Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.
Many thanks to Jadsmama and Ladysharkey1, my amazing beta team for this story. You ladies rock!
10.
The son.
Edward had a hard time falling asleep that night, the succession of events throughout the day leaving his mind scrambling to catch up. After all, it had been quite a day…
When he'd sat down behind that piano, there wasn't a thought in his mind about how amazing it was to play again. Mostly Edward had been nervous as hell he was going to make an ass out of himself in his eagerness to please the old man, if only to thank him for a lovely brunch and take another step towards earning his trust and, thereby, the right to treat him.
However, the moment Edward's fingers first pressed against the cold, hard keys of the instrument, a surge of excitement pulsed through him. His eyes closed almost instinctively as he let his mind drift away on the lingering notes of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
His fingers didn't move with the same effortlessness they used to when he still played daily but, even in spite of their stiffness, they still remembered every single note and played them all without a moment's hesitation.
It was exhilarating; the music pouring from him freely, and without restraint, in a way which brought him the same kick that a long run in the fresh air but, at the same time, felt completely different. He was swept away on the staccato notes of the allegramente movements of the piece before falling into the more languid pace as it faded into lento. His body rising and falling in time with the tempo as his fingers moved almost as if they were a separate entity, but yet, in complete harmony with his soul.
He had never realized how much he'd missed it.
When the final note faded in the air, playing wasn't so much about pleasing his audience anymore. Edward would have been lying if the look of pure jubilation on his patients' face and the look of quiet amazement in his companions' eyes didn't give him a huge sense of achievement. It had become about retrieving a piece of himself he'd thought had been lost forever; about becoming whole again, one tiny bit at a time.
James had been lost for words, his eyes shining as his body simply started to give out after all the impulses his worn and struggling mind had been battling to digest. Edward's visit ended soon after. With his patient clearly being at the end of his strength and Edward needing to prepare for his first full shift the next day, he asked Isabella to bring him back home, a request that met with virtually no opposition at all.
As glad as Isabella appeared to be to see the back of the man she'd so reluctantly welcomed into her home, she didn't become any more talkative on the drive back to Forks. Since there was no apparent reason for their silence like there had been on their drive up, the silence that hung between them was filled with tension and awkwardness, making both Edward and herself breathe a sigh of relief when the Cullens' house came into view.
"I guess I'll see you next time?" Edward offered as he opened the passenger's door.
Isabella nodded noncommittally, pushing her lips into a small, forced smile. It was only when the door was almost shut behind him that she turned towards him and spoke. "Until next time."
Before Edward had the time to process her words and what they might have meant, other than the obvious, she'd already shut the door and sped off, the tires squeaking as she pulled out on the street like her life depended on it.
Edward scratched the back of his head as he watched her go, wondering, as he'd done so often those days, what it was about the woman who had managed to confuse him more and more with every encounter they had.
Hours later in his bed, he still didn't have the answer to his question but, one thing he did know was, resolutions or not, Isabella Harrison had reclaimed the prominent position she'd held in his thoughts and from the looks of it, it didn't seem like she'd give it up any time soon.
Damn that woman! Edward turned, the sheets of his bed twisting around his body as he tried to fall asleep, though deep down, he knew he was far too wound up to ever get some rest.
It was over an hour later that he was finally ready to admit defeat, his muscles aching from the pent up tension and frustration as he sat up and fumbled for the remote. The soothing tones of Miles Davis drifting from the sound system a few moments later as he switched on the light, figuring he might as well do some reading as long as sleep eluded him.
He'd read most of Aro Volturi's books in rehab, back when he didn't know a damn thing about the man behind the brilliant words and the terrible disease he was suffering from. Back then, they had just been words on paper, noting more.
He frowned, turning the hardcover over in his hands as if somehow the words could take on a deeper meaning by doing it. But they didn't. No matter how long he stared at them, the letters still spelled the same:
Deep Water
By
Aro Volturi
Over the past couple of days he'd read everything about FFI he could get his hands on but, even though he now knew everything he had needed to know about the pathology of the disease, he still hadn't come a damn inch closer to understanding how the old man was able to consistently dance around the inevitable. Death.
He had a hunch that the way the guy lived had a lot to do with it; far away from the world with little to nothing to excite him or cause his brain to have to deal with new impulses. The less his mind would have to work, the less his lack of REM-sleep would become a problem. James Harrison would die eventually – no living human being could go without sleep indefinitely – but it might be able to prolong the inevitable.
Still, his professional assumptions brought him no closer to knowing how the man had done it; how he had managed to learn so much about the disease which might strike him one day that he was able to cheat it out of its deadly velocity. It was where the books came in. Maybe his words hold the key.
He sighed, rubbing his eyes before opening the book, the cover creaking as he stretched its spine. It was on the title page of the book that the first enigma surrounding Aro Volturi started to unfold.
To my wife and children.
Without their support and dedication, I would be nothing.
From what he'd read about the man on Wikipedia and his publisher's website, he knew James was married and had been for forty years; his wife and children always loyally by his side whenever the pater familias picked up another award or accolade. But where were they now? Why had the man who claimed to be nothing without his wife and two children moved all the way to the other side of the country at a time when he would probably have needed them most, to put himself at the mercy of a young, unfamiliar relative? Why not stick to what – or who – he knew?
So now, as a final resort, he had ordered the entire catalog of novels written by James Harrison, hoping there might be something amongst the many pages of literature to help him get a better grasp of his patient. But even though there was a stack of crisp, new books sitting next to him on the bedside table he had decided to start with the one he'd already read. The first one was written long before the disease had started to affect the writer.
He yawned, pulling the sheets further up to stave off the cold as he turned the pages, his interest soon captured by the riveting crime story unfolding in his hands, causing the recon-mission to be pushed to the background until finally his eyes started to droop and he had to put the book away, none the wiser about the man behind the story. What he had found out, though, was that for all his eccentricities, James Harrison was a writer not at all without talent. He is a genius.
The house was still completely quiet the next morning when Edward left for his first full shift at the hospital, his sleep deprived brain already running a mile a minute as he moved through the house on tiptoe in order to not wake anyone up before they had to. He has to somehow find out more about James Harrison. He needs to know how his mind works if he wants to unlock this case. But how? How will he find out?
The hospital, too, was still cloaked in the dead silence of night, the people of Forks choosing to spend their nights in bed as opposed to some of their counterparts in Chicago who liked to roam the streets, often in search of the untoward. Apart from the odd stroke, heart attack or drunk driving incident happening overnight, the doctor working the night shift regularly got a reasonably good night's sleep at Forks General, which was something Edward couldn't really imagine.
"Good, you're here," Maggie grumbled over a cup of coffee as she scribbled some notes onto a chart. "Go get changed while I see if I can drum up the rest of the staff for morning rounds."
There weren't many patients to discuss; a few in the ICU recovering from various surgeries, one waiting to be transferred to Port Angeles and a handful of others on the ward waiting to be discharged.
"Do you think you can handle it?" Maggie asked, her voice stern and her eyes taxing as she stared him down. They were in the doctor's lounge; Edward getting a few things he'd forgotten from his locker before rounds as doctor Molina got ready to go home now that her shift had ended.
Edward shrugged, trying not to feel indignant at the assumption that he, a celebrated big city neurosurgeon, couldn't manage amongst the appendectomies and debridement cases of the world. "I think I'll manage."
"Well, if you find yourself having any sort of trouble…Dr. Banner is right upstairs if you need him and I imagine Dr. Cullen hasn't become so entranced in his administrative work that he's forgotten what a scalpel looks like," she pressed, her eyes narrowing in warning as she continued to stare him down.
"I'll manage," Edward repeated, gnashing his teeth to keep himself from saying something he might later on regret.
"Our budget is stretched enough as it is," she droned on. "We don't want any malpractice suits because our new hotshot big city doctor couldn't hack it in the real world."
"I didn't do so bad last week, did I?" he snapped, slamming the door of his locker shut with a loud bang.
"You managed to complete a few half-decent stitches on a knocked out drunk," she snorted. "I'd hardly call that surgery worthy of a mention in the New England Journal of Medicine!"
"Hardly," Edward replied, squaring his shoulders as he met her gaze, "but what happened to giving me the benefit of the doubt?"
"I am, believe it or not." Her lips pulled into a wry smile as she arched her brow. "If it had been up to me, you'd never have come within a mile of this hospital unless you were bleeding, let alone operating virtually unsupervised. Then again, I guess that's what happens when family politics come into sway…" And with that she slammed her locker shut and tore off, leaving a fuming Edward behind.
He wasn't mad because of the harshness of his colleagues words, though. No, he was fuming because they were right and because there was no way to defend himself from her allegations. Except, of course, for the obvious one: work like a maniac to prove her wrong. It's the story of his life, really; always laboring to fight against other people's assumptions.
He closed his eyes, quietly battling his body's first knee-jerk reaction to situations like those; a fix. Giving in now would mean all of his critics were right. Besides, he didn't want it anymore. For him, not just for his reputation or family name. It was killing him.
"What happened to you?" Rachel was smiling as he joined her at the ER nurses' station. "You look like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed."
"I don't know where to start," he muttered, picking up a chart. "Though I guess being chewed out by one of my bosses didn't really help."
"Yeah." Rachel grimaced, her hand wrapping around his arm in compassion. "I heard she was in one of her moods again."
"One of her moods?" Edward grumbled, scanning the pages for information about the patient he was about to meet.
"It happens sometimes when she's working the graveyard shift, especially if someone wakes her up for nothing." As she paused, Edward tried to remember if something like that had come up during rounds. "She doesn't handle the whole lack-of-sleep thing so well, I think."
"Who does?" Edward moped, feeling not so cheerful and bright himself either. "A little advance warning would have been nice, though."
Rachel snorted, arching her brow. "We're not here to hold your hand, Dr. Masen." The mocking emphasis on the word 'doctor' made Edward smirk, though his bad mood lifted slightly as she moved in a little closer, her voice low enough to be heard only by the two of them. "So, are we still on for tonight?"
"Of course," he nodded, "unless you're bailing on me?"
Rachel giggled, shaking her head as if she'd never heard something quite as preposterous. "Why on earth would I do such a silly thing?"
"I don't know," Edward shrugged wishing he'd remembered how to flirt. It had been an awful long time since he'd last played that particular game and with Tanya it had always been different because they'd been friends first and lovers only after. "I've made reservations at a place in Port Angeles."
"I can't wait," she smiled, looking around her to see if anyone was watching before, leaning into him, her side warming his. "I've gotta go, though. Pick me up at my place at seven?"
Edward nodded, knowing he had to get to work himself if he wanted to start proving himself. "See you then."
"You'll see me all day!" Rachel snickered. "But we'll talk more then."
As he watched her scamper off, he would have been lying if he didn't admit that his eyes were firmly trained somewhere to the middle of her body, where one of her best assets swayed from side to side as she headed over to their first patient. Hell, if the chart tray was to be believed, it was their only patient since the ER seemed to be mercifully desolate so early in the morning.
Though mercifully was a relative notion, seeing as it meant that Edward was probably going to be bored stiff for a substantial part of his shift.
As the hours went on, things slowly started to pick up; waterlogged roads and seasonal outbreaks of the flu meaning that Edward had little time on his hands to be bored, though enough to never feel the overwhelming pressure of a crisis situation like he had so many times back at home in Chicago.
That was until a little after six that night, right before the end of his shift, when suddenly the radio went berserk; first responders shouting for backup and ETAs as the hospital staff looked at each other and wondered what the hell was going on.
It was some time before the magnitude of what was going on only a few miles from where he stood started to resonate, his eyes widening as he listened as somewhere close the blare of sirens swelled. Shit.
"Get Banner and Cullen, and call in everyone else we have on staff," Edward ordered, knowing that whatever was coming at them, it was going to be big. "Now."
"Do you want to engage the emergency protocol?" Rachel asked, her eyes wide with uncertainty.
Edward nodded. "Get on the phone with Port Angeles and Seattle and tell them to standby and get the damn MEDEVAC over here because I'm almost sure we're going to need it."
Adrenaline was pulsing through his veins as he made sure everything was ready, setting up a triage unit by the ambulance bay as doctors and nurses around him bustled to get everything prepared before their first patients would arrive.
It was all too soon that the distant sounds of sirens started to draw closer again, the doors barging open as a gurney was wheeled in, two EMTs marching by its side.
"Status?" Edward yelled, running after them as he tied the surgical gown behind his back.
"Maria Young, age 18," the EMT started to rattle off the patient's name and age followed by her vital stats and a short explanation of how she ended up strapped to a gurney on her Monday afternoon.
"What the hell happened?" Edward wondered, absorbing all the information as it was being presented around him.
"Bust up between the tree-huggers and some of the guys from Kings'" the EMT answered. "We've had those before but never like this. They broke into the lumber yard and tried to sabotage the mill when something happened to bring a huge stack of logs down on them."
"They tried to fucking kill us!" the girl screeched, her dark, black eyes blazing fire. "I want to see the police!"
"All in due time," Edward soothed, checking the girl's pupils and reflexes, which thankfully seemed to be okay. "Did you lose consciousness at any time? Or get hit on the head?"
The girl shook her head, her voice bitter when she answered his question. "I almost got sawed in half, though."
"We found her lying underneath a couple of logs but nothing crushing her too badly," the EMT chimed in, making sure he had all of his equipment back before heading out. "There are still some of them out there. We're having an awful hard time getting them loose. This one even threw herself back into the fray when we finally managed to free her. It's where she got the black eye."
"Can you blame us?" the raven-haired patient – Maria – snapped. "They are butchering our forests where we stand! Something has to be done before this whole peninsula goes to shit."
"Please hold still," Edward interfered, sending a poignant look in the direction of the EMT who looked like he was about to come back with a biting remark of his own. "I need to assess your cuts and bruises."
He started with the ones in her face first, the skin around her eyes already swelling up to an impressive bruise. "You're in luck." She winced, her eyes glaring daggers at him as he went on. "There doesn't seem to be an orbital fracture."
"Well, whoop-di-doo," she huffed, sucking in a sharp breath when Edward moved on to the cut right above her eye.
"This one will need stitches," he mused, pointing out a few more of the deeper cuts as the nurses cut open the patient's jeans to reveal what looked like a relatively clean fibular fracture. "And a leg x-ray."
The nurse nodded as she walked over to the phone and called radiology. "When can she be sent up?"
"Now, if they're ready for us," Edward answered, never taking his eyes off his patient as he went through the final stages of the checklist that had been ingrained into his mind since his internship. "I'm done here."
He kept his ear trained to the nurse for long enough to hear her confirm the patient's imminent transfer to radiology before he turned back towards her. "It looks like you broke your leg but we need to take an x-ray just to be sure. Apart from that, you're going to need stitches in your temple and arm to repair the cuts. It doesn't look like you'll need surgery, though."
She sighed, the fight slowly leaving her as the adrenaline wore off. "And Jasper?"
"Jasper?" Edward frowned, his breath hitching as he thought about the boy he knew. "Jasper Cullen?"
She nodded. "He was right beside me when it happened but I think he got the brunt of it. I couldn't even see him underneath all those trees."
"Shit!" Edward cussed, barking orders at the nurse nearest to him to take care of the patient before he ran out of the OR, almost bumping into Rachel on his way to the admissions desk. "Rach, have you seen Jasper? According to my patient he was right there with her."
"They're bringing him in right now." Rachel's mouth was pressed into a hard line as another ambulance drew up in front of the bay. She'd learned long ago that when times got tough, crying would do her no good. She'd have plenty of time for that later, when she'd stop to think about the people she'd seen brought into the ER. People she'd known for most of her life. "From what I've heard, it's pretty bad."
Just then the doors banged open again, a gurney speeding by with an unconscious and bleeding Jasper on top of it. Fuck, it looked bad.
"Has Carlisle been called?" He was already in motion when he saw Rachel nod, the buzz of a hospital in a crisis situation thumping through his system as he followed behind the stretcher. "Get him in here, stat. And call my sister."
"Oh, no you don't!" Maggie Molina's stern look stopped him in the doorway. "Go find another patient who isn't next of kin or keep your brother-in-law company…but you're not going anywhere near this patient, ya got me?"
Edward sighed, but nodded. He knew the rules and though Jasper may not have been genetically related to him, he was his sisters' stepson. Being involved on his case would have been out of the question even if his record had been clean.
"Any news?" Carlisle looked like he was fresh out of an OR himself, his eyes wide with fear as he came to a stop in front of Edward. "Is he in there?"
"Maggie's working on him right now," Edward answered, his muscles finally remembering how to work again as he slowly pushed Carlisle away from the door. "Come on, let her do her work." Looking back over his shoulder he caught a small smile from Maggie before her eyes were focused on the patient again, her voice yelling orders over the sound of machines as she set to work.
Carlisle didn't put up much of a fight, though Edward could feel how much it was costing him. Like Edward, he knew that no doctor liked to operate under the stress of family members watching her every move. Not that it made it easier for Carlisle to walk away knowing his son was in there. "How did he present?"
"I only got a brief look at him but, from what I saw, it looked like he was in a pretty bad shape," Edward muttered. "He looked unconscious and had cranial bleeding."
"Oh, God!" Carlisle leaned back against the wall, his eyes closing as his shoulders slumped. "I should've stopped him. I should have known what he was up to..."
Edward knew all too well how Carlisle must have been feeling at that moment; what it felt like to have your child lying on an operating table, knowing the outcome may be…But Carlisle still had hope.
And at least Edward could help him by reminding him of that. "I'm sure he'll pull through," he offered. "Most of the kids I've seen coming through this ER looked way worse than they actually were."
"I know, it's just…"Carlisle shook his head. "I should have seen this coming from a mile away. Jasper has always been so passionate about protecting the forest and-"
"Nobody knew they were going to do something this stupid," a new voice chimed in. A woman Edward faintly recognized joined them, silently offering Carlisle a cup of coffee. "Don't beat yourself up about it, doc. Save your anger for that foolish boy of yours."
"She's right," Edward nodded. "If you knew you would have stopped him and the only thing that would have achieved was that he'd have tried to think of some other way to hide his intentions."
"Exactly," the woman nodded, turning to Edward. "I'm Emily Uley, by the way. I'm sorry I didn't get you anything. I didn't know Carlisle wasn't alone."
Emily Uley, from the bar. Edward smiled as he remembered her. "You're Maria Young's sister, aren't you?"
She nodded. "And I know I'm going to give her hell for pulling a stunt like this. What the hell were they thinking?"
"I don't know," Carlisle sighed, rubbing his face, "But I know the Kings probably won't let them get off with just a slap on the wrist. Not when they were trespassing on their property."
Emily nodded. "We should probably get the rest of the parents together, huh?"
Edward, feeling that they'd rather do so without him hovering on the sidelines, excused himself; the sudden influx of patients – both protesters and lumbermen – giving him more than enough to keep him busy. For the next hour, his body worked at a lightning speed, instinct taking over as he treated one patient after another, only stopping to change gowns and gloves before diving into his next patient, his body feeding off the mayhem that surrounded him.
It was only when the final critical patient was sent upstairs for further treatment that he stopped to breathe and took a good look around him, his body crashing from the adrenaline rush which had kept it going throughout the emergency situation as he stood panting, surveying what looked more like a battle scene than an organized ER.
"I guess we'll have to take a rain check, don't we?" Edward looked up to find Rachel standing next to the nurse's desk. "It's already ten-thirty and you look like you're going to be busy for a while…and so am I."
"Yeah." He sighed. "I'm sorry." He wasn't really, though a relaxed night on the town with a pretty girl would have been infinitely better than spending his evening stitching up environmentalists and lumberjacks, he was still feeling awfully conflicted about the whole dating thing. Or was it just the girl he was dating?
She shrugged. "It happens." He could hear her retreating footsteps as he set back to work, picking up the chart of one of the 'walking wounded'; the patients that didn't need immediate care and had been waiting around until those that did had been treated.
"Mr. McCarty?" He looked up, the name immediately registering even in spite of his tiredness. "Emmett's dad?"
The man nodded, looking as worn out as Edward felt. "I take it you've met my boy?" He chuckled when Edward nodded, wincing slightly as the movement disturbed what looked like a fractured collar bone. "I have to say, I'm glad none of my kids were up there tonight, though I know it's nothing but luck."
"You've got another son working at the mill, don't you?" Edward's brows furrowed as he tried to remember what Emmett had told him while assessing the man's injuries.
"Aye," David McCarty nodded. "And one who's in with those tree-huggers. I never thought I'd say this, but for once I'm glad my mother-in-law is visiting." He grinned, his muscles tensing as Edward examined some of the bruises he'd sustained. "Never much cared for that old crow but, if her being around keeps the young'uns safely indoors, she's welcome to spend as much time here as she wants."
Edward chuckled, sitting back now that he knew the man was in no immediate danger. Knowing Radiology would still be backed up, he had one of the nurses set him up a suture kit first, treating some of the deeper cuts before his patient could be sent up for a shoulder x-ray. "Can you tell me what happened?"
David nodded. "I don't know the full story since it happened when I was on the other side of the yard, but I know those kids must have gotten in somehow. They got it into their heads that if they'd tinker with the stacks the whole mill would come to a standstill. They were right, too, though I fail to see how that would have saved their precious trees." He tried to shrug but, again, winced when his broken bones protested. "I mean, it might've slowed us down but we would have cut down those trees anyway."
"I think it's more about making a statement," Edward offered.
"Well, they got that done, for sure." David smiled wryly as he took the painkillers a nurse was offering them. "Too bad they almost got themselves killed in the progress, huh?"
As Edward stitched, David went on explaining what happened, from the stack of logs accidentally tumbling down on the kids and the pandemonium that had ensued. As he understood, it was a miracle no one had gotten killed, most of the logs that came down on the kids weighing two-thousand pounds or more.
It had taken a whole of the Forks Police and a team of firemen to get them loose, with some of the lumbermen ending up in need of medical attention themselves as they tried to pull the kids from the stack, but got buried as the logs shifted or splinters came loose.
Edward didn't believe the Forks General Hospital ER had been that full in a long time, all of the doctors and nurses having been called in to help as the situation between the kids and the woodsmen continued to be strained, even with the kids' parents pouring in.
It wasn't until around eleven that he finally got an update on Jasper, Carlisle coming down from the top floor where they'd taken his son, to announce that Jasper had cracked a few ribs and sustained a severe concussion amongst the cuts and bruises that seemed to be the new norm among the place, but that apart from that, he was going to be fine.
There was a moment, small and fleeting, but it was still there, in which Edward envied the man like never before; the knowledge that Carlisle's son would live where his little girl had not, cutting through his heart like a razor blade. For a moment it felt like he was losing her all over again, the pain it caused making him take off in a sprint outside, away from the dangers of the hospital pharmacy.
He breathed, closing his eyes as he tried to fight down the urge to fall back into his old ways, reminding himself that he should be relieved Jasper was going to pull through without any lasting damage. That was good news. Great news! It was what he should be focusing on.
It was well past midnight before he finally left the hospital, bone weary and with hands hurting from painstakingly putting in one stitch after another. But he had made it.
He smiled, leaning his head against the headrest as the soft purr of Billie Holiday singing about summertime and easy living slowly soothed his aching bones. He'd done it. He'd faced his first crisis situation since being allowed to practice medicine again and he'd made it through without messing up or giving into his craving of a shot of Vicodin. He was proud of himself, for the first time in God knew how long.
In fact, the buzz he felt as the car rolled to a stop in front of the Cullens' home was so much better than any pill could ever make him feel. He'd been a fool to ever risk it.
He spent a few minutes savoring the feeling; the sense of being able to take on the world, before he finally got out of the car, knowing that if he didn't get his ass to bed any time soon, his shift the next day would be even harder than the one that lay behind him.
When he opened the front door, though, he wished he'd remained in his car where the music was beautiful and the peace and tranquility a comfort. Because inside, it looked like a warzone. Or at least it sounded like one.
"I can't believe you let this happen!" Rosalie shrieked, her blue eyes wild with rage as she hollered abuse at her stepmother from her high spot on the stairs. "What kind of mother are you?"
"Now listen to me, young lady-" Esme tried, though Edward could immediately tell from the wavering in her voice that was beyond her strength.
"Listen to you?" Rosalie bit back. "And end up in the ER like Jazz? No, thank you very much."
Edward wanted nothing more than to jump in and help his sister, even though he knew that would only hurt Esme's position in the house. His sister looked like she could defend herself, though, her tone biting as she spoke. "Don't you dare talk to me like that, you little-"
But Rosalie was beyond listening, her voice cracking as she interrupted her stepmother yet again. "Royce's father is beside himself with anger and I don't even know if he ever wants to talk to me again after my own brother tried to ruin his fucking life."
At that moment she spotted Edward walking into the house with a look of determination on his eyes. Knowing she was outnumbered and more than likely 'outgunned', she decided to make a hasty retreat but not without one final blow. "Mom would never have let it come to this…I hate you!" And with that she thundered upstairs, her bedroom door slamming shut before Edward could even reach the stairs, his hands balled at his side and his blood boiling with rage.
"You heard that, didn't you?" If Edward had been startled by the broken sound of his sister's voice, when he turned around to face her, his heart broke along with it.
"Es…" He sighed, rushing over to her side, his arms wrapping around her small shoulders even before the first tear could drop from her eyes. "I'm so sorry, sis."
"Don't be," she muttered, her nails digging through the thin fabric of his Oxford as she held onto him like a lifeline. "It's not your fault."
"You don't deserve this," he insisted, pulling her closer as she cried. "You deserve so much better than this."
"It hurt so much to see him…to see Jasper lying in that hospital bed," she muttered into his shoulder.
"I know," Edward nodded. He'd known his sister had visited the hospital at some point; his eyes registering her passing by as he was busy treating one of his patients. He knew how much she cared for Jasper and how tough it must have been to see him lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
"I wonder if she's right…if there was something I could have done to stop him," she went on, her grip on him becoming almost painful. "I should have known he was up to something."
"How could you have known?" Edward parried, wishing there was some magic word he could speak to make his sister's pain go away. "It's not like he confided in you where it came to his plans."
"I know," she growled in frustration, "but it's just…."
He pushed her back, forcing her to look at him. "Have you spoken to Carlisle?"
Her eyes were sad as she shook her head. "He had enough on his plate and…"
"He's their father, Es, you can't let him hide from this; not from Jasper's actions or from Rosalie's reaction," Edward insisted.
"I know, but…he's so busy and I feel…I feel I should be able to do this, but it's just,' she looked up, her eyes watery and distraught. "I just don't know how much more of this I can take."
He shook his head, his heart breaking for her as he held Esme close. Something would have to be done about it soon, before his sister would crumble under the weight resting on her shoulders.
And he wasn't going to let that happen.
Thoughts?