Lips of an Angel

Chapter 9-Awoken

A/N

Returning to Bella's point of view this chapter. The last was just a quick outtake. I hope you like this one, and, as always, and comments, good or bad, are appreciated. Welcome to any new followers - I'll be glad to have you join me on this mad, hectic journey of writing!

And yes, although the British NHS is fantastic in many ways, the things Carlisle says in this chapter about quality of intensive care are perfectly true.

Enjoy!

Lucy xX

***

Five painful, stressful days. That was how long I had to wait for Edward to pull himself out of what Carlisle called a coma. I supposed that it was more a coma than anything else, being unconscious for that long, but it seemed like a rather dramatic term to me. Then again, what did I know?

The day before Edward awoke, Carlisle had scanned his head, and the results came back with his brain activity being at a normal level. All of this I knew from Alice passing on messages. I had not yet returned to the main house after my shameful behaviour, as I was far too embarrassed.

James had, once again, evaded us. Jasper had done fantastically, and had chased him all around Canada, and then back down south for three and a half days, but had finally lost him in a busy area up again in Toronto. Alice said that he'd been very disappointed in himself, but none of us blamed him for losing James, myself included.

Over the course of the five days in which Carlisle was treating and checking on Edward, I sensed that an attachment was forming between my father-figure and the strange, intriguing human. None of us ever got close to humans - not really - but just from the daily updates we received, I noted that Carlisle was taking a particular interest in Edward.

It wasn't until five, excruciating days later that something interesting happened. Alice had a sudden vision, a flash of something, and it had her freezing and gasping. When she pulled herself from her vision, she was beaming, wide enough to split her face in two. I never had understood that saying. Stupid, really.

"What?" I asked. "Alice?"

"Edward. He'll wake up in just over six minutes."

I froze.

"What?"

"I said-"

"I heard you. But in five minutes? Carlisle said he'd likely be in a 'coma' for a couple more days. His body needed to heal from many injuries."

"I don't know the medical side of it, Bella," Alice said impatiently. "I just know that he'll wake up soon."

I let out a sigh, and nodded. I wasn't sure why, but the thought of Edward awakening and returning to the land of the living scared me a little. Why would a human scare me? I was a formidable monster, capable of killing humans in mere seconds. I was designed to kill. And yet Edward scared me. It had almost been pleasant not to have to worry about running into Edward over the past few days. I'd been living in ignorance.

And now he was back to haunt me.

***

Alice had convinced me to spend a few hours at the main house, just after Edward was due to wake up. Stupidly, I had assumed that Rosalie and Emmett would not be there. I didn't have a problem with the latter, but Rosalie? I'll say no more on the subject. Needless to say, I was not happy when Alice opened the front door to her dwelling, and I saw Rosalie sitting at the kitchen table.

God dammit.

Rosalie sneered at me when I crossed the threshold, and Emmett shot her a pointed look. She glared at her husband, but said nothing to me. Apparently, Emmett had been attempting to ask her not to be so rude to me constantly, but until that moment, his talking to her hadn't worked at all.