A few weeks went by. I was hoping that Edward would be back before I had to tell anyone anything but Leah kept shooting me knowing looks, her eyes flicking down to my more prominent belly. I tried to ignore her but that wasn't easy to do. She seemed to be hovering now.

I finally bit the bullet and stood up one evening at dinner. Everyone was talking and laughing, trying to ignore the four empty seats at our table. I nervously cleared my throat and curious eyes turned to me then.

"Hi, um…I have something to say." I twisted my napkin nervously and shot a look at Leah. She smiled encouragingly and I nodded once. "Right. So. I'm pregnant. About three or four months by now."

There was a stunned silence.

"Pregnant?" gasped Esme.

I nodded, shifting my weight anxiously. Esme stood up and came around the table, pulling me into a hug. "Does Edward know?"

I shook my head. "No, I didn't tell him before he left."

She nodded. "That way he won't worry."

"Right."

"We're not giving you more to eat just because you're knocked up," said Jared suddenly. "Otherwise every woman would just get pregnant."

"I'm not asking for more food," I said stiffly. "I didn't plan this."

"Of course you didn't. We're all careful, right?" Esme turned to the rest of the group with a reproachful look on her face.

"Exactly. We're all careful. Obviously the Golden Boy and Girl weren't."

I narrowed my eyes at Jared. "You do realize that condoms aren't 100% effective, right? The only proven method of birth control that any of us have access to is abstinence. And I don't see any of you voluntarily taking that on."

There was a lot of uncomfortable shifting around the table. Honestly, without sex, a lot of us would be bored out of our minds. We'd all read just about every book on the island, we swam to the point of it not being that exciting for anyone over the age of about 10 anymore. Fishing was more for sustenance than relaxation…sex was the one thing that didn't get old. Or at least it hadn't yet.

"So, we're looking at a winter birth," Sam said finally, clearly calculating dates in his head.

I nodded and he leaned forward, his fingers steepled in front of his lips as he thought. "We'll have to figure out what sheets and old clothing items we can spare for diapers and whatever else you'll need. Leah, can you and Angela take that on?"

The two women nodded. "And Emily, you had kids, right?" She nodded. "Good. You can get B up to speed on what she needs to know before the baby comes."

"There are a lot of mothers on this island, Sam, not just Emily," Rosalie said with annoyance. "B will be taken care of by her family."

"As I have no real family," I cut in "all of you are who I could consider family. I'll take advice from everyone."

Sam continued barking orders, setting Harry Clearwater to the task of making a cradle. The old man seemed overjoyed at the prospect and it warmed my heart to see him so excited about it. He hadn't had a lot to do on the island since his health had begun to deteriorate the previous winter.

I sat with him in the afternoons now while the kids were having lessons, keeping him company. We talked about anything and everything. He told me about his kids and grandkids and I told him about my parents and brother. I told him things I hadn't even told Edward about my past and my fears and worries about being a parent, possibly a single parent at that. He assured me none of it was unreasonable or out of the ordinary for a new parent and that made me feel better, more so than all the things the women told me. Most of what they told me scared me shitless.

The time came for the boat to return and then…it went. The days passed and the weather was quickly turning cooler. My stomach was twisted up in knots as I began to walk up to the highest point on the island every morning and evening, scanning the eastern horizon for any hint of white. I'd sit there until it was past time for breakfast and until the sky and sea were indistinguishable from each other. Rosalie was also worried, but it seemed no one was more distracted by the lateness of our loved ones than Esme. Every time I came back, my shoulders slumped in defeat, it seemed as though another little part of her died. It was almost as though the only thing keeping her going was the hope that tomorrow they'd be there. But they never were.

The summer quickly turned to fall and the leaves on the trees dropped, carpeting the ground with the gold and red hues. I continued to climb the hill every morning, hoping against hope that this was the day. My belly was growing quickly, which was a shock to me but a point of relief for the others who had been concerned over the lack of proper nutrition for me.

I was sitting on the hill, watching and waiting, when the first snow came. Esme found me, shivering and staring stubbornly at the horizon.

"B, come inside. It's cold."

"I'm waiting," I chattered.

"Fine, keep waiting, but inside. You have more than just yourself to worry about you know."

I stood up, begrudgingly. I didn't want to leave my perch but my feet and hands were numb and I was beyond cold. She helped me back into the house and into a warm bath to help me thaw out before tucking me into bed. She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, studying me.

"I'm sorry everything has turned out like this," she said finally. "I should consider myself extremely lucky since until recently, I had all three sons safe and sound. Well, not the whole time but you know what I mean. I didn't lose as many as most did. Almost everyone here lost everyone and I didn't lose my children or my grandchildren."

I studied her for a moment. "It's not enough, though," I rasped. "You want to keep them."

"Right." She rubbed my hand between hers for a moment. "I never met Tanya but I have a feeling that he didn't look at her the same way he looks at you."

"How did you even know about her?"

"She sent us their wedding invitation. After the fact of course, but she at least sent it. With a picture."

"So she looked like me?"

"Sort of. It wasn't a very good picture. She had long dark hair like yours and she was pretty. Very pretty."

I shifted in the bed, looking at her curiously. "What about Veronica?"

Her face darkened. "Veronica. There was a mistake. Did Edward tell you his side of the story?"

"She got pregnant, you paid her off, she left and had an abortion."

"Yeah, well, the baby wasn't his."

I stared at her in shock. "It wasn't?"

She shook her head. "We had the baby tested. She had a bit of a reputation. We told her that she could either tell him the truth or we would. She opted to just leave and sent him a letter telling him the story of the pay off and abortion. It never happened."

I sat up then. "It didn't?"

"No." She looked sad. "Nothing we could say would get him to believe us, though. So, he left and we didn't hear from him again until three years ago when the infection hit. It hit there first so we were able to get everything squared away here. We invited our friends and extended family but no one believed it would be so widespread or terrible." She sighed. "In some ways, I'm kind of glad that this all happened because it brought him back to us and you're here now, too."

I smiled sadly and rested my chin in my hands. "Yeah, I still wish it hadn't. I miss my family."

"Of course you do," she murmured, smoothing my hair. She leaned forward and kissed my forehead. "Go to sleep. We'll both go check tomorrow."

But we didn't. The next morning, we all woke up to find that Harry had passed away in the night. Sue was a mess, keening for her husband of sixty years.

The men chipped out a grave in the frozen ground in the little graveyard and we wrapped Harry in sheets and buried him, saying a few words over his snowy grave. Esme wrapped her arms around Sue and brought her back up to the house with us, settling her in one of the empty rooms. Rosalie and I went to the small area of the bunkhouse that had been the Clearwater's and gathered up their few belongings and brought them with us.

"I don't know what I'll do if Emmett doesn't come back," she said softly, hugging the bundle of belongings to her chest.

I nodded, unable to even voice the hollow ache in my chest at the mere thought of Edward not returning.

Now there were four women crying at night. One for a man who would never come home, three for men we weren't sure would ever come home.

That winter was especially hard for the island. We were constantly buffeted by storms, blanketed in snow. To stretch the wood piles we had, we all moved into the main house together. Sue moved into my room with me and the Blacks took the room she'd been in. It was two to a room without exception now, sometimes more where the children were concerned. The animals were housed in one of the bunkhouses to keep them warm and our duties now included cleaning up after them. Sue and I were mercifully spared that duty and we stayed indoors tending to the cooking and cleaning we could do there, entertaining the children as best we could.

My belly grew too large for me to safely make it up the hill on my own anymore, so Esme or Rosalie would go with me and look, twice a day when we could. We were always hopeful. Maybe next time.

By the time Christmas rolled around, I was too big for anyone to let me go. I'd wait on pins and needles, pacing slowly up and down on the porch until Rosalie and Esme returned, shoulders slumped in defeat with hopeful smiles on their faces. It was hard to believe them, since I hadn't been to see it myself, but I had to take their word for it.

Christmas was somber. The raiders hadn't been able to find much to make it special this year, though we did kill a couple of the fatter turkeys and roasted them. They were delicious, but it was tempered by how frail Alice looked and the absence of our loved ones. Sue and I held each other and cried that night.

January started blustery, another blizzard dumping more snow on the island. We attempted to skate some when the weather was good, but even then, it was difficult. It was in January that Alice died.

She went quietly, holding Lizbet in her arms, leaning against Jasper, while Carlisle read to everyone from a book. Alice in Wonderland. We were going to bed when Jasper realized what had happened. I wordlessly stepped forward and took Lizbet, cradling her against me and carrying her out. She didn't need to know in the future that she'd been in her mother's arms the moment she died. She slept in the bed with Sue and I. It was crowded and I nearly fell out but it was worth it to have that extra warmth.

The next morning the men again chipped a ragged hole into the ground for Alice's body. Watching as they lowered the sheet wrapped body into the dark hole, my heart broke. I hated the thought of her in that dark cold place. She had been such a lively warm person, full of light and laughter and love. It didn't seem fair that she was being taken away.

Lizbet was confused, not understanding what had happened to her mother. Sally and Claire took her under their wing and the three girls were in turn taken under Rachel and Rebecca's wings. The five became inseparable after that, reading and playing together in spite of the fourteen year age span between them.

Jasper was broken after that, mostly going through the motions of the work that needed to be done. He threw himself into every task with vigor, doing the work of two men. We worried he would injure himself but nothing we said would slow him down.

Bobby and Josh took after him, working hard and ignoring our pleas to slow down. They frequently fell asleep at dinner and it was awkward trying to carry them to their room, so we simply pushed them over onto the floor. If the fall didn't wake them, we'd leave them until morning.

The days continued to drag and the climbs to the hill continued to show nothing. Our stores also continued to dwindle. I was close to my due date and even though I knew the baby wouldn't be eating the food we had, I was still worried. I was terrified we were going to die of starvation on the island.