"Bella!" Rosalie came running into the room with Emmett not far behind her. I was watching as Bella clutched Mason to her chest unconsciously. She was probably scared they'd try to take him from her arms. All the nurses had been trying to do so since he'd been here. Why, I couldn't understand. I had given instructions to leave her and Mason be, but the nurses, especially that Lauren who'd tried to seduce me during the first few days of Bella's stay here.
"Hey Bells." Bella's eyes grew wider as she took in the frame of my best friend standing behind his wife. He could defiantly be a scary guy if you didn't know him.
"Um, hi," she watched them cautiously. I couldn't blame her. Rosalie was what you expected to see in a Victoria's Secret Catalog and Emmett was bigger than a body builder. Separately they were intimidating, together, they could almost be too much.
"Bella," I pulled her attention to me, knowing she'd be a little shocked, "This is your friend Rosalie and her husband Emmett."
Emmet looked at me, "Man, now that hurts." He looked back at Bella. "I'm not just Rose's husband. I've been your big brother for the last eight years."
Bella scrunched her eyebrows, "Are you my husband's brother?"
His laughter boomed through the room, "I guess you could say that. We've been like brothers since we were residents together in this hospital."
Rose sat down on the bed with Bella and rubbed her arm, "Ignore Emmett, he's full of himself."
Bella tried to concentrate on Rosalie, I'm sure trying to figure out how someone like her could possibly fit into her life. "Will you tell me something?" Rose nodded. "Tell me how we met or something we do or have done together."
Rosalie glanced at me before speaking. "We met right here in the hospital, though I'd actually seen you here several years before, and I'm sad to admit that I didn't like you at first." She looked deeply into Bella's eyes, trying to gauge her reaction. "It was ten years ago, before either of our husbands were even out of medical school. Before I'd even met Emmett." She reached back and clasped Emmett's hand. This was a hard story for her to tell, and that fact that she was willing to open old wounds just showed how much she really loved Bella.
"At the time, I was engaged to Royce King." She winced slightly at his name, but moved on. "I was here for a routine check up and I was sitting in the waiting room. That's when I saw you."
She laughed without humor. "It took me years to figure out why I didn't like you immediately. I was so jealous of you. You were rolled into the waiting room. There was bandaging over half of your visible skin. Even though you were in obvious pain, you were so happy. Dr. Cullen rolled you out to his son who leaned down to kiss you. You were both laughing like fools." A short laugh escaped her lips, but it sounded as if it might have been a sob. "Apparently, you were actually in the hospital visiting your now father-in-law and tripped in the waiting room and managed to bruise and cut most of your skin."
She looked down and Bella reached for her, "It was Royce wasn't it?" Bella looked deeply into her eyes. "He hurt you."
Rose nodded, tears in her eyes. "I was jealous of how happy you were, I thought I had the perfect life. I didn't think happiness was an option. I didn't know there were men who love the women they were with. I'd never seen what you had, and it hurt. I had thought that Royce was everything that I wanted. He was rich and handsome, and we would have made the most beautiful babies together. And that was really all I'd ever wanted."
"Did we talk?" Bella stroked Rosalie's arms comfortingly.
Rose shook her head, "I didn't talk to you until two years later. I actually met Emmett through you."
Emmett stepped in here, giving his wife a moment to gain her composure again. Rosalie hated to appear weak, even in front of us, and she knew that she'd been weak in letting Royce treat her the way that he had. "You were comin' to see my buddy, but you didn't make it far before Eric and Tyler got a hold of you."
"Whoa, wait," Bella threw her hands up, and I could see the confusion clearly written on her face, "who are Tyler and Eric?"
I spoke up out of irritation, "They're two male nurses who prey on the girlfriends and sometimes even the wives of residents and, in your case, doctors. Having a relationship with a resident is hard, nearly impossible. They give the girls a shoulder to cry on when they can no longer handle the pressure."
Emmett nodded, feeling the same anger toward them that I felt, "I'm surprised they haven't tried to get in here. Even after your childrens' births, they tried to get you to jump ship on my buddy."
Emmett and I exchanged a glance. They wouldn't dare try to get to her with me around. Especially after the good talk that I had with them after Mason's birth. Not that I did much talking. It was more like them cowering in the corner as I yelled at them, Emmett's massive frame looming behind me.
Bella looked between Rose and Emmett with a confused look, "But how did that lead to you two meeting?"
Rose's expression was much more confident, more like the Rosalie that we had all come to know and love. "After Royce and I separated, I worked on my self confidence. I realized that I couldn't be someone who others could take advantage anymore. And I couldn't hope that my looks would be enough to get me through life. So when I saw those two bugging you, I interfered."
"Which of course is usually my job," Emmett interrupted.
Bella started laughing and we all turned to look at her.
"What?" Rosalie asked with a smile on her face as well as a few giggles slipping through her lips. Bella's happiness was contagious.
"Their faces. Once they caught sight of you, their faces went completely blank. They didn't even know what to say." She turned to Emmett, "That's when you walked by. You stopped to take care of them for me, but they were so stunned by Rose that they didn't pay attention to you."
I smiled at Rose, and she smiled back as Bella looked down at Mason, now sleeping in her arms. Bella looked back up at Rose, "What else?"
I watched Rose's face as she thought through what else to say, "What do you want to know?"
Bella blushed, I wondered, as I often wondered, what she was thinking. "Tell me something about my husband."
Rose threw me a smug look. I stared back hard at her, trying to convey my wish that she not give away my identity. "Your husband's being an idiot right now. If he was smart, he'd tell you about all of this himself."
"Rose," I watched Bella use the power of her eyes, "Please"
Rosalie stuttered out a laughed, "You are dangerous, woman." She took a deep breath. "I've never seen two people act the way you two do around each other. If you're in the same room, you drift toward each other. It's like gravity, if one of you moves the other one does too. You don't even have to know that the other is in the room."
Bella rocked Mason gently, because he had woken and was starting to cry. "My mother says the same thing. It worried her at first, but she was so distracted by how attractive he was that it didn't bother her for long."
She looked over at me and my heart leaped. "Do you have Mason's bottle? I think he's hungry."
I turned to the counter to hide my disappointment. I needed for her to remember, because the way that my hopes kept getting squashed were going to kill me. I picked up Mason's bottle and ran it under hot water before giving it to her, "Thank you." Our fingers skimmed against each other, and the all too familiar hum of electricity shot through my body. Her eyes shot to mine for a moment, but then she looked down at Mason immediately, ignoring what I knew she could fell.
She fed Mason while she and Rose talked, not looking at me once. Emmett walked over to me and patted me on the shoulder. "Man, can't you see the way she's looking at you?"
I glanced at Emmett before returning my gaze back to Bella. "She's barely looked at me the entire time you've been here."
"That's because she's scared to. It's in her eyes bro. She's afraid that if she looks at you, we'll be able to tell that she has the hots for you. She knows we're close to her husband. She doesn't want us to see the guilty thoughts she thinks she's having."
I looked at Emmett trying not to laugh, "And how can you tell that?"
Emmett cocked an eyebrow seeing my disbelief, "She's never been hard to read. It's written all over her face. You need to tell her before it kills her."
I sighed and closed my eyes, "She's so close, Emmett. She's remembering so much." I pinched the bridge of my nose, "It may be wrong, but I need her to remember on her own."
Emmett let the subject drop, which I was thankful for. There was a part of me, a part that was growing stronger every day, that just wanted to tell her. I hated not knowing how much longer it would be before I could finally hold her in my arms, before I could kiss her. It wasn't like the last time I lost her, when we moved her in high school, because she was still here. But I could feel the old familiar clawing in my stomach and the pain in my chest at the realization that she wasn't here, not really.
The rest of the day, Emmett and Rose sat with Bella talking about Alexis and Jane. Rose was supposed to be infertile, because of an accident involving Royce, so the birth of the twins was the happiest moment of her life. Rosalie had never told me what it was that had happened, but Emmett told me that it was terrible enough that he was surprised that she was able to recover from it, both physically and emotionally.
Rose talked about her girls whenever she could, to whoever would listen and sometimes those who didn't want to. She was the proudest mother on the PTA, a soccer mom to the extreme. And we were all so happy for her, because being mother was all that she'd ever wanted.
Eventually, Emmett and Rosalie had to go. Alexis and Jane were staying with some friends tonight, so they'd been able to stay later than they would have been on any other night, and of course Emmett and I were able to get the visitor hours waved. When they did leave, it was so late, that Bella fell asleep almost immediately after.
I held Mason in my arms and watched my Bella sleep. I wasn't really sleeping anymore. I couldn't. Without Bella in my arms, I couldn't quite get comfortable. And if I did find sleep, I was cold and lonely even in my dreams.
"Edward?" Her voice rang clearly through the quiet room.
"Hmm?" I knew she was sleeping, but I responded anyway. I would always be there when she called me.
She sighed happily in her sleep, settling back on the pillow as if she'd been uncomfortable before knowing that I was there. "I love you."
I smiled. "I love you too, my beautiful Bella," and as long as Bella's love was with me, I'd be able to get through this, get through anything.