A/N: Hello, ducks. How's your weekend?

They weren't really expecting it to take the first time.

For their part, Carlisle and Edward had decided to try not to think about the "what if's". They knew the odds, and they weren't trying to put additional stress on their marriage. They were busy people with plenty of other things to deal with.

Midway through his morning, Carlisle got a text from Edward asking him to meet for lunch. His very busy morning had dwindled down to a manageable level, so Carlisle agreed.

His head was still wrapped up in the mystery of his latest patient. He was lost in his thoughts as he walked the block from the hospital to the little deli where he and Edward had eaten lunch so many times.

"Hey," he said, leaning down to kiss Edward hello. He sat down across from him.

"I got you coffee," Edward said, pushing a cup at him.

"Oh, good. Just what I needed." Carlisle took a sip and closed his eyes, savoring. Nothing better than coffee in Seattle. "You won't believe the day I've had so far."

He started to chat, pausing only to order his usual sandwich from the waiter. The man gave him an odd look, but Carlisle was too caught up in his story to care much about it.

Edward, he noticed, seemed a little distant. Normally, when they were discussing a case, he was involved. His insights had helped Carlisle solve many a tricky condition. Today, he contributed to the conversation, but his questions seemed perfunctory. Edward knew better than to think Carlisle wouldn't have checked for the basics.

Still, Carlisle indulged him. He answered his simple questions and wondered aloud about what he was going to do. He was mid-sentence when Edward broke.

"Carlisle," he said, his tone sharp.

Carlisle's head snapped up. He looked at his husband with arched eyebrows. "What is it?"

To his surprise, Edward laughed. He ran a hand over his eyes. "Jesus Christ. We've come here about five thousand times. Have you ever drunk coffee out of a mug like that?"

Confused, Carlisle looked down at the mug cradled in his hands. The deli used normal coffee mugs. This one was squatter but wider. "Oh," he said. "Did they change it?" He didn't understand why this mattered.

Edward covered his face with his hands, giggling in a weird, almost maniacal way.

That was when Carlisle saw that there were words at the bottom of the cup. Every thought went right out of his head.

There were exactly two words at the bottom of the cup: We're pregnant.

Again, Carlisle's head shot up. Edward was watching him through his fingers, his hands still on his face. "It took?" Carlisle blurted, astonished.

Edward lowered his hands slowly, revealing a wide grin. "Yeah. Bella called this morning. She wanted to tell us together, but I kind of guessed why she was calling."

"Wow." Carlisle stared at the words at the bottom of the mug. They didn't seem real. "Wow."

Edward put his hands, palm up, on the table. Wordlessly, Carlisle reached for him, taking his hands and squeezing tightly. A profound and yet cautious joy had begun to well in his chest. He laughed, the sound incredulous. He squeezed Edward's hand again, struck by a paralyzing fear. He knew better than most dads-to-be all the things that could go wrong in a pregnancy.

"I…" Carlisle laughed again. "I want to go find Bella and wrap her in bubblewrap."

Edward grinned. "Bella hung up on me earlier." He looked sheepish. "I kept asking her if she had enough water, something to eat. If she'd taken her vitamins. I actually told her she should take the day off. I had to call her back five times before she would pick up the phone again. She said she was going to change her number if I didn't calm the hell down."

"Calm down," Carlisle said, shaking his head. As though that were possible. He brought Edward's hands to his lips and pressed a long kiss to his knuckles. "This is happening."

"That's what it looks like," Edward said, his eyes shining.

~0~

"She's going to kill us."

Carlisle shot an amused glance at his husband. "You think it's overdone?"

"I know it's overdone. In fact, I think she specifically asked us not to do this," Edward said as they pulled into the driveway.

"She did not," Carlisle said, getting out of the car. "She told us not to interfere with her life. This is helping her with her life." He opened the trunk and surveyed their purchases. "Everyone should have proper support. Most pregnant women have body aches. We're really doing her a favor. It's the least we can do when—"

Someone clearing her throat made them pause. Carlisle looked over his shoulder. Shock went down his spine. He dropped the bag in his hand, slammed the trunk shut and turned, keeping Edward behind him with a protective stance. It was instinctual but unnecessary.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Edward snarled at his mother.

Her eyebrows furrowed, her expression going from uncertain to irritated and back again. She swallowed hard, visibly bracing herself. "You haven't answered my calls in almost a year, " she said, looking only at her son.

Carlisle scoffed, incredulous. Edward stepped out from behind him, standing tall as he faced his mother. "Was there something about me never wanting to see you again that escaped you? You're not welcome here."

"Junior—"

"Don't." Edward snapped. He twined his fingers through Carlisle's and tugged. "Come on."

"Junior, I understand that you're angry. I—"

"You were asked to leave," Carlisle said, his voice cold as ice. "This is private property."

Elizabeth turned a withering stare on Carlisle. "I'm talking to my son. You—"

"Oh, no." Edward stepped between them, holding his hand palm out at his mother. "You don't get to talk to him. You don't even get to look at him."

Even Carlisle was taken aback by the ferocity of Edward's words. "You don't listen, so I know you can't even begin to comprehend how many ways you destroyed my family. If you think I'm going to let you hurt my husband again, you're out of your goddamn mind."

"I don't understand you," Elizabeth said, looking frustrated and flustered. She dropped her tone, obviously self-conscious about the fact they could be easily overheard. "You were such a smart boy, Junior, and then he happened." She sneered the word, glaring once at Carlisle before looking to her son. "From the very beginning, he's had you doing things that aren't you. Getting involved with a superior? I can't imagine what had to have happened to force you to leave that hospital. You were happy there. It was a good place for you, a good place for your career."

"Jesus Christ," Edward muttered under his breath. "What the hell do you think happened? You think they caught us screwing in the operating room with a patient knocked out nearby?" He shook his head. "I married him, Mother. That's why I left the fucking hospital. Because it was a conflict of interest, and I was in love."

"You never wanted to be married. How often did you say it? You never wanted to be tied down, and you went from declaring that adamantly to planning an extravagant wedding in less than a year. You have never been yourself since you've been with him."

"Yeah, imagine that," Edward said, his tone bitter now. "I didn't want to get married when all I had as an example was you and Dad. You make marriage look cold and lonely. Carlisle is warm. All he does is give."

"Oh, yes. I know exactly what he gives you."

"You don't know a damn thing. You liked Benjamin, right? You remember him. He gave me the same fucking thing. And after Benjamin, I sought it out from strangers. I let them tie me up, and—"

"Junior!" Elizabeth had clapped her hands over her ears, her expression distressed.

Edward scoffed. "Yeah, big surprise. That's exactly what you do. You don't listen, because heaven forbid you have to accept anything other than your own cold, singular view of the world. You never knew who I was. You didn't want to see me, especially when I started making decisions for my own life you didn't agree with. I have a happy, warm marriage. My husband is a selfless, wonderful man. But you preferred to make up your filthy fucking lies. You preferred your version of things so much you destroyed our lives, and the lives of two children you were supposed to love. You took my kids from me, Mother." By the end, Edward was speaking through clenched teeth, his voice heavy with emotion. Carlisle kept a hand on his arm, his own eyes stinging with furious tears.

"Get out," Carlisle said simply, his voice cold.

Again, Elizabeth's eyes—shining now with tears of her own—looked at him. This time, there was much less venom in her stare and much more uncertainty. She took a shuddering breath and looked back to Edward. "I...I...I didn't know what would happen. Of course I didn't know. I didn't know it was a possibility they would take the children. I thought you could leave with the children. I thought they would help you do that—see that you shouldn't have children around a—"

Carlisle felt Edward tense. The look on his face must have been murderous, because Elizabeth cut herself off. She looked to her shoes. "It wasn't what I intended."

"I don't give a good goddamn. I was serious when I said I never wanted to see you again, and I don't miss you. Goodbye, Elizabeth."

Taking that as a cue, Carlisle put an arm around Edward, turning him toward the house. He was eager to get away from this woman. His mind was chaos held at bay only because he had the overwhelming urge to protect his husband.

Before they could get very far, Elizabeth called out to Edward again. They weren't going to stop, except she said, "Why do you have these books?"

Carlisle was chilled to the marrow of his bones. He remembered then which bag he'd dropped. The one filled with books about babies and fathers guides to pregnancy.

They could still lie. It was—

"We're going to have a baby," Edward said. "One you'll never see and one you can't take from us. A child with your blood."

"Your biological child?"

Edward huffed. "Yeah, I thought that would matter to you."

"No," Elizabeth said quickly. "It's just...how?"

"Make up your own story. It's what you're going to do anyway. The truth is none of your business. You don't get to cry about the choice you made," he echoed the words his father had flung at him so many months earlier.

"Edward. I'm your mother." Her voice shook with tears, her face awash in agony.

"Yeah. And I was those kids' father. I get to live the rest of my life wondering if they're okay. You've hurt everyone I've ever loved more than my own life, and I will never forgive you. Not ever. This is the only kind of justice I'll get for what you did to my children, my husband, and me. A mother is supposed to support her child through all his trials, not be the cause of them." He wrapped his arm around Carlisle's waist and turned again toward the house. "If you come here again, I'm calling the cops. Stay away from my family."

With that, they walked together toward the house, ignoring Elizabeth's miserable tears.

~0~

Carlisle was having trouble getting the chaos in his mind to quiet long enough to string together a rational thought. He was sitting at the kitchen table, only half listening as Edward spoke to Bella on the phone. He was asking her to come over not tonight but the next night. They needed a minute to regroup tonight.

Regroup. That was an interesting word for it, but not inappropriate. It implied they were scattered. Scattered was an adequate word as any for what Carlisle was feeling. Though he tried to tell himself he was being ridiculous and dramatic, he couldn't help but feel shaken.

Carlisle started when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He hadn't even realized the house had gone quiet. He closed his eyes, trying to ground himself as Edward squeezed his shoulder comfortingly.

After another moment, Edward wrapped his arms around Carlisle's chest and rested his cheek on his head. He splayed one hand directly over Carlisle's heart. "Can you talk to me? Tell me where you are? I don't want to assume," he said, his voice gentle and calm.

Carlisle squeezed his eyes tighter shut. For a moment, he allowed himself to wallow in guilt and self-loathing. Edward had just rejected his mother again. It should have been him comforting Edward, not the other way around.

This was another thing he'd been working on with Alistair. As frustrating as it was, as much as he wanted to believe he should be able to simply shake off all this wrongness, it simply wasn't going to happen. The trauma he'd been through had infected him as surely as a cancer, and anyone could understand cancer couldn't be willed away.

He took a deep breath, put his hand over Edward's, and tried to find his words. "When you told me about the baby this afternoon, I was so happy. So happy." He pressed his lips together and swallowed hard. "But I was scared too. Like this...prickling sensation—a general anxiety. There's a thought in the back of my mind that I'm crazy for believing I can have any of this. The baby. You."

Edward kissed the side of his head. "And then my mother showed up. Today. Why the hell did it have to be today? Today should have been nothing but happy. We're going to be Daddies again. But my parents destroyed that once."

"Yes," Carlisle said, relieved and heartbroken that Edward understood. "I can't stop thinking about rules and technicalities. Is there something we've missed? If she lashes out, what happens this time?" He shuddered and leaned his head back against Edward's chest not voicing his last fear.

What if Edward listened to them—his parents—and followed them home one day? Oh, he knew in his heart of hearts it wasn't going to happen. The one thing he'd never doubted in this whole ordeal was Edward's unflagging love for him. Irrational though it might have been, he was still afraid something might happen. Maybe Edward would come to the conclusion his parents would never let him rest, never let him have a happy life, as long as he was with Carlisle.

Edward moved around to stand in front of Carlisle. He dropped to his knees, taking Carlisle's hands, looking up into his eyes. "There's really nothing they can do," he said firmly.

"I know," Carlisle said quietly. "Most of me even believes your mother when she says she didn't intend to get the kids taken away from us. It's just…"

"We've been putting our lives back together," Edward said. "I get it. I really do. Everything still feels so fragile. Everything." He huffed. "It's like letting a bull around a house of cards."

Edward sighed and rested his head on Carlisle's lap. Carlisle felt a pang, a deep yearning. How often he and Edward had been in this position for much different reasons. Carlisle ran his fingers through Edward's hair with love and affection. He was feeling slightly more centered, and he could still help his husband.

"You know, in all this, I never have asked you how you feel about your parents," Carlisle said.

Edward grunted. "I think that whole thing outside should have made it easy to see how I feel about my parents."

"What I mean is, regardless of what they've done, they're still your parents. It would be understandable if you feel conflicted. You love them."

It was a long few seconds before Edward spoke. "I hate them," he said in a whisper. "Genuinely, I hate them. When I saw her today…" He swallowed audibly. "Yeah, sometimes I start to wonder if there was any situation in which I could forgive them. If there was anything they could do that would make me consider them family again. I don't want to be an orphan. I know what it does to you sometimes when you think about your father. And maybe, if they'd just hurt me…" Edward shook his head. "But then I hear Riley screaming, begging us not to let this happen. And I hear Bree crying, because she didn't understand. And I think of what it's done to you."

Edward wrapped his arms around Carlisle's waist and squeezed hard. "There's too much destruction. Thinking about them, about kicking them out of my life, doesn't feel good. It never will, but it's preferable to thinking about letting them back in my life, letting them anywhere near you or the baby."

Carlisle slid off the kitchen chair, onto his knees in front of Edward. He wrapped him tightly in his arms, rocking with him. "We're going to have a baby," he whispered, because despite Elizabeth's visit, that was still amazing.

"Yeah," Edward said with a small laugh. "Maybe three."

"Christ. Three babies. Edward, what would we do with three of them at once?"

Edward laughed more genuinely this time. He pulled back, taking Carlisle's face in his hands, looking him in the eyes. He smiled. "We're going to be better than our parents. I think that's all that matters."

Again, Carlisle wrapped his arms around him. "It's real. They're real," he said, more to himself than anything else.

"This is the start of something beautiful. It sucks that our moment got ruined, but that's going to happen sometimes, right? A lot of incredible with a dash of awful."

Carlisle got to his feet, pulling Edward up with him. He kissed him soundly, letting a fragile peace settle over him. It didn't overshadow the heaviness in his heart, but it did let him feel the joy. As long as he had his husband in his arms, his life could never be awful.

A/N: My docs were awash with pitchforks, rofl. My thanks to Packy, Mina, songster, MoH, and Barburella.

So Momma Masen is beginning to feel some regret for what she did. Hmm.