Wow! That Fanfiction outage was loooooong!!!
But on the plus side, Our Little Man is up for an award over at Lion and Lamb Award http://lionandlambawards(dot)webs(dot)com. It's up for Best Alternate Universe. Voting isn't opened yet, but thank you to whomever nominated this story. It's great to know this story is that loved. Much appreciated!
So now that Bella has finally started to face her anger and deal with her issues, we can jump ahead a bit and see a much happier version of her - and a much sleepier version of poor Edward. LOL. Enjoy!!!!
DISCLAIMER: The characters do not belong to me…they are all the creation of the wonderful Stephenie Meyer. All are human.
Charlie's Lullaby
Edward's POV
"So Alice thinks we should—" was all I heard from Bella before my eyes drifted closed without my permission. And the very next thing I heard was my name being yelled while my arm was shaken.
"Sorry," I yawned.
Charlie had not been very cooperative last night when his bedtime had come around. Because of that, I'd spent most of the day struggling to stay awake and alert. I'm sure my students thought something was wrong with me with the way I'd kept nodding off during the film I'd made them watch. I prayed for a goodnight's sleep tonight so I could be a little more coherent tomorrow.
"You should go to bed," Bella chuckled. "That's the second time tonight you've fallen asleep on me and you very nearly fell that time. It's not like I can catch you or anything."
"I'm fine," I said through another yawn.
"No, you're tired."
"I'm not going to leave you up with a fussy baby."
"Honestly, Edward, you really aren't doing me any favors. It's hard enough to calm Charlie down without having to watch for you falling asleep on your feet. Please go to bed."
"Fine," I sighed in defeat. "But know that I do this against my will."
"It's not your will that's tired," Bella chuckled as I kissed her lips. "Go get some sleep. I shouldn't be too much longer."
"Little man, I love you, but you need to sleep," I said, kissing Charlie's forehead. He started whimpering again so Bella adjusted his pacifier in his mouth and started rocking him in her old chair once more.
The two of them were staring right at each other as she softly hummed to him and I felt a little like I was intruding on a private moment. I left the room, thinking about how happy I was that Bella could finally do more with Charlie. We'd even moved back up to the third floor; although, the move may have been the cause for Charlie's sudden disinterest in sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time. But Bella had been adamant that he finally get to be in his own room and she in ours.
Still, it was really helping her to work through her anger and be happy again, so I was not about to complain. Anything that got Bella to smile and laugh was worth it in my opinion. It had been a couple of weeks since her blow up at Emmett and me, and although she was still having some blue days, they were far less than before.
I yawned once again and my jaw popped getting Bella to laugh. I turned just as she climbed in the bed and smiled at me. "Did you really get him down?"
"Are you doubting my motherly skills, Tutor-boy?" she teased, snuggling against me so closely that there were no gaps between us.
I held her tightly and pressed my lips to her hair, breathing in the smell of her strawberry shampoo. "I've never doubted you, Love. You're an amazing mother."
"I love you," Bella whispered, hugging my waist a little tighter.
"I love you, too. I'm sorry I was so out of it tonight."
Bella yawned loudly. "It's fine. You had a long night and day."
"From the sound of that, I'd say your day was just as long."
"Mmm," was her drowsy reply.
I rested my head on hers and soon drifted off, thinking of how Charlie was not exactly cooperating with our attempts to get him back on a schedule. Our son was proving to be just as stubborn as his mother, only sleeping when he wanted to.
Not even an hour later, the baby monitor picked up on Charlie's soft cries. Bella grunted as she rolled away from me, and the loss of her warmth and weight caused me to sigh heavily. I loved my son, but this not sleeping at night thing was driving me crazy.
"Stay," Bella whispered in the dark. "I've got him."
"Are you sure?"
"You have class tomorrow, Edward. Get some sleep." She kissed my cheek and I felt her weight leave our bed.
She stopped by the nightstand and I opened one eye to peek at her. She was turning down the volume on the monitor. God, how I loved this woman! She was always thinking of me in everything she did. She had always been very caring and loving to me, but she'd been even more so lately. I think it was her way of reassuring both of us that she was okay.
As I tried to fall back asleep, I heard my Bella humming softly and cooing to the baby. I couldn't resist listening to her angel's voice, no matter how tired I was, so I grabbed the monitor and turned the volume back up.
"Charlie, what are we going to do you with you? You're not supposed to be a night owl. You sure don't get that from me, little man. Mommy likes her sleep. I bet Daddy would like his, too, if you let him get any. I bet I know what your problem is. You don't want to be in that big old crib all by yourself. You just want someone to snuggle with. I've got news for you, little man, you'll never get any sleep in Mommy and Daddy's room. Mommy is a talker and Daddy snores."
I chuckled and shook my head. I did not snore—she was fibbing to our baby.
"Besides, you should be in love with your room. Grammy Esme and Auntie Alice decorated it special, just for you. And your blue blankie you love so much was your daddy's long before it was yours. So would you mind explaining to me, little man, why you refuse to sleep?"
I laughed when it seemed she was actually waiting for an answer.
"That's okay, baby," she cooed. "You're going to be the strong, silent type at first, just like your Daddy. But I'll get you talking, just like I did to him."
She started humming again, and then she was singing something I'd never heard before.
Come, my little angel.
Close your sweet eyes.
It's time for sweet dreams
And tender lullabies.
Trust, my little angel,
Mommy and daddy are never far.
And if need be, we'll all take
A little ride in daddy's car.
Sleep, my little angel
All through the night,
Wrapped up in a blanket
Of our love, wound so tight.
No bad dreams will find you,
Only ones that tickle.
And in the morn'
You'll awake with a giggle.
Sleep, my little angel;
Sleep deep and true.
And know in your heart,
Mommy and daddy love you.
I could hear her moving around in his room as she continued to lightly hum. I hoped that meant Charlie had fallen asleep again.
She whispered very softly. "Please sleep through the night, little man."
I put the monitor back on the nightstand and waited for her to come back to our room. She seemed shocked to see me sitting up when she opened the door.
"You're supposed to be sleeping," she fussed, crawling onto the bed.
I pulled her into my arms, laying her on my chest, and wrapped our blanket around us. "You know I can't sleep without you."
"I know," she whispered, holding me tighter.
"Where did you find that lullaby you were singing to Charlie?" I asked.
"You were listening?" she cried, burying her face against my chest. I could feel her cheeks heating up from her blush.
"Yes. I especially liked the part where you lied and told our son that I snore."
"You do. But only when you're extra tired, which you've been an awful lot lately from lack of sleep."
"A hazard of being a new parent while working," I sighed. "But I wouldn't trade a minute of it."
"Me neither."
"So the lullaby?"
"Oh, that. That's nothing."
"Bella."
"Edward." She tried to sound stern, but the laughter in her voice betrayed her.
I kissed up and down her neck. "Please. Please tell me, Bella."
"No fair," she sighed. "You shouldn't be able to dazzle me still."
"I plan to dazzle you for the rest of our long lives together, Isabella. That's going to be a lot of years of dazzling, my love."
"I made it up," she sighed, relaxing completely in my arms.
"You made what up?" I whispered, kissing the hollow behind her ear, thinking she was stalling.
"The lullaby, Honey."
"Really?"
"I know it's corny and all, but he seems to like it."
"It's not corny, Bella. It's beautiful."
"You're only saying that because you're sleep deprived." She yawned loudly as she snuggled further against my chest. "Let's take advantage of the quiet and get some more sleep."
"I love you," I whispered, placing a kiss on top of her head.
"I love you, too," she mumbled, already half asleep.
I smiled and closed my eyes, hoping I wouldn't wake up again until my alarm was going off. Sometime later, I felt Bella move and knew she was getting up again with the baby. The gentleman part of me wanted to get up with her, but the sleep deprived part won out. I would make it up to her later, I promised myself. But I wasn't able to contemplate that too much, since I was already falling back into a deep sleep.
Bella woke me the next morning, having handled all of Charlie's morning routine by herself so that I could sleep in a little later. I was going to have to do something special for her soon.
I jumped into the shower, wracking my brain for ideas. I finally decided I would need to call Alice for help. I chuckled to myself, knowing my sister had to be more sleep deprived than me. She had two-week-old twins to contend with after all.
By the time I was showered and ready for work, Bella had left the room. I checked Charlie's room first, but it was empty. I picked up on the aroma of coffee in the house and knew she was downstairs filling up my thermos. I smiled, wondering once again how I'd ended up so lucky.
I snuck into the kitchen, hoping to surprise her. Charlie was sitting in his bouncy chair, staring at the lion and lamb that hung down over him. Bella was singing to herself as she poured the coffee, so I waited until she was done, and then wrapped my arms around her.
She squealed and I laughed. "Edward!" she fussed, slapping at my arms.
"I love you," I whispered into her ear.
She melted against me and I knew I was already forgiven. "I love you, too," she said.
"Will you miss me today?"
"I miss you everyday," she sighed.
"I wish I could have taken time off to be with you and Charlie."
"It's okay. Esme's been a huge help and I really am feeling much better now."
"Once we get Charlie to sleep through the night, you and I are going to go out on a real date."
"Promise?"
"I promise, my love. A real date where we dress up, I bring you flowers, and we dine at a nice adult restaurant. How's that sound?"
"Wonderful. I won't even complain about the flowers."
"I'll hold you to that," I laughed, turning her around. I gave her a goodbye kiss to tide us both over until the afternoon. "I love you, Bella."
"I love you, Edward." She gave me a brief hug, then handed me my thermos. "You better get going. It would look pretty bad for the teacher to be late."
"I'll be home by four."
"We'll be here."
I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and then gave one to Charlie. I left quickly before I decided to stay. It had always been hard to leave Bella for any reason, but after almost losing her…It took everything in me everyday to walk out of that house and go to my job. If I thought for a second she would actually allow me to stay home with her, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I knew it wasn't practical or responsible, especially since I was trying to surprise her with our very own home.
I climbed into the Volvo and headed down the driveway. I started thinking about the song Bella had sung to Charlie in the night. I decided I would try to write some music to go with the words to give to Bella as a surprise gift. The thought of it making her happy filled me with excitement. I couldn't wait to get to the college so I could hurry through the day and get back to my angel and my son.
Bella's POV
"I'll be home by four," Edward promised, holding tightly to me.
"We'll be here," I replied, smiling up at him.
He pressed his lips to my cheek, gave me his dimpled smile, and then kissed Charlie goodbye. And then he practically ran from the house, just as he did every morning. It was still hard for him to get himself in the mood to leave me; and where that would have annoyed me once, it just left me feeling very loved now.
I took Charlie's hands into mine and smiled at him. "That daddy of yours is one amazing man. I sure hope you're just like him when you grow up. Maybe not quite as much of a worrier, but definitely sweet and caring like that."
I glanced over at the calendar, shocked to see that it was getting close to the end of October. I should have realized that since we'd had a small birthday party for Lily on the eighteenth, but it somehow hadn't really clicked for me. Then again, it was easy to lose track of the days when they all seemed the same.
But they weren't exactly the same, I remembered, lifting a whimpering Charlie from his bouncy seat. I could carry my son on my own now, I could spend as much time alone with him as I wanted, and I could feed him myself while letting Edward use a bottle if he wanted a turn. Although, Charlie did honestly prefer me, which was a huge ego boost. And it definitely helped to have Edward being so supportive and not minding that he wasn't getting to share Charlie's feeding times as much anymore. He really was being so great—first, he'd had work cut out a chunk of his time, and now I was breastfeeding. He never let it seem like it bothered him and I trusted that he wouldn't lie just to make me happy.
"You know what, Charlie? We need to do something special for Daddy. I'm going to take a couple of more weeks to make sure I'm completely okay to spend the afternoon outside and driving around, and then I'm going to take you to see your daddy at work. We'll go to the college and surprise him in class, and take him to lunch. How's that sound, little man? Want to treat Daddy to lunch?"
Charlie smiled and gave out his baby chuckle, which just made me smile and giggle in return.
"I knew you'd like that idea, little man. So what shall we do today? Oh, I know! We're going to work on getting you to roll over. First, we'll put you on your tummy and let you do your baby push-ups. And then when you're all excited and making all of those cute baby noises, we'll try to get you to roll onto your back."
I lifted him up, kissing his cheek and making noises at him as I carried him into the living room. We had a blanket and his baby mat set up on the floor so that I could lie next to him while he played. It was a special tummy mat with a prop to help him learn to hold up his upper body, and had a baby lion and a baby giraffe printed on it. Jasper had found it and he'd bought one for Charlie, and one for each of the twins.
"Hello?" Rose called out as she came into the house with Lily. "Oh, look, they're right here to greet us," she added, smiling at me.
"How are my favorite flowers?" I asked.
"Tired," Rose chuckled. "Lily's been up since six this morning. I think Emmett was being too loud and it woke her. Needless to say, I'm ready for nap time."
"Charwee," Lily sang as she knelt down and kissed his cheek. "I play too."
"You can hold his rattle and shake it for him," I said, passing it to her. "Just don't do it in front of his face. Come sit right here next to me."
Lily immediately obeyed without a fuss, sitting right beside me and lightly shaking the rattle. Charlie smiled at her and she giggled back, shaking the rattle again.
"They are so cute together," Rose chuckled. "So how are you doing, Momma Bella?"
"I'm doing really good today. Charlie and I had a great morning, and I was able to let Edward sleep in a little. Oh, hey!" I said, suddenly remembering about the calendar again. "I know you probably realized, but I just figured out today that November is almost here."
"And?" she asked, seeming confused.
"The pixie starts planning for Christmas on November first and doesn't let up until Christmas actually arrives. And I doubt she'll be able to handle the ornaments this year, which means one of us will be put in charge of getting the three new ones for the tree."
"Charlie, Elizabeth, and Brandon," Rose mused. "Any ideas?"
"I was thinking a bear for Charlie, like the one Edward has for his first Christmas. For Elizabeth and Brandon, maybe we can do something matching. They came in October, so maybe we could find a pretty golden leaf for Elizabeth and a red one for Brandon."
"That's an idea. Although, that doesn't really scream Alice's children."
"Maybe we can look online for some ideas. Oh, I know!" I said excitedly as an idea popped into my head. "Alice loves that Polar Express movie, so what if we got each of the kids a silver sleigh bell with their full names engraved on them with the 'Baby's First Christmas' thing beneath?"
"Now you're thinking, Bells," Rose said, smiling wide. "Is your laptop up in your room?"
"Yep. It's on the desk."
"I'll be right back with it," she called out, already running up the stairs.
"Charwee, look," Lily said, shaking the rattle a little closer to him.
"Not so close, Sweetie. You want him to be able to see it clearly."
She handed me the rattle back and shrugged. "Blocks."
"Sure, Lily Bear," I chuckled. "Go play with your blocks. Build a big castle and then we'll show it to Charlie."
"Okay, so I've already found this website that makes baby clothes and they have the cutest snowman outfits. The boy's is blue and the snowman has a dark blue hat, while the girl's is pink with a dark pink hat."
"What if Alice still wants to handle Christmas? We probably shouldn't get too excited."
"We're stealing it this year, Bells. Alice will have to bow to both of us begging to do it. And then we'll get these outfits for the twins. And for Charlie, there's a cute red outfit that says 'Baby's First Christmas' in white with little mistletoe."
"You're starting to scare me, Rose," I chuckled. "You just gave an Alice-worthy rant about gifts."
"We've been friends for almost six years now. It's about time I learn a few things from her."
"Edward said that if Alice felt up to it, he would take me over there this weekend so I can finally see the twins in person and not just in emailed pictures."
"Yeah, the four of them were definitely missed at Lily's birthday party. But on the plus side, I've never seen my brother happier."
"Rose, did you ever think we'd all end up married with kids this way?"
"Yeah, I did actually. But I thought it would be a lot easier than it's been," she chuckled. And then her face got serious. "Bella, are you having your nightmares again?"
"No," I said honestly. "The last one was during my pregnancy. I guess I've been having enough real-life nightmares that I don't need to worry about dreaming any up."
"I'm sorry Emmett was adding to that."
"Yeah, me too. Thanks for trying to talk to him, though."
Charlie started to whimper, so I picked him up and cuddled him. "What's wrong, little man? Were we not paying enough attention to you?"
"I think he just likes getting his mommy to hold him."
"Do you think I'm spoiling him?"
"I think at this age, there's no such thing. Besides, you deserve to get to spoil him just a little."
"Yeah, but I wouldn't want to accidentally spoil him in a bad way just because I love holding him."
"You'll both be fine. You're just giving him a little extra attention, that's all. Besides, with as cute as he is, how could you not want to just kiss him all over?"
"Kiss, Momma?" Lily asked, running over to her. She leaned up on her tiptoes and puckered her lips out.
"Sure, baby girl," Rose chuckled, leaning down and kissing Lily. "What are you building over there?"
"Doggie house. Woof woof, Momma."
Rose and I chuckled as we watched Lily dance around the sofa, singing out "woof, woof" as she went along.
"Who can we blame for that?" I asked.
"On one of her kiddie shows, the little boy got a dog for his birthday, so Lily thinks she should have one, too. Maybe when she's older, I'll consider it. For now, her father is all the animal I can handle."
"Ooh, la la," I laughed. "More than I need to know, but I'm glad to hear you guys are still so in love with each other."
"You say that like you aren't that way with Edward."
"No!" I cried. "No, I definitely didn't mean it that way. I mean, at least not for me. I still love him like crazy. He can still just look at me a particular way and my legs get all jelly-like."
"What do you mean at least not for you? Have you hit your head recently? That man still looks at you like you're the air he needs to be able to breathe. You just wait, Bells. When your doctor clears you for some lovin', that man is totally going to rock your world."
"No way. Not Edward," I laughed.
"Bella, any man going this long without sex is going to be a monster when he can finally have it again. I'm sure he'll be sweet enough to ask if he's being too rough, but besides that…" Rose just stopped talking and smirked.
"Rosalie, if it turns out that you're just messing with me, I'm totally going to give you crap gifts for Christmas."
"And when I'm right, I want a day with just us girls, no kids, spending the whole day at the mall and trying on beautiful things that we can't possibly take home because our children are so young and will spit up all over them. Well, except for the new outfit that will be for Daddy's eyes only."
"Nice," I chuckled.
"I hungey!" Lily announced, jumping up and down next to Rosalie.
"Well no wonder with all this jumping up and down," Rose said, lifting Lily up and growling playfully against her neck. "My little kangaroo baby."
"Chippies, Momma," Lily squealed.
"No way, baby girl," Rose said, sitting Lily up on her lap. "We do not have chippies this early in the morning."
"But we do have bananas," I said as Rose helped me and Charlie up from the floor.
The four of us headed into the kitchen, enjoying a lazy morning together. I was so glad to get to spend a quiet morning with just Rose and the kids—no one hovering around me. Not that I didn't appreciate every single thing Carlisle and Esme did for me, because I did. Heck, I was still thanking them twice a day for all of it! And honestly, it was much easier to feel thankful when I wasn't so angry all of the time. It was nice to finally start feeling more like myself. I couldn't wait to get to a point when I felt like I was completely healed. And if I really had a horny Edward to look forward to, well then my future was definitely looking bright and beautiful!
If any of you are looking for other great reads, check out our Cookie League C2 community where we've marked our favorites from Fanfiction. There's a link on my profile page. The wonderful HP keeps it updated for us!