The Fruit's on the Vine TwiFic Contest
Title: That Evil Pink Plus Sign
Pairing: Bella/Edward
Genre: Friendship/Humour
Summary: What's an unplanned pregnancy between best friends? Well, a lot. Especially when said friends fail at life and don't even like kids. How can two non-adults raise a baby? That's what they'd like to know.
Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.
Even though she was sitting on the polished bathroom floor in the top story of one of the largest houses the tiny town of Forks had ever seen, all Isabella Swan could think was this can't be happening to me.
She was a sorry sight, she knew, but none of that was occurring to her at that very moment. Yes, all she was wearing was a worn singlet, her butt was getting chilly against the tile and anyone could come knocking on that door at any moment, but none of that mattered to her right then. All her attention was focused solely on the five, yes five, stupid little sticks she had clutched in her hand.
Each and every one of them bearing a tiny little pink plus sign.
She wanted to scream, cry, faint, anything. She couldn't handle this right now. Hell, she didn't know if she would have been able to handle this ever, but right now especially. Not at this point in her life, that was for sure. She didn't even have a job, how on earth was she going to take care of a baby?
Holy crap, she was having a baby!
But they had been careful. They were always careful. Neither was willing to risk bringing a baby into the kind of situation they were in. They weren't even in a real relationship! They were friends, had always been friends, if one didn't count the…activities that was. Which she tried not to. Of course it was easy to get caught up in the moment, but they were friends. Sex wasn't going to ruin that for them.
And now this.
"Oh, hell," she mumbled, staring in horror at the sticks and all they implied. She could see what was left of her life going up in smoke already. Her dad would kick her out, not a month after he had been forced to accept her back in. No matter how embarrassing running back to her father only a year after she had left home in the first place was, this was sure to take the cake.
And then of course he would find out. It would be hard for him not to notice, even if she had somewhere else to go. Which she wouldn't, not once her father chucked her out for being such a failure of a human being.
A knock at the door interrupted her wallowing. Jumping in surprise, she spun wildly towards the door, cracking her neck in the process. When she heard another knock, followed by a "Bella?" she jumped up, somehow scattering the sticks in her hand across the floor of the bathroom as she did so.
"Shit!" she half whispered, trying in vain to be silent. Maybe if he didn't hear her, he would go away?
"Bella, are you okay? I know you're in there."
She quickly grabbed the scattered sticks in her hand, hiding them behind her back as she threw open the door to the bathroom, remembering a second too late that she wasn't wearing her underwear.
Wide eyed, she looked up to meet the green stare of her best friend. And boy was he staring. Not at her panicked expression though, but somewhere very much further south.
"Not that I don't love the look, but I don't quite understand." He chuckled, eyes still glued just a notch under the place she was currently growing a goddamned human being!
"Uh…Edward, hi!" Was her voice a little higher than usual or was she just so panicked that she was starting to hear things?
Apparently, she wasn't going crazy, because Edward looked up then, his grin turning into a confused expression as he took in the look on her face.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
"Yep. Fine. Everything's fine. Great! I'll be out in a moment!"
Catching the door before she could swing it shut, he frowned, trying to peek around her. "What are you holding?"
Bella panicked. He was going to see the evil little sticks from hell, freak out and never talk to her again! She didn't even have anywhere to hide them!
"Nothing!" she squeaked.
Edward rolled his eyes. "I've known you for twelve years. Please have a little more faith in me than that."
Bella had nothing more to say. She couldn't close to door, couldn't convince him to go away and unless the stupid sticks she was grasping were going to miraculously disappear into thin air, she was well out of options.
When she did nothing more but stand there and look at him, heart thudding so far out of her chest she was expecting to see it appear into her line of vision any moment now, Edward slowly started to reach around her, ignoring her attempts to move herself out of his reach without withdrawing her arm from behind her back.
In one quick movement, he lunged for her hand. Bella jumped backwards at the same time, causing Edward to pull on her arm instead. This resulted in all five of the little white sticks of doom to yet again go scattering on the floor, this time on the carpet of Edward's room.
Right under his feet.
Bella stared. There they were. Out in the open. Right there for him to see. She waited for him to gasp, scream, or even faint, but nothing happened. She didn't know if he was looking at them or at her, but it didn't matter. She could literally count down the seconds until her life fell apart from this moment.
And then finally, he reacted. Granted it was this demented little choking sound, but still, it was a reaction. Better than that hellish silence.
"Bell…wha…I don't…huh?"
She shrugged. He was dreaming if he thought she had any more answers than he did.
"Are you sure?" he whispered.
Again, she shrugged. Five pregnancy tests said she was, but what did she know about those evil things? Maybe they could be wrong? That was most likely just her denial talking though.
Stumbling back, Edward flopped down onto the bed, slumping over his knees but never taking his eyes off the scattered pink plus sign sticks. Bella thought about picking them up again, but decided that they may as well stay there. They still meant the same thing on the floor as they did in her hands.
"Should we see a doctor?" he asked, always the sensible one.
"Probably."
There was silence. Bella stood there almost naked, although she had forgotten about that yet again, staring at Edward expectantly while he sat, staring wide eyed at those evil sticks. Neither knew what to say.
Taking a deep breath, Bella asked the one question that had been prodding at her the entire time. "Should I leave?"
Edward frowned, finally looking back at her again. "Leave? Why?"
She shifted. So he didn't want her to leave? Now she was confused. "I just thought you would want me to," she mumbled.
"I'm not blaming this on you, Bella."
Well that was a relief. But she still didn't know what to do now.
"We should see a doctor before we tell anyone," he reasoned, though he sounded more as if he were thinking aloud than actually talking to her.
Now Bella was the one to choke. Tell anyone? He wanted to tell people about this? How embarrassing! And did that mean he wanted to be a part of this?
"We're doing this together?" Again, did her voice sound a little high?
He looked hurt. Bella had never dealt well with that look. He looked like a little puppy dog. "Do you want me to be a part of this?"
She moved her head up and down frantically. "I'm not doing this alone if I don't have to!"
"Alone? You thought that I was going to make you do this alone?" Exhaling, he ran his hands through this hair. "Twelve years, remember? We've been friends since we were ten and having sex since we were seventeen. I'm not going to make you do this alone. Faith, Bella."
Now she felt slightly guilty. Of course he wouldn't bail out on her. She knew that. She had just overreacted. Again. Not an unfamiliar thing for her.
"Sorry. Overreaction."
He smiled. A small one granted, but a smile nonetheless. Bella had never been happier to see him smile. Maybe there was hope in this situation yet.
He held out a hand to her. "Come here."
She did, stepping over the scattered sticks and taking his hand. He pulled her down beside him but kept her hand in his. She felt just a little more grounded now. Her heartbeat was slowing to a regular pace and she was becoming more and more aware of how naked she was.
"We're going to be okay," he said, squeezing her hand.
"But we still live with our parents!" she objected. Granted, he did out of convenience, not necessity, but still. Facts were facts.
"We'll figure it out," he promised.
She still wasn't reassured.
"We're not even a couple! How are we going to raise a baby together?" She was starting to panic again now. They were going to ruin some innocent child's life!
Edward snorted. "We're practically a couple, Bella. Just without the…mushy stuff."
Mushy stuff. Ugh.
"We're not a couple," she protested.
"My parents think we are."
She stared at him, eyes wide. How had she never heard this before?
Edward shrugged guiltily. "They refuse to believe otherwise."
Bella shouldn't have been surprised. That sounded exactly like Esme and Carlisle Cullen. They always had been extra nice to her. And considering the fact that neither she or Edward had ever had so much as a date, she could understand this misconception.
"We're going to ruin this kids life, aren't we?" she lamented.
This time, instead of the reassuring Edward-speech she was expecting, he just shrugged.
"Oh god."
As her eyes moved back to the scattered sticks from hell, she began wallowing again. Why did this have to happen to them? They weren't the right people to raise a baby. She failed at life—never having enough money, getting fired from her job at the diner, losing her small apartment and then moving back in with her father at the age of twenty-one (twenty-two in two months!)—while he relied so much on his parents he was sitting on a business degree he had just finished and was still living with said parents. They were not role models.
"I don't even like children," he whined.
Neither did Bella.
"They're loud and dirty and snotty and poopy and smelly," he continued. "And you never have any time for sex!" He groaned.
"I'm never having sex again," Bella declared. It seemed like an apt solution. No sex, no babies. One was more than enough.
Edward looked horrified. "You can't do that to me."
She shrugged. "I didn't say anything about you. But now that you mention it, if I'm not, you're not. You were as much a part of this as I was."
"That's going to suck."
She didn't disagree, but she had more important things to worry about, like staying baby free. Obviously, nothing was foolproof. She wasn't going to take any more chances.
"And I'm getting a C-section," she declared. In no way whatsoever was she going to attempt to push something that size out of that tiny hole down there. Haters be damned. Her body, her rules.
"We should probably focus on the first step before we start thinking about any of that," he suggested.
"What's the first step?" she queried.
"Doctor."
"Right. Doctor." She nodded resolutely, even though she was far from it. "You're coming with me."
"Do I have to?"
"Yes."
They were silent again. Bella went back to staring at those damn sticks. She just couldn't help it. They were just laying there, a physical reminder that she had a person growing inside her. A little baby.
She had no idea how to take care of a baby.
Suddenly, Edward stood up and started gathering the sticks from the floor. Even though it was fairly obvious, she asked anyway. "What are you doing?"
"Picking up these stupid sticks," he grumbled. "I'm sick of looking at them."
"Oh."
"If we're never having sex again, can you put some damn clothes on please? Temptation is never a good idea for abstinence."
Bella flushed and rushed around him into the bathroom, picking her panties up from the floor and hurriedly putting them on again. She felt a little more put together now. A little more human. Splashing cold water on herself, she looked into the mirror over the vanity. They could do this. Sure they could. One little step at a time.
Edward came into the bathroom behind her, clutching all five evil little sticks in his hands like life preservers. He was a little paler than before and his eyes were just a tad wider. He looked a little…panicked.
"Holy hell, Bella, we're having a baby!"
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Thank you for reading!
Public voting: August 26, 2013 to September 13, 2013.