Disclaimer: SM owns all.

A/N: Hope everyone is enjoying this all so far. Here's chapter 4. Please review and let me know how you're enjoying it.

EsPOV

We went into the office, but Carlisle was talking to someone on his cell phone. It sounded like something professional. I looked at Edward and Jasper silently asking who was on the phone. Edward looked as if he were tuning everything out. Alice had spoken to him but he didn't reply. He just sat down in one of the spare chairs and stared at the floor.
"Jasper, who's on the phone?"
"One of the people from down at La Push." Ah. That explained the professional tone he was using. Stupid rivalry. Stupid treaty. If you asked me, everyone could get along just fine if they would just simply try. Just because Carlisle's great-great grandfather, and Billy Black's great grandfather had fought and made the treaty, separating boundaries on which each member of either party were to remain, didn't mean that things had to remain like this, so many years after the two old men had died, and were probably rotting in the fiery pits of hell, not that I would ever say that in front of Carlisle. Those thoughts stayed strictly in my mind. Of course, the only other person who know these thoughts were Edward. I walked over and placed my hands on Edward's shoulders. He was taking this really hard. Harder than all of us. And, he had good reason to. It wasn't easy to lose the one you loved. Ever. He was shaking slightly. I wished desperately that there was some way I could make him feel better about it. But, I knew there wasn't.

Carlisle hung up his cell phone and spoke.
"I'm sorry about that. So, Edward, where were we?"
"We had just agreed not to tell Charlie and Renee about it." Edward replied, breaking out of his zone a little bit, but not enough to realize that any of the rest of us were there and watching him.
"About what?" I asked, looking between my husband and adopted son. I walked over to Carlisle and Alice walked over to Edward. She put her arms around his neck, from behind him, in a very comforting manner. Those two had always been the closest with each other, of all my adopted children. I studied Edward from where I now stood. He was trying desperately not to fall to pieces. Everyone had gone about their own conversations, knowing it would be somewhat out of their limit to listen in. They knew it wasn't their business unless Edward decided to share the information with them. Alice was trying to coax Edward into telling her what was wrong again.
"She was pregnant, Alice." he said quietly. Everyone fell silent and stared at him, except for Jasper and Carlisle. This must have been what they were discussing before Carlisle was on the phone. Alice hid her shock well and spoke with a level voice.
"Come on, Edward. Let's go out into the hall and talk. You need to get this off your chest before you do something stupid when you aren't thinking properly." She helped him stand and they went out into the hallway where the rest of us could not hear them. I was really proud of Alice. She had always been able to handle things so well. It was a great quality she had. She had learned to adopt that quality in herself after she had lived in a few bad foster homes.

Edward had been the first one that Carlisle and I had adopted, after finding that I could not bear children myself. We went to orphanages all over Washington state. We came back to Forks after about a year and decided we should try our luck at the Forks Orphanage one more time. That was when we found Edward. He was twelve and his parents had just been murdered when they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Next came Emmett. We had adopted him a few months later. He was 14 when we found him. He is two years older than Edward. Emmett's mother had died when he was born and his father tried to raise him on his own. He couldn't keep up with all the bills and such after a while and had to send Emmett to a foster home. His father still visited him once in a while, but not nearly as much as he used to, and Emmett had grown to resent him for it.

Rosalie and Jasper came next, about a year later. They are twins. They are a year older than Edward, and also a year younger than Emmett. At the time we got them, they were 14. I had never learned their story. But, Carlisle and I had been grocery shopping one day and were just about to leave when we spotted the two. They were with a person from the Orphanage and Rose was asking why no one had adopted them yet, and didn't she think that they were lovable enough. I felt bad. Carlisle and I wanted to take her right then and there and give her a better home. The worker from the Orphanage said that we couldn't just adopt one, they came as a package. If we adopted one, we had to adopt the other. We agreed to it and a few months later, they were officially ours.

Alice was in a very similar position to Edward. I guess that's why they got along so well. The slight difference was that Alice's parents died two different ways over a long period of time. Alice's father had been involved in a small, not very well known war, and was killed on the battle field. Her mother died a few years later in a tornado. She's a few months younger than Edward.

But, that was many years ago. Now Edward and Alice were 21, Rose and Jasper were 22, and Emmett had just turned 23. I felt lucky that all my children were still living at home with me. They had never moved out or threatened it when they were angry or anything. Many kids their age by now were living on their own and attending college somewhere. But, my children had all wanted to try their hand at the working experience before they went off to college. They wanted to raise their own money to pay for their education. They were all so independent, but yet, at the same time, they couldn't bear to be away from the house for more than a few nights at a time. They became too homesick if they were gone any longer than three days.

I loved my children and it hurt me to see them in pain the way Edward was now. I felt helpless. I didn't know what I could do to make him feel better, and to make his pain go away. From what I had gathered, not even Jasper's special talent had had any effect on Edward, even when he'd asked for it. At that point, I became lost in my own thoughts and worries and wondered what they were talking about in the hall. I willed Edward to be 12 years old again and to be able to hold him in my arms and tell him that even with this major bump in the road, he could keep on going down that road and it would lead to recovery and a better life and more happiness. He would just need to give it time and not try to bottle everything up and hide it. It bothered me when he did that. He knew none of us were fooled and we could see right through his mask, but he did it anyway. None of us ever questioned him. When he was ready to talk about something, he would come to you. You couldn't force him into something like that.