It was early morning—not yet sunrise—when I woke Jacob. I had noticed that Bella's face was flushed with heat in her sleep, and took his place at her side to cool her down. Although I knew it was petty of me to do so, I made a point of carefully pulling her into my arms in a way that would have been inappropriate for him to do.
Jacob was already planning the run he was going to take once he was back in wolf form, deep into the trees to ensure Sam's pack really was staying close to La Push as anticipated. "Thank you," I said quietly. "If the route is clear, they'll go today." He knew that I meant my family's intended hunting trip.
"I'll let you know," he replied, and left without further ceremony.
Rosalie looked up from the magazine she was reading, sprawled out in a big easy chair situated across from the sofa. "Do you want me to do that?"
I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, Rosalie. I think I can manage holding my wife in my arms," I retorted sarcastically.
"I was just offering, you don't have to bite my head off," she snapped. Jeez. Touchy.
"Let's not pretend that you can't imagine what I could possibly feel touchy about."
"I'm trying to do the right thing here, Edward. She asked me to. No, she begged me to."
I blocked out her thoughts when she started to run through the panicked telephone call she had received from Bella just before we left the island. I had heard it before, and I didn't enjoy it. The fact that I had made Bella feel that desperate—that terrified—made my heart hurt.
"Yes, but perhaps you didn't have to take her quite so literally and treat me like I'm her worst enemy. Like I intentionally want to hurt her." My eyes narrowed. "And don't act like I don't know what your interest is in all this. It's certainly not Bella."
"I'm on her side, though, Edward. Her primary concern above all else is the baby. So is mine. She's willing to die for him. I'm supporting her in that choice."
I was momentarily speechless. That was quite an interpretation of the situation. Was there nothing she couldn't justify to make herself feel like she was always in the right?
Maybe you're the one who's being selfish, she added, but didn't have the temerity to say it out loud so the rest of the family could hear it.
I growled, nearly snarled as my upper lip curled back from my teeth. I think I would have made it to her throat before anyone could stop me this time, except that I didn't want to wake my sleeping wife. Rosalie merely huffed in response. She stood up abruptly, throwing her magazine back into the chair cushions. With a scathing glare in my direction, she stomped off up the stairs.
"I believe her, you know," Esme said softly as she entered the room from the kitchen. She quietly padded over to the sofa and sat down on the armrest beside me. "Rosalie. That she sees it that way."
"I know she does," I replied, trying to keep my voice even and not snap at my mother. I really was not in the mood to listen to anyone try to defend her. "Remember, I can hear her thoughts?"
"Of course you can. But that doesn't mean you're interpreting what you're hearing correctly. Or fairly. I mean, you know that Rosalie is loyal to a fault to this family. When it comes right down to it, she'd do anything for any of us, and she does everything she can to make sure we all stay safe and happy."
I stared at her. She had to be kidding.
"Remember how Rosalie acted when you first met Bella? How much she was against you having anything to do with her?" She reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder.
Oh, I remembered that well, indeed. "Of course. Apparently that grudge has carried right through to the present day."
She ignored that comment. "You should also remember, then, that that had nothing to do with Bella personally. Rose was just worried about what might happen to the family if Bella or any other humans found out what we are. Or if Jasper or any of the rest of us—including you—couldn't control ourselves around her."
I had to admit that was true. Her actions then had made me furious, but I had always known that it wasn't because she didn't like Bella specifically. She would have been the same way regarding any human. "Well, Bella is part of this family now, and Rosalie certainly isn't doing anything to help keep her safe and happy."
Esme gave my shoulder a squeeze. "The way Rosalie sees it, that baby is part of the family, too, and deserves to be protected just as much as the rest of us. And Bella asked her specifically—no one else, not Carlisle, not me, not Alice—to help her do just that, because she knew that she could count on Rosalie to do it. She knew Rosalie would understand, and see it her way." She hesitated a moment. "In fact, I'd bet that Bella putting that kind of faith in her touched Rosalie so much that she felt there was absolutely no way she could say no. I'd bet that Rosalie felt kind of honoured. Special to Bella, in this way at least."
I was speechless yet again.
It didn't make me any less angry with Rosalie for being so cavalier about Bella's life, but I hadn't thought of it that way before. It made an odd kind of sense.
My mother may not have been telepathic like I was, but she understood her family.
I was still struggling for something to say when Bella suddenly went rigid in my arms, then crumpled and awoke with a scream, her eyes wide and her face gripped with pain.
Worse was the other sound, just as she screamed.
Another crack.
Another bone!
"Bella! Love, what is it? Where does it hurt?" I demanded, panicked, trying to remember not to clutch her too hard against my chest.
She was panting now, gasping, unable to speak. I was on my feet in an instant.
"Carlisle!" I shouted unnecessarily, sprinting up the stairs with Bella in my arms. He was already in the doorway of his office. Emmett, Rosalie, Alice and Jasper had stepped into the hallway from their bedrooms as well. Rosalie strode toward us, her expression as worried as I had ever seen it.
"What happened?" she demanded. "Bella? What happened? Did the baby kick again?"
Bella simply gasped in reply. Tears were streaming down her face, but she managed to point toward her lower abdomen. Not a rib, then. Her pelvis?
"Carlisle, see where's pointing," I said. "Could it be her pelvis? I heard another crack."
"A crack?" Rosalie repeated. "There was no crack. I didn't hear anything."
"Rosalie, you weren't even in the room!" I snapped.
"I have spent so much time in the past two weeks listening like hell to every last little sound Bella's body has made, I can tell you, I would have heard a crack!" she snarled in reply.
Carlisle didn't have to tell me to get Bella situated for yet another X-ray. Bella didn't have to ask me to stay with her and hold her hand. She was quivering with the effort of not crying out loud again.
I felt so nauseated I had to fight to stay standing. I focused on Bella's grip on my hand, as much pressure as I had ever felt her exert. She was channelling the pain into that action.
As Carlisle took the steps he needed to, however, Bella's grasp gradually loosened. She had stopped crying, so I gently brushed the last tears from her cheeks with the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding hers. Her breathing was starting to even out, and she seemed to be regaining some colour in her cheeks.
When she could speak, she croaked out, "Don't think anything broke. But it hurt. A lot."
"Maybe it was just a really hard kick, Bella," Rosalie suggested. She stood a few feet away, poised to spring into action if she was needed.
Carlisle was looking at the image from the machine, a frown of concentration marking his face as he studied it. "That's what I'm thinking, too. There's no evidence of any new breaks. In her pelvis or anywhere else." Despite that, I knew that he didn't like the force of that kick. The creature was getting exponentially stronger by the hour.
I exhaled heavily. I hadn't even realized I had been holding a large breath of air in my lungs. I could almost taste the relief. "Oh, love," I murmured, burying my face in Bella's hair at the top of her head. "I am so sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am that this is happening to you."
"Don't apologize," she replied softly, her brow creasing. "You'll see, Edward. It's going to be worth it. I'm not afraid."
I am.
"See, I told you didn't hear a crack," Rosalie stated smugly. "You need your ears checked, Edward." She smiled at Bella. "You must be famished, Bella. You were asleep a long time. Maybe the baby's hungry, too. Maybe that's why he kicked. I'll get you something to...uh...drink." She busied herself filling Bella's plastic cup from the blood supply in the small fridge Carlisle had set up in his office.
Carlisle had lifted Bella's sweatshirt and was quickly examining her swollen abdomen. I tried not to fixate on the sight of her skin, impossibly stretched and bruised. Every purple splotch hit me like someone was kicking me in the gut.
I would never get over the guilt. Never.
"I don't see anything else, Bella," Carlisle's face was still drawn with worry at the strength the kick must have had to make her scream aloud like that. Next time she may not be so lucky as to find nothing broken. "It must have just been a particularly hard kick."
I bent to press my lips to Bella's forehead. "Do you want me to put you to bed, love?"
"No...the sofa's fine," she gratefully took the now-full plastic cup Rosalie handed her and sipped hard on the straw. She seemed to have gotten over the self-consciousness she had felt previously about drinking human blood in front of anyone else. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.
"All right." Gently, I lifted her into my arms and headed for the staircase, ducking to press my lips to her forehead, which was still damp with sweat. I could see her flinch with every movement, and held her as carefully as I could so that she wouldn't be jostled as I walked.
I wasn't sure which was worse: the pain she was experiencing, or the lengths she was going to to try and conceal it from us—from me.
Bella saw Jacob Black at the foot of the stairs before I even realized he was there. I had been vaguely aware of Alice having a conversation with someone, but hadn't paid attention to who it was.
"Jake," she whispered, forcing a smile through the pain.
He merely stared at her, unable to speak or move. He was stunned by the hurt etched into her features. He couldn't even formulate a coherent thought for my benefit, even to blame me for it.
Carlisle came slowly down the stairs as I settled Bella onto the couch and sat down on the floor near her head. He was still worried, running through possibilities, trying to think of solutions, anything he could possibly do to ease her pain. It was even more difficult given that she refused to take any kind of medication stronger than aspirin or ibuprofen.
"Carlisle," Jacob seemed relieved to have something else to focus on for a moment. "We went halfway to Seattle. There's no sign of the pack. You're good to go."
"Thank you, Jacob," Carlisle replied softly. "This is good timing. There's much that we need." He glanced at Bella's plastic cup. The blood supplies in particular were getting low.
"Honestly, I think you're safe to take more than three. I'm pretty positive that Sam is concentrating on La Push."
Carlisle nodded, trusting Jacob's advice without hesitation. He knew I would tell him if there was anything in Jacob's thoughts that should give us concern beyond what Jacob was saying out loud. "If you think so. Alice, Esme, Jasper, and I will go. Then Alice can take Emmett and Rosa—"
"Not a chance," Rosalie hissed. "Emmett can go with you now."
"You should hunt," Carlisle told her in a gentle voice. He was concerned about her appearance. I had barely registered it, but dark purple circles were starting to mark her perfect face almost as much as they marked mine. Her eyes were pitch black.
"I'll hunt when he does," she growled, nodding her head towards me and tossing her hair defiantly. Carlisle sighed, but I couldn't muster the will to care whether Rosalie fed or not.
Emmett, Jasper, Alice and Esme gathered at the back door quickly and waited for Carlisle. Carlisle put his hand lightly on Jacob's arm, startling Jacob with the coldness of his touch. "Thank you," he said simply, then darted out the door with the others. They vanished into the trees within seconds.
Jacob hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether he would go into the trees himself for some sleep, or whether he would stay with Bella for a while—and antagonize Rosalie.
He settled on the latter, and folded himself into the armchair next to Rosalie's, ensuring that he sprawled out just enough that his left foot would be near her face.
In other circumstances, I might have laughed.
"Ew. Someone put the dog out," she muttered, making a show of wrinkling her nose.
"Have you heard this one, Psycho?" he said in a leisurely voice. "How do a blonde's brain cells die?"
This was actually one she had not heard before, but she wasn't about to take the bait.
"Well?" he asked. "Do you know the punch line or not?"
She ignored him, flipping the television on with the remote control she held in her hand.
"Has she heard it?" he asked me.
"No," I murmured, not turning my gaze from Bella's face. Her features seemed to be relaxing further, and I was grateful that the pain seemed to have subsided at least a little—for the moment.
"Awesome. So you'll enjoy this, bloodsucker—a blonde's brain cells die alone."
"I have killed a hundred times more often than you have, you disgusting beast," Rosalie said evenly, still not bothering to look at him. "Don't forget that."
"Someday, Beauty Queen, you're going to get tired of just threatening me. I'm really looking forward to that."
I almost wished she would give him an excuse to strike at her. It would save me from doing it, and that way Emmett couldn't be angry with me.
"Enough, Jacob," Bella sighed, scowling.
"You want me to take off?" he asked her. He wondered whether she was finally ready to let him go. While he certainly feared that might be the case, he almost longed for it, too. I had a brief moment of hope. Could we possibly be on the verge of solving at least one of my problems?
In typical Bella fashion, however, her scowl cleared and she looked upset at the idea he would leave her. "No! Of course not."
I was unable to hold back a small sigh, and was glad that Jacob's heavier sigh drowned it out.
"You look tired," Bella remarked, casting her eyes over his face.
"Dead beat," he admitted.
"I'd like to beat you dead," Rosalie muttered, but kept her voice low enough that Bella would not hear her.
Jacob ignored that remark and slumped deeper into the chair, perhaps settling in to sleep. The smell of vampire in the house didn't seem to be bothering him as it had before. I barely registered the wolf scent myself. Oddly, we were getting used to each other.
Everyone was silent for a moment. Rosalie had muted the volume on the television, so the only audible sound was Jacob's and Bella's breathing.
"Rose..." Bella said after a few moments, gesturing toward her now-empty cup.
"Of course," Rosalie had taken the cup and darted upstairs before Bella could even finish the question.
I continued to study Bella's face in the silence. She had closed her eyes and relaxed into the cushions, her left hand extended to rest on my shoulder. The three of us presented a strange tableau, I thought...the teenage yet 108-year-old vampire, his hugely pregnant human wife, and her werewolf of a best friend, all huddled together in the living room of an elegant house hidden deep in the forest of the Olympic peninsula. Surely someone should be writing a story about this. The situation was bizarre enough to inspire a whole new genre.
No longer contorted with pain, Bella's features were as beautiful as ever. I would never become complacent about the sight of her, of her porcelain skin and long dark eyelashes, her thick mane of hair bunched around her shoulders. She was as stunning as ever, but I desperately missed the way she had been before this nightmare had started, happy, full of life, and thrilled to be alone with me on the island. I wondered if we would ever know that kind of contentment, ever again. I was filled with longing for it, the want wrestling for dominance with the fear and guilt and self-loathing that saturated every cell of my body.
I reached out to stroke her cheek with the backs of my fingers, but suddenly froze, my hand halfway to its destination.
I had heard something. Not a sound, but a thought. Yet not a thought, exactly. Not words. More like a feeling or a sensation—several feelings and sensations.
Warmth...hunger...contentment...
It wasn't Jacob or Rosalie. Or anyone else I knew. Bella? Was I suddenly hearing Bella?
"Did you say something?" I asked, staring at her. She had felt me freeze next to her and was staring back, confused. I concentrated hard, extending my mind out to hers as I had probably a million times before, in all of the moments I had desperately wished I could know what she, of all people, was thinking.
"Me?" she asked. "I didn't say anything."
I got up on my knees and leaned toward her, still concentrating, fixing my eyes on hers. "What are you thinking about right now?"
Warmth...hunger...contentment...
She stared back at me blankly. "Nothing. What's going on?"
"What were you thinking about a minute ago?"
"Just...Esme's island. And feathers." She automatically blushed a faint crimson.
Warmth...hunger...contentment...love...
"Say something else," I whispered. Still not thoughts exactly, but definitely mental processes. Impressions. Feelings.
"Like what?" she demanded. "Edward, what's going on?"
Love...love...love... A sensation of overwhelming, unconditional love, intensified whenever she spoke. It was love for Bella. It was love so all-consuming it mirrored my own. And it wasn't Jacob. It was...
Impossible!
But it had to be!
Still on my knees, I reached out and very gently placed my hands on Bella's huge, rounded stomach. I was aware that Rosalie had reappeared in the room, but ignored her gasp of surprise.
"The f—" I swallowed. Fetus? The word was too clinical, too detached for what I was hearing—or feeling—from it. There was no other possible source for these thoughts. "It..." I struggled to form the words. "...the baby likes the sound of your voice."
An astonished silence fell on the room like a blanket. Bella's eyes were as wide as saucers as she stared at me and realized what I was saying.
"Holy, crow, you can hear him!" she shouted, then winced with pain.
I had felt that one under my hands. There had been a kick, a reaction of surprise in response to Bella yelling out loud.
I watched as one of my hands trailed up over her belly to the top, rubbing gently over the spot where the kick had landed. It was as if they were moving of their own volition. I didn't feel connected to them, to any part of my body. I was too light-headed with shock. And emotion.
"Shh," I heard myself murmur. "You startled it...him."
Her eyes widened even further. She was astonished, too, but patted the side of her stomach lightly. "Sorry, baby."
I barely heard her as I struggled to focus, to listen again. Jacob's and Rosalie's minds were both racing, and I had to concentrate to block them out and keep my own mind from reeling.
"What's he thinking now?" Bella demanded eagerly, trying to prop herself up on her elbows.
"It...he or she, is..." I paused and looked up into her eyes, which were now shining with wonder and excitement. She looked awestruck. She was stunned, but not in the same way that I was. She was vindicated. I was...blown away.
I had expected, assumed, nothing but evil. Nothing but a parasite's selfish desire to suck the life out of its host and come bursting into the world to wreak havoc and devastation.
In my wildest imagination, I hadn't expected the overwhelming sense of love for its mother. The contentment. The happiness to be alive.
"He's happy," I finally managed to say, the incredulity saturating my voice.
Bella's breath caught. The biggest smile I had seen on her face since the island lit up her features, and tears of unadulterated joy slid down her face.
She was stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. She glowed.
"Of course you're happy, pretty baby, of course you are," she sang in a soothing voice, rubbing her stomach as the tears fell from her chin and dampened the collar of her sweatshirt. "How could you not be, all safe and warm and loved? I love you so much, little EJ, of course you're happy."
Happy...content...love...
I decided that it wasn't exactly accurate to say that I could hear these thoughts coming from the being inside Bella's body. It was more like I could feel the emotions myself, as if they were my own. I could feel their intensity, especially when Bella spoke.
I had thought it was a monster intent on or at least careless as to whether it killed her. But it...
It loved her. It loved her like I did. It didn't want to hurt her at all.
I couldn't process the flurry of my own emotions. They were passing over me too quickly. Amazement...wonder...relief.
Overwhelming relief.
If it loved her this much, just maybe...
I heard my voice, but wasn't conscious of having decided to say anything. "What did you call him?"
Bella blushed again. "I sort of named him. I didn't think you would want...well, you know."
Named him? No, of course I hadn't thought of naming him...or her. I couldn't tell which. Naming him had been just about the last thing on my mind. "EJ?"
"Your father's name was Edward, too," she replied simply.
"Yes, it was," I murmured absently. Edward Junior? Edward Masen the third?
For all the strange things I had seen in my long decades of existence, my imagination had never been wild enough to conjure up that scenario. I had firmly, permanently discarded it as a possibility ninety years ago.
Love...happy...
"What--?" I heard my voice say. I didn't think I could get more surprised than I already was, but this time the emotions weren't directed toward Bella.
They were directed toward me. The sound of my voice.
My heart swelled. I could only croak out a noise, not a word: "Hmm."
"What?" Bella demanded again. She was studying my every reaction, trying to discern what I was hearing from my face.
"He likes my voice, too," I heard myself say, impossibly.
"Of course he does," she stated flatly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You have the most beautiful voice in the universe. Who wouldn't love it?"
I was almost startled when Rosalie leaned over the back of the sofa. I had forgotten anyone else was even in the room. Her expression was full of wonder, too, and she felt smug. Vindicated, the same as Bella. I told you, you pessimistic idiot, she shot at me, forcefully enough to catch my attention despite the fact that I had been trying to ignore everything else to focus on the...baby.
"Do you have a backup plan?" Rosalie asked. "What if he's a she?"
Bella absently wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. It occurred to me that I should get her a tissue, but I was frozen to the spot, my hands still resting on her belly. "I kicked a few things around," she admitted. "Playing with Renee and Esme. I was thinking...Ruh-nez-may."
"Ruhnezmay?" Rosalie repeated.
"R-e-n-e-s-m-e-e. Too weird?"
"No, I like it," Rosalie assured her, her blonde hair next to and contrasting with Bella's chestnut mane. "It's beautiful. And one of a kind, so that fits."
"I still think he's an Edward."
I heard that but was having significant trouble processing it. I couldn't organize my thoughts.
The vicious monster I had hated and feared really was a baby.
My baby.
And my wife wanted to name it after me.
It didn't make sense. It wasn't possible.
Except that it was.
Like so many other things I had deemed impossible since meeting Bella, it was possible after all. Because it had really happened.
The evidence was right in front of me.
Bella's face glowed as she looked at me, watched me stare into space as I concentrated again.
Love...love...love...
The emotion was pure and clear. Unmistakeable.
"What?" Bella asked me, still beaming. "What's he thinking now?"
I paused, still concentrating.
Love...love...love...
I leaned over and laid my right ear gently on Bella's abdomen, wondering if the contact would help me hear—feel—more. I faintly registered three gasps of surprise in the room.
"He loves you," I whispered, dazed. Astonished. Stunned. There weren't enough adjectives in the English language to describe it. I was going to have to pull some more from a few other languages. "He absolutely adores you."
Bella's hand fell to the back of my neck, her fingers stroking my hair tenderly.
She had always felt connected to the life growing inside her, from the first moment she realized what it was.
For the first time, I felt it, too.
I basked in it, rejoiced in it, my ear to her stomach and her hand on my neck. Against all conceivable odds, my decades of loneliness had ended with finding my soul mate, and now our little bubble of perfection was not going to burst as I had feared. It was simply going to expand, and include...our baby.
The fates hadn't been mocking me. They had been giving me an unimaginable gift. Another unimaginable gift. We were a family. An actual, biological family.
Suddenly, as if from nowhere, another set of emotions poured over me. Rage. Betrayal. Suffering. Pain. Loathing.
They were such a sharp, knife-edged contrast to the love and contentment I had been revelling in that I gasped, choked on a non-verbal noise deep in my throat.
But I knew immediately where they were coming from: Jacob had leapt to his feet and was quivering with the negativity coursing through his body and mind. He didn't know what to do or where to go, but he knew he needed to get out of there. Now.
Reacting without thinking, I gave him what I would have wanted if I were in his situation: a means of escape. In one movement, I leapt over to the end table, snatched my car keys out of the drawer and tossed them to him. "Go, Jacob. Get away from here."
He caught them easily and said nothing before turning to sprint for the garage.
Bella was blinking in surprise, startled by the sudden movement. She had clearly forgotten he was even there. "What...what?" she managed to say.
I felt my jaw tighten. I didn't blame him at all for his reaction to what he had just seen. He had been counting on me as the one person who felt as he did, who hated this baby like poison and couldn't bear to see Bella suffer for it for one second. He felt betrayed, abandoned and alone in his grief. He felt the way he had when Bella had told him she was choosing me, that she was going to marry me.
I wasn't without empathy.
"Don't worry about that dog, Bella," Rosalie said, trying to be soothing. "He'll come back. He always does." She arched an eyebrow at me. "I can't believe you gave him the keys to your Aston Martin, though. He'll probably total it on purpose."
"It's just a car, Rosalie," I murmured, and shook my head to clear it. I couldn't focus on his grief right now. The biggest thing—or maybe the second biggest thing—that had ever happened to me in my long existence had just occurred. I was still having enough trouble processing that.
Bella bit her lower lip, worried. One hand still rubbed her belly absently. "He...he won't hurt himself, will he?"
"I don't think so, love," I assured her. Truthfully, I didn't know, although I doubted it. Jacob had never struck me as the least bit suicidal. Like me, as long as Bella stayed in the world, he would stay in it, too, no matter what he had to endure. I knelt back down on the floor next to her and placed my hand over hers, on her stomach. She switched our positions so that my hand was against the fabric of her sweatshirt, hers overtop of mine. She smiled broadly again, distracted from her concern for Jacob.
"What's he thinking now?"
I couldn't help but smile back. I had a feeling she would be asking me this every two minutes from now on. "It's not exactly thoughts that I'm getting, love. More like impressions or feelings. I don't think he exactly understands language yet, so it's not as though he's forming words."
"Okay, what's he feeling now?"
I concentrated for a moment. Still warm, still content, still happy, still filled with love...but also... I grinned. It had been so long since I had smiled like that, it felt strange on my face, like it was stretching long-unused, nearly atrophied muscles. "Hungry. He's hungry."
"I certainly have just the thing for that," Rosalie said, and snatched the now-full plastic cup from where she had set it on the end table. Bella took it gratefully.
"Does he like anything other than blood?" she asked, drawing heavily on the straw. Once more I noted that she didn't give a second thought now to consuming a cup full of human blood.
Again, I concentrated for a moment. "I can't tell. I don't think he knows the difference between...foods. He just knows when he's hungry."
"At least it will be helpful for us to have that much information," Rosalie observed. "Maybe if we can keep him settled down he won't kick you as much, Bella."
I nodded. "That seems logical." I certainly hoped that was the case, anyway. It would be a humungous relief to be able to take proactive steps to minimize Bella's pain.
"I think he's just running out of room in there," Bella hummed affectionately between sips, her free hand still on top of mine. She squeezed my fingers. "Isn't that why he kicks? I wish we could ask him somehow."
"He seems to react to what he hears us saying, or at least the tone of our voices. Perhaps if we can stay calm and keep him fed and content, he'll stay settled and not hurt you, as Rose suggests." I paused thoughtfully. "For how much he loves you, Bella, I think I can say confidently that he doesn't want to hurt you."
"Of course he doesn't," she crooned, lifting her hand from mine to rub the side of her belly, "He's a good boy, I know it."
Rosalie smiled and shook her head in amusement. "You should at least switch back and forth between calling him a 'he' or a 'she'. You're going to be in for a big surprise if it really is a girl."
"Habit," Bella shrugged happily. "It's just what I've imagined from the beginning. A little Edward in my arms, all bronze hair and green eyes."
My stone heart swelled at the adoring look she gave me as she said it. The surge of emotion stole my ability to reply. I tried to imagine what she imagined...a smaller version of...me. Toddling around this very living room. Older, old enough to play a little vampire baseball with me and Emmett and Jasper.
But really, now that I allowed myself to consider it at all, what I hoped for was a little Bella in my arms. Thick mahogany waves, long eyelashes over chocolate brown eyes. Two Bellas for all the love in my heart that now seemed to be too big for just one.
I hadn't realized Bella and I were just staring at each other, probably with as much goo and adoration in our eyes as had ever been there, until Rosalie cleared her throat.
"Do you think we should call Carlisle?" she asked. "He should probably be told about this new development."
I managed to pull myself out of the moment and nod. "Yes, that's true. I'll call him."
Carlisle answered his cell phone on the first ring, his voice panicked. Of course, he assumed something was terribly wrong—if not with Bella, then with the wolves. "Edward? What is it?" I could hear Esme murmuring worriedly next to him.
"Nothing's wrong, Carlisle. Everything is fine here," I assured him quickly. "I just wanted to let you know there's been an interesting change." I explained what had happened, and that it seemed I had been able to establish a kind of rudimentary communication with the baby.
He was quiet, thoughtful. "That is interesting," he murmured eventually. "And potentially helpful." He repeated what we had discussed earlier about the possibility that we could now keep the baby calm and less inclined to hurt Bella.
"Yes, that's what we thought, too. But I had another thought, Carlisle. If the baby is at the stage now where he can understand us and I can understand him, maybe he's more developed than we've realized. Every hour he stays in Bella's womb is another hour that he might do something to harm her, whether he means to or not. And it's another hour that something else could go wrong. Perhaps we should look at adjusting the schedule and delivering him as soon as possible."
Bella and Rosalie both stared at me, surprised. I hadn't mentioned that to them yet, but it had actually just occurred to me.
Naturally, Rosalie was the first to voice an objection. "Wait a second, Edward. How do we know that's safe?"
"It's not a bad thought at all, son," Carlisle mused. "At most, he would be the equivalent of a few weeks premature, if he could be considered premature at all. Human babies are delivered early all the time in those circumstances, where there's a risk in waiting. I'd like to have some additional equipment on hand, though, to deal with any possible complications involved in delivering early."
Rosalie could hear Carlisle's side of the conversation as easily as I could. I held the phone near Bella's ear so she could hear also. However, it was Rosalie that scowled. "Complications?" she repeated. "I don't like the sound of that."
"There are potential complications in leaving him where he is, too, Rose," Carlisle told her. "At least this way we can control the situation and be prepared. He probably is running out of room. It may not be safe for him not to get him out as soon as we can."
Rosalie didn't look convinced, but Bella was merely studying my face. "I trust you, Edward," she said softly. "I trust you to do what's best. Both you and Carlisle."
I squeezed her hand gently, touched by her faith in me and her faith that my feelings had been sufficiently converted that I wouldn't take unnecessary risks with the baby any more than I would take unnecessary risks with her.
Her faith was well-founded.
"When can you be back, Carlisle?" I asked.
"We'll finish with the hunting as quickly as we can, then pick up the supplies we need. I'll call now and order the few additional things I want to have for the delivery, and tell them to put a rush on it. I should think we can be back by noon tomorrow."
"Okay. We'll see you then." I snapped the phone shut and kissed Bella's forehead. "Tomorrow, love."
"Tomorrow," she breathed, a wide smile breaking across her face. "I can't wait to meet him."
Rosalie was still at least mildly concerned with the new plan, but she patted Bella's cheek affectionately. "Me either." You and Carlisle had better be right about this, Edward.
We were. I could feel it.
This was going to turn out all right after all.