Hey guys! Thanks to all those who read and reviewed last chapter, I'd been waiting a very long time to share that with you! The feedback really meant a lot to me :) This chapter should clear some stuff up for ya.

Once again, I'm not Stephanie Meyer so I don't own the characters. Just the plot.

Song - Stay With Me – Sam Smith

. . . . . . . . .

Everything fucking hurt, that's the first thing that my mind established. That was forgotten in the same instant as I realized I had passed out.

And why I passed out.

Something started fucking beeping like crazy as I tried to get up, and was pinned back down. I just yelled, trying to throw whoeverthefuck off of me. I needed Bella. I needed to see Bella. I just had to fucking know right this second what the fuck was going on with my Bella.

"Edward! Fuck, calm down!" Jasper's voice shouted at me. "Please! Just calm down man, look at me."

"Edward, you're going to be okay," my sister's voice said in a soft sob from somewhere next to me. Hearing her voice like that is what broke through, and a few seconds later I stopped struggling, dropping back in defeat.

I couldn't open my eyes to look at them, because I knew I'd just start fucking crying.

"Where is she?" I choked out in a hoarse voice.

"She's still in s-surgery. Dad's working on her. You know how g-good he is," she said in a painful, trembling voice.

"Esme just called Alice about a half hour ago, we got here maybe five minutes before you woke up," Jasper said in a calming voice. "She already called Emmett and Rose, they're sitting in the waiting room for surgery."

I opened my eyes then. My mind was kind of on overload with everything that was happening, had happened. The sounds of the shots, the man with the black hair who had almost knocked me over kissing Bella. I knew now why he had looked so familiar; he was older, but the shape of his face was still the same as eight years ago on that picture at the end of my movie. I hadn't forgotten my phone, Victor had taken it when he'd almost knocked me over.

She'd broken his neck. Victor was dead.

Bella had been relieved to see that I was okay. He must have used my phone to lure her, using me as leverage. She'd left her car running in the street, no doubt in some sort of haste to fucking save me.

And he'd shot her.

Twice.

There was so much blood. Bella's blood.

I looked around, taking in my sister and Jasper on either side of me, and a nurse looking at me warily. I kept my eyes on her as I calmly took off the blood pressure cuff and the stickers that were on me. I was still in my clothes, but I could see that someone had tried to wash the blood off of my arms and hands. They hadn't succeeded, but it made no difference when my clothes looked like this. Black and red.

My tears just silently spilled over again as I looked down at myself. I didn't fucking care.

I needed her to be okay. She had to be.

I needed to see her.

"I need to see Bella," I choked out, looking at my sister. She was crying, her eyes puffy and red. She nodded though, and handed me a bag. "I don't care about my fucking clothes."

"Please, just… for Emmett? I don't think he could handle it," she whispered.

She was right, so I took the bag from her, and went over to the bathroom without a word. There was a plastic bag that had official looking shit on it that I didn't bother to read. I figured they wanted my clothes, because it was all I really had right now. I stuffed them in, then wet a cloth to try and remove as much of the rest of it as I could. I put on the stuff my sister brought me, not really registering much beyond the fact that they were jeans and a shirt, and went back out to the others. I noted that we had been set up in my father's office. The others stood without another word and led the way.

When we reached the proper, private waiting room- it had two police officers standing sentry at the moment, but they let our party pass without a word- my heart broke all over again. Emmett's large form was hunched in a chair, his face buried in his hands while he remained completely still. Rose was sitting next to him, her arms wrapped around her knees as she stared at the door and silently cried.

We all sat down with them. Me in a single chair across from Emmett, and Alice with Jasper on a small couch. No one spoke, we just all sat silent and still as we waited for some sort of news.

. . .

We sat there much too long. So long I was afraid to ask what time it was and have my fears confirmed. The tension in the room grew and thickened by the minute. By the hour. I knew I wasn't the only person thinking along these lines, I could see it in each of their faces.

It felt like years later that my father came out, looking exhausted, haunted. We all seemed to jump to our feet at the same time, making him take a cautious step back. He looked at each one of us for a quick moment before deciding to speak.

"Emmett, did you want to speak privately or-"

My heart fucking stopped, so did my lungs. No no no…

"No," Emmett said in a detached voice. My father nodded quietly, and took a breath before he spoke.

"I got the bullets out… one of them had hit an artery, but she didn't seem to have lost as much blood as she should have. It was deep but didn't hit anything else. One of her ribs stopped the other bullet. It shattered, but we were able to repair it. I don't know how she's still… she crashed twice, but she's stable for now. The rest is up to her. It was a lot of trauma for her body to take. It would be helpful if I had her medical history."

"I know where she keeps-" I sucked in a sharp breath, a bolt of pain going through my chest.

Zeus.

"I'll get them, I need to see Zeus, he's been all alone at home and-" I caught Emmett's incredulous look, and felt horrible once more. I couldn't handle this. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't concentrate and my mind was being pulled in too many directions.

But I did know above all else that Bella would want someone to check on Zeus. He'd been home alone for at least twelve hours by now.

"Only if you don't want to Emmett. I don't mind though, if you wanted to stay here."

He watched me for another long minute with his anguished eyes, before sighing and dropping his head again.

"Thank you Edward. I can't… I need to stay here."

"Don't worry about it. Just, can I see her first?"

"She's still being prepped before we move her to the ICU, it will be a couple hours before anyone can see her," my dad said gently to Emmett. He nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Okay, then I'll be back to see you all soon," I said in a quiet, slightly-detached voice. Then I realized that I was missing, well, practically everything. Except for the keys on the chain around my neck ironically. "My wallet is missing, and my phone is-" My voice caught in my throat and I tried to clear it away. "I don't have a phone anymore."

Fuck, I guess I needed to talk to the police. I didn't trust them, Bella rubbing off on me I guess, but the man they leaked their information to was dead now. So I guess it didn't really fucking matter.

Alice dug through her purse quickly, handing me my wallet. Not a dime was missing.

Bella's ring was still there.

Jasper lent me his phone.

"It has everyone's numbers in it, but I was thinking that maybe we should go with you to-"

"No, but thanks Jasper. You guys should stay here and help Emmett."

He nodded, and I gave them a nod before walking out of the room.

An officer tried to stop me on the way out.

"Sir, we need to ask you a couple-"

"Am I under arrest?" I hissed at the man, and his voice faltered for a moment as he looked at me.

"No but-"

"Then take your fucking hands off of me," I growled, and the man quickly removed his hand from my arm.

"I'm sorry Mr. Cullen. But we need to ask you some questions."

"I have shit to do right now that's more important. You can ask me questions later."

I was a little surprised when he just nodded and let me walk away.

I probably shouldn't have gone out by myself. There were about a hundred reporters gathered around the hospital, and the crowd was impossible to get through, just pushing me back into the building. I walked back in, used Jasper's phone to call Riley, and had him come pick me up by the back door.

Thankfully, he was completely silent as he drove me over to Bella's building. I didn't have my remote for the garage door, so I walked around to go in through the side door to the garage, then took the elevator up to her floor.

Zeus knocked me to the floor when I got in, whimpering and whining as he licked at my face. I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him and trying to calm him down a bit before I took him up to the roof. He stayed glued to my side the entire time, I had to walk with him into the snow-covered grass area so he'd do his business. We sat up there for a while, staring at the snow as I worked up the courage to go back down to the apartment.

I took a quick shower, leaving the door to the washroom open because Zeus started scratching at it as soon as I tried to close it. I didn't have many sets of clothes left here, but got changed into a pair of jeans and a plain black, long-sleeved t-shirt.

I didn't feel any better, but there was no more blood on me at least.

I went over to her TV, hitting the latch on the side that released the hidden door to Bella's safe. I put in the code and opened it, ignoring the stacks of cash, the different IDs and passports to take out her small box of thumb drives, taking the one labelled "Medical Records." There was also an "Emmett: In Case of Incident," drive in there too that I took. Once I had those I closed and locked it again, then walked over to the bed and sat down. Then I curled up on my side.

Her pillow smelt like her. I sat there for a long time, not bothering to tell Zeus to get down when he came and joined me.

"She's going to be okay," I told him. "She is. She has to be." He licked my face, and sat with me for a long time before I managed to force myself to get up. I cleaned up the messes he'd made inside, then changed Zeus' water and fed him before taking him back up to the roof, then I packed a few things for Bella in her black backpack. Her phones, her laptop, some clothes and her shower stuff. I was reluctant to leave him, but I had to get back to her.

Riley took me back to the Hospital, handing me a new phone on the way without a word. I don't know how he got one so quickly, but it was programmed with all my old contacts and had my old number on it again. He cleared a path for me to get back into the building before a couple officers helped him. They were preventing the reporters from entering the hospital. I made my way over to my father's office, and knocked once before walking in.

"Edward," he said in a quiet voice. I walked over, and handed him the thumb drive. "What's this?"

"Her medical records." He gave me a questioning look, and I let out a small sigh, trying to keep control of my emotions. "Everything that's ever happened to her is on this drive. She's lived under a lot of different names, but she typed up and scanned every medical document that's ever been written about her and put it on here, in case anything ever… If anything ever happened to her."

He gave me a sad nod, and took the thumb drive from me before walking me up to the ICU.

"Only immediate family are able to go in but… I'm sorry, you can wait out here if you want."

I didn't say anything, because really I just wanted to punch him in the face for telling me that. I was going to see her no matter what they said, but I sat down next to my sister for the moment to bide my time as my father disappeared behind the glass doors.

"Any news?"

"No, she just got moved down here about half an hour ago. Rose and Emmett haven't come back out yet. That's not really surprising though."

"How are they holding up?"

"Not well."

I nodded, that wasn't surprising either. My father came back out.

"How long will she be kept in the ICU?" I asked when he came over.

"Two days, maybe three. We just need to keep a close eye on her for the time being. I'm going to go start reading through her file to make sure there isn't something I should be worried about." I nodded, and he gave my sister a kiss on the cheek, then me a pat on the shoulder before leaving again.

Mom ran in about ten minutes later, looked at us, then started crying as she ran over and threw her arms around me. I held her tightly. She was sniffling when she loosened her hold on me, then cupped my face in her hands. "Is she okay? Are you okay? What happened?" She asked with a sob. I helped her into the chair next to me.

"It was Victor. He found her. He got my phone, used it to lure her I guess, and shot her in front of my building."

The room froze as the three of them looked at me in astonishment.

"I thought you already knew that," I told my sister and Jasper.

"No… all we knew was that she was shot," he told me.

I just nodded. There was nothing else I could say. This was my fucking fault.

I always knew I was a danger to her, but I'd fucking stayed anyways. I was so fucking selfish. And now…

No, she wasn't going to die. She was going to pull through this. She was the strongest person I knew, she'd get past this.

We all sat there the entire day, but I never found an opening to try and sneak past. There were officers, FBI I think, standing outside of her room, and Emmett and Rose never left her side. Mom brought food for all of us, but no one felt up to eating.

When nine rolled around, we were politely kicked out and told we could come back at eight the next day.

I went back to the apartment, alone, and didn't sleep a second. Having Zeus next to me calmed me a little though.

The next day was the same. I didn't get to see Bella, or talk to Emmett. I needed to ask him what I could tell the police, even though oddly enough, none of them approached me again, but I couldn't bring myself to pull him away from his sister.

I needed to see her, and felt myself losing my grip on my sanity a little more as each second passed.

I spent the night with Zeus again, waking up every five minutes, still able to feel the warmth and thickness of her blood on my hands.

The smile on her face as she told me she loved me that last time in her apartment.

The blood trickling out of her mouth as she told me she loved me that last time in front ofmy apartment.

The next morning, I went to leave, but thinking about calling Riley for a lift, getting to the hospital in a cab, or leaving the hospital in a cab, pissed me the hell off. I was hating relying on others to drive me, having to wait and losing that time every day. Having to hide my face from them. They always saw me, and taxis didn't have tinted windows. And all the fucking questions.

I just… wanted some semblance of control over something.

So I walked half a block down to a branch of my bank, and took out some money. Banks should sell briefcases. But they didn't. I bought one off of an employee there, because walking down the street with a bag of cash in New York wasn't really a smart thing to do.

Then I walked the rest of the way down the block, stopping at the first car dealership I found. It was a Volvo dealership. I really didn't care what sort of car I got, but Bella didn't have an SUV, and I thought maybe we could go camping or something. There was plenty of room for Zeus, he would have been cramped in any of the cars, and I really didn't feel like shopping around.

"Can I help you sir?" A man in a suit asked skeptically, until I took off my glasses. Not many people recognized me with a beard coming in.

"Yes, I'd like this car."

"Oh, well let me show you-"

"I'm kind of in a hurry."

"Oh, well it takes a few days to gets the plates and regis-"

I sighed. "How much is it? This one right here, or one like it. I like the tinted windows."

"About 75 000," he answered hesitantly.

"I'll give you a hundred K in cash right now if you have it ready in an hour."

He stared at me, stunned for a moment, before clearing his throat.

"Standard or automatic?"

"Which one is easier to drive?"

"Automatic."

"Then that one."

"Yes sir, can I get you a coffee or newspaper while you wait?"

"Coffee would be great, thanks."

And sure enough, an hour later the salesman showed me how to drive the fucking thing, because it had been almost twelve years since I had last driven a car. He looked fucking terrified, and relieved as shit when he got out and I drove off of the lot.

The reporters couldn't see me, but they dove out of the way when I pulled through the gates to get in the hospital. It was a good move on their part, because I didn't really care if I hit any of them.

No one was in the waiting room, and the cops weren't in front of her room any more. I stopped breathing, stepping back and bumping into someone. I spun around to face Emmett.

His face was haunted, and I didn't recognize his voice when he spoke. "I forgot my coat. They moved her to a private room, I'll take you up in a sec."

I nodded, and watched him as he silently retrieved his coat, then brought me down two floors and down a couple hallways to her room.

And I finally got to fucking see her again.

Time sort of stopped when I looked at her. There were tubes helping her breath, tubes giving her medication, all sorts of wires were hooked up to her. She was extremely pale, in a sick sort of way, not her usual, beautiful porcelain skin.

She looked so fucking fragile. I wanted nothing more than to curl up next to her, to hold her and touch her, but I was terrified of disrupting all of the technology that was hooked up to her right now. Emmett sat down next to me.

"Thanks, for bringing that stuff for her. Alice gave me the bag."

"No problem, she's probably going to freak out when she wakes up, not having checked her e-mail accounts in a few days."

Emmett nodded, and I saw Rose leave the room in my peripherals.

"How's Zeus doing?"

"He misses her, but he's okay. Hasn't destroyed the apartment yet."

He nodded again.

We were silent for a long moment before I had to say something, the guilt was eating away at me.

"I'm so fucking sorry Emmett. This is all my fault. He got my phone, I didn't recognize him when he bumped into me, he had dyed his hair black and he was so much older… He used it to lure her to him. I'm so fucking sorry."

"He would have found some way, with or without you in the picture," he said in a slightly detached voice. "If it's anyone's fault, it was mine. It's always been my fault."

"What do you mean?"

"She told me, so many times. When we were younger. She told me over and over again that she didn't like him, that he made her uncomfortable, that she was scaredof him, and I never took her seriously. She should have put that in the damn movie, but she made me look like a fucking hero instead."

"Because that's how she sees you."

He nodded, and when I looked over at him there were tears coming out of his eyes.

I'd never seen Emmett cry before. Never.

"You know, I hated her when she was a baby."

That took me by surprise. "She's never mentioned that."

"No, she was too young to remember," he said in a gentle voice. "From the moment she learned to crawl, she fucking followed me everywhere. Like a little duck. It annoyed the hell out of me. The way I saw it at the time, my mom died, and we got this loud, messy, crying thing instead of her. I blamed her, and told her that every fucking day."

"What changed?"

He smiled. "Her first day of kindergarten." He laughed softly. "I was supposed to pick her up on my way home and walk with her. I was late, because I really hadn't wanted to get her when I could have been hanging out with my friends, and found a couple kids pushing her around in the sandbox. Everything shifted then, and all I knew was that there was no way anyone was going to fuck with my baby sister but me. By the time I got close to them though, she had punched one of the kids in the face, and he ran away crying, the others hot on his heels." His voice caught on a sob. "And she just smiled up at me, all proud, and said; "Look Emmy! I kept my thumb on the outside, just like you said, and it didn't hurt!" And I just fucking laughed. I couldn't stop laughing, because she was the cutest fucking kid I'd ever seen. She looks so much like our mom you know, just with dad's eyes. She has the same smile too. I swore in that moment that I'd never let anything happen to her again, and I've broken that promise so many god damn times."

"She doesn't care, she loves you more than anything."

"She loves you too."

"I know." I took out my wallet, and took out the ring I had gotten in Italy. His eyes went wide. "I was waiting for the right time to ask her," I explained, my voice catching on a sob. I handed it over for Emmett to look at when he reached for it. He was quiet for a long moment.

"Holy shit," he mumbled. "You just kept this thing in your fucking wallet? Christ, how much does one of these things go for?"

I smirked. "I'd rather not say. I figured if I had any chance in getting her to wear a ring, it would have to be impressive. She's not big on jewelry."

"You'll still have time to ask her," he said in a thick voice.

"I know."

"And you have my blessing. You're good for her. I've never seen her as happy as she is when she's with you."

"Thanks."

"Have you talked to the cops yet?"

"No, I didn't know how much I could say."

"Good… thank you. Our contact in the FBI will be here tomorrow, he's been taking care of the authorities so far. You can talk to him freely; he'll deal with the cops." I nodded, feeling a bit relieved that I'd at least done something right.

Rose came back not long after, and we sat in silence for a long time before I told them that they should go home, shower, change, get something to eat. They listened, although reluctantly, but I assured them that I'd call the second anything happened, no matter how small.

They left, and I sat down cautiously on the edge of Bella's bed, kissing her forehead before I gently took her hand, the one that didn't have tubes coming out of it, in both of mine. Her skin felt cold, so I got another blanket for her. My dad came in not long after her.

I'd never seen his face like that before, he looked years older, drained, exhausted, and so fucking sad. I automatically panicked.

"What's wrong? What happened? Should I call Emmett?" I couldn't breathe, and felt extremely dizzy, but my dad helped me back down into a chair and calmed me down.

"Nothing's changed, I just finished reading through her medical history. Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. I just… wanted to see her."

"Did you find anything reassuring? When will she wake up?"

"I didn't find anything to cause extra concern. I want to keep her sedated for now though. If she were to wake up now… She'd be in too much pain, and it would make it harder for her to heal. Two guns shots, that shattered rib, and the resulting surgery is a lot of trauma for a body to take. This is best for her for now."

"How long?"

He let out a sad sigh. "It all depends on how she heals. We'll have to play that by ear. I'll be keeping a close eye on her."

I nodded, and was silent as he went over her charts and checked her machines, before checking her stitches. It became hard to breathe again, seeing the damage myself that he had once again inflicted on her.

But he was dead now. Thank fucking god.

"I kept the incisions as small as possible, the scars should be barely noticeable," dad said, catching my gaze. I just nodded. The scars didn't fucking matter to me, it was just the fact that my Bella was hurt, and lying in a hospital bed in a fucking medically-induced coma because that son of a bitch shot her. Twice.

"You don't need to stay here Edward. She's stable, there's nothing anyone can do right now. She won't even know you're here."

"I don't care, I'm not leaving her alone. She hates hospitals."

He gave me a sad smile and nodded, then left me alone with her.

I took her hand in mine again, and just sat there silently, watching her.

. . . . . . . . . .

I called Marcus from my car the next morning when I got to the hospital. I actually got into the parking spot in one try this time.

"Edward! Just the man I wanted to talk to," he said cheerfully. "I wanted to get your opinion on-"

"I'm calling about Bella," I forced out. Every day it was just getting harder to speak.

He was quiet for a minute. "You know, I thought the same thing, but it's just not-"

I didn't have the patience to have a polite conversation, all I knew was that I'd be completely useless until she opened her eyes.

"Victor found her, a few days ago."

"What?" He choked out a moment later.

"He shot her. She's in the hospital, they have her sedated to help her body heal right now but… look, I'm not trying to back out of my contract or anything, but I can't work right now. Not while she's… I'm sorry, I just can't."

He was silent for a long time. "Edward, what do you know about her?"

"Everything. We're… together."

He was quiet for a long time, and I think I heard him blow his nose on the other end before he spoke again.

"I understand. I'm still going through the legal process of terminating Miss Stanley's contract right now. Then I need to fill her role, but filming wouldn't start until June, so the weather will be good enough for all the scenes we need to do in London."

"Okay… thanks."

"It's okay," he said quietly. "Look, is there any chance you can put me in contact with Emmett? I understand if you can't but if you could give him my number, I'm sort of an old friend of the family-"

"No, I don't really see the harm in giving you his number anymore. I'll text it to you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well… Victor's dead. Haven't you heard? There are like a million reporters surrounding the hospital."

"No, all I heard was that shots had been fired in front of your building in LA, and that you were seen running towards the scene of the crime. He's dead? What happened?"

Well, fuck.

"I… haven't spoken to the police yet, I don't think I should really get into it but I'll get back to you as soon as I can, and get you Emmett's number."

"Thank you, Edward. That means a lot to me. What hospital is she at? And her room number? I'd like to send her some flowers."

I gave him the information, and we said good-bye after I assured him I'd be in touch soon. I picked up my own flowers that I had brought to brighten up her room, and pulled on my tuque and my big sunglasses, then wrapped up my face in a scarf before making my way in through a side door. Rose and Emmett were already there, Rose picking at a fancy-looking breakfast sandwich. She started crying when she saw me walk in, and Emmett sighed before wrapping an arm around her. I hesitantly set the bouquet of purple roses and lilac branches on the windowsill.

"I'm not sure I want to ask how you are this morning," I said with a weak smile, attempting to lighten up the room a bit.

"We're okay," Emmett said cautiously.

"We're pregnant," Rose said with a sob, and Emmett sighed again before pulling her closer and kissing her hair.

It took me a couple minutes to find some words.

"Well, congratulations."

"I didn't get to tell her-"

"You can tell her when she wakes up," I hissed, not succeeding in stifling my irritation. She was going to wake up, the only reason she wasn't right now was because of the drugs. Once she healed more she'd be off of them, and she'd wake up.

Rose watched me for a long minute, and I didn't break my gaze with her. Bella was going to be fine, and I wasn't going to let anyone even fucking think of saying otherwise.

"You guys are really good for each other," she said randomly, catching me by surprise.

"I know," I said with a small smile, looking back at Bella.

"Did she ever tell you how we met?"

"No," I answered. I never asked after Thanksgiving, because it was obvious she was keeping something for Rose. I could tell by the way they had acted, and if Bella tells someone that she'll keep a secret, she'd take it to the fucking grave.

The thought made me shudder.

"She saved my life," she said quietly. "I owe her everything, every single fucking thing to my name, it's all because of her."

I looked over at her, and she was crying quietly as she watched her sister. Emmett was watching her carefully, his eyes flickering to me as he kept a protective arm around her.

"What do you mean?" I asked, a little nervously.

"I wanted to open a club. I had this great business plan, and I just knew it would be awesome, and that I'd be really good at it. So, I asked my parents to loan me the money after I finished University. But they had a condition. They wanted to merge their bank with Mr. King's branch, and his son had expressed some interest in... me." I looked at her disbelievingly, and she let out an irritated huff. "Yeah, they aren't as perfect as they look. Well, they told me that if I accepted his proposal, they'd give me the money. I told them that there was no way in hell I was marrying that asshole, so they said no to the loan. They kept pressuring me, and cut me off. Then kicked me out, trying to get me to cave. I came up here to stay with Alice in the city while I tried to find a job and some investors for my club idea.

"I lost count of how many 'business dinners' I went out on, but no one would take me seriously. One night I was walking back to Alice's old place and… The light in the alley I was passing blew out, and this guy came out of nowhere, and dragged me into the alley where two of his friends were."

My whole body had gone cold as I watched her talk, but she was looking at Bella, and it felt more like she was talking to her than to me. "They were too strong for me. I'm sure they would have killed me, I wanted to die, but Bella just blew in out of nowhere with Zeus. I still remember him standing over me, guarding me while she beat the shit out of all three of those guys. She gave me the shirt off her fucking back. She offered to take me to the hospital, the police, home, or to even fucking kill them for me and make their bodies disappear. But I couldn't go back to Alice's. For the same reason Bella never told her what happened to her. It would have killed her… I told her I had nowhere to go, and I passed out.

"I woke up in her apartment later. I was a wreck, and I didn't know why she was me bothering with me, but she told me I could stay with her as long as I wanted to. She gave me clothes, food, let me use anything in her bathroom that I wanted because she had a cupboard filled with all sorts of different products cause she's a lazy shopper and had bought one of everything in the store I guess," she said with a bit of a laugh, swiping at her face and sniffling. "I was terrified to leave her apartment, even to go outside with Zeus because I was worried the guys would find me. She was careful with me, but didn't baby me at all. She told me that she owned the building, showed me all her security cameras, and how it was damn near impossible for anyone to get up to her floor, let alone past it to the roof.

"I lashed out at her at first when she pushed me, because I didn't think there was any way she could understand what I was going through. Then… she told me what had happened to her when she was little. She stayed with me for weeks in her apartment until I was ready to go outside. She let me stay with her, put me up in the other half of her apartment so that I wouldn't be alone. I had laughed at her when she asked to read my business proposal, she was barely nineteen at the time you know, and she shut me up quickly when she told me I was treating her the way all those investors had treated me. She pointed out a few problems with my plans, recommended some pretty impressive ideas then… she gave me 1.5 million dollars to start up my club. She helped me with every step. She introduced me to Emmett and Jasper. She's had my back, protected me, every single fucking day since that night in the alley. She's always been there for me, always. And… I just really wish I had been able to return the favour more. Been the one to protect her. She didn't deserve any of this shit, it's just not fucking fair!" She clung to Emmett, sobbing into his shirt as he held her. I really didn't know what to say to that. I went to open my mouth, but Emmett just shook his head sadly, letting me know to just let it go. Really, there was nothing to say. I think she had just needed to talk.

The room was quiet for a long time, the silence only broken by the beeping of Bella's machines and Rosalie's sniffles.

We all turned when someone knocked on the door and then walked inside. I shot to my feet when our eyes met. I had no clue who he was; he had sandy-brown hair, brown eyes, and a stern looking face. He looked about my age, my size, maybe an inch shorter.

We stared at each other for one tense moment.

"Who the hell are you?" I hissed. If he was a fucking reporter, I'd kill him for coming in here.

Emmett stood up, and walked over to shake his hand.

"Edward, this is Alec. Our liaison with the FBI."

"Oh," I said, sitting back down. "Hey."

"Hey," he said back in a curt voice, then walked over and took the one free seat left in the room, next to mine. "So, Emmett, what happened?"

He looked at me. "Edward was with her, he could probably answer that better." I winced, and he gave me a small, apologetic smile.

"Have you spoken to the police yet?"

"No."

"Good, I told them not to harass any of you. They're just supposed to be watching his body, and making sure no one gets close to Bella that shouldn't."

It was weird hearing this stranger use her name so casually, but I was thankful he'd done what he did.

"Thank you."

"So, I want you to tell me everything that happened the day of the incident. Start from the beginning."

I looked at Emmett, and he nodded for me to go ahead.

"Well, she was upset when I got up that morning-"

"What time did you get to her apartment?" He interrupted.

"Er, I had spent the night," I said uncomfortably. I saw his eyes tighten slightly, but he nodded for me to continue. "She was upset about some work she had done with Marcus, so I took her out for the day to try and cheer her up. She had never really played tourist before, so we went all over the place. She wore her blond wig, a brown leather jacket, brown boots, a white knit hat…" I remembered her smiling at me on the skating rink like it happened seconds ago. It had been such a perfect moment. "We went all over the place. Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Rockafeller center. I taught her how to skate, she fucking sucked at it," Emmett chuckled slightly, but it was short-lived. "We had dinner in a small café, and went home." I took in a deep breath, and forced myself to keep going. I was shaking slightly. "She reminded me that we were supposed to go to Emmett's for dinner the next day, so I went to the apartment to grab some different clothes." She'd told me she loved me, and to hurry back. "I left through the garage, because neither of us ever used the front entrance of her building, and walked around the corner. He walked right into me, almost knocked me over but caught me and apologized. I thought he'd looked kind of familiar, but I couldn't place him. He looked so different. I caught a cab, but when I went for my phone it wasn't in my pocket and I sort of panicked and made the cab turn around so I could get it, even though I was almost right fucking there. When I went back she was already gone. I couldn't find my phone, and thought maybe she went to surprise me and bring it anyways. She had wanted to come with me, but we knew it just wasn't safe for her to be around my building when the press were looking for my brown-haired mystery woman. So I went back to the apartment. Traffic was backed up, so I decided to walk the rest of the way since the building was so close. I noticed Bella's car, but she wasn't in it. It was running on the side of the road. Then I heard the first shot, and people screamed, and I started running to my building. Then I heard the second shot. It was hard to get to her, everyone was running in the opposite direction. She was on the ground, sitting almost, leaning against my building. He… He knelt down, and kissed her, and she reached up and… snapped his neck. He fell on her, and then I was there, and I tried to put pressure on her wounds like she'd taught me, and she blacked out just before the ambulance got there. The rest of it is kind of… blurry. I don't really remember much else."

"So she was still conscious when you reached her? Did she say anything?"

The tears escaped my eyes then as I nodded, and he waited for me to speak again. "She said… "You're okay," like she was relieved. And then she told me she loved me, and said she was sorry." I couldn't fucking breathe anymore. I felt like I was going to be sick. I just reached forwards and took her hand again though. Her hand was warm, soft, and the contact calmed me slightly. I could feel her pulse, she was still here with me. She was still alive.

"Anything else?"

"No. She… lost a lot of blood."

"Yeah, I read the EMT's and doctor's reports," he said with a nod. "You know, what you did in those two minutes, and the drive to the hospital, saved her life. She would have bled out otherwise."

"I thought she already had," I told him honestly. I felt like I'd done nothing, I didn't want to hear what he said because it didn't fucking matter.

He talked with Emmett for a long while, but I didn't hear much of it. He said he'd do what he could to handle the press, and the police, and warned us that we weren't to speak to any of them. If any tried to get us to speak, they probably weren't actual cops.

He did have a sliver of good news though. They'd found their mole. When Emmett had called Alec the night of the incident on the way to the hospital, he'd been able to make a controlled leak about Bella. Alec had been waiting for the opportunity to do so, and using a program like the one Bella had built, Alec had been able to catch the mole.

It was Alec's boss, some man named Caius. Turns out the man had gone through school with Victor's father, and was like an uncle to him. After raiding his office, home, hard drives and multiple phone's records, they had enough proof of him aiding and abetting Victor, and abusing his level of power, that's he'd never see light outside of a jail cell again.

They found videos of every single one of Victor's kills, he'd been sending them to him.

And that led to Emmett and I having a conversation about how we still had to be cautious with her identity, because we weren't sure he was her only threat.

He told me how his father had died, something Bella had never been able to talk to me about. I knew that he'd been shot, but it hadn't been on the job like I'd assumed.

It had happened in their home in Washington. The father of the second woman Victor had killed had tracked their family down, and slipped past the agents that watched their town, because they had only been looking for Victor. He had gotten into their house while Bella and her father had been eating dinner, and had tried to kill her. He blamed his daughter's death on the movie, and had tried to shoot her, but Charlie had taken the hit in his chest, protecting her, and Emmett had been able to knock the man out when he came downstairs. That was when their short experience in the government's witness protection had started. The man was sentenced to prison for life, for murder in the first degree, attempted murder, breaking and entering, along with a long list of other charges.

We had to be cautious that none of the others got the same idea, but Emmett told me the chances were slim. Bella's identity had been protected because of her age at the time, so her name was a hard one to find. That man had had his own resources through his position in the police department he had worked in. It was rumours from their old home town that were the biggest threat.

. . . . . . . . . .

I knew that Bella knew a lot of people, I had joked once that she had an extremely impressive talent for networking, but it was a stunning thing to see as her room at the hospital was practically turned into a green house. I had never seen so many flowers in one small room before.

And though some of the names seemed a little familiar, I didn't know any of them. Emmett told me he had made some calls, and it was weird seeing all of Bella's different names on so many different things, all in the same place. The reporters thinned out after a couple weeks, seeming to give up on whatever they were trying to do. They'd ironically been otherwise occupied covering the news of Victor Hunter's death, not knowing the stories were one and the same.

Marcus had come down after he'd talked to Emmett. We didn't talk about work once in the three days he'd been there. We didn't talk much at all, really. He stayed with Emmett and Rosalie at night, and sat silently by Bella's bed during the days, looking on the brink of tears every second as he watched her. I was curious about their relationship, he'd told me he was an old friend of the family's but he really didn't look like he'd be able to handle that conversation so I kept my question to myself.

I got pretty comfortable driving. I went for runs with Zeus every morning, spent the days with Bella, then slept with Zeus curled up next to me on the couch every night. I couldn't sleep on the bed. It was too big without Bella in it. It was kind of weird, because Zeus was bigger than she was, but that's how I felt.

After three weeks, my dad had lowered her dosages, and told us that it was now up to her when she was ready to wake up.

That had been a week ago, and though it scared me more every day, I never lost hope. I sat with her every day, talked to her, sang, played my guitar. But she never moved.

. . . . . . . . . .

Okay, so, you got a lot of stuff this chapter. Victor is dead. Edward drove a car. Some history of Bella and Emmett's relationship when they were younger. How Bella met Rose and what happened to her (I added that in just for you Ayumi ;)! I thought it worked there.) How Charlie died. Then you got to meet Alec, and hear of the demise of the mole who'd been assisting Victor. Oh yeah, and Rose is pregnant!

Hmm, maybe I should have broken this chapter up a little? Oh well.

So what did you think? Please leave a review! And thanks for reading :)