Bella POV

The two weeks following the procedure were the longest two weeks of my life. Despite the bathroom incident, Rosalie had come home with a bag full of pregnancy tests. I started taking the tests every day a week after the procedure. We both knew it was probably too soon to tell, but she had taken to joining me in impatiently staring down the test on the bathroom counter anyway (not the hall bathroom. She swore she was never going back in that one). Each time, she'd grab my hand in anticipation waiting for the results to show. And each time it was negative, she'd just smile and say "Tomorrow's your day."

I also kept bugging Alice to find out if she'd seen anything.

"You know it doesn't work that way, Bella. Jacob is one giant blind spot for me. If this happens, I'm going to be useless to you for the entire pregnancy," she whined. "But I have a good feeling about this. Besides, didn't you manage to get yourself pregnant the night you lost your virginity?"

I blushed. "Alice!"

"I'm just saying. If anything, maybe you're too fertile. This should be a piece of cake."

I hoped she was right.

I was flooded with disappointment when I went to take another test on the 14th day and found that I had gotten my period instead. When I stepped outside of the bathroom, Rosalie already wore a look of pity. Of course she could sense what I'd just discovered. Alice had discreetly explained when I first moved in with the Cullens that I didn't need to worry about period stuff around them. Apparently it didn't cause the same reaction in them as regular blood, thank God. It was still a little creepy to think that they'd always know.

When I stepped into the hallway, Rose opened her arms and pulled me into a big hug. "I'm sorry, Bella."

I was disappointed, but I wasn't going to give up that easily.

When I called Jacob to break the news, he sounded as sunny as ever.

"Hey, Bells, how's it going?" he asked.

"It didn't work," I told him. I didn't have to explain; he knew exactly what I meant.

"I'm so sorry. When can we try it again?" He didn't even miss a beat in asking, and I smiled at his enthusiasm.

"Carlisle wants to run a couple of tests on you before we try again, if that's okay. He wants you to call him to set up a time. I think he wants to try to figure out if it's even possible so we don't have to keep doing this if it's not going to work."

"Yeah, okay. I'll give him a call now if he's free."

"Thanks, Jake. Yeah, he's free. Actually, wait. There's something else that I've been thinking about."

"Yeah?"

"What is the pack going to do about this?" I highly suspected he hadn't mentioned it to them, and I didn't want to be the reason for any issues there. I knew his relationship with me had already been a sore spot for them in the past.

"Don't worry about that, Bells. This is my decision. They won't like it, but it's not their choice to make," he said.

So I was right. They didn't know.

"Are you sure? I don't want to be the reason for a fight or anything. Please don't let me lead you into doing something you'll regret."

"Bella, I would regret not doing this, okay? I promise. I've made up my mind and anyone that disagrees will just have to deal with it. End of story."

I relaxed a bit and let it go.

Jacob set up a time to meet with Carlisle the following morning, and this time we all left to give them some privacy, myself included. Apparently Carlisle needed a sample and wanted to test it immediately to get a better understanding of the time constraints we'd be working under.

Esme suggested that we all go see a movie together, so we picked something that had already been out forever and was on its last leg at the discount theater to cut down on how many humans would be around. Jasper had come a long way since I first met him, but apparently two hours in a packed theater was asking a lot. Thankfully, the auditorium we picked only had two other people in it, and he could always hold his breath if it became difficult. No need to talk during a movie, unless of course you're Emmett.

Alice picked out a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, and she insisted that we'd all like it. It ended up being mostly set in Alaska, and Emmett had a blast pointing out all of the details it got wrong and insisted that none of it was actually filmed there. None of that bothered me, and I kind of liked the story and the ending.

By the time we got home, Jacob was gone, and Edward did his best to distract me from my growing anxiety about what the results would tell us. He had me lie down on the couch so he could play the piano for me, something we hadn't done in a while, but he knew I loved it. I tried to focus on every note and empty my mind, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to worry that maybe this perfect solution was going to be just another disappointment in the growing list of failures in my life.

Jacob POV

Bella was right to worry about how things would go down with the pack, and I had my suspicions that this might cause the biggest shitstorm in pack history if it somehow managed to work. I'd deal with the consequences when the time came, but there was no point in getting them all riled up if it might not even happen. I planned to keep my mouth shut until we knew Bella was pregnant for sure. I wouldn't be able to guard my thoughts or avoid the rest of the pack forever, but Seth's imprint was providing a pretty great distraction at the moment. I just needed to make sure this worked before Sam figured out what was going on and tried to command me to stop.

Besides, if I could handle jerking off 15 feet from Edward, I figured I could handle damn near anything. At least this time, it was just Carlisle in the house. It was a relief knowing he couldn't jump directly into my brain, even if he could still hear anything in a mile radius. Edward swore to stay the hell out of my brain before, but I didn't know how easy it was for him to control that ability of his, and I had no idea how loudly my brain might have been projecting images at the time.

I tried everything I could to focus on the anonymous girls in the magazine and not to let any real-life fantasies to take over. You'd be amazed at how easy it is to keep your mind off of an old obsession when her husband's in the next room with super-human hearing and mind-reading abilities. It's a real boner-killer, and it's probably a miracle I was even able to go through with it, not that I'd ever had trouble in that department before. The only thought that kept me going was how much Bella needed me to do this.

My heart slammed in my chest when I saw Carlisle's number blinking on my phone.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hello, Jacob. I have your test results from this morning," Carlisle started.

"What's the verdict, doc?"

"I'm afraid there's some…incompatibility. The sperm cells were already close to dead by the time I was able to view them under the microscope, even though the time from release to the time I viewed them was about 60 seconds."

Both Carlisle and I had used our super-human speed to ensure he got the quickest look possible at my specimen. I thought we might need to streamline the whole process a bit more than the first try, maybe forego shutting the door or even have Bella stationed closer to the edge of the office, but I was sure we could make it work. My throat tightened as his words confirmed otherwise.

"Wait, are you saying I'm sterile? Is there something wrong with me?"

I understood that this was a long shot in the first place, but I hadn't expected to hear that something might be wrong with my ability to have children. Then it hit me. What if the reason I hadn't imprinted was because I was sterile? Wasn't the whole process nature's way of finding the most viable mate? If there was something wrong with me, then mating wouldn't be an option. Of course I wouldn't imprint if that was the case. It all suddenly made sense.

I didn't voice any of this to Carlisle, but he shot that theory down pretty quickly.

"No, no, you're absolutely healthy, Jacob. I detected slight movement in one of the cells just before it died. Not enough movement to fertilize an egg, I'm afraid, but enough to tell me that there's nothing wrong with you. It just seems that the window of time we were counting on simply does not exist. When the time comes, you will still be able to have children, Jacob, the natural way. But I'm afraid artificial insemination is simply not an option for you. I'm sorry."

Dr. Cullen sounded genuinely sad. I wondered if he had broken the news to Bella yet and how she was going to handle the latest round of disappointment. She just couldn't catch a break.

Edward POV

I put an arm around Bella as Carlisle broke the news to us that she and Jacob were incompatible for artificial insemination. I had been so sure that this was the answer. Both Bella and Jacob seemed comfortable with the arrangement, and I knew it would be a much better fit than adopting a human child. When she first told me of her conversation with Jacob, I had initially questioned whether Jacob's offspring would smell human at first. Perhaps it would only take on a wolf scent after the first transformation.

But then Bella had asked what Jacob smelled like to me before he transformed, and I was stumped.

"I don't know, Bella. I never paid it any attention. I was only around him once or twice before that happened, and you were always there. As if I could concentrate on anyone else with you in the room." I had answered.

"Are you sure you just never noticed? Or you never smelled anything, Edward? Think! There's a huge difference."

I thought about her question, but I didn't know the answer. I began to wonder if that meant something, as she was suggesting, but we couldn't exactly go back in time so I could test her theory. I approached Carlisle with my concerns, and he provided an answer.

"Remember when I treated Jacob for his wounds after the battle with Victoria's army?" Carlisle asked.

"Sure. What about it?"

"When I went to his house, I spent a significant amount of time around his father, Billy, as well as a few other older family members who were related to wolves but not victims of the curse themselves. I realized that I could smell none of them. It's as if they are a blind spot to our sense of smell the same way they are to Alice's gift."

This was an unexpected detail I had never considered. With the treaty in place, the rest of us had never spent any time around La Push to have a chance to notice the anomaly.

"Really?" I asked.

"I have a theory about that," Carlisle explained. "Consider it natural selection's way of keeping our species separate. Can you imagine what would happen if Jacob or any other wolf was bitten as a child and turned by one of our kind? Their bodies would be unable to handle both wolf genes and the vampire transformation. The results would be disastrous if not deadly, not to mention that ingesting their blood could have equally dire consequences for a vampire. I believe that their lack of appeal to our senses is a natural defense against both of these things."

I had been elated by this news, and it felt like these were all pieces of a larger puzzle that were finally falling into place. A child that Bella could carry safely that would be undetectable to our kind? It was more perfect than anything we could have hoped for. And I couldn't believe that Carlisle was now telling us that it was impossible.

"I'm so sorry, my love." I kissed Bella's forehead and stroked her back. She remained silent. In fact, she remained silent for the rest of the day and went to bed early. I hated not being able to see into her mind, but I could imagine the infinite hurt and disappointment there. We had come up against another brick wall, and I didn't see any way around it this time.

I thought about Jacob and Bella and all that we had been through, and it struck me that I should call Jacob to thank him for his help. We had dragged him through far more than he ever should have had to deal with, and for once I sought him out without any ulterior motives for how he could help my wife. He had been a better friend to Bella than I ever could have imagined a year ago, and he needed to know how much I appreciated it.

"I know this must have been a very difficult decision for you, Jacob. I just wanted to say that I admire you greatly for what you were willing to endure to help Bella," I told him. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry it didn't work," he said. "I was so sure that this was the answer she needed."

His fickle animosity towards me seemed to be gone, at least momentarily, replaced only by a shared sense of disappointment.

"So was I. I'm not sure what to do next," I admitted.

"I hate this for her so much."

"Are you…" I hesitated for a moment. I wanted to check on Jacob's well being, but I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. The prognosis couldn't have been easy for him to take, and I knew he'd have no one else to talk to.

I pushed the feeling aside and started again. "Are you okay? After Carlisle's news?" I asked.

"I'll be okay. I'm just sad for Bella."

"So you never wanted to have children, then?" I reacted in surprise, and knew I had no right to ask such a personal question. It was a clear overstep of our strained ally relationship, but I assumed he would have been hurt to find out about his sterility. Surely he wanted children with a future mate, even if he had accepted that this wouldn't work for Bella.

"What? I don't know. Maybe I will one day. In case you forgot, I'm 17 and single. I've got time. What does that have to do with anything?"

Did he not know? Had Carlisle kept this detail from him?

"Jacob, I don't know how to say this, but you deserve to know. Carlisle suggested that you would not be able to have children of your own."

"What? Dude, no. I'm not sterile. I'm fine." Jacob argued.

I was beginning to regret having this conversation over the phone where I couldn't get a read on what he was thinking.

"I was sure Carlisle would have told you—"

"No, no, he did. He explained everything. He assured me I would be able to have children the…normal way one day. We're just incompatible for artificial insemination. What exactly did Carlisle say to you, anyway?" he asked.

I thought back to our conversation in Carlisle's office. He had explained to us that Jacob's sperm cells were dead when he viewed them under the microscope and that Jacob would not be a viable donor for us. Nothing in his mind had suggested to me that there was more to the story, and I accepted the explanation at face value. Now I was wondering if he had intentionally left this detail out or if he had simply thought it none of my business.

"He explained that the cells were dead when he viewed them. That you wouldn't be a viable donor for Bella."

"It's true, and it sucks. I really wanted this to work for her. But there's nothing wrong with my ability to, um, have kids, Edward. I'm fine. I'm just really sorry I can't help Bella."

But then that meant, technically, there was still a chance…no.

"Edward, are you still there?"

"I'm here. So what you're saying is technically, you could—"

Jacob cut me off mid-sentence. "Technically, you should really stop right there."

We were both silent for a moment, and I wondered if he would hang up on me.

"I would allow it. For Bella." I knew he understood what I was suggesting. What permission I was giving.

It would be painful to stand by and let this happen, but nothing could be more painful than losing Bella. In that moment, I made up my mind that I would endure this for her sake. I reminded myself that the alternative of losing her or watching her lose another child would be infinitely worse than allowing her one night with Jacob.

"Allow it," Jacob scoffed. "You don't know your wife at all if you think this is something you can just allow to happen. Even if I…Bella would never go for it. Not in a million years. And you can't force her." I didn't need access to his mind to hear the anger dripping from his words.

"Just consider it. For Bella," I begged.

"You really don't know when to stop interfering, do you?" he snapped. "Fine. I'll do it under one condition, and one condition only—Bella has to ask me."

I could tell he didn't really believe it would come to that. Bella would certainly object at first, but I would do my best to make her see that this was okay. I was confident that Bella and I were strong enough to make it through this together. What was one uncomfortable night in the face of eternity? And if she somehow changed her mind and decided that she'd rather be with Jacob in the process, then I'd let her. She deserved to be happy, and I was determined not to stand in her way. If I couldn't give her the child that she wanted myself, then the least I could do was allow her another way.