Author Note: Thanks for the continuing great response to this story! Charlie was by far the most popular guess for the person getting out of the car, with Jacob a distant second. Let's see…

Thanks again to moosals and NKubie for pre-reading. Stephenie Meyer owns all characters.

Chapter 34 — Tour

Lauren Mallory walks over to us, that seemingly permanent sneer etched on her face. At least an inch of black roots is visible in her bleached blonde hair.

"Oh. My. God," she sniggers. "Who would have thought that one of the last two virgins in high school would come home pregnant?"

"Nice to see you as always, Lauren," Angela replies sarcastically, while I'm too stunned and embarrassed to speak.

"Seriously, who the hell would ever have sex with someone as plain as you?" she continues as if Angela never spoke.

"I did."

Lauren turns to look at Edward, seeming to notice him for the first time. She eyes him up and down, licking her lips. "And who are you?"

"I'm Edward — the baby's father," he says, almost proudly. "Who are you?"

Tossing her long, stringy hair behind her back, Lauren smiles, looking more predator than human. "I'm Lauren Mallory. I went to school with Bella and Angela."

She holds her hand out as if to shake, but Edward eyes it distastefully. Instead, he wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. As I look at him in confusion, he leans down to kiss me, promptly sticking his tongue in my mouth.

I'm too shocked to do anything at first, but quickly recover, eagerly kissing him back. He pulls away with a loud smack, smiling down at me. "Let's go, love." I'm dumbfounded by the term of endearment, having to remind myself that he's just putting on a show.

I follow blindly as we walk past a stunned Lauren. Angela keeps peeking behind us, announcing when Lauren has gone inside, then starts laughing loudly. "Oh my God, the look on her face!" she snorts.

"That girl was one of your classmates?" Edward asks, moving his arm from around my shoulders to take my hand instead.

"Yeah… she was pretty much Queen Bitch of the school," I answer.

"She's just jealous 'cause her only talents seem to be on her knees or her back," Angela explains. "She's going to the local community college since she couldn't get in to any of the state schools she applied to."

Edward laughs, shaking his head. "Are you ok, baby?" he asks, stopping for a moment.

I take a deep breath, nodding. "Yeah, I'm ok. I always knew that the Chief's daughter coming home pregnant was going to be a big deal."

"People need to mind their own fucking business," he growls, starting to walk again.

When we reach the end of town, we keep going, past the sign reading 'The City of Forks Welcomes You,' until we reach the bridge over the Calawah River. We climb over the guardrail, carefully making our way down to the river. I can tell that Edward doesn't really want me doing this; he holds tightly to my arm as I navigate the hill.

At the water's edge, Angela and I stand back while he acts like a teenage boy, jumping from rock to rock. I sit down on one of the larger rocks, picking up small pebbles and attempting to skip them across the water.

"I kind of miss the clean air and the green," I tell Angela. "Chicago feels a little suffocating sometimes, being surrounded by so many huge buildings — unless I go down to the lake."

"My campus is in the middle of the city, too, but at least we still have the big trees nearby."

Suddenly Edward comes to sit beside me, wrapping an arm around me. "I know I've been picking on Forks, but it's really pretty here."

"It's even prettier in October, when some of the trees are changing color."

Angela smiles at us, standing up from her rock. "Ready to go?"

We climb back up the hill, then Edward and I walk hand in hand along the edge of the road toward the welcome sign. In just a few minutes, we're back at the end of the town proper, with the gas station and Subway, which I point out to him, "Voila — our one fast food restaurant."

A couple of blocks later, we reach the town's one stoplight. "This Mexican restaurant is pretty good… for Forks," I tell Edward. "Maybe we can eat here tonight?"

"Ok with me," he shrugs.

"This is Division Street," Angela announces as we stand at the corner. "This is the 101, but north of here is called North Forks Avenue and south of here is South Forks Avenue."

"And now you know pretty much everything you need to navigate the town," I add with a laugh.

We turn off at the next street, showing Edward where the elementary, middle and high schools are. "They're all together in a group?" he asks.

"Yep," Angels tells him. "This was our high school — go Spartans!"

"It's so small," he laughs. "I can't even imagine."

"Yeah… it was pretty different coming here from my grade school back in Seattle."

Heading back to the main road, we reach our motel shortly thereafter. "This is where we're staying," I point it out to Angela. "The snob over here decided to stay at the newest motel in town since he couldn't find a 4 or 5-star one."

"Hey!" I laugh at his mock outrage at me for telling Angela the truth.

We keep walking just past our motel to Newton's. "This is where I worked after school," I tell Edward.

"I don't suppose you want to go inside and say hi to your boss?"

I grimace. "Not really."

Edward stares at the building, a contemplative look on his face. "What?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Just thinking of something you said once. When you were explaining why you didn't get the morning-after pill, you said you didn't know how to tell your boss that you were too sick to work if you could go to school. If you hadn't had a job… things would be a lot different today."

I swallow thickly, knowing he's right. If any of the things that had kept me from buying Plan B had gone another way, everything would be different.

"I didn't know you tried to get the morning-after pill," Angela says, brow furrowed.

"Oh… yeah, once I realized we hadn't used a condom. I couldn't buy it in Forks — for obvious reasons — and I couldn't get away from Dad long enough to drive to Port Angeles."

"And then you had to go to school and take your finals," Angela remembers.

"Yeah."

"I'm glad," Edward says quietly. "I'm glad everything worked out the way it did."

I stare up at him in shock; is he really saying he's glad that I'm pregnant? Smiling at me, he pulls me into a tight hug, kissing my forehead as he lets me go. "Is this the end of town?" he asks.

"Just a little further to the Visitor Center and Forks Timber Museum," Angela says. "The museum is closed for the winter, but we can go into the Visitor Center."

A few minutes later we walk inside and show Edward some maps of the area, pointing out La Push, where we're heading soon.

The three of us walk back to our motel — where I totally need a bathroom break — then after much arguing between Edward and Angela over who should drive, we climb into the SUV.

We head north through town, over the Calawah River, directing Edward to take the left turn onto La Push Road. "Be careful on the winding road," I warn him. "We're only 14 miles away, but it takes a half hour to get there. Don't try to show me how fast you can drive."

"Yes, Ma'am," he smirks.

"So La Push is an Indian reservation?" he asks as we reach the edge of town.

"Yes, Quileute. My dad has a lot of friends here." None of which I hope we run into.

We drive down Ocean Front Drive and past the marina, then we turn around and park so we can go down to the beach. Again he holds me tightly as I navigate the path down toward the water.

"So this is First Beach," Angela says. "Second Beach and Third Beach are down that way," she says, pointing to her left.

"Creative names," Edward interjects, rolling his eyes.

"And if we go back a ways, there's a bridge over the Quillayute River leading to Rialto Beach," I add.

"What's the big deal about that one?"

I shrug. "There's a rock formation called Hole in the Wall. You can walk to it, but it's over a mile from the parking spot."

"Rialto Beach is pretty, lots of driftwood," Angela explains.

"There's no one here," he says, looking around with a light laugh.

"Whale watching is in the spring, and there's lots of surfing when the weather warms up. And some of the teenage boys from the reservation like to go cliff diving. Right now it's just crazy people like us though, yeah," I smile.

We walk along First Beach for a while, and Edward takes a bunch of pictures with his phone. Since I'm up for it, we decide to make the drive to Rialto Beach and walk to Hole in the Wall.

First, we stop along the way at a roadside store to get a few bottles of water. They also have some Native American artifacts for sale.

"Mom would really like this place," Edward says, walking along the aisles. I try to smile, but I'm nervous about running in to one of my dad's friends — or worse, Jacob.

I breathe a sigh of relief when we walk out unnoticed, getting back in the car. Once we've turned left onto Mora Road, we follow along the Quillayute River to Rialto Beach. We park in the lot, head down to the sand, then start walking.

"Ah, so that's what they mean by Hole in the Wall," Edward laughs when we finally reach the rock formation a half hour later. He's been snapping photos with his phone all along the way.

Eventually we walk back to the car before it starts to get dark — sunset is around 4:30pm this time of year. We drive to Forks in the darkness, dropping Angela off by her car in the diner's parking lot, as she has to go have dinner with her family. "Let me know what happens with your dad tomorrow," she orders, hugging me quickly.

"I will," I promise her. "Cross your fingers for me."

"Bye, Edward!" she calls. "It was nice to finally meet you properly."

"You too. So," he begins, wrapping his arms around me, "Want to go eat dinner now or later?"

"If we go back to the room, I think I'm gonna fall asleep."

Smirking, Edward helps me back into the SUV, then drives us the few blocks to the Mexican restaurant.

"How many people will know you in here?" he asks as he holds the front door open for me.

"I guess we'll find out."

The place isn't crowded at all, since we're a little bit early for dinner. After we're seated and have ordered our food from a waitress I don't recognize, Edward reaches across the table to take my hand. "You shouldn't worry about what other people think. It's no one else's business but ours that we're having a baby."

"I know, I just… I don't like people judging me."

"That's a reflection on them, not you," he insists.

"How can you be so cavalier about it?"

"You learn to be thick-skinned pretty quickly in the music business. Everyone is always judging you."

"They're judging your music," I disagree.

"But I write the music, so it feels like they're judging me. I just learned to get over it," he shrugs, taking a sip of his beer.

I narrow my eyes at him. I don't think Edward is quite as unaffected by negative attention as he says he is. "What about earlier?" I ask hesitantly. "When Angela was teasing you about the… the photo?"

He sighs, running his hand through his hair. "I wasn't really upset for me," he says quietly. "I know that the photo hurt you and I didn't want you to be upset."

"I was… crushed when I saw it on Alice's laptop," I admit. "She didn't want to show me, but… I could tell she was trying to hide something from me."

Edward closes his eyes, shaking his head. "I wish you'd never had to see that," he whispers.

"Even if I hadn't seen it, I would've heard about it in the cafeteria within a couple of days. But… seeing it was worse, yeah."

Our waitress drops off our meals, putting a stop to the heavy conversation. I'm glad — I'm dangerously close to losing my appetite just thinking about that photo.

Edward orders a second beer from the waitress and I narrow my eyes at him. "You can drive," he says, rolling his eyes, "If you think I can't manage to drive half a mile after two beers."

"So did you really mean it earlier when you told Angela you wouldn't leave Forks without me?" I ask tentatively.

"Yes. There's no way I'm leaving you alone with your father."

"But… aren't you scheduled to join the band in the studio later this week? You can't miss that because you're too busy babysitting me."

"You and our daughter are more important," he states. "This isn't up for discussion." I smile to myself, but I still don't want him to do anything to jeopardize his career.

When we've finished our meals, we split a dessert, then walk outside into the now-chilly air. "Well?" Edward asks, holding out the keys to me.

"Go ahead… I don't want to have to mess with the seat." He smirks at me, helping me up into the SUV.

We're back at the motel in no time and I pretty much collapse on the bed, pulling off my Chucks. I prop some pillows against the headboard, getting myself comfortable while Edward turns on the TV. Instead of sitting next to me as I'd expected, he sits cross-legged near the bottom of the bed and pulls my socks off.

I eye him curiously as he lifts my feet onto his lap and begins rubbing them. "You don't have to do that." His hands feel absolutely amazing though — but I want them on more than just my feet.

He shrugs. "I want to. It's my responsibility to take care of you."

"Do you want to… stay here tomorrow? I mean, when I go talk to Dad?"

"Absolutely not! You're not going near him alone."

"Edward, he wouldn't hurt me," I plead.

"No, Bella. I promised to stand by you and I meant it. That includes facing down the man who pointed a gun at me."

"Okay," I whisper. Inside, I'm relieved to have him by my side. I always want Edward by my side.

Eventually, Edward moves to sit beside me, leaning against the pillows. He wraps an arm around me and I lean my head on his shoulder, my hand on his stomach. No matter what happens tomorrow, right now I'm content.

~*~*GN*~*~

The next thing I know, I'm naked.

A/N: Really, I'm sorry about this cliffie, LOL. Is she dreaming?

Kudos to lillianolivia. white, whose guess of "One of the bitchy girls from HS" was the only correct one! At least Edward had a little fun with Lauren… I'm sure the tongue was totally necessary.

How many of you have been to Forks? I wrote this with Google Maps, and looking at some of their photos.

Next update on Friday. Bella and Edward talk to Charlie! And there will be some relationship talk, I promise!