A/N: Hello all! Sorry this is a little bit tardy. I wanted to make sure that I got the tone right. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks so much for all the reviews, follows, tweets, and recs. Welcome new readers. I'm glad you're here!

Big thanks to Roselover2 and Katmom for pre-reading!

While You Were Knocked Out Cold

Chapter 26

Edward fiddled with the handle of the brown, paper, grocery bag as he walked toward Bella's room. She'd probably either love it or hate it, but with how unpredictable her moods were, he had no idea which way the balance would tip.

The door was wide open so he quietly walked into the room. If she was napping he didn't want to wake her up. When he peeked around the corner, he found Bella sitting in her bed, her knees bolstered up, and an opened book perched on her belly. Her eyebrows were drawn together in deep concentration and her finger was twining around a lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail.

"Whatcha reading?" he asked and set the bag on the floor next to his usual chair.

"Holy crap!" she screamed and started, causing the book to tumble off her stomach.

He stooped and caught the book just as it tipped off the edge of the bed. It was pretty large as far as books go. Not as big as a textbook but larger than the average paperback.

"Give it back," she said reaching for the volume, her face suffused with an angry blush.

Feeling in a bit of a teasing mood, he stepped away from the bed and held the book behind his back. "Why? Are you embarrassed?"

"No," came the quick retort.

He glanced over the cover—it was one of those pictures of a woman in an old-fashioned ball gown and even though you can't see her face, she's in some kind of breathless, desperate pose—a smirk pulling at his lips, and flipped it over and read the back of the jacket. His eyebrows rose slightly at the brief synopsis of the story. "The Lady Has a Secret? Really, Bella?"

"Shut up. I like that author. It's a great es… esc… grrr," she did a funny growl-sigh and took a deep breath. "It's a great distraction."

"Hmmm. Would you like a different sort of distraction?"

"Like what?"

He set the novel down and retrieved the bag. When he handed it to her, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed together.

"What is it?"

"Open it and see."

She fingered the folded paper handle and raised her eyebrow shooting him a dubious look. "This is very eco-friendly wrapping," she teased.

"Gimme a break, the Hallmark store was closed." He returned the good-natured jab with a wink.

She opened the bag and tore the sheets of tissue paper wrapping away. Her brow furrowed when she pulled out a light blue, leather binder. She opened the cover and a soft gasp escaped her lips. Her finger traveled down the page skimming over the slanting, masculine handwriting, and stopped at the black and white photo. It was the first one they'd printed when she'd been brought into the hospital.

With a frenzied determination, she flipped through all of the remaining pages in the memory book. Her face was down and she'd grown extremely quiet, so he had no way of gauging her reaction. When she came to the last page he heard a sniffle.

"These are the ones from yesterday."

"Yeah, I… I kind of took them with me, so I could put them in with the others. What do you think?"

He'd come up with the idea for a memory book from one of the baby websites he'd scoured when he first found out she was pregnant. His mother had made him an elaborate baby book; she and Tanya would always pore over it, cooing and gooing at his naked butt pictures. He figured that Bella would not want to miss all of her pregnancy milestones. He might have been a guy, but he wasn't totally clueless (thanks to his buddy who'd just had a baby); he knew that stuff was important to women.

She closed the cover and kept her hand resting on top. He passed her a tissue and waited for her to blow her nose. But even after she'd crumpled the tissue into her hand she remained silent. As the quiet dragged on, Edward's nerves frayed a little bit more each minute.

When Bella finally looked up at him, her eyes were red-rimmed and her mouth was quivering, but she didn't look happy.

His heart sunk at the realization. "It's too much, isn't it? I'm sorry I shouldn't have presumed—"

"I need some time," she interrupted. "Can you just… I don't…"

He took her hand in his without thinking. It was calming and reassuring for him, but her sharp intake of breath and trembling fingers told him it did just the opposite for her. He squeezed once and set her hand back on the bed.

"Sorry. I'm sorry if this upset you. Do you want me to get rid of it?"

"No!" She looked at him with a horrified expression.

He was so confused.

"Give me a day or two, please? I'll call you, okay?"

"Okay." He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to delay. He didn't want to leave but there wasn't much left to say.

. . .

The next day, Edward was grading assignments and wallowing with cold pizza and flat root beer. Bella hadn't called the night before, nor had she called that morning. He thought she'd like the book, especially after the comment she'd made during the ultrasound.

He groaned when he heard the signature knock on the door. He really wasn't interested in his mother's company at the moment, but couldn't think of a plausible way to escape.

"Hi, mom," he said with forced enthusiasm.

"Hello, dear. I was in the neighborhood and wondered if you wanted to grab some din…" her voice trailed off as she stepped into the apartment and noticed the plate of pizza on the table. "Well it appears I'm too late." She turned to Edward with a smile which faltered when she took in the bags under his eyes and the drooping sag of his shoulders.

"Yeah, I'm just grading papers right now."

"Something's wrong. What's happened?"

"Nothing really."

Esme settled into the corner of the couch and patted the arm of his recliner.

He trudged over to his table and returned to the chair clutching the two liter bottle of soda. Esme's attention, though, was focused on the mess strewn across the top of the coffee table. Edward cursed himself for not cleaning things up after he'd finished Bella's book the two nights previous.

"Sweetheart, since when do you scrapbook?" She fingered some of the remaining bits of paper until she found one of the duplicate ultrasound pictures. "Oh, dear. You made a book for Bella?"

"Yeah. She… uh, kind of freaked out. Well, not really freaked out, but she told me to give her some space, so… yeah."

Esme was quiet for a long moment, stacking piles of larger bits of colored paper and arranging the other supplies into a neat row.

"Honey, I know this might be difficult to hear, but I want you to listen to me, okay?"

He rolled his eyes, just a little, and nodded.

"I can't begin to imagine what that poor woman has been through. She's had her whole life flipped upside down to find that a stranger has been an active role in her personal affairs for months without her knowledge. And that's not taking into account the feelings of fragility and uncertainty that come with a healthy pregnancy, let alone one under these circumstances." She paused and looked at him.

He was scowling. Not on purpose, but he could feel it. He just couldn't stop it. He'd crossed his arms over his chest so that his mother couldn't pat his hand like she usually did when she was chewing him out in her irreproachable way.

"Did it ever occur to you that she might view this," she motioned to the coffee table, "as yet another invasion into her private life? Into a process so intimate and special that she might not feel comfortable sharing it with anybody?"

He huffed out a frustrated breath and stood up to pace the length of the room. "See, that's just it, mom. She did share this with me. The other day she let me stay during her ultrasound, and she said how she wished she hadn't missed so much of the pregnancy, and stupid me, I thought, 'Awesome! I've got that all taken care of.' So I bring her the book yesterday and she acts like I was nuts to give it to her, but then I ask if she wants me to get rid of it and she looks at me, again, like I'm nuts and won't let go of it." He flopped back into his chair and moaned. "I don't understand her."

Esme covered her mouth, but Edward could see the laughter in her eyes, which only aggravated him more. "Don't laugh at me."

"I'm trying not to, but sweetheart? You will probably never understand her."

"Great. Thanks for the encouraging words."

"Oh, I'm not trying to get you down, but I'm willing to bet that if you asked your father if he understood me, the answer would be 'no' ninety-five percent of the time." This time she did manage to get a hold of his hand and patted it. "Women are fickle creatures, but pregnant women even more so. Give her time. I have a feeling once she's had a chance to process her emotions, she'll give you a call."

. . .

At seven o'clock the next morning, Edward was awoken by his phone chiming with an incoming text message. He snatched the phone from his nightstand, and read the text with still-bleary eyes.

My doctr says I should txt to prxtice my dexteiyt and had eye coooodination.

He smiled at the several typos in her text, but was happy to be getting anything from her at this point.

Looks like you still have some work to do. How are you?

He closed his eyes, resting one arm across his face, and waited for Bella's response.

How sooon canyou get here?

His thumbs fumbled as he tapped faster than he was able to.

20 minutes

He was up and out of bed in a flash, dragging on a pair of jeans and hurrying into his bathroom. Bella's answering text came while he was brushing his teeth. He'd only just finished the tops and read it with the toothbrush dangling from his lips.

I'll see u soon.

His bottom teeth were a little more neglected in his hurry to finish dressing. He was about to run out the door, but nearly tripped over Jake, who was waiting patiently by the welcome mat. Edward cursed under his breath and grabbed the leash. A few minutes later and one very ticked off Jake was unceremoniously hustled into the apartment and Edward was running to his car.

He was out of breath as he jogged to Bella's room. His heart felt like it was trying to break through his ribcage. He couldn't go crashing into her room like some desperate freak, so he took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes, willing himself to play it cool. This time, her door was closed, so he knocked gently and waited.

"Come in."

He walked in and gave Bella a hesitant smile when he turned the corner. Her breakfast tray hadn't come yet so she had the scrapbook lying on the table. There was an air of caution all around her. She eyed him with a reserved interest; she still seemed to be trying to figure out what his angle was.

"At first I didn't know what to think about this," she pointed to the book. "I was surprised and amazed, but then I felt weird, and I didn't understand why."

He simply nodded and waited for her to continue.

"And then I thought it was kind of creepy and I got really scared that you had taken such an interest in my baby. It was really frightening and it just brought up all of the helpless feelings I had when I first woke up, you know?"

He didn't know, but he tried to put himself in her shoes, and he could see how she might take things that way, so he nodded.

"Why, Edward? Why did you do this?"

He took a deep breath and shook his head. "I did it for you, because I care about you. Hell, because I've cared about you from the very first moment. I just didn't want you to miss out on something so important."

"Really?" Her eyes filled with tears and her hands were trembling.

"Yeah, really."

"And all the stuff you wrote in there… I just can't wrap my head…"

In addition to the pictures, he'd included excerpts from websites that highlighted how the baby was growing and how big it was. He'd also used the pages as a kind of journal. He'd written about how Bella had been doing. He wrote about how he felt when he found out the baby was a boy, when he first felt the baby kick, and when Bella had first woken up.

"I thought about what you said during the ultrasound and I figured you'd be happy to have something like that," he said and pointed at the scrapbook. "I didn't want to upset you."

"Come here," she said and motioned to the side of her bed. She scooted over so that he had enough space to sit down. "This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you."

She looked straight into his eyes and smiled as one tear drop spilled over her lashes and down her face. He was frozen still when she leaned forward and placed one hand on his cheek and her lips on the other. It was only a second before his paralysis was broken and instinct took over. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and reveled in the warmth of her embrace, his own lips brushing against the fullness of her cheek and eliciting a gasp.

Without letting go she whispered, "I remember that."

A/N: Soooo? Mutual cheek smoochage. I think that's good progress, don't you? Some of you guessed Edward's project. What did you think of him doing a little graphic design(men don't scrapbook)? Hit that little review button and let me know what you think! I read, love and appreciate every single one!