Stolen Dreams

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. If this surprises you, perhaps you are in the wrong place. I own this story. Don't take it. It's not nice.

A/N: If you are under 18, stop reading right now. Seriously, I don't want to be responsible for corrupting you. If you aren't, well, okay then. Thank yous go out to Jenny Cullen for betaing this little diddy. She's totally awesome and talks me off ledges. Also, she makes this readable. Give her lots of love. Please see the author's note at the end for some information.

Chapter 4

Charlie ended up grabbing a chair from the nurses' station and dragging it in for Edward, who tugged it as close to my chair as he could. He kept checking his phone, almost obsessively, but no one spoke. The silence was stifling.

I couldn't even think. It was too much for me to process. I knew that I was dangerously close to shutting down, but the thought that my baby might be alive and well kept me upright. That and Edward's presence next to me.

Jasper must have sent him something, because he started tapping away on the screen of his phone, reading intently. His brows furrowed together and didn't look too happy with what he was seeing. I laid my hand on his arm to get his attention, and his head snapped up. With my eyes, I asked him if everything was all right, because I didn't want to break the silence. In answer, he clicked on his screen and handed the phone over to me to read.

There in front of me were employment, financial, and medical records. There were newspaper articles about charitable giving and Esme's interior design projects. He had so much information on them that it made my head swim. From everything I could see, they looked like fine, upstanding citizens. I looked over at him with wide eyes, and he smirked back at me, pointing to an area in the financial records. Starting roughly twelve years ago, there were large dips in their financials, and from what I could tell, substantial cash withdrawals. The last one was five days after Ryan's birth.

I was going to ask Edward what it meant, but just as I opened my mouth, the door was flung open again and a lovely woman with dark blonde hair pushed past Charlie and went straight to Dr. Cullen. I could only surmise that this was his wife. She clutched a sheaf of papers in her hand, and my detached mind noted that it shook slightly.

"Carlisle, what is going on here? Why is the Chief of Police sitting in your office asking about Ryan? What's happened?" Her level of panic was sky-rocketing.

"It's fine, Mae. When are you supposed to get Ry from practice?" he asked, keeping his voice calm to control the rising tension.

"I already picked him up. He was hungry, so he went down to the cafeteria," she answered. "Why did you need his adoption papers?"

Dr. Cullen carefully considered his words before speaking. "Ms. . . . Dr. Swan thought Ryan looked familiar when I dropped him off at the park. Chief Swan is her father. They came to ask me about him."

Mrs. Cullen stared intently at me, and I recognized the fight in her eyes. To her, this was her child we were discussing, and she would do anything to protect him. Her eyes flickered to Edward, and immediately, she did a double take. She blinked repeatedly, as if that would clear her vision and make the man sitting before her less of an older doppelganger for her son.

"Why don't we get another chair in here so Mrs. Cullen can sit?" Charlie suggested. "We can each tell our stories and see where that leaves us."

Edward stood and left the room, coming back a few minutes later with a chair from one of the waiting rooms. He placed it next to the desk, placing Mrs. Cullen next to her husband. Charlie gestured to us to begin.

Edward grasped my hand tightly and nodded. I took a deep breath and brought the memories I kept safely locked away to the surface.

"Edward and I started dating during our sophomore year of high school. When it came time to decide on colleges the fall of our senior year, we applied to the same schools or ones near to each other. We loved each other and planned to stay together as we started our lives. So when we found out on Thanksgiving that I was pregnant, we changed our plans to go to school on the East Coast, opting for UW so we could be closer to home and to our parents. There was never any question that we would stay together and raise our child. Our parents weren't thrilled, of course, but they were supportive.

"On June third, I went into labor. I wanted Edward in the room with me, but Dr. Gerandy said he wasn't allowed, since he wasn't eighteen. Dad didn't feel like it was his place, so it was just me, Dr. Gerandy, and his nurse, Susan Mallory."

Dr. Cullen interrupted, and I could practically hear the disgust in his voice. "He wouldn't allow you any support while you were in labor? There's no under eighteen rule!"

"They didn't give me anything for the pain, either," I told him. "Mrs. Mallory said she was giving me something, but whatever she gave me didn't alleviate the pain at all." I couldn't verbalize how alone and scared I'd felt. As it was, the memories threatened to pull me under. "Dr. Gerandy had me stop pushing to unwrap the cord, but the pain was so bad that after I pushed for the last time, I passed out. When I came to, it was ten minutes later. I was already in a new room, and my baby was nowhere to be seen. Dr. Gerandy came in and told me that my son had been stillborn."

The rest of the words caught in my throat, so Edward picked up the story for me.

"He came into the waiting room and told me the same thing. The next morning, Bella and I asked to see his body so we could say goodbye, but Dr. Gerandy said that there had been a mix up in the morgue and our son's body had been taken to the crematory in place of another person that had died."

Mrs. Cullen had tears pouring down her face and her hand in front of her mouth. It almost muffled her cry of, "you poor dears," but I heard her anyway.

Dr. Cullen looked downright pissed. He took several moments to compose himself before he spoke. "I have never heard of such callous behavior toward a new mother by a colleague I've always admired and respected. I'm so sorry that you had to live through such a horrendous experience. I can't even imagine. Please don't think me insensitive, but I have to ask. Other than the fact that you never saw your son's body, have you ever had cause to believe that he survived?"

Edward shook his head, but I cut of his movement by touching his arm. "I started seeing a therapist to help me through the grief a few weeks afterward. I was having a reoccurring dream; in it, I was giving birth again, but before I fainted, I heard Ryan cry. My counselor at the time, and everyone since has agreed that it was a coping mechanism. I've dealt with many different types of them in my own practices, so I never truly questioned it until today."

Mrs. Cullen's eyes bored into me. "Who did you say you heard cry?"

"After the ultrasound showed that he was a boy, we named him Ryan." Edward shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. "The books all said to talk to him as much as possible, so we did."

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Mrs. Cullen whimpered, rocking back and forth slightly. "Carlisle . . ."

I looked to him expectantly, ready to hear how they came to adopt the child I'd never given up. He swallowed a couple of times and rubbed the back of his neck. "Esme and I tried to have children for several years. After the third miscarriage, we started seeing a fertility specialist, who diagnosed Esme with endometriosis. There was some scarring on her uterus, but nothing that he felt would keep her from carrying a child to term. She miscarried three more times—the last time at twenty-three weeks. I refused to put her through that again. My mentor suggested that we look into adoption as an alternative, and Esme threw herself into the search. One day in early April, my mentor called and asked if we had looked into private adoption. An old friend of his had a young patient that was planning to give up her child, and he asked if we would be interested. We offered to cover the girl's medical expenses and meet with her beforehand, but he said that she wanted it to be a closed adoption and that she didn't want to know where her child went. You have to understand that this kind of request, according to the case worker at the agency we worked with, wasn't uncommon. A lot of teenage mothers want to retain their anonymity so they can't be found later. He kept us updated on her progress, and on June third, he emailed to say that she had safely delivered a healthy baby boy. Five days later, we met the nurse at the adoption agency and took our son home."

"The only request the nurse had was that we name him Ryan. She said that the mother had named him in utero before she decided on adoption," Esme choked out. "We named him Ryan Parker Cullen."

She held out the adoption certificate and the birth certificate with his legal name. I took them with trembling fingers. Edward stared at it over my shoulder.

"Who was your mentor's friend, the doctor that arranged the adoption?" Charlie asked.

"I don't know," Dr. Cullen admitted. "We never spoke directly to him. I can call Steve later and ask him."

"Please do. There are a few too many similarities for me to be comfortable dismissing this," Charlie stated. "I don't want to cause any trouble for you folks, but I think we all owe it to Ryan to put the matter to rest."

"D-Does Ryan know he's adopted?" I asked. I couldn't imagine how horrible and damaging it would be for him to find out that not only was he adopted, but kidnapped, as well, all at once. He was only ten!

Mrs. Cullen nodded rapidly. "He noticed when he was about five that he didn't look anything like either of us. When he asked, we told him that we had chosen to be his parents and that we loved him, even if I hadn't given birth to him."

She made my hackles rise again, as if we hadn't wanted him. I knew that wasn't what she'd meant, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

"Okay, kids," Charlie said, standing. "We've taken up enough of Dr. Cullen's time today, and you all have a party to get ready for."

"I need to get Ryan from the cafeteria, too," Mrs. Cullen added. Her earlier fear seemed to have come back full force, and I had to admit that I completely understood it, because I felt it, too. This woman had my child, and I wanted him back. But he was her child, too. She'd raised and loved him for the last ten years, and she wouldn't let go without a fight.

Dr. Cullen's sharp voice cut into my thoughts. "I would appreciate if you would stay away from my son until we have some more information. I don't want to confuse him."

I wanted to protest. I wanted to scream and rail that he was my child, and I had every right to see him if I wanted to, but Edward squeezed my hand, pulling me back from the brink.

"We can agree to that," he answered. "But we won't wait long. I want this resolved, and soon. If he is our son, I want to know him."

"Of course," they agreed, mollified for now.

Edward and I left first, following a familiar route from the hospital. His car was parked haphazardly in a space near the entrance, and I laughed. "What? I thought something was wrong with you."

"What do we do now?" I whispered as he started up the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

He sighed and gave me a sad smile. "We wait. And tonight, we get dressed up and go to Forks High's gym."

"You really expect me to get dressed up and play Prom?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes, I do. I never got to take you to Prom the first time, because you refused to go looking like 'a whale.' There is nothing that we can do in those three hours that's going to tell us if that little boy is our Ryan or not. Please, let us have tonight. If it is Ryan, our lives are going to change, and if it's not, well, I'm not sure how we will cope with losing him again." Edward's expression was so sad; there was no way I was going to deny him this, since it meant so much to him.

"Okay," I agreed.

"Yeah?" His happy grin spread across his face. "You did ask me to wear my dress uniform, you know, and it's hanging in the closet."

I shivered in anticipation. I'd only seen him in it once, but damn, it was hot. I only hoped I would look like I belonged next to him in my gown.

Edward's phone rang as we parked near our room at The Lodge. I went on in to give him some privacy, as it sounded like Jasper and more than likely related to work. There wasn't any way that I was going to be able to concentrate on a book, so I flicked on the TV while I waited. When he didn't return within fifteen minutes, I started to get worried. A peak through the curtains revealed that his car was gone, as well.

I snatched my phone from my pocket and dialed his number without thinking. He didn't answer. Fear welled up within me, and I paced around the bed. Logically, I knew that Edward would never just leave me somewhere without a word—he never had. I also knew that I was in a town the size of a postage stamp. I could walk wherever I wanted to go should the need arise. What scared me was that whatever had dragged him away had to be serious, or he wouldn't have gone without a word.

When I heard the key in the lock, I spun around to face the door, fear and anger warring inside of me in equal parts. Edward has his phone pressed against his shoulder, still listening to someone on the other end, while he balanced the key in one hand and a pizza in the other. He looked up at me with a smile that fell as soon as he registered my expression.

"Jazz, let me call you right back. I just got back to the room, and I need to boot up the computer." Edward slid the pizza onto the table by the window and hit a button on the screen of his phone without looking away from my face. "Bella, what's wrong?"

"Where did you go?" I asked in a strangled voice.

He approached me cautiously. "It's after one, Bella. Neither of us ate breakfast, and I'm starving. I just ran to get us a pizza while I was on the phone."

The last vestiges of my panic and fear receded. My shoulders sagged as I let my weight fall onto the bed behind me. "I'm sorry. I thought something had happened to you."

"Bella, what's going to happen to me in Forks?" Edward asked, his tone still cautious, but with a touch of humor.

"I don't know," I answered hollowly. The smell of the pizza filled the small room, and my stomach grumbled in response. I couldn't find the will to move, though. It had been a long time since my emotions had incapacitated me and prevented me from looking for rational answers.

Edward held out his hand and grasped mine, pulling me to my feet and leading me over to the table. "Come on, Bell. Let's eat. It's been a long day, and we've still got a lot of it to go."

The food helped clear my thoughts and took the edge off. "Thank you," I said once the first slice settled. "I think I needed this more than I knew."

"I figured." He smirked. "How long will you need to get ready for tonight? We're supposed to be there at six for dinner."

"Maybe an hour," I guessed.

He rubbed his hands with glee. "Good. Are you feeling up to looking at what Jasper sent?"

The thought of searching further into the mystery surrounding Ryan Cullen set my heart to racing. We quickly finished our lunch. Edward leaned against the headboard and nestled me between his legs as he booted up his computer and pulled up his email.

There on his nineteen inch screen were the financials that we'd looked at on his phone earlier in the day. There were four significant dips in their portfolios.

"Those must be the fertility treatments and Ryan's adoption," I noted.

Edward scoffed and tensed against my back. "Fifty thousand dollars. That's how much they paid to adopt him."

"Is there a way to check Dr. Gerandy's financials to see if he took the money?" I asked.

"Yeah, but let's wait until we talk to him. It might not be necessary. Keep in mind that legally, I shouldn't have this information," Edward reminded me.

Next, he pulled up Esme's medical records, and they coincided with her story. She'd had six miscarriages in ten years. Ryan's adoption had followed the last one by only four months. Neither of them had any major medical conditions, other than Esme's endometriosis. Financially, they were stable, and on paper, they were the ideal family for a little boy that needed nothing other than to be loved. And in ten years worth of records, there was nothing to suggest that they'd been involved in a plot to steal our child.

At four-thirty, we put the computer away and jumped in the shower to get cleaned up for our evening out. Usually, when we showered together, we couldn't keep our hands to ourselves. Today, though, it consisted mostly of cleaning and chaste touches, our minds both too caught up in the events of the day to do more. While I combed and dried my shoulder length hair, Edward just towel dried his short hair and sat on the bed with only his towel around his waist. It was a good thing that using a hair dryer didn't require any mental prowess, because my eyes were too busy roaming his exposed torso.

He didn't move until I'd already applied my mascara and blush. My hair was curled in loose waves down my back, and I stepped into my strapless dress while he finished buttoning his dress uniform. There was just something about him in that green uniform that drove me wild, but I knew that we didn't have any time to act on those thoughts.

"Bella," he started, his voice unusually grave, "if . . . if that boy is our Ryan, what do we do?"

I stepped over to him and ran my hands over his lapels. "I have no idea, but we'll figure it out together, okay?"

He smiled at me softly and pressed his lips to mine. "Together."

The lovely branson101 has set up a forum over on Twilighted. Come on over to talk to all of us!

Now, in November, the fandom is hosting another auction to benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand. We in the Twilight fandom have done a lot for various causes over the course of the last few years, but this is one that deserves all of our attention. Curing childhood cancer should be one of our top priorities. To that end, I am donating a one shot or outtake form any of my stories of the winner's choice. Keep your eyes open for more information.