thank me, Bella. I'm glad I could help, and I truly do wish you all happiness."
He left before Bella could ask any more questions.
On the fourth day, Carlisle removed the dressings from her ruined arm and fitted her with a sling so that the arm wouldn't hang down when she was walking or sitting up. He removed the dressings from her hip and belly, too. He said that they would heal better now if they were open to air. He left the plastic medication port in its place near her left collarbone. Carlisle told her it would have to stay where it was until she was ready to leave the hospital.
"You're healing well," he said as he helped her back into her hospital gown. "If you continue to progress well, I expect you'll be home in a week, perhaps less." He smiled and patted her shoulder.
"Oh, okay. Thank you."
She wasn't sure what place Carlisle meant when he referred to her home. It seemed equally possible that, after this, she'd return to her apartment in Seattle, or Charlie's near-empty and vaguely-haunted place, or even Renée's potpourri-scented ranch in Florida. Bella suspected that Carlisle, and perhaps Edward, might even have thoughts of her going from the hospital to their home. She tried to imagine convalescing in that pristine fortress, living half-helpless in the care of vampires.
She wondered if they'd ask her. The thought made her uneasy, but, then, so many things did right now.
After Carlisle had discarded the soiled dressing materials and washed his hands, he left her alone in the room. As always, Edward hadn't been present for the changing of her dressings, even if there wasn't much in the way of blood involved anymore. The drains had been removed from the wounds on the second day, and there'd been no new bleeding after the first twenty-four hours. Carlisle had, indeed, done some careful work when he'd mended her flesh. Nonetheless, he believed it wise to continue the precautions concerning his son, as he was unsure of how Edward would react to his first real look at Bella's injuries.
Bella wondered if he realized that she hadn't gotten a good look at them yet, either. She decided that it was time she did.
As soon as the door closed behind Carlisle, she got up and made her way to the bathroom. The nurse would scold her if she saw her up without assistance, but Bella had been steady on her feet for the last day or so. And, anyway, after everything she'd seen and experienced, did they really expect her to be afraid of falling in a hospital bathroom?
Bella closed the door and wished that it had a lock. She stood in front of the mirror and lifted the hem of her hospital gown, course cotton patterned in dull gray and faded pastels. She pulled the garment up to her waist, then removed it entirely, struggling for a moment to manage the ties with just one hand. The gown landed with a whisper at her feet, and she stood in front of the mirror and stared.
She'd known there would be cuts, stitches. She'd expected that. But, as she took in the sight of what she'd become, she's found there was no part of this image that she recognized as belonging to herself. The creature in the mirror was pale and drawn, swollen and bruised. Her eyes were circled and sunken; her hair was dirty and limp. Carlisle had indeed been meticulous with his stitching. There were hundreds of the black dashes, uniform and tiny, running in rows over her skin. They wrapped around her right arm in jagged, ugly repetition. They reached across her chest, crossing above and below her breast, pulling and puckering the skin there. They slashed at her belly and hip. And, in the midst of all the wounds Jacob had given her with his claws, there was a six-inch surgical incision, low on her abdomen, closed with the same inhumanly-perfect sutures. There were bits of dried and crusted blood dotted here and there along those jagged cuts and precise threads.
She'd told Carlisle that the scars didn't matter to her. She found now that she'd been mistaken. What pulled at her now had become so familiar to her that she at once knew it for what it was - loss.
I was a beautiful girl before. Even if I didn't always realize it, or pretended it didn't matter. Even when I was sad, when I was too thin... I was pretty.
She'd left the sling back on the bed, and her right arm hung at her side, pulling that shoulder just a bit lower than the other one. She found she could pull it up so it was even with the other side, but the effort required was immense, and it still didn't make the arm look alive.
Of course he wants to Change me. He saw me before I was like this. He'll always remember that. He'll always wish for that.
She wanted to look away but found she couldn't. She stared at the mess she was, all those broken parts held together with ugly string.
Finally, she bent to retrieve her gown. Edward would return to her soon. He left the room when her injuries were being treated, and he left her to hunt, but otherwise was rarely gone. She found it strange that she didn't mind his constant presence. She'd always been someone who needed time alone. But there was something unnaturally empty, unnaturally silent, about the room when Edward wasn't in it. Even if he was only reading silently in a chair in the corner or gazing out the window, eerily still, she could feel him, a warm pulse that neither demanded nor wavered. It steadied her.
But she didn't want him to find her like this. Unfortunately, putting the gown back on didn't prove nearly as easy as taking it off had. It took several minutes just to get it over her right arm. Just as she started to maneuver her left arm into the other sleeve, a wave of dizziness came over her. She let go of the gown and grabbed onto the edge of the bathroom counter. She cursed as the gown slipped off of her and returned to the floor. She glanced at the emergency call string beside the toilet, trying to decide if she should try to make her way over to it.
No.
She didn't want to. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to hold on, to stay upright. Her muscles trembled, and her wounds throbbed. She told herself, again and again, that she wasn't weak. She might be ugly now, but she was not weak.
She didn't realize she'd been speaking out loud until she heard Edward's voice in her ear.
"You are not ugly."
His arms circled around her from behind, supporting her when she would have fallen. She sagged back against him, both humiliated and relieved. She saw him beside her in the mirror, strong and lovely, and she began to weep. She shook her head, unable to make words of her thoughts, all the swirling ideas that pointed to one devastating truth - she had nothing to offer him. He'd waited forever, searched the world for her, and this is what he'd found. Not a vampire, ageless and beautiful. Not even a whole human. Just this girl, broken and lost. She needed him desperately, but she had nothing to give him.
She couldn't say it, but he knew. Somehow, he knew.
"We are all of us broken, Bella. Our pain, our loss... It doesn't erase us. It shapes us. And it has made you so, so beautiful to me."
He turned her in his arms, scooped her up and lifted her. Her body sang with pain, and her head spun, but she ignored it. She needed this, her heart brought close to his, his face near enough to see that he was speaking the truth. She needed this to be true.
She put her hand to his cheek, urging him closer. He hesitated, and, for a breath, his face frightened her. Then he kissed her, and she forgot that she'd been afraid. The contact of his cool lips against her mouth sent a surge through her, a feeling she could only call relief. It felt to her as though she'd been waiting forever for this. She'd been waiting forever, and she'd had no idea. She clutched at his shirt, needing more. His kiss was hungry, but restrained, slow. Every small movement was agonizing in its deliberateness, extreme in its care.
She felt no such need for gentleness, and attempted, though weakly, to devour him. He trembled, hardly moving, as he received her fervid kisses.
He stopped her much too soon, moving her so that she was cradled against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin. For a long moment, he neither moved nor spoke. When he did, there was a tremor to his voice that made her think he might be crying, even though she'd seen no tears.
"I thought I'd understood. I heard their thoughts, and I watched them together... and I thought I knew. But I had no idea of it, Bella. None."
He carried her back to her bed. Rather than helping her dress, though, he excused himself from the room, promising to return in a moment. When he returned, he carried a basin of water, folded towels, a bar of soap, and a tiny bottle of shampoo. He arranged the items on her bedside table and pulled a chair close. His eyes met hers as he submerged the washcloth in the water and rubbed the bar of soap over it. He paused as he brought the washcloth toward her shoulder, a question in his eyes. She gave a tiny nod.
The water was warm, almost steaming. The heat and friction of the wet fabric over her skin made her sigh. It hurt when he moved the cloth over her bruised and tender places, but she didn't mind. Her tears fell, silent and slow, as he washed every part of her. He took assiduous care to avoid the lines of sutures, but otherwise neglected nothing.
And she felt no inclination to deny him, to hide from him. For better or for worse, she needed him to know. She needed him to see. She needed this, his touch on every part of her, accepting her, taking her in. It felt as though each stroke and caress opened up, a little more, a place deep inside her, a place she'd thought would always be known only to her. She'd come to believe that she'd spend the rest of her life in that dark and disordered space, alone and unmoving. But now, as he looked down on her with something almost too fierce to be love, she understood that he could see into that place. He'd found her there.
Once her body was clean, he changed the water in the basin and washed her hair. After he'd soaped and rinsed it, he dried it as well as he could with a towel. He helped her sit up then, and he used a plastic hospital comb to slowly work out the tangles of the last four days. She sat on the bed in front of him, her back against his chest, pain and peace mingling in a way she was content not to understand.
When he was finished, he set the comb aside. Again, there was that moment of hesitation before he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. He kissed her hair. She pushed back her exhaustion, needing this moment to last just a little longer.
I didn't know, either, she thought, turning her head so the damp fabric of his shirt brushed her cheek. I had no idea.
She didn't know how long they were quiet together like that. When he spoke, it surprised her.
"There's no better, no worse," he said. Her ear was pressed against his chest, and she could hear the words there, rumbling within. "There's only you, as you are. There's only me, as I am. Love does not wish. It cannot be disappointed. It can only discover, uncover, and delight in what is found."
The words washed over her like a benediction, a promise.
"I want to believe you," she said. "I want to understand. I'm afraid, Edward. I wish I wasn't afraid."
"Believe as you will, Bella, and don't wish it otherwise. Faith cannot be demanded. Not of others, and not of ourselves. If you doubt me, then I will love you doubting. If you fear me, then I will love you afraid. Only..." His voice broke. "Stay with me. I was resolved not to beg this of you, but, as I said, that was a resolution made by a man who knew nothing of love. So I will beg you. Stay with me, Bella. Go where you choose to go, and be as you choose to be, only stay with me."
Nothing but his need for her could have made her feel safe in that moment. He thought that she was afraid of him, but fearing Edward was something she'd never managed to do. Needing him, though... That was terrifying. She was gripped by something like vertigo.
"I've survived so many things," she said. "Sometimes it makes me think I could live through anything. But, if I love you, Edward, and I'm wrong... I think about that, and I can't see beyond it. I can't see..." She shook her head. "I think that's the thing that finally destroys me."
His arms on her tightened, just for a second, then relaxed, moving as if to release her.
"I understand. What I ask is too much." His voice was once again even, careful. The tremor was gone.
She went on as if he hadn't spoken. "So, then you know it. You know what you're asking for, what I've given you, and what it could cost me. Because I do love you. And I don't understand what it means, or why I feel it. But I do feel it. And- and I do choose it. I love you, Edward. And I need you. I have nothing to give you, but I need you. Stay with me, please." Her voice and her body shook. That falling sensation was still with her. She was dizzy with the knowledge that, mistake or not, she'd just done something irrevocable.
Edward sat completely still for a long moment. Then he pulled her closer and laid a hand on top of her head. She looked up and saw that he'd tilted his head back and closed his eyes. For some time, he remained too overcome to speak. Finally he looked down at her.
"I will not destroy you, Bella. And I will not leave you. I will love you until I am dust."
Something inside of her echoed back his words. She hesitated for a moment, holding them inside, before she gave them up, accepting their truth.
"And me, Edward. I will stay with you. And I'll love you until I'm dust."