EPOV

Waking up with Bella in my arms was like a dream. I didn't want to open my eyes or move for fear that she'd disappear. I moved my head to breathe in the scent of her and I heard a little movement at the end of the bed. I smiled to myself, thinking that she must be waking up and moving her legs. I decided to move mine slightly.

That's when I felt it. Both of Bella's legs were intertwined through mine.

So what was the movement?

I opened my eyes and stared down at the end of the bed.

Sitting there was Masen.

I could feel myself begin to panic. This was certainly not how I expected my son to find me and his mother. I glanced around quickly, making sure both of us were sufficiently covered.

"Hi," Masen said, smiling at me.

"Hi," I said to him quietly, smiling nervously at him. It was amazing how much he looked like me.

Oh God! What do I do? Wake up Bella!

"Bella," I said, leaning into her. "Bella, wake up."

"Hmmm," she said, snuggling into me a little more, before she opened her beautiful brown eyes to look at me. She smiled softly at me, but I was too nervous to return it. I didn't know how she was going to react to this and I certainly had no clue as to how Masen would react. I pointed in Masen's direction.

I watched as she blinked and slowly rolled over. I kept her clutched closely to me, partly to keep her covered, but partly because I was worried about her reaction and wanted her as close to me as possible. I heard her breath catch when she caught sight of Masen.

As soon as Masen saw his mom with her eyes open, he practically began vibrating and his smile must have been 1000 watts. He looked from me to her, then back to me.

"I knowed you were my dad! I just knowed it!" he said happily.

I think Bella and I both stopped breathing at his statement. Bella recovered first.

"What are you doing here, Buddy?" Bella asked, her voice still husky from sleep. I could hear the shock and nervousness in her voice.

"I missed you, Mama," he said crawling up the bed towards us.

"I missed you, too," she said as he launched himself into her arms.

God this felt right! My angel and my son both within arm's reach.

"Does Emily know where you are?" she asked.

"Ummm," he said, looking rather guilty.

"How about this?" she said. "You go sit in the living room for a minute and I will come out and call Emily, then we'll talk."

"About Edward being my dad?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes, Smarty Pants," she said. "About Edward being your dad."

"Yes!" he said, pumping his little fist in a very Emmett-like maneuver as he jumped from the bed.

As soon as he was out of the room, I finally let go of the breath I had been holding.

"Are you okay?" Bella giggled.

"Give me a week or two for my heart to settle down," I said. "He freaked me right out!"

"We better get up and dressed," Bella said. "With that level of excitement, he'll be back in here in less than a minute."

We moved around quickly grabbing our clothes. This was not the way I had planned to start my day, granted, it wasn't all bad.

My son was excited to see me.

As soon as we were mostly clothed, Masen bounced back into the room.

"Are you ready yet?" he asked.

"Sit on the couch and count to one hundred," Bella responded.

Masen ran out of the room again and I heard him start counting. Gotta be the fastest counting I've ever heard!

Bella turned to me and smiled. "We have under thirty seconds," she said sweetly as she tried to tame her wild mess of morning hair. Finally as Masen reached eighty, she gave up and tied it up in a messy bun.

Just as he hit ninety she grabbed my hand and looked me in the eyes.

"Ready?" she asked.

"More than you could ever believe," I said.

It was only partially a lie. I don't think I could ever really be ready. I wanted to do this, but emotionally, so much hung in the balance. He seemed happy, but would reality set in and he'd get mad at me? Not that I didn't deserve it, but...

"...ninety-nine, one hundred," Masen said as we walked into the main room.

"Good job," Bella said to him, squeezing my hand tightly. He was bouncing on the sofa excitedly and my heart did a little leap that maybe this wouldn't be as hard on him, on them, as I had feared. "What did I say I have to do now?"

"Call Emily," he sighed.

"And why do I have to call her?" she asked.

"Cuz I took off," Masen sighed again.

"Right," she said. "Do we need to go over the rules?"

"No, Mom," he said, his eyebrows creasing slightly.

"Mase," she said, letting go of my hand. "I love you bunches. I just want you to be safe. That means you can't leave the people who are in charge of you without permission."

"I know," he said, looking pleadingly at her. "I was just really excited."

"I know you were excited," she said, ruffling his hair. "You certainly are a smart boy. Let me call Emily and then we can all talk, okay?"

"Uh huh," he said, looking at me again.

Bella stepped away and grabbed her phone, moving to the corner of the room.

"Hey," I said to Masen.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked.

"I am," I said.

"What kind of doctor?" he asked.

"I am a pediatrician," I said to him. "That's a special doctor for kids."

"Do you give needles?" he asked me.

"Not usually," I said, smiling at him. "I usually ask the nurse to do that."

"Good," he said. "I don't like needles."

"Want to know a secret?" I asked him.

"Uh huh," he said, looking at me excitedly. "I don't like needles, either."

"But you're a doctor," he said. "Doctors aren't afraid of nothin'."

"Doctors are afraid of lots of things," I said. "Just like anyone else."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Some doctors are afraid of throw up," he said.

"Ewww," Masen said.

"Why didn't you live with us when you were learning to be a doctor?" he asked, looking straight into my eyes and jumping right to the point.

"Hey, Masen," Bella said, interrupting the hard question.

"Yeah," he said, looking away from me to his mother.

"Why don't we show Edw..., your dad, our beach?" she said.

"Can we?" he asked.

"Yup," she said.

"And can we find crabs?" he asked.

"If you want... but I'm still not touching the little beach spiders," she said.

"Yay!" he cheered. "Wait! I don't have my bucket!"

He was extremely concerned about that fact.

"We'll take the bucket from here this time," she said, obviously not wanting to go back to the main house just yet. To be perfectly honest, I didn't either. I didn't want to face the questioning from the gang just yet.

"Let's go," he enthused.

Bella grabbed the bag that we brought last night that contained some food and drinks. We headed out of the cabin and simply followed Masen.

"I didn't know what to say," I told her.

"Me neither," she said. "We need to stick as close to the truth as we can. One day he will know the truth and he can't feel like we lied to him when he was young."

"I just don't know what to expect," I said.

"Well, that's step one," she said smiling. "No matter what you expect with kids, they'll always come up with something that you didn't anticipate."

"I just wish we'd have had more time to prepare," I said.

"No amount of preparation would have prepared me for him knowing already," she admitted.

"Do you think he overheard Emmett or one of the gang?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I guess we'll find out when we talk to him."

We made our way down a steep narrow path to the beach. I honestly wanted to grab and hold Bella and Masen and try to keep them with me. They descended the path a lot quicker than I did. The last bit of the descent was behind a little rock wall and I couldn't see either Bella or Masen. My heart lurched at that fact, but rejoiced when I heard them talking.

"Can I take off my boots, Mom?" Masen asked.

"Only if I can take my shoes off, too," she said.

"Yeah," he cheered.

"You'll protect me from the beach spiders?" she asked.

"I will," he said. "I promise."

"Good," she said.

As I came around the little outcropping of rocks, the first thing I saw were his boots on the sand, right next to her shoes. Her socks were tucked safely inside. I decided to join them and took off my shoes and socks as well. Once I had my bare feet in the cold sand, I moved across the beach to join them. Bella was sitting on a log, while Masen moved a lightening speed, overturning rocks and collecting treasures from underneath. I moved to sit next to her, as close as I could.

"Is this okay?" I asked as I put my arm around her.

"Yeah," she said softly, leaning into me.

We were both silent as we watched our son move around the beach collecting tiny crabs from beneath the rocks. I don't know how long we sat there watching him, but I could have sat there all day, holding her and watching him.

I must have been in a bit of a dream world for a moment because the sound of Masen right next to me startled me somewhat.

"Why are you crying, Mama?" he asked, reaching his sandy little hand up to touch his mother's cheek.

"I'm happy," she sniffled.

"You cry when you're happy?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she sniffed.

"Then why am I not crying?" he asked.

She laughed softly. "Are you happy?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "My dad finally comed to see us."

"Finally came," she corrected with a giggle and a sniffle, too.

"Do you want to come talk to us about this now?" she asked.

"Can I ask questions, too, or is this one of the times when you say we are gonna talk and then you do all the talkin'?" he asked seriously, causing us both to laugh.

"You can ask all the questions you want," she said. "Sometimes they might be tricky to answer, but we'll do our best."

He looked contemplative for a minute before smiling at her.

"Do you want to sit on my lap?" she asked.

"Nope," he said before turning to me. "Can I sit on you?"

"Yeah," I said, feeling a tear slip down my cheek.

"Are you happy, too?" he asked.

"Very happy," I answered.

"Okay," he said, feeling his own cheeks.

Bella shifted away slightly as Masen crawled up onto my lap.

"Did someone tell you that Edward was your dad?" Bella asked.

"No," he giggled. "I told you, I just knowed it."

"How did you figure it out?" she asked him.

"When I was playing outside and you were talking, I saw that he had the same hair as me, and you told me that my dad had my same hair," he said.

Smart kid!

"Then," he continued, "when it was time for us to go, I saw that he had green eyes just like me, and you told me that he had my same eyes."

"I see," she said. "So that's why you decided that he was your dad?"

"Nope," he said. "I thought that he may be my dad because you told me that he was your friend before, too... but I knowed he was my dad when he hugged me."

"When he hugged you?" she asked.

"When I was waiting in the car cuz all those peoples were yelling. He came to get me from the car and I was so tired. He picked me up and when he hugged me it made my heart feel like when you hug me," Masen explained.

"Oh," Bella sniffled and I wiped the tears away from my own eyes, too.

"I was going to ask him last night but he didn't go to eat dinner with us," Masen said. "And then he didn't have breakfast with everybody else and you didn't come back yet, so I knowed where you go when you want to get away from everyone."

"You scared Leah and Emily, and even your new friends, when you took off like that," she said softly, trying to bypass the part where he found us in bed together. "Emily sent you to your room to get dressed and then you were gone. Everybody was looking for you."

"I jumped out the window just like we did already," he said, smiling about their adventure the previous day.

"Okay," she said, her cheeks tingeing slightly pink. "But we don't do that unless it's an emergency."

"Okay," he sighed.

I was still recovering from the fact that I was holding his warm little body on my lap, and that he said he knew me because of the way it felt when I hugged him. I didn't even know that he knew that I hugged him.

"Are you going to stay here with me and Mommy now?" he asked me.

"For a little while," I said, trying to explain the mess. "I want to stay all the time but I have some work to do before I can make that happen."

"So you just came for a visit?" he asked.

"I..." I started to try to explain something to my son, but I was at a loss for words.

"Will you be here at my birthday, because Kevin doesn't believe I have a dad?" he said.

"I will be," I said to him. "I promise."

"Okay," he said, then he started biting his lip. He obviously got that from his mom.

"Do you have something else you want to ask me?" I said.

"Am I 'apposed to call you Dad or Daddy?" he said.

I could hear a sob escape Bella's lips, but for the life of me, I couldn't look away from my son's happy face.

"I don't know," I said as a tear slipped down my cheek. "What do you want to call me?"

"Hmmm," he said, obviously pondering things very seriously. "Daddy! You look like a daddy."

Another sob escaped Bella's lips at that point causing us both to look up at her. She tried to smile but it wasn't very convincing.

"Are you still happy, Mommy?" Masen asked moving from my lap to his mom's.

"I am, Masen," she sniffled.

"Then why are you crying so much?" he asked. "Usually you smile when you're happy."

"I am happy, Masen," she said, trying to regain her composure. "I promise."

"Did you know my daddy was coming now? Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"He surprised us both," she said to him.

"When was he 'apposed to come?" he asked.

"I didn't know," she said honestly.

"Masen," I said, addressing my son. "I made some pretty big mistakes and sometimes that will make Mommy sad, even when she's happy."

He looked at me with a frown on his face.

"What mistakes?" he asked.

"No matter what I should have been here for you and your Momma. I should never have put anything above that," I said, tears falling down my cheeks.

"But being a doctor is important. Momma told me that," he said.

"It is. It is important, but when you're a daddy, nothing should be more important than your family," I cried. "And I was so wrong to ever make you or Mommy think that anything else was more important to me than the two of you. You are the most important things in the world to me and no matter what I am going to be there for both of you from now on."

Masen launched himself into my arms and hugged me. A real hug with his whole body. Bella followed quickly, hugging both Masen and me as we both cried.

"Look," Masen said after a few minutes. "I'm happy, too."

Sure enough there was a tiny tear in his eye, too.

We stayed that way for a few more minutes before Masen wiggled free.

"Are you scared of sand spiders, too, Daddy?" he asked me.

It was the first time he actually called me daddy and the tears, which had finally dried up, started again.

"Hmm," I said, rubbing my eyes. "I don't know. I've never seen a sand spider."

"They're really crabs, but Momma thinks they look like spiders. She doesn't like spiders at all, so I make her safe and put them in the bucket when we come to the beach," Masen said.

"I'm glad you take care of your Momma so well," I said, feeling the pain of not having been there to take care of them.

"Will you help me with that big rock? I know that there are lots of crabs under there and I can't do it myself," he said.

"I will," I said, kissing Bella on the forehead, which was the only part that was available to me.

She pulled away from me and let me stand to help Masen. It took quite a bit of effort to do, but I finally flipped the large rock, and dozens of tiny crabs started scurrying every which way.

"Help me, Daddy," Masen cried as he grabbed the little crabs to move them to the bucket. There was no way I could have said no to my son and we spent the next few minutes grabbing the little things and tossing them into the large bucket. Once we were done, I looked over to Bella, who was smiling.

"What do we do with them once we get them all in the bucket?" I asked Masen.

"It's kinda like timeout," Masen explained. "Once Momma and I are ready to leave the beach I let them all go... well I let them go when Momma is a safe distance away."

"He usually waits until I get my shoes on," Bella said, standing from her place on the log.

"I do," he said. "That way none of the crabs touch her."

"I see," I said.

"Do you want to take your dad and show him the tidal pools?" she asked Masen.

"Yeah!" Masen cheered, grabbing my hand. "You're gonna love them, Daddy. You can see all sorts of stuff. There are clams and muscles, sometimes you can even see sea anen.. sea anenen... sea anenomes."

"Sea anemones," Bella corrected.

"Yeah," he said. "Those things."

"Can we all go see them together?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said jumping up and down. "Come on, Momma."

He grabbed her hand with his other one and walked between us, pulling us both along at his pace. I smiled at Bella, who was truly smiling, though she still had tears in her eyes. It was a short walk to the tidal pools and we even had to climb onto the rocks. Part of me wanted to try to protect both Bella and Masen from the slippery rocks, but I cautioned myself to remember that they had done this countless times before I was there to protect them. They were inviting me into their world and I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that.

The next thirty minutes was spent at the tidal pools. We saw all sorts of sea life in the pools and I watched as Masen's eyes lit up at each new discovery. This really was his home. I didn't know how I was going to do it yet, but I was going to find a way to be here with them.

Masen's tummy grumbled loudly as he peered over a smaller tidal pool.

"It must be lunch time," Bella said.

"Can I have grilled cheese?" he asked.

"I think I can make that," she said. "Ready to head back?"

The last question was directed at me, and I knew it. The answer, honestly, was no, but I knew that we had to get back to reality at some point.

"Let's go," I said as I held out my hand to her. She grabbed my hand and Masen quickly grabbed my other one and we walked slowly across the beach towards our shoes. I waited with Masen while Bella put her shoes back on and we released the crabs into the water together. Bella gave Masen an apple from the bag we had brought and handed me a bottled water, taking one for herself. We walked up the steep path for a ways before Masen interrupted.

"I'm tired. Can you carry me, Daddy?" he looked up, pleading with me.

Like I could say no!

"Sure," I said, bending down. "Climb on."

He hopped up on my back and I carried him the rest of the way up the path. He happily bounced along on my back as I held Bella's hand. This was the life I wanted. This was my family!

Unknown POV

"Look at them, down there," I said to myself. "I can't believe she forgave him so easily."

I snapped a few pictures as they walked hand in hand across the sand, smiles on all three faces.

"This day is not going to be soon forgotten!" I muttered as I slipped away unseen.