"A psychotic break?" Charlie asked.
Emily nodded, fingers curling in and out over the table, watching him.
Their respective cups of coffee sat untouched.
Charlie swallowed.
It made sense.
It made perfectly horrific sense—the illogical choices, the abandonment of friends, the wild accusations.
The giant wolves she'd claimed to have seen.
My God, Charlie thought. How long had it been going on for? Had he been missing the signs all along?
Then he speculated as to what could have begun it: the Cullens leaving? Drug use? Stress? Emotional upset?
Like being beaten by the man you thought loved you.
"Schizophrenia?" he asked, almost a whisper.
"I don't know," she said, "I can't—I'm not qualified to do that."
Charlie nodded, eyebrows pulling together.
"She needs to go to a hospital, Charlie."
Here Sam looked at her, disapproval in his features.
They'd fought about it, and Emily had pointed out, repeatedly, that protecting Bella's body was pointless if it left her with a broken mind.
Sam had finally acquiesced, but reluctantly.
They hadn't said anything to Jacob. Sam agreed that he and Emily would go with her, taking Seth and Leah, purportedly for Charlie's moral support, to keep her safe from the Cullens.
Charlie sighed. If she was at the hospital, she would be safe—theoretically. The restraining order had expired, though, but if she was held for evaluation, she couldn't go anywhere, and if they found her mentally unwell, Charlie's custody would continue.
"OK," he said, "have you talked to her?"
"No," Emily said, eyebrows rising. "I don't recommend telling her why we're taking her there. Let her think it's for follow up. That we need an xray of her lungs. Don't say why."
"Alright," he blew out in a sigh, standing. "You ready?"
"Sure," Emily said, standing with him. "I'll go talk to her."
Edward, Emmett and Carlisle still kept grim vigil at the boundary line.
Keeping just as uncomfortable a watch, were four wolves, whose identities might change with their unpredictable shifts, but whose presence was continuous.
The Cullens had respected the boundary line so far, and stood unmoving and stolid, simply watching.
When Charlie had made his decision, literally at the turn-off to the hospital, Alice had gone wide-eyed, her mouth sucking in air, a horrified 'O', seeing his and Bella's futures disappearing, and Edward had bolted, this time evading both Jasper and Emmett's attempts to stop him.
Charlie had kept driving, pulling out his phone, calling Billy, asking for Emily's number. Billy had done one better, and told Charlie to just worry about getting Bella there, and let him call Emily. They'd be ready for her.
Edward had arrived at the boundary line, with no intention of stopping, but had been met by a trio of wolves, their snarling forms hunched against any ingress. They'd barely made it there themselves, but more arrived, as Sam's summons reached them.
He'd ordered that none of them so much as think of Bella.
His gag was effective, and Edward found nothing in their thoughts that would lead him to her.
The Cullens had moved since then, now flanking the only road in and out of the reserve. When Charlie drove back home that first night, his murky thoughts revealed little.
Edward refused to leave, or assure Carlisle he'd honour the treaty.
"I can't," he said, voice full of wild emotions. "You can't ask that of me."
Carlisle could only say "I'm sorry," feeling just how inadequate this was. His mate was safe at home, and Edward's was...unreachable at a cost they didn't know they could pay.
They know how we fight, Emmett had thought at him.
"I know," Edward snapped.
"Chances of getting in and out with her even with all of us here, are barely over zero," Emmett said aloud, but not so loud so that the wolves could hear.
"I know," Edward growled.
When Jasper had arrived, hoping to be useful, Edward had turned and hissed, feral and angered in the face of his brother's attempts to calm him.
"If you want to fix this, use your contacts," Edward said, almost soundlessly, "in case our efforts here fail."
Jasper had nodded, vanishing to do as Edward asked.
It was Bella's scent that reached Edward first, the evening westerly breeze throwing her smell far ahead of her as Charlie drove East.
Emmett and Carlisle looked at him for confirmation, the smell too faint for their noses to know with certainty.
"Where?" Carlisle asked, voice inaudible to the wolves, seeing the change on Edward's face.
"The hospital," Edward said, just as softly, frowning. "We need to be close by," he said, worried about sparking a fight near Bella. "Jasper's contact will be there."
The wolves kept their line, watching uneasily as the Cullens sped away in the direction they knew Sam, Bella and the others had gone.
Bella's mind was running circles around itself, sitting in the back of her Dad's car one again, Sam and Seth on either side, Emily in the front.
They were taking her for x-rays, so they said, but the careful way they spoke around her, and the vague answers they gave when she asked why she needed them, told her there was something else going on.
She couldn't figure out why they were leaving the reservation, but she was trying to find a way to escape, or at least find a phone. If they were going to the hospital, there was a good chance she would be alone. Surely she would be able to find one then?
Alice, she knew, would still be hobbled by the proximity of the wolves, but if she could get a message to the Cullens—to Edward. If they're still there, the voice said. If they haven't left.
How could they let Charlie take her? After what he'd done?
She refused to dwell on these uncertainties. She had to find a way out, because the idea of being trapped by her own bodily weakness, again, in a bed, with Jacob, made her shudder.
Sam frowned, feeling it, wondering how Bella could be cold between them.
When they pulled up the hospital, he got out first. "I'll get a wheelchair," he told Charlie, looking at Seth, eyeing Leah as she pulled in behind them. The clear air of the hospital made him exhale in relief. They weren't here, not as far as he could tell.
Edward, Carlisle and Emmett waited downwind, safely out of scenting range, but close enough to be there almost instantly, if needed. Esme had parked down the road, waiting for their phone call.
As Charlie wheeled Bella into the hospital, he headed not to emergency, but to central reception.
"Hi," Charlie said, "I called ahead." He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
"Right," the receptionist said, pulling out a file.
Bella watched all of this nervously.
They were most definitely not here for x-rays.
Edward had heard enough in the thoughts of those that flanked Bella, and had called Jasper, who put his contact into play.
"Scuse me!" a woman said, trotting to catch up with Charlie. "Chief Swan?"
He turned out of habit, frowning at being called on out of uniform. "Yes?" he said, taking in the woman's appearance, tidy hair and well cut suit.
"And Ms. Isabella Swan?" she asked, looking at a sheaf of papers in her hand.
"Yes," Bella said, feeling a flicker of hope.
"I've been hired to represent you," the woman said, extending her hand, "Marie Richter." She presented Bella with a card. The fine script beneath the woman's name read Attorney at Law.
Charlie was frowning, shifting his weight.
"A lawyer?"
"Yes," she said.
"You need a lawyer, Bella?" Charlie asked, eyebrow raised.
She didn't answer him, but said to Marie, "I'd like to leave. Can you arrange for that?" She knew exactly who had sent her. Her heart was fluttering with anxious hope, nerves, and tenacious fear.
"Absolutely," Marie said, moving to take the handles of the chair.
"No," Charlie said, keeping hold, realizing where the woman's interference stemmed from. "She's here for an evaluation."
"What?" Bella said, trying to turn, to see his face. It hurt her ribs to move.
He looked down at her, face creasing with worry, with fear now, "I'm worried about you Bella," he said softly. "We all are."
Bella turned back, looking up and around at all of them. "You think I'm crazy." Her breathing, already uncertain and wheezy, became moreso.
"No," Charlie said softly, "I think you just need some...help." He said it as kindly as he could, his hand on her shoulder, and she wrenched it away.
"Can we leave?" she asked Marie.
"No," Charlie said again, "you can't. You're a danger to yourself, and to others."
Seth's eyebrows shot up at this last statement, and his sister elbowed him, catching it.
A doctor, and a nurse had emerged from the assessment room they'd been heading for. "Hi Charlie," the doctor said, nodding to him, recognizing him from their work together, "why don't we go inside?"
"Just a minute," Marie interrupted, a brief hand up, "she wants to leave," she said, nodding to Bella, "and I haven't seen any reason why she shouldn't."
By this point, the Cullens had determined that enough time had passed that Marie could have notified them, and allowed them to arrive at plausible speeds.
The nurse recognized Bella. She'd treated her in the ER, and she was watching her body language: nervous, shying away from the people around her. She smiled at her, trying to make eye contact. It was brief, and Bella's shallow breathing resumed its irregular pant, as soon as the flicker of a polite smile had left her face.
The hospital's front doors slid open, and in the air that wafted in was a sharp scent that made every werewolf present snap their heads towards it.
Everyone else's gazes followed, including Bella's.
"Edward," she croaked, as he stopped, some twenty feet from her, Emmett behind him, and Carlisle just ahead of him.
Sam moved quietly in front of Bella.
Marie was focused on the task at hand, and immune to the feeling stretched between the woman penned in the chair, and the man beyond her.
The nurse wasn't though, and she was shrewdly evaluating Bella's response. She knew relief when she saw it.
"How is she a danger to herself or others?" Marie asked.
Charlie frowned. No one else said anything, too preoccupied with the mortally dangerous creatures opposite them.
"She attacked her friend," Charlie said. "Punched him."
"Has a complaint been filed? Charges pressed?" Marks asked.
The nurse's eyebrows were high on her forehead, hearing this. She bet she had, she thought. The body language on that girl screamed terrified from the minute she'd walked into the ER, and only abated when that boy had left.
"Has there been an official complaint made?" Marie asked again.
"No," Charlie admitted.
"Why don't we go inside," the doctor suggested. "Maybe just Bella and us?"
"No," Marie, Charlie, and Edward said together.
Edward and Bella still had eyes locked. Emmett's hand was on his brother's shoulder, and she was fairly sure Carlisle was in front of him to keep him in place.
"You're free to go, Ms. Swan," Marie said. "There's no reason why you can't."
"I have a custody order," Charlie said, pulling the paperwork from his jacket.
Marie took it, reading through it quickly, and then looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Not applicable. Emergency only, and only when she wasn't able to speak for herself." She handed it back to Charlie, "which I'm quite sure you're aware of."
Charlie's face was growing pale with worry, and fear. He knelt down, and sotto voce, whispered to Bella. "Listen, please," seeing her go to open her mouth. "Please. I love you. Just think about this. Someone's hurt you. You've been seeing things. You've turned on your best friend, and you've moved in with the man who abandoned you in the middle of the woods. I think you need help, Bella. I don't think you're well. Please, just—come inside, talk to the doctors."
She'd heard him. She'd heard all of it, and she knew, knew, that he loved her. There was no doubt there. But he didn't believe her, and his rancid hatred of Edward was so overpowering, that it clouded all his judgement about anything to do with him.
"I love you too," she said, "which is why it hurts so much that you don't believe me," and here she dropped the words that had curdled in her chest with her illness. "Jacob raped me. I can't help it if you won't believe me."
This statement landed, the resulting silenced awed and cracked around her.
"I'd like to go now," Bella said to Marie, who promptly took the handles of the chair that Charlie had released in shock, and began pushing her towards the door.
Edward had been vibrating since he'd finally seen her, his body ringing at a frequency that only knew his love.
At some appointed place, some space finally far enough from the wolves, Edward began to move, Emmett's grip released. He met Bella, kneeling, hands on hers, and in a voice intended only for her, said, "I have failed you, in all the ways I promised I wouldn't. Allowed you to be in danger, let your father take you against your wishes, and not seen to you through this illness." His voice shook as he continued, "I have no right to lay claim on your love, but I ask your forgiveness, and swear I will not fail you again."
Bella could barely speak. She put her hands to his shoulders, his face, tears running too quickly down her own. "I love you," she whispered, "you're here. There's nothing else that matters. Please take me home."
He picked her up out of the wheelchair, the relief of holding her again sweeping through his body. Without taking his eyes off of hers, he turned and carried her outside to the waiting car, and home.
