CHAPTER 24

Bella

I burst into tears the moment I saw the police cruiser parked against the curb outside Edward's apartment and the two uniformed officers standing at his door.

Edward stopped the car and looked at me.

A million thoughts ran through my mind at lightning speed. I was going back to jail. I was going to give birth to Edward's child in jail. I could have an abortion. I could never tell him. We could run. We could leave the country and change our names. Edward would never forgive me for killing our child. I couldn't give birth to our baby and never see it. I couldn't let him have our baby while I sat in jail for the rest of my life. What if he moves on? What if some other woman raises our child? "Bella." What if he gives up on me. What if this is it? "Bella!" We should drive. We should leave. We shouldn't let them see us.

"BELLA!"

I turned suddenly to see Edward's face enraged and staring back at me. I could tell he was pissed, although his face was a blur through my tears.

"What do you want to do?" he asked, panic apparent in his voice.

I just sobbed louder. I couldn't decide. I had no idea what to do. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to crawl into the ground with my dad and grandma and my unborn child and never come out.

Edward parked the car. "Stay here. Stay down."

I cried and shook my head. "No, don't leave. Please. Don't leave me." I grabbed on to his arm for dear life.

"I'll be right back. They cannot be here to take you. Jenks would've given us a head's up. We would've heard something. Calm down."

I couldn't calm down. He didn't know the seriousness of this. I pulled at his shirt, pulling him closer to me. I wrapped my arms around his neck. "I love you," I cried.

He rubbed my back and whispered soothing things in my ear. "Bella, it's okay. Please, baby, calm down. You're freaking me out."

I lost it when he said the word baby and I pushed him away, out of the car. "Go, just go!" Edward looked at me like I had four heads and he slowly walked towards his apartment.

I turned around in my seat and watched as Edward approached the officers at his door. They conversed for a few moments before I actually saw Edward's head fall back in laughter. What the hell was he laughing at?

He started back to the car and stuck his head in the driver's side door. "Bella, it's okay. It's just your wonderful mother pressing charges on you for assault. Your just being served with the warrant to appear in court. Come on, you just have to sign something."

I looked at him hesitantly, unsure if I should believe him. Wait, what? Unsure if I should believe him? It was Edward! I shook my head. I was so frazzled and exhausted. I climbed out of the car and tried to make myself appear calm and normal.

The officers told me I was being served with a criminal warrant, read me the court date, and had me sign a piece of paper. They gave me a copy of it also and then they went on their way.

Edward and I entered his apartment and he started going on about my mother.

"Edward, I just need a few minutes, to myself. Okay?" I said, as I through the little yellow piece of paper on the counter.

I walked to our bedroom and closed the door. I crawled onto the big bed and pulled the covers up to my neck and I cried. I couldn't even be concerned with assault charges at the time. I had much bigger things to worry about.

I hadn't even calmed down long enough to organize my thoughts when Edward came into the room. I wanted to scream at him to just go away, but I couldn't. He laid down behind me on the bed and put his arms around me.

"Bella, please. What the fuck is going on with you?"

"I'm an idiot," I cried.

"What do you mean? You are not." His hands moved up and down my bare arm, trying to soothe me.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to tell him yet or not. I didn't want to hear him tell me that everything would be okay and that he would take care of us and blah blah blah. He didn't know what the future really held. He didn't know.

I knew if I didn't tell him he would drive me crazy wondering what was going on and I knew I'd end up saying and doing things to him that I didn't mean.

I turned my head over my right shoulder and saw him propped up looking down at me. "I'm fucking pregnant," I cried.

His hand left my arm immediately, like my skin had burned him or something.

"What?" he asked, seemingly shocked.

I rolled my eyes and looked away from him. "You heard me."

I heard him sigh and felt the cold air hit my back when he got off the bed. I heard his footsteps and when I turned my head in his direction, he had left the room. He was gone.

That wasn't exactly the reaction I had expected from him and it sent me into another fit of tears. I hugged my arms around myself. I was so scared. I was terrified of the unknown. I was terrified of being a horrible mother, like Renee. I was scared I'd be sent back to prison and give birth in some cold concrete room on a metal table and they'd just hand my baby off to someone and I'd never see it. My sobs became louder at the thought. As terrifying as it was to be pregnant with so much of my future unknown, the thought of our baby being taken away from me was utterly incomprehensible.

I could see the time passing on the clock on the nightstand. One hour. Two hours. Three hours.

For every hour that Edward didn't return to the room, my thoughts became more and more negative and frantic. Where was he? What was he thinking?

When night fell and the room began to grow dark, my hunger pains became too much to ignore. I tried to collect myself as best I could before I eventually entered the living room.

It was dark, with the exception of Edward's computer's screen saver and a light that was on above the stove in the kitchen.

Edward was asleep on the couch. His eyes were puffy and his long eye lashes looked damp. Had he been crying? The sight of him like that made my chest hurt.

I walked over to him and kneeled down in front of him. "Edward?" I said softly. I shook him a little bit. "Edward?" My voice was hoarse from the emotion I was trying to keep at bay.

Edward's eyes slowly opened and tried to adjust to the limited light in the room. He sighed and sat up, placing his elbows on his knees as he rubbed at his eyes.

I stood and turned on the lamp on the end table. I sat down on the coffee table directly in front of him, our knees touched as mine nervously bopped up and down. We were both quiet for several minutes. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know if "I'm sorry" was appropriate. He wouldn't look at me, and it was absolutely killing me.

"Edward?"

He hid his face with his hands and shook his head. My heart broke and fear began to set in. He wouldn't leave me, would he? He said he wanted it all. He said he didn't want to wait on our future, well, here it is.

I felt the tears start to well up again and a large lump forming in my throat, as I tried to hold them back.

Edward's hands suddenly fell from his face and his eyes burned holes into mine. His eyes were glassy and blood shot. I wanted to fix him. I wanted to make him feel better, but I didn't know how.

"I'm so sorry," he choked out.

A sigh of relief left me. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "For what, Edward? This isn't solely your fault."

"I knew better," he said just above a whisper.

"We both did, but things happen. We have options," I said. It wasn't lost on me that I was the one comforting him. I had expected things to go the other way around.

He looked up at me, his face serious. "We don't have any fucking options, Bella."

I stopped breathing. What did he mean? He didn't want me to have the baby? He wanted me to have it? "What do you want?" I finally asked.

He looked at me like he couldn't believe what I was asking.

"Are you kidding me, Bella? You're having the baby."

"Okay," I said quietly. Although there were other options, I knew in the back of my mind I couldn't go through with any of them, not yet anyway.

"Did you have other plans in mind?" he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and tried so hard to keep the tears away but the pain in my throat was becoming too much to bear and I let them spill over and down my cheeks. "I'm scared, Edward. What if I go back to jail?"

Edward pulled me into his lap and held me. My arms curled around his neck and it felt good to be held. He felt good.

"I don't know what to do," I cried. "I'm pissed off at myself for letting this happen right now. We knew better. I knew better! I just...it had been so long since we were together. I wasn't thinking."

"It's not your fault, Bella. We made a mistake. We'll deal with the consequences."

I blew out a deep breath and tried to calm down. "What if I have to go back to jail? I can't give birth to our baby in a jail. I'll never see it. You'll move on; you'll leave me and some other woman will have my baby," I cried.

Edward laughed momentarily and squeezed his arms around me tighter. "Oh, Bella. You're so silly."

I pushed at his chest and looked up at him. "I am not. That is a reasonable outcome if I have to spend the rest of my life in jail!"

Edward scoffed. "There will never be another woman, Bella. Never. Even if you were dead, there could never be another."

I hugged him and buried my face in the crook of his neck.

He rubbed my back soothingly. "And besides, there's no way in hell you're going back to jail. Not for murder."

"I'm still scared," I mumbled into his neck. "I don't want to be like Renee," I whispered.

Edward leaned back and titled my chin up so he could see my eyes. "Bella, you will be a wonderful mother. Don't ever doubt yourself in that regard."

"How can you be so sure? I've had a really shitty example to go by."

He smiled and kissed my tear stained cheek. "Because you're not like her. You're caring and empathetic. You're strong and brave. You love with your whole heart and you don't let anything stand in your way when you want something."

I took a deep breath and blew it out. I was still scared, of so much, but he made me feel a little better.

My stomach growled loudly. I could actually feel the rumble shoot across my tummy.

Edward laughed and tickled my side. "Are you trying to starve the little jelly bean?"

I smiled, for the first time all day. Our little jelly bean. "Can we eat and go to bed? I'm emotionally and physically drained."

He kissed my forehead. "We can do whatever you want, sweetheart."

I hugged his neck and kissed his jaw. "I love you, Edward."

"I love you, too, Bella."

We met with Jenks the following week. There was a court date set for the assault charge but he was fairly certain he could get it thrown out. There were video cameras in the store that captured the can of soup rolling down the aisle and striking Renee but the camera didn't span as far back to the rear of the store in order to capture Edward and I. Jenks said the evidence is circumstantial. They can prove Edward and I were at the store, but there isn't proof that we did anything intentional to harm Renee. It turns out she sprained her ankle pretty badly. I didn't feel bad about it.

Jenks also told us the best news yet, Renee had been indicted and there was a warrant out for her arrest, they just hadn't picked her up yet, but he was sure it would happen any time. He felt relatively certain that if I were going to be indicted again, it would've already happened. He knew there was a prosecutor reviewing the evidence against me, but he heard the prosecutor didn't think he had a strong enough case with all of the mounting evidence against Renee.

For a few weeks, things were relatively peaceful. Renee had been arrested and was sitting in the very same prison I once sat in. Jenks said her attorney boyfriend apparently wanted nothing else to do with her. He wasn't going to pay for her defense.

I had been back to the doctor and Edward and I got the first ultrasound photos of our little baby. It wasn't even big enough to call a jelly bean. It was the size of an ant or something similar. It was just tiny. Edward put his or her picture on the fridge. It was cute.

I appeared in court for the assault charge brought on by Renee. I couldn't lie. I admitted what I had done and I would accept the punishment for it. They reduced the charges to a misdemeanor offense. The judge initially only sentenced me to 20 hours of community service; however, because I'm carrying a little jelly bean, I got exempt from that and placed on probation for 90 days. In 90 days, if I stayed out of trouble, my record would be expunged.

The more time that passed, the more comfortable I felt knowing that I wasn't going back to jail for a crime I didn't commit. Edward and I still had a lot of things to work out and talk about, though. He had been working a lot and I was bored out of my mind sitting in that tiny apartment by myself.

I had yelled at him over the phone when he told me his stay in L.A was going to be extended, again. I was going stir crazy. I wanted him home so we could talk and work through some things. How long were we going to stay in the states? Where were we going to live when the baby was born? What was I going to do with my life? How could I get back on track with school and care for a baby?

Thousands of questions raced through my mind on a daily basis while I sat on the couch in the apartment staring at the fan circulating above. All the while, Edward was in Los Angeles working and doing things that stimulated his mind. I was so frustrated, and honestly jealous. I felt like everything I had worked so hard for had been taken away by Renee. I had worked so hard for so long to get accepted into the study abroad program in London, only to have been ripped away from it a semester before completion. Completing both semesters abroad, whether it be in London, or elsewhere, were part of the requirements for graduation. Now I was jobless, degree-less, and knocked up.

I was startled out of my thoughts when I heard the key turning in the lock on the door. I panicked for a moment, wondering who the hell was coming in when I saw Edward. I didn't know whether to scream or smile.

I gasped. "You scared me to death! What are you doing here? You just said you had to stay in L.A."

He smiled smugly. "I thought I'd surprise you."

I smirked and shook my head at him as I got off the couch to greet him. He embraced me and kissed my cheek. "How are my girls?" he asked.

I laughed. "It's not a girl!"

"You don't know that," Edward countered.

"Neither do you!"

He laughed and kissed me again. "It's just a feeling."

"Well, I have a different feeling."

"Guess we have a few more weeks until we'll know who's right."

I smiled and nodded. Although we were still several more weeks away from gender determination, I couldn't believe how fast time was moving and how much I adored the little thing inside me.

Edward gave me an endearing pat on the ass as he moved to walk past me and go to our bedroom. "Get dressed hot stuff, we're going out."

"What?" I asked, following him into the bedroom.

"You heard me. We're going out for dinner."

"Why?" I asked. I had become a little leery of going out in public. There was still a lot of press surrounding my dad's murder and Renee's arrest. People started to recognize me and just come right up to me and ask me ludicrous questions. I avoided it at all costs and Edward knew it.

"Because, I said so. It will be private, and pack an overnight bag."

I looked at him like he was crazy. "An overnight bag? For dinner?"

He turned around to look at me as he was taking off his tie. "Why do you have to ask so many questions?"

"Because, I don't know what you're up to."

"It's a surprise, Bella. You aren't supposed to know!" he teased.

I grinned. A surprise? Maybe he was making it up to me for being away so long. I was excited. "Okay, okay. I'm getting in the shower and then I'll pack a bag."

"Sounds good."

I left Edward in the bedroom as I made my way to the bathroom to shower. I had already had one that day, but a simple shower was my new favorite thing. After being deprived of luxury feminine care items for so long, I thoroughly enjoyed a good shower.

I eventually emerged from the bathroom in only the fluffy white towel wrapped around me to find Edward sitting on the edge of the bed. He was dressed nicely in a pair of black slacks and a nice charcoal gray short sleeve shirt that clung to his athletic build. He looked delicious. "What are you doing?" I asked.

He smiled. "Waiting on you."

"Oh. I was just going to ask what I should wear."

"Well, if it were up to me, that towel looks pretty damn good on you."

I rolled my eyes. "Edward!"

He laughed. "Wear something sexy."

"I don't know if I have anything sexy," I said as I walked to our closet. I wanted to wear a black dress to match Edward, but I hadn't bought any dresses.

"You might be surprised," he said.

I ignored him and started pushing through the hangers in the closet until my eyes landed on the plastic to my right. What was that? I pulled out the plastic covered item and could see that it was a black dress. "Where did this come from?" I yelled from the closet as I lifted up the plastic to reveal a beautiful little black dress.

"I bought it for you." I heard him yell back.

I walked out of the closet once the dress was free of it's plastic confines. I laid it out on the bed next to Edward. It was so cute, but looked really sexy, sexier than I was used to. The top part of the dress was similar to a corset and strapless. The bottom was fitted and extremely short. It also had pockets at the waist that were embellished with little crystals. I was excited to get it on and see if it fit. Fortunately, you could hardly tell I was pregnant. I took the dress into the bathroom with me and hung it up while I dried my hair and got my make up on. A short while later, I emerged, and I felt beautiful. I slipped my hands in the pockets of the dress and spun around for Edward.

"Wow."

"You like it?" I asked.

"You look stunning, and hot as hell. I'm glad we're not going to a public place. I'd have to beat the men off of you."

I laughed. "Whatever. You better enjoy it while you can. I won't be able to wear things like this for much longer."

He stood from the bed and walked over to me. His face was inches from my own and his fingertips brushed my collarbone as he sent my long wavy hair behind my right shoulder before he leaned in to kiss me. "Oh, I'll be enjoying it, Bella," he whispered softly against my lips. I kissed him back as I felt my insides heat up. Edward and I hadn't been intimate in nearly two weeks and my hormones were all over the place. I wanted to say to hell with whatever he had planned and pin him to the bed, but he couldn't be swayed.

I reluctantly packed an over night bag and slipped on some little black heels before we went on our way to a destination unknown.

****Author's Note: Things are starting to look up! Some fluff and some drama in the next chapter! Thanks to those of you who are always reviewing! 3

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