A/N: All characters, except Eleanor, Mark & Nicole, are not mine! The rest belong to Stephanie Meyer who created them and gave them breath.
Time: Three Weeks before Edward's wedding to Bella.
Edward saw the look of false perkiness written across Alice's face, and he knew that something was wrong.
"Alice," Edward said through gritted teeth, "What did you just see?"
Alice easily brushed him off with an airy wave and the reply, "Oh nothing, Edward. Stop worrying!"
Edward's attempt to probe the answer from her mind was also a failure. Alice's brain seems to contain nothing but the flower arrangements and the guest list for his wedding. At the thought of his wedding, Edward relaxed and looked over at Bella. She was gorgeous and radiating from the youthful gleam that only a seventeen old could possess. Nothing could ale her, Edward knew, and though Bella has certainly had her share of danger, she still held onto that innocence that love could somehow fix all obstacles.
Alice's voice broke off his musing. "Oh Edward, be a dear and hand over Bella. I need her."
Bella suddenly tensed up and held onto Edward, begging for safety from Alice's wedding extravagance. However, in the end, Alice always had her way. Edward returned to his room, and put a record as he began to think of Bella. Thinking was a very common habit for a hundred year old vampire stuck in the physical body of a seventeen year. For Edward, his mind has become his only escape from the tragedy of his fate, and he sometimes thought, in his darkest moments, that he might one day go mad from the sheer weight and burden that his mind is forced to carry. His mind is supporting his body, and no mind, Edward feels, can subsist under such a stress.
He has confided these thoughts before to Esme, who assured him that with his wedding and Bella's companionship, the thoughts would be vanquished. However, Edward was not so sure. He was sure that she would come to regret this decision, and he would have to feel the whole weight of guilt.
"Oh Edward," Jasper joked, entering Edward's room and breaking his thoughts. "You managed to stay away from Bella for 3 hours. A new record."
Grinning, Edward replied, "well, Alice is getting her wedding dress fixed. And you know, the whole bad luck thing about seeing a bride before a wedding."
"Oh nonsense." Jasper lightly refuted. "I have seen Alice in her dress before the wedding. Of course, she tore my eyeballs out, but that's okay. Carlisle popped them back in pretty quick."
They both laughed, and Edward replied, "Yeah, but that was at your third wedding."
"Whatever. God, there's way too much happiness in this house what with you and Bella acting like dying lovers and Alice all hyper about the wedding. I think I'm gonna take off." Bounding out of the room at top speed, Jasper exited the room, leaving Edward to dream about tasting chocolate cake with Bella in the sunshine.
At seven o'clock, the Cullen family all sat around the dinner table filled with food though Bella was the only one eating. While the rest of the family was engrossed in conversation, Bella grabbed Edward's hands under the table, causing a slight smile to appear on both of their faces.
"So Bella. Liking Eddie's marble hands?" Emmet joked.
Bella blushed, which caused Emmet to bust into laughter.
"Emmet" Carlisle warned in a fatherly tone, and Emmet quieted.
"So how was work?" Esme asked.
"It was great. I am going to perform this really complex brain surgery in a few days. I'm not sure if the patient will make it. It's in a really intricate part of the brain, and the tumor has grown to such an enormous size that it will take some work to get it all out."
"Can I watch?" Edward asked for it was not everyday that a surgery stunned Carlisle.
"I don't know Edward. Don't you have to go hunting soon?"
Edward had completely forgotten about the trip. In fact, he did not even feel thirty until Carlisle had mentioned the trip. Next to him, Bella's hands gave an involuntary twitch, and despite himself, Edward imagined how she would behavior on her own hunting trips when she was changed. The idea haunted Edwards, but he refused to dwell upon a subject that he and Bella had already spent days arguing.
After dinner, they watched Wuthering Heights though Edward cared not for the movie itself. He took no pleasure in seeing two irrational people foolish enough to throw away their love for no good reason. And despite Edward's continual argument that Cathy and Heathcliff's love was destructive, Bella insisted that it was romantic and beautiful. Bella dozed off towards the end for she had such a long day with Alice, so Edward carried her upstairs and after writing a short note saying that he will be back in a day or so, kissed her softly on the forehead and left.
During the trip, Emmet and Jasper surprised Edward with a mountain lion as a pre-wedding present. When they got home, all feeling thoroughly rested, Edward decided to make a b-line to the hospital to try and sneak into the observation booth. When he got there, a nurse informed him that Dr. Cullen had already finished the surgery, but it was very successful. Deciding to congratulate him, Edward was halfway to his office when he saw a little girl with curly brown hair crying and holding a white rabbit. Her large green eyes glazed with tears, and she was looking utterly bewildered. Reading her mind, he discovered that she was lost, so he picked her up and tried to console her.
"Sh..Sh.." Edward tried to rock the girl like he had seen in movies. "It's okay….I'll help you find your mommy."
"Mommy" she hiccupped "busy…..Daddy….Daddy"
"Okay, I'll help you find Daddy. It's okay. Please don't cry." Edward almost pleaded the last sentence.
Edward walked her around the hospital, asking nurses along the way if they knew who she was. Meanwhile, he tried to make small talk. She was so cute.
Putting on a smile, he asked "So, what's your name?"
"Nicole," she hiccupped again.
"That's a pretty name, Nicole. I'm Edward."
"Eddie?"
"No Edward." He hated the nickname. It made him seem even younger.
"Eddie!" Nicole was determined, and he was not going to say no to a little girl.
Seeing her rabbit, Edward decided to ask about it. "So who's your friend there?"
"Her name is Carrot. What you like to say hi to her?" Nicole asked timidly in a soft high voice.
"Um…sure. Hi Carrot, I'm Edwar – Eddie."
Nicole put the rabbit's years upon to her wrong, and replied authoritatively after a few moments. "Carrot says hi. She likes you. I like you too"
"Really?" Edward was sure that his static heart had just ached, and he wished at that moment, more than anything else, that he could have a child like her. He knew that he had to pay a price for living eternally. Besides, sacrifices are there to make one appreciate the blessings that one already has. However, all of a sudden, he was angry at his own rationality, and he wanted to throw up hell and rip apart his vampire body.
Nicole seems to have magically felt the tension, and she squirmed in his arm. Returning to her immediately, he asked her more questions about Carrot, and soon she was giving him the entire biography. Edward smiled the whole way, and he felt lucky to be holding something as delicate as a child.
As they reared to the third hallway on the second floor, Edward was now pretending to ask Carrot her favorite hiding hole in the forest when Nicole suddenly yelled "DADDY!" and as Edward instinctively lowered her, she ran into a man's arms.
"Baby, where have you been? God, I was so scared! You could have been kidnapped or…." The man trailed off and kissed her daughter's hair.
"It's okay, Daddy. Eddie helped me find you. He saved me Daddy!"
Edward smiled again. She really was too cute. The man looked at him, and after shaking his hands, thanked him with much enthusiasm. "I'm so happy you found her. You have no idea how much this means to me. It's not everyday that you find a teenager willing to help a child. I'm Mark, by the way."
"I'm Edward, and it really was no trouble." Edward did not mention that though he looked sixteen, his mind had long grown past puberty.
"Her mother would have never forgiven me if I lost her. God you should have seen her face when I told her that Nicole kind of wandered off. But I suppose all mothers are like that." He smiled, and insisted upon introducing Edward to his wife. He declined for he was eager to return to Bella, and Mark after thanking him again, turned around to find his wife.
Three guesses on who the wife is.
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