Okay this Author's Note is a little long so bear with me. I'm back! I told you I would be updating as quick as I could, and here it is…I didn't want to make you crazy trying to figure out what the secret is.

This Chapter took a lot out of me. I was crying when I was writing the "discovery" scene, and I had jumped ahead to get that done right and then went back to the night before. But it killed me to write it. I'll go in a little more detail in my closing note, because then you'll know what I'm talking about. And if you cry easily, like I do, you may want tissues handy, because I cried.

And also to Christopher Morley, the author of The Tree That Didn't Get Trimmed, because not only is the story cute, but it is oddly appropriate. (BTW if it's the same CM that CM Park is named after than that's just freaky...right Patti?)

Okay, well, the mystery is revealed…NOW!

BPOV

I followed Rosalie down the hall to where the children were playing, fully aware of the fact that I was in deep shit. Rosalie checked on the kids, mainly to make sure the cousins were playing nice, before turning back to me.

"He doesn't know." It wasn't a question.

"No Rosalie, he doesn't."

"Are you planning on telling him?"

"Yes. Look, I know I have to tell him, but it's so hard. We've been dating for nine days, and I've only known him for fifteen. Trust me, I've dealt with this long enough, and it isn't easy. When you dealt with it, Emmett was there, when I tell Edward-"

"He'll be devastated."

"Or angry." I looked down, not wanting to think about Edward's reaction.

"Bella, Edward has been looking for you since high school. Trust me, Emmett's told me everything about how he was back then and everything he's ever wanted in a woman, and you're it. He's not going to like what you're telling him, but he isn't going to dump you for it. This isn't something you could have helped, he'll realize that. But if you wait, knowing how he feels about you, he'll get upset that you didn't trust him."

"I know. He's already told me he loves me, and I'm pretty sure that he's gonna make the hard sell for me to move in with him." I sighed, wondering if he'd feel that way tomorrow.

"Edward's like a debutant at her coming out party. He's watched Irina, and Emmett, and Alice find the people they were meant to be with, and he's had a string of girls who want to 'date Edward Cullen.' He's so excited to have someone who cares about who he really is, that he's pushing for forever and you haven't even known each other a month. You have to be honest with him, not just about this, but the speed he's moving at…everything. I can tell you love him, so just tell him." Rosalie moved closer and put her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm going to tell him tomorrow. I just didn't want to ruin Christmas."

"If you need to talk, I'm here."

Angela walked over then with one of her books. "Bella, will you read me this?"

"Sure honey." Rosalie left as I sat down on one of the floor pillows and Angela curled up into my side and Ben and Carmen sat down in front of me. As I began reading, Irina's children stopped playing and came to sit by me, as I continued with the story.

EPOV

Rosalie and Bella had been gone for about fifteen minutes when Rosalie came back alone. "Where's Bella?"

"She's reading The Tree That Didn't Get Trimmed to the kids." Rosalie answered, sitting next to Emmett.

"Angela loves that story; I think I've read it to her fifty times." Emmett commented as I left the room.

I walked down the hall and saw Bella surrounded by my nieces and nephews. I stayed in the doorway, watching her for a moment. As she read, the kids hung on her every word, and Angela, who is the shyest of Em's kids, was cuddled up to her, completely comfortable.

I listened closely as Bella finished the story. "Something nice, the old firs believe, always happens to the trees that don't get trimmed. They even believe that some day one of the Christmas tree poles will be the starting point for another Magic Beanstalk, as in the fairy tale of the boy who climbed up the beanstalk and killed the giant. When that happens, fairy tales will begin all over again." Watching her with them, I imagined an image that I wanted so badly it hurt. I saw Bella surrounded by our children, reading them stories, teaching them how to dance; Bella would be an excellent mother.

Just at that moment, Angela ran over and pulled on my hand, yanking me out of my daydream. "Uncle Edward, Bella just read us a story. Did you see?"

I picked up my niece and rested her on my hip. "Yes I did, did you like the story?"

"Uh huh! She reads better than daddy." Just then Bella laughed and stood up from the pillow she had been sitting on.

"Well, I'm glad you liked it, sweetheart." Bella walked over and kissed Angela on the top of her head and Angela threw out her arms and practically jumped out of my arms and into Bella's. From the other room, my mom called out that dinner was ready and I placed my hand on the small of Bella's back and led her into the dining room as the rest of the kids ran out of the room.

BPOV

Edward led me to the dining room and Emmett came and took Angela from me. We sat down, while the children's table buzzed with excitement. The conversation kept up steadily through dinner, Rosalie talked about what the triplets were doing in kindergarten, and it was still hard to believe it's been almost six years since I met her. Emmett told stories about different fires he'd been called to, and Irina beamed about the quiet beauty that living in Alaska offered her and her family. When Esme asked Edward about how we met, I felt his hand rub my leg under the table.

"Well, I had come up with this idea for a story with a female heroine, and I needed to do some research on a girlie bar, to come up with a setting, but I also needed to find someone to loosely model the main character after. I asked this girl who works at my publisher's, and she told me about Bella's bar. I went in there and asked for 'Bill,' who turned out to be 'Bell' and was pleasantly surprised. She told me that if I wanted to get to know the place, I had to work there, so I started there the next day. A week later, I knew I was in trouble, because I was already falling for Bella. So over that weekend, when her place was robbed and she needed somewhere to stay, I offered her my guest room, and that was it. She's had my heart since she first danced out of the kitchen carrying that case of beer, and by some miracle, she loves me too."

Everyone smiled and said "awe" as Edward grabbed my hand and kissed it. Alice was squirming in her seat across from me, and I saw Jasper place his hand on her back and lean in to whisper in her ear. She quickly straightened up and began bouncing again.

"Okay, Edward, I don't want to steal your thunder, with the whole 'wonder of new love' thing you have going here, but Jasper and I have an announcement." She paused for a brief moment to build up a little anticipation before squealing out. "Jasper and I have set a date! We're getting married March 25th." Cheers and gasps came from all around the room.

Esme was the first to say something. "Oh, congratulations honey. But why so soon, that doesn't give us much time."

"Mom, we've been engaged for almost two years, running all over, trying to find the perfect venue, and never getting the date we wanted. So Jasper and I finally decided to do it on our own. We found a great space, it's an old theater, and they rent the space, but you have to organize everything else. But I'm such a perfectionist, I would have driven everyone crazy anyway, so I already know everything that has to get done, I just have to do it. And that leads me to my next announcement. Rosalie and Irina, you've already told me that you'll be in my Matron of Honor and my bridesmaid, but I need another one so…Bella, will you be a bridesmaid?"

FUCK! ME! My eye's bugged out of my head, which luckily, was an acceptable response. "Alice, I'm honored, truly, but don't you have any friends you'd rather ask?"

Alice smiled and looked at me. "Bella, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm kind of kooky, and I don't really have girlfriends, and I feel closer to you than I do to most other people. It's almost like we were destined to find each other. And I guess the fact that you found Edward worked out too!" Everyone laughed and I took a deep breath, trying to steady my voice.

"Alice, I'd love to." What else could I say?

Conversation quickly turned to dresses and flowers and centerpieces, and I smiled and nodded when need be, but I was thinking ahead to the conversation I would be having tomorrow. When everyone had finished eating, I offered to help Esme with the dishes so that everyone could continue talking about the wedding.

Edward looked at me as I got up from the table. "You want me to come in and help?"

I laughed and smiled up at him. "Thanks. But I'm fairly certain I'll survive it."

I followed Esme into the kitchen with a handful of dishes. I had never owned a dishwasher, so I took my place by the sink, scraping the plates into the garbage and then rinsing them and handing them to Esme, who was loading the dishwasher.

"Thank you again for having me, Esme. I've never had a big, family Christmas before."

Esme smiled at me and continued taking the dishes I was passing to her. "Edward told us a little about you, I hope you don't mind."

"I'm actually glad he did. I played it down a little with him, but I still deal with it every day. And especially this time of year, everyone goes home to see family, and I have nowhere to go." I wiped a tear that had begun to fall and went back to rinsing.

"It must have been hard growing up without a mother, I can't imagine missing out on my children's lives, and they're grown up now."

"I have moments, something will happen and I'll think, 'God, I wish my mom was here right now.' But it helps that I have all of the things from the studio in the bar, and these." I shook my left hand, which had my mother and grandmother's rings, as well as my bracelet.

Esme took my hand and looked at it. "They're beautiful, what are the charms?"

"They're different types of Celtic knots, they each mean different things." I began pointing them out as I spoke. "This one means 'artistic,' this means 'luck,' then there's 'inspiration and 'new life.' This is a bird, which is the messenger between worlds, bringing messages from the heavens and this is my Celtic astrological sign, its muin, the animal associated with it is the swan. My mom was Irish and she was really into it, so she'd buy me charms for different things." I shook my wrist a few times, watching the charms rattle and jingle. I hadn't thought about this bracelet in a while, and it made me a little sad. I went back to rinsing dishes and Esme waited a little while before asking her next question.

"What happened to your mother's studio?"

"She sold it to one of the other dance instructors. She knew that if it were up to me, I'd never sell it, so she did and then left me the money." Esme and I began wrapping up the leftovers and putting them in the fridge.

"Bella, I'm glad Edward found you. He's been alone for so long, and I'm glad to see him so happy. You're a lovely girl, and I can see how much you love him." Oh God! I did not need to hear this right now…I'm flattered she feels this way, but it's not making the anxiety about tomorrow any easier.

I almost ghosted through the rest of the day, spending most of the time playing with Angela, mainly because everyone left me alone while I was with her. Dessert came and I told stories about my former dance career, ignoring most of the other conversations.

After dessert, we packed up our gifts and went to go, before it got too dark. As we walked to the car, I felt a heavy weight settle on my shoulders. Edward put our bags in the car and opened my door for me. I got in and stared at my hands. Edward got in the car and reached up to stroke my face. "Thinking about your mom?"

The tears slowly started to streak down my face. "It's not a bad thing. It's just, I've never had a Christmas like this, and I want it so bad!" I started to cry even harder and I couldn't hold it in any more. Edward pushed his seat back and pulled me onto his lap. I threw my arms around his neck and he pulled me even closer.

"Bella, you will have it. You're going to have everything you've ever wanted."

I turned to face him and kissed him hard. When he broke the kiss, he wiped the tears from my face and held me on his lap. "My family loved you, you know that right? Especially my parents. And watching you with my nieces and nephews, I know it's ridiculously early to say this, but that seems to be the theme for our relationship, so, I want to make babies with you. I want a huge brood with my smile and your beautiful eyes. I want us, forever." Why did he have to mention kids? I can't believe he's already seeing this go that far. You could round up 100 guys at random, and if you asked them if two weeks after meeting a girl if they would bring up kids, 99 would say no, I had to find the one who was already picking out baby names.

I kissed him quickly and then climbed back to my seat, straightening my dress. Edward fixed his chair and drove away from his parents' house. It was a quiet drive home, and all I could focus on was the eyes that would flash over to me, checking to see how I was holding up, before returning to the road. We got back to his apartment and I went to shower.

I tried to calm down, but that wasn't happening, so then I just gave in and cried as the water ran over me. When I did get out, I put on one of my nice nightgowns and made my way to Edward's room, anxious to feel his arms around me. I walked in and closed the door, before climbing into bed with him. Before I could get comfortable, Edward pulled me on top of him and kissed me passionately. I rolled onto my back, without breaking the kiss. I had spent the past few days avoiding Edward, which meant I hadn't been with him since that night in the shower, and I needed him tonight.

Edward kissed down my neck to my collarbone, massaging my breasts and making my heart race. I reached down to his bare shoulders and then found his hands, bringing them to the hem of my nightgown and guiding his hands upward, pushing it up and off of me. He growled against my neck when he realized I wasn't wearing any underwear, and continued until I was naked under him. I grabbed his shoulders again and used my feet to push his pajama bottoms down to his knees and he kicked them off into the covers. Edward hovered over me, and removed a wet piece of hair from my eyes, just like he had that first night, and then entered me. I rose off the bed, meeting him, and he moaned against my skin. We found our familiar rhythm and felt the passion swell around us. Every time one of us would get close, we would slow, drawing it out as long as we could, until finally we were both ready to climax. We moved together as one, as he filled me, taking away all the pain and doubt I had been feeling. When we came, I trembled in his arms and I felt content, but that feeling wasn't meant to last.

As the ecstasy began to ebb, I felt an overwhelming feeling of futility, like no matter how hard I tried, this moment would end, and what was coming next could be the beginning of the end. I began to cry, and Edward cupped my face, kissing my forehead and wiping my tears off my left cheek with his thumb. I grabbed my nightgown and slipped it on and Edward ducked under the sheets to find his pants, slipping them on when he had. Edward rolled onto his back and pulled me to his chest, one arm around my body, the other reaching across him to stroke my hair, holding my face to his chest. I cried silently against his chest until I fell asleep, and he never asked me why I was crying, just letting me cry, trusting I would tell him when I was ready.

EPOV

I woke up and went down to the water. Bella was still asleep, but after last night, I didn't want to disturb her. There was something about sitting out here and watching the ferries, it soothed me. I didn't like seeing Bella in pain, but I also knew that I should wait before I pushed more, because the last thing I wanted to do was push her away. I went back to the apartment around 11:30, knowing she would have left to open the bar. I gathered my stuff, but decided to take my notebook today, instead of my laptop, because sometimes I just needed to physically write out what I was working on.

I got to the bar around 1pm and went to her office. Bella smiled up at me from her desk and I kissed her softly, before sitting down across from her. I put on my I-Pod and started writing. We sat there for hours, working on our own things, and not talking much. I was afraid to say too much, and I had no idea what was causing Bella's silence.

Bella went upstairs to handle a delivery, and about twenty minutes later, she was holding a burger under my nose. "You should eat something; I don't want you wasting away on me." She smiled, but it was a little forced, so I decided to push a little.

"Bella?"

"I know, Edward. We'll talk about it at home, okay." She sat back down and went back to her paperwork. I stopped to eat and then around 5:00, Bella picked up my plate and went back upstairs. I kept writing, using Bella's secrecy to weave the character of my female heroine. What could have made her this way, what would someone have to suffer to throw up such an intricate series of walls, that not even love could knock down. I was still writing when I accidentally wrote Bella's name on the page, I was using her for inspiration, but so far she was just "the woman," she had no name. I didn't have any white-out on me, so I went over to Bella's desk. There was none in the center drawer so I checked the small drawer on the right side. While digging through it, I found a box next to the package of post-its and thought maybe she had random supplies in there.

I was wrong. There were tons of these pill packages. They were samples of some medicine called Premarin. I was staring down at the maroon and white package when I heard Bella's voice. "What are you doing?"

"What is this?"

"I told you, we'd talk when we got home. Now, what are you doing going through my desk?" She walked into the office and reached across the desk to snatch the packet from me. This was what we were going to talk about tonight. What was going on?

"I was looking for white-out, I didn't mean to snoop."

"Well, mission unaccomplished." Her voice was angry, she was glaring at me, tears glazing over her eyes, making them glassy.

"Bella, what were those pills? What does it have to do with-" Oh my God! I couldn't even think the word. "You're sick?"

"No."

"Damn it, Bella, don't you dare lie to me!" I wanted to know everything. I needed to know everything. And I couldn't take her keeping this from me anymore.

"What the hell, Edward. If I was sick, I'd tell you!" She yelled back at me and her tears started falling.

"Then what? What are these pills, and what do they have to do with what you're hiding from me?"

"They're hormone replacement therapy pills." She stared at me waiting for my next reaction, but I had nothing. I knew a little about birth control, and I remember back when Rosalie was having trouble getting pregnant, they had her on extra hormones, but those were injections, and if Bella was trying to get pregnant, she'd tell me, right. Especially after what I told her yesterday.

When she saw I wasn't going to interrupt her, she continued. "I'm not sick. But when I was 20, I had cancer."

"Bella-"

She held up her hands, silencing me again. "Please, let me finish this. When my mom had cancer the first time, it was cervical cancer. She got it at 29, I got it at 20."

"What are you…?" I couldn't come up with a coherent question, so I let her continue.

"After my mom got it, I became hyper vigilant. I went for every check-up with my ob/gyn, I took care of myself, but it was in my genes. It's actually one of the easiest types of cancer to treat; it's just one of the hardest ones to deal with."

"Because of the chemo?" I knew from hearing my father talk about patients he'd had, how bad cancer treatment could get.

"No, I didn't go through chemo; they were able to handle it with surgery. Edward, I can't have children. I had a hysterectomy."

I heard the words that were coming out of her mouth, but I wasn't getting it, none of this made sense.

"The hormones kept me from going into instant menopause. But I had everything removed. I had some of my eggs frozen, in case I wanted kids someday, but it's iffy because they have a better chance of being viable if they are fertilized before they're frozen, but I didn't have anyone in my life that I would want to have children with, plus I didn't want to take away the chance of having a kid with someone else someday."

Once again, the words were all coming in to my head, but I was filing them away to think about later. The picture in my head from yesterday, Bella and our children was being torn apart at the moment. The children were gone. I had found what I wanted, and it was being taken away from me. I didn't even bother trying to wipe away the tears I was crying.

"Edward, please say something." Bella was crying again, and I couldn't stand to hear the pain in her voice.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me think about us that way, if you knew we didn't have that potential?"

"Edward, please. I hate that we may never have that potential, but we've known each other for two weeks, I don't normally have this conversation until months into a relationship."

"But we were different."

"Were?" Her voice broke.

"Bella, I wanted to live with you, I was already planning our future…"

"Edward, this has been happening so fast, I've been struggling just to keep up with the pace you've been setting, I wasn't purposely keeping this from you to hurt you. I was trying to figure out how in the hell to tell you. You don't know how hard this is for me."

"You're saying this is my fault?" I knew that wasn't the sentence I should be picking out of all that, but I didn't want to think about the rest.

"There is no fault with something like this, Edward, it just happens."

I couldn't hear anymore. I had to get out of here. I felt like I was going crazy, like I was going to fall apart. I couldn't look at her right now, I couldn't hear her voice, see her tears, and I needed to be alone. I walked around the desk and grabbed my notebook and coat, running upstairs as she called after me with her broken voice. I put on my coat and walked out the door.

I walked back to the waterfront, floored by everything Bella had told me and slowly realizing just how much had changed in the last eight hours. I sat there for over an hour crying, and when I had finally cried myself out, I headed home.

When I came through the door to my apartment and closed it, I saw a piece of paper taped to my door.

Edward,

I wasn't trying to hide anything from you. I know you're in pain, but I can't be your punching bag, and if I stay, that's exactly what I will be. If we're going to survive this, you have to come to terms with it, just like I did. When you've had some time to deal with this, come by and we'll talk. If you want to. If not, then just let me know that that was your decision. I love you.

Bella

I didn't even have to go to the guest room to see if she had packed up her stuff. The apartment felt empty, that was all the confirmation I needed. Bella was gone.

Alright, so Bella's secret is that she had cancer and is now unable to have children. I got some partial correct guesses, but most of you seemed stumped. This was the first thing I came up with. When I first came up with the idea for this story, it was, "What if Bella had survived cervical cancer before meeting Edward, and now she had to deal with wanting a family she'll never be able to have." That was never up for grabs. Now they have to deal with hurt feelings and crushed expectations. Plus, I have a curveball in the works for them as well. Sides are chosen and there's a lot of yelling coming up. I wanted to thank my sis for not only telling me about this site, but for her support while I'm writing this story, including the novel that was her list of theories. I promise it does get better, but they fell in ass backwards, now they have to spin themselves back around and facing forward. THANK YOU! Especially after the labor of love that this chapter was, your support has meant so much.