Chapter Playlist- Shooting the Moon by OK Go (Yes I got the NM Soundtrack ;) I didn't like many songs on it at first but it's definitely growing on me and I adore shooting the moon- going to look up more of OK Go so if they're good, expect some more of their music here ;))

Previously…

I lifted my head up again as Calleigh and Rob Wilson went up to receive their baby. Calleigh, like Bella, looked excited. Rob, looked a bit worried, and absolutely shit-scared of the upcoming weekend, which was probably just how I looked. I had a feeling that this weekend was not going to be as I had originally anticipated at all…

The Hard Way To Learn A Lesson

Chapter 36- Halley

Edward POV

"Edward?" Bella said.

"What?" I sighed, turning back to look at her.

"Do you mind if we get a girl?" she asked, her eyes wide and happy.

"Not really," I replied honestly; either one was just varying degrees of awful.

"What should we call her?" Bella mused.

"I thought you wanted to name her," I pointed out as Kyle Barlow and his 'wife' went up to collect their baby. That meant we were next.

"Well… the Dad should always get a say in it as well," Bella told me thoughtfully.

"Why don't we just call her Ethel and leave it at that?" I suggested.

Bella looked aghast. "That's a disgusting name, Edward! We can't call our child Ethel! She'll be teased when she grows up and goes to school!" She frowned for a second. "I quite like the name Halley, but…"

"Bella," I interrupted her before she could start debating names. "Halley is a lovely name. And I was joking about Ethel anyway."

"Good!" she exclaimed. "I was scared that you actually wanted…"

"Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan!" Mr Marshall called.

I grinned at Bella and stood. "We're up!" I held out my hand and she took it, letting me pull her to her feet. I didn't fail to notice that more than half of the class watched as we went up to Mr Marshall's desk, hand in hand.

Mr Marshall beamed at us. "How's it going then, guys?" he asked as he grabbed us a manual out of the box.

"Good," Bella answered, somehow uneasy at the same time as being ridiculously excited.

"And Edward?"

"Great until you gave us this 'baby'," I muttered.

Bella glared at me and Mr Marshall laughed. "It's just for one weekend, Edward," he reminded me, before handing Bella the manual. "Here's your manual and the birth certificate is in there. Give me your wrist."

Bella held out her right hand and Mr Marshall attached one of the wristbands he had showed us earlier to it, and tightened it, making sure that it wasn't too tight before turning to me. I reluctantly held out my right wrist as well and he tied one on me.

Then, he gave me a box. "In there is a car seat, sling and changing bag along with everything else you'll need this weekend. Don't lose or break any of it because you will be paying for replacements and it's not cheap."

"Yes, Sir." I gave him a salute and watched on as he leant down into one of the three boxes he had brought in.

"Now, Bella." He turned to my beautiful wife with a life-like baby in his arms. If I didn't know better, I would have thought that it was a real baby. It was baby-sized and wearing a little pink top with the company logo across the front and had big blue eyes that were open, with a mop of lifelike brown hair, a bit like Bella's, but nowhere near as gorgeous. "You want a girl?"

Bella nodded nervously, her eyes glued on the doll. Mr Marshall lifted the back of the baby's top up and took a key out of the back of it, activating it. The baby shifted and made a little cooing noise, its arms moving up a little.

Bella smiled in anticipation and Mr Marshall handed her the baby. She took it carefully, gingerly, as though it was a bomb, and handed me the manual. I took it and watched as she adjusted the baby in her arms, fitting it in the crook of her arms. I could tell that Bella was going to be a great Mum one day. But as we went back to our seats with our new 'daughter', I couldn't help but worry about my own abilities as a parent…

Bella POV

"No, no, no," I said, stopping him. "No, you have to put the seatbelt around the back."

Edward frowned and adjusted the seatbelt. "Here?"

"Um…" I looked at it and moved Halley's weight to one arm so that I could pull on the car seat. It came loose. "No. Not like that. If you crashed, she'd die."

"Bella," Edward sighed, "there are two things wrong with that statement. One: I am a good driver and I do not crash. Two: that baby is a doll! She's not real and she can't die!"

I glared at him. "Halley represents our potential future children so we will treat her as a real child, okay?"

Edward huffed and leant back into his Volvo to adjust the car seat again, muttering something about me being insane and Mr Marshall being a moron and the car seat being an insult to his driving.

"What is going on?" an all-too familiar voice asked from behind me.

"Hey Alice." I turned round to show her our baby. "We got a baby. Edward's fitting the car seat."

Alice gasped. "Seriously? You got a baby?"

"Not a real one, but…"

"No, no, of course not. But I've read about them. Aren't they supposed to be pretty hard work?" Alice asked, staring at Halley.

"If this damn car seat is anything to go by, then Bella's doing everything," Edward replied angrily, getting out of the car again. "Try that."

I tugged on the car seat again. It didn't come lose, but I was pretty sure that the belt wasn't supposed to be knotted around it like that… "Are you sure it's supposed to look like…?"

Edward interrupted me. "Well, if I crash she's not going to fall out and 'die' is she?"

"Um… she might suffocate?" My statement sounded like a question.

Edward groaned. "Bella! She's not going to suffocate, or die, or anything else your warped mind comes up with! Why don't you sit in the back with her and then you can keep your eye on her?"

"That sounds okay," I said, gently laying Halley in the car seat. She didn't cry, so I presumed that she was comfortable, and went round to the other side. By the time I got in, Edward and Alice were already sat in the front.

"Edward," Alice said, "you should never have children, okay?"

Edward shrugged. "If whoever I end up married to wants children, then she can have children as long as she does all the work while they're babies."

"You? Married?" Alice rolled her eyes. "Somehow I find that hard to believe!" She turned to me then. "So, Bella, it's a girl right?"

I nodded.

"What's she called?"

"Oh, please don't encourage her!" Edward moaned as we drove out of the school grounds. "This is supposed to be a weekend! You know, when you're free from school to do what you want? And Marshall, the moron, gives us baby-cry-a-lot and poof! There's the weekend gone!"

"Shut up, Edward," Alice snapped, before looking back to me again.

I laughed. "She's called Halley."

Alice nodded in approval. "That's a pretty name."

I smiled and looked out of the window. Only then did I notice where we were going. "Edward, we're going to your house, remember?"

"Don't you want to introduce your Dad to his first grandchild?" he teased.

I rolled my eyes. "Not particularly. Who knows what he'll say this time?"

Edward laughed loudly, and then said, "I just thought we'd pick you up some stuff first. That is okay with you, Alice, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's fine," Alice replied.

Unfortunately for me, Charlie was home when we got back. I got Halley out, careful to support her neck, and Edward rolled his eyes at me. I glared at him again.

The moment I stepped in the door, I could smell something burning. I went straight through to the kitchen where Charlie was worriedly watching the microwave. I stepped in and stopped it, opening the door and taking the jar out of the microwave. "You have to take the lid off, Dad," I told him, handing the jar to Edward to unscrew.

"But I took the spoon out this time and you told me that the spoon was what made it blow up last week," Charlie grumbled.

"Metal, Dad," I replied. "Metal makes it blow up. Both the spoon and the lid are metal."

"Humph," he muttered, and then he said, "I thought you two were headed to the Cullens this evening anyway?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

I was interrupted. "What is that?" Charlie asked, pointing at Halley.

Edward grinned and came to my side, lacing his arm around my waist. "Well, you see Charlie," he started. "When grown-ups love each other very much, they do this thing that results in…"

"Yes, very funny, Edward," I snapped, before he could give my father a heart attack. "It's the next task in the project."

"Good," Charlie said after a pause. "You scared me for a minute then. After all, you weren't back last night till…"

"No!" I interrupted him when I saw Alice come within hearing distance. Both Charlie and Edward gave me a strange look. "Um…" I blushed. "I mean, we wouldn't do that." I waited for Edward to back me up and, when he didn't, I elbowed him. "Would we, Edward?"

"Uh, what? Oh, right… No, sir, no… never… well… not never, but not right now… although…"

Jeez. "We're going to grab some of my stuff and then we're heading to the Cullens, okay Dad?"

"Sure," he said, looking halfway between worried and amused.

I dragged Edward upstairs, Alice following behind us, analysing every photo on the wall that she walked past. I wondered why and then I remembered that she hadn't come here yet, so she wouldn't have seen any photos. And wasn't analysing the photos hung in the Cullens' hallway the first thing I had done when I got to their house?

"What was that?" I demanded when Edward and I went into my bedroom, out of earshot of Charlie.

Edward shrugged.

I frowned at him. "That's not funny; you'll give him a heart attack!"

"Chill, Bells. I didn't suggest anything that he didn't last night. He knows you're a big girl now." Edward stifled a laugh at my furious expression. Then, he looked over his shoulder to check that Alice wasn't here yet and leant in to whisper, "I was a bit disappointed when you told your Dad that we wouldn't do that. Or was that just a cover?"

I frowned at him again to cover the way that my heart spluttered hyperactively at the very idea that he wanted to do that with me. My life kept getting more and more bizarre and unbelievable. "Perhaps. You'll have to wait and see, won't you?" I answered mysteriously with an uncharacteristic wink.

Edward stared at me – that obviously wasn't the response he had been expecting – and I grinned before turning away and laying Halley carefully on the bed. But while I was still bent down, Edward's arms came round my waist from behind.

Then, suddenly, the floorboard outside my bedroom creaked, and we jumped apart just as Alice came in. "You have a nice house," she complimented me, before looking round my bedroom. "Hmm," she said. "Small, but cosy and cute," she summarised, and then pointed at the blue walls. "Great colour for a bedroom, by the way."

"Thanks," I said, slightly embarrassed. "Um…" I grabbed my blue camisole off of the end of the un-made bed (it was hard finding time to make the bed when every time I bent over, Edward pushed me down on the bed and kissed me…) and a few other things from the other end of the bed that I had discarded in favour of the leggings and purple top I had worn instead.

Alice watched with curious eyes while Edward made himself at home by picking up the magazine he had been reading that morning and flicking through it again. I rolled my eyes; only Edward would voluntarily read a girls magazine and laugh his head off at it.

"Don't take that," Alice ordered, pointing to a shapeless blue top I had picked up.

I threw it back on the bed and tossed the clothes I had picked up into my schoolbag before thrusting that at Edward and saying, "Stop reading the problem pages and help out a new mother, you moron."

Edward took the bag and tucked the magazine inside. He looked up at mine and Alice's expressions and said, "What? The problem pages are funny…"

Alice and I laughed at him.

***

My traitorous stomach growled again and I glared at Edward as he snickered into his dinner.

Esme didn't look happy either. "Edward, you have as much responsibility with this baby as Bella does. Why don't you feed you lovely wife rather than laughing at her?"

Edward sucked up a bit of spaghetti and the end of it splattered his nose with sauce. "But she's got to be nearly done by now, surely?" he asked, exasperated.

Halley cooed then, signalling that she was done feeding, and I sighed, putting the bottle back on the table and making sure that she was comfy in the sling that I had decided to constantly wear around my neck before turning to my own plate of untouched spaghetti, half an hour after everyone else had started eating. "Phew," I muttered before shoving in my first mouthful of cold dinner.

"Don't you have to make it puke or something?" Alice wondered.

"Too hungry," I replied.

"That's abuse, Bella," Edward told me.

I stopped eating and took Halley out of her sling to hand her to Edward. "You do it then."

Edward held his hands up. "No fear."

I sighed. "Oh, come on, Edward. She's just a doll; she's not really gonna puke on you."

"No thanks. Eating." Edward shovelled a mouthful of spaghetti in his mouth as though to prove his point.

I reluctantly put Halley over my shoulder and rubbed her back with the hand with the wristband on. Esme clipped Edward over the head. "Such a gentleman, Edward," she said sarcastically.

It didn't take the baby as long to be happy now, so she quickly ended up back in the sling and my dinner quickly ended up back in my mouth.

Alice came to Edward's room with us after dinner and sat cross-legged on Edward's bed. I joined her with Halley and we watched as Edward tried to set up a suitable bed for her by his bed.

"This is ridiculous," he complained. "What was Marshall thinking?!"

"He was thinking that unprotected sex is bad?" I suggested.

"Yes, but we've never had unprotected sex so he's punishing us for a mistake we haven't made!"

"But don't you think it's better to teach you that lesson before you end up with a real baby?" Alice asked.

"No," Edward said stubbornly, clicking something into place. He stood aside and I saw that it was a metal stand.

"How is Halley gonna sleep in there?" I wondered.

"Back in a second," Edward told me and then he disappeared out the door.

"What's the deal with you guys then?" Alice asked.

"What do you mean?" I looked back down at Halley so that I wouldn't have to look Alice in the eye.

"You and Edward… you're acting… different."

"Are we?" I tried hard to sound indifferent, but I knew that Alice was much more observant than either Edward or I gave her credit for. If she said we were acting different, then we probably were.

I looked up now and Alice smiled at me. "Not bad different. More like… you're friends now." This was a statement rather than an end to her sentence. She sighed then, the smile going. "Bella, I'm going to take back what I said about Edward."

"You said a lot about Edward," I pointed out with a grin. "So which bit are you taking back?"

"Everything," Alice replied. "Everything I said about him being an ass; he can't help it." We both laughed, but then Alice spoke again. "No, seriously, Bella. He's not all bad. I think he likes you. A lot. And I think you like him too."

"I think I do too," I admitted in a whisper.

Alice smiled at me, and her smile looked a little sad. "Just… don't fall for him too hard, Bella. It hurts when someone you love betrays you."

I didn't bother telling her that it was too late not to fall for him hard because I saw the glimmer of pain in her eyes and I had to ask. I looked back down at Halley as I said, "What happened, Alice? With you and Edward, I mean."

Alice bit her lip. "I'm not sure that I should really be the one to tell you that; I'd just somehow end up painting Edward as the bad guy and I don't really know the whole story." She paused and looked at the door, before continuing to speak, but this time, she spoke in a whisper. "But… we were close; really close and then, when we were thirteen, he put his first girlfriend, Tanya, before me. And… there was a… misunderstanding. A big one. Edward believed Tanya. He hated me and… well, it hurt. A lot. We fought. He ran away a lot and no one knew where he went. He'd be gone hours, but when he got back, he'd snap at everyone, especially me. We fell out big time and it was starting to upset everyone. So I left. And now I don't know where I stand with him. Before two weeks ago… we hadn't spoken… in years. Years. Not one word… and now…"

The door banged, and we both jumped as the sudden noise sliced through the quietness, before Edward kicked the door open and walked in backwards, carrying a huge Moses basket. "That stupid doll better appreciate this," he muttered, before balancing the basket on the metal frame he had put up a few minutes previously.

I got up from the bed and put Halley in the basket, draping a blanket over her.

"I don't think she has a temperature sensor, Bella," Edward remarked.

"All good practice," I replied.

Suddenly the doorbell downstairs rang and Alice jumped off of the bed. "That'll be for me."

"It will?" Edward's brow furrowed. "Where're you going?"

"Jasper's," she answered. "See you guys tomorrow. Have fun with the no-sleep-new-parent thing." She grinned at me, before leaving with a little wave.

Edward's arms were instantly around me, all over me. "Why'd it take her so long to go?" he complained, leaning down.

I pushed him away slightly, so that his lips couldn't capture mine. "I'm worried about Alice," I told him quietly.

"Why?"

"Well, she just left the house without putting on any make-up," I pointed out, only half-joking.

Edward laughed, thinking I was joking. "I'm sure she's fine," he said.

"Mmm," I responded vaguely, resting my head on his shoulder so that I could think before he kissed me and all sane and sensible thoughts went right out of the window. I wasn't sure of that same thing at all. From what Alice had just told me, it sounded like maybe there was more than a little of his past that Edward hadn't told me. Maybe there was more to his and Alice's antagonistic relationship than just 'sibling squabbles' as he himself had once put it. Maybe this feud hurt him more than he let on. Or maybe he felt guilty beyond belief for something that had clearly happened years ago. Something that Alice was only just starting to forgive. Edward could trust me now, so surely he'd open up sooner or later?

Halley started to cry then, halting my train of thought and making me look up into Edward's dazzling emerald orbs. I smiled. "Here we go," I muttered. "Are you ready to take over as a new Daddy now?"

"I'm never ready," Edward replied, rolling his eyes.

I untangled myself from his arms and quickly scooped the baby out of her makeshift bed, ready to do whatever was needed, but all the while plotting inside of my head. After all, sooner or later Edward would have to start looking after his daughter. And, when that time came, I was going to make sure that he enjoyed being a Daddy, because I sure as hell wanted to have his green-eyed, bronze-haired, drop-dead-gorgeous children someday…

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Soo… I just read this chapter through and I'm not sure that it's as good as the others, but I do think that there were some fairly entertaining points thrown in like Edward reading problem pages in magazines… XD sorry… couldn't resist ;)

What did you guys think? And do you like the name Halley? I think it's quite pretty… :)

BEST NEWS EVER= I GOT MY LAPTOP BACK!!!! :D Yes, this means more updates :D I'll probably update Sunday because I go on holiday on Monday. I really want to update Tuesday because it's my birthday but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get on the internet on holiday. If I don't update Tuesday, then I won't be updating till next Friday but, like I said, chapter 37 will be up Sunday :D

Oh and MORE GREAT NEWS= I got my NM tickets!!!! :D *squeals for a really long time* soooooooo excited! :D 27 days!!! I also got the soundtrack which I didn't like at first, but now really do- OK Go's song is awesome :D

Thanks so much for all of the wonderful reviews! :D More than 4,000- mega wow guys. It honestly means so much to me :D Thanks also for the feedback about the sequel and graphic-ness etc. I'll think about it and tell you when I know what I'm gonna do.

I hope you're liking where this is heading and I really hope that this isn't in that period of nothingness that often happens when they get together. I mean, they've got the baby, haven't they?! XD And Edward and Bella will be having that chat about Eddie's past pretty soon so you don't have to wait for much longer for that now. But that won't mean that there's not much story left because I've got something else planned for them as well… see if you can guess what it is ;D

Oh and I got a twitter account so if you have one and want to follow me, the link is on my profile. Not that I'll ever be on it… XD

PLEASE REVIEW!!!

Thanks

Steph