Chapter 11: Undercover

Alice's plan is brilliant. Seriously, I owe her a really nice birthday gift. Maybe a pony or something.

The doctor we are investigating is in Port Angeles, so I have the ride there and the ride back to interact with Bella. You know, with the windows down and all.

Then, the appointment itself gives me a chance to find out more about Bella's pregnancy.

Bella's not thrilled by the idea but she goes along with it because she's still in that first week of work mindset where you want to impress your employer even if he's a vampire and you think he's creepy.

Carlisle finesses her regular obstetrician's staff to make an appointment with Dr. Richards by telling them that Bella is going to be in Port Angeles for the week.

I figure we could go truly "undercover," like with phony names and all but then I wouldn't be able to get any good dirt on Bella's pregnancy. So she is going as herself and I, uh, well we don't really talk about who I am but I'm pretty determined to act like her boyfriend/"baby-daddy"/whatever for a couple reasons: a) It might subconsciously convince her to accept me in that, uh, position, b) it gives me an excuse to go into the exam room with her and c) Emmett told me I didn't have the guts to.

I pick Bella up after school, which attracts a little attention. And by a little, I mean total jaws-dropping, "what's he doing here" rubber-necking. Of course, doing my archaic "get out of the car and open the door for her" thing because I am that square.

I get into the Volvo and start the drive to Port Angeles. Bella is anxiously pulling at her clothes and fidgeting with the seat belt.

"I don't really know what I'm supposed to do once we get there," she says nervously. "I don't have any experience with this detective thing." I smile at her cheerfully.

"All you have to do is show up for an appointment with the obstetrician. I'll take care of the rest." I tap my forehead. She frowns.

"I don't really know what that means," she says and taps her forehead in imitation of me.

"I'll just listen," I say.

"What if he doesn't mention the other doctor?"

"I'll ask and if he doesn't say anything out loud I can hear what he's thinking at least."

She looks at me with surprise and I realize that she has no idea I can read minds. I'm irritated because I know my sister managed to find time to mention to Bella that I listened to The Cure obsessively in the eighties and nineties and that I have a piece of the fence from Wrigley Field in a safe in my room but she couldn't be bothered to mention the fact that I can read minds.

I'd be willing to bet she also hasn't mentioned the fact that she's like a Magic 8-Ball with a manicure.

"You read minds?" She asks, looking embarrassed.

"Yes." I say, watching her carefully. She looks really uncomfortable.

"So, when I first saw you, you know, before you started lunging at me and had to be restrained, you saw what I was thinking?" I am now dying to know what she was thinking.

"I can't read your mind. What were you thinking?" She looks relieved.

"Nothing, just about books and stuff." I look at her skeptically. She won't make eye contact for a minute.

Then she says: "So am I the only mind you can't read?"

"You and your baby, although my fetus-reading powers are questionable. And you might be blocking the baby's mind so I might be able to read it after it's born."

"I can't imagine that babies have terribly sophisticated thoughts. I mean, it probably is like 'food, warm, dark', right?"

"Yeah, pretty close. It's pictures and feelings, mostly."

I am relieved that she doesn't seem freaked out by the mind-reading thing.

"Can I put some music on?" she gestured towards the radio.

"Sure," I say.

"What kind of stuff do you listen to?" She asks. God, do I tell her the truth and highlight for her how old I am?

"Uh, I like lots of stuff. Jazz, classical, rock, whatever." I hope this is innocuous enough.

"I listen to, I guess, what they call classic rock?" she looks at me with a sudden smirk. "You know, stuff that came out when you were in your sixties?"

"Funny. Go ahead and put it on and I'll tell you what I was doing when the song came out." She looks at me with amusement. "Really?" She seems delighted as she turns the radio to a Port Angeles station. We tune into the end of "Layla." Great, a song about unrequited love. Fucking Clapton.

"1970. We were living in Scotland so Emmett could connect with his roots. Alice loved this song. She would make me play the piano solo over and over. This song makes me think of haggis and Emmett in a kilt." She laughs.

We listen to a few more songs before "Free Bird" come on and I make her change the station. There's only so much a man can take.

When we get to the office we take seats in the waiting room and wait for Dr. Richards to call us. Looking around I realize that ALL of the pregnant women are staring at me. There's also a curious dichotomy in the thoughts coming in my direction. Half of them are contemplating lewd acts with me and the other half are horrified that Bella's so young. I am only 17 physically but Alice has been picking my clothes to make me look a little more mature, to fit my supposed age. So I guess I look like one of those college guys who date (and apparently impregnate) high school girls.

I decide to take advantage of our ruse so I present my open palm to Bella to hold. She looks at it for a moment, as if contemplating her choices. I mean, I guess she might be interpreting my gesture to mean I want a high-five or some money but I doubt it.

Then she slips her hand into mine and closes her fingers.

I have never touched Bella before. This explains why I didn't know that I would feel this warm, tingling feeling when we touched. I know she can feel it too because I hear her intake of breath and I can feel a slight tremor in her hand.

I'm never going to let go of her hand. Seriously. It feels that good. I'm not thinking of her blood or her fragility or even the fact that she doesn't really like me.

All I can focus on is her hand. Bella's hand made me feel human and connected to another person in a way that I had never felt.

I wallowed in my sappy-ass thoughts about this while remaining perfectly still so I didn't scare her hand off.

"Isabella Swan?" The assistant calls her name and Bella smiles at me nervously and gets up. I am forced to let go of her hand around which my world revolves. I follow her as the assistant leads her down the hall and to an exam room. She leaves us there.

"This is going to be just some questions and an ultrasound. If this doctor has to do anything else," Bella eyes me sternly, "you're out of here, OK?"

I hold my hands up, "There's no way I would invade your privacy…like that." She nods at me and sits down on the exam table.

"So, do you want to pretend I'm the father?" I want to get giggly just saying it but I'm worried that the action with be horrifying on me. Bella frowns at me.

"No, not if they're going to coordinate with my doctor in Forks."

"Why not? I mean, it wouldn't bother me." I don't make eye contact with her for this one so she can't see just how much it wouldn't bother me.

"Yeah, that's not going to work. Thank you for offering, though. That's very sweet."

I don't have a chance to capitalize on my excruciating sweetness because the doctor comes in at that point.

Dr. Richards is a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a kind smile. He actually looks like someone sent him from Central Casting; he looks that much like an obstetrician.

"Miss Swan?" He looks at Bella kindly and then extends his hand to me to shake. "I'm Allen Richards." I glance at Bella, uncertain how she wants to handle this. We have to have some sort of relationship to justify me being in here with her. Her introducing me as her boss is going to seem a little weird.

"This is Edward, my boyfriend," she says, with a wince. I, on the other hand, am grinning like a loon as I shake his hand. Attractive couple, the good doctor is thinking. It's just a pity she's so young.

"So, Miss Swan…"

"Bella, please," she says.

"Bella, I see your due date is June 20th?" I do the math vampire-fast and realize that Bella was pregnant for nearly a month when she moved to Forks. I am still working through the ramifications of this when I realize a) her baby's due date is my birthday, which is cute and b) Bella is pulling her shirt up for the ultrasound.

Yeah, I know I'm getting all titillated about the bare stomach of a pregnant woman, don't judge.

Dr. Richards puts that jelly stuff on her stomach and gets out his little fetus-cam and starts looking for a good angle, checking the screen behind him.

"I think I might be able to get a better view if you're a little on your side," he says to Bella and she turns about 45 degrees so she's facing more towards where I'm sitting and gawking.

And then something wonderful and horrific happens.

I need to stop here and explain that all of my platonic little fantasies about having a relationship with Bella had been just that: platonic, innocent, hypothetical, based on some imaginary, make-believe relationship. The equivalent of those kids who pretend to get married when they're eight.

Remember how I talked about how young I had been when I was changed? Not just young chronologically but emotionally immature. You remember: war, detective novels, Cub's baseball?

I have been approached by women that no mortal man could resist, no matter the consequence, and I have been so freaked out by their lascivious thoughts that I would have hurled were I able to.

I have been ambushed in a hot tub by a succubus and I screamed like a banshee and ran away.

I have questioned whether Angelina Jolie is a good actress.

Basically, I never grew up; I never crossed that step into adulthood, whatever it is that makes boys suddenly interested in sex.

Until I found myself in that tiny exam room, with Bella Swan's expanse of pale pregnant belly exposed, her lush brown hair flowing around her, the barest hint of cleavage showing (accidentally) where the buttons of her shirt stopped, her eyes meeting mine with a look of shyness and embarrassment.

In this awkward situation I had the poor taste, after a century of being an overgrown child, to suddenly grow up and have a…physiological response to my attraction to Bella. With her three feet away from me. Getting an ultrasound.

I am now officially both a freak and a pervert.

A freak/pervert who is thrilled that he finally feels like a man.

And now needs to deal with this…situation without her noticing.

So I call upon all the things I have heard in men's heads in the past ninety years about how to deal with this.

But I guess I'm the only one actually thinks that baseball is exciting. I mean, not sexually exciting, but certainly not make-my-boner-go-away awful.

So I try to think of things that are gross and I think of the myriad of images and sounds I have been exposed to of Emmett and Rosalie being intimate. Which is generally enough to make me want to tear my head off and throw it away but backfires this time when my newly awakened inner-pervert just substitutes Bella and I in those situations. Not helping.

Finally, I arrive upon the solution. Angela Lansbury.

Angela fucking Lansbury. Who began torturing me in the late forties with her simpering malevolence in "Gaslight." Who's pursed-mouth, coy, pseudo-shrewdness made me run screaming from rooms where innocent watchers of "Murder She Wrote" watched Jessica Fletcher bring death wherever she went. Who's hideous screeching in "Beauty and the Beast" and "Sweeney Todd" made me wish I had been born without ears.

I thought of Angela Lansbury in "Death on the Nile" and was able to return myself to a presentable state in front of Bella.

Just in time to see the doctor pull the wand away from her belly.

Shit! I missed seeing the baby! I don't even know what the gender is! I frown with my frustration with myself and realize that as distracted as I am I need to take care of the ostensible reason for my trip here today. As if I care.

So I ask Dr. Richards about his neighbor, the podiatrist, on the auspices of needing a good podiatrist for my mom, which makes Bella stifle a laugh.

And Alice was right; Dr. Carmichael is just a paranoid freak. The obstetrician doesn't even think anything negative about him. In fact, he's having trouble even remembering the guy's name.

Still, I am simultaneously bummed out that I missed out on getting more information on the mystery-fetus and thrilled at my newfound status as an actually grown man, with erections and everything.

We part with Dr. Richards and begin our drive back to Forks. Bella seems cheerful and I ask her how she felt about the doctor.

"I actually really liked him," she says, with a look of mild surprise. "I am trying to decide if it would be a major pain to switch doctors."

"He's better than Dr. Hansen?" Of course I know her other obstetrician's name. Am I a stalker or am I not?

"Yeah, Dr. Hansen gets kind of judgmental on me about the whole "pregnant teenager" thing. This guy didn't seem to have a major problem."

"He thought you were young but that's all. He also thought we were a good-looking couple." I can't resist. Might as well plant the seeds. Bella gets a slight frown on her face.

"He might have been less worried than Dr. Richards about your well being because you had a, uh…significant other." My selflessness in helping Bella think this through knows no bounds.

"Yeah, that's a good point," she nods thoughtfully. "I guess if I switch doctors I'd have to have you come along. That would become pretty inconvenient for you."

"It's not that big of a deal if it means you have a doctor you like. I could make it for some appointments." I try to sound off-hand about it. "Some appointments." The truth is I could make any and every appointment she made, even if there was a zombie apocalypse and I had to run there with her on my back and a shovel in my hand.

Of course, since I am thinking about going to the obstetricians with her and apparently that is a fetish of mine I immediately start thinking about how I'm going to have to bring photographs of Angela Lansbury along with me and how effective it would be if I just put that theme song from "Beauty and the Beast" on my iPod and I kind of zone out until I hear her say "cold hands."

"I'm sorry," I ask. "Who has cold hands?" I swear she blushes and looks at my hands on the steering wheel.

"I was just saying that a tolerance for teenage pregnancy is no stranger a requirement for choosing an obstetrician than whether or not they have cold hands."

"Cold hands being uncomfortable, I guess." I am crushed. It should have occurred to me when she held my hand that she was repulsed by my frosty digits.

"No, actually, cold stuff doesn't bug me," she blushes and I watch as she shyly speaks. "Growing up in Arizona cold stuff was good, like popsicles and air conditioning." Her eyes actually get a little hazy talking about it. "I remember drinking milkshakes on hot days. So delicious. There was no better feeling."

So much for calming myself down. Now I'm imagining how much she would like my cold hands all over her and, stuck in the car with her like this, with that dreamy look on her face, not even Angela can help me out this time.

The ride home is quiet but less uptight than when we've been alone together previously. Which is not to say it isn't rigid.

a/n: EverlastingMuse betas it, Stephanie Meyer owns it, I just make them dance like circus monkeys. Dance, monkeys, dance! JuJu