A/N: Thanks for reading, I am very sorry for not updating quicker, I've had writer's block for this story but I have every intention of finishing it, rest assured. Here's a good five pages for this chapter, all EDward's POV. I am about halfway done with the next chapter and have been working on it a little bit everyday. I hope to have it up sooner than later.

This chapter is in response to the review from twilightmom1988Forever (and possibly someone else as well but I can't find the review at the moment) wondering what's going on with Edward during all this with Bella being sick. The song "Helicopter" by Maisie Peters really helped me get into Edward's headspace to write this, you should check it out.

Your sense of danger is antique and rusted,

And mine's razor-sharp, oh, when it comes to you.

When you wait for a train, don't cross the yellow line.

Don't run with scissors and don't text and drive.

Call me the minute you get to your dad's,

I'll be worried all night and I won't wanna ask.

Helicopter - Maisie Peters

Chapter 16 : Helicopter

Emmett was still on his high from finding a hibernating bear, waking it, and then draining it after a fight.

I'd just finished draining a rather large moose when he finds me and comes up to me again. "Ugh, how can you like moose? They're even gamier than deer."

"About as game-y as a bear, and besides, what they lack in taste they make up for in quantity," I said dropping the carcass down a very steep ravine where no one would find it.

I always thought Emmett and Jasper were being dramatic when they would complain about being apart from my sisters. But here I am, I glance down at my watch, one hour after I left my love asleep in her bed to hunt and I'm counting the seconds until I can return to her.

I spent every agonizing second apart hoping time would pass more quickly. Without Bella by my side, the world seemed dull. Monotone and grayscale. I didn't even enjoy running or hunting anymore since each step was away from her. The stars glimmering on a rare clear night, the ancient trees that I ran past, none of it mattered without her by my side.

Time never passed quickly without her, though. The days when we were together came and went as though they were mere fleeting seconds and not the most significant and important hours of my entire existence. Everything else seemed pale and cold in comparison to the warmth of my Bella.

I had wanted to put off hunting for longer, but Carlisle insisted. I knew what it would mean for me to be tempted by Bella's blood, the consequences I would have to pay, and I would never risk losing her again. I love her more than could be articulated. The thought of drinking her blood, while tempting, seemed physically painful to me. I didn't want to hurt her, and above all else, I wanted her to be safe.

My worry for her was nothing like my thirst, a whole different ballpark. And this worry was not even counting the way her luck seemed to attract anything negative in her vicinity.

I watch a family of deer as they saunter closer to the watering hole in the clearing ahead. The peaceful calm only lasts a few moments before Emmett comes barreling through, sending every animal in a mile radius running as far and as fast as they can.

I sigh, irritated. I don't want to be here and every time Emmett makes a commotion this trip is extended just a little bit longer.

The giant mountains that rose up to the east were lost in the clouds and the light rain that always seems to fall here. I had once found it relaxing, a sanctuary, but now I wanted to be anywhere else. My brothers were watching me warily, waiting for me to start yelling or something, but I wasn't angry with them, not really.

I jumped down from my branch, landing next to Jasper who had just caught up with us.

"What the fuck is his problem?" Emmett said with an annoyed huff. He must have read the irritation on my face.

Jasper shrugged and said, "I could feel the tension rolling off him all the way here."

"What?" I said as Jasper and Emmett laughed.

"Well, Emmett said that you've been like a bear with a sore head because you don't have Bella around," Jasper said and ducked as I smacked the back of his head and then punched Emmett's arm.

"Listen dumbass, that's not why, well it is true but that's not really it. It's- I can't really explain it okay?" I grumbled and sat back with a scowl. I ran both my hands through my hair, stopping to tug on the roots. "I honestly don't know what the fuck it is, Jazz. I've had this feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. It's like. . . something is wrong and I can't put my finger on it."

Jasper sat down across from me and stared for a long moment. "Look Edward, I'm not going to tell you that you are crazy or paranoid. When you think something is up with Bella there usually is because that girl is a magnet for everything bad that's around her." He says, completely serious.

I can't fault him for his words they are, unfortunately, all too true.

"Don't freak out over nothing, Alice spent the day with her, so just ask her when she gets here."

I lean back, my eyes trailing up to the clear night sky above us. "I guess." I took a deep breath. It didn't have the calming effect that I had hoped it would have. Perhaps as a vampire, I should have expected that though.

"Before you freak out," is never a good way for Alice to start a conversation. Worry and fear began to consume me before they were suddenly replaced with a strong dose of calm.

"What?" I question and continue when she doesn't answer right away. "Alice, just tell me," I begged her as I met her eyes. My mind was paralyzed, but racing at the same time.

"Bella's sick. Nothing serious, Mom and Dad are taking good care of her."

I know Carlisle had been worried that the exhaustion and malnutrition she had suffered for so long would lead to illness, possibly even pneumonia, but she's been getting better, hasn't she?

"I need to go back." Screw hunting, Bella needs me.

"Bella does not need you with her right now. She needs you to hunt before you go home." Alice interrupts me again as our siblings gather around us.

I am sure I look like a caged animal, pacing back and forth in the small clearing we were occupying. I can feel their eyes on me. I growled low as I sought control over my emotions, I could feel my eyes flashing fire as I paced through the ankle-high grasses.

"Calm down Edward you're making me dizzy," Jasper says from Alice's side. "Listen, without jumping to conclusions."

"How did you not know she was sick, she's like the world's worst liar?" Emmett asked me.

Bella was sick, how did I not realize? I needed to take care of her and at the moment I had no idea how. My mind went blank. Forgetting everything I'd learned in all my years of medical school. Unadulterated panic flooded my system. If my heart could beat it would have been pounding; I would have hyperventilated.

"Alice," I looked at her when she blocked her mind from me. "Why?"

"Because if you see then you'll go to her and I can't let you do that," Alice said, "not yet. There's more going on here than just what you see, Edward, and there are things that she doesn't want you to know. You have to let them take care of this."

"Can you think of anyone better to care for her than Mom and Dad?" Jasper adds in.

Myself, for one. But I don't say the words out loud because it's just another example of how I've dropped the ball with the love of my life again. "No of course not, but that doesn't mean that I don't need to be there. I let her down enough recently."

"We'll only be gone until Sunday night, Edward, give them these two days with her." Alice reminded me. "You can't go back yet."

She could clearly see I wasn't convinced yet, my mind still coming up with ways to get past my siblings.

"Would you like me to explain why your plan is a terrible idea or do you just trust me that it is?"

"How can someone so small be so hugely annoying?"

"If I show you something to put you at ease will you promise to let them be there for her right now?"

I reluctantly nodded, knowing that if there was anyone I could undoubtedly trust it would be Alice.

"You have to promise not to go running back," she said softly as she searched her visions for what I would do and nodded to herself. "Edward, sit down," she nodded to the fallen tree and waited until I had complied with her request.

Still, Jasper and Emmett each stood at my sides, ready to stop me if I try to leave.

"Please Alice, I need to see Bella."

Alice hesitated and then nodded her head before closing her eyes in concentration. I sighed deeply in relief as a vision of Bella became discernible in Alice's thoughts. It was fleeting, as Alice was carefully blocking the rest from me, but it was enough to see Bella sleeping, curled up between Carlisle and Esme on the couch. Her breathing was labored as she coughed in her sleep, Carlisle rubbing her back until she settled down again as Esme ran her fingers through Bella's hair.

Then another vision, later that night. I could see Carlisle moving Esme's favorite reading chair to Bella's bedside, and he settled in to watch over her while she slept. Esme came in then, leaning down to kiss Bella's warm forehead, her cold touch helping to bring the fever down.

I watched her chest rise and fall, listening to her steady if labored, breath.

"She's my daughter," Esme said fiercely, her voice soft as Carlisle turned his head and kissed her brow. "She's my little girl now."

"She is," Carlisle agreed. "And we will help her through this."

"She must've been really tired," I mutter, hating myself for not being there.

"It was for the best to let her sleep," Alice responded absentmindedly. "It was the only way she would have allowed Carlisle and Esme to stay with her. It'll be good for all three of them to spend more time together. She needs the love of parental figures more than anything right now."

As much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew they were right. Bella needed Carlisle and Esme; they both provided something to her that she needed, something I could never give her myself. She needed something she'd not had before – parents. She had spent too long being the one to take care of everyone else, and I knew that I had to let our parents take care of her now.

"She has us," Alice reminded me. "And she has Carlisle and Esme. Can you truly think of anyone better to give her the loving parental support she needs right now?" She asked with a lopsided grin and watched as I finally cracked a smile.

I remembered how Carlisle and Esme had reacted with such awe and hope when they learned Bella was nervous to meet them – not because they were dangerous creatures – but because she wanted my family to like her. Very quickly Bella had warmed her way into their hearts. To Carlisle and Esme, Bella was as much their daughter as she was Renee and Charlie's.

"No, I can't, they're exactly what she needs."

"Now do you understand why we have kept you out here? Why we've refused to let you go home yet?" she asked and I nodded. "Good. Two more days, Edward," she reminded me. "It's not so long."

Pneumonia, the threat she's facing, is entirely human. I could no longer comprehend how I had ever thought she would be better off without us. If Alice hadn't been watching her at school, if Esme hadn't picked her up and taken her to see Carlisle, would she be hiding her illness? It was a stupid question because I knew her all too well to know that is exactly what she would be doing until she ended up in the hospital.

"You could always just change her so she'll never get sick again." Emmett offered.

Despite the agony in my own throat and the monstrous needs that accompanied it, the only thing I was truly worried about at the moment was Bella. Still, even if Carlisle and Esme are the best people to care for her, part of me wishes it were myself at my mate's side. My eyes looked over at my siblings. "I shouldn't have left her."

"Of course not." Emmett agrees instantly. "Oh I thought you were talking about the time you broke her heart but yeah you probably shouldn't have left Thursday night either."

"Thanks, man," the sarcasm was clear in my voice but I couldn't fault him because he was right.

"No problem, that's what brothers are for."

You are important, so of course it maddens me when you're nonchalant about your own mortality.

Please be more careful when you cross the road. You're a perfect arrangement of rickety bones.

So forgive me, if I hover close I'm a helicopter 'cause I love you so.

Oh, bare with me, Darling you should know. I'm a helicopter 'cause I love you so.

Helicopter - Maisie Peters

Alice had taken to showing me visions every few hours to keep me here. With no phone service and no way my brothers would let me take off in the nearest direction of a cell tower, her visions were my only tether to my love for the time being.

"I can walk," Bella argued weakly as she stumbled. After he catches her, supporting more of her weight than he had before, Carlisle arched his brow. "I'm sorry. I'm a horrible patient."

"You are," he chuckled softly.

"When was the last time someone took care of you?" Esme asked her.

"When I was sick? Probably when I had chicken pox," she shrugged, wincing slightly at the pain it caused when the movement made her cough. "I was nine, I think."

Carlisle frowned. "Well, you will be taken care of while you're here, Bella."

"That's not necessary," she tried to insist, going into another coughing fit.

Carlisle gave her some water and rubbed her back.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, Bella," he said. "You're sick."

"My throat is burning," she said, her eyes welling up with tears when she lifted the straw to her lips. It really wasn't like her to tell us what was wrong. It made me undoubtedly more worried.

"I know, Sweetheart" Esme soothed her, one hand on her back rubbing small circles on her back, "small sips. This will help."

Never had I wished so hard that I could just lay down and go to sleep. I closed my eyes and imagined it. I would be laying down on my side in a soft bed, Bella on my chest with my arms wrapped around her.

There's no place I'd rather be.

A/N: Please Review, they force me to write faster.