Bella was technically supposed to wake up in the last chapter. But then Emmett had to be all deep and retrospective and need his own chapter and Jasper demanded his own chapter as well and Edward wasn't about to be left out. So y'all get another unplanned chapter for Bella to wake up. Stay strong friends: it's going to get worse before it gets better.

The song for this chapter is Lean On Me by Avi Kaplan. Remember that you can play along with the story on Amazon Music using the special web address below!

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Disclaimer: I'm only doing this for a friend. I don't get anything from it but her undying appreciation. I certainly don't get to have fun with Emmett and the boys in my head.

Chapter Forty-Three: Lean On Me
BPOV

Burning.

Suffocating.

Torture.

I didn't know where I was but I was on fire.

There was a pounding, drumbeat echoing around me, a thousand soldiers marching around me.

It was an unending sea of flame racing through me, over me. I couldn't catch my breath, couldn't move, couldn't scream. My arms couldn't reach, couldn't pull me out. I tried kicking my way through the sea of flame but my legs were like stone. I wanted to cry out, call for help, for someone to save me but my voice was stolen, locked away.

Time passed indeterminately. I couldn't tell if I had been burning in this hell for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years.

I merely burned.

Was this Hell then?

I couldn't remember the events leading up to this moment, this suffering.

There was nothing but agony.

I was going to go insane. I couldn't take any more of this. I'd hoped that someone would come rescue me, pull me out of this inferno and provide relief.

But I was alone, drowning.

The pain was beginning to ease though.

And also not.

It had moved away from my extremities, crescendo-ing in a blaze in my chest and throat.

It grew impossibly hotter, searing me.

I screamed but no sound came. I tried to run, escape, but I was paralyzed, frozen.

All at once, the burning ended with a thump, like a single beat on a bass drum.

In the sudden and echoing silence, every sound that now reached my ears sounded impossibly loud.

I could hear the inhalations and exhalations of four different people. They were breathing softly, calmly. Somewhere outside there was birdsong, the sound of creatures scurrying along the ground and up and down trees.

"She hasn't opened her eyes yet," one of the people in the room said. His voice sounded vaguely familiar but I was struggling to remember why.

"Just give her a minute. It's not like there's a rulebook for this," someone said and his voice also tickled the back of my mind.

"There isn't but I've seen my fair share of newborns and I've never seen one just lay there like that. Maybe Emmett's right and she turned into a zombie," a third voice replied. His voice had the soft hint of a drawl to it.

"You know she can hear everything you're saying, right," a new feminine voice said drily.

Rosalie.

Jasper.

Edward.

Emmett.

Carlisle.

My eyes flew open but it wasn't to the world I had expected.

I could see spectrums of colors that I didn't even know existed. Individual dust motes floated in the sunlight streaming in through the windows. The texture of the ceiling above me was as visible as if I was right next to it. I looked down to the foot of my bed where my friends stood.

They stared back at me cautiously. Emmett, Edward and Rosalie stood in front with Jasper tucked in behind them, hunching slightly so that I could only see his face behind his brothers. Rosalie was smiling slightly and if I'd thought her beautiful before, nothing had changed. They were all stupidly beautiful and I was left wondering how bad I looked. Did I even resemble a human being after burning alive?

"Why are you all standing around my bed like a bunch of creepers," I asked and then started because that was my voice but it also wasn't. I'd expected rough and hoarse after trying to scream so much but it sounded musical. Bell-like. Melodic.

I lifted my hand experimentally and froze.

My skin was pale, only a shade or two paler than it had been before. It was smooth and perfect.

Like theirs.

"Bella," Edward asked cautiously and I slowly moved my gaze to him. I sat up, looking over my legs and stomach. I pressed a hand into my hair. It felt thicker.

"Did you guys let Alice have fun makeover time while I was unconscious or did something else happen?"

"What in the actual hell," Jasper exclaimed.

"I know, isn't it amazing," Edward said, voice and eyes full of awe.

"What," I asked.

"Jasper's never seen a newborn wake up this… cognizant. We expected you to be frightened of us, even threatened."

"Why would I be frightened of you? I know you're not going to hurt me."

"Seriously?!" I focused back on Jasper, and he stared back, dumbstruck.

"Am I supposed to be threatened? I don't know why I would be. I know you guys. It's not like I woke up in a room full of strangers. Just you weirdos watching me sleep or whatever."

"Bella, you should be threatened by us. You just woke up in a room in a room with four vampires. You should be climbing the walls trying to get out right now," Jasper said, stepping around his siblings. I gasped.

"Jasper, what happened to you? You're skin…" My eyes roved around his body, noting every single raised scar that covered him, some in gnarled knots like a tree trunk.

"What happened to me? What happened to me? Bella, how can you see these scars and not run from me?"

"Just because I can see that someone hurt you doesn't mean that I think you would hurt me," I cried, a little insulted he thought so little of me.

"You really don't think I'm a threat," Jasper choked out.

"Just to my sanity because I really don't understand what the big deal is right now."

"Maybe I was right," Emmett said. "She didn't turn into a normal vampire."

"I'm a vampire," I yelled, jumping from the bed. Except it happened in the blink of an eye. One second I was sitting up in a bed and the next I was standing next to it. "Whoa," I whispered.

"Bella, do you remember anything about what happened before now," Rosalie asked cautiously. I stared at her, wracking through my brain. Everything felt so effortless now.

"I was staying with you guys. There was someone in town, someone dangerous. Charlie wanted me to be safe. He…" It all came rushing back, albeit muddied like I was watching my own memories through a foggy window. "Charlie," I breathed. "Where is he? Is he okay? Does he know what happened?" Their faces fell and instinct rushed in like a wave. "No," I said, shaking my head. "He didn't… he's fine. He has to be."

"I'm so sorry, Izzy B," Rosalie said softly, coming forward to hug me. She wrapped her arms around me and I fell into her shoulder, sobs tearing loose from my throat but my eyes remained conspicuously dry.

"What happened," I choked out.

"You went to see Charlie at the station. We shouldn't have left you alone. I should have realized that you weren't going to wait for someone to get back and go with you. You wanted to see Charlie. We're not sure exactly what happened while you were there but the man that was threatening you pulled up in a car and shot at you and Charlie. You were both hit. Edward showed up just after he opened fire. He did his best to keep you both alive long enough to get to the hospital. Carlisle took Charlie into surgery but the damage was extensive. He tried to revive him but there wasn't anything he could do. He got called into your surgery and they did their best to try and save you but your body couldn't handle it. Ultimately, we convinced him to turn you and the boys brought you here, to Maine."

"He's dead," I gasped.

"We did everything we could, Bella, but he lost too much blood," Edward murmured and I sank to the floor, burying my face in my knees.

Charlie.

A thousand memories assaulted me.

Charlie awkwardly meeting me in California and taking me to see the giant sequoias when I was only seven.

Charlie and I at the diner during my summers in Forks because he couldn't really cook and he wasn't comfortable asking a child to cook either.

Charlie taking me to see his mother shortly before she died and holding me while I cried after she did.

Charlie coming to see Mom and I in the hospital after the doctors told us there wasn't anything else they could do for her.

Charlie holding me after the doctor called time of death while I sobbed like a baby and couldn't even stand.

Charlie trying so hard to make me feel like I could have a home in Forks without Mom.

Charlie telling me about how much he loved my mom, even after she left and moved on with her life.

Charlie and I yelling at each other in the parking lot of the police station about loving Carlisle.

Pulling on Charlie's arm to try and stop him as he headed toward the station door to have someone take me away and go arrest Carlisle.

Charlie moving in front of me as a man I didn't recognize shot at us.

Charlie and I falling to the asphalt, pain crawling through me while I tried to stay conscious, aware of the blood both of us were losing.

"I killed him," I wept.

"No, Bella, the piece of shit human that was targeting you both killed him. It wasn't your fault," Emmett said fiercely, moving in to kneel in front of me.

"He was only out there in the parking lot for that long because I showed up and surprised him. I slipped up and told him about Carlisle. We were fighting about it. He was going to arrest him and I was trying to stop him when that guy showed up. The last thing I said to him was in anger. And now he's…" Emmett pulled me into his side while Jasper crowded into my other side, waves of warm comfort seeming to radiate from him and into me. Edward sat in front of me, holding my hands and squeezing them. I offhandedly noted that they no longer felt icy on my skin but warm, the same temperature as me.

But only because I was like them now.

I was immortal and Charlie was gone.

Mom was gone.

I was an orphan.

I'd be an orphan for eternity.

And it was all my fault.