A/N:

To My New Readers: This is a repost and finishing of one of my existing stories, which I had taken down a few years ago. I have decided to repost it and finish the tale, as it was originally a short story, anyway (one I really enjoyed, as well). The first four chapters were written quite some time ago, and I have since received a BFA in Creative Writing, so I hope you'll be able to spot the improvement in my writing starting in the fifth chapter.

To My Long Time Readers: Hi! So, um… yeah, I'm not dead! Woohoo! As I said above, I went to college, and have received a BFA in Creative Writing; in the meantime, I did not write much fan fiction at all, not for the lack of desire to do so, but simply because I had no time! I was also in the process of writing my own novel(s), of which I have completed two and am currently in the process of self-publication.

This chapter was originally written in 2010.

Beautiful Dreamer

I let out a barely audible sigh as I heard his thoughts. He thought I was humoring Bella, just keeping her happy until she…

I cut the thought off, wishing I could block his just as easily, as I sat down on the floor by Bella's head as she relaxed on the couch behind me. Automatically, she reached over her fragile hand – the one that wasn't clutching desperately to the cup of human blood – and gently threaded her fingers through my hair, tugging lightly in the way she knew I loved.

Any other time, I would have closed my eyes and leaned back into her, giving her more access to my hair, but I didn't now. I was stressed and stiff and scared and just miserable.

And it wasn't fair – not to either of us.

I should never have agreed to make love with her before she was turned. I knew something would go wrong; I knew it was all too good to be true. When had Bella and I ever had true peace? We should have known better than to think we would get our happily ever after.

I was nothing but a soulless monster – I didn't deserve happiness.

I heard Bella sigh just as quietly as I had, slowly pulling her fingers out of my hair, a small whimper escaping her throat when she realized that she wasn't going to get the response that she desired from me.

I'm sorry, I thought at the same time that she whispered the exact sentiment to me. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I quickly reached back and grasped her retreating hand, giving it a light squeeze before bringing our entwined hands forward to rest on my shoulder. She relaxed slightly at my show of affection and squeezed my hand back.

And the worst part? I mused as I barely took in the sounds of the soft conversation between my father and Jacob in the background. The worst part was that I couldn't even properly hate the thing that was killing her. It wasn't the creature's fault, in all honestly – it was mine. I had created it, after all; it didn't have a choice in the matter, and it certainly had no idea what it was doing to its mother.

And how could I really hate something that Bella loved so much? And it wasn't just a part of me, but a part of her as well. I think she was under the impression that it was easy for me to decide the creature needed to be destroyed, but it wasn't. It was the hardest decision I had ever had to come to.

In the few brief minutes of stunned discovery back on the bedroom floor of Isle Esme, I had experienced every positive emotion under the sun – joy, fascination, amazement, excitement, and so many more that it now hurt to dwell on.

And then my phone had started to ring. I had been so wrapped up in what was happening and what I was feeling, that I had sat there frozen, my mind barely registering the annoying and insistent sound of my ringtone (I'm too Sexy – a joke by Emmett, no doubt, that I had been too lazy to correct while enjoying the pleasantries of newlywed life), and when I had finally registered that Bella had moved to sit in front of me and was searching for my phone in my pants pocket, I was confused. I wanted to tell her to just let it ring – whoever was calling would leave a message, and we would get back to them after we celebrated a bit. But I couldn't get my mouth, or limbs, or anything but my brain to really function right. When she finally flipped the phone open and pressed it to her ear, I wanted to grab it from her and throw it across the room, pick her up and lay her down on the bed – what in the world was she doing kneeling on the floor in her condition anyway? – and make sweet love to her until both of us were so exhausted that we couldn't move anymore (well, on her part anyway – because I was always ready to go).

And then Bella was saying that she had felt something move, and my eyes had automatically snapped to her stomach; it was round where it hadn't been round the day before, and I realized with a jolt that even if she had conceived on our wedding night – which, looking back at her mood swings, fatigue, and appetite since then, I was fairly certain that she had – her body should not be experiencing symptoms of a pregnancy yet, let alone growing and feeling movement from within.

When she had passed the phone to me, the first things Carlisle had started spouting off were concerns, worries, and horror stories of the Cambion. He had been certain that the pregnancy would not bode well for Bella, and despite his personal beliefs, had thought that termination would be for the best. I knew then that Bella was in very serious danger, if my father was ready to advise such drastic measures.

I had wanted to scream and yell and protest and do anything that would prove him wrong, but I knew it was futile. I agreed to take us home, and in the meantime, I watched Bella's health deteriorate quickly – she couldn't keep anything down, and she was getting paler by the minute; I knew there was no hope. The pregnancy would have to be terminated – Bella wouldn't be able to survive it, and I wouldn't be able to survive without Bella.

I never expected Bella to fight me on the matter though. Of all the times for her to develop a maternal instinct…

I brought myself back to the present as I felt Bella tense again behind me. I immediately looked back to see what the problem was, but her eyes were on Rosalie who was hissing at Carlisle and fuming all kinds of obscenities at him in her head.

Bitch, I thought, my fury and hatred of her immediately being brought to the forefront of my mind again.

"You should hunt," Carlisle said to her gently, ignoring her utter rudeness. She must be parched – I know I am. Carlisle thought.

Oh, Carlisle, I sighed in my head, my black eyes quickly glancing back at Bella, who was still watching my volatile sister. You know nothing of parched.

"I'll hunt when he does," she growled, jerking her head in my direction, and I suppressed the snarl building in my chest and the urge to rip her head from her shoulders. I could do it too, I just needed to be wary of Emmett afterward.

Carlisle sighed, reluctantly letting Rosalie have her way – as usual – and a few minutes later, he, Esme, Alice, Jasper, and Emmett were gone, off to have a much needed hunt, and they would probably be gone for a good few hours.

Wonderful, I thought sarcastically, as I realized that our only company was Rosalie and Jacob. Just perfect.

And, of course, they were already bickering not five minutes after everyone had left, Jacob bouncing his bad jokes off of Rosalie and she, in turn, threatening homicide.

I wanted to kill them both.

"Enough, Jacob," Bella finally said, her voice weak and slightly pleading.

"You want me to take off?" he asked in a voice that was part defeat, part hope, and part dread; I didn't understand him at all.

"No! Of course not!" Bella replied, almost instantly, her voice astonished and, underneath of all of that, guilty. Jacob didn't hear it, but I did. Even worse than me not understanding Jacob, or Bella's undying need for him, was Bella's confusion on the very same matter. I knew she loved me, and I knew she loved him – but the two loves were very different. She'd chosen me, not him, and I knew it confused her to feel so needy for him when she knew that I was the one she couldn't live without.

"You look tired," Bella commented to him after a tense moment of silence, and he sent a weak half-grin back to her.

"Dead beat," he said, slumping deeper into the chair he was in – which I'm sure would from now be his chair, seeing as we would absolutely never get the smell out.

"I'd like to beat you dead," Rosalie grumbled under her breath, so low that only Jacob and I heard. Bella remained oblivious as she sipped up the last drops of blood from her cup and unconsciously massaged my shoulder with her free hand while I kept my own hand resting atop hers.

There was one good thing about having Jacob around – he was hell bent on annoying Rosalie until she either snapped or learned to ignore him, and I was all for anything that annoyed my vicious sister at the moment.

Oh, she pretended to be helping Bella; she pretended that she cared about Bella's well-being, and she pretended that she was doing this for Bella's happiness, but in the brief moments that she left her thoughts unguarded, I saw the truth.

Rosalie wasn't necessarily hoping that Bella would die, but she wasn't going out of her way to hope for a better outcome. Whenever she slipped up with her thoughts, I could see that she was already mentally referring to the thing growing inside of Bella as "hers;" I'd caught a few of her unchecked daydreams, where an unknown, little voice was calling Rosalie "Mommy."

I hated her.

"Rose?" Bella asked hesitantly, and my sister chuckled, quickly standing up and rushing to Bella's side to take the empty cup from her. I bit my lip to keep in a snarl as Rosalie briefly passed within my biting range, but then she was gone, in the kitchen, getting some more blood for Bella.

I sighed and let my gaze drift back to my wife, taking in the tender look on her face. I would be lying if I didn't say that the pregnancy had given her a certain glow that I had only seen in expectant mothers before – it was beautiful, and if I weren't so distraught over the devastation of the circumstances, I would be relishing in all of this, like the way I was supposed to be.

Mmmm…

I blinked, glancing toward Jacob for a moment, but I was sure the thought hadn't come from him – I knew the tenor of his mind, and this was completely different. I took a moment to concentrate on Rosalie, in the kitchen, but her thoughts were only bitter and grouchy as she thought of different ways to murder Jacob.

Warmmm…

Okay, I was definitely not imagining things. I glanced back toward Bella, suddenly hit with an unexpected idea. No… after all this time?

"Did you say something?" I asked her, and automatically she and Jacob both looked at me in confusion.

"Me?" she asked, and I nodded, turning my body to face her. "I didn't say anything."

What…? But she had to have… I sat up on my knees, gazing down at her in rapt attention while she looked up at me in confusion. It can't be… not after all this time… why would I hear her thoughts now?

Oooh, pretty…

"What are you thinking about right now?"

"Nothing," she said, not comprehending. I could briefly register that Jacob was questioning my sanity and wondering whether the stress had finally gotten to me. "What's going on?"

"What were you thinking about a minute ago?" I pressed on, desperate to know where these new thoughts were coming from. They had to be from Bella – I could hear everyone else perfectly.

"Just…" she trailed off, blushing furiously. "Esme's island. And feathers."

I frowned, slightly disappointed. The thoughts that I was hearing didn't match the tenor of what Bella had admitted to thinking. If anything, Bella's thoughts would have been lustful, but the thoughts that I was hearing definitely weren't. They sounded oddly familiar, though, and I couldn't help but feel like I was missing something.

Warmmm… Mmmoma…

"Say something else," I whispered, my insides freezing and melting all in a matter of seconds as the realization hit me. It can't be, but… it is.

"Like what?" Bella replied, her voice frustrated as she tried to figure out what was going through my head. Ah, the feeling is mutual, my love. "Edward, what's going on?"

Mmmoma…pretty sssound…

My unneeded breath caught in my chest, my body moving without my permission. Before I realized what was happening, both of my hands were gently cradling my wife's very pregnant tummy, which was something I hadn't allowed myself to do before – I had been too afraid that it would make the situation all too real. Which it did – just not in the way that I had expected.

As soon as my hands came in contact with her belly, the being inside shifted a little bit, a little foot or hand brushing gently against one of my hands.

Suddenly, with just that single movement, that simple, barely there touch, I was completely in tune with this new, budding mind – and it was completely astonishing. Where I could pinpoint and hear every thought of every member of my family and anyone else – save Bella, of course – with the slightest of ease, I could also put them into the background and easily not pay attention to them; they were just quiet murmurings that blended into the constant flow.

These thoughts, however, were like they were shouting at me, the clearest, most in tune thoughts that I had ever heard. It was like my mind was already hard-wired to be able to find and make out these thoughts no matter what the circumstances; I was sure that even if the room was crowded with hundreds of people and thoughts, I would be able to immediately – and without even trying – hone in on these thoughts.

There were no longer just half-formed, sleepy words, but images and sounds too. It was dark and murky, though there was a very, very dim pink-red-ish light that gave a slight glow, though the dark shapes were murky. I could barely make out the blurry shadow of a tiny hand pressing against the silhouette of a much larger one that was blocking out a space of the pink-red light.

There was also a comforting whoosh-whoosh-woosh sound, which I immediately recognized as Bella's heartbeat, though I was hearing it differently now, the sound coming from someone else's perspective. The sound was soothing and beautiful, but oddly distorted, as if I were hearing it through water… or amniotic fluid, as the case may be.

Get your hands off of my baby! Rosalie's shocked and furious thoughts flew in and out of my head within seconds, and I curled myself the slightest bit closer to Bella, my body moving to cover hers protectively, though I made no outward expression or comment to my sister's thoughts. I would definitely deal with her later though, but for now…

"The f—" No, I couldn't call it that anymore, it wasn't like that. It wasn't what we had feared that it would be – it wasn't a Cambion, it wasn't a monster! I wasn't a monster. It was just a child – an innocent, little child who was still learning… "It…" I shook my head, dejecting the horrid term. A child, a baby, not an it. "The baby likes the sound of your voice."

My statement was met with utter and complete silence, save for the budding thoughts that I now knew were coming from the child in my wife's womb. I thought to myself My child – our child; dear Lord, she had been right this whole time, and I…

"Holy crow, you can hear him!" Bella suddenly shouted in excited astonishment.

The baby jumped, startled by the sudden loudness, and automatically kicked outward. Bella gasped, wincing against the sudden pain at the same time that I reached up to gently rub the sore spot, my voice automatically turning gentle as I tried to soothe them both.

"Shh," I murmured quietly, shocking myself with the tenderness in my voice. It seemed so natural to me. "You startled it… him." That's going to take a little practice.

"Oh…" Bella gasped quietly, gently patting the side of her swollen belly, smiling a little when the baby shifted softly beneath our hands. "Sorry, baby."

Mmmoma…mmm…

I tilted my head closer toward my wife's tummy, though I didn't necessarily need to do so in order to hear the baby's budding thoughts, but I wanted to be closer, still marveling over everything that was happening. Oh, I'm sorry – I'm so sorry for every doubt I had. I'm sorry. Everything was suddenly becoming extremely sharp – I now understood exactly why Bella was so ready to give her life up to make sure this child lived.

Because, I knew that if it were me, I would make the same decision – my life was nothing compared to that of my child's.

How could I have ever been so stupid? So selfish? I should have followed my initial instincts – Bella had been right all along; this was dangerous, yes, but so worth it, and if we were proactive… there was no reason that both Bella and the baby couldn't come out of this healthy and happy.

I'm going to have a family… my own, real family.

"What's he thinking now?" Bella demanded excitedly, moving one of her hands to cover mine, which was still resting on the top peak of her belly. Together, we gently rubbed small circles on her soft flesh.

"It…" Not an it, Edward, I chastised myself. This is your child. "He or she, is…" I trailed off, my heart soaring in astonishment as I realized what I was hearing.

Mmm… warmmm… pretty sssounds… happy… Mmmoma…

"He's happy," I gasped, completely astounded that this small being could contain so much emotion – so much joy.

Bella's breath caught, and her beautiful eyes welled up with shimmering tears, the complete and utter adoration in her expression causing my heart to swell with more love than I could possibly imagine. Not for the first time, I wished that I could cry with her, though these tears wouldn't be born from sadness, but unconditional joy and love.

"Of course, you're happy, pretty baby, of course you are," Bella cooed, both of us gently rubbing her tummy while joyful tears cascaded down her cheeks. "How could you not be, all safe and warm and loved? I love you so much, little EJ, of course you're happy."

EJ? Surely she couldn't possibly mean what I thought she meant.

"What did you call him?" I asked, trying to keep the tone of my voice toned down to an innocent curiosity. I was absolutely positive that I knew what the E stood for, and I was seriously praying that the J stood for Junior, though I couldn't help but feel as if my praying would be for naught.

Bella blushed, dropping her eyes down to watch our hands rubbing her tummy instead of looking me in the eyes. "I sort of named him. I didn't think you would want…" she trailed off, glancing up at me from underneath her eyelashes, her gaze a little guilty. "Well, you know."

"EJ?" I repeated aloud, and this time I couldn't keep the skepticism out of my voice.

"Your father's name was Edward, too," she replied, almost immediately, trying to offer me a good excuse. I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit at the obvious guilt in her voice.

"Yes, it was," I allowed, though I had issues with giving our son a family name almost as much as I had issues with what I was slowly starting to suspect she had middle-named our son. "What—?"

Sssound! Pretty sound! … Daddy…

"Hmm," I hummed in surprise, my still heart swelling with amazement, pride, love, and so many other emotions that I couldn't think the names of at the moment.

"What?" Bella pressed, her voice slightly worried as she gripped my hand tighter.

I pulled in a shaky breath, my eyes slowly moving up to connect with my wife's, and, again, I wished I could shed tears to physically show how happy I was, and my voice shook as I whispered, "He likes my voice too."

"Of course, he does," she replied, her voice gloating – she knew that I now knew that she had been right all along, and she was reveling in that. I almost laughed aloud, so filled with happiness, relief, and love. "You have the most beautiful voice in the universe. Who wouldn't love it?"

That's enough, Rosalie snapped in her thoughts, coming over to lean over the back of the couch, no longer able to keep to the sidelines and keep her mouth shut. She shot a smug smile at me as a low growl built in my chest, and I glared at her as she spoke aloud to Bella, "Do you have a backup plan? What if he's a she?"

Bella took one of her hands from her tummy and scrubbed her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, and I reached up with one hand to gently cup her jaw, my thumb rubbing her bottom lip softly as she replied to Rosalie's question. "I kicked a few things around. Playing with Renee and Esme. I was thinking… Ruh-nez-may."

Pretty… pretty sssound… pretty wwword…

I smiled softly as my gaze drifted back down to Bella's round belly. It wasn't an everyday name, and I liked that, and apparently so did the baby, his thoughts cooing in delight. Or her thoughts, maybe – it was difficult to tell, even now that I could make out the baby's mental voice. It was just small and sort of unisex at the moment, so I couldn't say for sure whether the baby was one sex or the other simply based on the thoughts.

"Ruhnezmay?" Rosalie repeated, her voice skeptical, leaning closer to Bella despite the warning growl slowly building in my chest. Well, it's not the worst name that I've ever heard, but still… I rolled my eyes at my sister's selfish thoughts, the soft growl still rumbling in my chest – if she leaned any closer, my teeth were going into her throat.

"R-e-n-e-s-m-e-e," Bella explained, cringing a little. "Too weird?"

"No, I like it," Rosalie assured her quickly. It's not like I can't change it later anyway, she added in her head, and my teeth snapped together in outrage, unconsciously baring my teeth in a silent threat, and I was grateful that Bella's eyes were focused on our hands on her belly as opposed to my face. "It's beautiful. And one of a kind, so that fits." My unique baby…

I resisted the urge to jump up and rip her pretty, blonde head from her shoulders, and I concentrated on the baby's thoughts as a distraction.

"I still think he's an Edward," Bella smiled; I could feel her eyes move to my face, her gaze warming my whole body, from head to toe to heart.

Mmm… Mmmoma, Daddy… pretty sssounds… touch… cold… love… Daddy, Mommma…

"What?" Bella prodded, her voice and face glowing with joy and excitement. "What's he thinking now?"

I was silent for a moment, trying to translate the disjointed, infant thoughts into words that a grown-up could understand. The child's thoughts were amazingly clear, but at the same time, there was so much that the baby just didn't – and, really, couldn't – know. He was still learning, though learning quickly, and it was completely fascinating to watch the process from the inside, so to speak.

Unable to fight the urge to be closer any longer, I curled myself closer to my wife, and laid my head down on her belly, so that my ear was pressed tenderly against the top peak of her belly, barely registering the three, shocked gasps that I heard in the background.

Instead, I focused on what I was hearing. The sound of the baby's thoughts weren't any louder because of the closeness, but I could hear more clearly the sounds of Bella's body – the soft gurgling of her stomach, the swishing of the amniotic fluid in her womb as the baby moved gently, the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of my wife's heart, and something else… a light, fluttering rhythm that I couldn't place, but sounded beautiful to me for some reason.

Ooh, cold… Daddy… that… Daddy… that Daddy… Daddy cold… love Daddy… love Momma… my Daddy, my Momma… love my Momma… love them so much…

"Oh…" I gasped softly, my throat tightening in emotion as I realized what I was hearing. He could feel me – he knew who I was! He knew who Bella was – and he loved us! He really loved us. I slowly opened my eyes, though I hadn't realized that I had ever closed them, and gazed up at Bella in a daze of amazement and love.

"He loves you," I whispered to her, my voice thick from emotion. "He absolutely adores you." And me! He loves me too!

Bella and I gazed into each other's eyes for an indefinite amount of time, in our own little bubble as we ignored the other two people in the room. It was just Bella and me and the little being that was made from our eternal love, reveling in the amazement and love circling through us – our own perfect, little family.

A sudden clatter rudely popped our bubble, and our heads snapped up and turned toward the source of the sound, my breath catching in horror as I took in Jacob's rigid, trembling form, and my mind immediately registered every single one of his tortured thoughts that I had been able to shove into the background until now.

"Ahh," I choked aloud, his pain so great that it became mine for a moment. I truly felt terrible that he was hurting so much because of something that made Bella and me so happy – damn it all to hell, but I had grown a little bit attached to the mutt in the last few days; he wasn't so bad when he wasn't trying to seduce my mate away from me.

Knowing that I would probably regret it later, I quickly stood up and dashed to the end table on the far end of the couch, by Bella's feet, and yanked out the keys to my Vanquish, praying to any higher being that would listen that the car would appeal to the fanatic in Jacob, and he would take care of it.

"Go, Jacob," I said gently, tossing him the keys, which he caught reflexively, his body still rigid. "Get away from here."

He was gone in the next second, the garage door slamming behind him just as I sat back down on the floor by Bella's head, my hands automatically going to her belly once again.

"I can't believe you gave him the keys to the Vanquish," Rosalie scoffed, smirking at me in disdain. "You're never going to get the stench out."

"Where is he going?" Bella asked, her voice worried as she nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. "Is he mad at me?" she continued in a small voice, her eyes dropping to the floor in guilt.

"No, my love," I promised her, leaning up to capture her lips with mine for a moment. "He just needed a while to himself – he'll be back."

"Unfortunately," Rosalie interjected, unable to just keep quiet. "I think we should get him neutered."

"Rose!" Bella chastised, her cheeks tingeing with pink, but there was a hint of laughter in her voice, and I could tell that she was fighting a smile.

A moment of silence passed, and then we all burst out laughing.