Consciousness was air, and Bella most definitely a creature of the water, bobbling slowly in her jellied formlessness.

When things solidified into the regularity of breathing, and light, it was painful.

She opened her mouth before she did her eyes.

The voice that reached her was a beacon, though.

"Bella?"

Edward.

She went to move her arm, and felt Edward's hand on her shoulder. "Don't," he said softly, "just stay still, as much as you can."

Everything was a muddled confusion. She tried to speak, but the words stuck in her dry throat.

He brought a cup of water to her, encouraging her to drink some, and the startling realization that she was still human hit her like a tidal wave.

She choked first on the water, and then on the fear for what had happened.

She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"You're safe," Edward said. "I'm here, and nothing is going to happen to you." His hands barely touched her, fingers light on her skin, as if he was afraid of doing more harm.

Her body screamed at her.

When the fit of coughing, and tears subsided, she tried again, husking out a croaked, "what happened?"

"Jun took you."

"Yes." She remembered that.

"What did he tell you?" Edward asked, not wanting to repeat what Victoria had tortured him with. Not without cause.

"That he was going to change me." Her look shifted, eyebrows flexing together.

Edward nodded. "What else?"

"That he had to hurt me, before he bit me." Her voice shook. She didn't want to say what else. Edward had gotten there, clearly in time to prevent the very last thing.

"He broke your arm," Edward said. Now it was his turn to speak tremulously.

She looked down, left arm casted wrist to elbow.

It struck her, oddly, that at least he'd been considerate enough to break her left arm. She'd had enough of being crippled on her dominant side.

"He drugged you," Edward went on. "The cannabis oil, we could figure out, but the other stuff," he shook his head. "Your heart stopped." The stricken look returned. "Once on our way back, and the second time in the hospital." He couldn't cry, but he would have been in pieces, she saw, if he was human. His hand gripped hers.

"Victoria—?" Bella started.

"Is dead. As are her helpers. All of them." He spoke with a grim and dark certainty.

She nodded, understanding.

Jun was dead too.

And she was glad.

She breathed out a long, shaky breath, and her face twisted, remembering those last conscious minutes with him. Her heart skittered faster at the memory.

Everything hurt. There was a sort of generalized fire flaming in the broader strokes of her body, and she tried flexing her limbs, shifting slightly. Testing its limits.

Yes, everything.

"Why am I here still?" she asked, taking in the room. It was most definitely a hospital one. A nicer one than she'd encountered before, but clinical for all its dressing.

A small smile flickered in the corners of Edward's mouth. "Aside from your heart stopping, from a drug overdose? Your kidneys aren't working right now. You have extensive bruising and inflammation all over your back, your arms, and your legs." He looked at her, as if wanting to ask something, but not wanting to.

So Bella asked it instead. "Did he rape me?"

He looked so pained, she almost took it as a yes, swallowing the sound her throat wanted to make.

"No," he said, shaking his head.

She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

After a moment, the regular series of clicks that had been filling the background morphed into a sustained beep.

"What is that?" Bella asked, moderately alarmed.

"The dialysis is done, that's all," Edward said softly. He was trying so hard to be calm, Bella could tell, and it terrified her.

"Edward—" Bella started, but he interrupted her.

"The nurse is coming. She's going to check you, and then give you something to sedate you again."

"I don't want to sleep again."

"You need to rest, Bella. I'll be here. You'll be safe."

"I don't—"

"Bella," he said, voice full of an emotion she hadn't known with him. "I need you to rest. To be well. Do you understand me?"

"OK," she whispered.

It wasn't fear.

What she felt, from Edward, was his anger.

~ 0 ~

The nurse had done as he'd predicted, and now he'd returned to his position as silent sentinel.

He'd been terrified as they'd swum, that they wouldn't reach her in time.

When Jun's thoughts had been close enough to hear, they horrified him even more.

The creature's focus had been so absolute, he didn't even realize what was happening until their hands were on him.

She'd been naked, laid out on the bed, arm broken, heart beginning to stutter unfaithfully. Jun had secured the split bones with a splint, ensuring their straight joining as she changed. It had been this small mercy to her that made his own end quicker.

Not quick.

"WHAT DID YOU GIVE HER?" Edward roared, as Alice and Jasper pinned Jun down.

He said nothing, growling as Edward knelt by Bella, wrapping her in the robe.

He thought Edward was going to hurt her. He also thought he'd given her morphine, but Victoria had procured the drugs. He'd accepted what she'd told him.

Jun's next, intended actions had been unmistakable to all of them, and Emmett had growled out a, "you need anything else from this?" to Edward.

"No," he said, all his energy focused on making sure Bella was safe.

Jun's screams had registered, as Emmett removed appendages. He'd begun with the smallest, and most offensive first, progressing to arms, then legs, and finally, the head.

"Go," Emmett had said, pulling out a lighter, "I'll take care of this."

When Bella's heart stopped on the boat, Edward began chest compressions, feeling like it was his own body he was trying to force into movement.

He'd held down the rage until they got to the hospital.

And then he'd left.

Walked away when her heart stopped again, finding a corner of the city not quiet enough, but far enough away from her to not know if she was living or dead.

He told himself that she didn't deserve any of his anger, but would then find this desire bodily evicted, himself enraged and wanting to scream at her for doing this to him.

Alice had found him, pulling him back, showing Edward Bella waking up.

He'd calmed some, in the waiting, but the visceral anger had threatened after she woke and they talked.

She'd almost left him. Again.

Permanently.

Just like you left her, a little voice had whispered.

He told it to shut up.

There was no logic to what he felt. It was the pure trauma of abandonment and its resulting distress. No creature could reason with such forces.

"Don't leave me," he whispered to her now. "Please don't leave."

He hadn't wanted to show her how angry he'd been. He just couldn't help it.

He was done with Alice not looking. He couldn't stand the thought of any other danger—mortal, or otherwise, snapping at her again.

The distant, and worried conversation between Charlie and Carlisle, tugged him back to the present. Emmett had concocted a story about a celebratory party after the competition. Some pot, Charlie could probably excuse. The other narcotics the hospital had found in her system, they'd told him they weren't sure of. Someone must have given her something. Emmett was now explaining how she'd fallen off a table—which made Edward shake his head. She'd never do that, but Charlie didn't seem to be questioning this. It explained the bruising.

Then the surly thoughts of Jacob Black reached him, and he looked up.

Of all the added complications, he would have to be here. Checking to make sure she was still human, no doubt. Ready to try something stupid, too, if history was any indicator.

Edward smiled bitterly when Charlie told Jacob to wait outside the room.

"She wake up yet?" he asked, coming close to the bed.

"Yes," Edward said.

Charlie looked haggard. It was late, and he'd pushed every speed limit, trying to get there as quickly as possible. Jacob had insisted he come too, and he'd agreed, only because fighting it would take precious time.

"What the hell," he asked, looking at Edward, "is it, every time she's near you, that lands her in a fricking hospital bed?"

Edward wanted nothing more than to accept his responsibility in this mess. He'd let Jun live. This was his fault. And deep down, despite all his rage, he knew it.

But he had a part to play in this human play, and play it, he would.

"I know you're upset, but that's hardly fair, Charlie," Carlisle murmured. Edward could hear that he thought as much too.

He didn't blame Edward.

None of them did.

They blamed Victoria.

But he'd dragged Bella into his world, and that simple proximity had led to James, and Victoria, and then her creature in Jun.

"No," Charlie admitted, "I suppose not. But a drug overdose?" He looked at Edward, wanting answers.

"I wasn't there," he answered. It was truthful.

"Where's Emmett?" Charlie asked. He wanted somewhere to put his rage.

"I'm here," Emmett said, slipping into the room. "I'm sorry. I knew she'd had some pot, but I didn't know—I didn't know about the other stuff."

"But you let her get on a table, all drugged up?"

Emmett looked suitably ashamed, "I tried to get her down. I had no idea there'd been anything else—"

"Charlie," Carlisle said, "she's an adult. This isn't Emmett's fault, or Edward's. She's made her own choices."

The sternness of the rebuke surprised both Edward and Emmett.

Charlie rubbed his face in his hands. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "You're right. I'm—"

"Upset," Carlisle finished for him. "Any parent would be. They got her here. She'll be...OK."

OK. Hardly, Edward thought. Her kidney function was gone. She'd probably be on dialysis by all predictors, for the rest of her human life.

Her very short, human life.

Charlie just didn't know how little that life would be yet.

Edward had asked Alice to look at Bella's future, but she'd refused, telling him it had to be Bella's choice.

He'd almost exploded at her, again, but shoved it down, putting his hands on the hospital bed instead, looking at Bella.

It hadn't gone well when he'd made choices for her before, he told himself.

Not that her choices had gone much better.

They needed to make these decisions together.

~ 0 ~

When Charlie suggested Edward go home, the haunted look on his face made him come back with a mumbled "or get something to eat, or go for a walk, or something."

"I'll go for a walk."

Jacob Black was still lurking in the hall, and he met Edward with a dark look.

"Gotta say I agree with Charlie. You're not good for her health." He'd stood up from the position he was leaning in, arms folded, trying to appear as menacing as he could.

Edward had no patience left for the boy. Or anyone, really. Himself least of all.

"No," he agreed. "I'm not. I should leave her to you. Cliff jumping and almost drowning were so much better."

Jacob's face darkened.

"She makes her own choices, Jacob."

"What happened?" he asked, the words low and inaudible to the other occupants of the hallway.

"Victoria," Edward said. "She's dead now. And her helpers." He sighed. "Bella's friend—Jun. Victoria changed him. He took her, thinking he would change her, but Victoria, she'd told him," he sighed. How to explain? "Several lies, all designed to hurt, or kill Bella. We got there before he finished."

Jacob's eyebrows worked at some understanding. "But you're going to anyway, why did you—?"

"Stop him?" Edward asked. "Because he would have killed her in trying."

Jacob turned back to look in the direction of the room. "Is she OK?"

"No," Edward said. "Her kidneys," he said, trying to shrug, as if this display of indifference would make it better. "She might recover. But not likely. She'll be on dialysis until there's a kidney match, and even then." Bodies rejected donor organs all the time. No guarantees.

Jacob swallowed.

"Some people last twenty years on dialysis. Others five."

"She'll die." Jacob said, grasping what he was being told.

"Yes."

"Or you'll change her."

"Yes."

There was silence, as they both left their eyes on the door to her room.

"You'll break the treaty if you bite her." Jacob said.

"Yes."

"You could've said he did it. Saved yourself the trouble." Jacob eyed him shrewdly.

"She wasn't ready." Edward wanted to be able to say that he didn't want her changed, but it wasn't true. Not anymore.

They both heard Bella's voice, mumbling to Charlie, who stepped to the door, opening it, surprised when he found Edward and Jacob together.

"She's asking for you," he said to Edward, stepping aside to let him in.

He wavered for half a second, and then turned to go into the room. Charlie waited outside.

The bed had been moved so she was sitting more upright. Her look, seeing him, was wary.

"How're you doing?" he asked her softly, moving to her side, taking her hand.

"OK," she said, still watching him cautiously.

"I can't—" Edward started, shaking his head, "I can't lose you again." He took a deep breath in, leaning over the bed rail, feeling her hand on his cheek.

"I'm not going anywhere, Edward," she whispered.

He shook his head. "Alice won't look, unless you ask you. And I need you to ask her to. Now." He stepped back, needing to see her face, to know what was transpiring on it.

"OK," she said, nodding. "Is she here?"

"No," he choked out, relief making his face twist in new ways. "I thought you were dead, Bella. I love you so much." He buried his face in her hair, hand too tight over hers.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm sorry...for so many things. Most because I've taken your human life from you. That I want to completely take it. That I'm so selfish—"

"You want me, like you?" She asked, not sure she'd heard right.

"I want you safe," he said, "for entirely selfish reasons."

She was fighting back tears. "I love you."

His face twisted, as he pulled her to him.

She winced a bit, but kept the pain to herself, happily exchanging it for his touch.

"Careful!" Charlie called from the door.

Edward gently set Bella down, worried at Charlie's tone.

"I'm fine," she said, fingers shaking in his.

"You're not," he murmured.

Charlie agreed. "You're white as a sheet."

He pressed the call button before she could say otherwise, watching her lay back, panting in clear distress.

Edward watched, alarmed.

So did Jacob.

When the nurse arrived, she didn't bother taking any vitals, but paged the doctor.

"Do me a favour," Bella said to Edward, "phone Alice?"

Pulling out his phone, he dialed, only saying, "Bella wants to talk to you." He held the phone to Bella's ear, as Charlie looked on in consternation.

"Hi Alice," Bella managed, a weak smile joining her words. "I'm OK. Think you might have to clear my social calendar for a while….yeah...maybe check what my next few weeks look like for me? Tell Edward what you see?...thanks. Yes. See you tomorrow." Then she sort of slid back even more into the pillow. "Tired," she murmured.

All three of the men in the room watched her slip into something like sleep, but deeper, and darker, and far more frightening.