Book 2: Be Careful What You Wish For
18. Unexpected
Bella and I spent the next week as true newlyweds. We didn't spend our time only making love, but it felt to me as though every action - from cuddling on the couch to tidying up after her meals - was an affirmation of our love. We still swam in the river and floated in the ocean, only now, instead of avoiding touching her, our limbs were tangled together while we kissed. We basked in the sun on the beach, traipsed all over the island, and even jumped from the high cliff on the rocky western point, but our entertainments were no longer distractions or done in an effort to wear Bella out. Our outdoor activities now were preludes to our indoor ones.
I was glad that Alice had packed us such an extensive collection of bathing suits. Not that I minded swimming naked with Bella - not at all! - but I thoroughly enjoyed removing the skimpy pieces of fabric, just as I enjoyed feeling her slide her hands into my trunks. When our desires got the better of us while we swam, we simply left our clothes in the sea, not bothering to retrieve them in our haste to return to the house where I could make sure I turned my strength against the furniture. We ended up moving back to the white room after all, once the bed in the blue room was no longer fit for her to sleep on - and after I had removed any and all pillows which contained feathers.
Since the bruises continued to fade until they disappeared entirely and I managed to not hurt her after our first time, as long as I remained careful and mindful of my actions, I could explore her body as often as I wanted. We both knew that if I didn't initiate things, she would, but I found that I enjoyed letting her. Now that I knew how glorious it was to make love to Bella, I couldn't get enough of her. I was seventeen after all, and had been celibate for a century. I certainly didn't feel a hundred years old; rather, I felt like a newborn with an insatiable thirst, only my need wasn't for human blood; it was for Bella's love.
Though I didn't dare run my hands over her while we made love, I couldn't stop doing so when I knew I was in control of myself. I loved the reactions of her heart and the expressions she would make just from me grazing a finger over any exposed region of her creamy skin. I wasn't sure if it was simply her complexion, or if it was the copious amounts of sunscreen she used, but after two weeks, she was nearly as fair as when we had arrived - incentive enough to try and discover how far her blush could spread.
What I had seen - and tried to ignore - in the minds of those around me over the past century couldn't come close to comparing with what Bella and I shared. There had always been a difference between experiencing others' senses and my own, but I didn't think that accounted for the intensity between us. No doubt the strength of our bond - which had so surprised Marcus in Volterra - had grown exponentially since our wedding.
When we swam, hiked, or simply sat together pretending to watch a movie, we were in almost constant contact. We held hands while we looked for shells in the tide pools, I played with her hair while she lounged on my lap, and she wrapped herself around me when I swam into the open ocean. At night, I would wrap myself around her while she slept, tucking her smooth back against my stomach and folding her into the circle of my arms.
Holding Bella's naked body while she slept was better by far than holding her when she was swathed in thick blankets, but I wasn't sure if I preferred her nudity or when she would don one of the many lacy outfits Alice had packed. When not in the way of our love-making, I found the lingerie she wore to be quite interesting. I ran light fingers over her while she slept, tracing the patterns of the lace, and found myself inspired by both the repetitive swirls and frilly flairs that accentuated the highs and lows of Bella's curves. Not having access to my piano, I couldn't play the tune that began to unfold in my mind, but when we got back, I would have a new song to present to my blushing bride. Inspired by her very feminine clothes, it would be both dedicated to and about the joys I experienced as I brought pleasure to her body with mine.
Watching Bella sleep had always fascinated me, but this was in large part due to her sleep-talking. It was the first peek into her mind I'd ever truly had, and I treasured those unguarded moments. Since our arrival on the island however, her sleep had been still and silent, even if it was neither dreamless nor as peaceful as it looked. Knowing that - at least once - she had dreamt of making love with me, I wished more than ever that I could just see. Yet no matter how much I might wish I could glimpse inside her mind, trying to do so was an exercise in futility.
Instead, I finally gave in to the desire I'd had our first morning. Carefully running my fingers over her skin, I kissed her face and neck, moving to her shoulder and down her arm and back again until I heard her breathing change. When her eyes finally opened, I watched a slow smile spread across her sleepy face and met it with a crooked grin of my own. Pleased that she was awake and that she didn't seem upset that I'd awoken her, I caught her mouth with mine and pressed myself against her. I knew as I did so that the reason I had interrupted her sleep would be rather obvious. After indulging in a human minute or two in the bathroom, she returned to me with an eager smile.
Just as an excuse to hold her close and feel her body move, I put on some music and twirled her about the house. She'd told me at our wedding that dancing with me wasn't so bad, and I loved proving to her that it could be much more than that. I made sure to hold her gently but securely, and began to run through some of my favorite dances. For years I had danced chastely with my mother and sisters and had watched with more than a little envy as the dances they shared with their mates were more intimate. Though they had always taken care to include me, I had usually been the one supplying the music for them to dance to, rather than the one dancing.
When next my family got together for an evening of music and fun, I would be hard pressed to feel any desire to retake my place as musician, not when I had Bella to dance with! She trusted me completely, and allowed me to slide my feet under hers so that I stepped and spun for the both of us. One day, I hoped she would feel confident enough in herself to dance without my help. For now, I had fun eliciting blushes and squeals when I dipped her close to the floor or lifted her into the air. Feeling mischievous, I chuckled in her ear and began to spin us faster and faster until she started to cling to me, giggling breathlessly and exclaiming my name. I waited until she caught her breath before pulling her legs up to rest on my hips so that I might use a few moves that would have been inappropriate on a ballroom dance floor. To my delight, she responded with enthusiasm, and our dance ended with us in the bedroom once more.
Holding my sleeping Bella in my arms, I wondered if I had died and somehow found my way to heaven. The past week I had spent as Bella's lover had brought me more happiness than I'd ever known was possible. The only problem was that I was getting very thirsty. We had been on the island for more than two weeks, and I was overdue for a hunt. As I lay in bed with her, my throat was burning with the constant flow of venom. The jungles around Rio were filled with prey and images of them kept running through my mind. I didn't want to leave her, but there wasn't any place safer for Bella to be than in our beach-house, asleep in our bed. I certainly couldn't take her hunting with me. In fact, she would be safer if I wasn't so thirsty. It had been difficult enough our first night when I had just glutted myself hunting with my brothers the night before. Tonight, my jaw ached from how hard I'd clenched it to avoid biting her.
I wondered at the difference making love to her made. The part of me that once had craved her blood had been eradicated by my mistaken belief in her death. I had even helped her to bandage cuts that had flowed with her fresh blood with no temptation to taste it. Yet when she pressed her naked body against mine as I slid inside of her, some instinct within me generated a need to bite her. Not doing so was getting more difficult the longer I went without drinking. Worried that the next time we made love - which I was certain would be some time that day - I would be unable to stop myself, I decided it was time to hunt.
And right that very moment, too.
Extricating myself from Bella's warm arms, I stood beside her for a short time, watching her silent sleep before pulling some clothes on and retrieving a pen and a piece of paper from the kitchen drawer. Smiling to myself, I addressed one side of the paper to Mrs. Cullen and penned a quick note on the other to explain where I had gone.
I'm hoping you won't wake and notice my absence, but, if you should, I'll be back very soon. I've just gone to the mainland to hunt. Go back to sleep and I'll be here when you wake again. I love you.
I placed it where I had lain, frowning at the thought of leaving her. My leaving had upset her in the past and my actions the previous year made it difficult for her to avoid feeling abandoned. Reminding myself that it would only be a few hours and that Bella would most likely sleep the entire time, I turned and sprinted toward the boat. If I was going to go, I had better do so quickly.
Though I had a dock in Rio which I could have used, I didn't want to run into either of the coven members who claimed Rio for their own. I hadn't worried that we would be scented while riding in the taxi between the airport and the dock, but I doubted I would make it through the city on foot without my presence being known. I wasn't worried for myself; Rafael and Carlos were friendly - for the most part - but I was not the only vampire who found Bella's scent exceptionally tantalizing. I didn't want to take the chance that they would scent her on me, or even just scent me and decide to pay my family a visit. I could picture only too easily what would happen should they find her alone in our beach house.
Rather than chance an encounter, I chose to angle my boat up one of the rivers that emptied into the ocean a short distance from downtown. The mangroves grew right up to the water's edge, and it was easy to hop onto the land and tie the boat to a tree before I took off at a sprint into the protected forest. Trying not to be picky over the flavor of my prey, wanting only the quickest of meals so that I could get back to my honeymoon, I pounced on the first large animal that I came across, draining the tapir and leaving it in the mud where I had found it. Unlike at home, I didn't really care if the animal was found by a human before a scavenger came along, though I thought it unlikely. I wouldn't be hunting enough of the creatures here for any kind of a pattern to be noticed. Not as bland as the deer I found in the forests at home, the tapir was still hardly satisfying despite its size, so I continued on, sniffing the rich forest air.
I found a family of peccary, and enjoyed the once familiar flavor mixture of predator and prey, but left after only one. Though I didn't want to stay out too long, I was hoping for a jungle cat to finish off my meal. Luck was with me, and I scented a jaguar who was hunting for his own prey. Creeping toward him, I watched him gather himself for a leap at a coati. Its brown and yellow ringed tail held high in the manner of a house cat's, the raccoon-like creature was searching through the leaf litter for lizards and insects, as unaware of the large feline who had spotted it as the jaguar was of me.
Just as he pushed off from the tree limb on which he'd been crouched, I zipped between the cat and the coati, allowing the spotted cat to leap right into my arms. Chuckling at his look of surprise, I broke his neck quickly and was finished with him before the cat's intended prey had disappeared from my sight. Quite pleased that I had managed to hunt without damaging my clothes, I saw that - since I wasn't bothering with burying their bodies - I wasn't even dirty. Full now and uninterested in the little coati, though he smelled rather like a young bear, I left the jaguar on the ground and sprinted back to the boat. My hunt hadn't taken all that long, but the boat ride had, and I had been gone for several hours already. I couldn't help but to worry over the girl I had left behind, not to mention the fact that the sun was rising, and I still had to get past the beaches without being seen.
Fretting over my decision to leave so late in the night, to leave without speaking to Bella, to leave at all, I couldn't make the boat go fast enough to suit me. I had to admit that I felt much better, especially after the jaguar; I had definitely needed to hunt. Still, it was mid-morning when the boat nudged to stop against our dock. I could hear Bella's steady heart beat as I zipped up the path and bounded up the wide porch steps with a happy smile. I was home, again.
Although she was asleep, she had obviously woken while I was gone. Bella no longer slept in the bed, but was stretched out on the couch. Apparently she had woken hungry, and had fixed herself something to eat. All of the windows were open, though even the stiff breeze hadn't cleared the stench of cooked meat from the air. Bella was sweating in her sleep, a frown creased her forehead, and her lips pressed into a pout.
Abruptly feeling bad, I realized she was hot. I hadn't even considered the fact that I had been keeping her from overheating! Without my cold touch, she looked uncomfortably warm. Trying not to wake her, I slid my hands under her body, picked her up, and turned to sit on the couch with the sleeping girl in my arms. Her eyelids fluttered, and a grimace crossed her face.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, wiping a fresh bead of sweat from her forehead. "So much for thoroughness. I didn't think about how hot you would be with me gone. I'll have an air conditioner installed before I leave again."
The grimace deepened and her lips pulled back from her teeth. She pushed against my arms, thrusting herself away from me. "Excuse me!"
Shocked at her sudden rejection, I dropped my arms. I hadn't thought she would be angry with me for leaving. She knew my hunting habits. Hadn't she found the note? "Bella?"
Bella rolled off of my lap the moment I was no longer holding her in place and without a word, she scrambled to her feet, put a hand over her mouth, and sprinted away from me.
I followed her, feeling an odd twisting of fear in my chest. Although I had always given her her privacy in the bathroom, when she shoved the door open and threw herself toward the toilet, I realized she wasn't upset, her stomach was. Before she could get sick in her hair, I scooped it away from her face, holding the silky locks behind her head. Bella was gripping the sides of the toilet with enough strength to turn her knuckles white as her body forcefully rejected the contents of her stomach.
"Bella? What's wrong?" Stupid question! But I wasn't sure what was making her so sick. She couldn't have contracted anything! The only people she'd been around had been our housekeepers and that had been more than a week prior. Most illnesses - at least those that induced vomiting - had a relatively short incubation time. Feeling useless as she coughed and strained over the toilet, I rubbed her back and held her hair, waiting anxiously for her to finish.
Finally catching her breath, she leaned weakly against the toilet and muttered, "Damn rancid chicken."
"Are you alright?" I pressed.
"Fine. It's just food poisoning. You don't need to see this. Go away."
Abruptly furious with Kaure for giving Bella bad food, I growled, "Not likely, Bella."
"Go away," she moaned, pushing her hands against mine as she tried to stand.
I put a hand under her elbow, supporting her as she reached for the sink and a cup. Her face was paler than mine, and I could feel her muscles trembling while she rinsed her mouth out. Although my stomach rejected human food, it had only ever been an unpleasant necessity, even if I understood her desire to wash the taste from her mouth. She seemed to be barely able to stand, and the water sloshed slightly in the cup she held.
When she finished, I scooped her into my arms and took her back to our bed. I sat her upright, but kept my arms around her, just in case.
"Food poisoning?"
"Yeah." Even her voice was weak. "I made some chicken last night. It tasted off, so I threw it out. But I ate a few bites first."
She was still sweating, though her color was coming back into her face. I pressed a hand to her forehead, but she felt the same to my skin temperature as she always did. "How do you feel now?"
She breathed for a moment, blinking and considering her response. "Pretty normal. A little hungry, actually."
"Hungry?" I asked skeptically.
"Yeah. Think you could cook me some eggs?" Her lips curved in a hopeful smile, but I shook my head.
"You just got sick, and now you want to eat again, already?"
She shrugged. "I told you I feel fine, now."
"That may be, but I think you should wait a little while, unless you want to go through that again. Perhaps see if you can keep some water down. I don't want you to get dehydrated."
"Fine," she huffed.
She walked to the living room without my assistance, though she seemed slightly more wobbly than usual. I brought her a large cup of water, cautioning her to sip it slowly. Simply to have something to do, I turned on the television, flipping to a news channel. After Bella kept the water down for an hour, she still wanted some eggs, so I indulged her request, watching her hungrily eat every bite. When she finished, we returned to the couch where she curled up on my lap and stared at the television with me.
I was reviewing everything I knew about food poisoning. Based on the onset of her symptoms, I thought it could have been caused by Salmonella. The chicken supported that diagnosis. However, Salmonella did not present with a single case of vomiting and then go away, and more often presented with the patient sitting on the toilet, not leaning over it. If indeed it was food poisoning, then she should be sick again, and likely for the next few days or even a week. Of course, I knew what a weak stomach Bella had. It might not have been food poisoning. I'd heard humans say food didn't agree with them. If it simply didn't agree with her, then once it was out of her system, she would be fine - as she was now claiming to be.
She'd called the chicken rancid, and said it had tasted off. I was about to get up to sniff the contents of the trashcan for myself when she tired of the news and turned to me with a smile. I recognized the look in her eye and felt my body wanting to respond, but although I had vowed not to tell her no again, I didn't think now was a good time.
Before I could say anything, her face contorted into another grimace of pain and she hissed sharply through her teeth. Bella was off my lap and sprinting toward the sink this time, with me once again right behind her to hold her hair.
Well, unfortunately, that made sense, if indeed the chicken had been bad as she had said. Salmonella wasn't just going to go away. In fact, she was probably going to get worse before she got better. "Maybe we should go back to Rio, see a doctor."
Her eyes widened at my suggestion and she shook her head firmly. "I'll be fine right after I brush my teeth."
I watched her uneasily as she walked away from me. When she closed the door to the bathroom behind her, I pulled the trashcan from under the sink. Unable to help myself, my nose wrinkled in disgust at the smell of fried flesh, oil, singed breading, and scalded spices. Despite the way it smelled to me though, I didn't think it smelled bad. Certainly not rancid. Just... gross, like all human food. Picking at it lightly, I thought it looked like she had cooked it all the way through, too. I shoved the can back under the sink and washed my hands before turning to scowl worriedly down the hallway. I'd heard the water running, but it had been off for some time now, and she still hadn't come out.
Deciding her privacy could take a back seat when her health was involved, I strode down the hall and knocked lightly on the closed door. "Are you well? Did you get sick again?"
"Yes and no," she said in an odd tone.
Standing in the hallway, I glared in frustration at the closed door. Not seeing her was heightening my anxiety. "Bella? Can I please come in?"
"O...kay?"
Although she had sounded doubtful, she had assented, so I opened the door. I found her sitting on the floor by her travel case, an expression of bewilderment on her face. That should have been reassuring, but there was something else, too. Shock? Dread? Confusion? Unable to make sense of her usually easy to read emotions for once, I joined her on the floor, feeling her forehead for the onset of a fever. She felt normal.
"What's wrong?" I pressed.
"How many days has it been since the wedding?"
"Seventeen."
She nodded and her look of bewildered confusion returned, but she didn't elaborate.
"Bella, what is it?"
She didn't answer me, but remained on the floor of the bathroom in silence, with one finger held up to me. She was moving her lips just barely, as though talking to herself. I stared at her face, the familiar wish that I could just see into her mind plaguing me again. A minute passed. Then another. Perhaps that wasn't a long time to a human, but to me, it felt like she sat there in stunned silence for days.
"Bella! I'm losing my mind over here."
Without speaking, she reached onto her bag and rooted around. With that strange look still on her face, she held up a box of feminine products, as if in explanation.
I inhaled briefly, but detected no change in Bella's scent that indicated she was menstruating. Bella had always been discreet about her feminine cycles, for which I was grateful for more than one reason, but I had always known. I also knew how dismissive she was of her own safety, and she had already rejected my suggestion to visit the doctor. Was she simply trying to make me not worry?
"What? Are you trying to pass this illness off as PMS?"
"No." Bella seemed to have to force herself to speak. "No, Edward. I'm trying to tell you that my period is five days late. I don't think I have food poisoning."
Confused, I stared at her. The only acute onset illnesses I knew of that affected a woman's menstrual cycle were sexually related and caused more bleeding, not less. She had come to me a virgin, as I knew all too well. Even had I been with anyone before her, vampires didn't carry diseases. Why was she trying to explain her vomiting with her missing cycles?
Then again, Salmonella wouldn't have affected her cycles either, especially as she said she was five days late. That timing didn't match at all with her vomiting. And, aside from the actual throwing up, she didn't seem nauseous. She had scarfed down the eggs this morning just as she had on our first.
In fact, the only thing I could think of that would affect a woman's menstrual cycles and induce vomiting was... impossible.
Wasn't it?
"The dreams. Sleeping so much. The crying. All that food. Oh. Oh. Oh." Bella folded her hands over her abdomen, her expression changing from bewildered shock to one of recognition. "Oh!"
Bella couldn't be...
There had to be some other explanation. I called up my medical training and ran through every illness - acute or otherwise - that would fit Bella's symptoms. Nothing really matched. Even if she was - which she wasn't, she couldn't be - it would have been too early for her to notice anything. Even if it had happened that glorious first night, that had been little more than two weeks earlier. Her body should barely notice any changes other than the missing period. Well, perhaps the vomiting. But the other things, the sleeping and eating... well, that had been different since our arrival. That was just... well, it was the island's affect on her, surely. People slept and ate more when they were on vacation, didn't they?
Bella jumped to her feet, leaving me sitting on the floor, incapable of movement. Unable to do anything but watch, I saw Bella lift her shirt, exposing her normally flat stomach.
"Impossible," she muttered. Her fingers were shaky as she ran them over her waist and across her belly. She twisted her hips, staring at herself in the mirror with her mouth hanging open. Just the day before, I had run my hands over that very spot while I swam with her. I knew for a fact that the slight bulge between her hips hadn't been there.
What could have caused that?! Cancer? A parasite? Some other kind of malignant growth? Possibly, but again, the timing didn't match. Nothing matched. Not even the explanation that was screaming at me from the back of my mind, the one I kept blocking because it wasn't possible!
"Impossible," Bella muttered, seeming to agree with me.
Could she have been sick before we left? I should have had Carlisle give her a physical! But she'd always seemed so healthy, with no scent of illness on her. Her lifestyle promoted health - when the vampire was taken out of the equation - in the vegetables that she ate, the fact that she never tainted her perfection with any kind of drug, usually foregoing even caffeine. And, though she could have used more exercise, she'd been getting plenty of that since we'd arrived.
Some part of me that wasn't staring in dread and confusion at my Bella, that wasn't blocking out the explanation that kept trying to make itself known, was vaguely aware that a phone was ringing somewhere.
Bella had agreed to stay human. Was this some sick sort of joke Fate was playing on me? I was married to my very own angel, she had agreed to live her life with me and not become a vampire - for the foreseeable future - to go to college with me, to give me her human body to love as often as I wanted. I had almost everything I had ever wished for and more. Indeed, the only other thing I had wished for, the one thing more impossible than any of the others, was the one I was staring at between Bella's hips.
But it was all wrong. If she was - which she couldn't be, but if she was - she shouldn't be showing! That wouldn't happen for another three months or so.
She knelt in front of me.
The phone was still ringing.
Something was very wrong.
Bella had tears streaming from her eyes.
Why didn't someone get the damn phone?!
Bella was moving strangely, carefully, like something hurt.
Her gentle hands were on me, but I couldn't move.
Something was wrong with my Bella.
She pulled out a small rectangle from my pocket, opened it, and put it to her ear.
I was grateful when the incessant ringing ended.
"Hi, Alice." She cleared her throat, apparently as shaken up as I was.
Bella was sick, and whatever it was seemed to be affecting her whole body. Her appetite, her feminine cycles, making her ravenous one moment and then vomit the next, her sleeping, but not her dreams, surely an illness couldn't affect dreams. A person's subconscious might cause them to dream of an illness, but it didn't work the other way around.
Something was wrong.
And, apparently, it was growing.
I - I would just have to change her! I had been planning to already, anyway. She couldn't be allowed to sicken and die. Not now, not ever. Not when I could save her.
My sister's high-pitched voice came through the phone, full of alarm. "Bella? Bella, are you okay?"
"Yeah. Um. Is Carlisle there?" She sounded weird, her voice high and tight.
"He is. What's the problem?" Alice demanded.
The problem?! The problem was: my wife was sick! How did she not see that?! Why else was she calling now?!
"I'm not... one hundred percent... sure..."
"Is Edward alright?" She yelled my father's name before returning to questioning Bella. "Why didn't he pick up the phone?"
Why was she worried about me? I wasn't the one with some horrible illness threatening me!
"I'm not sure."
Unless... she worried about me because of what she saw happening to Bella. They knew I wouldn't survive her loss. No. No, I would change her before it got worse. Or Carlisle. He could fix it. He was a brilliant doctor with centuries of experience. He fixed Jacob. He could fix Bella.
"Bella, what's going on? I just saw - "
"What did you see?"
I waited in dread for Alice to answer, but there was only silence from her end. After what felt like hours, she said, "Here's Carlisle."
Bella's heart broke into a sprint. Surely she understood as well as I. If Alice didn't want to say, then it couldn't be good.
"Bella, it's Carlisle. What's going on?"
"I - " She stared at me with her mouth hanging open. "I'm a little worried about Edward... Can vampires go into shock?"
Me? Why the hell would she be worried about me?!
"Has he been harmed?"
Why was everyone worried about the damned vampire? Why was no one worried about the human girl with the mysterious and dangerous illness?
"No, no. Just taken by surprise."
No. Not surprise. Fear, confusion, disappointment, certainly I felt those. But surprise? Of course my Bella would get sick. Every possible danger sought her out! Was it that surprising that a new illness would find her? I thought not.
"I think..."
She was sick.
"Well, I think that..."
Some never before seen illness.
"Maybe..."
And I was going to have to save her, to change her when she'd agreed to remain human at last.
"I might be..."
But she wasn't... she couldn't be...
"Pregnant."
No. No she wasn't. She thought she was pregnant?! It wasn't possible! The only one she had ever had sex with was me. I couldn't have gotten her pregnant! I was a vampire! Vampires couldn't have children; everyone knew that! Rose and Esme and Alice, they had been sexually active for years, decades, and they wanted children - or at least, Rose and Esme did. If it were possible - which it wasn't - then wouldn't I have had a little brother or sister by now? A niece or a nephew?
The whole reason immortal children had ever existed was because vampire women wanted children they were incapable of producing!
But Bella wasn't a vampire woman, not yet. She was human.
But I was a vampire man! Bella might be capable of becoming a mother, but I couldn't be a father!
Could I?
And if I did father a child... what in God's name would it be? Not a normal child, certainly. Not the chestnut-haired miniature Bella I had imagined playing in the sand on our beach. Not the green-eyed version of my human self I had pictured swinging from the trees. If it was a child - which it wasn't, it couldn't be - then its rapid development told me all that I needed to know.
It was dangerous.
The calming voice of my father asked, "When was the first day of your last menstrual cycle?"
"Sixteen days before the wedding."
"How do you feel?"
"Weird."
I saw yet more tears leaking from her eyes and wanted to reach up to wipe them away, but my arms wouldn't work. My entire body seemed to have become non-responsive since the moment I saw the bulge growing in Bella's stomach.
"This is going to sound crazy - look, I know it's way too early for any of this. Maybe I am crazy. But I'm having bizarre dreams and eating all the time and throwing up and... and... I swear something moved inside me just now."
Moved?!
As if the word unlocked my muscles, I felt my head snap up to look away from the bump between her hips for the first time. I met her wide, tear-filled eyes and saw an odd relief in them. Slowly, I held my hand out for the phone.
"Um, I think Edward wants to talk to you."
"Put him on."
She placed the phone in my waiting hand, and I carefully pressed it to my ear, cautioning myself not to crush it in my distress.
"Is it possible?" I croaked.
"Edward, I - I..." He sighed, frustrated. "Listen, son. We talked about the potential outcomes of your honeymoon. I told you everything that I knew or guessed or thought was even hypothetically possible. This... It never occurred to me." He was silent for a moment and I wished I was there, able to see into his mind. I needed some kind of reassurance that he could fix it. Fix the mess I had made. Fix the danger I had placed Bella in once again.
His voice was a whisper when he spoke again. "But then, how could it have? Esme and Rosalie have wanted children ever since they joined our family. If it were possible, they would have found a way..." He trailed off, obviously thinking hard. Or perhaps he was simply as stunned and appalled as I was.
"I assume you consummated your marriage on your wedding night." He took my silence as an assent. "And obviously Bella was not harmed, despite your fears. If I did not believe that would be the case, you know that I would have said so. I was more worried that your... essence... would change her. It seems there is more to vampire physiology than we knew. If your genetic material was transferred to her and combined with one of her ova... then yes. I would say Bella is pregnant. That is essentially how young are created. But though we were once humans, we are no longer.
"So the question is... what is it? If she has already felt it move, then it cannot be wholly human. Considering one parent is a vampire, that would make sense. How many times have I heard you say that vampires don't change? But if it is growing, then it is changing. And the rate of its growth... Edward, you know very well that a two week old fetus should not be large enough to be felt moving. If it keeps up with this rate of growth, developing within two weeks what should have taken three or four months, then - if Bella were to carry to term - the child could be born very soon. And that is assuming the conception occurred on the night of your wedding. If it occurred sometime after that, then the rate of growth is even greater still. Without knowing exactly how old it is, there is no way of estimating an expected delivery date. It could be weeks, or days."
"And Bella?" I reached for her and was grateful to feel her warmth as she leaned against my side.
"A woman's body is a miracle, my son. Able to expand and change, to create a new life within herself, and then to return more or less to normal afterwards. But the length of time a normal human's pregnancy takes is not just for the benefit of the developing fetus; it gives the mother's body the chance to make those changes in a way that does her no harm. To carry to term and deliver within a month or less? Edward, I am sorry. I do not believe she would survive it."
I couldn't respond with anything other than stunned silence. No. This wasn't happening! I couldn't lose her now!
Correctly interpreting my silence again, he tried to reassure me. "She will be fine, son. You just need to get her home now. We will remove it, and then you can change her as planned. Do not worry. But... you should hurry."
"Yes," I agreed woodenly. "Yes, I will."
As soon as I ended the call, I began dialing again.
"What did Carlisle say?"
I couldn't even look at her, not when her face was still wet from her tears, with my carelessness to blame. It didn't matter that Carlisle hadn't considered the possibility; I should have! "He thinks you're pregnant."
Bella's heart stumbled and began to race. "Who are you calling now?"
"The airport. We're going home."
A/N
And so begins the pregnancy angst. Aw, goodbye happy Edward! We'll miss you!
Well, he'll be back.
Consider this fair warning: You're not going to like our boy for a while. I make no apologies, but this part will be long, and I can't promise that everyone will be on their best behavior. Edward didn't become "the burning man" overnight, and you know Jacob only saw the barest hint of what went on during the time he was there. However, I hope that the rewards will be well worth the wait, because then we get optimistic Edward! AND Daddy Edward!
