"Maybe we should have given you the sedative instead!" Alice shouted at Emmett as they entered the Cullen's house.
Momentarily free of Alice's grip, Jasper staggered into the living room and collapsed behind the couch. Izzy felt a bit bad about drugging him, but it was better than a panic attack 33,000 feet in the air.
"If anyone deserves to get knocked out it's you!" Emmett snapped.
Izzy rolled her eyes. She wished someone would give them both a sedative. Too much yelling and not enough sleep had given her a nasty headache.
"Me?" Alice asked. "What did I do?"
Alice's sin? Daring to think Emmett had any semblance of control over himself.
"This whole thing is your fault!" Emmett shouted.
Izzy and Alice thought Emmett had fallen asleep on the plane. Little did they know it was all an elaborate ruse. They were trying to figure out how to manage two wheelchairs and their luggage when Emmett saw his opportunity. Before Izzy had time to react, he jumped out of his wheelchair and disappeared into the crowd.
"I'm not the one who tried to eat the entire Dunkin Donuts menu!" Alice shouted.
By the time they found Emmett, he'd managed to purchase and eat nearly a dozen donuts. Twenty minutes later, the donuts reappeared in the passenger seat of Esme's car. Served her right for thinking it was a good idea to give Emmett a credit card.
"I told you I was hungry!" Emmett said, pointing a finger in Alice's face.
Judging by the look in Alice's eyes, Emmett was lucky he didn't end up with another broken bone.
"And I told you I'd get you something to eat as soon as we got home!"
"You said you'd make me some beef broth!" Emmett gagged. "That doesn't count as food!"
Izzy agreed with him on that. The carefully portioned bowls of broth Edward and Emmett had been eating didn't look terribly appealing.
"I'm just following the doctor's orders!"
As cruel as it seemed to deny a hungry man food, Emmett was at high risk of refeeding syndrome. Unless he wanted to end up back in the hospital he'd need to follow the special diet given to him by his doctors.
"The same doctors that thought it was a good idea to use Izzy as a blood bank?" Emmett snapped. "What do they know?"
"Enough!" Izzy said, positing herself between them. "No more fighting!"
"But he-"
"But she-"
"I. Don't. Care!" Izzy snapped. "It's been a long day and I'm exhausted. I'm in no mood to play referee for a pair of overgrown toddlers!"
"I'm not a toddler!" Emmett protested.
"Then act like it!"
She'd never complain about Jake and Paul's bickering again. Those two had nothing on Alice and Emmett.
"Let's just find somewhere to sleep and we'll figure everything else out in the morning," Izzy said, rubbing her temples.
Everything else included meeting the home care nurse, putting alarms on all the doors, and figuring out how to keep Emmett from raiding the kitchen.
"I don't care where Alice sleeps as long as it's far away from me!" Emmett exclaimed. "I'll be upstairs if anyone who doesn't want to starve me cares to join!" He wiggled his eyebrows at Izzy. "I'm sure Edward wouldn't mind you crashing in his bed."
Izzy bit her lip. The last time she slept upstairs she woke up to a missing fiance.
Emmett only made it a quarter of the way up the stairs before collapsing against the railing. Allowing him to opt for home care instead of checking into Forks Hospital may have been a mistake.
Izzy rushed over and wrapped her arm around his rail-thin torso. "How about a sleepover in the living room? For old time's sake."
Emmett had never been one to turn down a sleepover. Especially one with the potential of pranking his brothers and their girlfriends.
"I can make it to my room," Emmett said. "I just need to rest for a minute."
Izzy looked up at the grand staircase. The Emmett she remembered was often chastised for racing down the stairs after his brothers. In his current condition, those same stairs must have looked like Mount Everest.
"Someone should keep an eye on Jasper," Alice said.
Emmett closed his eyes. "Is my room still there?"
Suddenly, Emmett's determination to make it upstairs made sense to Izzy. He needed to know if there was still a place for him in his family's house.
"Your room is still there," Izzy said, not needing to check.
Esme was the kind of mom who'd never get rid of her child's room even if he'd moved out of the house, gotten married, and been presumed dead for five years.
Izzy felt Emmett's tense muscles relax.
"Maybe a sleepover isn't such a bad idea," Emmett said. "Someone really should keep an eye on Jasper."
Izzy was glad Emmett wasn't going to put up any more of a fight. Jasper wasn't the only one who needed someone to keep an eye on him.
"Is there anything I can bring you?" Izzy asked after settling Emmett on the couch. "A blanket? Extra pillows?"
"Will you get me the Cubs blanket from my bed?" Emmett asked. "Some pajamas would be nice too."
"Of course."
While Izzy didn't love the idea of going upstairs, she was willing to face her fears for Emmett's sake.
Izzy gathered her courage and went upstairs. Her first stop was Emmett's room. She quickly found the blanket he requested but ran into a problem when it came to the pajamas. Everything in the dresser was sized for a firefighter who liked to spend his free time lifting weights. Emmett could probably fit two of himself into the t-shirts.
Izzy went next door to Jasper's room. Emmett was probably much closer in size to high-school history geek Jasper. Izzy found an old Forks High T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that would have to do for now. While Jasper hadn't asked for anything, Izzy grabbed another pair of pajamas and a few books.
Izzy hesitated outside the last room. For years, that space had starred in her nightmares. She knew nothing bad would happen if she went inside, but that didn't stop her heart from racing. Telling herself it was just an empty bedroom, Izzy turned the knob and went inside.
Izzy glanced around Edward's room. Thick rug. King-sized bed. An entire wall of CD's and records. Her pulse started to slow down. No blood-stained carpet or dead eyes glaring at her. Everything was just as she remembered it before her life got turned upside down. The only thing missing was a bronze-haired guy inviting her to sit down on the black leather couch and listen to a playlist crafted just for her.
Izzy swallowed the lump forming in her throat. There was no need to cry. Edward wasn't dead anymore. He was far away and injured, but she would see him again. That was more than she could say a week ago. Before going back downstairs to join the others, she grabbed a pillow from Edward's bed. Even after so much time had passed it still smelled faintly of lilacs and honey.
Izzy wished she could say she was surprised to find Emmett wasn't on the living room couch where she left him. She found him in the dining room, or command central as they called it during those dark days.
"Izzy, what is this stuff?" Emmett asked.
The stuff Emmett was referring to was a whiteboard, at least two dozen plastic bins, and a wall of news articles connected by red string. Izzy would have collapsed into a chair, but the dining set was overtaken by mountains of paper.
Izzy steadied herself against the door frame. "This must be your mom's research."
The last time she'd stepped foot in the house Esme's research could be contained in a single bin. Now, they'd need an entire storage facility.
"Research?" Emmett asked. "About what?"
"You," Alice explained. "Esme never stopped looking for you."
They should have been more like Esme. Maybe if they hadn't given up the boys would have been rescued sooner.
"But there are pictures of you and Bella here." Emmett said, pulling a picture of Izzy off the wall."She doesn't think you guys had something to do with our disappearance, does she?"
Alice and Izzy didn't answer. It was hard to say what Esme thought. Carlisle, the neighbors, even a stranger in the grocery store. They'd all been accused at one point and it cost Esme dearly. Any friends she had were long gone and her husband had left the continent.
Emmett approached a picture from Edward and Izzy's engagement party. On it was a note with the words 'run away. Cold feet?'
Emmett turned to face Izzy. "You know that isn't what happened, right?
She knew that now, but there was a time she didn't. Those feelings still came back to haunt her from time to time.
"He never meant to leave," Emmett said. "He tried with every fiber of his being to come back to you, but they stopped him."
How did the Denalis stop him? Izzy wasn't sure if she wanted to know. It definitely wasn't with kind words and gentle hands.
"We knew none of you meant to leave," Alice said, pointing to a picture of the guy's wrecked rental car. "The police told us you died in a car accident."
"But my mom didn't believe that."
Looking back, it was obvious that something wasn't right about the crime scene. Izzy should have pushed harder for answers instead of giving up. Things could have turned out differently.
"What really happened that night?" Alice asked.
"We got lost and hit a patch of black ice," Emmett said, staring at the wrecked car. "Edward was badly injured in the crash."
Emmett had also been hurt, but Izzy dubbed that mattered to him when he realized his brother was in trouble.
"I was able to set his leg and stop the bleeding, but I couldn't get cell service to call for help."
Izzy remembered what it felt like to have her broken arm set. It was one of the most excruciating things she'd ever been through. Edward went through that in the Alaskan wilderness without the help of painkillers.
"We waited for hours, but no other cars passed by," Emmett said. "Between the blood loss and the cold, I was having a hard time keeping Edward awake. I didn't think he would make it until morning. I had no other choice but to send Jasper to find help."
Alone in the dark, cold woods injured and knowing no one was coming to save you? It sounded like something out of a horror movie.
"What happened then?" Alice asked.
Izzy knew the answer. It didn't involve a last-minute rescue from a friendly paramedic.
"It's been a long day," Emmett said, rubbing his damp eyes. "I think I'd like to get the sleep part of this sleepover started."