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He laughed as he saw her try and recover the slip of paper from her vehicle. How she managed to twist around like that he had no idea. She lost her footing and he heard her grunt in frustration as she stretched into the body of the truck. In seconds she was out again, waving the piece of paper triumphantly. Suddenly he was assaulted by one of Alice's visions. Trapped in her sight he saw a large blue van speed into the car park and hit a patch of black ice. The driver spun the wheel frantically, locking the brakes and giving momentum control of the vehicle. The van crashed into the side of Bella's truck. Where less than a split second earlier she had been stood.
NO! He shook himself out of his sister's head. Bella was looking at him, her eyes had a look in them he had hoped never to see again, a human accepting their death. She seemed to be saying sorry, as she turned to face the oncoming vehicle. She closed her eyes.
In a split second he was there. He hit her with too much speed, but had no choice. He curled over her soft fragile body as she hit the ground with much too much force, her head bounced off the tarmac with a sickening thud, he slid his hand under it so that she would not hit it again as she came back down. His hard body absorbed the impact of the oncoming van, pushed into the side of her truck he braced himself as he felt the two vehicles crunch together with just him in the way. The back of the blue van swung around, lining up all along the side of Bella's truck, threatening her legs. He braced his shoulder against the truck and his knee against the ground and lifted the truck just enough so he could push her legs under the wheel to the safety of the space under her vehicle, glad of the large ground clearance of the Chevy. Bella hadn't made a sound, but the other students weren't as quiet. If his heart was capable of beating it would have stopped when he realised that the skull his fingers were cradling was soft. She had more than a concussion this time, he could feel and hear the bones grate against each other, he stopped moving his hand immediately. Luckily as a vampire he could stay still for as long as he needed to, in any position. He froze entirely, a marble statue had more life in it than he did at that moment.
What had he done? His senses frantically scanned her 50 times a second. Checking respiration, pulse, temperature… anything he could check. So far she didn't look too bad, but the feel of bones grating, the danger of a head injury like that… though he would have sworn it was impossible for someone like him, he actually felt sick.
As soon as the noise of the crash faded the sound of screaming dominated the air. Several people had seen Bella at the side of the vehicle, he automatically sifted through the thoughts around him, which wasn't easy with so much panic. At least two people knew he had been at the top of the steps, he cursed, that meant he couldn't be found with her. He had to get out and leave her on the ground or risk the family being exposed. He looked down at her, she was unconscious still.
He couldn't leave her. It was as simple as that!
{Leave it to Jasper.} Alice's voice cut through everyone else's thoughts. {Is she OK? I can't see her!} that sentence cut straight to his heart. About the only reason Alice may not be able to see Bella was because Bella had no future. He had hit her too hard, she was hurt too bad. If he could have wept he would have.
"Bella! Bella! BELLA!" Various voices shouted her name over and over. Small cubes of toughened glass showered down between the vehicles as Coach Clapp and Mr. Varner organised several members of the football team to drag Tyler's van away from Bella's truck.
{Lay on your back as soon as you are free! There's paint transfer on your shoulders, Coach Clapp will realise you were between the vehicles when they crashed and want to know how you survived, you have to rub the paint off on the floor!} Alice told him, he was reluctant to move, because he still had Bella in his arms. If he moved he may damage her even more, but really he couldn't stay where he was, his shoulders were still trapped between the vehicles, his arms around his mate. As soon as the team gave him room he collapsed onto the ground at the side of Bella, making certain that the parts of him holding her did not move in the slightest. Especially he made sure her head was not moved in any way, seconds later Mike Newton's face appeared at the far side of the truck on the ground.
"I can see her!" he shouted. "The new boy… Cullen, too!" he sounded surprised. He had been one of the people who had known that Edward wasn't there, but luckily the adrenalin and drama made him believe he was confused. That he hadn't seen Edward on the steps at all.
Jasper's very distinctive boots appeared next to Newton as used his talent to push the boy into more confusion.
"Edward, you two OK?" he asked as he got down on the ground to look underneath the truck as well. {She's badly hurt, I'm not getting much from her at all! You have to keep calm, panicking won't help!}
"I'm fine, Bella hit her head, she isn't conscious." He said out loud for the crowd, unable to concentrate enough to give Alice the details in his usual way. "She has fractured her skull and I think she may have a bleed in her brain, it's swelling under my fingers." He told his family in a pitch humans could not hear.
"The ambulance is on its way," Jasper assured him, "There's no point us moving the vehicles until they get here anyway, it may cause more problems if someone who thinks they know what to do interferes," what could have passed for calm flooded him but he was too tense to absorb it.
"Hale! Are they OK?" Coach shouted.
"Bella is unconscious, Edward seems fine!" he shouted back over the noise of tearing metal. More glass rained down on the pair on the floor. Sirens screamed in the air and Edward caught the panic of Charlie Swan.
{Jesus! Not again, how unlucky can she be?} he asked himself, certain that Bella was involved in the accident even though no details had been given as to who was trapped in the multiple calls to 911. Edward agreed with him, the girl wasn't safe to be let out of the house. {I should never have insisted she attend school, it has caused her nothing but grief since she got here.}
As Charlie pulled up the paramedics reached the vehicles locked together. Alice grabbed Charlie and explained as quickly as she could what had happened, and that a couple of the kids may have seen more than they were supposed to. Charlie wasn't quite listening, more interested in the scene of the accident than in whether or not Edward had been seen moving too fast, but Edward knew he was processing the information and would manage to cover up any discrepancies in the kids stories if need be.
As soon as they knew she would be in professional hands, Emmett, Jasper and Rose 'helped' the struggling crowd to move the two vehicles apart. Edward relaxed slightly as the threat of glass falling on her face receded.
They put Bella onto a spinal board with a collar on. She gave no sign that she was waking as the team carefully lifted her and put her in the back of the ambulance. Charlie, with Alice and Jasper in the cruiser to stop him crashing, sped off in front, siren blaring to clear the way as Edward sat in the back with Brett Warner, one of the EMT's. A second ambulance followed with the driver of the van. The boy was in a bad way, he had not been wearing his seat belt when he crashed and had a massive cut on his head and what looked to be a broken collar bone and arm. Edward had little sympathy for him as he had seen in several people's thoughts the fact that this wasn't the first time he had lost control in icy conditions.
Edward watched Brett as he fixed a pulse/ox meter to Bella's finger, he could tell that her pulse was low already and falling slowly. He took her hand and stroked it gently, her temperature was fine, but her blood pressure was showing systolic hypertension. Brett gently opened one of her eyes and shone a torch into it. He grunted at the reaction of her pupil and tried again, then switched to her other eye. Edward saw his thoughts, Bella's left pupil wasn't reacting to the light. It looked likely that she had brain trauma of some kind, probably at the back where she hit her head when she fell. {No shit Sherlock!} he growled internally at the stupidity of the EMT's thought, and then berated himself for it. The man was running through everything he knew about head injuries and was wise enough not to meddle with something he could not fully understand, not that Edward would have allowed him to.
They reached the hospital in less than 15 minutes. Charlie opened the rear doors and he helped them get the stretcher out and the wheels down. Carlisle was ready inside and as soon as they wheeled in he took over. Edward quickly filled him in on what he knew about her condition and then cursed again the fact that he stopped aging at 17 as the duty nurse stopped him following the woman he loved into the trauma room. He could help! Carlisle shook his head and grimaced. {Stay with Charlie, I don't like the look of him, he may be going into shock, and with the family history of heart problems we need someone to look after him.} His father told him.
He would have ignored everyone and gone in anyway, but he almost felt the sheer desperation of the man at his side and he knew Bella would wish for him to see to her father, he allowed Carlisle to take his love through the doors and he turned to the pale and trembling man beside him.
"She'll be OK Charlie." He said, taking the chief's arm and leading him to a seat in the waiting room. The nurse approached with a clipboard and a set of forms to fill in. Charlie was in no fit state to think about insurance and payment so Edward filled the forms out the best he could and put his card details into the boxes for payment, disgusted once more with the American Medical system that seemed to think more of money than of their patients some times.
{I can't lose her! Not now! Please God don't take her from me,} Edward could hear every thought going through the man's mind as he prayed over and over again for Bella to recover.
{Intracranial bleed, a bad one, have to relieve the pressure,} Edward didn't know if Carlisle was giving him a running commentary to keep him informed or if he was just thinking the treatment through, but looking at the live x-ray of Bella's head made him curse himself. Her skull wasn't just fractured, it was smashed. The parietal bones and occipital bone were in multiple pieces, and detached from the rest at the back of her head. Like an eggshell it was cracked and pressed in, with only her skin keeping everything together, putting pressure on her brain as blood leaked into the space between the actual brain matter and the bone, a dark spot in the brain itself was a build up of blood, pressing on the soft matter. His enhanced hearing heard the whine of the drill and he watched through his sire's eyes as he drilled two small burr holes into her head to drain the built up blood and relieve the pressure. A scrub nurse joined his father in the room, she had been delayed trying to find a lead apron (that Carlisle had hidden) and when she entered Carlisle shifted the X-Ray's focus so she could not see the damage to the skull.
{Edward? I know you are listening, one of us needs to stay close for the next day or so, at any second we may have to step in and change her.} Edward closed his eyes in grief. He wouldn't have moved away anyway but this was just frightening to him. He had expected that if Bella wasn't changed that he would have 60 or 70 years with her, not less than a week! His whole point of view on her being changed shifted on its axis. Suddenly the thought that changing her was a selfish thing to do, changed to a necessity. He could not, would not, live without her!
"How is she?" Charlie's voice was quiet as he asked him to use his gifts to keep him informed.
"Not good," he sighed.
"Can you…" {change her?} he almost begged.
"If we have to, we will, we are hoping it doesn't come to that yet."
A ringtone sounded and Charlie pulled a battered 3310 from his pocket. "Renée's lawyers." He said, allowing the phone to keep ringing until the voicemail kicked in. No sooner had it stopped than it rang out again. He put it into his pocket and ignored it.
The rest of the family came into the waiting room, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Crowley.
The boy's parents rushed to the nurses' station, demanding to know what happened to their son, the nurse tried to tell them what she knew but Mr. Crowley started shouting as soon as he heard that Dr. Gerandy was treating him, he wanted Dr. Cullen, the surgeon from the big city hospital to treat his boy, didn't they know who he was? Mrs. Crowley started crying, wanting to know who was responsible for her son being in that condition.
Charlie got to his feet, his jaw clenched as he prepared to give the Crowley's a piece of his mind. Edward stood at his side and put a restraining hand on his shoulder, stopping the man from exploding. Charlie glared at the couple in disgust, his hands shaking with suppressed fury he turned and walked out of the room, Rose looked at Edward and followed the policeman.
Jasper used his talent to push the Crowley's into behaving as they filled in the forms for their son's treatment.
"She will be fine." Rose said as she caught up to Charlie outside the main doors.
"She HAS to be!" his hands clenched at his side as if he were trying to hold onto something he could not grasp. "I can't lose her now, not when I just got her back. It just isn't natural for a parent to bury a child." A sob broke from him and Rose looked across the car park to give him his privacy.
"Actually, until the last few decades it was more natural for a parent to bury a child than for a child to bury a parent." She pointed out, gently. "You are so lucky to live in a time where medicine can do so much."
Charlie considered her words. She was right. His grandparents had had seven children and only his father and Aunt Molly survived to adulthood. Bella was in good hands too, the best. If things looked bad he was sure the Cullen's wouldn't allow her to just die if there was any way at all of saving her. He took a deep breath of the fresh air and turned back to the hospital. Rose followed him as they went into the waiting room set aside for families.
Edward split his attention between his father and hers. He watched as Carlisle distracted the scrub nurse and used a syringe to draw some of his venom, he quickly cut a large flap of skin for access and put a microscopic amount on the dry edges of the shards of bone. He jumped to his feet but Carlisle assured him silently that he had used this method before sometimes, as long as the venom didn't mix with the actual blood stream there was no danger of it starting the vampiric change. He watched amazed as the bones already started knitting together, as soon as the bones joined he sutured up the skin tightly and smeared a microscopic amount on the wound. Edward watched amazed as the stitches dissolved, leaving a faint scar buried deep in her hair.
Charlie at last answered the phone and shouted at the people on the other end to stop contacting him. Apart from the fact that he was a witness against their client he had more things to worry about, with his daughter just having been in a bad accident.
Alice gasped, a vision of Renée visiting the hospital flashed into her mind. The vision wavered in and out of focus as something kept changing, but neither Edward nor Alice knew what.
{That hasn't to happen!} Edward wasn't sure how he would react to her presence after all he had heard about her.
{I don't know what stops it, or what allows it yet!} Alice huffed, annoyed that at such a time Renée once more intruded on Bella's life.
He forgot all about Renée though when a gasp of relief echoed in his mind.
{She's stabilising!} Carlisle offered up a heartfelt prayer to the God of his father for not losing the girl he believed to be his daughter as much as any of the others. Edward could see her cheeks take on a healthy flush instead of the frightening pallor that they had before. He moved to sit next to give Charlie and whispered the good news.
It took six days for Bella to wake. During that time the Cullen family stood vigil at her bedside without pause. Charlie slept fitfully in the only chair in the room as the rest watched the monitors and Bella's chest rise and fall in reassuring rhythm.
Carlisle had to attend to his other patients occasionally, but no one else had anywhere else to be so they just stood around and waited.
Every so often one or two of them would leave so the nurses didn't get suspicious, only to walk around to the rear of the hospital and jump back in through the window. Only when the thirst got too much did anyone actually leave, and never for more than an hour. Edward refused to move altogether. In the end Emmett and Rose brought him a couple of flasks of blood from one of their hunts, and he excused himself to the small bathroom attached to the room to drink.
The family were lucky that they didn't feel the need to sit, or lay down. In fact the only time they moved was when the nurses came into the room to take her vitals, it was like watching a sculpture park suddenly come to life, and then freeze again when the human left, Charlie said. Along with half the school, Jacob called a couple of times, but his father wouldn't allow anyone from the reservation to actually visit while she was under the care of Dr. Cullen.
Parson Webber had also dropped in a couple of times, but Charlie couldn't say whether Bella was of any particular denomination. The kind man insisted that he did not care, and said a small prayer for her before shaking Charlie's hand and telling him to ring, any time, day or night, if he needed him.
She woke slowly, the pain killers pumping through her system made her groggy and weak.
"She's waking up, call Dr. Cullen." A woman's voice was the first thing to penetrate the haze.
"Slowly my love," she heard his calm, honey coated voice next. A wave of happiness flooded over her, he was there! She struggled to open her eyes so she could confirm it properly, and when the blurred vision cleared she could see his face. The strong jaw, messy hair, and very dark gold eyes.
"When was the last time you hunted?" she asked… or tried to ask, her mouth was so dry her voice was almost none existent.
"Here," he ignored her question and put a spoonful of ice chips into her parched mouth. She greedily sucked the chips until there were none left and he offered her more, she nodded her head and pain screamed through her. Her hand automatically travelled to the back of her head, but before she could actually touch it Edward caught her hand and held it steadily away from the injury site. "Don't touch it, you fractured your skull when I hit you, trying to knock you out of the way of the van." His voice was thick with un-cryable tears.
She frowned, trying to remember what he was talking about. Unfortunately, or maybe not… she couldn't remember a thing past getting up and getting a shower on Friday morning.
Charlie chose that second to wake up. He jumped to his feet as soon as he saw Edward leaning over her bed.
"Is she ok?" he asked, wincing at the move but more worried that the boy was performing the 'emergency measures' they had discussed while she was at a low point.
"I'm fine." She said, coughing slightly as she tried to get more volume in her voice. The cough hurt her head, she tried to move, but that hurt her head too. She was seeing a pattern here! Carlisle walked in through the door, beaming at her. He immediately took her vitals in with a swift glance at the machines and then at her, she tried to lift herself up again but cried out as the pain stabbed at her more than before.
"Bella!" Charlie sped around the bed to the opposite side from Edward, almost pushing Carlisle out of the way so he could grab her other hand, he held on so tightly she winced. Jasper put a hand on his shoulder trying to calm him but Bella could see the tears running down his face. He put a hand on his ribs as he tried to gasp for the air that his emotions were denying him.
"You look terrible." She tried to joke. He really did. It was obvious he hadn't shaved for some time. She wondered how long she had been in the hospital.
"Since Friday, it's Thursday now." Alice told her without waiting for her to verbalise the question. She absorbed the information. It wasn't like she had never lost time before, just not so much.
"What happened?" she asked. Edward told her about the accident.
"How is Tyler?" she asked.
Carlisle was just about to speak when a commotion at the door interrupted him. Alice's face was a picture of shock as Renée burst into the room. The Cullen's were obviously astounded. How had she got there? Why hadn't Alice seen something?
Bella closed her eyes, trying not to see the lurid colours her mother was dressed in, in an attempt to look closer to Bella's age than her own.
A smartly dressed man who was obviously her lawyer followed the woman into the room as she hurled herself bodily at her daughter weeping at the top of her voice. Bella cringed as the bed rocked and put pressure on the back of her head. She cried out in pain.
"Stop!" Charlie grabbed Renée and dragged her bodily off the bed, causing her to fall onto the floor in an undignified heap.
"My baby!" Renée cried, rather unconvincingly, though she had made a huge show of crying there wasn't a tear to be seen on her face.
"Renée?" Bella closed her eyes again and sank back to the bed, trying to blank out the fact that she was there.
"Mr. Swan?" The male who escorted his ex-wife stuck his hand out for shaking. Charlie glared at him until he withdrew the appendage.
"Chief Swan." Charlie corrected him.
"David K. Lauer, your wife's attorney."
"Ex-wife." He corrected again, glaring at both the man and the woman.
"Should some of us leave?" Esme asked, looking around the crowded room. "Alice, Jasper Edward you stay, Bella may need you." It was amazing that the room hadn't seemed crowded before when all 7 Cullen's and Charlie were in there with her, but add just Renée and the room suddenly wasn't big enough. There didn't seem to be enough oxygen.
"It may be best," the lawyer said. "Mrs. Dwyer needs to be with her daughter at this time. I suggest only Mr. Swan and the Doctor remain."
"You can all stay." Charlie stated, looking at each Cullen in turn making them aware that he wanted them in the room. The Lawyer opened his mouth to object but Bella grabbed Edward's hand at one side and Carlisle's (who had moved to check her injury after Renée's fall to the floor) on the other.
Esme inserted herself between her husband and the head of the bed and stroked Bella's face gently, assuring her that she would not leave her again to the mercy of the woman who had birthed her.
"It may be better if they all left, there are things that we may need to discuss that aren't for outsiders to hear." The lawyer was taken aback that his suggestion, that would usually clear a room, had no effect on anyone there.
"Things like her theft of over $18,000?" Charlie asked in a cold voice. Renée clambered to her feet, glaring at Charlie, Bella was evidently forgotten.
"Alleged theft." Lauer corrected.
"I deserved that money!" Renée spat. "I gave up my life to look after her, you owed me!" The lawyer tried to insert himself between the ex-spouses but Renée moved around him.
"You deserved nothing! If I had known how you were treating her I would have cut you off and taken her years ago." Charlie pressed into his ribs as his temper rose and he had trouble breathing. Jasper frantically tried to calm everyone in the room down, it wasn't doing Bella any good having all this happen only minutes after waking up.
"You didn't care enough to find out!" Renée sneered, "All you were bothered about was your career and fishing with those half-breeds and redskins you love so much." The Cullen's, all from era's where such epithets were common terms, were still rather shocked that a modern woman would say such a thing out loud.
"Please," tears streamed down Bella's face. "Just leave."
"I'm not leaving until this is all sorted out. You should have told him that you took the money, I should have known you would say something stupid and cause me trouble." Her mother spat. Emmett, Jasper and Rose moved between the hospital bed and the visitor, blocking her line of sight and making it quite clear that they would not allow Renée near to her again.
"I suggest you leave." Emmett said, his voice threatening. Carlisle freed his hand and moved around the bed to join them.
"As Miss Swan's doctor I insist that you take this outside. I won't have you upsetting her, only minutes after she wakes!"
Renée, who had been looking at the huge figure of Emmett with fear in her eyes suddenly swapped her gaze to Carlisle, the whole of the room could see the gears in her mind grind to a conclusion, she licked her lips and softened her whole approach. Her voice became smooth and deep as she tried to entice the perfect specimen of maleness in front of her.
"Anything you say Doctor." She almost purred, Bella felt sick as Renée ran a finger down Carlisle's white coat. Suddenly, though, Renée gasped in pain, as Esme caught her hand and pushed it away with a little too much force.
"Keep your syphilitic hands off my husband or I will break them for you."
Renée's mouth dropped open as she looked at the usually mild mannered mother figure in front of her. The lawyer stepped up, opening his mouth to object.
"Outside!" Carlisle ordered before he could talk, "If I have to tell you again I will call security and have you forcibly removed from the hospital and banned from re-entry." Lauer took in the menacing front of the Cullen 'children' and steered his client out of the room, the majority of the Cullen's followed ensuring that she could not change direction.
"You know what she's going to try," Bella gasped for air, trying her best not to give in to the tears that built in her eyes and throat, she looked at her father and boyfriend. Charlie nodded sadly as he dejectedly followed the rest from the room. Edward kissed her gently and Alice and he both carefully sat on the side of the bed and held her hands.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't stop her if I tried." Alice said, "but to be honest, I didn't see her coming, well I did, on Friday, but nothing since, I don't know how I missed it."
"It isn't your fault, Alice, I guess as soon as she found out I was in here she used it to get permission to visit so she could talk to Charlie. I know he hadn't been answering her calls for a few days before the accident." Edward nodded, confirming her suspicion. She lay her head back on the pillow gingerly. She was just tired of the whole thing. She tried to go to sleep.