A Baby for Bella
Chapter 3: There's going to be a baby
Alice ran her fingers through her short, spiky hair impatiently as Edward eyed her in the rear-view mirror, an indulgent smirk crossing his face fleetingly.
"A BABY!", Alice exclaimed again, "I saw a BABY!"
"Really? I must say, it's odd that you're so beside yourself about having spotted one of those. There are lots of them around…thousands, even", Edward teased her.
"Babies with your eyes and hair, and Bella's nose?", she shot back.
"That particular variety are a bit more hard to come by", he answered, finally letting a full-out smile grace his features.
She took this as confirmation of what she suspected, and was out of the moving car as quickly as she'd entered it.
Bella, a bit dazed by Alice's hasty entrance and exit of the vehicle, asked, "Where's she going?"
"Hmm….? Oh, she's off to inform the rest of the family that you're pregnant.", Edward informed her unconcernedly.
"What!?!", Bella exclaimed, "I don't want them to know yet! I need time to compose myself; to prepare what I'm going to say…what will they think!?".
"As much as I love them all, my dear heart, it frankly doesn't matter what they think".
"…Well, it matters to me", Bella leaned into her corner of the car, a worried expression on her face.
Just then, they pulled into the driveway, and Edward didn't have any time to reply before he was swept out of the car by Emmett.
"So, it's true", Emmett said excitedly, "You're going to have a drooling pip-squeak calling you daddy in a few months?".
Edward laughed.
"It's true".
All of the family except for Alice were waiting in the foyer as they entered; Edward holding Bella's hand and Emmett trailing behind.
"Where's Alice?", Bella asked Jasper, who was leaning against the banister, a distant expression on his face.
"Oh, she's upstairs on the computer. Online shopping, I think".
Edward laughed loudly.
"That would be the first thing she did after she heard about the baby. Any excuse to shop. The kid will have more clothes than all of us put together before it's even born".
Rosalie gasped, and turned towards them both.
"So, it's true? You're going to have one? A baby? She's going to have a baby!", she exclaimed meanly while throwing Bella a look of disgust. Rosalie stormed from the room , and Emmett predictably followed her, throwing an apologetic look over his shoulder.
Bella looked startled by Rosalie's outburst, but Edward didn't.
"She's always wanted a baby", he explained sadly, "She's so jealous she can hardly see straight".
"She'll come around," Carlisle interjected hopefully.
He and Esme moved closer.
"We're very happy for both of you" Carlisle said solemnly.
"Very happy!", Esme repeated, "A baby in the family, can you imagine!".
She smiled delightedly.
Everyone finally looked towards Jasper, waiting to hear what he had to say.
He realized they were looking at him after a moment and emerged from his reverie.
"I…it…I'm…It will be very different, having a baby around", he finally got out.
Without another word, he strode away, in the direction of he and Alice's bedroom.
Carlisle and Edward shared a look and gazed after Jasper as he left the room, while Esme excitedly discussed nursery design ideas with Bella.
"Come", Edward said, "It's been a long day and Bella needs her rest".
They said goodnight to Esme and Carlisle, and headed up to their bedroom.
After Bella was showered, in her pajamas, in bed, and contentedly snuggled in Edward's arms, she finally asked him, "What does everyone really think?", taking advantage of his ability to read minds for once.
"Well…", he said, weighing his words, "Alice and Esme are genuinely delighted about they baby, and neither can wait to start buying out the stores for him or her; Carlisle is worried about Jasper's reaction, Emmett is happy at the thought of me being drooled on and called Daddy, Rosalie is incredibly jealous, and Jasper…Well, Jasper is just worried that he'll hurt the baby, because it's so very defenseless".
"That's all?", Bella asked sarcastically, looking rather worried herself, now.
"That, my love, is all", Edward answered, smiling to himself.
"Oh…well, good, I guess".
"Except for when we have to tell your parents, of course".
A/N: Chapter 3. There it is, my pretty badgers. From my overactive imagination to your impatient eyes.
I had a lot of fun with this chapter, and when I say I had fun, I mean I had intense writers block until about 5 seconds before I wrote this, and then it all just flew out. Love it when that happens.
I have to give a big shout out to the lovely Renee Elizabeth, who I'm going to very happily drive to distraction with all of my quesions about babies over the course of writing this:) Thank you, Renee!
Now, I wanted to share with everyone what song I listen to while writing. I want to note that rock is my general genre of choice, but I'm a sucker for a love song, so this one inspires me when I need inspiration. I can just so clearly imagine Edward and Bella while listening to it. The extremely beautiful song is called, 'Kissing You', by Des'Ree. You can listen to it on my myspace page. (If it sounds familiar, it's because it's the love theme to Leonardo Dicaprio's Romeo and Juliet).
As always, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed, and remind people who haven't reviewed that I have mystical powers and curse them if they read and don't review. (OK, maybe not...but you should review, guys!)
On that note, let's end this A/N session with the ever popular guidelines:
Any questions? REVIEW!
No questions? REVIEW!
Love it? REVIEW!
Hate it? REVIEW!
Don't really care about me or my awesome story? Well, you suck, but you should still REVIEW!
-Q. Kimberly