A/N: Okay the usual, not mine, just have them out to play. No offense intended. Now, on with the show!

Chapter 3

I came to with a hard slap on my cheek. My eyes opened and my brother was standing over me, conflicting looks of concern and anger flitting back and forth on his face. Once he saw I was awake, he backed up and walked across the room. He leaned against the wall and just looked at me for a long time. I sat up, rubbed my face with my hands and leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees. I stared at the floor and didn't say anything until Em started.

"It was really you," he said softly. I could hear the surprise and astonishment in his voice. I glanced up to look at him and his face bore the same emotions that I had heard in his voice.

"Yeah," I nodded, confirming it.

"Jesus Ed, why? Never mind the why, I get the why I guess, but why?" Emmett asked.

I laughed, though it wasn't an amused one, more of a frustrated laugh I supposed. "Put yourself in my shoes Em, just for a minute. There she was, the girl of my dreams, and she wanted me. She came on to me and-." Emmett cut me off.

"She was loaded, even you told me that earlier. You know you don't take advantage of a drunk girl man," Emmett barked out.

I nodded, he was right, but at the time... "I know, I know, but she didn't seem drunk at the time, it wasn't until after that I knew for sure, and I was pretty drunk myself."

"So drunk you forgot a condom," Emmett stated. I nodded and returned my gaze to the floor. "Why didn't you say anything to her, at least apologize or something? Fuck man, she's been going crazy for months trying to figure out who the mystery man at the party was. That fight at the pizza joint after the movie? Yeah, that was her finding out that it hadn't been Jake like she was sure it had been."

"How would I have known that Em? No one talks to me, except to tease me about my crush. How in the hell was I supposed to know that?" I was getting angry. Granted, I was to blame, well, half to blame for this situation, but I was over 3000 miles away, I didn't live with the constant drama that apparently this situation had evolved into.

Em looked properly chastised, but then focused on me once again. "Edward, you fucked up big time."

I stood up and started pacing, the anger in me building. "No shit Em, I know that, okay? What in the fuck was I supposed to do? Walk up to her and say, 'Look Bella, I'm sorry but we were both loaded and we had sex and then you called out Jake's name at the end and I felt like shit that you couldn't even remember who you were with?' Should I have done that?" By the time I was done, I was yelling at him.

Emmett stared and I knew he didn't have an answer for me. Shit, I didn't have an answer for me and I had been there.

"You need to talk to her," Emmett told me.

"Yeah, I know that," I said.

"You need to do it soon because she needs to tell her father and she's been putting it off until she could figure out what happened that night," Em informed me.

Fuck, Chief Swan was going to know. I didn't stand a chance. I'd be lucky if I wasn't brought up on charges of rape, it wasn't too far a stretch.

"Em, what am I gonna do?" I sighed, collapsing back onto the couch where I had been sitting before. Emmett walked over and sat next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.

"Start with Bella and go from there. You two need to be on the same page before you pull anyone else into it," he said wisely. "I'd recommend a trip to Forks while you are on the same coast too. Might make it easier on the parents if you present a united front, assuming that is what Bella wants to do."

I nodded and Em patted me on the back. He stood and headed to the door. When I didn't follow, he stopped and turned around, looking at me. "Well, let's go then. I'll distract Rosie and you and Bella can talk, okay?"

I nodded, rose from the couch and followed my brother out of his room and over to where the mother of my child lived. Em knocked and whispered something in Rose's ear when she answered. She glared at me, grabbed her jacket and called out to Bella that she would be back soon. She held the door open for me and as I went to walk into the room, her hand on my arm stopped me cold.

"Break her and I break you, I don't care if you are Em's brother or not, understand?" Rosalie informed me.

I nodded and then, they were gone. I slowly walked into the room, letting the door close quietly behind me and stared at Bella. She was on her bed, sitting with her legs crossed in front of her, pen in her mouth and surrounded by text books. She had changed since I saw her earlier, now wearing a clingy tank top and pajama pants. Her hair was pulled back from her face twisted around what looked like another pen and I could see the tell-tale white wires hanging down letting me know she was listening to her iPod. I guess my staring must have alerted her to me because suddenly she looked up and jumped in shock. She pulled the ear buds down quickly and held her hand to her heart, as if to keep in in place in her chest.

"Jesus Edward, you scared me! Did Rose say you were here?" She asked and I shook my head. "Well, why are you here then?"

"Can I sit down?" I nodded toward the other bed in the room and Bella nodded, watching me walk over to Rose's bed and sink down on the edge.

"What is going on Edward?" Bella asked hesitantly.

"Em told me about, uhm, about New Year's," I said, stumbling over my words. I watched as Bella's face darkened and the pen that she had been holding was flung down on her bed in anger.

"He had no right," she argued.

"I agree, but he thought I might be able to help, since I was there that night and I, uh, well," I hesitated to admit that I watched her, that I had always watched her, ever since I first saw her in middle school.

She nodded, knowing what I didn't want to say. "Yeah, right. So?" She looked sort of hopeful and I knew that it was going to be short-lived.

"I know who it was Bella," I started. Her face quickly lit up and then when I said my next part, the light was just as quickly gone. "It was me."

Bella's mouth fell open, then she closed it without saying anything. She repeated this a few times before I decided to fill the silence with my part of the story.

"We were drunk and I really liked you, I always had and there was my chance and well-," I spouted out until Bella's hand covered my mouth. I stopped talking and she withdrew it, only for it to once again come to rest on my face, this time in the form of a stinging slap.

"You are the lowest of the low Edward Cullen, oh my god," she shrieked. "How could you do that? I thought you were better than that, that you were actually a nice guy, but nice guys don't do shit like that."

She moved away from me and walked back over to her bed, flinging her books to the floor in anger and falling onto her stomach, her face buried in her pillow.

"Bella, look, I am so-," I started and she rolled her head to look at me, fury and hurt in her brown eyes.

"Get the fuck out! NOW!" she screamed and I stared at her for a moment, then rose from the bed and walked out of the room. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, leaving her crying like that, but she didn't want me around and the last thing I wanted to do was to force myself on her again.

I wandered campus, finally finding a bench in a quiet corner to sit and think. The cat was out of the bag now and while I felt slightly freer, knowing that Bella now knew the truth about what had happened on New Year's Eve, a whole new set of problems and concerns entered my head. I was going to be a father, maybe. I mentally did some calculations and determined that Bella was out of her first trimester, making an abortion less likely. Since she was trying to find out the father, I guessed that meant she was at least planning to carry through to the end, though adoption was a possibility. Did I want to give my child up for adoption? I didn't think so, but I was only 20, would it be right to do that to a baby when a more stable family could possibly give it more than I could? And what about Bella? Was she planning to raise the baby alone? Was she hoping that the father would play an active role? She was due in the fall, would she be going back to school? I needed some answers before I could do anything else and unfortunately, I doubted I'd be getting any from Bella in the near future.

My cell phone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket, saw Em's name on the screen and answered, talking before he could.

"Well, I told her and it went just about how I thought it would," I said glumly. "She hates me and I can't say that I blame her."

"She wants to talk to you," Em said quietly. "Where are you?"

"I have no clue, I just kind of started walking. I'm on a bench and there is an fountain nearby," I said, looking around for some sort of landmark.

"Can you find your way back here or do you need me to come and get you?" Emmett asked.

"I think I can find my way," I told him.

"Good, see you soon," Emmett said, then hung up.

I stood up and went back the way I came, only having to ask for directions once. I found myself outside Bella's door and I hesitated to knock, not sure what I would find on the other side. I knew she still hated me, I didn't have any doubts about that, but I hoped we could focus this talk on the baby and its future, because that was most important right now.

I knocked and Em answered, silently holding the door open so I could walk in. Bella was seated on her bed again, but this time Rosalie was with her. Rose had her arm around Bella's back and was talking quietly to her. When Rose saw I was there, the look she gave me would have slayed me had I been concerned about it. I was focused on Bella, she was the reason I was there and she was the one I needed to talk to, forget Rose and Em.

"Edward's here," Rosalie said quietly. Bella's face tilted upward to look at me and I could see it was red and swollen from crying. I had done that to her, I thought in disgust. I made her like this, there was no one else to blame.

Emmett pulled up a desk chair for me and I sat down, still looking at Bella and waiting for her to start. This was her show, I was here to find out my part.

"I'm keeping the baby," she said quietly. "And I'm finishing out the semester here at UDub, but after that, I don't know."

I nodded, not saying anything, not sure what to chime in with truthfully.

"I plan on driving to see my father tomorrow, to tell him," she continued. "I had planned that all along. The question is, do I tell him I know the father or not?"

This was it, the moment of truth. Bella knew the truth, but she was willing to not say anything about it to her father, to keep me anonymous but I couldn't do that.

"You can tell him if you want," I said diplomatically. She knew him better than I did and I left it in her hands, but not before I tossed a question back to her. "And what do I tell my parents?"

Bella shook her head and lowered it to study her hands once again. Rose continued to rub her back, talking so softly that I couldn't hear a word she was saying to Bella. I watched as Bella shook her head repeatedly at what Rose was saying, then looked back at me, resignation on her face.

"So you want to be a part of this?" She asked.

I nodded silently.

"Do you want to come with me to Forks tomorrow? We can tell them all the same day," she stated.

I nodded again.

"Okay, well, Dad is expecting me by lunch time, so we'll leave early, okay?" She asked.

I felt like an ass, but all I could do was nod again.

"Do you want Em and I to go with you two tomorrow, sweetie?" Rosalie asked.

"No, just us," Bella stated firmly. "No need to pull you two into this anymore than necessary. This is our problem now and we need to deal with it."

Emmett walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder. "We'll get going and Ed will be here to get you at 6, okay?"

Bella nodded and Emmett and I walked out of the room. We didn't speak for a long time, both of us unsure what to say. Once we were back at Em's room, I placed a call to my mother, letting her know that I was coming up to see them tomorrow afternoon, which immediately set Mom into panic mode. I assured her that I would explain everything when I saw her the next day and finally gave the phone to Em to deal with her, as I couldn't take it anymore. I loved my mother, but she was tenacious and wouldn't stop until she got the answers she wanted. Em was a lot like her in that way and knew how to talk her down accordingly.

I fell asleep eventually, only to have Emmett wake me what felt like moments later to get a shower before picking up Bella. I showered and shaved, wanting to make a somewhat decent impression on the Chief before he got his gun and shot me for getting his daughter pregnant.

Em gave me the keys to his Jeep and I drove over to Bella's building to find her standing outside, already waiting. She climbed into the passenger seat, buckled up and stared out of the side window, not saying a word to me. I put the vehicle in drive and set off for the ferry, the first part in a long drive home.

Bella left me once the car was loaded onto the ferry, mumbling something about finding some coffee. I eventually found her on the passenger deck, a cup in her hands, staring out at the Puget Sound as we slowly crossed it.

"Is that decaf?" I asked, pointing to her cup.

She rolled her eyes and shrugged. She took a deep drink, watching me watching her do it. I felt myself start to get annoyed, that she might be purposefully doing things to harm our unborn child because she didn't want it. A memory floated back to the front of my mind and I grabbed the coffee from her and glared hard.

"You were drinking at the football house the other night," I said angrily. "Don't you know that you shouldn't be-," I lectured.

Bella sneered, snatched the coffee cup back from me and took another long drink. Once she was done with the cup, she threw it into the trash can next to her, crossed her arms over her chest and started talking.

"For your information, my doctor told me that one cup of coffee a day was fine, as long as it was a small cup. And I was drinking club soda at the football house, which was the only thing there that wasn't beer and it tasted terrible. I didn't want the questions, okay?"

I remembered seeing her grimace when she took a drink from her cup that night, but I chalked it up to the warm beer and nothing else.

"I'm sorry," I apologized quietly.

"You should be. I would never do something like that, understand? I didn't choose to have this baby, but there is no way in hell I am going to do anything to compromise it before it's born. I'll leave the fucking up to when we are raising it." She walked away from me at that point and even though she didn't say it, I knew following her was not a good idea.