Chapter 12 -

I wasn't asleep, I was pretty sure I wasn't dead. I could hear. I could even see. I just couldn't move. My lungs didn't contract and pull in the air that sat stagnant around me. My eyes didn't shift from one side to the other. I just sat on the couch in the same position I'd been in when the darkness came over me.

Jasper and Jacob had caught up to me right when it happened.

"Bells!" Jacob had said.

No response.

"Bella?" Jasper had asked, as if someone else was in my skin.

I wanted to speak, to let them know I was okay - I couldn't. They had carried me back to the house and placed me where I now sat - as frozen in place as my body was frozen in time.

"What's wrong with her?" I heard Renesmee ask.

"I'm not sure sweetie." Carlisle answered.

I could hear his footsteps coming towards me from the right. He eventually came into my peripheral view, his oh so familiar black bag in his hand. Just like the days before I was a vampire, Carlisle came to my medical rescue.

He hurriedly looked through the bag, pulling out nearly every instrument, medication, and torture device he had. I could see the frustration on his face, temporary moments of relief, then I'd watch them vanish. He tried a penlight on my eyes. Come on Carlisle, you know the only changing my eyes do are the color.

"What am I thinking," he muttered to himself, "our eyes only change color."

He picked up a thermometer, shook his head, smirked, and put it back down. Then reached for his reflex hammer. Right! I thought to myself, in my head I rolled my eyes.

Carlisle reached back and plinked the hammer off of my knee, the hammer flew back. He tried it again, this time harder. Instead of the hammer flying back, or my leg flying forward, the hard rubber dented against my skin.

After about twenty more failed attempts at a diagnosis, Carlisle reached up, a hand on each shoulder, stared deeply into my eyes, and shook me. He shook me so hard that air was forced down into my lungs, I could feel the hole in my chest flare, the edges burning, leaving me feeling hollow, broken, empty. My arms squeezed tighter - Carlisle noticed.

"Bella!" He said, as if surprised the shaking really worked.

Still nothing.

"Bella! Please!" He pleaded.

I'm trying Carlisle. I'm really trying.

Esme found her way over to us, first she put her hand on Carlisle's shoulder, kissed his forehead, and whispered something in his ear. I was concentrating so hard on keeping myself together, that the things that came so easily to me as a vampire seemed to disappear. My vision was slightly blurry, my hearing not as in tune - as if somehow a broken heart turned me back into a human. I felt Esme wrap a blanket around my shoulders, it wasn't needed, I wasn't cold, but it was her way of comforting me. She sat down beside me and wrapped an arm around me and rocked side to side whispering in my ear. "It's okay, it's going to be okay." Over and over again.

I believed her. I had to. I just needed some time to adjust.

Things went back to normal, sort of, after a day or two. Nessie, Jacob, Rose, and Emmett, were still making it to school. Carlisle and Esme went to the office. And while it was just Jasper and I at the house, he'd sit with me, stare at nothing, wrap his arms around his breaking heart and squeeze too. He wouldn't speak and I never once even felt him change the mood around me. I reminded myself to thank him for it whenever I could talk again. Every once in awhile one of my family would stop and stare, Carlisle or Jasper would tell them to leave me alone, and would assure them that "She'll be back soon." To be honest, they didn't sound that reassuring to me.

Late one night, after Jacob and Nessie had gone home to the cottage, Rose, Emmett and Esme were out hunting, I heard Jasper and Carlisle up in the office talking. I concentrated on what they were saying, and caught most of the conversation.

"What do you think?" Carlisle asked Jasper.

"I'm not sure, I've never seen it this bad before."

"But you have seen it before?"

"Yes." He answered meekly, Jasper sounded ashamed. He continued anyway, "Sometimes when I'd have to destroy a vampire, their mate would go into shock."

"Go on!" Carlisle pressured.

"They would just sit and stare, they wouldn't move, but it only ever lasted for a couple hours."

"Did they come out of it?" Carlisle asked.

Jasper didn't answer.

"Oh." Carlisle said, as if it clicked and made perfect sense to him.

What? I screamed in my head, it doesn't make sense to me. What happened to them? But instead they just moved on.

"What do we do?" Jasper asked.

"We find Edward."

With the mention of his name I gasped, wrapped my arms so tightly around my chest I could feel my bones cracking under the pressure. I repeated his name in my head Edward, and I heard it being said out loud.

"Edward."

Another gasp escaped, another rib broke, Edward I thought again, and again I heard his name being called.

"Edward"

The pattern continued. Why wouldn't they stop saying it? Didn't they know how much pain it was causing me.

I didn't even notice the hands that were pulling my arms from around my chest. The two sets of wide golden eyes that stared at me in amazement. Their perfectly still lips. Then it clicked, I was saying his name. It was my own voice that was inflicting so much pain.

"Can you try to relax her?" Carlisle asked Jasper.

"I can't. I can only change emotion, I'm not able to create it."

Confused, Carlisle asked, "what do you mean?"

"I mean, Bella has no emotion. She's blank, nothing. If I couldn't see her and feel her with my own eyes and hands, I wouldn't believe she was there."

Carlisle didn't respond, he probably didn't know what to say - I didn't know what to think.

"And I can't create emotion, I can only change and manipulate it." Jasper continued.

"How long as she been like that, to you?" Carlisle asked.

"Since I found her in the woods. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when we got to her. I rely so much on 'emotional recognition'. You each have your own…flavor, there was no sign of 'Bella' anywhere."

I'm right here, I screamed from inside my stone shell - more appropriately my stone prison.

Jasper and Carlisle were still holding my arms out and away from my body when the hunting party returned.

"Come give us a hand." Carlisle asked.

Everyone came over, waiting for their instructions.

"She's broken a few ribs, if I let go of her arm, she'll probably break a few more." He explained. "I need the hospital bed, the heavy duty one, set up upstairs."

Rose darted up the stairs, I could hear the banging and clanging of her rearranging the office into the mini hospital we had up there.

"Emmett, come here and hold this arm." Carlisle gestured to my right arm that he grasped. Emmett gripped my forearm before Carlisle released his part. The difference in strength was apparent.

Jasper and Emmett carried me upstairs and set me on the hospital bed. It was one of the cross shaped ones, with resting areas for your arms when they are hooked up to all kinds of machines. Carlisle pushed on my knees until my legs relaxed under his force. When you aren't trying to push against someone, it doesn't take long. He then pulled my shirt up to just below my bra and ran his fingers down my sides, slowly and gently. Each time he found a damaged rib he would call out the number. Five was the total. Three on the right, two on the left. He pushed here and pushed there, then wrapped me in a cast It wasn't a typical cast, but something stronger, more likely to withstand a squeeze or two.

Rose traded places with Jasper, I heard him walk to the other side of the room and pull down the giant white board that hung high on the wall. It wasn't in my line or sight and my peripheral vision couldn't catch it, but I knew the familiar sound of the marker on the board. He was writing something, but what?

Rose and Emmett held my arms back all night. I was so glad that their relationship was nothing like mine or Edw…his, or it might have been burning a permanent hole in my chest. They talked about sex, a lot. They reminisced about honeymoons they'd had, houses they'd destroyed. So when Esme and Carlisle showed up to replace them, I was a bit relieved and a bit scared. They would remind me of…us…and that would hurt. But I was surprised. They talked about Renesmee, the wedding, they discussed the weather, and how the office was doing. It seemed to cool the burning edges instead of light them on fire again.

After a week of being under constant surveillance I was determined to do something. I really hate having to be babysat. This was part of the problem when I was human, and damnit, I'm not human any more. So I pulled myself together mentally, because physically I had a werewolf and a vampire practically sitting on my arms. I prepared myself, I took a deep breath, and hoarsely spat out, "Get off of me." I waited, no one moved, so I added, "Please!"