Chapter Twelve: If Only...
I shoved open the glass door of the first building we came to on the site, there seemed nothing impressive about these buildings, just tall lumps of concrete, but what did you expect from a hospital. A place of disease and a place of death. The woman at the front desk started as I sprinted in, clutching my daughter's body close to my chest, Bella and Carlisle close behind and Jacob bringing up the rear, but I thoroughly doubted that he would have the courage to follow us inside those doors.
"She was attacked, by an animal, she's hardly breathing, and you have to help her!" I shouted at the woman who pushed off from her black, wheeled chair, a confused expression covering her face.
She was Italian; of course she was Italian, we were in Italy for god's sakes. When I was hassled my mind didn't seem to work as usual, it just shut down, mashing everything into a mess of thoughts when I needed a clear mind the most. She jogged over to a burly looking man in a long white coat who reminded me of Emmett, dragging him by the arm to where we stood.
"Bring her here!" This man was clearly Italian from the accent that filled his voice. He glanced once at the blood that was soaking my shirt from the gashes. Renesmee's chest was heaving up and down unevenly but only supported by the constant pumping of my hands applying pressure, without that her breathing would collapse again. She was dead, yet she was being forced to stay alive.
A trolley rammed into my thighs as he shoved it desperately towards us. I laid her down, retracting my hands from her chest. Another doctor strode over, his eyes widening as he saw her injuries.
"You do know her?" The Italian doctor queried, running over to another group of waiting staff.
"She's our daughter." I clutched Bella's hand, pulling her gently to my side. "You have to help her please..."
The group of hustled staff gathered around the trolley, blocking her from our view and then started to run, pushing the trolley away in front them so our baby disappeared through a pair of plastic double doors with them.
"She'll be okay." I whispered into Bella's ear, her response wasn't so positive; she just stared after her blankly. "She'll be okay."
I felt so empty when I lost sight of her, just like somebody had sucked all the life and hope out of my body and mind leaving nothing but deadness behind. All I could do was walk forward along the bland corridor, leaving the pairs of doors we passed through swinging loosely behind us.
All my fears for that fight had been for losing Bella, she was the one who was determined to get herself killed but nothing had prepared me for losing our daughter.
"Do you mind if I come in?" Carlisle murmured, I realised that we'd reached the room where they'd taken her. "I'm trained."
Of course - her beautiful, ivory tinted skin wasn't penetrable by human force; Carlisle would have to take over this surgery. The doctor nodded quickly and slipped inside the door, bundling a green item into Carlisle's chest as he entered too. I backed up against the wall, still clutched Bella's hand who was echoing my exact movements like I had some sort of gravitational pull on her. Another scream like that of the ones she'd released earlier only much worse seeped through the door, draining the last of my strength. My legs gave way underneath my body causing me to crumple onto the floor.
"Edward." Bella breathed, sinking down to slump next to me. She lent her head on my shoulder lightly, though the burden of all her thoughts caused her to press it harder and harder into my bone.
"She'll be alright." I whispered, all I could manage now.
"Edward, why did Jacob do it?" Bella sank down to slouch next to me on the grey linoleum, her face completely torn. "Did she dump him or something?"
"If only..." If only she had.
Two hours had trudged past in total silence; neither I nor Bella had moved an inch from the positions we'd fallen into when Carlisle passed through that door, that one piece of pathetic plastic preventing us from seeing her, our only daughter. The only way I even knew her heart was still beating was that I could hear it, even over all the shouts from the doctors that surrounded her, over all the constant beeps and alerts from the machinery that was fighting to keep her alive. I was so attuned to her heartbeat now, I could pick it out anywhere from the sheer speed it beat at. The noise was staggered, like her heart was stumbling its way through unconsciousness, trying to find a way to pull her out of the dark and back to the blinding lights of the hospital theatre she lay in. Only the presence of Bella besides me on the floor, and her arm that was wound securely around my neck kept me awake in reality, constantly reminding me that this was actually happening. I'd taken to drowning out the voices of the frantic doctors as I had in Volterra, only straining to pick out Renesmee's thoughts when they came, though most of her thoughts were clouded, empty, just darkness. On the rare occasion that I was able to pick our words, which was only when she physically spoke them, they were screams of agony again, piercing my heart time and time again as well as the previously silent air.
The double doors flew open and smacked into the wall behind with a sharp bang. A group of people in dark green overalls, the doctors from before emerged first, followed swiftly by a smaller group of four nurses walking either side of the silver trolley, two had their hands clinging to the side rails, pushing it along the corridor and around the corner. Carlisle stepped out after them, his eyes wide.
"Is she alright?"Bella exclaimed, wrenching me up to standing. Carlisle didn't answer immediately; he just stared after the group of nurses silently. "Carlisle, what's wrong?!"
He took a deep breath and started down the corridor, beckoning subtly with his left hand for us to follow. I picked one word out of his thoughts, the only one that mattered to me right now.
Coma.
Bella tugged me behind her, still completely unaware on her daughter's condition. It was possible to pull out of these things, I'd never studied medical science myself but I knew that. She would get through it; she had to get through it. Carlisle stopped in front of a framed plastic window, turning around to face me slowly. He met my gaze, which must have also been begging at the question that was rampaging around my brain - 'would she wake up from this?' and his response was a reluctant shake of his head.
"How long until the anaesthetic wears off?" Bella whimpered, her face pressed right up against the plastic and her eyes locked on something on the other side.
I couldn't even bring myself to look through, too afraid of what I would see on the other side, how utterly pathetic. I pulled Bella back from the window, spinning her around to face me, so that she could see my face to know I wasn't lying, though lying about this would be sick.
"Bella, she's not asleep because of the anaesthetic." I mumbled, gripping her hands tighter.
"I, I don't understand." She mumbled as her eyebrows burrowed together in her confusion.
I took a deep, long breath. "She's in a coma, Bella."
It took a second for that to sink in but it was obvious when it had. Her expression was so twisted I could of stabbed her a million times with a bread knife from every single angle possible and then set her to burn on a furious fire. I dropped her hands and held out my arms to embrace her but she didn't take it, instead she shoved through the door into the bright hospital room ahead.
"Edward, can I speak to you please." Carlisle said, his voice sounding half dead from the failure of his surgery.
"One minute."
I stepped around him, sliding through the door that was still half way through its swing to shut after Bella. She was stood not far in front of the door, completely motionless. I brought my gaze up from the floor to stare past her. Renesmee was laid on a railed hospital bed, completely swamped with tubes. It was hard to see her features under the layers of wires and masks that were plastered to her sheet white face; a set of needles was wedged into her arm that lay limply by her side, obviously assisted by Carlisle as no human doctor would have been able to force them into her skin. A chain of pipes hung around the bed like vines in a jungle and a tall tower of machines by the side of her bed were bleeping constantly, showing the slow pace of her heartbeat as a jagged line across the screen.
"Why?" Bella whispered, shuffling forward an inch at a time.
The nurse that was tending to the wires and machines answered her, though not the question I think Bella had been asking and again, it was in a strong Italian accent.
"She had too long without oxygen, and she's lost to much blood. We tried our hardest, I promise you." She walked forward, pressing her hand to Bella's shuddering shoulder, a sincere expression on her face. "I'll give you a couple of minutes, and then we need to talk to you if that's okay."
The door shut behind her and we were alone, just me, Bella and our daughter, who was theoretically dead. Bella stepped forward, falling to her knees beside the bed; she reached out with one hand to press one finger to Renesmee's face. That was all that was possible through the labyrinth of medical equipment there.
"Everything's going to be alright." She whispered, her head swinging down to rest on the edge of the thin mattress as she spoke. Renesmee's body was still covered in dried blood. "I won't let anything or anyone hurt you ever again. You're going to wake up and we'll carry on and it'll be fine..."
I didn't have a clue what to do. If Bella died, I would be so completely empty of happiness that I could not continue to live but also so full of anger to avenge the one that killed her that I would do anything to see them dead. Now, I just felt drained, drained of all feeling what so ever, no anger or hope. I just felt nothing. It was silent for a single minute, apart from the constant buzzing from the stack of monitors. I remained where I stood while constantly worrying that my legs would give under the weight of my thoughts at any moment.
"Why?" Bella sat up, staring blankly at the maze of wires. "Why this Edward?"
"Aymie."
"What?! What does Aymie have to do with this?"
"Bella, Aymie was with them."
"No."
"Yes." I walked over to the bed. "She was constantly betraying our location, our plans, our numbers and she was the one who made certain that the humans were on that footpath."
"How did you ... not know?"
I shook my head, I had no idea how I had not heard what was going on in her mind. Another power perhaps. "I don't know."
"I'll kill her."
Another instant addition to Bella's now extremely extensive hit list.
The double doors swung open as I dragged two blue chairs to the side of the bed. I slumped into one but Bella didn't take hers, she remained on the floor.
"How are you doing?" A voice asked, this voice had no Italian accent, instead she pronounced the words in the tone of an Englishwoman.
Neither of us answered so the pale skinned woman continued into the room to stand beside the machines on the opposite side of the bed to us.
"I know how hard this is for you to accept." She leant over to brush Renesmee's bronze hair away from her face. "She was so strong in there, she didn't want to let go."
"She hasn't." Bella murmured, pressing her face into the mattress again. "She's still fighting."
The nurse looked down at Bella and then swiftly up to me, her eyes full of sympathy. "Can I talk to you, Mr Cullen?"
I knew what she was going to say, and every time I heard it my heart fell even further into this invisible abyss. How much blood she'd lost. How the doctors had done all that was possible to keep her in consciousness. But normal humans listen unconditionally to what the doctor had to say and normal humans cannot read minds, so I had to suffer this again. She led me a little way down the same corridor and then into a small room to the right, next door to where Renesmee lay, still.
The room was dim and bland. Lit only by a glowing screen covered in x-ray prints and one old fashioned reading lamp set on the huge mahogany desk. The nurse sat down in a large leather chair on the other side of the desk, urging me to take a seat on the white stool ahead.
"I'm Doctor Jones." She announced in a clear voice as I sunk down onto the stool.
"Hello." My voice was empty of any expression whatsoever.
She pressed her fountain pen into the paper so hard that the ink flowed out into a messy black blotch.
"Her injuries were so bad; it made it nearly impossible for us to focus on stopping the bleeding." She whispered under her breath, almost so quiet that I would actually have to make an effort of listening to be able to hear her. "She's had one broken leg, a broken arm, a fractured skull, a broken collarbone and quite a few of her ribs are shattered."
I groaned. How much pain had she been in? It was undoubtedly excruciating for her. Why had she fought so hard to stay alive, when it was hurting her so much? Why had she smiled, when she knew that she was going to die, when she knew that she was leaving this world? There were so many things I didn't understand about that child, things that I wondered if I would ever find out about.
"The gashes..." I hadn't even thought before I spoke, the words just fell out of my mouth unwillingly. I knew what was coming next would rip me apart even more.
She looked down at her papers while she spoke.
"Her heart was torn in whatever this animal did to her and she lost an unbelievable amount of blood from the wounds. It's only beating now because she's on a life support machine, if we turn it off, it would be over." Her voice wavered as she spoke, full of sadness. "I'm sorry that this is coming to you so bluntly but there isn't another way of telling you - that she isn't going to wake up."
I pushed off from the chair and it toppled over, clattering to the floor nosily. Jacob Black was going to die, and I was going to be the one to kill him. To think I had trusted him! With Bella's life, with Renesmee's life, there was so many times where they had both been alone with him. He could have so easily killed Bella when she was human, and she would have been completely helpless under his supernatural strength. Totally and utterly helpless and it would have been my fault because I had not prevented her from having the dog in her presence - like I was welcomingly handing her into the gnarled, bony arms of death. I stormed down the corridor in the direction of the hospital's reception where he would be, passing the window of the room where Bella sat quickly. However, she wasn't sat where she should have been, there had been no figure crouching next to the bed. I pushed open the door that was further along lightly, glancing around the room.
"Bella?"
I stepped into the ward so I could see over to the other side of the rails of the bed. She was curled up against the pale blue wall; both of her hands were wrapped tightly around the back of her head. Every one or two seconds she let out a little squeak and then rocked herself forwards and backwards in comfort before smacking her forehead against the skirting board with all the force she had left inside her.
"Oh god, Bella."
"She's gone." She screeched, wriggling further into the corner and slamming her perfect face against the plaster again with more force than her last attempt.
"Stop Bella, please stop." I slid my hands under her body, scooping her up and pressing her close to my chest. She buried her face into my shirt, pinching the cotton between two of her teeth and then retracting them swiftly as the taste of Renesmee's blood reached her lips from the material where it had dried on earlier. "Please don't hurt yourself over this, please Bella."
"She's dead."
I didn't say anything else; afraid of increasing her despair, instead I just lowered myself into one of the blue chairs again. I pressed Bella's face firmly again my skin so she wouldn't be able to see the body in front of us, that would only make her pain worse. Whenever she turned her face even slightly to the side I secured my lips on hers so that her eyes couldn't meet the sight ahead, she seemed satisfied with my distraction, for the moment. The clock seemed to tick so slowly, it was like the time was dragging itself through the air just like it was trying to swim through treacle.
Someone knocked lightly on the door, rousing us both from our thoughts.
Alice.
She slid through the doorway and then stopped at the end of the bed. Her face was not empty like mine and Bella's were when we came in for the first time, it was absolutely horrified.
"Oh my god." She tripped her way over to where we sat, weaving her hand through the wires to reach her niece's face. "What happened to her?"
"She got involved in the fight." I stared blankly at the wall opposite. It was my fault that she'd even been able to get into the midst of the danger. It was my fault that she was dead, because I had not protected her and prevented her strongly enough from getting into this. I should have run and knocked Jacob away from her before he could do any serious damage with his oversized jaws. But I hadn't, I hadn't even been able to move. I had hardly even been able to speak. Everything horrible and painful that had ever happened to Bella and to Renesmee had always been my fault if you followed the winding tracks far back enough. No matter if I wasn't actually the one to administer the pain or the torture to them both. It was always my entire fault. I made myself feel physically sick.
"She's going to be okay, right?"
So Carlisle hadn't told her yet, another beautiful heart for me to break in two with the truth.
"Alice..." I murmured, rocking Bella from side to side in my arms.
She ignored me. "Who did this?"
"Jacob Black." Bella snarled, making an effort to move for the first time since I had picked her up from the floor. "But trust me; he won't be living any longer than she will."
"Has she woken up since it happened? She must be in so much pain." Alice continued, running her hand down one of Renesmee's arms, not even flinching away when her fingertips reached the skin where the broken bones protested against it. She hadn't picked up Bella's subtle hint about the length of life Renesmee had left. I'd have to put it to her straight.
"Alice, she isn't going to wake up." I squeezed Bella's shoulder firmly. "Renesmee is dead. Her heart isn't beating by itself anymore, she's gone."
I could have physically shattered my sister's heart into a million pieces from the expression she put on her glittering face.
"No!"
Alice sped up her stroking, like she was trying to wake Renesmee from the never ending sleep of death. An impossible task, though I rarely limited any task as impossible. This was. Bella slid out from my arms, staggering to the side as she pulled herself out of the misty haze in her mind When she regained full consciousness, she stalked out of the room, lifting her shoulders up and down like she was warming up for something.
Warming up for a fight with Jacob. She could be so impatient when she had her mind set on something. I wouldn't let him kill her too, no way. There was a sharp scraping noise from the feet of the chair against the floor as I stood up from the chair.
"Alice, will you stay with her, please." I whimpered. "I don't want to leave her by herself again."
She looked up at me with her huge eyes and gave me a small nod. It sounded pathetic that I couldn't leave her alone, but I was so afraid of anything else happening to her that it was too hard to leave her with no protection. Even if it was a lightning bolt from the storm that came down and hit her, it would be my fault if she was left unprotected again and I could not bear to have her in even more pain than she already was.
It took me less than ten seconds to get back to the hospital reception where Bella was stood a couple of feet in front of Jacob. His eyes were so tortured that it almost made me feel sorry for him; the total opposite of what I should be feeling, it seemed Bella wasn't feeling so sympathetic today.
"Get outside Jacob," She growled. "Now!"
He looked at her desperately, pleading for her to forgive him and help him get through the pain that she was suffering also. Whatever reaction he wanted from her, it didn't come. So he started to shuffle slowly towards the doors and outside into the freezing cold and blazing rain of the night. Bella remained where she was, scowling after him furiously.
"Bella, I really don't think you want to kill him." I warned quietly, avoiding any more attention from the bustling staff around us. "He's your best friend."
She spun around but didn't meet my gaze. "He was my best friend, I don't see how he tricked me into making that relationship last so long. To think I trusted him all those times, you were right to dislike him so much. But right now you can't see inside my head, Edward. You don't understand how much I truly and thoroughly hate him right now!"
"I know exactly how much you hate him Bella. But he was the person our daughter cared about the most, she loved him and you're prepared to kill him right now, while her heart still beats?"
"I don't see why I should wait right up to the moment she dies. Her life is just powered by a machine now. She isn't going to live."
That fact still hurt me like I was being hit in the face by a thundering train coming at me at 200 miles an hour.
She spoke again while she hugged me tightly. "I am sorry, Edward. I'm being so selfish."
"Don't..." I was going to say don't you dare call yourself selfish but she took it more as a warning to not venture outside after Jacob.
"I won't get myself hurt. I'll be back in two minutes, stay inside here, please."
She kissed me gently and then turned to storm out of the doors. I followed her but stopped at the glass panes and pressed my back against the adjoining wall. Bella had told me that I had to stay inside, not that I couldn't listen to what they were saying. I couldn't see my wife in through darkness but I could very easily guess what expressions were swamping her face from the rough tones of her voice.
Her voice was frighteningly ferocious, so different from what she used when talking to me. "I don't know how you even have the sheer cheek to still be here Jake."
"Bella, she is my life. Like Edward is yours. So don't you dare pretend that you don't understand how much this is killing me because it's almost certainly more than it's killing you!"
Bella snorted. "Don't even think about making me angrier Jacob, because you really do not want my temper to slip."
"Likewise." Jacob snarled. Then there was a short pause leaving only their short, sharp pants for me to listen to intently. "Let me see her."
"Over my dead body."
"You're already dead Bella. Your heart doesn't beat." Jacob snarled, though I could detect reluctance in his voice that he had to use this excuse again. "I really, really, really don't want to kill you. You're my best friend."
Bella sighed. "I would have said the same until tonight, but you don't understand that it's not only you who loves her. You have torn an entire chunk out of my life with those teeth, and you're going to pay for it. Did you know that I and Edward might not be the only ones whose heart won't beat soon?"
"What?" Jacob growled. "I need to see her."
"Never."
There was a sound of someone smacking their hand against another's skin and by the thoughts of Jacob in pain, Bella had just walloped his arm as he had made a slight approach towards the building.
There was no possibility that I was going to let him fight her. All the anger from before they had gone outside had flooded back into my body when he'd mentioned killing her, replacing any sympathy at all for Jacob. I shoved through the door into the blackness. Jacob had both of his hands balled into fists and placed on her shoulders.
"Jacob, get away from my wife, now." I hissed, walking right up to where they stood. "I'm in a very good frame of mind to kill you right this minute and for once, I don't think Bella would stop me from doing so."
He pulled his hands away and stepped back. His face dropped down from anger to tearing sadness again.
"Let me see Renesmee, I'd fall on my knees and physically beg and grovel at you but I really don't think it would help my case."
"No!" Bella shrieked, her hands flying up into the air. "You are going nowhere near my daughter ever again Jacob Black! You're not going within one thousand miles radius of her, I swear! "
An idea fluttered into my mind.
"Bella, maybe we should let him go through to her."
"What!"
She looked up at me in confusion so I continued.
"Jacob needs to see exactly what he's done to her Bella; I think it would be better if he saw it firsthand rather than through our descriptions. Maybe it would even teach him a lesson for once."
I felt so bad, somewhere inside, that I was so eagerly willing to make Jacob Black suffer. I had to constantly picture how I had found Renesmee on that forest floor after Jacob had flung her from his mouth to remind myself of why I was doing this. To remind myself of how much I wanted to kill that dog now.
"Fine, then he's out." Bella whispered, giving in to the despair so that her body became as limp as her daughters. "Then I'm killing him."
I caught her in my arms before she had a chance of even thinking of falling to the ground. She buried her face in the material of my shirt again so that her forehead rested against my neck. I started to walk towards the hospital building again; trying to keep my pace as even as possible though the longing to burst out into a sprint was as strong as ever. I knew I was being overprotective; nothing could have happened that was worse than her injuries already in the past couple of minutes alone, especially with Alice and Carlisle there watching her. Unless that lightning bolt had dared to strike the building behind my back. The corridors were totally empty. It had to be way past midnight now, the sky outside was an empty blanket of blackness, only one or two flickering balls of light were dotted on the horizon. There would be no chance of whispering a wish to a shooting star tonight.
Jacob was following so closely behind that I could feel his burning breath on the back of my neck, it felt like he was stalking us. But I understood the desperation he felt to see what was behind the white washed walls for if it was Bella laying there in Nessie's position, nothing would be able to stop me from reaching her. I pushed open the door with one hand and let Jacob pass through first.
Alice sprung over the bed, swinging into a crouch so her body was placed in between us and Renesmee, or more Jacob and Renesmee in this case. Her lips opened to let out a roaring snarl.
Carlisle cupped his hand around my sister's shoulder. "Alice..."
"I don't see why he's even allowed in the same building as her." She growled, her eyes never leaving Jacob as she tensed her body even further in preparation for an attack that would never come.
Jacob gritted his teeth. "I need to see her."
"You killed my four year old niece Jacob Black. She hardly even got a proper chance to live in this world!" Alice squealed in disbelief, shifting her weight to the left so it was possible to see the mass of wires and tubes behind her. "She's going to die because of your stupidity. So why should I let you anywhere near her? "
There was a moment of silence until the dog spoke again in a voice full of wretched disbelief. "She's going to die?"
Jacob's head snapped around from Alice to me. He caught my gaze, holding it until I looked down at Bella. His pupils were so large with fear that his whole eye was nearly swamped in the menacing black.
She can't be...
I nodded, keeping my face as stern as I could manage without breaking down and slid across the room to sink into a chair again, rocking Bella cautiously from side to side like a baby. I was quite surprised that she hadn't started wailing again. I could hardly keep myself together, so with Bella's oversensitivity, it was a shock she hadn't crumbled into dust on the ground already. I twisted her silky hair around two of my fingers as Jacob shuffled forward across the linoleum floor, straight past Alice and right up to the bleeping machinery.
His voice was a tiny croak. "Renesmee..."
Jacob Black hadn't stayed in our presence for long. There had been ten silent minutes while he knelt at the head of Renesmee's bed. Every attempt he made to lay a finger on her skin had been aborted when Alice edged threateningly close to him whenever he reached his hand forward. Then he'd kissed her forehead, oblivious at the time of the vicious glares Alice was shooting at him from behind and left. His dark eyes burning with the sadness of extreme regret. That was four days ago now and nothing had changed since regarding Renesmee's condition. Her pale body lay as limp and lifeless as before on the hospital bed. Only now, she lay on a wider, thicker mattress in a room next door to Carlisle's office in a busy Vancouver hospital. While we were all left waiting for something that would never come...