A/N: Let's have some fun, shall we? It's Friday! (on the East coast).

"Take everything off. Everything, okay, sweetie? The doctor will be in shortly."

Bella glared at the door as it shut behind the overly friendly nurse. She huffed, indignant, and kicked her shoes off angrily. "It's going to be like that, huh?" She pulled her shirt off. "Isn't stripping for a pretty face what got me here in the first place?" She took off her bra and unbuttoned her jeans. "So nice of you to pick out something sexy for me to wear. Obviously, you're an ass man." She slipped the thin gown on, open to the back, and pulled her underwear down. She shook it at the door. "Well, I'm keeping my socks on."

Some minutes later, Bella tried not to feel like a dog at a dog show as the doctor rated various parts of her. "Everything is shaped correctly and adequate," he announced, two fingers still inside her.

Another couple of minutes later, he nodded in satisfaction. "Your nipples are normal."

"Thanks?" Bella said, trying not to cringe.

"There should be no trouble with latching from your side." The doctor covered her back up. "You do plan to breastfeed?'

"Um. Yes?" She hadn't actually thought of, well, anything baby-related. Knowing she was pregnant hadn't actually translated into the idea she was going to have a baby in seven-ish months. She was checking off boxes. Stop eating and drinking things she shouldn't. Tell the father. Go to the doctor.

"Okay, then. It's time to take a look. See how baby is doing." He moved to a machine that stood off to the side and removed a wand with a condom on it. Bella arched an eyebrow, and the doctor smiled. "At this stage, the baby is typically too small to see everything we need to see over." He made a gesture over her stomach. "So we go under." He gestured as he put lube on the wand.

"So, back in the stirrups?" Bella asked, trying her best not to grimace.

"And scoot your butt all the way forward." The doctor narrated as he worked. "A little pressure, okay?"

Bella kept her attention on the screen as the doctor moved the wand back and forth inside her. He rolled to one side and two holes popped up in the midst of the weird gray and black mass on the screen. He tapped the one left. "This is your bladder." He readjusted so the hole on the right was front and center. "And this is the gestational sac in your uterus."

He pointed then to a small circular shape. "This is called the yolk sac. It's what's feeding the baby before the placenta forms. It'll disappear." He pointed to a lump pressed up against the side of the black hole. "This is the baby."

Bella sucked in a breath. She didn't know how she felt. The blob on the screen didn't resemble anything she could figure.

The doctor froze the screen, murmuring some numbers as he marked the outline of the blob from left to right and up and down. Measuring it, Bella guessed. He then pointed to a spot within the mass. "See this flicker?"

"Yes," Bella said, seeing what looked like a tiny burst of static in that one spot.

"That's the heartbeat."

"Oh," Bella said on a breath. A sensation of relief went through her, followed quickly by a brief but overwhelming moment of panic and dread.

There was something alive inside of her.

The rest of the appointment passed in a daze. There was a lot of information to process. She vaguely processed the doctor talking about the increased likelihood of certain disorders for women who had babies after thirty-five. There were genetic tests available, from a simple blood test to an amniocentesis. Elderly pregnancy, her chart said. That made her laugh.

"Who'd have thought getting pregnant would make me feel old?" Bella put a hand over her eyes and shook her head as she sat down to dinner with Alice and Jessica. "Jesus Christ. I need a drink."

"Oh, excellent idea." Jessica signaled the waitress.

"Jess," Alice hissed.

"What? We've been over this." Jessica smiled winningly at the waitress and patted Bella's shoulder and ordered her favorite de-stressing drink. "She wants a whiskey neat."

The waitress smiled back and looked to Bella. "Can I see your ID?"

"See? Elderly my ass," Jess said. "Do the elderly get carded?"

Alice wagged a finger at Jess as the waitress walked away. "Can't you at least try to be supportive? What are you even doing? She can't drink that."

"Don't you get it? I'm going to drink it for her. That way Bella can have her drink. I'll take one for the team."

Both Bella and Alice snorted. "What?" Jess said, all wide-eyed innocence. "Straight whiskey is disgusting. This is a sacrifice I make for my dear, knocked up friend."

"What would I do without you?" Bella patted Jessica's hand.

Alice brought them back on topic. "So, what about Edward?"

"He's clean. Or if he isn't, he didn't give me anything." That had been a relief. Her doctor had ordered blood tests before her appointment, and so was able to give her the news that her STD battery had come back negative.

"No, Bella." Alice laughed. "I mean, did you show him the sonogram like he asked?"

Bella frowned. She pulled the sonogram toward her and turned it one way, then the other. "You really think he wants to see this? I don't even know what to think of it. It's a blurry blob."

"Aw, it's not a blob." Jess grabbed for the sonogram. "This is your baby!"

Of course, the waitress chose that moment to reappear. She gave Bella a hard side-eye as she set down her whiskey. "Can I get y'all anything else?" she asked, her tone clipped.

"We're good for now," Alice said, her tone wry.

As soon as the waitress wandered away again, Jessica picked up the whiskey and dumped it into her glass of Coke. "Doesn't that feel better, Bella? Aren't you relaxed now?"

"Oh, sure." Bella sipped her water. "Hits the spot."

She sighed and tapped the sonogram. "It doesn't feel like a baby."

"Strictly speaking, it's not a baby. It's not even a fetus yet. Next week, I think," Alice said.

Both Bella and Jessica stared. She smirked. "I got curious. I looked things up. It graduates to a fetus at nine weeks. That's just science."

"I mean..." Bella swallowed hard and looked down at the table. She'd been struggling to put her thoughts into words. "I don't love it. You know?" She looked up at her friends. "I don't even feel that cute, 'aww' feeling. I was relieved that it had a heartbeat. I know that's a thing—it can just stop beating, stop growing. I'm glad it didn't, but I didn't tear up or anything. There wasn't that moment like in the movies, where it just amazes me. There's nothing amazing about what I felt."

There. She'd said it out loud. It was like a weight off her shoulders.

Alice reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "You of all people know real life isn't a movie. If you find magic in all this, I think that's great, but I also think it's fine if you don't. I think it's a job right now without any upsides that I can see. You're sick, you're tired; you can't drink or eat sushi. And for what? A little alien unit you can't see or feel?"

"Yeah, Bella, I think the important part is that you love the baby," Jess said. "If you don't feel connected until you give birth, that's cool, I think." She wrinkled her nose. "It's kind of weird, isn't it? To think you're expected to love something you don't even know."

"Everything about this is weird," Bella muttered. "It freaks me the hell out. This thing is living and growing in me." She brushed her hands over her front and shivered, her skin crawling. "I want to keep it. I do. It's just...also creepy."

The three of them cackled over this idea for a while as they ate. It was a relief not to have to treat this pregnancy with complete reverence. They joked about the weird shape of not-quite-fetus. Part tadpole, part alien. Its sex organs hadn't even differentiated yet from every other eight-week embryo.

As they finished their meal, though, Alice used Bella's phone to take a picture of the sonogram.

"What are you doing?" Bella asked, taking the phone back.

"I'm making it easy for you to send Edward the blurry picture he wanted."

Bella pressed her lips together, glaring. Alice glared right back. "Get it over with," she said.

"So fucking weird," Bella grumbled again under her breath as she shot off a quick text to Edward, attaching the picture. "I sleep with a guy, and suddenly I have to show him pictures of my insides? Tell him about doctor's appointments?"

"What's really weird is the idea you're stuck with this guy for eighteen years," Jess said, picking up on Bella's actual concern.

"And he's being sweet about it so far," Alice said, her tone gentle. "Keep an open mind, Bella. You never know. You might actually end up liking this guy. Like having him in your life."

"I know," Bella said with a sigh. "It's just...forced interaction should be limited to bosses and asshole interviewees. Not my child's father." She shook her head. "I'm whining again. This wasn't the plan, that's all."

~0~

Edward: Are you awake?

Bella had to smile at the text, remembering how sorry he'd been for waking her up before. Sweet, Alice had said. That was what had struck her about him that first meeting. He was the picture of the bad boy musician, not yet grown out of his wild youth but with an edge of sweetness instead of the stereotypical assholishness.

"It feels kind of rude to kiss you like that when I don't even know your name," he'd said in the alley, a sheepish expression temporing the smolder he'd been exuding seconds before.

Bella: I'm awake.

Her phone rang almost instantly, which amused Bella. "Who actually uses the phone to talk anymore?" she asked by way of greeting.

There was a pause on the other end. "I can text you, if you'd like that better."

"No, don't worry about it. I was just teasing." Bella yawned. "So, what's up? Did you need something?"

"Not really. I was looking at the, uh...dot, baby, thing. I mean—"

Bella laughed. "Don't worry. I'm not the kind who gets precious about it. I don't know what to call it either. It doesn't look like anything."

Edward laughed, sounding relieved. "Kind of like those pictures of random things in space. You know, a distant planet? Some scientist somewhere knows what every little spec is, but it just looks a really old television. All static and no reception."

"Probably nothing interesting on anyway. If you could get reception."

"It's weird," he said after a moment.

Bella laughed. "I've been saying that."

"I don't know what to think," he said quietly.

"I've been saying that too."

"Yeah." She heard a rustle, and wondered again if he was laying on his bed. She imagined his longish hair falling just to the side of his eyes. "Hey, Bella?"

Her voice was rougher than usual as she answered. "What?"

"That night?"

Bella's heart did a weird flip-flop.

"I get that you weren't planning on seeing me again." The painfully uncertain tone had disappeared into a teasing lilt, and Bella blushed in spite of herself. "But, seeing as fate had other plans…"

Bella nearly choked on a laugh. She put the back of her hand to her heated cheek. "Are you trying to seduce me?"

"Possibly," he dragged the word out. "You tell me, Bella. Maybe I wasn't reading the room right, but you seemed like you were into it. Into me."

"Ah, I seem to remember you were the one into me," she quipped, leaning on the word into so he would hear the double entendre.

He chuckled. "Hey, I'm an open-minded kind of guy." His tone dropped again. "If you wanted to be into me, I wouldn't say no."

Gah. That put all sorts of images in her head. She threw her arm over her eyes and shook her head, glad he couldn't see her. "That is…" She had to clear her throat. "As interesting as that proposal is, maybe we should, I don't know, have a conversation with our clothes on."

"I have clothes on right now."

"Ha." She took a deep breath, beating back her libido. "Seriously. If you're going to stick around, I think it would be a good idea for us to spend a little time together. Figure each other out a bit." She actually hadn't known she was going to say it until it was out there. Most of her still wished he would just leave her alone, writhed at the idea this stranger now had a place in her life she had virtually no say over.

But he'd had a point. All the time she'd spend with him, she'd enjoyed him. It wouldn't hurt to find out if they could be friends.

"Okay." His voice sounded tight now. "Yeah, okay. That makes sense." He paused a beat. "I don't want you to think I'm not taking this seriously. Just… I don't know. We're already doing the time. Why not get more out of the crime?"

"We do sin so good." Bella hummed to herself and shivered, remembering the way his hands moved over her body. "But, I wouldn't put it past me to fall asleep with my face in your crotch. Think of how awkward that would be."

He made a surprised noise—half laugh, half choke. "Ahh, I mean. I can think of a lot worse situations. And that sounds like a challenge," he said, his voice dropping to that gravely tone again. "You don't think I could figure out how to keep you awake?"

She bit her bottom lip, closing her eyes. "Nice try, stud. I've got a feeling my motion sickness would put an end to that ride before either of us wanted to, though."

"Ah. No, I guess that would be a problem. So, a date then?"

The word date made her stomach twist. "No labels. Just a meeting. A conversation."

"A place to start?"

"Yeah. Exactly."

A/N:My alien unit is looking more like a baby every time I get to take a peek at her. Hehehe.