ASL Chapter 5

Confusion and Guilt

Alice POV:

I didn't know what to think about his reaction to me. I didn't spark his memory, but something happened that upset him to the point they had to sedate him. I couldn't stay and watch that woman and Emmett holding him down while he demanded answers.

I went back down to the waiting room to my husband and our son. My parents had invited our daughter to spend the afternoon at their house to swim and play with Ethan. Having Kara gone for the afternoon was going to be a nice treat. I love my daughter but I hadn't slept much in the last few weeks. Even when Aiden did fall asleep I couldn't get myself to sleep much. I didn't feel like I deserve a restful night's sleep.

Jasper didn't ask what happened; he just hugged me and held me for a minute before picking up Aiden's carrier as we turned to leave the hospital. It was rare that we all left the hospital, leaving Edward there alone, but he would be asleep for hours and Tanya would be back soon to sit with him.

Jasper left me to my thoughts as he drove us to our house. He quietly went to the kitchen to make us a snack while I settled on the sofa in the living room to feed Aiden. Jasper joined us a few minutes later with a bowl of the mixed fruit salad I had made for breakfast this morning.

His way of joining in on the feeding of our children was to feed me while I was feeding them. He was hand-feeding me pieces of fruit. It really was quite sweet of him. As usual, Aiden fell asleep when he was full and Jasper took him from me to go put him down in his crib.

I wandered up to our bedroom and crawled into the bed. I hadn't made it in weeks. I pretty much just threw the blankets back onto the bed when I changed the sheets. I had very little energy at the moment and I chose to pick my battles carefully.

I felt the bed dip as Jasper climbed in behind me, "Are you ready to talk yet?"

"There is not much to say."

"Ok. When you're ready to talk, I'm here for you. I saw the sketches you left on the dinner table."

"I couldn't help it. Inspiration for a new line hit and I wanted to get it down."

"That's understandable as long as I don't find you hauling out swatches and sewing machines for at least the next four weeks. Your body and mind need time to recover from the birth."

"I promise, just the sketches."

"Close your eyes and let's get some sleep before we have to go pick up our little tornado from your parent's house."

He draped his arm around my waist and grabbed my hand in his and held it tight. I laid there with my eyes closed, listening to him breathe until I was positive that he had fallen asleep."

I slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I turned on the shower, sat down on the toilet, and sobbed. I was so tired of everyone trying to appease my guilt by telling me it wasn't my fault, because it was my fault. He would not have been up all night if it wasn't for me taking so long to give birth. His loss of memory just made it a million times worse. I caused him to forget his own child. How was I ever going to be able to forgive myself for that?

An hour later I turned off the shower, washed my face in the sink, and walked out of the bathroom to find Jasper sitting on the floor by the door.

"You need to talk to someone, sweetheart. If not me, then maybe your dad can recommend someone."

"I'll think about it."

"Alice, I'm worried for you. Please!"

I sighed and walked back to the bed. I sat on the edge with my head in my hands. I knew my hormones were off with the new baby but my husband was right. I needed to talk to someone that was not in involved, someone neutral, "Ok. I'll talk to my doctor soon and get a name. I don't want to bother Dad with this. They have enough to worry about with Edward."

"Thank you. I love you and I hate seeing you hurting like this." I nodded my head in response. "Get some sleep. I will get up with Aiden if he wakes up." This time I was able to fall asleep.

I woke up a couple of hours later and walked downstairs to find Jasper sitting at the kitchen table holding Aiden and going through my sketches again. He had separated them into different piles. I took a seat in the chair next to him and he handed the baby to me so I could feed him. I asked him what he was doing and he went through the three piles that he made with me. One was the sketches that he loved, one was the sketches that he would suggest needed something, and the last pile was the sketches that he didn't like. I knew he wasn't being pushy, he was good at this stuff and he knew that I would be asking for his opinion on them anyway.

Jasper offered to go pick up some take-out for us for dinner but I really felt like cooking. I told him that he could stop at the bakery on our way to my parent's house tonight and grab us something chocolate.

I went to the kitchen and started rooting around in the fridge, looking for something I could make for dinner. We decided to watch a movie while we were eating dinner. Jasper must really be trying to cheer me up because he picked out Pirates of the Caribbean. Which did make me smile a little; he hated watching anything with Johnny Depp in it. He claimed that whenever one of his movies came on I couldn't stop drooling. When the movie finished I got up and took the dishes to the kitchen. Jasper found me standing there staring at the sink full of dirty dishes. He told me to just leave them and he would do them when we came home later. Personally, I really didn't care if they were washed or thrown in the garbage at this point. All I could think was that the dirty dishes were just another pointless aggravation in life. My husband grabbed me and pulled me into a hug as he noticed the tears streaming down my face again.

Esme POV:

I stood in my kitchen staring out the window. I had spent a lot of time lost in my thoughts lately. The last three weeks had been so hard on the whole family. We were so sure that once Edward woke up everything was going to be fine. I felt the tears streaking down my cheeks but did not bother to wipe them away. What was going to happen to my baby? What if he never remembered all those years that he lost? What about Tanya? Ethan? All of the years of hard work he put in to become a doctor. Oh my God, if he didn't remember the present then he would lose his medical license and his family could lose their home.

I watched as Carlisle was getting the kids out of the pool for dinner. He wrapped them in big towels and then he ushered them into the house. I watched my grandchildren all but run toward the house. I turned back to the counter and resumed cutting up the vegetables for dinner. The heard the sliding door open and in moments two wet bodies were pressed against my legs. I looked behind me to find that Carlisle was picking up the wet towels they had both dropped at the door with an amused expression on his face. Alice and Edward did the same thing every time they went swimming. They still do. He folded them, dropping them on the counter and smiled at the dinner I was making.

I felt Carlisle's arms wrap around my waist, he kissed my neck and whispered in my ear, "Just keep faith that everything will work out the way it needs to be, Esme. He's alive and awake and that itself is a miracle, given his injuries and the damage to his car." I never saw the car after the accident. I didn't want to see it. Carlisle and Emmett took care of disposing of it. Carlisle grabbed the kids up in his arms, "Let's go wash up and change while Nana finishes dinner."

I stood in the quiet again, sighed, and turned to the stove to fry the hamburger. I had just finished plating the foot and was setting it on the table when they returned to the kitchen.

"TACOS! YEA!" I knew it was one of Ethan's favorites. I handed him a glass of milk and sat down to eat my own supper. I couldn't help but smile at Ethan trying to eat his tacos and the mess he made. He not only had food all over the table but he also had it all over his clothes. Carlisle offered to do the dishes while I got Ethan ready for bed.

Alice and Jasper had arrived by the time we came back downstairs. I hated that we had to ask her to come watch Ethan so we could return to the hospital. She was still recovering from giving birth to Aiden. Kara was a handful herself. We had brought her home with us from the hospital so she and Ethan could spend the afternoon playing together. They were used to being together every day and they had rarely seen each other since the accident. But while Ethan was spending the night with us tonight, Kara was going home with her parents.

Alice was cutting into a chocolate cake that she had brought with her and Jasper was adding scoops of chocolate ice cream, "You baked?"

"No. I made my husband stop at the bakery on our way here. I wanted chocolate and wasn't in the mood to actually bake anything. Besides I knew it was my nephew's favorite." I guess I wasn't the only one trying the bribe the child into a good mood with food. I'll bet she got that from me.

"Can I has some, Nana? Please!"

"Yes. But you have to brush your teeth again, deal?"

"Deal." We sat at the table eating our cake in silence. Well, relatively in silence. Kara and Ethan were quite the noisy eaters tonight. Both ended up with chocolate all over their faces. I was just about to take them upstairs to clean up when Carlisle's phone went off. Jasper took the kids from me, "I've got it, Ma."

"That was Dr. Snow. He's awake again. We need to get back to the hospital as soon as possible. She wants us there when she talks to him." Edward had gotten upset when they brought his sisters in the room. I could not imagine how frustrated he must be right now and how disorienting this whole ordeal is on him. I kissed my babies on the cheek, including my grown up ones, and followed Carlisle out the door to his car.

Carlisle attempted to distract me on the drive to the hospital by reminding me of a few things that were coming up on our calendar soon. For years I have sat on a couple of hospital committees and I knew I could not disappoint them by bowing out this year. I had no real reason to. Edward was awake and on the mend. My avoiding my responsibilities to sit by his side was not going to help him regain his memories any faster.

We arrived at the hospital and found Dr. Snow at the nurse's station on Edward's floor. She updated us on what had happened with Edward earlier in the afternoon. We already knew most of what had gone on because Alice had called me on her way home from the hospital. She also wanted to talk about how she wanted to handle this conversation with Edward and how she was ready to sedate him again if all became too much for him. As frustrating as it may become for everyone involved, we may have to resign ourselves to the fact that we may need to feed him information a little bit at a time. I didn't care how we did it, I just wanted my son to have his life back and Ethan needed his father back.

Edward POV:

I watched as my mom approached the woman in the chair, "Tanya, sweetheart, you need to wake up now."

The woman sat up, rubbed her face, and groaned before looking at my mom and said, "Where is Ethan?"

"He is with Alice and Jasper." So her name was Tanya. That was one question answered. But who was Ethan? Her husband? I noticed a ring a moment ago when she was rubbing her face. She just nodded at mom's comment that this Ethan was with my sister and someone named Jasper, whoever he was, and excused herself to the bathroom. There were too many questions that were flying through my head, like who the hell was this Jasper and why was he with my sister. It was doubtful that I was going to get answers for all of the questions I had tonight, but they had to give me something right?

I turned my attention to Dad as he moved some chairs around and then called the nurse to bring in a fourth so that everyone had a seat around my bed.

"You look like you got some sun since this morning." I said, looking at Dad closely.

"Uh...yeah…your Mom and I took some time to relax in the pool this afternoon," he said, shooting mom a funny look. I know that look. That is something that I do remember. It always meant that they were hiding something from me.

"That sounds like fun right now, being in the hot sun. It's cold in here."

"It's going to be a long time before you can go swimming. You have a lot of physical injuries that need to heal first."

"I know. I feel them every time I move."

"Do you need more pain medicine? A blanket?"

"Yes on the blanket. No on the medicine. The pain is not that bad right now."

"Just let us know if you do and we will get them for you."

"I will."

We fell into an easy silence until Tanya, I guess it was, came out of the bathroom a moment later. She had obviously pulled her hair back and washed her face but she still looked so tired.

"Hello again, Edward. Do you remember who I am?" The doctor from this morning asked me as she walked into my room and took a seat in the only unoccupied chair.

"You're Dr. Snow," I told the woman.

I watched as she pulled a needle out of her pocket and I eyed it as she laid it on the table next to me, "I promise not to use it unless I absolutely have to. I have a few questions for you and then we'll try to get you some answers for anything else we haven't covered. Ok?"

"Ok."

"You've had a few visitors today. Can you tell me who they are? List every one you can think of that was here before we had to sedate you."

"My parents, you were here earlier, some nurses, Bella, her," I pointed to the blonde, "There was another blonde and a dark haired woman who looks like she could be… OH! And some big guy I guess was a security guard or something, he helped Bella hold me down when I was trying get out of the bed until they could knock me out again. I really don't want to sleep anymore right now. Please?"

"What security guard?"

"He was a big guy. He knew Bella but was surprised to see her here for some reason."

"That was Emmett," Mom spoke up.

"Ok. Let's start with her. Do you know who she is?" She pointed to the woman sitting with my parents.

"I just heard Mom call her Tanya. I guess that is who she is."

"Do you recognize her at all? Anything familiar about her?"

"No. Nothing." As soon as I said this I saw a tear slip down Tanya's face.

"Ok. Let's talk about the other two women for a moment. Do you know them?"

"I think I do. But I don't want to believe that I'm actually right."

"Tell me who you think they are?"

"I think they are my sisters, but they can't be."

"Why can't they be?"

"Because they are too old to be my sisters. Rose is only a child and that blonde that was here earlier was a grown woman who is married."

"How do you know she was married?"

"She wore a ring. But they both look like…I'm right aren't I. They were Rose and Alice."

"Yes, they are."

"I've been in a coma from the accident right? I get that. Now, please tell me how long was I out?"

They all looked at each other before dad answered, "You've been in a medically induced coma for about three weeks."

"That can't be."

"It's true."

"NO! If I've only been out for a few weeks why does everyone else look years older than they should be and who the hell are you? Why are YOU here?" I yelled aiming the last part at that Tanya woman.

"Calm down Edward or I will have to sedate you." Dr. Snow warned me.

I laid back against the pillows and waited for someone to answer my questions.

"Edward. It is July and the year is 2010."

"I want a mirror. I want to see my face." I demanded and Mom started fumbling in her purse. I looked at the other woman again.

"Who are you? Why are you here? "

She looked up at the doctor before responding, "I am your wife."

A/N:

Happy Saturday! Thanks to Sweetpea123 for betaing this for me. But I did play with a few things after she sent it back to me so all mistakes are mine. Reviews will get a teaser of chapter 6 which will post next Saturday. I know something might seem to be repetitive but they come from different perspectives.