For the most part, Isabella slept through the next three days. When she was awake, she felt pain around her center and her head which made her take pain meds, which made her fall asleep. She was awake enough to eat some soup and bread and have Edward confirm that her temperature was steady and that she was sleeping alright.

In some ways she realized she might have been hiding.

Most ways actually.

While he hadn't said anything at the hospital or in the couple of days since they had gotten home, she assumed he would have questions about her pregnancy.

Any reasonable person would.

And while she had answers, she was afraid to share them.

The fear grounded her more than any sadness she felt about her miscarriage.

She wondered if Edward was giving her space to mourn with his silence.

It would certainly be a fair assumption.

An off-base assumption in her case as she had nothing to mourn.

The fourth day of her recovery found her waking up near the lunch hour in the afternoon, knowing this was the day that the doctor recommended she stop taking her pain medicine unless it was absolutely necessary. After some experimental stretching, while the pain was there, it was a dull ache and she supposed it didn't warrant further medication.

Edward, who had apparently studied her care instructions down to the T, did not bring her her pain meds when he brought in her lunch a little bit later. Instead, he had offered her a soft smile as he set the tray of food onto the bed near her.

"Awright?" he asked her, as was his habit.

Isabella nodded, offering him a little grin at his earnest expression.

"Not too warm then?" he asked, holding his warm large hand against her forehead.

Isabella waited as he made his assessment.

"Aye, a wee bit warm, but that's probably a result of all these blankets ye have cocooned yerself in."

Isabella looked at the pile of quilts engulfing her. "I believe you were the one who did the cocooning."

Edward made a noise at the back of his throat that was neither agreement nor disagreement.

It made Isabella's lips quirk upward.

In the periods that she had been conscious in the past few days, dreading the questions he had a right to ask, she realized that she had missed him. She liked spending time with him, she concluded, and they had not spent much time together since they had done their distilling the week before.

It was this and not her fear of his questions that made her ask, "Have you already eaten?"

Edward shook his head.

"Why don't we have a picnic?" she suggested, nodding at her tray and moving the bowl of soup to make more space.

Edward rewarded her with a slight grin. "Aye."

After retrieving his own soup and bread from the kitchen and setting them on the tray, he cautiously settled onto her side of the bed, near enough that he could eat without dripping the soup onto the bed. When they both leaned in for a spoonful of soup, Edward chuckled at their heads nearly bumping over the tray.

"Ye first," he gestured. "Ye'll remember the bit about keep-"

"Keeping your wife fed, yes, you may have mentioned it a time or two," she said wryly. "Did you receive no other marriage advice?"

"None that I would repeat to a lady."

Isabella chuckled, setting down her spoon and picking up the chunk of bread and tearing off a chunk to nibble on.

"Are ye in any pain without the medications?"

Isabella shook her head. "I'm okay, thank you."

Edward's eyes twinkled. "Well, whisky used to be the best pain medication there was in the event ye need something."

"It's amazing Sleat managed to survive the invent of modern medicine with the decrease in demand that must have created."

Edward let out an open mouth laugh.

"Ye, Bella, are a wee bit of a smart arse, are ye no?"

Isabella chewed on her chunk of bread, her lips forming into a smirk.

"Perhaps."

"Likely a virtue when in Scotland," he said, lifting his own bread and grinning at her.

"Speaking of Scotland," she said, not noticing the way that Edward immediately stiffened at her words. "I should be able to be back at Sleat on Monday."

Edward's face relaxed.

"Scotland is not synonymous to Sleat, Bella."

"It is to me," she shrugged.

Edward didn't dispute it. Rather, he chose to reply to the latter part of her comment. "If yer feeling alright ye can, but the doctor said to take it easy and rest."

Isabella returned to her soup. "With Dr. MacDonald tending to my care, I should be fine."

Tearing another chunk of bread off his own section, Edward's tone turned wistful. "I was planning to be a doctor, did ye ken that?"

Isabella couldn't hold her surprised, "Really?"

Edward chuckled at her question. "I may be rubbish with parts of business, but I'm no bad with math and science. My A levels were actually quite good, and I think I would have gotten into a few medical schools."

"Why didn't you?" Isabella asked.

Edward shrugged. "When Ma died, and we moved back to Skye…I lost interest. Why be a doctor if ye cannae save people? Plus, Da needed the help at the distillery and at home with Emmett and Alice. They took her death pretty hard. He needed help."

Isabella stared, having lowered her spoon as he spoke.

"That's incredibly selfless," she commented softly.

Edward shrugged. "Aye, or sadistic."

Isabella fell silent as she pulled off a chunk of bread and nibbled on it, staring blankly at the corner of the tray. Edward helped himself to more soup, accustomed to her periods of silence. She had noticed that the quiet didn't seem to bother him like it did other people she had met, and she realized she deeply appreciated that.

Even then though, he said, "Yer thinking awfully hard over there."

Realized she had been zoning, Isabella blinked a few times, shaking herself out of the stare and returning to her own soup. Edward offered her a small quirk of the lips but didn't press her further on it.

"It is funny," she volunteered after a few moments, "how life doesn't seem to go the way we are sure it will when we are kids."

"Aye," he agreed with his own wistful tone, "aye, it is."

"God knows this wasn't my plan," she muttered, eating the last of her bread.

Edward chuckled at that. "No, I dinnae suppose it was."

"The best laid plans of mice and men," she replied wryly.

He looked at her with approval. "Rabbie Burns."

She raised her eyebrows challengingly. "John Steinbeck," she corrected.

"Ach," he disagreed in irritation, "Steinbach stole it from Burns."

"What are you…" she trailed off as he carefully got out of bed and went over to the bookshelf that Isabella had left untouched other than setting her purse on the top shelf of it. "What are you doing?" she asked again. He was crouched in front of the shelf and peering closely at several of the antique looking books.

"Aha!" he said triumphantly, pulling a gold rimmed and floral decorated book that looked at least a century old and opening it up. "To a Mouse!"

"What are you possibly talking about?" she asked as she moved the tray of empty dishes from the bed and onto the nearby end table. Edward grinned and sat down on the bed, closer to her so that she could see the title of the page he was pointing at, allowing her to see the words on her own.

"Is that English?" she asked, squinting at the page.

Edward grinned, looking boyish. "It's Scots."

Isabella raised her eyebrows again and then nodded at the book. "Let's hear it then."

Instead of protesting, Edward merely straightened his shoulders and puffed his belly out before reading the Robert Burns poem in a thick accent.

"Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie, o, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi' bickerin brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee wi' murd'ring pattle!"

With a grin, Isabella shifted over in the bed to make more room for him and he shifted as he read, not pausing in his speech as he settled with his back against the headboard, his shoulders rubbing against hers. She remained under all of the quilts whereas he sat on top of them, crossing his ankles as he settled in. As he spoke, she leaned closer so that she could see the words he was reading, hoping that would help her understand what he was saying.

To help her, Edward put his fingers near the lines he was reading aloud. He got particularly triumphant when he neared the end of the poem. "But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane in proving foresight may be vain: the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley, an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, for promised joy."

Isabella couldn't help but giggle when he finished with a flourish.

"Did ye concede then?" he asked with a smile.

"Burns said it first, though I would argue that Steinbach was easier to understand."

Edward chuckled but did not dispute the claim, though he did mutter something about "Americans," under his breath. Isabella rolled her eyes.

Her chin hovered over his shoulder as he started to flip through the yellowing pages of the old book of poetry by Robert Burns.

"Aha, this one will be for you then," he said, settling on a page.

With her head feeling extra heavy, she allowed her chin to rest on his shoulder to read the title of the poem he was pointing out.

"My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing."

Falling back into his Scots, Edward read to her the poem written by Burns. His tone was softer as he read the lines, "She is a bonnie wee thing, this sweet wee wife o'mine."

Had he still been facing her, he would have been dangerously close to be able to see the smile and pleased blush that spread on her cheeks as he read the words with a sort of tenderness that couldn't possibly have been a mistake.

"The warld's wrack we share o't, the warstle and the care o't; wi' her I'll blythely bear it, and think my lot divine."

For a moment after he finished speaking, neither of them moved. It was as if they were both aware of the sweet nature of the odd moment if either of them dared to move, it would forever be gone.

Edward then tilted his head towards her, resting it on the side of her head propped on his shoulder. Isabella tilted her own head against him just a little bit further. She wanted him to know that it was not an unwelcome gesture.

"What else do we have…" he muttered as he went through the pages, managing to keep them together in that moment effortlessly.

Isabella listened intently as he read to her some of the famous poetry of Scotland's golden boy. With his charming accent, he read to her: Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, To a Haggis (though he had that particular one memorized), The Highland Lassie, The Banks of Nith, and Wandering Willie. As he read, his low and steady voice made her eyes close, resting as she was on his shoulder as he read.

~O~

Edward heard Isabella's breath even out as he read another Burns poem.

It had been his mother's book, one she had gotten from her grandmother when she was a teenager. Edward was fairly sure it was a least 100 years old; in the few times he had seen his mother with it, she had handled it very gingerly. She had studied Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow and went on to teach the subject before she died. Rabbie Burns had been a staple of his childhood as a result.

Edward looked at the poem in front of him for a moment, listening to the soft sound of his wife's breathing near his ear. He rested his head further against hers, cradling her in the crook of his neck.

A Red, Red Rose.

It had been his mother's favorite poem and the sweetest love song his father could ever sing.

Edward hadn't heard or read the words in years, certainly not as an adult, and certainly not as a man with a wife. With a slow exhale of breath, he shifted slightly to see if Isabella would move with him or stay asleep. When she didn't move or quicken her breathing, he turned his eyes to the words in front of him and softly read aloud.

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That's newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

That's sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

After he finished reading, he remained still, the warmth of her head sweet against his. Very carefully, he closed the book and set it on his lap and then allowed himself to close his eyes and join her in sleep.

As a result, he did not see the tears that had pooled at the corner of her eye that were threatening to fall, having heard his soft lullaby.

well then.

see you all very soon.