Hi, I wrote this chapter in May but then I had exams and forgot that I hadn't posted it. I'm now a month into my holiday and ready to write more, I have chapter 7 on the way. Enjoy this one.
Chapter 6-
Bella is in the living room curled up on the sofa with a blanket draped over her legs and a book in her lap, fast asleep. Esme is sat opposite her on the other sofa across the room cooing at baby Charlotte curled up in her arms. Jake and Carlisle are laying on the floor watching cartoons on the television when Edward, Rose, Jasper, Alice, Alec and Marcus walk up the stairs from the basement. Edward ignores the people in the living room and storms off up the stairs to his bedroom, and without thinking slams his door, with his family looking on after him. The slam of his bedroom door jolts Bella awake suddenly, and she jumps up off of the sofa, her book falling to the floor with a thump and the blanket landing softly around it, the calm in the chaos. Bella's eyes dart around the room like a wild animal, not taking in her surroundings just looking for her baby. Seeing her in Esme's arms, she runs across the room, grabbing her baby and running out of the room into the kitchen.
Alice and Rose walk in after her and find Bella cowering in the corner rocking her baby girl and crying. She's mumbling something but crying too hard for anyone to understand.
"Bella, love, it's just us." Alice says softly.
Bella looks up at them hesitantly. "C-Cullen's?" She stutters quietly.
"Yes, the Cullen's." Alice says walking closer to her and eventually sitting down next to her, careful not to touch her.
"Cullen's." Bella says and then her face floods red. "Sorry, I just freaked out a little."
Rose walks over and sits at Bella's other side and puts her arm around her. "You don't need to feel embarrassed, we get it. After Royce… well, I was a mess. Every noise made me petrified but the silence terrified me as well. I never knew what was going to happen next. Then Edward took him out and I saw the pictures but it didn't help much. After a few months, things started to get better, not back to where I was before, I can never be that person again, but better than they had been.
"Then, I found out I was pregnant with Jake and I lost it all over again. I would have nightmares that were so vivid it was like it was happening all over again and I would wake up in different places every time, trying to run from the dream. There was only one thing that got me through that pregnancy and that was Edward.
"He would sleep with me to help with the nightmares, they were rare when I was with him. If I did have one, he would wake me up and hold me until I calmed down and got back to sleep. He would come with me to every appointment, hell, he was even the one to help me decide if I should carry on with it. He made sure I ate right and stayed strong. He always has been and always will be my fiercest protector.
"What you just did, that's normal. I would be worried if you didn't react like that. I still do and it's been eight years. It's the reason I'm such a hard ass, no one is allowed to do that to me again. Edward and Jacob have a great bond, that boy has never lacked love from his family, ever. Edward was there at his birth, he was the first one to hold him and they've been inseparable ever since."
"Bella!" Edward says as he runs into the kitchen looking frantic having just been told by Jasper what happened with Bella. Three pairs of eyes look his way.
"I guess that's our cue to leave." Alice says pulling Rose to her feet and walking arm in arm out of the room.
"Do you want to take a walk outside, or sit on the bench?" Edward asks her hesitantly.
"Okay." Bella says looking down.
"Which one?" He asks her, gently taking Charlie from her, cradling her in one arm and helping Bella to her feet with the other.
"Sit on the bench, I feel sore." Bella says, wincing as she stands.
"Okay Angel." Edward says and they both walk out the door, Charlie still in Edward's arms and Bella's hand still securely in the other, and they sit on the bench they sat at earlier.
"James is dead." Edward says quickly, looking at Bella to see her reaction.
She turns to look at Edward quickly her hair whipping his face. "What! I don't want any more blood on my hands!" Bella cries looking like she's going to cry.
"You don't. It wasn't you that killed your parents or brother and it isn't you who killed James. Hell, it wasn't even me who killed James."
Bella again looks shocked at this new information.
"You told me you didn't want me to kill him when you feel asleep after Breakfast earlier, so I didn't. Marcus did." Edward tells her softly.
Bella looks confused and embarrassed, her face flushing red.
"Sorry, I can't control my sleep talking. I don't generally like people being near me when I sleep, I never have. And who is Marcus? Is he the blonde boy? No, he was cuddled up to Alice and Esme said her boyfriend is blonde." Bella rambles cutely but clearly confused.
"Marcus is my grandfather, he's the head of the family business, him and his boyfriend Caius, Caius is finishing up an arms deal in Chicago and will be here tomorrow. Marcus was forced into a marriage with my grandmother, Didyme, by his father but after she died twenty years ago, he came out as gay and fell in love with Caius. He did love my grandmother, just not in the way a man should love his wife, it was more sibling love between the two. She had a man she loved dearly, one of her bodyguards and, as long as they were discreet, Marcus was fine with it. Why shouldn't she have someone to love, she deserved to be happy and that's the way he saw it. As I said, my grandparents loved each other.
Marcus my grandmother have three children, Carlisle, my father, Alec, my Uncle, and his twin sister Jane. They were had because of an obligation to carry on the family line but they were, and are, loved dearly. They don't care about the gay thing, none of us do, if he's happy, we're happy and he wasn't selfish to my grandmother throughout her life and they know it. The two made the best out of a bad situation. Jane unfortunately can't come right now as she has some business to deal with in Brazil, but Alec and Marcus have come to Seattle to celebrate the news of Alice's pregnancy."
Bella looks at Edward enraptured with his story the entire time and then breaks out in a big smile at the end. "Alice is pregnant?" Bella asked delighted but shocked.
Edward laughs, "Yes, my baby sister is twelve weeks pregnant with twins and is having them with my lifelong best friend. It's slightly odd, but I know there is no better man for her, he loves her, she loves him and I know he will never hurt her. I also know that he knows that if he does, I'm going to kill him, friend or not. He wouldn't though, he worships the ground she walks on, always has. Right from when we found out mom was pregnant with her, Jasper insisted on being near her. When she was born, he would always sit with her and she wouldn't sleep until she had heard his voice. This continued up until she was sixteen and he got his head out from up his ass and asked her out on a date; after he asked dad and I for our permission of course. We gave it, even though there's a ten year age gap, we knew he would never hurt her. They didn't have sex until her eighteenth birthday, I only know this because she would complain about how he wouldn't have sex with her for two years and begged me to get him to reconsider. That was a horrible two years. Unfortunately for me, I heard moaning coming from her bedroom the night of her eighteenth birthday and, thinking she was hurt, rushed in there and saw- that. Ugh, this is bringing up all kinds of bad memories." Edward shivers at the end.
He looks at Bella and saw she was holding back laughter, she even had tears in her eyes and then it became too hard to hold in and she lost it. She was in hysterics and clutches her sides, her chest hurts she's laughing so hard, her ribs still sore but, as she had been assured by Esme, not broken just bruised.
"You walked in on your baby sister having sex with your best friend. Damn Edward, you sure know how to light a girl's spirits." Bella chuckles out.
"Yeah yeah, laugh it up. Imagine if you'd walked in on Emmett doing that." He says to her, a slight smile on his lips.
Bella's face falls and Edward, thinking he's upset her at the casual reference to her dead brother, rushes to correct his mistake.
"Bella, I'm so sorry to bring him up, that was insensitive of me. I am sorry, can you forgive me?" He begs her.
"I'm not upset Edward", she tells him looking into his eyes, her face softening at his sad and apologetic expression, "I was just remembering the time I walked in on Em masturbating, that was not a good night. I screamed and dropped spaghetti all over the cream carpet of the hallway and ran all the way back to the living room with my hands over my eyes."
Now it's Edward's turn to laugh until he cries. "Oh my god Bella, that is amazing. How old was he?" He asks her, amusement still in his voice.
"He was 14 and I was 17, it happened 2 weeks before the fire." Bella says, sadness clouding her voice.
Edward wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him until her head rests on his chest and she's listening to his steady heartbeat as he leans down and kisses her head. "I'm sorry Angel." He says into her hair.
"It's okay, I've come to terms with it now, doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt but I'm okay." She says cuddling into his embrace, enjoying the safety and the warm feeling it's giving her.
Charlie chooses that moment scream, no warning, no fussing, just from fast asleep to all out ear shattering screams. Bella knows this means she needs a nappy change and to be fed. The smell hits them at the same time.
"Oh" Charlie you stink, I think it's time for a diaper change you don't you gorgeous." Edward says to the baby. He looks down at Bella and holds out his hand for her, she takes it and they walk back into the house together.
Walking through the living room, Charlie's cries still going strong, Bella drops Edward's hand and takes her baby girl out of Edward's arms. Esme jumps up and runs over to help.
"It's okay mom, I've got her." Edward says to his mother who stops in the middle of the room and nods her head with a soft smile playing at the corners of her lips.
Edward picks up Bella's hand again and they walk, side by side up to Bella and Charlotte's room.
"Right Angel, let's sort this princess out shall we." Edward says to Bella with a smile before leaning down to kiss her head and then they both turn to the changing table at the side of the room.
Bella lays her down on the mat and undoes and pulls off her daughters clothing, already feeling it sticking to her back, knowing this is going to be a messy one.
She turns to Edward, "Are you sure you want to stay, this is vile. It's all up her back, she's going to need a bath."
Edward laughs, "Angel, I used to change Jake, I'm not sure anything could top him. I'll go start the bath."
Bella laughs, "Okay. Stay at your own risk."
Edward smiles at her before walking off into the adjacent bathroom. Bella looks down at her little girl, "Okay, let's do this."
She carefully peels Charlie's clothing from her body and gags, "Damn girl, what have you been eating?"
Charlie just looks up at her mother and smiles, "You're either proud or have no idea what I'm going on about." Bella says to her. "I'm going to go with a bit of both." She says with a chuckle of her own.
Bella disposes of the dirty Babygro in a bag to be washed later and goes to remove Charlie's nappy. She pulls at the tabs, lifting her baby girl at the ankles, carefully pulls her up so she can slide the nappy out from under her. Laying Charlie back down, Bella quickly puts it in a nappy bag and throws in in the nappy bin the Cullen's have next to the changing table, probably left over from Jake. Grabbing the wipes, Bella begins to softly clean her baby girl as best she can.
"No, don't wiggle. Now it's in your hair! Ugh." Bella carefully picks up her wriggling baby girl, careful not to get too much of it on her but not succeeding and carries her into the bathroom.
Edward is stood there, shirt off so it doesn't get wet, testing the temperature of the water with his elbow. Seeing Bella walk in with Charlie, he smiles. "It's just ready." He tells her.
Bella looks down and sees that there is a small yellow baby bath inside of the bath so that Charlie doesn't drown and the sight brings tears to her eyes.
Edward jumps up, wraps his arms around Bella and her baby and softly wipes the tears from Bella's face. "What's wrong Angel?"
"You have a baby bath." She sniffles out. "I could never afford one and James would have never bought one so I never asked."
Edward just pulls her tighter against him. "We love you and Charlie, they get the best. Anyway, this is left over from when Jacob was a baby, it was stashed in the cupboard under the sink." Edward tells her softly with a kiss to her forehead.
"Anyway, it's still a lovely thing you're doing for us. I cannot thank you and your family enough." Bella tells him.
"You don't need to, you are family now."
Bella, now realising that Edward is shirtless and she is in his arms blushes red from her face and down past the neck line of her top.
'I wonder how far down that blush goes.' Edward thinks before counteracting it with 'No! I'm no good for her and it's too soon.'
Bella carefully extracts herself from his embrace during his inner ramblings, but not before Charlie urinates down Bella's arm. "Ugh Charlie!" Bella exclaims.
Edward takes the baby from Bella's arms and places her carefully in the water. "How about you go and take a shower and get changed, my room is just next door, no one else is going to use it. I will be downstairs with Charlie when you're done. You have a little poop in your hair as well." Edward says the last line with a smirk on his face.
"Ugh. Okay thank you Edward. Are you sure you don't mind?" She asks him. He shakes his head and Bella turns and walks out of the bathroom to grab a clean change of clothes and a towel before exiting the room. As she's collecting her clothes, she hears Edward talking softly to her little girl.
"Now princess, this is how it's going to go. I'm going to wash your body first to get all this nasty pee and poop off of you, then I'm going to get you out, dry you off and wrap you in a towel so you don't get cold as I empty the water of the nasty stud, re fill it and wash your pretty brown hair. Does that sound okay?" He asks her. "I'm going to take that passing of wind as a yes." He says on a chuckle.
Bella then walks out of the room and into the door right next to hers. He must mean this one, the only other door is down the hall. She walks in and sees a room painted a light blue with it getting darker as it gets closer to the floor. He has light hardwood flooring and his bed is the same as Bella's except it has a black bedspread on it; his curtains are also black. She lays her clothes on his bed and walks over to his window, looking down at the garden before her, his window facing in the same direction as hers. She walks across the room to a door that is in the same place as her bathroom but it's a wardrobe. She closes that door and walks to the only other door in the room; that one leads to a bathroom!
She walks in, hangs her towel on the rack and turns the shower on before stepping under the hot spray. She can hear faint mumblings coming from her bathroom right next door, a wall being the only thing separating them, but after a while they stop and she knows that they've gone downstairs. After washing her hair three times to be sure the poop and the smell is fully out of her hair and has washed her body, she grabs the towels off of the rack. She quickly wraps one around her hair and the dries her body before wrapping it around her and walking out of the bathroom.
Curiosity gets the better of her and she walks towards the closet. She sees his expansive collection of designer suits and all of his fancy shoes. She pulls back the suits to see what's behind the rack and sees that he only has about 10 suits that are hiding the rest of his closet, it's full of jeans and T-shirts and jumpers. Clothes you would wear around the house or out at the supermarket. Upon closer inspection, Bella sees that they're all designer too. Hearing a clearing throat behind her, she jumps and turns around seeing Edward standing there, still shirtless.
Any reason why you're in my closet, Angel?" He asks her with a smirk on his face.
"No, I was just curious, sorry." She replies quickly running out from the wardrobe and into the room. She stops, now just realising she's in a towel. He realises the same thing.
"Sorry, I knocked but there was no answer so I assumed you were still in the shower and I could quickly grab a top to put on. I'll leave you to it." He says quickly, trying to ignore the bead of water that is falling from the tendril of hair that has escaped her hair towel and is falling down in between her breasts. He turns around.
"Wait, don't worry, I'll go into the other room. It's your room you should be allowed in whenever you want." She rushes out, as she runs for her clothes that are still on his bed.
Edward gasps and Bella stops still.
Please review, it always makes my day. I will try to get at least 2 chapters up by the time I go back to College which is on the 12th of September. ~Megan xxx