I own none of this. The credit goes to the fabulous Stephenie Meyer and her publishing company, Little, Brown.
I was lying across something soft and cushy and I could feel a pair of cool hands (most likely Edwards) gently running through my hair. They were trembling, which was a bad sign. Quite a bit of time must have passed since I'd gone unconscious on the bathroom floor to make him shake like that. He had been terrified when I'd been out for just five minutes just a few months ago when we fought the battle with Victoria.
"Carlisle, you're absolutely sure the baby's not hurt?" I heard Rosalie ask, somewhere to my right.
"You're worried about the baby?" Edward's voice growled dangerously, about a foot away. He said the word 'baby' as if it were the most appalling thing the world could ever know. I really didn't like the way that his voice was dripping with venom and sarcasm. It was time for me to wake up.
"Shouldn't she be?" I asked quietly, opening my eyes, but not sitting up. My whole body felt…heavy, like I wasn't quite strong enough to hold it up. Despite the time I had spent passed out, I still felt exhausted. My voice was hoarse, probably from not using it for at least a few hours.
"Bella! Do you feel alright?" Edward's asked in a voice that sounded like it wanted to be eager, but couldn't quite find the energy. He leaned over me, and I saw that his expression hadn't improved much since the last time I'd seen him before everything had gone black. In fact, he looked worse. The depth of the agony on his eyes was… disturbing and incredibly excruciating for me to see. Edward had never done anything to deserve that kind of pain.
"Edward, everything's going to be okay. You'll be fine." I said, my voice still weak. It cracked on the world 'fine'. I felt remorseful, while still knowing that it was a lost cause. Edward didn't understand (and probably wouldn't until our son was born) that there was a chance that I would come out of the pregnancy unscathed. Well…mostly unscathed. I could deal with the bruises, and issues with eating.
"You're avoiding the question," He accused, managing to make his voice gentle, accusatory, and somewhat dead at the same time. Oh yeah, he'd asked me something. I had been distracted by his pain, too busy to actually understand his question.
"Bella?" He prompted, gazing at my face, probably searching for any hint of emotion that I betrayed. I worked hard to make my expression smooth and emotionless, like he'd done so many times before when hiding something from me. Surely, I would flush if I didn't want to answer whatever the question was, and that would give me away. Being a human was so… inconvenient (among other things). I let out a sigh.
"What was the question again?" I scrunched my eyebrows, as if confused. I didn't want him to think I was stalling, trying to come up with a good answer or something. I was probably over-acting it a bit.
"You're sure she didn't hit her head against the floor too hard Rosalie?" I heard Carlisle ask from the corner of the room.
"What? No! I didn't hit my head or anything like that. I just got…um…tired….and fell asleep." It sounded like crap to me, and everybody heard it too.
If Edward wasn't in so much pain, I was sure that he would've rolled his eyes. Instead, he just said my name once in a reproving voice.
"What?" I asked, as if I thought that he was asking me a question. Really, his voice was saying, 'Please don't insult our intelligence'.
Well, I wasn't going to tell them the truth. It would pain Edward so much if he heard me talking about how horrible I felt; how shocked, how overwhelmed, and how weak. It would probably scare him, and make him worry about what the baby was doing to my mental health, as well as physical. He had enough on his plate.
"How are you feeling? Do you hurt anywhere new?" He asked, gently tracing patterns up and down my arms, looking deep into my eyes. It didn't matter whether or not he could read my mind. He was like my personal vampire lie-detector when he did that.
"I feel fine. Nothing's wrong with me at all. I could go run a mile right now and be fine." I said, trying to sound bubbly and cheerful, basically the exact opposite of how I really felt. I tried to sit up to prove my point. It didn't work, though it did seem to magnify my exhaustion.
"Bella, don't try to get up just yet. You're extremely over-stressed right now and you need to just relax and stay still for a few days so that you can let yourself get better." Carlisle said, looking grim. As he finished speaking, he was watching Edward. He could see the burning pain too.
"A few days?! A few hours maybe, but days would just be ridiculous." I said, feeling the need to act a little bit tougher than I felt. The way that Carlisle talked made me sound like some wimpy girl who couldn't handle a little bit of trouble.
What I was feeling on the inside was a completely different matter. Just sleeping around, with Edward by my side and with a mini-Edward on the way was a beautiful picture. It seemed so peaceful to me. But deep down, I knew that the wonderful image that I had in my head would never happen. I was forgetting my future attempts to keep at least a little bit of food down, Edward's burning, the arguments between Rosalie and Edward, the bruises that would be showing up at a rapid pace, and the pure exhaustion that I would be feeling. Things like those didn't make up the image of perfection that I had in mind.
Deep in my thoughts, I just barely heard Rosalie say, "Bella, this rest isn't just for you, you know." Well that was what made the difference. It didn't matter if I wasn't in the best shape by my own doing, but I wouldn't put the baby in a poor condition because I needed to be macho. I would be a good mom, not a selfish one, from the very beginning.
"You're right," I mumbled. It was right about then when I realized how hungry I was. I needed food badly. Even an apple sounded good, and, as of yesterday, I hated apples. My stomach growled. "Time for day two of the experiment?" I asked Carlisle with a tiny smile, inwardly groaning. I probably just felt so weak because I was missing my energy food. Carlisle had been right when he had said that I needed to be able to keep food down. It had been...how long since I'd last eaten?
"How long was I…sleeping?" I asked, stubbornly sticking to my story.
Rosalie was the one who answered, though my question had more so been directed towards Carlisle or Edward. "You were out for about six hours total. Some of that time you were actually sleeping though." What did she mean 'some of the time'? How could they tell the difference between my sleeping and my being passed out?
"You were talking," Edward explained in a quiet voice, still staring at my face.
Uh oh. Maybe there had been no need to try to hide my stress and horror because they'd all heard it come spewing out of my unknowing mouth. So that was how Carlisle knew that I really needed to just lay around peacefully, without any additional stress.
"I think it might be good if you gave Charlie a call," Edward said, shocking me. Give Charlie a call? What was that about?
"Why?" I asked, curiously, while Carlisle left the room, most likely to get some food for my continuously growling stomach.
"You were talking about him." Was the only explanation that he gave.
"Um…okay." I said, biting my lip. I couldn't even remember Charlie cropping up in any of my dreams, so I had no idea what I had told Edward last night.
Carlisle returned seconds later, saltine crackers in hand. Wordlessly, he handed them to me, and the three of them turned to watch me hopefully.
I downed five crackers in about ten seconds, feeling starved. At first, I was thrilled when I managed to keep it down for forty-five seconds, then everyone's hope was shattered when I made good use of the large bowl that Carlisle had brought. Eating just a few crackers (and throwing them back up again) had sucked all of my energy away. Almost immediately, I fell back asleep and dreamed of Charlie and the phone call that I could hardly wait to make. It would be so nice to hear his voice one last time.
