Okay, I'm aware that I'm a lazy bugger and I barely ever update. Plus, you're all no doubt reading other stories at the same time as this one, and probably don't remember a lot of what's happened in the previous chapters – so here's a small re-cap:

Chap 1. Bella's hiding in Edward's room; and after he finds her and almost kills her, he suggests she has a kid before she becomes a vampire.

Chap 2. Bella considers Jake as a father but doesn't choose him because of the werewolf issue. She decides that she does want to go through with having a child.

Chap 3. Bella goes to see Jake in La Push.

Chap 4. Jake tells Bella that he imprinted, but she forgets to ask him who it was so she stops on her way home and calls him. It's Lauren Mallory. Bella faints by the road side.

Chap 5. Bella wakes up in Edward's room, and the two of them argue playfully about who loves who more.

Chap 6. Bella works out that half of Edward's reason for the child suggestion is because he thinks she'll not be able to let go and be changed. She isn't sure about having a kid any more.

Chap 7. Edward suggests that Bella talks to Rosalie about having a child.

Chap 8. Both Rosalie and Esme explain to Bella why they wanted children when they were human, and why they can't accept responsibility of being the carers of her child. Bella realises that she can't have a child and be a vampire at the same time.

Chap 9. Lauren Mallory has rejected Jacob, and when Bella goes to see him upon Edward's suggestion, they decide to see a movie. Jake is very tired – but he still wants to drive to show off his Rabbit. The chapter ends by saying that Alice's visions don't work around werewolves and that they were hit by a truck.

I regained consciousness, and immediately wished that I was still out cold.

Slowly, and excruciatingly painfully, I raised my head and opened my eyes a fraction.

I could see jagged pieces of metal all around me, broken pieces of glass. Smashed up parts of Jacob's car were littered over the road. Somehow the truck that had hit us was on its side twenty yards away from Jacob, on my left. I lifted my head to try and look forward to see the damage at the front of the car, but my neck protested like there were needles jutting into my spine. I screamed out in pain, but it didn't help me much.

"Jake?" I whispered; unsuccessfully ignoring the stabbing in my neck as I twisted my head around.

I started crying as I looked at him.

Jacob, my Jacob, was pinned to his seat by the dashboard, the steering wheel mashed into his torso. I took another small look at my surroundings and realised that Jake had swerved… he'd purposely turned the car so that his side received the greatest blow from the truck.

He didn't look peaceful like they're meant to. Like they do in the movies. Instead of a trickle of blood leaking down from one side of his mouth, his whole face was stained with red. There was a huge gash across his forehead, covering his eye, and it extended back through his hairline. One of his big hands rested crimson just by the gear-stick, palm up, like he was about to reach for the dials on the radio.

His shirt was dyed red, the steering wheel touching just under his jaw. The amount of space left by the steering wheel on his body didn't look enough for him to have survived… but despite this, I could see his chest rising and falling in the tiniest motions.

He's not dead.

I looked down at myself, groaning in pain at the shootings in my neck and back. I stared for a moment, disbelieving. There, jutting out from my stomach, was some kind of metal. It might have been part of the bonnet or maybe the grill of the truck. I didn't know. And I didn't care right at the moment.

It was the width of a piece of A4 paper, and was stuck in at an angle. The metal itself wasn't very thick. I couldn't even feel it.

Still dazed and sceptical, I reached down with my left hand and touched it. It felt like it was there. So I touched it again, but accidentally pushed a little too hard. A terrible screeching sounded in the air, so loud and consistent and wretchedly painful that my first instinct was to block my ears. Then I realised it was me… and that the molten pain working its way through my body was caused by the foreign object protruding from my stomach.

My breathing sped up and I started to cry more desperately than before. My lungs began to produce wheezing sounds, choking and panicking me.

I looked around outside the car again. There were the lights of about four other vehicles parked on my side. No one was close enough to speak to. I looked past Jake and saw that the truck's cab had a small fire in it. I panicked for a moment, but then realised that unless there was some way for it to snake along to our car, we were only in danger if it blew up.

I leant my head back on the seat and listened carefully for any sign of help. I could hear people's voices babbling, panicked, all around me, so I tried to listen to them individually.

"The police are going to be at least half an hour…"

"…where's the ambulance?"

"The truck driver's fine…"

"It's horrible…"

"They're both so young…"

"Who the hell is that?"

"Hey! You can't go over there! You'll get killed if something blows!"

Then, the voice I would have thought I'd never hear again.

"Oh God, Bella, Bella, no Bella no! No!"

He was here. I looked at him and concentrated on his face, willing my hand to move up so I could touch him one last time.

"Edward," I whispered. I smiled, and it hurt. I coughed and tasted blood in the back of my throat. "I'm dying," I informed him, my mind not working properly.

His normally scorching golden eyes were brimmed with pain. I was sure that if he could cry, he would be. His brows were furrowed with frustration and gut-wrenching hurt; and he wasn't breathing.

"No," he repeated, looking me over. His jaw set hard but his eyes were still aggrieved. Then he turned slightly and called over his shoulder. "Carlisle! She's here, Carlisle help her, she's… she's…"

I couldn't speak; I couldn't even hold my eyes open much. I tried to make my hand move up to him again, but it wouldn't. Frustrated, I looked down. And wished like anything that I hadn't.

"My arm!" I screamed, beyond horrified. "Where's my arm?! Edward, my arm, where is it? It's gone!"

Hysterical, I screamed and screamed for my arm. Edward put his hand on my cheek to try and quieten me. I looked at him, terrified and sickened at what had happened.

"I'll try and fix this, Bella, but you're going to have to go through some significant pain. Do you understand?"

He took his hand away from my cheek and picked up my left hand, holding it firmly in both of his cold, white ones.

I knew what he meant… but I was confused at the same time.

"But my arm?" I questioned him. "And I'm stuck." I looked down at my torso again.

Severely in pain now, Edward looked at me with an expression that gave me my answer.

"You have to pull it out," I whispered.

He nodded.

I knew that if I over thought it, I wasn't going to let him do what must be done whether I was dead or alive. So I looked at him and squeezed his hands with my remaining one, and voiced my answer, knowing how much this was going to hurt.

"Do it," I said. I closed my eyes tightly and waited for him to remove the metal from my body.

"Carlisle," I heard Edward whisper. He wasn't speaking to me, I could tell, but I kept my eyes firmly closed anyway.

I heard quick words exchange between them, then angrier words from Edward. The only sentence I could make out was Carlisle's last one; "I'm sorry. It's the only thing holding her together."

Clearly too emotional to worry about exposing himself, Edward roared with indignant anger. "No!"

Then I could tell that Carlisle was gone… and that only meant one thing.

"I'm going to die."

Edward didn't say anything. He tore the door off the Rabbit and threw it behind him, then knelt by my side. He reached out and held my hand again, but then brought one up to my face and stroked his thumb across my cheek. I smiled at him.

"Edward," I said. Everything was beginning to go a little fuzzy around the edges. "I love you more than anything. This is not your fault." The blood and adrenaline that had been pumping in my ears was beginning to slow in frequency. I clutched to my consciousness with everything I had. "You must not go to Italy, Edward."

He just stared at me with a dying expression. I waited for him to speak, but when he didn't say anything I started crying more prominently. I was determined that he would continue to exist, even when I wouldn't. So I slid my hand from his grasp and reached out for his face.

"Edward," I said, blinking furiously to keep the stars from stealing my vision. I coughed when I opened my mouth to speak again, and felt blood trickle down my chin. "This is my dying request, Edward. You must not destroy yourself."

He looked down, avoiding my gaze. "I can't live without you." he looked back up at me and put a hand over mine, trapping it between his palm and his cheek. "I don't want to exist when you don't. I love you too much."

"No." I was determined. "If you die, you're killing me again by doing it."

"But –"

"No 'but's! Edward Cullen, look at me, look at me!" I pulled on his chin to make him look at me. "Promise me."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. Promise me. Just say 'I promise'."

He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "I promise," he whispered.

"There's something else, too."

"Yes?"

"I want you to kiss me once more before I go. Please."

"Bella, I can't, I'll –"

I cut him off again. "Please, just one."

He hesitated for a moment, probably weighing up the options. Then, before he could change his mind, he leaned forward on his knees and kissed me.

My body had become feverish without my noticing, so the iciness of his skin was enough to make me shiver. I was glad it was one of the final things I would feel. His lips moved very gently against mine, and I could taste my own blood in my mouth, so I knew he could too. But he was still kissing me, even though it must have been the most difficult thing he'd ever done. It was laced with tragedy and held every inch of a goodbye.

Then he pulled away. I could see the dark smears on his mouth, and he licked his lips to clean them. His eyes were blazing intensely, and I knew he was fighting himself on the inside.

"Thankyou," I breathed. I tried to speak a little faster, because my heart was slowing even more and it was unreasonably difficult to think. "There are two other things I want you to do for me, Edward."

"Anything."

"First, tell everyone I love them. Tell Jake when he wakes up that this wasn't his fault, tell Renée and Charlie that I love them. Tell Alice this wasn't her fault either."

He held my face in his wintry hands. I brought my left one up and held his wrist while I talked.

"And the other thing is that I want to die with a ring on my finger. I know you've always got it, so hand it over," I tried my best to smile and make a little joke to break through his sombre expression.

Without saying a thing, he produced the delicate ring from his pocket and slid it onto my finger. Then he looked at me and kissed my hand.

"I will always love you."

"And I'll always love you." I couldn't hold my eyelids up any more. "Goodbye, Edward."

Then, over a few seconds, every noise quietened until I couldn't hear it anymore. The feeling of Edward's skin on mine faded until I felt nothing. The pain lessened until it was gone. Every smell around me weakened to nothing. The pinpricks of light behind my eyelids danced and dimmed, leaving me with nothing but a perfectly black canvas until I knew that I was in a place that I couldn't return from.

.

"A dying man needs to die; as a sleepy man needs to sleep; and there comes a time when it is wrong as well as useless to resist."

.

Hey guys! Well, that's it I'm afraid. Bella died :-(

Now, Alice did 'See' Bella in a vision - and Jacob is still alive. But because he's in a coma, Alice's visions were reactivated because while he's in a coma, he can't transform into a wolf, and so is predictable until he wakes up.

Sorry if anyone disliked the ending to this story - but I have a pretty good reason to explain why I cut it short:

I didn't like this story. It began as a very long one-shot, and I should have left it at that, because my enthusiasm for the story was all over the place. But I did finish it, and I learned a valuable lesson from it; don't write a story unless you love the idea.

Okay, that's all! It's been great having you guys read and or review, and I appreciate it. Hope you have a fantastic day :-D

-Shaps xo