Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Twilight characters, they belong to Stephenie Meyer. However, the plot does belong to me, as for it was my idea.
Quote: "For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart, and makes his pulses fly, to catch the thrill of a happy voice, and the light of a pleasant eye."
Music: Let Me Sign - Robert Pattinson
Chapter Fourteen: An Absent Pulse
Bella's POV
Two months had passed since the weekend vacation to the cabin, and everything was absolutely perfect. Edward and I were the happiest couple in Forks. Even beating Alice and Jasper, who were known as the happiest couple in town. He reminded me every hour of the day how much he loved me. If it wasn't by a text message, it was when he was with me. He'd whisper it into my ear, say it as our lips were together, reminded me as his fingers would play with my hair. It'd be a lie if I ever said that I'd been this happy before because I was living like like I was in a dream.
The baby, Caleb Anthony, was doing good as well. He was small for seven months, according to Dr. Cullen, but he reminded me that teenagers that were pregnant with their first pregnancy were likely to have lower weight babies. I was sad when he told me that, because I wanted everything to be fine with our little Caleb, but he'd reassured me that he wouldn't be no smaller than six pounds, which was a normal weight after all.
Alice had managed to turn my room into a nursery. Everything was green. The walls, the bedding of Caleb's crib, the border on the wall that was covered in frogs, his car seat and diaper bag that sat in the corner of the room. Edward and I spent quite a bit of money on everything, but there was nothing that our son would need, he had everything. Just waiting on his arrival was the hardest part of it all. I would lay in my bed at night, which was now against the west wall next to my closet, and stare at the crib where my son would be sleeping in just a few months whenever he was born.
Edward and I came to conclusion that whenever Caleb was a year old, with Charlie's approval, we would be moving into an apartment with him. I wished that it were possible already, but we still had a year and a couple months to go.
I sat at the kitchen table, chopping cucumbers, pickles, and tomatoes to put into the salad Charlie and I would be having for dinner. I begged for Edward to stay and eat with us, but he declined as always. He sat in the living room, watching TV as I finished up in the kitchen. Just as I stood, a sharp pain hit me in the stomach, and I tried to grab hold of the chair that was in front of me, but we both collapsed. My were arms wrapped around my stomach as a sharp cry escaped my lips. What was happening?
"Bella?" Edward called from the living room.
"Edward... EDWARD, COME HERE!" I screamed in a blood curdling cry. He came running into the kitchen within seconds, crouching down beside me/
"Bella, what's the matter? Are you okay? What happened?" He asked, his hands trembling against my shoulder.
"It hurts, Edward, oh god it hurts. PLEASE DO SOMETHING!" I cried.
"Bella, what is hurting? Calm down please, please." Tears were in his eyes. I'd never seen Edward so scared before, but he was now, he was scared to death. He wasn't the only one.
"It's...my..stomach. I cannot...breath," I muttered, light headed. "I think there is something wrong with the baby, Edward. Call your dad, now!" I laid down on my side on the floor, my cheek resting against the cold tile as I held my stomach. Edward fumbled for the phone in his pocket, and he quickly stood up, calling his father.
"Dad! There's, there's something wrong with Bella. She collapsed in the kitchen, and... and..." his voice faded, "there's blood," he said, lifeless. He stared down at me in horror as he listened to his father on the phone.
"Hurry up, Dad," was all he said, and then the phone fell from his hand. He fell to his knees, pulling me into his lap. I cringed, crying out as the pain ached through my body, and Edward held me closely. I turned to look at where I laid, and I could see a small puddle of blood. It smeared against the floor from where he dragged me into an embrace.
"Edward, what's going on?" I pleaded, tears streaming down my eyes.
He tried to keep his tears back, but they wouldn't stop. "I-I-I-I don't know, Bella. My dad is on his way. He's going to take us straight to the hospital. It's something about the baby, he didn't say what."
As he said the word baby, another sharp pain hit my stomach, and I screamed out loudly, my teeth clenching hard against Edward's shirt. "Bella, please don't cry. It's going to be okay. Whatever it is, my dad will help us." His hands shook as he rocked me against his chest, and I could feel my head starting to spin from the loss of blood.
"But what could possibly be wrong with him? I've been doing everything right," I mumbled.
"It's not that your doing anything wrong, Bella. We don't even know what's wrong. There could just be complications, I don't know what's happening."
I could hear the faint sound of footsteps running up the pathway of the house, and seconds later, the door swings open and Chief Swan, Carlisle, and Alice run into the kitchen.
"What is the matter with her, Edward? What did you do?" Charlie accused.
"Chief, I didn't do anything. I was in the living room while she was cooking dinner, and she just started screaming. I come in here and she's on the floor, and she was bleeding." My eyes glanced at Charlie, and I knew he could see the tear stains on Edward's face. There wasn't anyway Charlie could accuse him of doing something to me.
"Charlie, this isn't the time to accuse my son. He's not the type of person to harm the woman he loves. We've got to get her to the hospital, now, or the baby could die." The words echoed through my head like they were the last words I'd hear. Everything was fuzzy as they put me into the car, but I could make out what they were saying.
"Edward, check her pulse. Alice, I want you to check the baby's heartbeat," he demanded.
"It's low, Dad. Her pulse is only 42." He whispered.
Alice pulled up my shirt, showing my swollen stomach, and she squirted gel nervously onto my stomach as she tried to find the heart beat. Through my squinted eyes, I could see her face pale more than it already was. "Carlisle, we're not going to make it. The baby's heartbeat is down to 35."
After the information Carlisle was provided with, the tires squealed beneath us, and he ran the red light we were sitting at, flying to the hospital that was now just blocks away.
"What's wrong with her, Carlisle?" Charlie asked him from the passenger seat. I'd forgotten seeing him getting in the car.
"By the looks of it, Charlie, the fetus is laying on the cord, or something inside is going wrong, and it's oxygen and blood flow is being cut off. She's also bleeding, which means she's most likely going into premature labor. Alright Isabella, let's go,"Carlisle said, picking me up and rushing inside with me. I could her the others behind me, and Edward was by his father's side.
Within seconds of being put onto a bed, many nurses surrounded me as they pushed the bed quickly through the halls. "Robe and gloves Dr. Cullen," a nurse said as she handed them to him. "Where are we taking her?"
"I'm taking her back for a emergency c-section, the fetus is going to die if he's not out within five. Edward, I want you back here with her. Alice, you and Chief Swan wait go wait for us in the lobby. We'll call you back whenever everything is okay," Dr. Cullen spoke as he kept up with the rolling bed. Edward's hand was in mine, and I gripped it tightly as the pains ran through my body. All I wanted was for this to be over, and for our son to be okay.
The nurses pushed the bed through two double doors and then into an empty room. They took out the bed that was in there, and replaced it with the one I was in. All the other nurses began to gather supplies for the surgery as Carlisle stood by my side, putting an IV into my hand and hooking monitors up to me. He took a syringe filled with liquid and squirted it into the IV, and as the cold liquid fled through my veins. I could feel the anesthesia taking over me.
"I'm sorry there is no time to explain everything that is happening, but don't worry, Bella, everything will be okay," he said gently, a pained expression of panic on his face.
"Edward, I love you. If something were to go terribly wrong, Caleb's life is more important than my is. Do you understand?" My words were slurred with drowsiness, but they were true. If it came to a life or death decision for the both of us, I'd rather my son live then myself.
"I love you too, Bella, please don't talk like that. Nothing is going to happen, both of you are going to be fine. Carlisle is going to take care of every-," his words ended as my eyes closed, and the darkness dragged me into a deep sleep.
Edward's POV
Everything was going horribly wrong. I thought we were passed this. These kind of things weren't suppose to happen to us. Everything had been perfect. They'd been the most perfect months of my life to be exact, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world for it. I never thought Bella and I would be able to be happy, but we were, until now.
The lives of the two most important people to me were in peril, and within a split second, I could lose them both if the surgery went wrong. Bella was in premature labor, but at the same time, the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck, and he was laying on it, blocking out all oxygen completely. Also, there was something else happening, but my dad wasn't sharing it with me.
According to the mummers that were coming from my father, Caleb wasn't going to make it. Bella had demanded for the baby's life to be taken in exchange for hers if it were possible, but what if it was too late? What if I lost them both?
I didn't have the guts to look at them to see if the baby was okay. I was a selfish coward. If I was destined to lose them both, they was no way I'd be able to look death in the eyes, especially in the eyes of my son and fiance.
"He's out, he's out," Carlisle muttered and he rushed to a speak that was on the wall, shoving his bloody gloves against a button. "COLD BLUE, COLD BLUE!" He yelled into the the speaker, and his eyes turned towards me as more nurses and doctors ran through the doors.
"No, no no. Dad, no! NO HE CAN'T BE DEAD!" The words escaped my mouth before I could have thought about what I was saying. My body collapsed to the floor and two doctors were lifting me up, and trying to take me out on my dad's orders. "LET ME GO, I said LET ME GO!" I screamed as they slammed my shocked body against a wall, pinning me to it to keep me from running back in.
"Calm down, Edward," one of the doctor's muttered, and I realized it was one of my father's friends. "They're is a chance we can save him, but you have to stay out here. Sit down here," he said, sitting me into an armchair next to the door. "If you try to come in, you will be escorted out of the hospital by security," he warned, and walked back inside `ith the other doctor.
I obeyed, my hands were shaking in my lap as quiet tears fell from my eyes. I had the right to cry, my son's life was in danger and I couldn't do anything about it. To my greatest surprise, I heard a lifeless cry fill the room, and I automatically jumped up. "I need an pediatric ICU ready now!" My dad's voice echoed through the room, and a few nurses ran out of the room, rushing down the hall.
he doors swung open again, and my dad rushed out with a doctor beside him, and I realized what they were doing. As he practically ran, the other doctor was holding a small oxygen mask to the face of my son that I was unable to see.
"We've got to hurry, Nathan, he has an absent pulse," Carlisle said, and then they disappeared around a corner. I debated for the slightest second on what I should do, before I stood up, and ran after them.
A/N: An this is the end of An Absent Pulse. I'm sorry it took so long for me to post this, but I'm having a writer's block that I'm slowly coming out of, and this was the way I thought to finish the story, even if it is short. I plan on writing a sequel, so hopefully everyone will keep in touch to see when it's posted up. Do you think Caleb Anthony is going to live through all of this? If you listen Robert Pattinson's "Let Me Sign" while reading this, I think that you may cry because I did. I know the chapters short, but that's what writer's block does to you. Well, this is the end, and I hope everyone sticks around for A Fierce Heart, which will the sequel. Thanks to all my readers! :)
P.S: Please don't get mad for the lame way this was written, I writer's block is hard to get out of... :(
-Granite Paws