Bella POV

My face was buried in Jake's neck, and I could feel his scorching hands roaming my body as I breathed in his familiar woodsy scent. He pulled back and grinned at me, and it was like staring into the sun. There was a growing sense of urgency deep in my body. I needed more of him; all of him. He crushed his lips against mine, and I greedily pulled him closer, silently begging for more. My fist clinched around the back of his shirt, urging it upwards, and he flipped me gently on the bed, pulling me upright on top of him. As I rolled, my leg collided with something. Something cold that jolted my senses.

I opened my eyes and realized I was in my own bed at home. With Edward. I had a fistful of sheets in my hand and I'd just kicked him in the shin. Guilt flooded my body and I knew my cheeks were on fire. I was instantly mortified.

Edward smirked at me. "Please, don't let me interrupt," he said.

"Sorry. I was dreaming," I mumbled.

"Clearly. It looked like a good one. Do you want to tell me about it?"

Absolutely not ever in my entire life under any circumstances.

"Um, no, I think I might just go get some water."

"You stay here, love. I'll be right back with it," he said. He turned back and winked at me on the way out.

I sat up in bed cursing my wacked-out hormones for inserting the wrong guy into my dreams.

That night was just the beginning. The first dream kicked off my third month of pregnancy, and I continued to have the dreams several times a week like clockwork. They were always vivid and explicit and though the scenes varied, the star did not. I often tried to go to bed thinking of Edward, willing myself to dream about him instead if my hormonal body insisted on having these dreams, but it was Jacob every single time. My body was a traitor, and what's worse is I knew that Edward must have thought I was dreaming about him every time I woke up thrashing around like a lunatic in bed. He thought it was cute and endearing, but only because he didn't know the truth. My only comfort was knowing that Jacob sure as hell would never know, either.

By August, I was six months pregnant, and my fears of getting my hopes up too soon were far behind me. My new concerns revolved around how long my clothes would fit and how much bigger I could possibly get in the next three months. Carlisle assured us that we weren't having twins, but I already felt enormous and sometimes I ate almost as much as Jacob. Long gone were the days of passing him my leftovers.

Aside from being the size of a house, I was probably in the best shape of my life. I was taking frequent walks with Edward, and Rose signed me up for a water aerobics class that she drove me to twice a week in a little city called Sequim, just past Port Angeles. It only took a few weeks before she convinced the rest of the family that we needed an indoor pool in our backyard so that I could swim whenever I felt like it and we wouldn't have to drive so far to avoid being seen. I tried to talk them out of spending an obscene amount of money on a rush job to put in a full-sized swimming pool in the dead of summer, but truthfully, laying on a float reading a book was my new favorite place in the world. In the end, I was glad I hadn't fought too hard against it.

Overall, everything was going as well as could be expected. I had the support of the Cullens, and Jacob had decided to stick around for the time being. I knew it couldn't last, but for now, I was happy to spend time with him. The only downside was I finally had to feed Charlie the fake backpacking story. I hated keeping this from him, but he would have a hard enough time gradually losing contact with me. There was no way I could introduce him to his grandchild and then take that away from him. It was hard not seeing him, but Edward had been helping me through it.

Edward had been an absolute model husband since we found out I was pregnant. He had his overprotective moments as usual, but I fully agreed with him for once. I wasn't taking any unnecessary risks if it meant protecting this baby. I drove the Guardian any time I left the house (and by "drove," I mostly mean I let him chauffeur me around), and he seemed more than happy to help me with everything. He drove me, he massaged my feet, he taught himself to cook, and he never turned down a chance to take a walk with me. And then there was the song. I have to admit, I hadn't seen that one coming.

He had strategically gotten everyone else out of the house on a Saturday afternoon. I was reading on my float in the pool, so I hadn't even noticed.

"Why don't you come in for some lunch?" Edward asked.

"That sounds good. Let me just finish this chapter," I told him.

"I'm pretty sure you said that about three chapters ago, too." I finally looked up, and he grinned.

I closed the book and hopped—okay, maybe more like rolled gracelessly—off of the float. He knew me too well.

"You win," I told him, wading towards where he stood at the edge of the stairs. He already had a big white towel held out to wrap me in once I climbed to the top. "Thanks."

"So what's lunch today?" I asked as we walked across the back porch and into the back door. He held it open for me.

"That depends. Option one is chicken salad sandwiches, option two is pasta with alfredo sauce, and option three is whatever else you can possibly think of that won't make you sick."

"Chicken salad sounds good." He was completely spoiling me, but we'd been through enough days of morning sickness to know that options were a good thing, as long as none of those options included tomatoes. I was no longer on good terms with tomatoes.

He sat with me patiently while I scarfed down two chicken salad sandwiches and some grapes. For a guy that couldn't eat food anymore, he was doing a pretty good job at making it for me.

"This is delicious, Edward. Thank you."

"My pleasure. Why don't you come relax in the living room for a bit," he offered. "Let me play for you."

"Okay, sure." We had already been playing some of our favorite classical songs with headphones on my stomach, but this would be the first time Edward had played the piano for me since I got pregnant. I was excited for the baby to hear him play for the first time.

I changed into dry clothes (which amounted to a pair of loose fitting athletic shorts and an oversized t-shirt) and laid back on the sofa. Edward covered me in my favorite throw blanket, and I closed my eyes as he began to play. I immediately recognized the familiar melody to my song—our song— and smiled deeply at the memories it brought back. As he continued playing, I noticed it was subtly different this time. He had added a new line of soft notes to it that complemented the existing song perfectly. I knew without question that he had written this for our baby, that the new notes symbolized the soon-to-be new addition to our family. Tears streamed from my eyes, and I suspected that they would have even without the added pregnancy hormones. The song was absolutely breathtaking.

By the time he finished playing, the top of my t-shirt was a tear-soaked mess. He got up and sat next to me while simultaneously pulling a tissue from his pants pocket. Like I said, model husband material.

"What did you think?" he asked.

"Edward it's…it's absolutely perfect," I told him. "I don't have words for how much I love it."

He smiled. "And that's exactly why I wrote it. There aren't words for how much I love you, and now, our little family." He placed his hand gently on my belly.

I placed my warm hand over his cold fingers and laced them together, and I was happy and sad all at once. Sad for the moments like this that we never got to share with Renesmee, but grateful for the love that I still felt for her. Esme was right. I would always love her, just as I already loved this baby. I kissed Edward on the cheek and chose to let the happiness win out.

Jacob POV

Choosing to stick around La Push and do some mechanic work hadn't turned out half-bad for me, and six months had passed before I knew it. It was weird not spending time with the pack, but I kept myself busy enough that most of the time I didn't notice. I worked right out of our garage at home on a referral only basis, but word of mouth worked pretty well for me. A lot of my dad's friends and people around town already knew I liked to mess around with cars, and I'd done a few odd jobs for just the price of parts in the past. So when my dad started telling people I was opening up a side business, people slowly started showing up, money in hand. I'd even had to turn a few away and remind them that I was just one guy.

My work didn't leave much time for moping, and I was grateful for the distraction. When I wasn't holed up in the garage or hunting for spare parts at junkyards, I pretty much had two things: running, and Bella. I might not have been part of the pack anymore, but my inner wolf was very much still a part of me, maybe even more now that the Alpha was finally loose. I'd run for miles and miles patrolling on my own, and I still hadn't gotten tired of the blissful silence I was met with every time I phased. It felt right.

Bella was doing great, too. I'd never put much stock into the whole "glowing" description people used to describe pregnant women, but I swear it suited her. The difference between how she looked now and how she looked during her first pregnancy was night and day, though I would never tell her that. The only downside was that with Charlie thinking she was off backpacking and the wolves and my dad thinking she was a vampire, I could only ever see her at the Cullens' house. She was basically on house arrest now that she was visibly pregnant, and as annoying as it was for me to only see her at their house, I knew it was infinitely worse for her being stuck there. Which is exactly how I ended up getting sucked into taking her on a junkyard run with me to Seattle one weekend.

"Please, please, take me with you," she had begged. "It's perfect. A junkyard is the one place there's no chance of running into someone I know."

"I was actually planning on hitting up three different junkyards," I argued. "And I really don't think it's a good idea. Somebody might see you. Also, you'll be bored out of your mind."

"I promise, anything that isn't sitting in this house sounds exciting to me right now. I'll wear a disguise if I have to." I had rolled my eyes at that. She was clearly desperate.

"Okay, fine. If Edward is okay with it, then you can come. But it's just to the junkyards and back. No unnecessary stops."

"Deal."

I should've remembered Edward was a sucker for giving Bella everything she wanted.

She came out to my car in giant movie-star sunglasses with some kind of scarf wrapped around her head.

"Sorry, Bells. I seem to have left the convertible at home." I joked.

"It was Alice's idea," she offered as an explanation. She looked like a pregnant fugitive.

The trip up was perfectly uneventful. Our encounters with other humans amounted to the sales clerk and a whole two customers at a hole in the wall gas station, and the junkyard owners at the three stops I'd planned. I ignored the weird glances the guy at the second junkyard seemed to be giving me for bringing an overdressed pregnant woman with me. I refused to be judged by some guy with 15 broken washing machines on his front lawn.

We walked up and down rows and rows of mismatched scraps at our last stop, which was the largest, and the main reason I'd made the trip. I had Bella's arm carefully linked in mine as we walked. No way was I letting her trip and hurt herself on my watch. We turned right at stack of broken microwaves and finally came into the cars. Jackpot.

"Bella, do you think you can stay here for just a moment without falling on anything?" I asked.

"Of course."

"Just give me one minute to find what I'm looking for. I'll be right back."

I turned my back to her and dove under the nearest hood in hopes of retrieving one of the parts I'd been trying to track down for a customer. I was relieved to see it was still there and quickly extracted it from the mess. When I turned back around, she was gone.

"Bella!" I called out, panicking. I knew this was a terrible idea.

"I'm right here, Jake. Calm down." Her voice came from a different direction, and I found her a few yards ahead of where I had left her. Her hand was resting on the handlebar of an old dirt bike, and I couldn't help but smile.

"Absolutely not," I told her.

"Relax. I was just remembering, that's all." She pointed at the car part in my hand. "You've come a long way from the boy that wasn't sure if he could fix a couple of messed up bikes, you know that? I'm proud of you."

"For the record, those bikes were a piece of cake once I set my mind to it." I laughed.

"Oh!" Bella held her stomach in surprise, then laughed. I rushed towards her in three giant steps.

"What is it? Is something wrong?" I asked.

"No. It's fine." She reached down and grabbed my hand, and for a second, my mind wandered to another time we had been grasping hands and much, much more. I thought she was just going to hold it, but then she pulled me forward.

"Feel that?" She placed my hand on the side of her stomach and waited.

"No, I don't feel any—wait! There it is." I was sure I'd felt a kick.

"This is the first time I've felt it this strongly."

"It's kind of amazing." As I said it, I felt another, and then another. I pulled my hand back.

"Wow." She gently rubbed around her stomach. "Jake, say something else. Anything."

"What do you want me to say?"

Her face lit up and she placed both hands on the same spot on her stomach. "I think he likes your voice."

I didn't know how to feel about that. Something about this felt too…intimate.

"He? Does that mean…did you find out it's a boy?" I asked.

"No, it's just a feeling I've had. We're going to wait to find out."

"Right. Well, we should probably get going."

I couldn't help but think about it on the drive back to Forks. I understood the seriousness of what I had done for Bella in theory, but none of it really felt real yet, despite the literally growing evidence seated next to me. It was easy thinking about it as this abstract thing I'd done when there was no baby yet, but feeling it kick and respond to my voice…that was almost too real. If feeling a couple of kicks had me this keyed up, I wasn't sure I was ready to see how I'd react after the birth.

Bella POV

When Jake pulled up in the driveway to drop me back home, I saw Edward pacing impatiently on the top step of the front porch. Was he really that worried having me gone for a few hours?

I opened my door, and Jake rushed around to my side to help me up.

"Jacob, you better come inside, too. We need to talk," Edward called.

What was happening? "Is everything okay, Edward?"

"We'll talk about it inside," he said. It didn't escape my notice that this wasn't an actual answer, and I took that as a very bad sign.

Once we got through the door, I saw that everyone was gathered in the living room wearing similar looks of worry and…fear?

"Edward, what's going on?" I asked again.

He led me to the sofa and the three of us sat and joined everyone else.

"Alice had a vision," he confessed.

"Oh no. Is it the baby?" I gasped.

"No, no, Bella. It's not that," Alice assured me.

"The Volturi are coming," Carlisle answered for her.

No. No, no, no. This couldn't be happening. It was too soon.

"When?" Jake asked.

"Within a month. They aren't 100% settled on a day yet, but it could be as soon as two weeks from now."

I could feel Jacob's whole body go rigid next to me on the couch.

"It's not all of them, at least." Edward added. "Aro plans to bring Felix, Jane, and Alec with him. It seems he's eager to see Bella's potential as a vampire for himself."

"If it's just four, we can take them," Jake said confidently.

"That's what I said." Emmett agreed.

"No, you don't understand, Jake. They're powerful. Once they see me, it's over."

"So then we hide her, and we take them." It was annoying hearing Jake talk to Edward like I wasn't there.

"It's not that simple. I read minds, but what Aro does is far more impressive. He can read any thought you've ever had with a simple touch. He would know all about Bella's pregnancy and where she was hidden with a single handshake to any of us. It's not possible to fool him."

I sat hunched over on the couch, my head hanging in my hands. We'd come so far. Was it really going to end like this?

"There has to be some way," I muttered.

"Fighting might buy us some time, but that's all it would do. Taking down Aro or any of them would be an open invitation for the rest of the Volturi to come finish what we started. It would be a massacre," Carlisle explained.

The worst part was knowing that anything we discussed right now, Aro would eventually know, too. My mind was the only safe space in this room. I tried to tune out the noise of the others arguing pointless plans and think for myself. After years of being forced into the role of damsel in distress, it might finally be my turn to save myself. I wracked my brain for some way to leave and get myself to safety without telling the others. If I wasn't pregnant, the choice would have been easy. I would run to keep my family safe. But I had my baby to worry about, and it just wasn't an option. Alice looked at me strangely, then nodded towards the back door.

"Bella and I will be right back," she announced.

"Right now? You have to take her right now?" Edward asked, incredulous.

"We'll only be gone a moment. Come on." Alice grasped my hand and helped me to my feet, then steered me out the back.

"What's this about, Alice?" Before I got an answer, she scooped me up and whisked me further into the woods with her vampire speed. We could've been 20 yards or 20 miles away; I wasn't sure. She gently lowered my feet back to the grass.

"First of all, good job changing your mind about running away by yourself to save the rest of us. That never would've worked," she said. "And second…don't tell me anything you're thinking. I think you know why."

I nodded, glad to know someone was on the same page as me even if we couldn't exactly talk about it.

"Just promise me one thing, Bella."

"What?"

"Whatever you do, don't try to do anything alone. You have the worst self-preservation instincts out of anyone I've ever met in my life."

"I wouldn't, not this time. I—" Alice held up a finger to stop me.

"I know. So I'm going to give you one more piece of advice. Whatever you do, make it believable."

"What are you talking about, Alice? Make what believable?" I had no idea what she was hinting at.

"We need to get back," she said in place of an answer. Before I could argue, she had already picked me up and whisked me back to the living room.

"What was that about?" Edward demanded.

"Nothing," Alice said. She stared him down, and I wondered what she was thinking to him that the rest of us weren't hearing. Whatever it was, he dropped it.

"Did anyone come up with any amazing plans while we were gone?" I asked. I looked around the room, desperately hoping that someone had had a stroke of genius in our brief absence.

Edward gritted his teeth. "Our best bet is to fight and hope it stalls the others long enough to form a better plan. If we can just get rid of Aro, we might stand a chance against the rest of them. Bella, you obviously can't be around for the fight. It's not safe."

"I'll protect her," Jacob agreed. Edward nodded once.

"What? No. Edward, I'm not leaving you. You guys can't fight. There's got to be another way."

"I'm the only one that can read them, Bella. I have to be there if we want to stand a chance. Besides, they wouldn't understand Jacob's presence with us anyway. I think this is the best plan we've got. You'll both go somewhere far away where it's safer for you and the baby. We will try to dispose of Aro before it will matter if he sees where you're hidden."

"Jake, can I talk to you? Outside?" I asked.

"Seriously?" Edward groaned.

I marched out the door without waiting for an answer, assuming Jake would follow. I walked to his car and got in the passenger side without saying a word.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.

"I don't want to be overheard," I explained. Jacob sighed, but he got in the car and turned on the engine anyway. I waited until we were a few miles from the house before I started talking.

"This is a suicide mission. Please don't go along with him on this. I can't stand the thought of losing all of them, and it would be my fault. Can you imagine Esme in a fight?"

"Bella, what else can we do? If you come with me, I can protect you and the baby. I promise. The Cullens are stronger than you're giving them credit for."

"So what. We just run away and leave my family to say 'Sorry, Bella's decided to stay human and run off with a werewolf to have his baby. Hope you understand.' They wouldn't understand, even with the facts laid out for them."

"Is it really that hard to believe, Bella?" I couldn't miss the hurt look on his face, but then it morphed into something else. It was like watching a lightbulb go off in his head. He pulled off on the side of the deserted road and turned off the car.

"Bella, listen to me. What if we let them all believe that we were running away together?"

"But why…how would that solve anything?"

"Why is the Volturi coming?"

"To make sure I'm a vampire."

"And when they find out you're not?"

"Then they kill me. Easy. Why are you making me say this, Jake?"

"But WHY would they kill you?"

I rolled my eyes at him. This was pointless.

"Because humans aren't allowed to know that vampires exist."

"Wrong." He said it excitedly, like he'd finally reached his point. I still didn't see it.

"What are you talking about?"

"MOST humans aren't allowed to know about vampires. An Alpha's mate? She would know."

The weight of his words slammed into me, and my jaw dropped open. I didn't dare hope that this would work. It couldn't possibly, could it? Alice's words came floating back to me. Make it believable. She couldn't have seen this coming, not when it was Jacob's plan and her talents didn't work on him. Had she somehow come to the same conclusion on her own? Was this the answer?

Suddenly, I recalled other words, blasphemous words Edward had once said to keep me safe. You can go on with your life without any more interference from me. It will be as if I'd never existed. And then later, after he came back. I could see it in your eyes, that you honestly believed that I didn't want you anymore.

Could I do this to him? To us? I looked down at my stomach and knew. Yes. I had to.

Jake grabbed my hand gently. "Look, I know it won't mean what we're saying it means. It might be our best chance. You can go back to them as soon as the threat is gone."

"And if they don't believe it or they don't care?" I asked.

"Then we fight anyway. It's worth a shot. And if it works, we just might all walk away from this."

"This is crazy."

"I don't even know what that word means anymore."

We devised a plan in all of about 15 minutes sitting in the car, which was really all the proof we needed that it was probably a terrible idea, but we were out of options. We both knew that there was a very good chance that the Volturi wouldn't honor anything to do with wolf laws, but if there was any possibility that this could work, we had to try.

Jake drove us back to the house and came back inside with me, but only for a few minutes. The entire plan hinged on this being believable. If Edward saw any of our plan in Jake's mind, none of it would work, but we knew it would be too suspicious if he just dropped me off and left while they were still making life or death plans. He stuck around just long enough for everyone to agree that if reasoning with them wouldn't work, then trying to take out Aro first was the best course of action to try to buy time. Once he left, I knew I only had a few hours until I had to do what was necessary. I prayed it would all be worth it.