A New Cullen Sister

Chapter 40

The wifi is back up and running (for now). Let's hope it stays that way!

I dedicate this chapter to my friend, sodapops. We have studied for the past five years together, and we'll both be graduating in December. Saads, let's do this :)

---

Carlisle led Esme back to the ICU. They scrubbed up and donned their attire of gown, scrub cap, gloves and a mask, before entering the room. Esme made a beeline for Amelia's side. Her cheeks were no longer flushed, and a quick feel of her daughter's forehead told her that the fever had in fact broken.

"Blythe is exceptional," she remarked in relief. She knew in her heart that there was a great chance that they could have lost Amelia had Blythe not intervened. Carlisle nodded in assent, checking Amelia's vital signs and recording them in the file.

"When will she wake up?" she asked, holding her daughter's hand in her own.

"Probably sometime tomorrow morning. She's going to be pretty disorientated and may not remember what happened. She was pretty out of it this morning when we were driving her here."

"I was scared at how quickly her temperature rose. She was coherent one minute, the next she was completely out of it."

"That was her lack of immune response, coupled with the lung collapse and haemothorax. You know how Amelia is, she internalises her pain," he said, checking the plastic bladder that was attached to the chest drain. It had filled up considerably with blood, and by the looks of things, there was still more that needed to be drained.

"How are her kidneys?"

"Better," he replied, glancing at the catheter bag. Amelia's urine was now a very dark yellow colour, almost orange, "we'll keep up with the fluids and hopefully that will help alleviate the damage some more."

"Will she need dialysis?"

"It's honestly too soon to tell. Towards the end, possibly. We need to have a chat with Amelia about when she wants to be changed. None of us are going to be able to sit around and watch her suffer like that."

They settled into companionable silence, broken only by the steady beep of the heart rate monitor, the rhythmic whoosh of the ventilator as oxygen was forced into the battered and broken lungs that occupied Amelia's body and were slowly killing her. Imperceptible to human ears, Amelia's heart was beating away with as much strength as it had left, and Esme found that the very sound itself, that strangely beautiful but equally sluggish and sickly thudding noise, to be the most soothing. For the first time that day, Esme felt a sense of peace steal through her body. She would not fully relax until her Amelia was home again. Carlisle broke the silence.

"Amelia's too sick to return to school," he stated quietly, "at this rate, I'm not sure she will finish the school year anymore."

"I agree. The only place she could have picked up whatever bug it is that has caused this, is at school. She was at home the entire weekend and we certainly can't give her anything. I doubt very much she caught anything from the Westsmythes either, Robert is very good about things like that. Aside from the immunity situation, I don't think she is up for it anymore. She is sleeping more and more when she gets home from school and she is struggling to keep up with her homework nowadays. I think she just took on more than she could handle for the concert and her body could not keep up anymore," Esme paused, "And Alice hasn't said anything about Amelia's future. If she has seen something, she is not saying anything to me."

"The kids were worried about you earlier when you went into shock like that. I think that even if Alice has seen something, she wouldn't tell you for fear of upsetting you further."