A/N: Okay, no more stalling on this fic. I'm going to get the rest of the chapters back up in the next few days. As God is my witness!


Because of You

Chapter 29

Edward's POV

A week later, and after no further interference from my sister, her idiot husband, or Carlisle and my mother, Bella started the course of down injections.

She was still as neurotic as ever over them, but she made an effort to suck it up this time. It didn't stop her from going completely rigid, her knuckles turning white as she bent over the bathroom sink waiting for me to jab her, but she made no objections or attempted to stall.

"You're getting tougher in your old age, buttercup," I teased her before snapping back the elastic of her underwear against her skin.

She jolted before turning to flash me that cynical smirk of hers, then shoved me. "I'm beginning to think you're enjoying this," she remarked, before turning to head into our bedroom, rubbing the spot on the top of her ass where I'd just jabbed her as she went.

"It'll all be worth it when you start throwing dog food cans at my head in the middle of the supermarket," I replied wryly, following her.

She turned back to me, opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly faltered. "Oh God, don't remind me. I know how crazy and irrational I'm acting, but I can't stop it. Will you let me apologize in advance?" she offered, her eyebrows raising.

I grabbed her around the waist, pulling her onto the bed with me, before rolling my body on top of hers. "Only if you let me have my way with you a few more times before I have to 'preserve my sperm count'."

She released her breath, humming with it, as I dragged my face down the cleavage of her breasts, clothed in the sheer satin of her "nightie" – as she called it.

"Do you think it'll work this time?" she murmured, sounding distracted as I inched up her nightgown; my lips connecting with her lower stomach before I slipped my fingers through the same elastic waistband as I had a moment ago.

I paused, thinking about it for no longer than a second, before replying, "Yes, you pain in the ass. When we have kids we'll probably never have sex again, so shut up and enjoy it while it lasts."

Fuck... I really fucking hoped not!

The cycle went smoothly. Too fucking smoothly—textbook smooth, as if it was toying with us, fucking mocking us before it would insert its fangs. Everything happened by the book. When Doctor Stewart wanted to up Bella's Gonal-F dosage, we got the message from his receptionist two minutes later. We increased it and Bella grew the perfect amount of "follicles". Every blood test came back without a single discrepancy. Her hormone levels were ideal. Everything was going so well I was starting to feel like I was on tenterhooks, waiting for it to go south and bring us kicking and fucking screaming back down to reality. But it didn't; it went better than either of us could have imagined, and by the time Bella got through the egg retrieval—completely out under general anesthetic as the doctor promised her—we had nine healthy fertilized eggs ready to be implanted. Nine out of thirteen. Nine.

Fucking nine.

The doc gave us the option of transferring two at once—deliberately this time. It would increase the odds of one of them implanting, as well as giving us a chance of having twins. Twins were an ideal scenario for people with fertility problems. Get your family over and done with in one go, and never have to go through the abject fucking torture of IVF again.

"What would we do with the other seven?" was Bella's response, her eyes widening as her thoughts no doubt switched to the frozen bunch of cells that had taken so much blood, sweat and fucking tears to create.

"You can donate them—to another infertile couple, or to stem cell research," he suggested just moments before Bella gasped, shaking her head adamantly. To the idea of someone else raising our biological children, or to them being sacrificed for medical advancements, I couldn't tell, but all of a sudden I was having nightmarish visions of me and Bella surrounded by all nine of the little fuckers; like the fucking Brady Bunch.

The doctor glanced from Bella to me then back to Bella again before he chuckled. "I think we're jumping the gun here a bit. Let's just focus on getting that positive pregnancy test first, and then we'll go from there."

Bella nodded, her sweaty hand squeezing further around mine before she turned to me, her brows raising in question. "Should we try two?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

I nodded, shrugging simultaneously. "Sure, why not," I replied, swallowing thickly.

I realized we suddenly needed to have that conversation that normal couples had. How many kids we wanted.

All I'd been hoping and fucking praying for these last few months was one. One kid. One and possibly a spare—if the first one turned into me...

But Bella—the Bella who'd had a near death experience so vivid it had turned her faith into something that was now dictating her life, as well as mine—would never agree to disposing of any leftovers. To her every one of those three-celled clusters was a baby, no more or less than my sister's creepy looking twins.

Twins. Fuck that shit. Twins could ruin your life. If nothing else, I was proof of that.

The egg retrieval had taken place yesterday, Monday—ironically at the same hospital, Harborview Medical Center, where Bella had had this near death experience. The transfer was scheduled Wednesday morning at nine am, in advance; whether we had anything to transfer, or not. It was a testament of how much faith Mrs. Reed had in her boss; which made me more concerned.

This guy was good; our nine frozen bunch of cells was proof of that.

Nine, and with that reality fast becoming a possibility, I was beginning to think I wasn't ready. Which, considering what Bella had put herself through to have this cycle go successfully, made me a complete fucking bastard. But, hell, I had fully expected it to have gone tits up well before this stage, so now it was throwing me way into left field.

"Honey, what's wrong?" Bella asked, placing her palm against my cheek after we'd stopped at a pedestrian crossing on our way back to Emmett and Rose's house. We'd driven up Sunday afternoon before the retrieval, and today I'd taken her out to lunch to take her mind off the transfer in the morning—and to escape that little feral, shit of a kid, EJ. We were going back home Thursday morning.

I glanced over at her. Her eyes were bright, her faced almost flushed from the anticipation of the last couple of days. Since the retrieval she'd been over the moon. I wasn't an idiot, I knew how much it meant to her. Through this second cycle she'd fought not to get her hopes up. And let's face it, I didn't want to see her heartbroken if it failed any more than she did, but with this cycle running like fucking clockwork she couldn't help but get caught up in it. If I was being honest, I pretty much got on for the ride; it was a good blocker from the effects of the hormones. She'd gone from Dracula's Bride as she was at "Clinic Useless" to Aphrodite Goddess of Sex, and I wasn't about to start complaining.

"Nothing," I lied, grabbing her hand and pressing my lips to her palm before releasing it, because I knew I was just being a neurotic asshole. I guess I'd just got so caught up in the quest to get a baby that I'd never really thought about us actually having one.

"It's becoming more real, isn't it?" she ventured, looking suddenly vulnerable before she reached up and tugged on her lower lip.

I hadn't seen her do that since we were kids.

"You worried about it?" I put it to her, hitting the gas again.

"No, I just...these next couple of weeks are going to kill me," she confessed, and I knew what she meant, because the two weeks of waiting after the transfer was the hardest part of all. Wondering whether any of the shit we'd just put ourselves through would be worth it in the end. That's what it all came down to; two pink fucking lines on a stick.

After that...? Well, we'd figure it out if we ever got there.

"Yeah..." I mumbled, grabbing her hand again and squeezing before shifting up a gear.

"Tell me—what do you think? Yes or no?" she asked the same question she had fifty times over the last week alone, and when I glanced at her again, my heart fucking clenched.

She looked so fucking hopeful. So desperate.

I opened my mouth, before shaking my head. "I don't know, baby... I want to say yes, but..."

But it would destroy her again if it failed.

"At least this time we have seven more if it doesn't take," she reminded me; though, she sounded as if she were speaking it to herself.

With spares we didn't need to start an entire new cycle, but it did mean another month of injections, before the transfer. And then the torture of waiting all over again.

"Yeah," I agreed simply, and for her benefit. I was becoming plagued by my own thoughts, wondering how long we could hold out if it kept failing. And also wondering how the hell we'd hold up if we ended up with twins! Me and fucking Alice.

Jesus... Isn't that what we'd been putting ourselves through all this bullshit for? I was just being a miserable bastard and getting cold feet.

"Edward—what?" She rolled her head against the headrest to gaze at me. "You're distracted."

I shrugged one armed. "I'm okay. It's just a lot to take in, I guess," I replied, shrugging a second time before turning onto Emmett and Rose's street.

She released her breath shortly. She sounded frustrated, and I knew I needed to get on top of this shit. Only I wasn't exactly sure what it was I was worried about.

"I'm okay, baby," I reassured her, after turning off the engine and turning to her.

"Well, why is it you look scared to death!?" she suddenly demanded, her expression darkening, and I knew if I wasn't careful I could unleash the fucking spawn of Satan that was Bella on fertility hormones.

"Because," I blurted without thought, "I have a feeling it's going to work, and I really don't know how I feel about it."

Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell was wrong with me?

She only looked at me like I was nuts—rightly so—before she shook her head. "What the hell do you think we've been doing these last few months, Edward?"

"I know..." I conceded.

"Do you even want to have a baby?" she demanded, her voice going higher—a sure sign she was definitely getting pissed and upset.

"Of course I do—I just don't want to have nine of them!" I fessed up before I could stop myself.

"What?" she uttered in disbelief, continuing to look at me as if I'd lost my fucking mind. "What makes you think I want nine?"

"Because we got so many this time, and we can't just throw them in the trash," I answered, dragging my hand back through my hair, if only for a reason to sever her gaze.

"Bloody hell, Edward!" she burst, irritated as fuck with me. "I was thinking about donating them."

"You...were?" My head snapped back to her.

"Of course I was!" she snapped. "Did you think I wanted all nine of them implanted and then end up with a reality show on TLC?"

I smirked before I could fucking help it, and she scowled at me so darkly I knew I had to cool her down before she murdered me. "I'm sorry, babe."

She only rolled her eyes. "You can't charm your way out of everything!" And with that, she practically jumped out of the truck; slamming the door so hard behind her I thought she'd crack the windscreen, before she stomped off toward the front door muttering about how I was a "bloody idiot".

And just like that the bride of Frankenstein was back, and I really was a bloody idiot.

"Trouble in paradise?" Rose arched a brow in my direction after Bella passed her in the kitchen on her way to our room, mumbling something unintelligible at her.

"Hormones," I answered, making sure the Blair Witch didn't hear me, and omitting the fact that I'd set her off by my abject fucking stupidity.

She only smiled to herself, continuing to peel potatoes in the sink but didn't say anything. Not that she had to, or anything. It's not that she often contained her amusement over mine and Bella's obvious desire for babies.

"So, where's the ratbag?" I asked, referring to EJ by the name Bella often called him. I was stalling, and I suspected Rose knew it. It was better to give Bella time to cool off. She'd lose it out of nowhere over the smallest shit, but she usually came down from it just as quickly.

This time Rose chuckled. "He's on a play date—won't be home for a couple of hours. Hey, if you're going to just stand there, give me a hand." She tossed me a spare peeler before I begrudgingly obliged.

This was what my life had become. I now preferred peeling damn vegetables than being around my pumped-to-the-eyebrows-with-hormones wife.

"So, what's going on?" Rose asked casually. "Yesterday you came back looking like they'd extracted snakes from Bella instead of eggs. Is EJ swearing you off kids for life?"

"Not yet," I mumbled.

She snorted. "Give it time."

"I don't know," I offered as a lame-assed conclusion, before I unwittingly spilled my guts to her. "The truth is, if there was nothing wrong with Bella's fertility I wouldn't even want kids yet. We've barely been married a year and we've been thrown headfirst into this shit. It's fucking grueling, and I feel like it's going to be our life for the next—fuck knows how many years. But at the same time..." I let it go; I couldn't fucking speak it out loud.

As it was, I didn't need to.

"At the same time, you're worried it will work..." she finished for me, turning to me and throwing me that all-knowing smirk that seemed to be a fucking universal thing for women.

And it made me feel like the bastard I was.

I only shrugged again, full of guilt.

"Emmett went through the same thing when I was pregnant—the whole 'am I ready to be a father' crap, and now, well you can see for yourself. EJ's his 'pride and joy'."

I smiled shortly to myself. That was definitely true.

"You don't want things to change, do you? You don't want to share her." This time she raised an eyebrow, completely seeing into my fucking soul.

"Fuck, Rose, you're killing me," I said lightly, completely contradicting how I really felt. What I felt was criminal and fucking pathetic.

She chuckled to herself, nudging me with her elbow. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Edward. You're only male."

She was only teasing me, but Jesus, did she make me feel it.

"Instead of naming your baby after you, have you thought about naming him after your father?" Rose suddenly added fucking randomly, that I only stared at her for a moment.

"Erm..." I stammered, lost for words, before replying without really thinking about it. "Yeah, but I think it'll be a girl."

"Sure, rub it in," she said only sounding semi joking, before turning to me and whacking me with the dish towel. "Would you go and deal with your wife!"

. . .

I found Bella asleep on the bed, and even in her sleep she looked vulnerable, almost fearful, and it tore at my heart. Lying beside her, I pulled her gently into my arms, realizing she'd been crying; which only made me feel fucking worse.

"I'm sorry, baby," I murmured against her brow, releasing every molecule of air in my lungs and waking her up in the process.

"I'm sorry, Edward. I never asked you whether you wanted any of this," she said softly, still sounding half asleep, but when I gazed down at her I realized her eyes were flooding and stricken.

"What are you talking about," I teased her. "We got married—it's what we're supposed to do."

She shook her head, her brow knotting deeply. She was torturing herself like she normally did. "We...we never allowed ourselves to be newlyweds, and we'll never get that time back."

"We still are newlyweds, you pain in the ass," I reminded her, making her smile. "Okay, after the transfer tomorrow, let's go back to being newlyweds. We'll have sex in every room of the house and walk around all day naked. And I reserve the right to grab your tits anytime I want."

She let go of her breath, shaking her head with it as if she still thought I was nuts while her smile inched broader. "We did all that the first day."

That's what we called it, the day we found each other again; the 'first day'. We haven't forgotten about the past, but we started over anyway. That night in the snow two Februaries ago was the first day; today was the five hundredth and eighty-first.

Yeah, I was still counting.

. . .

The transfer, although pain-free for Bella, was the part I hated most. Call me a caveman, but it wasn't exactly comfortable for me to witness anyone—her doctor included—gazing between Bella's legs the same way a dentist stares into your mouth. But it was the only way to get the two bunches of cells properly "implanted into the lining of Bella's uterus". Of course, it didn't help that Doctor Stewart kept referring to that part of her body as her "birth canal".

Fucking birth canal?

I suppose in his line of work, that's all it was used for. But not for us—at least I fucking hoped not.

It all went off without a hitch, and now we had to wait—the part Bella hated. To wait and see if one or both of them stuck, or if it was all for nothing.

Let me rephrase that, we had to wait two weeks before driving to Seattle to get the blood test to see if it had worked. Though, considering we lived so far away and it was a pain in the ass to commute every other week, the doctor told Bella he'd personally call her to give her the results. Like that was some kind of consolation.

We went back to life in Forks. Forks, I hated that fucking hickville town where every bastard knew everything about everyone else. It was the worst place to live while going through something like this. As it was, the town was well fucking stocked on gossip because of the two of us. If I could get Bella to give up the restaurant, I'd persuade her to move back to civilization with me. I'd even settle for Port Angeles, but that café was her life before I came back into it. I couldn't ask her to sell it just because I hated living in the fucking backwoods of the country.

If the little vixen ever doubted what I felt about her, fucking Forks was proof if nothing else. Proof that I loved her so much I'd move literally anywhere to be with her.

For the next few weeks I was on nightshift—that was the price I paid by trading my shifts in order to make Bella's appointments—and with Bella using the restaurant as her distraction, I only ever really saw her in the mornings for breakfast. She got home around 5:30 in the afternoon and I left roughly half an hour later. She made my dinner and hugged me goodbye. She didn't kiss me. Kissing led to sex, and there was no chance she was going to risk that shit, so I didn't even bother attempting it. We rarely spoke. I was too on edge and she could barely fucking breathe. It was the fucking torture we expected, but like everything else we got through it.

The day we drove back to Seattle for the blood test was the start of my vacation. Our wedding anniversary was a week later and we planned on going for another road trip. If truth be told, I hated driving for hours on end when we could easily get to the same place by plane in an hour, but Bella enjoyed it, so I obliged her. After all, the last time we were really happy was on our honeymoon. As fucking pitiful as that was.

Bella was so uptight over the results of the blood test that she didn't even flinch when Doctor Stewart was performing it. Of course, he then got diplomatic and warned us against losing hope if it came back negative. We could start the down regulations again in another week, after all. Reminding us again that some people got luckier after a frozen transfer.

Nine kids or another month of this shit... I wasn't sure which one would be worse.

The doc promised us he was going to have the results rushed through for us. We'd know in a couple of hours.

Rose had offered their spare bedroom to us again, to stay overnight instead of driving straight back home, but I knew if it came back negative, Bella wouldn't want to share that with anyone but me. So after a quick bite we headed back to Hickville.

We got the phone call five miles out from Sequim. Bella let her message bank pick it up. It was her idea, and she let the doc know before we left his office. She wanted to find out at home, and not while we were halfway down the interstate.

So, now we knew either way, and we had to sit on it for another hour until we got home. It was fucking distracting, and neither of us mentioned it—as if it wasn't the fucking elephant in the car squeezing the fucking life out of us.

I wanted to give Bella my own version of the doc's speech, to remind her that whatever happened we'd get through it together, but it felt like a bad omen.

Maybe I knew. No, not "maybe", I fucking knew.

Once we were home we got no further than the kitchen when Bella pulled her phone from her bag, dialed her message bank and put it on speaker.

"Let's just get it over and done with," she mumbled, sounding as if she fucking knew as well.

From the first syllable Doctor Stewart spoke, it was obvious. He sighed half a dozen fucking times before he spoke the words I was dreading. "I'm terribly sorry..."

I walked out of the room before I could hear the rest, and was half way up the stairs when I caught myself. Every fiber in my fucking body wanted to snap, but I couldn't. Not yet, anyway.

I walked, fucking reluctantly, back into the kitchen; Bella hadn't moved. She was standing in the same position I'd left her in, staring down at the phone that was still lying on the breakfast table, her expression... Well, what did I expect? She was heartbroken.

Without a word I pulled her to me, folding my arms around her. She didn't resist or fight me, but she was still and silent, for the longest time. Then slowly she started to crack. She began trembling all over, until she was all but openly shuddering against me before she burst into tears.

"I knew it," was all she managed to say, and I knew she did.

It seemed we both fucking did.

She cried it out that day in the kitchen, for a good hour, against me. She clung to me, her fists twisting the material of my shirt, and cried...and cried. It ripped out my fucking chest while reminding me so much of the night after Kel's funeral. How young Bella was that night. Seventeen... It felt like it was another life time ago, and in many ways it was, except nothing had really changed. Bella wasn't seventeen anymore, but she was still trapped in the same kind of fucking nightmare.

I didn't say anything, I just held her. What could I say, anyway? That we could try again? She already knew that, and it wouldn't give her an ounce of comfort because we were more than likely going to find ourselves right back here at the end of it.

In this fucking ditch we'd found ourselves in, neither moving forward or back, but stuck.

. . .

We headed east a few days later; with no plans, we just drove. We ended up in Montana, camping out in the Glacier National Park, and when I say "camping out" what I really mean is we stayed in a cabin with running water. That was as rough as I liked to get.

Reservations were supposed to be made three days in advance, but since it was October, and the busiest season was over—and after Bella informed the greying woman at the front desk that it was our wedding anniversary—we were given a cabin. The woman had noticed Bella's accent, and I got the impression she thought both of us were from Australia.

It still surprised me when people noticed how she spoke; though, it really shouldn't have. After all, it took me long enough to completely understand her. Half the time I had no fucking idea what she was saying, but bit by bit Bella was turning more into a local of Forks than she was that girl from "the bush", as she once referred to herself as.

And I wasn't entirely sure it was a good thing.

We spent five days hiking through the different trails, seeing the various lakes and falls before coming back near fucking exhausted. At least, I was exhausted; Bella still ran five miles most days, and could outrun me any day of the week. For her it was more emotional exhaustion, but for me it was both.

We'd decided we were going to put all the shit waiting for us back home behind us for this week, and Bella kept that promise. I knew it was still stirring away at the back of her mind, but she made a gallant effort to not let it bring her down. It wasn't going anywhere, after all, and for those few short days she was my Bella again, before all this fertility shit started; before I got her pregnant again.

The Bella I dreamed about every damn night we were apart.

I just wished she'd believe me when I told her—fucking repeatedly—that I could live my entire life with just her, and maybe a fleabag or two, but she was convinced it would only be a matter of time before I left her for a woman who could "reproduce". Because that's all the world needed; another me.

She was right on one thing; I fucking hated that we were going through this shit while we were still newly married. I'd lost count how many times I wished that she'd never gotten pregnant and we were kept in the fucking dark about all of her fertility problems. Sure, it would have come out later at some point, but at least we would have been happy for a couple of years.

All I could hope for now was that we could fix this shit, get this damn baby Bella was so desperate for, and then make up for lost time; for all the fucking crap we'd been put through.

. . .

"I don't want to go back, Edward," Bella confessed with a heavy sigh on our last night. We were laying on the sheepskin rug in front of the open fire, sweaty and slipping against each other as I pulled her naked body to me. "All that's there is...uncertainty."

I suspected she wanted to use another word, one that wasn't as sugar coated, but she didn't have to elaborate for me. I knew what she meant.

"I know," was all I could offer her.

"We're okay, aren't we?" she asked sounding apprehensive, and when I glanced down at her she was staring up at me, her eyes wide and almost pleading with me.

"Of course we are," I promised her seriously, needing her to believe me. "Everyone has shit to deal with in their marriage, baby. We're just getting ours out of the way up front."

She didn't reply; she only hummed before curling her body around mine as it cooled. She sounded cynical, though. As if she were humoring me.

"Do you think we're okay?" I asked her after a pause, continuing to gaze at her.

She nodded, before she almost immediately shrugged. "I...I don't think we're going to be completely okay again until we get through all this."

I scoffed. Score one for captain fucking obvious. We wouldn't.

She whacked me in the chest, scoffing back at me. "I know—just shut up!" she replied, sounding so frustrated that I laughed.

Breaking into a warm smile, she shook her head at me slightly, and it was proof she was back to being my Bella and not the Sea Hag from hell on hormones.

Though, for the next few months I'd see her less and fucking less.

We got back to Forks in the early evening the next day and life went back to sleeping, working and fucking injections. The only positive was that Bella was only doing the down injections. She didn't need to grow any more follicles, so I only had to jab her for half the time.

With seven embryos left we decided to implant two at once again. One didn't survive after being thawed out, so if this month failed we'd be left with four.

Of course, both failed, and the next month only one was implanted, and again failed.

Then we were left with three, and then two...

I really didn't know how much longer we could continue keeping this shit up. As it was, I barely knew myself anymore, let alone my wife, and none of it seemed worth it anymore.

I was close to being done with all of it.