a/n: thanks for the love, but keep it coming, I need it so bad!

Enjoy xx

You Have Found Her, Now Go And Get Her

EPOV

She lay shivering in a ball in the middle of my bed, but it wast because she was cold. I actually had no idea why she was shivering, as a doctor, I thought perhaps the alcohol, as a witness to her actions, I was positive that it was some deep rooted issue.

But what?

What makes a human being do that to themselves?

I looked at her and she looked so shattered. She was exhausted.

Pulling her into me, tighter, she seemed to relax a little. I stroked her face with the backs of my fingers, trying to sooth her, trying to ease whatever nightmare she was living, because there was no doubt about it, what ever she had dreamt off, she had lived through. I would put my life on it.

"You should try for some sleep. You were unconscious but you're body didn't get the rest it needed." She had literally lay there, her mind and body, both paralysed from the alcohol.

"I don't want to sleep." she mumbled into my chest.

"I'll be right here, I wont let anything bad happen to you, okay?"

She shook her head.

I sighed, she needed sleep. This was why she looked the way she did, she needed proper rest, not to knocked herself out into oblivion with drink.

"You either sleep or we talk about what happened." I bargained.

She pulled away from me, searching my face to see if I was being serious.

She took her bottom lip between her teeth and the sad expression intensified but I wasn't budging.

I looked back at her, staring her out. "I'll sleep." she told me before she pulled herself into my side and closing her eyes.

She fell asleep not long later as I tried to encouraged sleep by stroking the side of her head, trying to lull her into her needed rest.

She woke a few hours later looking a little fresher for her sleep and like I told her, I didn't let anything bad happen to her either, her sleep being pretty uneventful.

She had gripped at me in her sleep as if she wasn't going to let go but there was only a small amount of mumbling going on so I let her be. I didn't sleep, to afraid that something would happen to her and it would be my fault.

I had made her coffee and walking back through to the bedroom I heard her on the phone talking. "I did it again, I'm sorry. Just don't tell dad, you know what he's like." I heard her speak. "Don't worry though, I'm fine, someone is...he's looking after me. He's nice like that." I heard her sigh.

I didn't know if I should be listening in. I wasn't really, I was just trying to give her space as she spoke. It was clear she had someone she felt like she could talk to about it, but why weren't they doing something about it?

She began again "He's nice, not like the others." who ever it was I assumed they knew how her other relationships went with men, I hopped they knew about her hanging around with older men.

I pushed in the door, not wanting to seem like I was actually eavesdropping.

She hung up as I came in. "Who was on the phone?" I asked trying to see if she would talk about it.

She just shrugged. "My mum. Answer phone."

I nodded "It's pretty late in Florida. She will probably be sleeping." I assured her. I was a little surprised she told her mum, but I suppose she was in Florida, it wast as if she could actually do anything in that moment. Though I did hope she was trying to do something.

Handing her her coffee. "Here, I have a couple of pain killers for you to help with your head." I pulled the bottle out of my pocket and poured a couple onto my hand before passing her them and pulling out another small bottle of water that somehow managed to fit into the pocket of my jogging bottoms.

She took them and eased back into the bedding with her coffee.

"Thank you...for everything." she repeated her words from earlier.

"You don't need to thank me, I just want to know what made you do it."

She shrugged. "I think I would just rather thank you." she mumbled.

"You can't run away from it like that. It won't make it any better." I tried to reason.

"But it might help me forget." she slouched further into the covers and it hurt to think that she thought that this was the best way to handle it, that she could just forget about it and switch off her feelings.

"Bella, why did you do it? Why did you drink all that vodka. You knew what it would have done to you."

She would have knew what she was doing, It had been in her notes. She had her stomach pumped before, she had tried to do this before.

She never spoke. Instead she placed down her mug on the floor before hiding below the covers, her eyes glazed over in the process.

"Bella...." I was begging her, I was pleading with her, some kind of answer.

I reached below the covers too, following her under and pulling her towards me once again.

I felt her arms wrap around my neck as tears began to fall from her eyes, making my t-shirt wet.

I kissed her temple, letting her know I was there. "I'm sorry about what I did to you earlier, but I don't want you to think that you can't trust me, you can. I just got mad. You did something daft and so did I." I tried for her to see that we were both wrong.

"It wasn't daft." she told me.

"It was, I should never have put you in the shower like that. I'm -"

"No, what I did, it wasn't daft, don't tell me that. I had a reason." she bit firmly, sure of herself.

"What?" I asked taken back by her tone and the look on her face.

"I knew what I was doing. I had a reason." her voice got higher.

"And what was that?" I pushed.

She pushed away from me, sitting up and looking out the window.

"What was your reason, Bella?" I gritted my teeth. Why wouldn't she just tell me.

She remained quite, her eyes never moving.

I pulled at my hair, I had to know why she did it. I pulled on her arm, bringing her closer to me and her eyes went wide as she looked up at me."You need to tell me."

She wet her lips as she thought about it. "I don't want to dream. I don't want to be alone when that happens." she whispered out, ashamed.

"Do they come a lot?" I asked carefully.

A silent nod was all she gave before she huddled herself back into the covers.

I followed her, mimicking her actions and keeping myself at her eye level, I didn't want her to think I was looking down on her.

"What do you dream about?" I tried to keep my voice low.

The look on her face was devastating, those brown eyes looking completely consumed with some sort of grief.

She never answered me so I asked another question. "What you do to yourself, you know what that is, right?"

She shrugged again and I hated the silence that came from her.

"What you are doing is self-harming, you are abusing alcohol to purposely poison yourself." She might not be an alcoholic, a desperate need for it but she did have some sort of dependency on it, for it to help her get through her life, she wasn't cutting into her skin or burning herself but what she was doing was just as dangerous. This was her release, physical pain wasn't her outlet, she had to make herself unconscious just so she could rest in peace.

"That's the label they like to slap on it." she shrugged, as if she had heard it all before.

"What label do you give it?" I asked.

"Release. Just a night without the pain, without having to remember, with out having those flashbacks." Tears began to slide from the corners of her eyes and all I wanted to do was to try and make it better some how, for her to be able to cope with whatever trauma she had suffered.

"Bella, do you want to tell me what happened?" I tried again, my tone so soft that I prayed it would relax her, but again she only shook her head, answering me no.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't make her, I couldn't force her to tell me and make herself relive whatever followed her.

I cupped her face as I thumbed her cheeks, brushing away her few tears that had escaped.

There was something there, in that moment, a spark of something undeniable, a connection.

I wanted to hold her close, take away her pain and never let her go again and never let a bad dream hurt her like that had. I wanted to take whatever memory it was away.

Her intense, glassy brown eyes were tired, purple marks still sat below them.

I wanted to make it better.

I reached down and gently kissed her forehead.

She looked in shock as I pulled away and I didn't know why, was it the affection I was showing her that was so surprising?

She pulled away, up from my arms despite my tight hold trying to keep her with me.

"I...I should go. Charlie will be back. He will wonder what happened to me." Standing up she looked down at herself, at my clothes on her.

"Don't go just yet." I begged. I didn't want her to go, I still had so many question for her.

"I need to go." she snapped. "And I need something to wear. You fucking kidnapped me." The realization of what I actually done apparent on her face.

"I could have saved your life." I spat back with the same sharp tone she had given me as I jumped out from my bed.

"We'll I didn't ask for you to do it."

"I didn't ask for you to steal from me but you still did it." I reminded her.

"I'll buy you another bottle of vodka." she growled at me.

"That's not the point." I yanked at my hair begging for composure to come back to me, for me to be that guy that was in the bed a few moments ago.

She rolled her eyes at me, making me reel with anger at her flippant attitude.

"Why don't you just go and buy it and keep it for yourself, wash away your shitty life with alcohol, see if I could give fuck." I shouted right in her face.

Every thought, every memory and every story of what I had heard about this girl came flooding back to me.

"Just keep away from me and my family. We don't need you dumping your shit on us any more. If Alice emails you, you ignore it, you never got it, you forget that you ever knew her."

"Don't you speak to me as if you know what happened between Alice and me. You know nothing." she yelled back.

I knew everything, I knew what she had done to my baby sister. "You fed her tequila and cocaine until she was almost dead. You took it to her and you gave her it. You almost killed her, you and your fucked up mind."

Her breath caught in her throat, shock.

"I know all about you." I sneered.

"No you don't. You don't know shit. You just like to think you do." She shouted back, her anger rising and her shock leaving her.

"I know what you did to my sister." How could she think she could just get away with it, how did she ever think that I wouldn't know all about her?

"I never made her do anything she didn't want too." she tried to argue. She had lead her astray, as crazy as my sister was, she knew right from wrong.

"You gave her cocaine after getting her trashed on tequila just like you did with the vodka today. You pulled her down to your fucking level."

"She took it herself, I didn't force her. Besides, it was an accident. She wasn't meant to take it all." Her words seemed panicked, she seemed stressed but she wast getting any of my sympathy now.

It all came flooding back to me. Why they hell did I let this girl get close to me in the first place?

"She shouldn't have taken anything, she should have never been given it in the first place." I roared at her.

Her tears grew heavy but I wasn't falling for it. "It was meant to be an escape." her voice whispered out.

"Like today? Is that what you were trying to do? Alice never had nightmares, she didn't need an escape, she didn't need alcohol like you think you do and she definitely didn't need cocaine."

"She is my friend and I made a mistake." how could she still be arguing this, how could she not see how wrong she was.

"Well some friend you are if that's what you go around doing. She doesn't need people like you in her life."

"Yes she does." she screamed at me, her tone and outburst surprising me. "You think you know it all, you don't know me and you don't know your sister as much as you would like to think you do."

I knew Alice, we were close. She was wrong, she was lying.

"I know Alice, don't you think you can lie to me. I know everything about her?"

"Do you?" she yelled, the look in her eyes told me I was wrong and that worried me.

"What don't I know then? What didn't she tell me?"

She stood there quiet, as if she knew she did wrong. Not by herself and not by me but by Alice. She looked panicked, she pulled at her own hair as she tried to look away from me but her eyes kept coming back to me as I watched her.

"What don't I know?" I asked calmer. I was missing something and Bella knew what.

"I need to go. I need to go home. Get me some bottoms and let me go."

I shook my head.

I walked up to her slowly and she inched herself backwards, away from me.

"Bella..." I was asking her, I needed to know.

She only shook her head, her silence returning to her.

Before I knew it I had grabbed her and had her up against the wall. My hands gripped the top of her arms and I knew I was hurting her but I couldn't let go. I knew it was wrong and the fear of Bella's face came back.

"Tell me why she needed an escape." I could hear growl escape from my chest.

She only shook her head again, she looked terrified of me.

I looked her in the eye and she looked right back to me, never blinking, her eyes like saucers.

I gave up and pushed her down on to the mattress of the bed before I could hear her break down and cry.

This girl held secret after secret and the fact she knew something about Alice that I didn't, that was my breaking point.

But I had pushed too far, I had tormented her after I had told her she could trust me. I couldn't tell what I would rather have from her now though, her trust or her fear.

She had already enough to fear in life and her time of sleep wasn't her own either, too consumed with nightmares, she struggled to get the rest she needed. She felt that she had to drink herself to almost death for rest.

I kicked at the wall in pure frustration.

I wanted to drag it out of her, even if it meant hurting her, but looking down at her, a heap on my unmade bed, I couldn't. I felt sick at myself for wanting to, to ever lay a bad hand on her.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and let my head drop between my legs. I needed control, Bella was right I had kidnapped her. It was only out of concern but I had still taken her from her own home, her own bed and now I was putting fear and blame into her and was refusing to take her home.

I had felt like I had lost my mind.

Bella seemed some what reasonable and logical next to me, even her reasoning for harming herself like she did. It was wrong and a bad place to put yourself, doing that damage to yourself but it was herself that she was doing it too. Right now I was doing this to her, I was putting fear into her.

In her fear though she was so defiant. She wouldn't give in and tell we what I was missing when it came to Alice. She was a good friend on that I suppose, being reliant and keeping her secret but it wasn't good, because if it was enough to think she needed to escape with tequila and cocaine, she needed to tell someone else.

I could hear Bella's faint sniffles from behind me, it was me who caused that and the knowlage of that crippled my heart.

I eventually turned to see her, sat there in my t-shirt and those ridiculous boxers that Alice had bought me. I had to dress her into them after what I did to her. I had thrown her in the shower and had to dress her as she cried, clearly in great pain and distress. I had done so wrong to her already today but I still couldn't hold my anger, I had let it spin out of control for a second time and gripped at her, insinuating she should be afraid.

It was so fucked up.

"I'll take you home." I whispered out, the shame I held on myself seeping out with my words.

I got up and headed to my closet, pulling out another pair of jogging bottoms for her to wear. I placed them gingerly on the bed next to Bella, some hesitance as I did so, only because she shuffled a few inches back as I did. She was scared of me.

I knelt down in front of her, not wanting to be towering above her as she sat on the middle of the mattress. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have ever have touched you like that. You just manage to provoke something in me but I should never have done that. I never have before and I never will again. I promise."

She only nodded and I wanted to roar out again at her silence. Why was it every time she began to pull away from me, I felt like I was going too loose control. I kept quiet though because all it would cause for her not to trust me any more than she already did and I needed her trust. I needed her to think she could come to me if she needed someone, because she defiantly needed someone.

She looked away from me and slipped on the bottoms, my spiderman boxers being covered up in the process. Alice would be happy at that one. If they had been given to anyone else she would have been pissed, but I knew Bella would be different.

She stood up, looking down and I followed her eyes. Ten little bare toes.

God, she had nothing at all. I was going to have to try and find something for her.

I went back into the cupboard and I knew my huge trainers would be too big on her, I must have been almost ten sizes bigger than her. I found a pair of flip flops left over from some trip to distant seas and picked them up knowing they would be fine for her short trip to and from the car.

I handed them to her and she whispered out a small thanks before dropping them to the floor and shuffling her feet into them.

As she stood up I reached forward, touching her arm to see if she was warm enough and in her reaction, she flinched away from me.

I sighed with frustration again, it was becoming unbearable, every move I made caused a reaction in her. I wanted to go back to the bed when she had cuddled into my side without hesitation. I had liked that.

"I was only checking if you needed something else to keep warm."

"I'm fine." but I didn't believe her, she seemed to get cold quickly, she would be feeling warm from the alcohol but she still needed to make sure her body was still actually able to keep warm for going outside.

Reaching forward again, she let me touch her arm. I slid it up and down the length of the top of her arm trying to asses if she was hot or cold. She felt okay but any cold weather and she would shiver.

I hadn't noticed I still had my hand on her, I had seemed to be transfixed on the touch of her skin, she was so soft and feminine.

I only noticed when she cleared her throat and my eyes snapped up to hers.

"See, I wont hurt you. You can trust me." I shrugged, trying to pretend that I was only trying to make her comfortable. It would have been embarrassing if she knew the effects she had on me. She was a child.

I knew she wasn't actually a child, that she was an adult, she was eighteen but I was five years older than her and it felt wrong; she was the same age as Alice, my baby sister.

"I trust you." she whispered the words out just like she had with the 'thank you', full of something I didn't quite know what.

I reached into the wardrobe again and pulled out a zipped hooded top that would keep her warm. It would be cold in the car and I didn't want her to catch the cold, her hair was still damp from the shower and I didn't own a hair dryer so she could fix it.

She thanked me again as she placed it on, though it was ridiculous for her to thank me, it was me who stole her out her house and soaked the only few clothes she wore. It was the least I could do.

Eventually we made it out to the car and I pulled up outside her house by a few meters so we wouldn't be seen by the chief. I didn't want him to come out and me have to try and explain this one to him. By what I had heard around the town, Bella would be able to cover and make up some kind of story. I had saw it in her notes too, her covering up skills that none of the doctors quite believed.

She looked up at me, the look on her face said she wanted to say something, her mouth even moving to speak but nothing was said.

I saw her struggle, her battle of what to say, whether to thank me or hate me. "It's okay Bella." I shrugged. I didn't know if she liked me or loathed me, but either way, it was okay, if she liked me then that was good, if she loathed me, hated me, she was quite within her rights after today's events.

She nodded and gave a tight lipped smile before getting out of the car and walking up to her house. She disappeared inside quickly with the door closing behind her.

I didn't want to leave her, I didn't want him to be with, her father. I struggled to trust him after seeing and hearing all I had. I didn't blame him, he was obviously having a hard time with her and trying his best, and I couldn't believe him to be a bad man, just like I struggled to believe there was any bad in Bella, but it wasn't good enough. She was killing herself and he knew, he saw what she was doing and he had done nothing when he was able, when he was her legal guardian. Now she was an adult I couldn't help but think she would use it to her advantage and refuse any medical treatment in the future.

It was her right as a human being, to turn away medical help, but she needed it, she needed someone to tell her what to do before it was too late. I needed to try and figure away out to help her before she was gone for good.

It was Monday morning and the first day of my residency at the hospital. I had been looking forward to it, knowing I was helping people, but the stark reality that I couldn't help everyone stung in my mind with the image of Bella that burned my brain.

I couldn't help her, not really. Charlie should have stepped in months ago when he was able. He was the chief of police, he should have taken hold and handled the situation.

I tried not to let my anger at him boil too long. It wasn't going to help anyone, especially not Bella, but I was determined to find away to help her, to help her get though whatever haunted her.

By the time lunchtime came I had a stack of notes to work through before I passed them along to be signed off on.

I read through the pages of notes of one of the patients as my father came walking in to the empty room I used to read.

"Hows things going for you so far, son?" His voice called to me.

"Good, thanks." was all I mumbled to him in return as I read through line after line.

"Any questions?"

I shook my head as I tried to keep my focus.

But I did have questions, I had so many for him. After I had brought Bella to the hospital last week he seemed like he knew her situation pretty well and after reading the notes it was clear she had many visits to him and the other doctors. So why did they all act like Charlie. Why had no one done anything?

Thinking about her and knowing Charlie had done nothing when he still held her consent was frustrating. I wanted to know how he could get it back, for him to make the right choices this time.

Should I ask or not? Would he see through me and know why I was asking?

I had to take the chance because Bella deserved one last chance of her own.

"Do..do. How do you gain consent of someone?"

"What,?" he asked confused. "Like the sheet the patent signs off on before surgery?"

I shook my head. This wasn't going to be discreet at all.

"If you want to help someone but they don't want it, how can you make them?"

He took a seat across from me, studying my face as I let my eyes drop down to the chart in front of me trying to play it bloody casual, as if there was only curiosity behind my question.

"That's a pretty serious question to ask, Edward. You can't think it would be easy to do something like that. You would be taking away part of there human rights."

I nodded knowing I would be.

"Why are you asking that? There hasn't been any one that's came in today that would cause that question."

I nodded again knowing he was right and with it I could feel his blue eyes pierce me, looking for the answer.

"Edward, don't." he warned.

My head snapped up with the tone in his voice worrying me. "I was only asking a question." I pretended.

"You can't help her. Don't get pulled in by her. She's a sweet girl and we were all pretty fond of having her around despite what she tried to give out but she has serious issues and I thought after what happened with Alice, you would be the last person looking to help her."

I didn't know what to say. I knew there had to be some way to help her. She couldn't go on living like she did.

"It has nothing to do with her, I just want an answer to the question." I was a little firm on my words but I needed to know.

"They would need to be evaluated, there is a process but, Edward, you need to think what you're saying. How would you like it if someone didn't like the way you lived your life so took away your decisions. Its not an easy task and not one you should think of too lightly. People deserve to live how they choose too."

"But to try all the things she has, to do that to her body to hurt herself so far, to almost kill herself. Some of those actions have been suicide attempts and you know that." I felt like I was up against a brick wall. How could he seem so callous in his words, why wouldn't he try to make a difference.

"So it is Bella were talking about." he sighed and I knew I had been caught out after my little rant but I couldn't care. "Edward, she hasn't been in here for over a month with anything like that, maybe she is getting over it, maybe all she needed was time."

"Come on, don't kid yourself. You're a doctor, you know that isn't how these things work. You don't know if she has been harming herself, drinking herself into oblivion so don't pretend it isn't happening."

"And you know that she has? You know that there is cause for concern?" I was trapped with this one, I knew he wasn't going to be happy if I told him the truth but if I didn't I couldn't prove my point, I couldn't show that he was wrong.

I nodded a yes to him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose again trying to reign in his anger. "And how do you know this?"

I couldn't tell him the truth, I couldn't tell him she had been at mine and I defiantly couldn't tell him about the shower. "I saw her out, trashed. I told the barman she was under age and pulled her out the bar and drove her home."

It was all he needed to know.

"What the hell are you playing at? You are being watched here constantly, you can't do that."

"I'm not her doctor." I wasn't, today was my first official day here and I had never saw her as patient, the other day she was my dads patient, I just looked over her arm and her head.

He shook his head because he knew I was right, he knew I wasn't in any trouble, but I was getting close to it if I continued.

"Forget her, we can't help her, we tried. She didn't want help and her father let her have her wish."

"That's not right though, she doesn't know what she's talking about." I argued.

"She does, Edward. Something has happened to her but she wont speak of it, I think her father knows but he was only trying to give her what she wanted, but she does know what she's doing. I'm not saying what she does to herself is right, all I'm saying it is her choice."

"She should have had charges or something, drinking under age."

"Her dad is the chief of police, do you think I'm going to argue against that, I couldn't get any help for her because he would try to block it. He was her guardian but he knew all she wanted was to be left alone, so he let her. We don't know the full story, maybe he thinks it was the best for her."

"But it isn't, how could it be? How could not getting her professional help be better?"

"Because sometimes it doesn't work." he stated simply, as if she was just some kind of lost cause.

I stood up kicking the chair from behind me. They were all turning there backs to this girl, as if her pain never existed.

What were they thinking, did they think it would make her life easier or just there's. The chief seemed as if he was trying to sweep it under the carpet and my own father just relented to his wishes.

It was so wrong.

I had to do something, I saw her face, I saw those tears. She couldn't just be left to live like that. It wasn't fair.

There had to be something.

a/n: ok people – I'm hoping this isn't sounding like a load of cheese! You know how much I hate that! Please review and let me know what you think.

I think Edward is a little crazy and mixed up - what you think he thinks of Bella?