I'm so sorry for the late post. I was nearly about to put it off but I needed a break from my avalanche of work. Please enjoy as the plot thickens. Cheers!

...

The night was chilling and damp. A light mist prepared the ground for the morning. I wrapped my overcoat around the both of us, secretly holding hands as we followed my mother in her meloncholy pilgramige to the all-too-familiar hospital. My mother went inside quickly and up to the stairs, we lingered at the threshold for a moment. My love, as I could now call her, wept.
"What is it, love?"
"What if your father has died... or my father... I don't want to go..." she shook her head slowly as the tears began to fall a little faster. He squeezed her hand, making him realize how tightly she' d been holding his.
"Then we will get through it. He kissed her hand and sandwiched it between his. Her hands were cold, as usual. She pulled me onto a tight hug before we finally went in. Mother was speaking with the doctor.
"Sir, he is my husband, I have a right to see him if I feel so inclined!"
"Ma'am, you were here a few hours ago. We told you once and we will tell you again, you cannot see him. He is contagious and possibly lethal. He's not even awake! Please, go home."
Our family doctor walked through the doors. He looked pale and tired but since he was almost always working nights, I never questioned it.
"It's alright, Scott, go have dinner, I'll deal with them." He put on a stern face, but we knew he would let us see him.
"Good luck." He scoffed and walked off.
Carlisle waited a minute after the doctor disappeared around the corner. Then he reached in his pocket and produced a few cotton masks, giving one to each of them. "Please try to be quick. I don't have to tell you how dangerous it is to be here..." he gave a sad smile and walked to a back room. Elizabeth rushed off through the rows of beds, knowing exactly where to go. Edward helped Cara put on her mask, careful not to get the strings tangled in her now perfectly curled hair. He took any reasonable opportunity to touch her. They locked hands once more before descending into the rows of the dead and dying in synced steps.

The pain and misery hung in the air like a heavy smoke, polluting their souls. Cara kept her eyes relatively straight ahead, trying not to look down. She knew that if she did, she would either see someone she knew, someone who was dying or someone who was already claimed by the epidemic. When she did look down, she was proven correct. She saw a man. Very plain and ordinary-looking, save his sickly pale coloring. His pillow was splattered with red, being in the later stages brought up the occasional bloody cough (though most didnt live so long). She didnt look at him for any longer than a few seconds, and in those seconds, he took his final breath, shut his eyes and he was gone. Cara suffocated Edward's hand. She was horrified and disgusted. This man was a complete stranger, yet she was the one to see his last moments. The intrusion overwhelmed her with guilt, so much so that she began to weep once more.
He stroked her hand as they walked along the cots, wanting so much to simply stop and kiss her, but he knew he took too much of a risk as is by holding her hand. It was very improper for young couples to show such affection, especially in times such as this. Looking ahead, Edward saw his father, surprisingly alone, but sleeping, still breathing. She stopped when she came across her own father and knelt down beside him, letting go of Edward's hand: a silent request for a moment alone. He walked over to his father and stood over him.
He watched his father's eyes open slightly as he grunted in pain.
"Father...?" Edward knelt down beside him, listening to his father breathing deeply, every inhale labored and painful.
"Listen to me..." his eyes closed tight, trying to talk had to be worse than just breathing. "Listen... I need you to do... something... to promise some...thing."
"Of course." Edward sat on his knees, trying to keep close to his father to hear him, despite the pain becoming increasingly more relevant in his kneecaps. He watched as he slowly, painfully reached over his neck and removed a long golden chain, a simple diamond ring hanging down at the end. He placed it in his hands and closed it tight, holding his fist closed.

"This..." Edward Sr. squeezed Edward's closed fist, meaning the ring, "you take it... and give it... to someone... you love." Two intense, excrutiating breaths, "Someone you.. can always love..." he glanced downward, across the beds, looking at Cara's back for a moment then at me, "marry your... best friend" he coughed severly, his eyes watered, "promise me..." he trailed off, mouthing something he couldnt understand but Edward nodded anyway. A few tears fell down. He put his hand over his father's wrist, he was boiling with fever, but he refused to let go. "I... love you..." he said slowly, closing his eyes with each word.
"I love you too." He said quickly. His father nodded and fell asleep. A deep sleep, one of those kinds of sleeps where a man brimming with a one hundred and five point nine degree fever cannot generally awaken from. Our poor, protagonist's father—a good man, a quiet man, a respectful man, one of the few rare men of the world whom believed that the love he had for his wife and his son will conquer all—this man was no different.
Our dear unsuspecting Edward got up and examined the ring. He knew this ring, it was the ring his father proposed to his mother with so many years ago. His father would take it out every dinner party or social gathering, showing it off proudly. He wore it around his neck religiously. He said it reminded him of the best decision he's ever made. My father was always a romantic when it came to my mother. Seeing the ring made him smile. It gave him a glimmer of hope that everything may very well be alright. He walked over to his beloved, who stood by her father's beside. Edward wiped a tear from her cheek before kissing it. Elizabeth waited at the front for them. Her face was a rain-streaked stone. She walked in front of them with haste as they made their way back to the townhouse, she had the sudden urge to cough, although she stifled it. Her hand dug into her pocket for a tissue but she could only feel the unused cotton mask, taunting her fingertips as her throat tickled her maliciously.