Disclaimer: Don't own it. If I did, I would be working on a deadline and you guys wouldn't have to wait so long.

A/N: Hey, folks! No complaints on the wait for this chapter – it's eighteen pages long on Word! It should keep you happy for a while.

I forgot to give Bluebird her shout-out for the last chapter. That chapter was more of a group effort than any of the others before. We rewrote that thing about three dang times. But I think the result was worth the work! This chapter, however, was pretty much entirely my creation (which means it's a lot less intellectual and a lot more sarcastic…), so please leave me some lovely little reviews! They make my day!

All the times Edward calls Bella "sweetheart" is dedicated to PrincessFerdinand. We agree that it isn't used enough. Check out her stories, btw, they're great!

While I am sorry that so many of you didn't seem to like the idea of Bella being blind, I hope you'll stick with the story. I like the idea of there being a physical remnant of Edward's betrayal. In the book, I felt like Bella returned far too quickly to normality. Edward got let off the hook a lot more easily than I would have liked. I don't see how somebody who has been so deeply hurt as Bella was could have had so little trouble recovering again. Let's not forget her physical changes as a result of Edward's leaving her. That sort of thing stays with a person. Besides, the blindness in this story is going to be part of a larger plot, so just hang in there, please, huh? It would be much appreciated!

All right, I'll shut up now and let y'all get to the story. And remember, folks, review, review, review! 

Toodles!

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Everything had been so perfect. We were here, together again. Bella was safe, and she finally believed that I really and truly loved her. I'd never been happier in my life before—not when I'd realized I wasn't the lone power freak anymore when Alice had come, not when Carlisle found the love of his love, and not even when I'd realized that my being a vampire didn't matter to Bella and that my love for her was truly requited.

Why, oh, why did the sky have to fall down on us now? Hadn't she paid enough already for my selfishness and stupidity and underestimation of her feelings? Where was the justice, the grace that Carlisle believed existed? Why couldn't I be the one to suffer for her, instead of her suffering for my mistakes yet again?

With the keenness of my vampire sight, I watched the knuckles on Bella's hand turn white as she gripped the sheet between her fingers, her frighteningly empty brown eyes scanning the room frantically as she searched for my face. Her other hand trembled against my cheek as she traced my features, trying to determine that I really was with her, that she wasn't alone. She wasn't lying. I knew that quite well. Bella couldn't lie. Then could it be true? Was it possible?

I needed help, and I needed it now. I didn't know how to handle this.

On second thought, I didn't want to handle it at all. There had been times when I had cursed being forever saddled with the "child" status in the eyes of the world, when I had tired of being told, "well, I'll need to speak to your father" or "why don't you call your mother and ask her?" I was sick to death, no pun intended, of being treated like I wasn't responsible enough to care for myself, that I lacked the necessary maturity that adulthood required. It was laughable for me at times—imagine, me, Edward, who was older than most of the human beings in the world in which I lived, incapable of making simple decisions for myself!

But I was quite happy to be able to retreat into a corner and let the "adult" take care of matters for me now.

"Carlisle?" I called softly in the direction of the backyard where my family was waiting politely to be called. The idea had been that with them somewhat out of the vicinity, Bella and I could have some semblance of privacy during our reunion. I was working hard to keep my voice steady and smooth as I called for my father's aid. Carlisle would make it all right. He had to!

Still, though, no one would know of my childish desperation from my voice. Jasper would know, of course, but he would never tell anyone. He shared the same ethics with me—since both of us knew far more than what people would ordinarily choose to tell us, we were overly sensitive about protecting the privacy of our family whenever it could possibly be done. I was grateful for that rule now, since I didn't want my voice to portray my emotions. I didn't want Bella to sense my panic with that too-sharp intuition of hers, to feel that I couldn't fix this for her. She didn't need to be more afraid—she was so weak already. Her heart was already beating faster than was wise, and I just couldn't exacerbate that. "Carlisle, could you please come here for a moment?" I added, making my meaning perfectly clear.

In Esme's flustered and confused thoughts, I watched as Carlisle's head snapped up at my call and cast his wife a quick look of concern, and possibly…fear? He then proceeded to run with all his speed into the house, utterly ignoring the lightning questions that were being tossed at him by the rest of my family. My astute ears listened to him swinging agilely around the corner of the hall by one hand before hurtling to a controlled stop just outside Bella's door so that he wouldn't startle her with his hasty entrance. The whole thing took far less than a second.

Carlisle, as was typical of him, courteously knocked twice on the door before entering, his eyes immediately going to our forms on the narrow bed. I knew that he was trying to see for himself what the problem might be before he was tainted by our words, something that happened far too often with doctors. They would be led astray by their patients' beliefs and would miss crucial clues for the correct diagnosis.

Carlisle knew that whatever was wrong had to be something big, for hardly anything would cause me to call him in when he knew full well just how much I wanted to be alone with Bella at the moment.

"Bella—it's truly wonderful to see you again, my dear. You've been much missed by all of us. Welcome back." Carlisle's warm voice said this with all the sincerity in the world to the girl he saw as his third daughter before he turned to me. "You called me, Edward?" he asked mildly, no trace of his frenzied race to the room audible in his voice.

I glanced over at Bella to see if she was going to say anything for herself, but she was biting her lip between her teeth in a grim determination to keep silent while her face was otherwise smoothed of all emotion. She obviously wasn't going to say anything for the moment. Did she not trust her own voice to keep her emotions hidden? I didn't like the bleak expression her face wore now, though—I couldn't read what she was thinking at all. It also made me afraid that she might slip back into nothingness rather than deal with this latest trial. Would this be too much for her to bear?

But Carlisle was waiting for an answer, and the faster we got down to work, the faster we could fix whatever new thing was wrong with her. Not even a hapless Fate would force this desecration on Bella, not after all she'd been through already.

"Yes, Carlisle," I answered after only half a second of silence thanks to the speed of my vampire mind. "Sorry to disturb you, but something seems to be wrong with Bella's eyes…" I faltered after that, trying to decide how to say this without sounding absurdly alarmist. I could guarantee that my family was shamelessly eavesdropping on this conversation, and I didn't want them to panic anymore than I wanted Bella to—I could only handle so much drama at a time, and their emotions would be sure to cause a myriad of reactions. "She's having some trouble seeing," I finished lamely.

Carlisle's brow furrowed as he strode forward, his handsome face anxious for a brief second before he'd regained his glibly perfect bedside manner. "Seeing what? Is she having trouble seeing things that are far away or close up? Or is she having trouble focusing?" He pulled a small, red flashlight from his tan jacket pocket and shone its light into Bella's eyes one after the other, watching closely for the pupils' reaction to the visual stimulant. Even I could see that there was none. Her warm brown eyes looked out of her face blankly, just as blank as her mind had always been to me. I felt as if I were lost in the woods without a single ray of light to guide me…I felt blind right along with her.

"Bella, what can you tell me?" Carlisle prodded her, wanting her opinion. "What is it that you're having trouble seeing?"

"Seeing anything at all," Bella's voice offered in a monotone that made me tense as if for battle. "I can't see, Carlisle. It's all just darkness."

"Ah. Can you see swirls of color, Bella? Perhaps a random beam or dots of light?" Carlisle asked methodically. Could be a blood clot behind the retina, he thought to himself. Possibly a side effect of having lain prone in that position for so long—it's been known to happen in long term illnesses. Or perhaps a side effect of one of the medications … some of them can increase the risks for a clot…

"No," she answered. "Nothing."

From one small corner of my mind, the part that was struggling against outright panic, I listened to Jasper trying to restrain Alice. He was working hard in order to keep her from bursting into Bella's room, but the strength of her alarm was making it difficult for him to be gentle with her. As I'd suspected, my family had heard everything we'd said, and were reacting strongly.

"Easy, Alice!" Jasper murmured soothingly in his wife's right ear as he tried futilely to calm her down. "Let Carlisle do his job, Ally. Big scenes aren't going to help anything at the moment."

"That's why I always saw darkness!" Alice whispered through white, trembling lips as she suddenly stopped fighting and collapsed against limply Jasper's chest. She buried her face against him, as if to hide from the sights the world held. "In my visions, remember, Jasper? I would see darkness, nothing more! Oh, Jazz!"

Esme was stunned into immobility. Emmett's thoughts were stilted as he tried to understand how this could have happened, now, when everything was looking like it was going back to normal. But…but she heard us laughing! was Emmett's dominant thought. Rosalie was systematically planning my death.

Carlisle proceeded to give Bella a thorough examination before he settled her back into bed against the pillows. I sat down beside her, holding her hand and stroking her hair—she was absolutely motionless except for slightly leaning into the motion of my hand. That comforted me a little. At least she seemed glad I was here for her in this trouble. "I can't do anything more until we get you to an MRI machine, Bella," Carlisle said smoothly, patting her shoulder. "There are several possible reasons for your condition; however, it is most likely this blindness is caused by a blood clot."

"Can you do anything about it?" Bella asked, her grip on my hand tightening. She appeared to be using all of her pitiful strength to hold onto me—her grasp was like the feathered touch of a hummingbird's wing against my stone fingers.

"If it is indeed a clot, surgery or medication might be able to dissolve it and restore your sight to you again," my father told her, running a hand through his hair. "Edward and I will take you to the hospital where I work tonight. We'll go when everything's quiet so that we won't be disturbed, and we'll give you an MRI there. I'll know more then. Why don't you get a little sleep for now, Bella? I'm going to go line up the test and make some other arrangements. Please excuse me."

With that, Carlisle headed out of the room to both call the hospital and talk to Esme. I hoped that he would help diffuse the situation outside before Alice broke free of Jasper or Rosalie exploded into the room, intent on ending my existence. Not that I blamed her very much at the moment—we both knew that this was my fault and no one else's. Why had I ever left her?

If Bella's sight really was gone, if anything happened to her, I would welcome Rosalie's assistance. But that wasn't the point at the moment.

When the room was quiet, I lay down again and cradled Bella close to my chest. Her body was still frozen in a posture of stress and fear, both emotions that were utterly absent from her face. It was unnerving. "Bella…" I whispered in her ear, trying to find some way to calm her down. "Bella, please relax. Everything will be fine, sweetheart, I promise. I won't let anything hurt you."

"Even me, Edward?" Bella's voice faltered as she revealed the depth of her panic. She closed her eyes tightly, escaping into a more familiar kind of darkness. "You won't even let me hurt myself?"

What in the world was she thinking now? "Of course not, Bella! You're safe. We're together again, and that's all that matters. I love you, Bella, remember?"

"Yes," she sighed, finally relaxing enough to bury her face in my shoulder. I could hear her breathing in my scent as deeply as she could. I hoped that it would comfort her, as her scent comforted me by reminding me of the reality of her life. Her blood, tempting though it had once been to me, meant that she was still alive. Still human. "I remember. You love me. As I love you, Edward."

"Get some sleep, love. The rest of the family wants to see you, and we're going to be up late tonight figuring out what's wrong. You need to rest before all of that excitement." I softly began to hum her lullaby, and I felt the rest of the tension ease out of her. I smiled, relieved to a degree—at least my lullaby helped her now, even if it hadn't helped her before.

"I've missed that so much." Even with my vampire hearing, I nearly missed Bella's murmured words. "Edward?"

"Hmmm? What is it, love?"

"Promise that you won't leave me? Promise you'll stay with me, even in the dark? I don't want to be away from you again."

"I will not leave you. Never, ever again," I swore fervently, hoping that she knew that I couldn't leave her again. "Will you do something for me?" She nodded slowly against my shoulder. "Picture me in your mind, Bella. Picture me as clearly as you can. Hold on tightly to that image. I will never leave you behind to face the night alone again. I simply can't. I love you too much."

At my words, she sighed and slipped back into the void of night. I prayed that she would soon be returned to wakefulness…in sleep, she was too much like the Bella that I'd once feared would never return to me from the recesses of her own lost mind.

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When Bella next awoke, she kept her eyes firmly closed even though I was dying to know if there'd been some sort of miraculous healing that had taken place while she slept. Maybe I had dreamed it all happening before, even though I couldn't sleep. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right without any further angst required.

Even though my body had been still during Bella's sleep, my mind had been quite busy, running through everything that needed to be done and praying with every amount of my being that this latest trouble could yet be rectified. "Good evening, Bella," I greeted her as I heard her heart speed up a little with wakefulness, maybe because she felt me beside her. There was also the most wondrous feeling of hope leaping hotly in my quiet heart when I saw her smile at the sound of my voice. "How do you feel?"

"Pretty well," she answered automatically. Reassuring me, once again. "My brain's not quite as fuzzy as it was before, which I guess is some improvement."

"Good!" I crowed, grateful for even that small development. Open your eyes, Bella, please open your eyes…please see me… I silently begged. "As soon as you're ready for it, Alice will come and—"

Before I could even finish my statement, Alice was standing by the bed, grinning like the Cheshire Cat in Alice and Wonderland. She was nearly vibrating from both eagerness to see Bella again and tension because she was having trouble seeing what would happen next. Bella's darkness of sight didn't appear to affect only her, after all. "Well, speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear. Here's Alice now," I informed Bella, smiling against my will at the welcome sight of my favorite sister.

At this news, Bella's eyelids fluttered open…and then closed again as disappointment flooded her visage. "Alice? Alice, are you there?" she asked, reaching a hand out into the empty air pitifully. "I didn't hear you come in."

Alice's hand instantly shot out and met Bella's in the air. "It's really me, Bella," my sister's high voice sang. "Oh, I've missed you so much!" Alice raised Bella's hand and placed it on her face so that Bella could feel her features.

To my surprise, Bella's hand didn't trace my sister's face as she had mine. Instead, her graceful, frail fingers slowly crept up and felt along the top of Alice's head. She delicately stroked the short lengths of Alice's hair, which ended in the traditional spikes, so utterly unique to Alice. "Oh!" Bella cried, joy transforming her still deathly thin face into a faint shadow of what it had once been. "It is you, Alice! I can feel your hair! Besides, nobody has a voice like yours, with bells in it." Weakly, Bella raised her arms, asking quite clearly for one thing.

Alice obliged, and warmly hugged her human best friend. "It's been too long," she murmured, her honey eyes soft and, despite the situation, happy. Sometimes I forgot how much Alice loved my Bella, too.

"I know. I'm so glad you're back, Alice. I've thought about you a lot," Bella admitted.

This was the first time Bella had given me a clue about her perceptions of the past few months, except for mentioning darkness. I kept quiet—I knew she wouldn't tell me anything if she could help it—she would act out of a desire to keep from hurting me. So I nudged Alice on with my eyes, hoping she would understand what I was asking of her.

She did, thank goodness. "What do you mean by that, silly girl?" Alice asked lightly, not betraying the high level of interest we both held in Bella's answer.

Bella clung even tighter to Alice, as if she were trying to keep Alice for running away from her. "Mostly I tried not to think…but every once in a while, the thinking snuck up on me and got me. I don't remember much, but I remember wondering if you could see me. Could you, Alice?"

Alice swallowed hard and studiously avoided looking at my face—I didn't like to think of how much of my emotion might have been showing. It was hard enough to experience on my own without adding Alice's perceptions to the mix. "Sometimes I could," she replied. "Edward, Jasper and I came to get you as soon as we knew you weren't all right. I'm so sorry, Bella. We would have been there sooner, but we just didn't know." Because I had told Alice not to look, of course. Holy hell. Could I have possibly been any larger an ignoramus?

"No, no. Don't be sorry. Thank you for coming when you did," Bella said, her face showing pleasure. "I'm sorry to be such a bother to you all again, though. You're all going to get sick of me—Bella, the silly little lovesick human, back to bug the big, bad vampires." She cut me off when I started to say something. "I know, I know, Edward. No, you won't get sick of me, because you all love me, right?" Bella's face turned over in Alice's direction, as if she could still see her. "Isn't that what he was going to say?"

"You're dead on," Alice said with a grin. "Well done. They'll be calling you the precognitive next. Now, then, how would you like a real bath and some fresh clothes?"

"Just so long as they're my ideas of clothes and not yours," Bella hedged cautiously. "I haven't been Rip Van Winkle long enough to forget that much about you."

Alice groaned in honest disappointment, consigning her dreams of silk and French lace begrudgingly. "Just when I could finally get away with it…that not seeing thing was going to be so convenient."

I tensed—how could she possibly joke about this?

But a chuckle from Bella stopped my protests cold. "Sorry to rain on your parade, Alice, but no dice. I'm not that unaware." She buried her nose into my side for a moment. "You won't go far?" she asked me then, seeking reassurance.

"Not one inch farther than absolutely necessary, love," I promised her. "I have to make sure that Alice doesn't break her promise to you, after all. She is a devious little squirt, you know."

"Good," Bella said, her hand going to my face to see if I was smiling. I altered my expression just in time. "I could use a protector."

My smile grew even wider, and became genuine to boot. "Then you have one. Whatever you need, I'll be."

Alice rolled her eyes at our exchange. "All right, enough with the cheese factor. My gosh, you two are like melted Velveeta. If you'll excuse us now, Edward," she said, pulling me up and pushing me toward the door, "we have quite an amount of girl time to catch up on. You, sir, are no longer welcome."

"You are so pushy," I complained, echoing something Bella had once told me.

"She learned from the best! You!" the object of my memory called after me.

I found myself laughing somewhat naturally at that, and then went to stand out in the hall. I could still hear their conversation perfectly, and it made me smile at intervals even while I picked up as many clues as to Bella's current emotional and physical state as possible. Alice teased and distracted Bella from her degenerated condition as she cleaned her up and put her in a brand new set of sweats. (Alice's thoughts were chagrined, but resigned.) From her responses, I could tell that while Bella was still a little confused and fuzzy from her long period of inactivity, she was quietly overjoyed at being restored to her life with us. She told Alice over and over again how good it was to "see" her, and how much she was looking forward to being reunited with the rest of my family.

My body tensed when I heard Bella's hand move, and then heard her say hesitantly, "Alice? What happened to my hair?"

The springs on the bed gave as Alice sat down beside Bella. "The doctors had to cut it, honey. Your long hair was just too hard to maintain when you were sick. I'm sorry, but I promise that it'll grow back. Rosalie and I have some Italian hair tonics that we've just been dying to give a try, and since it wouldn't work on vampires, you get to be our guinea pig. Do you mind?"

"Alice, this might be the one time when I wouldn't mind money being spent on me," Bella admitted, sounding still a little shaken but more soothed. "I'm not a snob, but my hair is worth it!"

"That it is!" Alice chuckled. "Don't worry, Bella. We'll have you back to normal as soon as possible."

"Normal? What's normal?" Bella asked. She had meant to sound scornful, but I heard an element of wistfulness in it. Shame flooded through me—I knew that I was the thing that was keeping her from normalcy.

"Stop that!" Jasper's thoughts ordered me sternly from the den. "That's not what she means, Edward. Let her explain! No wonder you two never seem to know what the other is talking about—you always assume! Listen to her, Edward. You've got to listen for her to explain her thoughts, rather than you just automatically assuming that you know everything about the human mind." Jasper was anxiously remembering his earlier one-sided conversation with Bella, and I remembered his words of caution, how he hoped that I would truly try to hear what Bella was saying for herself.

I sent Jasper feelings of apology and turned my attention back to the conversation at hand. "Normal is whatever normal is to you," Alice told Bella. I lifted an eyebrow for a moment—come to think of it, she was right. "So you decide what's normal for yourself. Don't let anybody else influence you, especially me. Who cares what I think is normal? Come to think of it, who would believe a psychic, highly fashionable, 1930s era vampire's definition of normal, anyway?"

It was Bella's turn to chuckle now. "Nobody. You're right, I'm sorry. That was just me feeling sorry for myself. I'm better now."

Alice's thoughts were conflicted as she tried to find the best way to answer Bella. "You're allowed to feel sorry for yourself, Bella. Just don't stop on that for so long that you forget to move on, all right?"

"I won't, Alice, I promise. No more hiding away from the truth for me! Even if…" She swallowed hard, but her voice was the stronger for it. "Even if this blindness thing can't be fixed, it'll be all right. I mean that, Alice. As long as I'm here with you, with my family, nothing else really matters all that much to me."

I'm sure Jasper wished he was in another state by now, just so he could escape the strength of my feelings. I could hear Bella all over again. "It doesn't matter to me what you are. It's too late." I still experienced the same sense of desperation to save her from these words, but I also felt a curious warmth around my dead heart. What wasn't this frail, human girl willing to face just for the sake of loving me? As I loved her, so did she love me. How amazing…

Esme's hand landed on my shoulder. "How is she?" my mother asked, her sympathy for me and her love for Bella prevalent in her eyes and thoughts.

"She seems to be much more coherent," I replied. "Her body is just still so frail, Esme…"

My mother smiled proudly. "What she lacks in physical strength, though, she makes up for in spirit. I truly believe that everything will be all right, Edward, no matter what the outcome is. Believe that with me, and stay."

I smiled half-heartedly at her. "I will, Mom, I promise. Even though it's painful, I'll stay. You taught me that, remember?"

Esme looked thoughtfully at the door that still separated her from Bella. "I suppose everything truly beautiful has an element of pain to it. Otherwise, how could we appreciate it? There is such a sense of victory in a beauty that still continues to be beautiful despite the trials and darkness that life sends its way."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," I admitted. "And since I can't imagine anything more beautiful than what is in there right now," I pointed at the door, "I suppose any amount of pain is worth the price. I still wish it could be my pain, not hers, though."

"It is your pain, Edward. That's what a relationship is, son!" Esme chided, shaking her head in exasperation. "Don't you think I hurt for Carlisle when he is in pain over losing a patient? Don't you ache for me when I remember the little life I held in my hands and then lost? Not even you can keep pain from Bella, Edward, and you shouldn't want to. If it were all your pain, she would still feel it with you." She squeezed my shoulder for a moment. "Instead of placing the burden of grief all on one pair of shoulders, you should focus instead on how to help each other bear it. Find the beauty inside the pain, remember?"

I choked for a second. "I don't want to place my pain on Bella, Esme! That's not fair! And it's not right, not after what she's been through. I can't ask that of her."

Esme frowned disapprovingly at me. "Then that just goes to show that you still don't trust her to be your equal in all the ways that she can be, Edward. I should think that she would have earned that much from you by now."

Carlisle came down the hall just then, looking quizzically at Esme and me. Neither of us volunteered any information, though I imagined that they would be having a parental consultation about me later. Joy—I could hardly wait to hear those thoughts.

"I've made all the arrangements," Carlisle told me. "Everything is in readiness. If you don't mind, I'd like to take Alice with us. She can be helpful for watching out for trouble as well as helping to keep Bella occupied and calm while you and I are operating the machinery. Would that be all right with you?"

"Of course," I said automatically. "Besides, Alice would never forgive us if we left her behind. Knowing her, she'll try and drag Bella into the hospital gift shop to go shopping." I grinned, waiting for Alice's reaction to that.

She didn't disappoint. Her voice floated through the thin walls; we had no doubt both been guilty of eavesdropping today. "Edward Cullen! You know very well I would never take her shopping in a gift shop," she said, making it sound like the gift shop was on the same level as gasp! Wal-mart! Horror of horrors! "I was thinking more along the lines of making a stop at the outlet mall. They don't have much, of course, but they at least have an Ann Taylor and a Banana Republic…."

"No way, Jose!" I heard Bella say, her voice horrorstruck and humorous at the same time. "We are not making me into Hospital Barbie, Alice!"

"It would never work anyway," Alice shot back. "You don't have the hair for it. We'd have to grab Rosalie for that part."

"I heard that, Alice, and comparing me to a plastic twit is not the way to butter me up!" Rosalie hissed from a bedroom upstairs.

Carlisle, Esme and I exchanged looks, and grinned at the same time. This could take a while, but since it was highly amusing, that was fine with us.

"Not to mention the fact that Rosalie is the closest to having Barbie's anatomical make-up," Alice continued to muse, unperturbed by Rosalie's interruption. "Did you know that it would be physically impossible for Barbie to walk, were she real? Her, ahem, feminine assets and insanely small waist would make her fall over."

"Not to mention the fact that you'd have to walk around on your tiptoes all your life," Bella added fairly. I could just picture the impish twinkle in her chocolate eyes. "You'd be a perpetual twinkle toes."

Alice shuddered. "Perish the thought. You could never wear ballet flats!"

Carlisle rolled his eyes, deciding enough was enough. "And on that note…" He knocked on the door again, and the three of us entered the room, Esme fervently hoping that neither of us would try to stop her from following us in. I don't think either Carlisle or I could have ignored that insanely longing look in her butterscotch eyes, though, even if we'd wanted to. Those eyes of Esme's could melt titanium—not even us stern, vampire men could stand up against it for very long.

I went immediately to Bella's side, and she smiled gently. "I heard you," she exulted, her head turning in my direction.

"And this is cause for rejoicing?" I questioned as I sat beside her and put my face against her cheek.

She held my hand there with her own and replied, "Yes. I usually couldn't hear you guys when you were around. You were like ghosts. I had the knock to warn me this time, but I think," she cocked her head to the side a little as she considered carefully, "two or three people came in with you? I heard at least two other sets of feet."

"Well done!" I congratulated, ignoring the chagrin that she was developing these senses for this particular situation. "Who do you think was behind me?"

"Hmm….my guesses are Carlisle and…and Esme?" she said doubtfully.

Esme couldn't stand it anymore and zipped over to the other side of Bella's side. "You were right, dear. It's Esme."

Bella's face transformed again. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. We could all see her joy as she held her arms out, wanting to feel Esme's motherly embrace. Esme obliged, and her thoughts were tender and at peace. "It feels so good to have my daughter like this again," she thought, her mind weeping in the strength of her emotion. "But my goodness, she's frail…just like the baby so long ago…" She kissed the top of Bella's head as she held her, and a single tear trickled down Bella's wasted cheek.

Loathe though he was to interrupt the moment, Carlisle said, "Bella, it's time to go. Alice, Edward and I are going to take you now to the hospital for the testing. Do you feel up for it?"

"Of course," Bella said, drawing reluctantly away from Esme. "Whatever you need me to do, I'll do."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This was about her needs, not ours.

"The let's go get this stupid hospital stuff out of the way. You've some more happy reunions in your future," Alice chirped, "not to mention good times, and being on General Hospital is not one of them!"

"Let's hope not," Bella laughed. "I only have room for one hot doctor in my life," she said, pointing her chin in Carlisle's direction. We were all still laughing at that (especially Emmett) as I picked her up and headed for the garage.

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A/N: Go on. Push the button. You know you want to. Your need is undeniable! MUAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, and btw – if you liked Twilight (which I assumed you did, since you're reading this now) checked out Claudia Gray's "Evernight" series. I think they're even better. No fooling. And since I've given you that marvelous tip, I now expect you to review!