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A/N- Capricorn75 has bullied me into posting the rest of it. Thanks.


I felt so dirty after what I did. Edward was leaving for two weeks. And what kind of example had I set for Jeannie? I hoped to God she never found out- I hoped that no one ever found out.

I spent the next day in my pajamas contemplating what I had done. There was no way Edward could even respect me after New Year's. I had ruined any chance of a relationship. This could never happen again. Edward never called me from Chicago.

At the Safeway, Jeannie and I went grocery shopping about a week later to make a thank-you dinner for Carlisle and Esme, although I had moved back in with Charlie, again, since he was feeling better. Carlisle was worried about Jeannie's cough- I had been doping her up with baby cough medicine, although it didn't do much other than make her sleepy and cranky.

My guilt made me want to hide. I wondered if it had somehow gotten out that I did something so terrible for my own selfish pleasures. And with the respectable cousin of my best friend, no less! Carlisle and Esme were like parents to me! They'd never speak to me again if it got out!

"Ooh, little Jeannie!" the cashier said as we checked out. Everybody in town knew Jeannie by name. She was a star, after the local paper had come by and taken pictures of the store at the reopening, which she had ended up in. "You got quite a cough there! You should stop by the pharmacy and see about baby cough medicine."

I went to the drug store and checked in with Vera Franklin, our pharmacist.

"Bella, are you getting her vaccinated?" Vera asked.

"Just the basics. I've heard about the autism and vaccines link," I said.

"She sounds like she's getting Whooping Cough," she said. "Not quite, though."

"Is that bad?" I asked.

"It's making a come back, lately," Vera said. "So many people aren't getting all the vaccines and then their kids get these diseases."

"How serious is it?" I asked.

"It can get pretty serious," Vera said. "If she starts running a fever or starts vomiting from the force of the cough, get a doctor to check her out."

"I'll keep an eye on that," I said.

Emmett and I ran the store like usual.

When Jeannie's cough got worse and worse, she got quieter. She wasn't singing and laughing like normal. I always said that I didn't worry about her getting kidnapped because I'd know if somebody tried to pick her up and run simply from the lack of noise. I found her in her glider, her head lolled to the side. There was vomit on the bib of her jumper. A part of me panicked.

"Jeannie!" I cried, clapping. Her blue eyes batted and she looked up at me and hacked out a cough that sounded like a Whooping Crane, causing her whole body to convulse. I picked her up out of her glider and felt her forehead. I had been checking her for a fever for a few days now, but she was never warm. Finally, she felt hot. Really hot. "Oh no," I said. I took her to the office and took her temperature with a rectal thermometer, although it was difficult with all the coughing she was doing. She was at 102 degrees. I tugged her raincoat on and grabbed my purse. "Emmett!" I yelled. "I'm taking Jeannie to the ER! She's running a fever and she's vomiting!"

I didn't wait for his response.

Jeannie was miserable on the ride to the hospital. She began to cry, but couldn't, with the coughing.

In the ER, Marge let us in without a lot of paperwork. While I tried to fill out the papers, Jeannie vomited from her coughs, and I knew it was bad. The Triage nurse put the little wrist band on Jeannie and took her temperature with an ear thermometer. "Oh my- 103.8. This little girl's got quite a fever. Did you just notice, Bella?"

"I've been taking her temperature for three days now, and she's been at 98.5," I said. "She just got so quiet today and when I took her temperature… it was so high!"

"Your thermometer might have been dropped a few times too many," the nurse said. "This is a very sick little girl. Let's get her in immediately."

In the ER, I changed her out of her soiled outfit and left her in her diaper to cool her off. The coughing got more and more ragged. I had heard of babies dying of fevers. I shushed her and rocked her. "You're going to be alright," I said, although it was more for me than for her.

"Bella?" I looked up to see Edward in my ER cubicle. He was supposed to be in Chicago until the end of this week, wasn't he? He hadn't called me after I had had sex with him in a completely dirty, nasty way, but, he was a doctor, he could help my baby. I had to swallow my pride. "I see that Jeannie's not feeling well."

"She suddenly started running a fever," I said, looking away from him. I couldn't meet his eyes. "She's been vomiting from coughing." He listened to her cough.

"How long has she been coughing like this?" he asked, getting out his stethoscope.

"About a week and half," I said. "I just thought it was normal cold since she hasn't been running a fever or anything."

"It doesn't sound like it," he said, breathing on the metal circle to warm it. He put the ear pieces on and listened to Jeannie's chest for a minute. He took off the stethoscope. "This is definitely Bordetella pertussis, better known as Whooping Cough. We'll have to do some throat swab tests to confirm it, but I'm pretty sure this is what it is. Hasn't she been vaccinated?"

"I chose to get fewer vaccinations for my baby," I said.

"What?" he yelled. "Why on earth would you do that?" he cried.

"The autism and vaccines link!" I cried.

"There's no real proof of that!" he cried. "Bella!"

"When you have kids, you'll think twice before letting somebody inject your baby full of dead antibodies!" I snapped.

"It's perfectly safe," he cried. "I can't believe you're putting your daughter at risk like this?" He pulled the curtain and lowered his voice. "Bella, I know how health insurance is. If it's a money problem-"

"It's not a money problem, Edward!" I cried. "We're perfectly well insured, too, so don't go around acting like you have to save us," I replied, although medical bills weren't easy for me.

"If it's a money problem, I can always grab an extra syringe of the vaccines for you," he said in the same low voice. "Nobody will notice it's missing."

"Edward, I don't need your charity," I said, although what had happened on New Year's was sort of charity, when I thought about it. The flush in my cheeks began to rise.

"It's not charity," he said. "I love Jeannie. She's a great kid. And you've put her life in danger because of some stupid chain letter you got from God-knows-where!"

"I didn't read about it on the internet," I said. "I've read magazines and journals about the autism-vaccines link."

"Well, I can't give it to her right now," he said. "The most we can do is trying to get her fever to come down and then let the cough take its course."

"What are you going to do?"

"Cool her off. We'll give her some baby aspirin and then give her an alcohol bath and see if that does it for her," he said, making notes on a clipboard. "We're going to do some culture tests on her, I'll administer those. We're going to need to keep her overnight in the ICU on an antibiotic IV."

Oh no, I thought. My baby would be in a strange hospital room without me with a needle in her. I watched as Edward took a long cotton swab and swabbed her throat for a culture test.

"I'll have the nurse come in," he said curtly, and exited.

I couldn't help feeling like I had messed up. I should have seen the warning signs. She had gotten sick before, but not like this. I felt like an idiot for not getting her vaccinated. I had thought, this is America, not a 3rd world country, what terrible diseases could she possibly come in contact that she can't get immunity through my breastmilk from? I felt like a complete fool. Maybe I hadn't been as thorough in my research on vaccines as I should have been. I felt tears rushing my eyes.

It wasn't a long wait before one of the ER nurses came in and escorted me into the Critical unit. I helped her with giving Jeannie the baby aspirin. She didn't like it all. We took her to a small tub and the nurse took her diaper off and rubbed her in rubbing alcohol. It stank, but it seemed to do the trick. She took Jeannie's temperature after that, and it had come down to 102. She cried when they stuck her with the IV needle for the antibiotics and hydrating fluid and taped it down. She picked at it- she didn't like it. They put little socks over her hands so she couldn't pull on it.

Charlie came in during visiting hours. "So, how's my little Figgy?" he asked.

"She's getting better," I said as they set her into a special crib in an ICU room. "Dad, I really screwed up."

"Bells, you didn't screw up," he said. "She wasn't running a fever. We just thought she had a really bad cough."

The nurses shooed us out of the Critical Care room and Charlie and I went to the waiting room. Charlie came back with some coffee for me. "Here," he said. I took a sip- it tasted like melted tires.

I forced a smile. "Thanks, Dad," I said.

I watched TV before my friends came by to see me. Alice and Jasper brought pajamas for me and a few blankets and pillows for Charlie and me in case we spent the night. Emmett brought me decent coffee. Angela left her angel pin with me to put on Jeannie's pillow. Jacob gave me a small dream catcher to put over her crib like the one she had at home. I was allowed in during visiting hours, but it killed me. I worried that she was waking up and I wasn't there. What were they feeding her? Icky formula? Was she even taking food? Did they have her in disposable diapers? Was she crying? Were the ICU nurses able to calm her down? My ears were hyper aware of any sounds coming out of the Critical Care doors. I'd run through them if I heard her cry at all. I tried to sleep on the couch, despite the clothing that had some of her vomit on it.


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