DISCLAIMER: THE TWILIGHT SAGA BELONGS TO STEPHENIE MEYER!

Carlisle drove home quickly, driving at a fast pace as vampires like to do. At the car's speed, the scenery of the city blew into the highway, then eventually into the green landscape of Forks. Carlisle pulled into the long driveway and into the garage.

Alice and Carlisle got out of the car. When I tried to follow, an intense pain somewhere around my rib cage held me back. I gasped.

"Esme, what's wrong?" Carlisle questioned. He was at my side in an instant.

"Carlisle..." I was panting, the pain growing. "It...hurts...rib cage..."

Before I could take one more heavy breath, I was in Carlisle's arms and in his office. He laid me on the table, gently prodding along my ribs.

I yelped in agony when he touched a spot on the left side of my rib cage.

"These two are definitely broken," he said, grabbing white medical tape from a shelf by his mahogany desk.

Carefully, Carlisle sat me up. He began to wrap the two broken ribs.

When he was done, he sat down on the couch, sighing, placing his head in his hands. I cautiously rose to my feet and made my way over to my husband.

"Carlisle-"

"Esme, the thing's damaging you."

I felt my facee go red with anger.

"The thing?" I whispered. Then, a little louder, I said, "The thing?"

I heard him sigh again. "Esme, it's killing you."

I pulled his hair to make him look me in the eyes. I let go and said, "I am keeping this baby. We are keeping this baby. And anyway, you have no say in this. I'm the one carrying the child-"

"Es, it might not even be a child!"

"How dare you!" I shouted. I ran as fast as I could (which, being pregnant, wasn't very fast) out the door. I could hear Carlisle calling me, but I ignored him.

Before I knew it, I was driving away from the house.

The sky was dark and the rain was coming down hard. The clock in the car said it was 6:00 pm.

I pulled into the driveway of Bella's house, praying Edward wasn't here yet.

I got out of the car and the rain immediately poured on me. Like that was my only problem...

I cautiously made my way to the house, making sure not to go sliding through a puddle. Bella has shown me how bad humans' clumsiness can be.

Once I got on the front porch, I was relieved of the rain. I knocked on the door with my hopes high that Bella was home.

Bella opened the door for me. She smiled, but I could tell she was confused. "Hey, Esme."

I smiled back. "Hi, Bella. I was hoping I could stay here tonight. It's not exactly easy to look at Carlisle without slapping him."

Her smile fell. My guess was she had been wondering what could have happened to create a fight in between the Cullen parents, the perfect match, the eternal lovers. Yeah, honey, I wish I knew why Carlisle hates his own kid, too.

"Um...I won't ask. But yeah, sure, of course you can stay here," Bella said, gesturing for me to follow her inside. She closed the door.

I had only been to Bella's house once before, and that was to pick up Alice when Carlisle and I had taken away her driving privileges when we found out she stole a car in Italy and I had waited for her to come out.

I smiled as I took in all the pictures of Bella throughout her school years. Underneath all of them were dates in Charlie's handwriting indicating what year the picture was from.

The very first one was a picture of Bella in pre-school. Her brown hair was curly and she had a shy smile. The background was white and she was wearing a lavender dress. Next was her kindergarten picture, which was the same as the first one except the background was purple and Bella wore an ivory dress. You could tell how Bella matured throughout the years. She began to resemble the Bella we know now in her fifth grade picture. Her hair was straight now and the background was blue. She wore a gray short-sleeved sweater, the first time she hadn't worn a dress for a picture. The picture from her junior year was the last one from Phoenix. She wore a pink top over a gray background. The last picture was her senior picture from Forks and her smile was the biggest it had been in all the pictures. Bella wore the same thing she had worn to our house the first time we had met her. The background was a blood red color. In the corner it read Forks High School Graduating Class-2008.

"Charlie's not home yet," Bella explained. "I'll show you around. This is the kitchen, there's the living room, that's the laundry room, over there is the bathroom, and the stairs are over there. Come on up."

Bella led the way to the top of the stairs. She continued showing me around, saying, "That's Charlie's room, that's my room, there's a cloest in the hallway, there's an office right there-oh, and if you need to use the computer, use the one in there. The one in my room is way too slow. Lastly, this is the bathroom Charlie recently had installed."

I nodded. "Alright. Thank you so much, Bella."

She smiled. "Anytime. Here, you can stay in my room tonight."

"No, Bella, you don't have to-"

But she cut me off. "We have an air mattress I can sleep on, and we also have couches."

I sighed. "If you're sure, honey."

Bella nodded. "One hundred percent sure."

Smiling, I thanked her again.

"I'm gonna go get dinner started," Bella stated. "Did you bring any clothes with you?"

I shook my head. "I should've, I know, but I was mad and I just left."

"Don't worry about it. I have plenty we can use between the two of us."

"Thanks."

I went downstairs with Bella to help with dinner. We prepared the food in silence. I sensed that Bella had no idea what to say since she didn't know what happened.

When the food was in the oven, Bella and I went into the living room. She turned on the TV to a comedy on CBS.

"Esme, I understand if you don't want to tell me, but what happened?"

I closed my eyes and sighed. "He wanted to kill the baby."

She gasped. "Hold up a second. Carlisle wanted to kill the baby?"

I nodded sadly, making eye contact. "He thought it was killing me, so he thought the logical thing was to take kill the baby. His own child, Bella! How could he say that? And he knows that this is what I've wanted ever since we go married!"

Just then the door opened and Charlie walked in.

"Hey, Dad!" Bella called.

"Hi, Bells," he said, coming in the room. He spotted me and said, "Hi, Esme. Bella told me...congratulations."

I smiled. "Thanks."

"Dad, Esme's gonna stay here tonight. Maybe a a little bit longer after that, too," she stated.

He appeared the be confused. "Alright. Is there something wrong? Something I need to be worried about?"

I shook my head. "There's just been some...issues with the pregnancy stuff. Carlisle and I have been fighting about it and I don't think that it's a good thing to have the baby around yelling and screaming."

Charlie nodded. "When are you due?"

I didn't know the exact answer, so I said, "Very shortly. Just a couple weeks at the most, probably."

I caught Bella's glance. She was attempting to hold back a laugh.

Again, Charlie nodded. "You can take my room. I'll take the couch."

"Nonsense, I'm on the couch before you get kicked out of your room."

"I thought we already established that you were in my room and I was on the air mattress?" Bella asked.

I smiled at her. "If you're certain."

Bella nodded happily and went to serve dinner.

While Bella carried a plate to the table, the doorbell rang. I saw a smile dance across her face as she headed to the door saying, "I got it!"

It was only a matter of seconds until Edward walked into the room. My son gave a polite "hello" to Charlie and looked surprisingly at me.

It's sort of...not so calm at home, I explained in my mind. Carlisle and I were fighting. It's not good for the baby.

He nodded.

What a night this would be.

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