A/N: Thank you guys so much for all your reviews. I am so happy to see how much everyone is liking this so far. Just an FYI again, I am not a doctor, lawyer or cop so any information regarding those careers are just researched and subjected to being all wrong. And this chapter might have some touchy subjects in it. I don't go into detail but things are implied. I'm also told that this is a bit of a tissue inducing chapter.

Thanks again to HopelessRomantic79 for her beta skills. She has her work cut out for her since that characters are starting to take over again and I have had to rework the outline to add more chapters. Haha

Chapter 2

Jasper POV

When Bella told me that she was pregnant, I did two things. First I dropped my coffee cup, shattering it and spilling coffee all over the diner table. Mary rushed over quickly with a rag to start cleaning it up. She slapped the rag down on the table and started wiping all the coffee up before it reached us.

"Jasper, honey, what'd you do that for?" Mary mumbled as she soaked up the mess with her rag. I snapped to attention and nervously started helping her pick up the broken shards. My hands were trembling and my voice had suddenly become shaky.

"I'm so s-sorry Mary. I d-didn't mean to. It just h-happened." I hadn't stuttered that bad in over ten years, but apparently being told that kind of news brought out the frightened kid in me.

"That's okay son." She patted my hand and stepped away leaving me and Bella in silence once more. She hadn't moved once during the whole ordeal. I'm sure she was waiting for me to bolt, or start yelling or whatever other scenario she had already imagined I would do. She was really good at that, making assumptions out of nothing.

But I didn't bolt. I didn't start yelling. I didn't start saying anything really. I just sat back in the booth and stared at her.

Pregnant.

With child.

Knocked up.

A Family.

That's when it hit me. Family. I hadn't really grown up in the traditional sense of a family, but I did know that I had always wanted a family of my own. A wife I could come home to, support and love. A boy I could teach how to play baseball and a little girl who would have me completely wrapped around her finger and be totally spoiled. Daddy. Dad. Father. Pops. I tried out the titles in my head. Yeah, I could do this.

After everything had run through my head, with Bella still sitting there patiently waiting, I did the next thing. It was the most logical step in my mind. I had already been thinking about for a month or so now. Living with Bella was brilliant and I didn't want to change that.

"Marry me?"

It took two months to get her to finally agree to marry me. She kept insisting that she didn't ever want to be a pregnant bride, have "shotgun wedding" or for anyone to think that the only reason we got married was because she was pregnant. It took a lot of convincing and a little help from my brother and his wife to prove to Bella that I had already been thinking about asking her before she had even told me about the baby.

Her one condition was that it be a small wedding. So I gave her exactly what she wanted. Peter and Charlotte had this nice two story house in Seattle with a back yard that was killer. Charlotte's passion was horticulture and her back yard proved her love. So one fine day under a trellis full of flowers, Bella and I said I Do with Peter, Charlotte, Mary and a couple other close friends and family.

We took a one week vacation to British Columbia for our honeymoon and I was ecstatic. We may have been moving a little fast, but I was getting the happy family I had always wanted. Yeah, I am not too manly to admit that I am totally smitten with Bella and I would do anything for her.

It has now been five months since Bella told me she was pregnant and after much considering, we decided to find out the sex of the baby. There in the beginning we wanted to be surprised like the good old days. Not knowing whether it was a boy or girl we were getting blessed with. But after a bunch of shopping for things we would need for our kids arrival, we decided it would be easier and less costly to know what sex we needed to buy for.

I was on my way to Bellas appointment at the hospital to find out the sex. I was running late, I knew it. She told me just to meet her there since it was such a late afternoon appointment and her work was literally right around the corner. I looked at my watch as I rushed into her doctors' waiting room, expecting to see an angry Bella scowling at me for my tardiness, but she wasn't there. Great, she had already been called back.

I rushed up to the admitting window, "Excuse me, I was supposed to meet my wife Bella Whitlock here for her appointment." The nurse clucked her tongue at me and glanced at a chart.

"Yes…Mrs. Whitlock hasn't checked in yet." She replied in a tone that clearly stated that she was none too happy.

"What do you mean she hasn't checked in?" I glanced at the clock. "Our appointment was supposed to be 15 minutes ago!"

"Yes, sir, I know." She set the chart down. "But she never showed up." I backed away from the window and grabbed my phone, dialing Bella's number immediately.

It rang and rang until her voicemail picked up, "Hi, This Bella Whitlock. I am unable to come to the phone right now. Please leave me a message and I'll return your call. Thank you, bye!"

"Bella! Babe, are you ok, where you? The nurse said you never showed up for the ultrasound. Please please call me back. You have me worried. This isn't like you." I hung up and redialed as I walked out the door and started pacing back and forth.

It was after the fifth redialing of her number that she picked up. I spoke before I even gave her a chance. "Bella! What the hell? Where are you?"

"Excuse me sir, who is this?"

My heart dropped. No, not dropped, plummeted. I did not recognize this guy's voice. At all. What the fuck?

"Who is this answering Bella's phone?" I all but shouted into the phone.

"Sir, I need you to calm down. My name is Dr. Hoyt. Are you Mr. Whitlock?"

"Yes sir, I am Bella's husband."

"Okay, good. I don't want you to be alarmed but your wife was just brought into the ER. I need you to get here right away."

"I'm already at the hospital!" This time I shouted. "I was supposed to meet Bella here for her ultrasound appointment."

"Sir…." he sighed. "I really need you to calm down and come to the ER. Ask for me and they will let you in. I'll explain everything when you get here." He hung up and I bolted down the corridor towards the other side of the hospital. Dodging people in the hallways, getting yelled at several times by the nurses or doctors I passed for running in the hospital. I didn't care.

Five minutes later I was being led into an ER room with Bella inside. I thought I had died and gone to hell the moment I saw her. She was all banged up and asleep on the bed. Cuts across her face, blood dried here and there. Her skirt was ripped and she had bruises everywhere. I collapsed into the chair next to her bed. "What…..What…..happened?"

The doctor cleared his voice before he read form a chart. "An employee at Harper, Saks and Associates found Mrs. Whitlock at the bottom of a stair well. From what we can ascertain, she took a mighty big spill down the stairs. She was found unconscious. We have run a couple of test and she does seem to be stable right now, her stats are a little low and we have her on a heart monitor. However there is a complication with the pregnancy…"

"What?" I shot up in my seat.

"Dr. Stevens…Our OB/GYN, was unable to find a heartbeat sir…" My vision went blurry and I heard a God-awful sound fill the room. It took me a few second to realize it was me; it was my anguish filling the room. "I am so sorry sir, but the fall was too much for the child. We need you to sign these forms so we may perform a C-section immediately and get her out of there before she becomes a risk to your wife."

"She?" I have a daughter. No. I had a daughter. Had. Oh my God, this is going to kill Bella.

"Yes sir. Once again I am so sorry." He set a clipboard down on the end of the bed and stepped back. I glanced up at him. He had to be no more than a year or two older than me yet he already looked like he had lived a lifetime of stress and pain. In that moment, I knew exactly how he felt. "Please go ahead and take a few minutes. But honestly sir, a C-section needs to be done directly or the fetus can cause her to become septic which can kill her." I nodded my head as he backed out the door.

"Bella…." I whispered next to her ear as I held her hand and pushed the hair back away from her face. "Bella…Sweetie….I am so so very fucking sorry. Our sweet angel won't be joining us. Our Madeline May Whitlock is going to heaven far sooner than was anticipated. Did you hear that? A girl. I am sure she would have been gorgeous. Your hair and your eyes and your cute little nose. I would have wanted her to look just like her mommy. I love you. I love you so fucking much." I cried even harder. "Oh God, Bella, you did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong. Oh honey I wish you were awake right now so I could see those beautiful eyes of yours before you went into surgery." I cried. Probably harder than any time I had cried before. All my tears through my life wouldn't equal this. "Please baby…wake up for me. I don't want you waking up after this not knowing why or how." I buried my face into her side, trying to be mindful of whatever injuries she might have.

"Jasper…" I heard the faintest whisper. I sat up and looked in her face. "Jasper….James…."

"What?" Why was she speaking about her boss, now?

"James….the stairs…get away….angry…so angry….pushed."

"What? Bella, babe you aren't making any sense. James was in the stairwell, is that what you are saying?"

"Yes…" She started to close her eyes. "I told him no…." Her voice was getting fainter. "I told him to leave me alone." I brushed my hand down her face, avoiding her cuts. "He was so angry. James gets what he wants. But not me. I said no…"

I turned towards the door. "Could somebody call the cops please?" I shouted and turned back to Bella. "Baby, are you saying that James did this to you. Did James lay a hand on you and our baby?" A small smile flitted across her face as her eyes completely closed and her hand laid across her stomach. "I wouldn't let him. I'm probably fired."

Everything after that went too fast. Her heart monitor started making that horrible flat lining sound you often see in movies. A flurry of activity, doctors and nurses pushed into the room and somebody grabbed my arm and dragged me out. They took Bella off to surgery just as a man in blue walked up next to me. I didn't even get to say I love you…or god forbid, goodbye before they whisked her away.

"Did you need a police officer son?"

I nodded yes and started to tell him everything I knew, everything that Bella had told me. James. I knew the first time I met him that he was a slick mother fucker. He had that air about him. Dangerous. Disturbing. I had tried to urge Bella weeks ago to quit. She didn't. Stubborn girl. But she insisted that she had to work until her maternity leave. I tried to convince her she didn't need to work at all. Now…now I wish I had tried harder. Our poor little baby. This was going to crush Bella.

A/N: Teaser of the next chapter to those who want it, please review :)