"Edward, honey, wake up. Please."

I knew that waking up would be a bad idea, but my mother's voice was too compelling to be ignored. I had the vague feeling she had been calling my name for a while now, for there was a desperate tone to her voice I didn't recall ever hearing before and I simply couldn't refuse her any more.

"Mmh," I mumbled, fighting my way up through the darkness.

"That's it, Edward. You're safe. Wake up for me."

Cold fingers stroke along the side of my face and instinctively I leaned closer.

"Come on," she goaded me on and with an effort far out of proportion to what it normally entitled I finally opened my eyes.

I had known it would be a mistake. A stabbing pain cut into my brain, setting it on fire. Immediately I shut my eyes again, but the damage was done. Bile rose in my throat, and before I knew it I was leaning over the railing of the bed I was in, puking out everything I had eaten that morning for breakfast. Luckily Rosalie held something underneath my face, so I didn't splatter everything over the linoleum floor and her. It was awkward as I couldn't move one of my arms, but with my mother's support I managed to get most of the mess where it did the least damage.

I groaned when I fell back into the pillows, my right shoulder now adding to the growing list of aches. I swore to myself that I would never ever open my eyes again. Or eat anything for that matter.

"Edward, drink this."

Something cold touched my bottom lip and my mother placed her hand around the back of my head, as she helped me to take a sip of the blessedly cold, clean water. I rinsed my mouth and once again my mother placed some basin underneath me face so I could get rid of the terrible taste. After another sip that I swallowed this time, I felt much better, though the headache hadn't let off at the least.

"What happened?" I finally asked, sinking back into the pillows. I still held my eyes closed, but slowly I started to become more aware of my environment and there was no doubt in my mind that I was in a hospital room. There was an annoying beeping sound coming from somewhere close by. Something had tugged at the back of my left hand as I had moved it, and I was pretty sure there was more than one pair of needles stuck into me.

"You had to play the bloody hero, that's what happened." Now my mother sounded angry, though I had the feeling it wasn't at me, but more at the situation in general. "Edward, I know we're not the best example there is, with us being practically indestructible and you, well, you are not, but if you ever do something as stupid as what you did today, I don't know what I'm going to do. You scared my to death."

I furrowed my brow – a bad move, as it aggravated my headache only more than before – and tried to remember.

I drew a blank.

My eyes flew open and I stared at my mother's face.

"I … I don't remember!" I said, shocked.

Rosalie sighed, then nodded, as if was something she had expected. "It's not an uncommon occurrence in the case of a head injury to loose the memory of the events that led to that injury," she said, sounding as if she was quoting some medical text. Maybe she did. After all, at one point in her life Rosalie had studied medicine and if she wanted, she could work as a physician.

"Damn," I only said.

"You might get the memory back, eventually," Rosalie pointed out with a smile, most likely to calm me.

"I still would like to know what happened," I said, looking at my mother hopefully.

She pursed her lips then nodded.

"This morning, at school, a van got out of control and nearly crushed that Swan girl. You know, Chief Swan's daughter."

"Bella," I breathed, my heart suddenly constricting. "Is she okay?"

Rosalie narrowed her eyes, a speculating glow in them. "She's fine. Thanks to you. You pushed her out of the way, but not fast enough to get to safety yourself. Idiot," she added under her breath.

"So she's fine?" I asked again desperately.

The thought that something might had happened to Bella was unbearable.

"She barely has a scratch on her body. A bruise at the back of her head where she hit the ground, that's it. Carlisle has checked her out, and she is perfectly all right."

I sighed in relief. If Carlisle had given her a clean bill of health then she was really okay.

"Thank God," I said, brushing a hand over my face.

"There might be a problem though," she said.

I tilted my head in question.

"We think she saw a little bit more than was good for her … and us."

"What did she see?" I asked with threat.

If she suspected something ..

My family had always survived by staying in hiding, blending in, being as normal as possible. There was no way they could hide forever that none of them aged, but usually, it was possible to fool other people for a couple of years at least. Normally, people believed what they were told.

When I had been eleven, there had been a man who had somehow noticed that something was unusual about Dr. Cullen and his beautiful family. He had been a reporter and had found out too much. From one day to another we had pulled up stakes and had moved to the other side of the country. The others had managed to destroy every proof the reporter had had before disappearing, so nobody had believed him when he had stepped out into the open, but it had been a close call, and none of us wanted a repeat of that incident.

Especially when this would mean that we would have to move away once again.

Away from Forks.

Away from Bella.

"After the accident, when we smelled your blood, Emmett and I, we lost a bit of control. Em pushed the cars aside to get to you, and I might have been a bit in a hurry to ascertain you were okay. She saw us, and I know she is wondering. She hasn't said anything, though. At least not so far."

I looked at her questioningly.

"Alice is keeping a watch on her for now. Which isn't too hard, as she's in the hospital waiting for a word on you."

"She is?" I asked, hopefully.

"Silly you, of course she is. You're her hero after all. Actually, it seems like half the school is here, though I wonder how many are using it as an excuse to skip class."

I thought about that for a moment. It was quite aggravating that I couldn't remember the accident. But if Bella thought about me as her hero, maybe that whole situation wasn't so bad after all.

"Okay, what's the diagnosis," I finally asked, bracing myself. I already knew I had a concussion and that something was wrong with my right arm, but I wanted the whole story.

"You're one big bruise pretty much from top to bottom. Your right collarbone is broken, the shoulder was dislocated. You have a laceration of you scalp, which had to be sewn up. And then there's the concussion. You were unconscious for more than half an hour after the accident, and only woke up for short periods of time since then, though you probably don't remember those. You'll be spending a few more days here and at home before you can go back to school."

She took a deep breath.

"It could have been worse though, and for that I'm grateful," she said in a low tone. "Just promise me you'll never do something that foolish again. I couldn't bear to lose you."

Her hand stroke gently over my face and she bowed down to place a soft kiss on my forehead.

"I love you."

"I love you, too, mom."

A knock at the door broke the moment and Rosalie pulled back, changing from the loving mother she was to the concerned older sister in the blink of an eye.

A nurse looked inside, and upon seeing me awake, she hustled Rosalie outside, while she checked me out, making sure I hadn't pulled any of the needles sticking in me. With the promise that the doctor would be with me in a moment, she got outside.

I was asleep, before Carlisle came into the room.

* * *

I slept a lot over the next couple of days. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed impossible for me to be awake for more than a couple of minutes, and I had the attention span of a gnat.

Even when Bella was allowed into my room later in the afternoon of the first day, I fell asleep less than a minute after she had entered. Normally I would have wanted to spend more awake time with her, but my body had other ideas.

Though I would just enjoy for her being there with me, I knew that I needed to talk to her, to find out what she really had seen after the accident. I hoped I would be able to convince her that whatever she had seen had been something normal, not some super-strong vampire desperately pushing cars aside in order to get to me.

When I woke up the second day, I was astonished that half my room was filled with flowers and get-well-soon balloons. The cards piled on my desk. I had had no idea that I was so popular.

Visitors were allowed only one at a time, and as my family acted as a screen, I only had to cope with a selected few persons.

The one person I had been looking for most came late in the afternoon after school was out. Thanks to the good drugs, my headache had receded into a distant corner of my brain and my shoulder pained me only when I made a wrong move. My stomach had eventually settled and I had been able to eat a little bit for lunch without the overwhelming urge to get rid of the food right away. Funnily, the last day had given me a bit of appreciation for the problems my family had with ingesting normal food. They could eat, but it wasn't something they liked – though 'not liked' was probably a huge understatement – and once the food was in, there was only one way to get it out again.

When there was a knock on the door, I actually felt pretty good, and when I saw Bella sticking her head in, I almost got giddy.

"Hi, Edward," she said as she entered, dragging a pair of bright colored balloons in with her.

"Bella," I breathed.

At once I looked her over, wanting to make sure that what Rosalie had said the day before was true. I couldn't see anything wrong with her, and I relaxed back into my pillows.

"Wow, you've got a lot of balloons in here," she said, looking around in my room, fingering the ribbons of the two she had brought. "No wonder I had problems finding any."

"But obviously you still did," I said with a smile.

She blushed, a delightful sight at any day and even better for it being because of something I had said. I loved the way it colored her cheeks.

"Well, I couldn't just show up with empty hands," she said, handing the balloons to me. Our fingers brushed and once again there was something like an electrical jolt passing between us.

"There was no need, really," I said, and immediately regretted it, for she looked away from me. I saw a tear trickle down her cheek and she brushed it away with her hand with an angry gesture.

Why was she crying?!?

"Bella?" I asked gently, cursing myself for whatever I had said to cause her pain. I wanted to wrap her into my arms. I wanted to hold her to me, to dry her tears, to make her feel better.

"It's nothing, really. Only, well, you know, there's nothing that ever …" she stammered, then stopped.

"There's nothing that ever what?" I prodded her on.

"You saved my life, Edward," she exclaimed, sounding almost angry.

I furrowed my brows.

"And that's a bad thing how?" I asked, now thoroughly confused. She was alive, unharmed, and there was nothing in the world that made me more happy than that fact.

She sighed, deflating. "That's not bad, Edward. It's just, these are just two stupid balloons and they are not even close to the gratitude I feel for what you have done for me. And you got hurt and I don't have a scratch on me, and that is just not fair."

I had to chuckle at that. She looked so adorable when she was confused.

"Bella," I said softly. "I don't exactly remember what happened yesterday, but I know whatever it was, I would do it again in a heartbeat. That I somehow managed to save you unhurt, it makes me more happy than you could ever imagine."

I reached out my good hand to her, but she didn't seem to see it, staring at me as if I suddenly had a second head.

"Bella?" I prompted her once more.

"Are you for real?" she asked in awe.

I couldn't help it and burst out laughing. Which was bad on oh so many different levels. For one, it jarred my shoulder and my arm informed me in no uncertain terms that it didn't like that a bit. My head was also not thrilled by the whole laughing thing and sent a little reminder in form of a painful spike that somehow ended up in my stomach. I had to swallow the bile that instantly started to rise in my throat. Yeah, it would be just brilliant if I managed to puke in front of Bella.

And then there was the hurt look in Bella's beautiful eyes.

"Ouch," I said, meaning it. "Sorry," I added in a dejected voice. "I didn't mean to make fun of you. It was just, your face just right now … Sorry."

Her face went through a whole host of emotions too fast for me to capture any one of them. In the end she settled on guarded worry.

"Are you okay?" she asked, obviously seeing my pained expression. My head was pounding and I wished for nothing more than to close my eyes and go to sleep. But that would mean that Bella would leave and I didn't want that to happen.

"I'm fine," I rasped out, hoping against hope she wouldn't see how I squinted my eyes. "Just a bit of a headache."

"This doesn't look like 'just a bit of a headache'," she said, looking around in the room searchingly. "Should I get the nurse?"

Getting pain killers sounded very tempting right now, but they would make me sleepy and I didn't want that.

"No, please, it will go away in a moment. Please just stay," I begged.

She hesitated, but then she nodded.

I settled back in my bed and closed my eyes, concentrating on my breathing. I heard her bustling around, pulling a chair closer to my bed. She sat down.

*

The next thing I knew were voices talking to each other in my room, both trying to be quiet, both failing. One belonged to my father, the other to Bella.

"I saw it, Emmett," Bella said angrily. "You pushed that car aside like it weighed nothing."

"I was panicked. It is a known fact that in extreme situations people can do things that are normally impossible. It was my brother there, under that car. You can believe me, there was lots and lots of adrenalin involved."

"No, I can't believe that. Even with a super amount of adrenalin there is no way you could have done what you did."

"I obviously did so I obviously could," Emmett retorted, slowly reaching the end of his fuse.

"And when did Rosalie get a medical degree?" Bella went on. "She performed a perfect triage there, got all the injuries Edward suffered and knew exactly what she had to do."

Uhoh, Bella had to attack Rosalie now. And there was nothing that riled Emmett more than an attack on my mother.

"Rosalie is the daughter of a doctor, in case you haven't noticed. There's a lot about her you don't know."

Well, that was a good point.

"But," Bella was about to go on, but got interrupted by Emmett.

"Just let it go," he said with a voice that allowed no refusal. "There were a lot of things going on and you had hit your head. Obviously you thought you saw some things that were not real or over-interpreted whatever you really saw. Everything has a perfectly reasonable explanation and nobody will believe anything else."

Everybody in his right mind would have dropped the argument right there and for a moment it seemed as if Bella would finally concede.

Obviously I underestimated her stubbornness.

"This is not over, Emmett. I know what I saw and what I saw was real. Something is weird about you and your family, and I will find out what it is."

I decided that now would be a good time to show them that I was awake – before Emmett came to the decision that the only way to guarantee the safety of our family was by killing Bella, which would have been very counterproductive to me having saved her life.

"Emmett?" I asked, sounding, and actually feeling, rather weak.

He was at the side of my bed in a flash – only figuratively of course, there was a witness in the room after all.

"Edward, I'm sorry, did we wake you?" There was no denying the worry in his eyes. I hope he would tone it down a little, after all officially he was only my brother, not my father.

"What time is it?" I asked. It was dark outside, but then it was January and the sun set early around here.

"9:15 in the evening," he told me after checking his wrist watch.

My eyes flew to Bella. "You've been here all the time?" I asked somewhat shocked. I would have expected her to leave a long time ago. When she had arrived it had been four in the afternoon. She'd been her more than five hours with nothing else to do than watching me. She had to be bored out of her mind.

She blushed and ducked her head. "You asked me to stay," she said in a low voice.

"Your father will be furious," I said, while a warm feeling trickled down my body. She had stayed all this time, just because I'd asked her to.

She had stayed for me.

"I called him earlier. He understands," she said. "He'd rather have me here with you than dead in the morgue. His words, not mine."

The thought of her in the morgue pained me more than I could express. My eyes must have shown some of it, though, and she also stepped to my side and took my hand.

"Edward, I can never repay you for what you have done for me. You saved me, and if that means sitting for a few hours in an uncomfortable plastic chair, then this is a very small price to pay."

I barely heard her though, my concentration on her warm hand in mine.

For a minute everyone was silent, then Emmett cleared his throat. "Well, Edward is awake now, and you should probably go home."

No, I wanted to say, I want her to stay, but instead I said, "Emmett is right. You've been here for hours."

She pulled her hand out of my grip and instantly I felt an indescribable loss. She ran her fingers through her hair, then picked up her bag and turned to the door. Before she left, however, she turned around once more, looking at me.

"Is it okay if I come again?" she asked. "I could bring my class notes and the homework."

Yes please.

"He'll be released tomorrow," Emmett said.

I looked at him in surprise. I hadn't known that I'd already been allowed to go home.

"Then I'll come to your house," she offered.

"Yes please," I said, before Emmett could stop me. With a look I begged him to not say anything. "It will be boring all day being on my own. Class notes would be great. Maybe on Friday?"

The smile she showed me before she slipped out was all I could ask for.

"Are you out of your mind?" Emmett turned to me angrily the moment the door had closed behind her. "Do you think that inviting her to a house full of vampires is good for her?"

"Showing her that we're perfectly normal people, will do a lot to alleviate her suspicions. You know that our house is as normal as can be. We have a kitchen and bathrooms and both are used. She will suspect nothing."

"It's a very bad idea," he said. "It's still a risk. She shouldn't come."

I didn't tell him that I didn't care about the risk for once. Just the thought that I would see Bella again was enough to make me insanely happy.

"I can't call her back now and tell her not to come. She's coming."

"She shouldn't," he said once again, but finally he dropped it.