The world was beeping when she woke up, a constant and syncopated set of 'blips'. She felt like she was breaking a rule, opening her eyes against their proscribed rhythm.

He was there.

"Edward!"

It was instinctual to move towards him, lifting her arm.

His quick "don't move!" wasn't fast enough.

She was stopped by the pain in her chest, and then the other ones that spidered down her arm and leg. Her mouth produced a garbled sound through an 'O' shaped mouth.

He put his hands to her face, willing them to absorb the pain she was bearing.

After a moment, she whispered, "I'm OK." Then, "You're here—"

"I am."

"I thought—" she started, but had to stop, "I thought you were dead."

"I'm so sorry," he said, swallowing. The distraught look on his face only grew.

She reached out her hands, hissing in air at the pain that came with the gesture. "You're OK."

He moved closer, but oh so carefully, slipping his hands behind her back, this all conducted awkwardly over a hospital bed rail.

His lips in her hair, he whispered, "he's dead, Bella. He can't hurt you."

She waited for the relief, but all that came was a choked sob.

Edward said nothing more, simply holding her.

When her breathing told him the embrace was hurting her, he slowly released it, helping her rest back against her pillow.

Her heart rate picked up again, culminating in a question she'd dreaded asking. "My Dad?"

"He's alive," Edward said. For now, he thought.

Her face puckered with worry. "How is he? How long have I been out—?"

"You've been out almost a day, and Charlie got out of surgery a few hours ago. Carlisle's sure they've stopped the intestinal bleeding."

A gut wound. Bleeding could be the least of his problems. She swallowed, nodding, then shifted in the bed.

"Try not to move too much right now."

She looked down. Her right forearm, and her thighs were heavily bandaged. She knew from the sting of them, that the damage there was still fresh.

"I'm so sorry, Bella," Edward said, his voice rich with emotion, "I promised you he'd never come near you again. I never should have left you. I heard them coming, and he used the distraction to keep me from getting to you."

She could well imagine what Jacob had done. She knew nothing, barring bodily destruction, would keep Edward from her.

"We're here," she said, "we're OK. That's all that matters."

He wished this was true.

Charlie's thoughts had been almost worn to nothing by the time he and Carlisle'd reached them, but what he'd seen, and stopped, had been in the flickers Edward had caught.

She'd stunk of him.

His scent was curled around her intimate places. Her stomach. Her neck. Her breasts. Her hair reeked of his touch.

He was terrified to ask her what had happened.

He was afraid of what he might do. Because, what was there left to do, really?

He'd already expunged Jacob Black from the earth.

That just left himself for these debts to his wife.

Perhaps he could dismember himself again. Jacob had done such a neat job of it once. He could do it on his own again, he was fairly sure. He doubted Bella would let him.

Jacob had thrown his leg over the bank into the sea, preventing his following them. It'd taken Carlisle precious time retrieving it. His arm was more easily located in the woods, but the pieces of his neck were harder to locate. Costly time lost, assembling him again.

It had been that split second, when he heard the approach of other minds, their focus intent on Bella's image that had given Jacob the opportunity to wound him so efficiently.

He'd left her—and just as she'd said, their being apart was what had nearly destroyed them.

She tried moving again, and her face became a white, tight mask, the machines blipping to life again.

"Bella? What's wrong?"

She shook her head minutely. "Just moved—the wrong way," she gasped out, growing paler with the breath in.

"Your ribs," he said, feeling the squeeze of guilt. Jacob had cracked them on one side. His hand mark lived there still, a purpling bruise that was his only memorial.

His body was only pieces now, and these consigned to the deep waters of the sound.

"Yes," she whispered, panting carefully.

He winced, seeing it. "You should have something for the pain," he murmured.

"No," she got out quickly. "I want to see my Dad first."

"He's not awake, Bella."

"Don't care," she said, gasping at the end, taking too much air in.

He couldn't stand it anymore.

"Bella, did Jacob hurt you beyond what I can see?"

Her "No" was clear, and there was a look in her eye that made him pull back, studying her response.

"Rose was right," she said shakily, and raising her good arm very slowly and carefully to her head, tapped it. "Outsmart."

He couldn't help but smile. Of course she had. The corners of this expression melted, knowing what he'd left her to face.

Her features had stiffened, as she prepared words for what she'd done. "I let him think I was glad he'd found me." She paused, a bitter look stealing across her features. "And then I asked him to make love to me."

The bedrail shrieked under Edward's hands, and he moved them away slowly, nodding for her to continue.

"When he was…" she paused, thinking of how to word this, "close enough, I stabbed him in the back. That's when my Dad came, and Jacob turned, and phased, and then Charlie shot him—" She stopped, realizing what her father had seen. "I need to go see him, Edward. Now." She was struggling to get up.

"Stop," he said, "we'll get you there, but you're not leaving your bed." He pressed the call button, and after a few minutes of arguing with the nurse, and then the doctor, began preparing everything to move himself. After more arguing, they finally acquiesced, the nurse following as Edward rolled Bella's bed down the hall to Charlie's room.

"We'll be fine alone," Edward said, blocking the nurse's way in, closing the door. He parked Bella's bed beside Charlie's, head to head, so she could see him, and reach him with her good hand.

"Dad, you awake?" she asked.

No reply.

His bandaging was more profound than Bella's—arms, legs, and stomach covered thickly. Multiple lines ran from his arms, and something sinister snaked out of his side. A cannula was tucked under his nostrils.

She squeezed his hand.

"He can hear you," Edward said.

"Good," Bella whispered. "I love you, Dad. And I forgive you." She had to pause to recover from the deep breath she'd tried to take. "When you wake up, we're going to have a talk. OK? So make sure you get better soon."

She was crying, and not just from her fear of what would happen to Charlie. The pain was morphing, moving beyond its allocated spaces, and creeping into the other places of her flesh.

"OK," Edward said, "you need to rest. Let's go."

"Can't I stay here?" she asked. "By my Dad?"

"Is that what you want?"

She nodded.

"OK," he said, opening the door, murmuring to the nurse. "now you need to take something for the pain, and rest." The nurse was at the bedside, a syringe in hand.

Bella gripped his hand too hard. "Help my Dad," she whispered, before the blackness took her again.