Author's Note: Stephanie Meyers owns Twilight and New Moon. I don't. Got it?

Freesia Juliet

Part One: My Ancient, My Only

Chapter Three: Dream

(Bella's Point of View)

I opened my eyes, and discovered I was no longer lying dead on the floor of my bedroom. This was definitely an improvement. The problem was, I had no idea where I was, or more importantly, when I was.

The sunlight was intense, glinting off of the brownstone building I stood below. Summer, I decided, because it was warm and bright and the little curbside trees were in full foliage. I looked at my shaking hands, and realized they were hidden in handsome little yellow gloves. God, my neck ached, though I couldn't think why.

And my breathing was tight. That was because I was wearing a corset. I discovered that the whalebone torture device did little for my figure, so it was basically useless. My eyes watered, and for a moment I couldn't focus.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" asked a polite voice from the curbside. It was a man in a duster and cap, who grinned friendly-like from a roaring vehicle. A roadster, my brain supplied. How could I have missed the awful racket before?

I was really struggling to breathe now. "I've been better," I wavered, and the gentleman was at my side, discretely holding my elbow so that I didn't collapse right there in the street of this strange city.

"Are you sick, ma'am?" asked the man nervously. "The influenza has been particularly bad this summer." I could feel him keep his arm's-length distance both because of propriety and because of fear.

"I was on my way to the hospital," I admitted, though I had had no such thoughts before.

"I'll take you," offered the man reluctantly. I nodded, and swallowed. My throat was dusty and dry. How long had I been standing here, in the streets of Chicago? The hem of my rose ankle-length cotton dress was coated in gritty gray dirt, but I couldn't remember why.

"I could take you home," offered the man as he helped me settle my skirt into the roadster.

"No, I need to go to the hospital. My fiancé is there, and he's very ill," I responded. Chances were I'd find Edward there. And I couldn't remember where home was!

"Dying?" asked the man with morbid curiosity. I pursed my lips into what I imagined was the correct twentieth century frown. "Sorry," he apologized. "I lost my sister to the influenza last summer."

"No, I am sorry," I grimaced, "it is not unusual for people to ask." It is not unusual for people to ask? my mind repeated, surprised. Since when had I ever spoken that way? Okay, the 1900s were really beginning to rub off on me.

The roadster gave a cough and a lurch, and began to creep down the road. The man, whom I fancied to call Mister Jones, held the steering wheel in a death grip, as though he expected it to speed out of control. I held back a laugh. We were barely going twenty, for God's sake. Reminds me of my truck, I thought fondly.

People on the sidewalk shot us venomous glares and pulled away from the street. Horses panicked and jolted their carriages. "Is it always like this?" I asked, no longer able to hold back my laughter.

"Hmm?" he said, wary to let his eyes off the road for just one second.

"People fleeing in the opposite direction. To be sure, I've never seen this sort of reaction!" I tittered.

"Then you have never ridden in an automobile."

"It's nineteen-eighteen," I protested, regaining my composure, "You'd think they'd be used to them by now." I realized my mistake.

'Mr. Jones' looked at me like I had gone insane. "Where did you say you were from?"

"I didn't say," I answered cautiously, bravely trying to dig up some city in which automobiles would be commonplace. "New York City," I blurted out as the name popped into my head.

"Ah!" he said with a knowing wink, "New York is full of these beauties," he said fondly, stroking the wheel like it was a horse. I let it slide. Eventually, we heaved to a stop in front of a foreboding building that could only be a hospital.

"You seem to be feeling a little better, ma'am. Are you sure you want to go inside?"

I struggled to keep from making a face. He made it sound like it was a deathtrap. I shuttered. Maybe it was a deathtrap. "I have to go see Edward," I insisted as he helped me clear the door without hitching my skirt on the edges.

"Well, you know best," said the gentleman sadly. "Goodbye Miss Swan," he smiled genteelly.

I stopped short. "How do you know my name?"

He looked surprised. "Why Miss Swan, I'm an acquaintance of your father! Why else would I offer you a ride?"

Half of me mumbled something about "being a nice person." The other half of me realized who the gentleman was. "Of course!" I said with my best airy laugh. "How rude of me to forget you, Mr. Clearwater."

Harry Clearwater gave me his biggest grin. "It's about time, Bella. You were really beginning to worry me there."

I flinched, shaking off the fact I had just talked to a dead man, and ducked inside the strangely dark and airless hospital lobby. Okay, this was definitely a dream. The inside looked just like a documentary I had seen about World War I… perhaps this was the same hospital!

"Hello!" I said quickly to the exhausted looking man at the desk. He held up a file folder. "Checking in?" he asked wearily. I wondered if he had the influenza just by working in the hospital. Just how contagious was it?

The world turned bleary as I struggled to take in another breath. Damn you corset, I thought I got used to you!

"No, I'm here to see… one of the doctors. He's a family friend, and I have a message for him."

The man brightened slightly. One less death, I supposed. "Er, who are you trying to reach?"

"Dr. Carlisle Cullen," I responded with confidence.

"Dr. Cullen…" he hesitated, flipping through his paperwork. I gnawed on my lip. "…Dr. Cullen is working Wards D and F. But I would not try to go and see him there," the man warned.

"Why not?" I asked, trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice.

"We have a moniker for each ward here, ma'am. Wards D and F are Dying and Fatal, ma'am," he said with a ghastly smile. "They are for those who are going to die and for those who are already dying."

"Oh," I murmured, feeling very small and helpless. Edward's already too sick for me to do anything. Then I chided myself, Like you could do anything anyway. If Carlisle couldn't save Edward, than nobody could. I grimaced at 'save.'

"Ma'am?" asked the man, snapping me out of my reverie.

"I must go and see Dr. Cullen in person, sir. Right now," I insisted. Wow. Chalk one up to bravery, Bella Swan. "So if you'll direct me towards Ward D…"

It was hot. Unbearably so. And it was at this point I realized that I must be in some kind of long, drawn out, unbelievable nightmare.

Row after row of cots were set up in Ward D. In each cot, a man, woman, or child lay, unmoving. Here, the fever had progressed so that they were comatose quiet. The occasional moan for water or murmurs for a loved one were the only things that broke the agonizing silence.

I considered calling for Carlisle, but somehow any speech above a whisper would be the most mortifying insult to these poor beings.

I wiped sweat off my forehead and blinked away burning tears. If Edward was already- gone- then I could do something to improve the conditions of the dying people. There was a bucket of water in the doorway. It was cold and smelled sweet, and there was a ladle floating inside.

Struggling under the heat and the heaviness of the bucket, at first the task was impossible. But eventually, I grew calm in the monotony of death. One ladleful of water in the glass on the camp stool, which served as a nightstand, one ladleful of water in the basin to refresh the cloths that cooled their burning brows.

I murmured gentle, incoherent things to each person, imagining them to be Edward begging for relief. The children were the hardest- I sobbed openly- but at least their death was swift.

Slosh, slosh, dip the rag, cradle the lips that burned for water. Everyone was Edward.

I had gone through two rows of Ward D, passing the faceless phantom doctors which smiled gratefully at my effort. A few seemed to be carrying out the same task I was.

The room seemed to stretch, then shrink, then change colors. I stopped, dropping the now nearly empty water bucket.

Propped up by several pillows was a woman with glassy green eyes and striking coppery hair. Despite her condemnation to D, she seemed to be actually fighting off the disease. Elizabeth, I thought as I memorized her face. I ventured a guess, feeling suddenly very, very old. "Mrs. Masen?"

The woman stared right through me, cutting me to the soul with her emerald eyes. "Isabella Swan, don't hurt my son!"

"What?" I hissed through cracked lips.

"You're hurting my Edward! You're killing him!" Her words were screeches, but they still had a melodious ring to them.

"How?!" I moaned back, the world twisting sickening. My eyes were aching, my body was burning hot, and my neck screamed indescribably.

"You're giving up," she said smugly, and suddenly it wasn't Elizabeth Masen in that bed but Victoria, her feline face completely content.

"Carlisle!" I shouted, over the sudden moans and thrashes of the dying that I had failed to hear before.

"Bella!" he said in disbelief, spinning on a dime and racing towards me. "Bella, you don't belong here! You don't belong with the dying! You still have time." He was pulling me away, dragging me back away from where I knew Edward to be.

"No!!" I roared back, tearing loose impossibly from his iron vampire grip and flying back towards Edward.

I tore back the curtain that separated the son from his mother. There, finally, was my angel. His head was supported by two poor excuses for pillows, and his breathing was ragged. His face shined with sweat as he lived out his final human hours in catatonia. "Oh, Edward," I groaned, throwing my head on his chest.

I heard the faint, quivering beat of his dying heart, and sobbed brokenly. Unexpectedly, a feeble hand lay on top of my head. I looked up and saw that his unforgettable green eyes were keen and sharp as they stared at me, mirroring my incredulity.

His words were so full of love I nearly choked. "Bella, you must come back to me. You must come back."

At that moment, I finally woke up.