Chapter 15 – Rosalie – The Proper Thing

The waiting room was plain, but very clean. The furniture was utilitarian rather than comfortable, and the only decoration was a potted plant on a side table. Not at all like the almost opulent rooms of the doctor my mother in law had recommended.

But Vera had suggested this man, and I suppose in a small way I was rebelling against the constant policing of my actions and behaviour by Royce and his family. At least in this I could make up my own mind.

"Mrs King? I'm Dr Carlisle Cullen." The doctor came out into the room himself, holding out a hand to shake mine, and giving me a friendly smile. There was something about the handsome blonde man that made me trust him immediately.

"I'm Rosalie King." I shook his hand firmly and followed him into his office, taking the chair he indicated. Rather than sitting across the imposing desk, Dr Cullen took a seat on the same side as me and looked at me expectantly.

"What can I do for you today, Mrs King?"

I bit my lip and then finally gave voice to the deepest wish of my heart. "I think I'm going to have a baby."

Dr Cullen's eyes crinkled up as he smiled at me. "Well, it sounds like that would be welcome news for you."

"Yes," I said eagerly. "I got married three and a half months ago and I haven't menstruated since two weeks before that."

"That might well indicate a pregnancy. Do you generally menstruate regularly?"

I nodded, too excited to even feel embarrassed. I wanted this so badly! A baby, a tiny little bundle of sweetness to bring Royce and I closer and really make us a family. "Always."

Dr Cullen scribbled some notes in my file. "Any other symptoms? Sickness, tiredness, sore breasts?"

"Maybe a little."

"I'm going to give you an examination now," Dr Cullen told me. "That way we can confirm what's happening in there and discuss what we do from here on. Now, I need you to take off your clothes, including your underwear, and put on this gown. I'll be back in a moment."

I took the soft cotton gown that Dr Cullen handed me, and once he had left the room I began taking off my dress. I could feel my cheeks heating up with embarrassment. I'd never had to undress for the doctor before. But I did what I was asked, and I was shivering on the examining table when there was a quick knock and Dr Cullen returned.

"Lie back please. I need to do an internal exam." His smile was gentle and reassuring. "Just relax and it will be fine. I take it you haven't had one before?"

Tremulously I shook my head.

"That's okay. Let's see what we can find out here." Dr Cullen held his hands under running water for several moments. I could see the steam rising up and wondered how he could stand it so hot, but then he shut it off and came over to me.

Having his hands on me was uncomfortable but not painful, and he was quick and professional. Best of all, he confirmed what I had been so hopeful for- I was having a baby.

"You're definitely pregnant, Mrs King," Dr Cullen told me cheerfully as he washed his hands. "Considering the dates of your last menstrual period I'd say you're close to four months pregnant and you've got a honeymoon baby in there." He looked at me with an odd smile on his face. "I'd like to try and hear a heartbeat if you don't mind. It's very early and most doctors and midwives wouldn't be able to, but I have a…little knack for it."

I eagerly agreed and he took an odd, horn shaped item from a drawer and came to stand beside me.

"It's a fetoscope," he told me, gently drawing the gown up over my belly. "By holding this against the womb I can hear the foetal heartbeat, and…."

He paused, and I pushed up on my elbows, trying to see what he was looking at. Oh. That.

"What happened here?" Dr Cullen asked softly, his cool fingers lightly touching the five bruises on each thigh, perfect imprints of four fingers and a thumb from big hands that had gripped far too hard.

I went to push the gown down, but he moved so fast I almost missed it and pushed it up until it was just under my breasts. "And here?" he said, his voice still quiet and steady, his fingers tracing the bruises there, feeling the ribs underneath.

I winced, grimacing as he pushed against the tender flesh. "Nothing happened."

"Bruises like that don't just appear out of nowhere."

"I'm clumsy…I bruise easily. It doesn't matter." I shoved his hands away and yanked the gown down and this time he let me.

"I see a lot of women Rosalie, and I know what accidental bruising looks like. You are not clumsy and this is not accidental."

"I said it's nothing!" I hissed.

Dr Cullen took a deep breath. "If someone is hurting you Rosalie, you don't have to put up with it. There are things we can do…"

"There is nothing you can do!"

"There are some programs to help women. There are people who will talk to…"

"To my husband?" I said incredulously. "Talk to him? Do you know who my husband is, Dr Cullen?"

"Yes, I know," he answered quietly.

"Then you know that there is nothing that you can do," I said flatly. "Nothing at all that you, or anyone else, can do."

There was a long silence, heavy with the unsaid, before Dr Cullen sighed and said, "Very well, Mrs King. But if you should decide you wish to talk to me – about anything – then my door is always open to you. In the meantime, eat well and get a good amount of sleep. Try and stay active, and keep up your regular activities because there's no need to take to your bed. I'd like to see you again fairly soon, so I'll leave you to dress and then we can make an appointment."

He left the room and I sat for a moment, warm with the bliss of knowing that it was true, that there really was a baby growing, hidden deep inside me. I stood up and dropped the cotton robe, only then realising that there was a full length mirror in the corner of the room.

I stood in front of it, considering my own reflection. You couldn't really tell that I was pregnant, I thought, although there was more of an outward curve on my lower belly than there had been. I ran my hand over it and couldn't stop the idiotic smile that spread over my face. A baby! But it was a smile that faded as I took in the bruises. The ones on my thighs and ribs that Dr Cullen had seen, and the ones on my breasts that he hadn't. All tokens of what Royce considered love play.

But that doesn't matter! What matters is the baby…he'll never hurt the baby, so he'll leave me alone too. And I'll try harder. I'll make it work! Dr Cullen…what does he know about anything?

McCarty was waiting for me in the car, his head tipped back against the seat and his eyes closed as though he were sleeping. Like he had some preternatural sense of me though he opened his eyes and gave me a sleepy smile before I was even close enough to the car to knock on the window.

"All good ma'am?" he asked cheerfully, holding the front door for me without asking.

"Yes, thank you," I said, sliding in to the car and waiting as McCarty closed the door and came around on his side.

"Where to now?"

"Shopping," I said impulsively, "There's something I just found out I need. The jeweller on Drummond Street."

"Aye aye, cap'n," McCarty murmured, easing the car out into the flow of traffic.

Although he always scrupulously maintained a polite and formal distance whenever Royce was nearby, McCarty was much more casual with me. I was occasionally surprised to realise how close we had grown. Between talking as we walked or as I rode beside him in the car, between the occasional chess game and the shared letters from his siblings, McCarty and I had developed a true and honest friendship, however unlikely that seemed.

"I don't suppose you'll need me to come along and carry the bags here," McCarty remarked, parking the car is a spot outside the jeweller.

I giggled. "No thank you. I shouldn't be too long."

For once I was quick with shopping, and McCarty looked surprised as he saw me approach the car.

"Are you ill?" he said in alarm. "Is that why you went to the doctor and you're back from shopping so soon? Do we need to hurry home? Or should I take you back to the doctor?"

He took my arm like I was made of glass and helped me into the car.

"McCarty, don't worry, I'm fine!" I beamed at him, unable to hide my happiness. "I just had to buy one thing that I wanted to show Royce tonight." I brought the white jeweller's box out of the bag and opened it up, showing McCarty the thick silver ring with the attached silver teddy bear.

"But that's a baby teether…oh." I couldn't identify the quick flash of emotion on McCarty's face before it was gone and he was smiling at me. "Does that mean…"

I nodded, ducking my face. "That's why I went to the doctor."

"Hey, that's…that's great! Congratulations." McCarty's eyes were focussed firmly on the road ahead, but he sounded sincere.

"I probably shouldn't have told you," I babbled. "It's probably not the proper thing to do, but…"

"You worry too much about the proper thing to do," McCarty said abruptly.

I glanced over at him in surprise. "But…" My voice trailed away. How to explain to him the way I had been raised within those strict, social rules and how much they guided everything I did?

"You know…whatever, I probably just don't get it, but a lot of that stuff doesn't matter." McCarty sounded almost angry. "Why shouldn't you tell me? We're friends. It shouldn't be a big deal. You're married, you're having a baby…it's kind of what happens. You shouldn't worry so much about what other people might say about you."

"You don't know what it's like," I said quietly, folding my arms.

"I don't know what it's like to have people talking and making judgements about me?" McCarty gave me an incredulous look.

"But it doesn't bother you! You just do your own thing and don't care!"

"You think I don't care? You think it doesn't bother me that your husband acts like I'm not even worth making eye contact with?" McCarty's hands were gripping the wheel, his knuckles white. "You think it doesn't bother me that everyone who sees me carrying your shopping and driving you home thinks that I'm your servant and not any kind of man at all? You think none of that bothers me?"

I twisted my hands in my hair. "But you're always…I had no idea."

"Yeah," McCarty said quietly. "Well, I don't have the luxury of letting it show when things bother me. If I want to keep my job I take what he gives out and do what you order me to and I do it all with a smile, don't I?"

Wordlessly I stared at him, hurt beyond measure. I thought we were friends. I thought it wasn't like that between us. I turned away and stared out the window, and we drove home in silence.

I watched him work out in the garden that afternoon. From the chaise in the conservatory, where I was ostensibly reading, I had a good view of him as he dug and weeded and edged. He was quieter than normal though, without the usual cheerful whistling and occasional singing that usually accompanied his work.

I liked to watch him. I liked the contrast between that big, powerful body and the gentle way of his hands in the earth as he planted out the tiny seedlings. I liked the sure and confident way he moved, as though he was perfectly comfortable in his surroundings and in his own skin. I liked the feelings that arose in me as I watched him, even if I didn't understand them then.

I was so busy watching him and thinking that I completely forgot that I was visible to him too. Not until he looked up and caught my eye did I think of it, and my attempts to hastily raise my book and look engrossed were embarrassingly transparent.

"Miss Rosalie." McCarty said softly, leaning on the windowsill beside my chaise and holding out the single stem of a flower. "I upset you earlier, and I'm sorry."

I took the flower and used it as a bookmark, carefully laying it flat between the pages I was reading. "Do you really think that? That you have to play a role for me?" I couldn't hide the note of hurt.

McCarty hesitated, and then said honestly, "A little. We're from very different worlds, and I'm here in your world now and sometimes that's hard. Sometimes it feels like I'm doing nothing but playing pretend."

"Sometimes it's like that for me too," I said slowly, hardly believing that I was daring to give voice to what felt like a betrayal of my perfect life. "I'm pretending to be what they want. I might do it well, but that doesn't mean it's really me."

"What happens if you don't play their game?" McCarty wanted to know. "What happens if you say 'stuff the lot of you' and do whatever you want?"

I laughed. "My parents would be so disappointed! Royce's parents would be horrified, and Royce would be…" I bit my lip hard. Royce would be Royce, and I would come to regret any rebellion there.

McCarty was watching me closely, his eyes troubled, and I was suddenly afraid of the closeness. Afraid of what he was seeing in me, afraid of the feelings that were being stirred up in me by both our conversation and the very close physical proximity of him. I was married, I was about to be a mother…how could I be questioning things like this? How could I let this uneducated man, my driver, make me second guess everything I'd ever striven for? How could I be looking at him and feeling my heart pound and my breath quicken just because of the way he moved?

A/N – Well, a few home truths there have got Rosalie feeling all very confused! She's definitely starting to see Emmett and what he means to her more clearly, but she's also very committed to her marriage and, especially now with a baby on the way, wants to make it work.

And some Dr Carlisle in there too…he was the only other Cullen I could realistically fit in to this story. I love the idea that he's a vampire and Rosalie has no idea… He's using his vampire skills in this chapter, since fetoscopes (an instrument used by midwives and doctors to detect foetal heartbeat before dopplers were invented) are usually not effective until around twenty weeks, which is halfway through pregnancy. But I wanted him to discover Rosalie's bruises and make her at least think about the fact that what Royce is doing to her isn't acceptable to anyone.

Thanks for all comments, reviews and notes- I love talking about the story and appreciate every one who takes the time!