Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
AN: So, disclaimer on this chapter. I am not a doctor or a nurse. Not by a long shot. Google was my reference for this chapter. Don't judge me. It's fiction, haha. On that note…. ;)
Suggested Listening: "Follow Me Back Into The Sun" by The Rescues
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Bella was pretty sure Quil broke at least a dozen traffic laws on the way to the hospital.
Still, she couldn't bring herself to care. At one point, she even had to swallow back the urge to ask him to go faster.
Because all she could think about was what they would find when they got there, all shreds of the conversation she and Quil were having moments earlier pushed aside. All she could think about was her daughter and the lack of information swirling around what exactly happened, and Emily's frantic voice seeping through the phone Bella pressed tightly to her ear.
How Bella had only really caught a few words after what Emily said first.
Playing outside...bee stings...allergic reaction…
Couldn't breathe…
That was all Bella needed to hear before she hung up the phone, her mind trying to connect with the rest of her body to figure out what to do - to remember how to move. She had little time though because Quil had heard every word and already shut off everything on the stove and had her keys in hand. He was already helping her into her jacket he'd retrieved from the back hallway.
Somehow her feet managed to move when Quil grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door.
By the time they arrived at the hospital, Bella's body had caught up with the rest of her. She already had the door open before Quil could pull the car to a complete stop in the parking spot. She was already several feet away from it, heavy, purposeful steps carrying her toward the emergency room entrance before she heard Quil's door close behind her. Before she heard loud footsteps on the pavement as they ran to catch up with her.
Pushing through the emergency room entrance, Bella stopped, her eyes frantically searching for anyone who might have answers. Registering the heat from Quil's body beside her, she saw them in the waiting room a moment later - Sam, Emily, and Jacob, who saw her at the same time. Bella moved, determined steps carrying her toward where they stood. Sam was holding Levi, but he still took a step forward - even though Bella wasn't sure why until Emily pushed her way from behind the tall, broad man, her eyes red and puffy and her cheeks scarred with something else. Marked by heavy trails of tears.
"What happened?" Bella demanded, the words tumbling out in a rush.
"Bella, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," Emily repeated, her thin body colliding with Bella's as she threw her arms around Bella's neck for a single moment. Stepping away before Bella had a chance to respond, a nearly hysterical sob slipped from her chest. It was enough to jar Bella - to startle her - seeing the reaction from a person who was normally so calm. Who knew how to handle just about everything.
It also made Bella feel like someone punched her in the stomach.
Reaching for the other woman, Bella's hands wrapped tightly around her shoulders. "Emily...just tell me what happened."
A whimper fell from Emily's lips as she took a step back. As she took a deep breath and tried to gather the strength to explain. "Maddie and Levi were playing out in the sandbox in the backyard. I was watching them from the kitchen window because it was almost dark out, and I was going to tell them to come in once it got too dark to see." Emily grimaced, shaking her head as liquid eyes lowered toward the floor. "I went down in the basement to grab a jar of tomatoes for dinner. I was gone for a minute, Bella, a minute - Sam was around the side of the house chopping wood, but...when I got to the top of the stairs I could hear Maddie screaming."
Bella's blood turned ice cold as the words tumbled from Emily's lips. As her voice cracked beneath the weight of them.
"She and Levi found the start of a beehive on the edge of the trees behind the house and...and I don't know what happened. If they messed with it, if she got too close...I don't know. But she got stung...a few times. So did Levi, but...he was fine, after I got all the stingers out. But Maddie…" Emily reached up, brushing a fresh wave of tears from her cheeks. "She kept telling me she hurt right here." Emily brought a fist to her chest. "She was swelling so fast, and a couple minutes later she was having trouble breathing."
Emily shook her head again, wide eyes catching Bella's as she shook her head in bewilderment. "I didn't know what was wrong, but I called 911 because I didn't know what else to do...and I'm so sorry, Bella."
Bella nodded, blinking rapidly as she tried to think of something to say. As she heard Quil huff behind her.
"So this is what happens when I ask you to take her?" His voice was a growl. It was cold. Angry. "Usually the point of watching the kids, Emily, means you have to fucking watch them…"
"Quil." Jacob's tone was warning and his face stern, the command behind it enough to pull Bella's gaze to meet his.
Shaking her head, Bella's arm reached out inherently, her fingers brushing Quil's as she carefully took his hand. As she turned her head, glancing up and finding his expression dark. His mouth curled into a furious frown even though his eyes were completely distraught.
As she felt his hand tighten around hers anyway.
"It was an accident," Bella whispered placatingly, only to him - reassuring herself as much as Quil. "It's okay."
Bella didn't wait to make sure he was alright, but she refused to let go of his hand before turning back to Emily and the others.
"Is she okay?"
Jacob shook his head from his place behind Emily, but his steady facade wasn't enough to hide the worry in his eyes. "We don't know yet. I think the doctor was waiting for you to get here."
Bella's stomach lurched. Closing her eyes, she nodded anyway, ignoring the dreadful weight in the bottom of her stomach. It was fighting to pull her down, everything they'd went through up until that point reminding her just how easy it was for things to go wrong.
For life to rip the rug out from beneath them just as they remembered how to stand up.
Lower lip trembling violently, Bella pulled it between her teeth, biting down hard - forcing her eyes open and her lungs to draw in a deep breath.
It couldn't happen. Not to them.
Not again...
"Miss Swan?"
Five heads snapped toward the deep voice behind them. Turning faster than she thought physically possible, Bella was greeted by the graying beard and sparkling green eyes of Dr. Mallory. He was the grandfather of a girl Bella had went to high school with and despite how much she disliked Lauren, she always had fond memories of her grandfather. He had worked in the Forks hospital longer than Bella had been alive.
"Dr. Mallory," Bella spoke past the obstruction in her throat - past the dread scratching at her stomach, wanting out. Wanting to consume everything. "My daughter...is she okay?"
"She's doing fine," Dr. Mallory insisted with a small, warm smile.
An overpowering wave of gratitude swept through Bella's veins, washing away the two-ton weight inside her. Closing her eyes, she could feel the excruciating heat in the corner of each one, a product of the same gratitude that could have brought her to her knees in that moment, if she allowed it.
"What happened?" Quil asked from beside her, his voice still tense. His words uneasy.
Dr. Mallory glanced quickly at Quil before looking back to Bella, who nodded at him to proceed.
"Madeline had a severe allergic reaction to the bee sting venom. That kind of reaction is rare, but it does happen. I'm assuming she's been stung before?" Dr. Maddie asked.
Bella frowned, nodding halfheartedly. "Yeah, once," she recalled. "Just after she turned two. But this didn't happen then."
"And it likely would not have," Dr. Mallory continued. "Chances are the first time, her immune system became sensitized to it, which means the allergic reaction would not have happened until the second time...this time." He paused, making sure Bella understood before he spoke again. "She has some moderate swelling in her face and around the sting sites. She was also in the beginning stages of anaphylaxis when she was brought in, which was the cause of the swelling in her airway and why she was having difficulty breathing when Mrs. Uley called 911. However, the paramedics gave Madeline a shot of epinephrine, which helped. We have her on some fluids right now. She's responding well and resting. If you don't mind though, Miss Swan, I'd like to keep her here for a few hours for observation before we release her to your care."
Taking her first real breath in what felt like hours, Bella nodded, trying to take everything in. Trying to process it all in a way she could wrap her head around.
"Of course," she murmured.
"Can we see her?" Quil's voice was low from beside her.
The elderly doctor's gaze drifted between Quil and Bella before offering Quil an empathetic smile. "I'm sorry, young man. Only family is allowed back."
Bella glanced beside her and for a split second, Quil's eyes darkened and his expression went stony. Squeezing her hand so hard it nearly hurt.
"I am family."
The elderly man adjusted his glasses. "Are you the little girl's father?"
The resolve instantly was swept away by a helpless look of defeat. As Quil's eyes bounced frenetically between Bella and the doctor standing in front of them. As his free hand curled into a fist just after Bella saw the tremors rolling from his fingers.
"No…"
Dr. Mallory nodded in understanding and the warmth in his eyes never faltered. "I understand you care about the child, son. We all do, but you need to wait out in the lobby."
Still, Bella could feel a frustration stirring within her. "Can't you make an exception? He's her uncle…"
"I'm sorry, Miss Swan, but it's hospital policy," Dr. Mallory interrupted firmly. "No one is allowed in exam rooms during observation except immediate family."
In that moment, Quil took a step back, capturing Bella's gaze. A piece of her heart broke when she saw the tangible uselessness - the concession of defeat - in them.
"You may go back and see her, Miss Swan, when you're ready." Dr. Mallory's voice pulled Bella's begrudging gaze away from the hurt she swore she could still see in Quil's eyes. "She's stable, so I'll be back to check on her in a little bit." With a nod, Dr. Mallory turned, taking a few steps before disappearing through the double doors leading to the triage center.
"Oh, thank god." Emily's voice was thick with a potent relief, and Bella glanced behind her in time to see the other woman sink into one of the waiting room chairs. Her gaze flicked to Jacob, who nodded at his best friend.
"Go be with her, Bells. We're not going anywhere."
Bella nodded aimlessly, at the same time remembering where her hand was. Glancing down, she realized it was still holding tightly to Quil's. Her gaze lifting, she saw Quil already was watching the door through which the doctor had passed.
Every part of him already somewhere else, even though he was told he couldn't be.
But he could, if he really wanted to. No human could stop him, and Bella swore she could see that in his eyes, too - the knowledge of it. That he was considering it. Finally pulling his stare away from the door, glancing over his shoulder for a split second, long enough for Bella to follow his eyes. For them to land on Jacob in time to see him look back at Quil. To see him give his head the slightest shake.
A silent order for Quil to stay where he was.
"She's okay," Jacob murmured firmly, speaking to no one but Quil even though there was understanding in his face. "It'll only cause trouble."
It was enough to make Bella hesitate - for her to tear her gaze away from Jacob to Quil to the double doors and back again. Her lips parted, almost like she wanted to argue with Jacob, a part of her feeling like it was unfair to make Quil wait with everyone else.
How it felt unnatural to have him not be there with Maddie. With her.
Looking back to Quil, she squeezed his hand until his stare finally faltered and he glanced down at her, his jaw tight and his eyes distracted.
But he smiled. Somehow, he smiled just before he released her hand. Fighting against his instincts and trying with everything inside him to be okay with it. To reassure her.
"Go, Bella," he insisted. "It's okay. I'll wait out here with them."
Bella pressed her lips together tightly, letting her eyes sweep over Quil - over Emily, Sam, and Jacob. She ignored the inexplicable burning in her eyes as she finally turned around, knowing she needed to go...
No matter how much she wanted Quil there, too.
A nurse saw Bella when she pushed through the doors into the exam area. Smiling, the older woman pointed toward a bed near the far end of the room.
Somehow, Bella forgot about everything else, her tears running freely by the time she saw her daughter, covered in a sterile white blanket and dressed in a pink child's hospital gown. Somehow, Maddie had managed to fall asleep in the hospital bed, despite the needles and tubes running in and out of her tiny body. Moments passed, and the breath left Bella's lungs the longer she looked. Making her way around the side of the bed, Bella could see how Maddie's little face was swollen from the insect stings, how each of the three puncture wound she could see were red and inflamed.
Wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand, Bella bent at the waist, reaching out and smoothing her daughter's dark hair back from her face, a single sob managing to escape her chest.
"I'm sorry, baby," she whispered, leaning down and leaving a gentle kiss on her forehead, her lips moving against the little girl's pink-hued skin. "You were probably so scared. I'm so sorry I wasn't there."
A minute passed before the nurse offered her a chair. Bella wasn't sure if she thanked the woman, but she sank into it without a second thought, taking Maddie's small hand in hers and trying to swallow back the grateful yet troubled cries still seeking a release.
God, it felt too familiar...all of it. Everything going on inside Bella was amplified. Every bit of it evocative of what they'd been through before, reminding her just how easy it was to blink and have everything change before she could open her eyes.
It was too familiar, knowing she could have been there for this. She could have stopped this.
But she wasn't...able to stop it. Because Bella also knew sometimes life didn't care how hard they tried or how much her family didn't deserve anymore pain. Deep down, Bella knew there was nothing she really could have done, because it could have happened any day, any time, when any one of them was watching her daughter.
Still, Bella couldn't halt the tears, silent streams of them rolling down her cheeks, falling to the cotton blanket beneath her arms. An overwhelming gratitude replaced the anger and the guilt.
Because above all, she was thankful it hadn't been worse. She was thankful Emily had done what she did and gotten her to the hospital before it was worse.
Because she knew. Bella and all the people waiting just outside those double doors knew...
It could have been worse.
Thoughts?